ion with any business of my own) during a tour of some
six weeks in France. Breakfast not at Azay-le-Rideau therefore, too
trustful traveller; or if you do so, be either very meek or very bold.
Breakfast not, save under stress of circumstance; but let no
circumstance whatever prevent your going to see the great house of the
place, which is a fair rival to Chenonceaux. The village lies close to
the gates, though after you pass these gates you leave it well behind. A
little avenue, as at Chenonceaux, leads to the castle,

[Illustration: AZAY-LE-RIDEAU]

making a pretty vista as you approach the sculptured doorway. Azay is a
most perfect and beautiful thing; I should place it third in any list of
the great houses of this part of France in which these houses should be
ranked according to charm. For beauty of detail it comes after Blois and
Chenonceaux, but it comes before Amboise and Chambord. On the other
hand, of course it is inferior in majesty to either of these vast
structures. Like Chenonceaux, it is a watery place, though it is more
meagrely moated than the small chateau on the Cher. It consists of a
large square _corps de logis_, with a round tower at each angle, rising
out of a somewhat too slumberous pond. The water--the water of the
Indre--surrounds it, but it is only on one side that it bathes its feet
in the moat. On one of the others stretches a little terrace, treated as
a garden, and in front prevails a wide court formed by a wing which, on
the right, comes forward. This front, covered with sculptures, is of the
richest, stateliest effect. The court is approached by a bridge over the
pond, and the house would reflect itself in this wealth of water if the
water were a trifle less opaque. But there is a certain stagnation--it
affects more, senses than one--about the picturesque pools of Azay. On
the hither side of the bridge is a garden overshadowed by fine old
sycamores--a garden shut in by greenhouses and by a fine last-century
gateway flanked with twin lodges. Beyond the chateau and the standing
waters behind it is a so-called _parc_, which, however, it must be
confessed, has little of park-like beauty. The old houses--a large
number--remain in France; but the old timber does not remain, and the
denuded aspect of the few acres that surround the chateaux of Touraine
is pitiful to the traveller who has learned to take the measure of such
things from the country of "stately homes." The garden-ground of the
lo