tle streets, as they leave the
river, have pretensions to romantic steepness; one of them, indeed,
which resolves itself into a high staircase with divergent wings (the
_escalier monumental_), achieved this result so successfully as to
remind me vaguely--I hardly know why--of the great slope of the Capitol,
beside the Ara Coeli, at Rome. The view of that part of the castle which
figures to-day as the back (it is the only aspect I had seen reproduced)
exhibits the marks of restoration with the greatest assurance. The long
facade, consisting only of balconied windows deeply recessed, erects
itself on the summit of a considerable hill, which gives a fine,
plunging movement to its foundations. The deep niches of the windows are
all aglow with colour. They have been repainted with red and blue,
relieved with gold figures; and each of them looks more like the royal
box at a theatre than like the aperture of a palace dark with memories.
For all this, however, and in spite of the fact that, as in some others
of the chateaux of Touraine (always excepting the colossal Chambord,
which is not in Touraine), there is less vastness than one had expected,
the least hospitable aspect of Blois is abundantly impressive. Here, as
elsewhere, lightness and grace are the keynote; and the recesses of the
windows, with their happy proportions, their sculpture and their colour,
are the hollow sockets of the human ornament. They need the figure of a
Francis I. to complete them, or of a Diane de Poitiers, or even of a
Henry III. The stand of this empty gilt cage emerges from a bed of light
verdure which has been allowed to mass itself there and which
contributes

[Illustration: BLOIS--THE CHATEAU]

to the springing look of the walls; while on the right it joins the most
modern portion of the castle, the building erected, on foundations of
enormous height and solidity, in 1635, by Gaston d'Orleans. This fine
frigid mansion--the proper view of it is from the court within--is one
of the masterpieces of Francois Mansard, whom a kind providence did not
allow to make over the whole palace in the superior manner of his
superior age. That had been a part of Gaston's plan--he was a blunderer
born, and this precious project was worthy of him. This execution of it
would surely have been one of the great misdeeds of history. Partially
performed, the misdeed is not altogether to be regretted; for as one
stands in the court of the castle and lets one's eye wan