seemed to us that we
had never been in a place where there are so many points of vantage to
look down from. In the matter of position Amboise is certainly supreme
in the list of perched places; and I say this with a proper recollection
of the claims of Chaumont and of Loches--which latter, by the way (the
afterthought is due), is not on the Loire. The platforms, the bastions,
the terraces, the high-niched windows and balconies, the hanging gardens
and dizzy crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you in
perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. The great feature of the
place is the obligatory round tower which occupies the northern end of
it, and which has now been completely restored. It is of astounding
size, a fortress in itself, and contains, instead of a staircase, a
wonderful inclined plane, so wide and gradual that a coach and four may
be driven to the top. This colossal cylinder has to-day no visible use;
but it corresponds, happily enough, with the great circle of the
prospect. The gardens of Amboise, lifted high aloft, covering the
irregular remnants of the platform on which the castle stands and making
up in picturesqueness what they lack in extent, constitute of course but
a scanty domain. But bathed, as we found them, in the autumn sunshine
and doubly private from their aerial site, they offered irresistible
opportunities for a stroll interrupted, as one leaned against their low
parapets, by long contemplative pauses. I remember in particular a
certain terrace planted with clipped limes upon which we looked down
from the summit of the big tower. It seemed from that point to be
absolutely necessary to one's happiness to go down and spend the rest of
the morning there; it was an ideal place to walk to and fro and talk.
Our venerable conductress, to whom our relation had gradually become
more filial, permitted us to gratify this innocent wish--to the extent,
that is, of taking a turn or two under the mossy _tilleuls_. At the end
of this terrace is the low door, in a wall, against the top of which, in
1498, Charles VIII., according to an accepted tradition, knocked his
head to such good purpose that he died. It was within the walls of
Amboise that his widow, Anne of Brittany, already in mourning for three
children, two of whom we have seen commemorated in sepulchral marble at
Tours, spent the first violence of that grief which was presently
dispelled by a union with her husband's cousin and succes