ns.
Perhaps there is no other royal residence that can compare with it
in that respect. This immense structure presents to the eye in one
enclosure, round one courtyard, a complete and perfect image of that
grand presentation of the manners and customs and life of nations which
is called Architecture. At the moment when Christophe was to visit the
court, that part of the adjacent land which in our day is covered by
a fourth palace, built seventy years later (by Gaston, the rebellious
brother of Louis XIII., then exiled to Blois), was an open space
containing pleasure-grounds and hanging gardens, picturesquely placed
among the battlements and unfinished turrets of Francois I.'s chateau.

These gardens communicated, by a bridge of a fine, bold construction
(which the old men of Blois may still remember to have seen demolished)
with a pleasure-ground on the other side of the chateau, which, by the
lay of the land, was on the same level. The nobles attached to the
Court of Anne de Bretagne, or those of that province who came to solicit
favors, or to confer with the queen as to the fate and condition
of Brittany, awaited in this pleasure-ground the opportunity for an
audience, either at the queen's rising, or at her coming out to walk.
Consequently, history has given the name of "Perchoir aux Bretons" to
this piece of ground, which, in our day, is the fruit-garden of a worthy
bourgeois, and forms a projection into the place des Jesuites. The
latter place was included in the gardens of this beautiful royal
residence, which had, as we have said, its upper and its lower gardens.
Not far from the place des Jesuites may still be seen a pavilion built
by Catherine de' Medici, where, according to the historians of Blois,
warm mineral baths were placed for her to use. This detail enables us
to trace the very irregular disposition of the gardens, which went up
or down according to the undulations of the ground, becoming extremely
intricate around the chateau,--a fact which helped to give it strength,
and caused, as we shall see, the discomfiture of the Duc de Guise.

The gardens were reached from the chateau through external and internal
galleries, the most important of which was called the "Galerie des
Cerfs" on account of its decoration. This gallery led to the magnificent
staircase which, no doubt, inspired the famous double staircase of
Chambord. It led, from floor to floor, to all the apartments of the
castle.

Though La Font