ransition, and
thus a Renaissance residential chateau enters at once into a different
class from that of the feudal fortress regardless of the fact that such
may have been its original status.

The armorial device of Jean Cottereau--three unlovely lizards blazoned
on a field of silver--is still to be seen sculptured on the two towers
flanking the entrance portal which to-day lacks its old drawbridge
before mentioned. Surrounding the edifice is a deep, unhealthful,
mosquito-breeding moat which is all a mediaeval moat should be, but which
is actually no great attribute to the place considering its
disadvantages. One wonders that it is allowed to exist in so stagnant a
condition, as the running waters of the near-by Eure might readily be
made use of to change all this. The site of the chateau at the
confluence of the Eure and the Voise is altogether charming.

Madame de Maintenon did much to make the property more commodious and
convenient and built the great right wing which binds the donjon to the
main _corps de logis_. Her own apartments were situated in the new part
of the palace. She also built the gallery which leads from the Tour de
Machicoulis to the pointed chapel, which was a construction of the time
of Cottereau, an accessory which every self-respecting country-house of
the time was bound to have. It was by this gallery that the open tribune
in the little chapel was reached, thus enabling Louis XIV to pass
readily to mass while he was so frequent a visitor at that period when,
at Maintenon, he was overseeing the construction of his famous aqueduct.

Maintenon has had the honour, too, to count among its illustrious guests
Racine, who came at the request of Madame de Maintenon, and here wrote
"Esther" and "Athalie" which were later produced at Saint Cyr by Madame
de Maintenon's celebrated band of "Demoiselles."

Louis XIV was not the last of royal race to accept the Chateau de
Maintenon's hospitality for the unhappy Charles X was obliged to ask
shelter of its chatelain for himself and fleeing family. They arrived a
little after midnight of a hot August night, slept as well as possible
in the former apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and attended mass in
the chapel on the following morning. The monarch then discharged the
royal guard and the "hundred Swiss" and gave up, defeated at the game of
playing monarch against the will of the people.

One enters the _Cour d'Honneur_ by a great portal of the time of Louis