Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-10
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By
chr AMWlLLlAMSON

motor car wonders began it would have felt
odd TO take treat" from ones servant.
and keep wondering with every paragraph
Especially what l call my descriptive"
paragraphsl If I'm boring you. won't give
you our daily program en- masse. I'll just
sum thlnes up by saying that we simply
hVeo, moved and had our being In, on or at
| castles. This country of the Loire Is a sort
OF 1a1ryland, where everybody had castle,
or at the very least lordly dwelling place
that was more fortress than private house.
You can't look up or down the river but that
! on every hill you see chateau with enough
history clustering about 1t to make up fat
volume. How they all escaped the revolu-
ten Is marvel. But they have, and II
they've been much restored it Is SO cleverly
done That the most critical eyes are de-
| ceived.
| If l could live in one of the show" cha
teaux I'd choose Chenonceaux. We drove
to 1t on the day of the Tower. as I've la
beled 1t in my book Of memory, taking it
| in on our way to Tours. It's no use your
making note Of that wish of mine. though,
DAD, and trying to buy 1t, because some
body else has done that already. But II
| you can find a river as pretty as the Cher
| ian appropriate name for the little daugh-
| ter OF the Loire, on whichever which, lit
orally, Chenonceaux stands) you might
pulid me one on the same pattern, so I'll
| is like.
Let me see. what is it like? To make a
comparison would be giving to an airy MOTH
itAo % ioSoA anu d NOt
| that Chenonceaux is nothing-qute the OPP
pos1te; but 1t leaves in the mind an impress
sion OF air1ness and gayety, sweet and elr-
| sive as one of those quaint French chansons
you like me to sing you with my guitar on
summer evening. think, even If hadn't
oeen told, l should have felt instinctively
tnat II must have been built to please a
| pretty, capricious woman. If such a wo-
| man could be turned into a house she would
LOOK IKE Chenonceaux and wouldn't suffer
py the change. Perhaps Diane de Poitiers
| isn't proper object of sympathy for
well brought-up young lady like Chauncy
Re- ndolph's daughter; but I can't help
| plying her because that horrid
de Medici grabbed it away from her before
Henry the Second was hardly cold in his
grave. Think how Diane, who had loved
the place, must have felt to fancy that
stury catherine in her everlasting black
We saw those rooms, by the way. for we
cHme on one Of the days when people are
allowed to go through the chateau Drown
had planned that, and the clever million
the grace to leave everything just 1t
was, at least in GATHERINGS time. And one
can take the bad Catherine taste out of
ones mouth by thinking Of lovely little
Mary Stuart singing like lark through
the rooms, and living there and in the gar
know.
One wouldn't suppose that a gloomy,
plotting mind like GATHERINGS would have
had place in 1t for creating beauty, but 1t
had Its one ornamental corner, she
couldn't have thought out the dge-gal-
lery thrown across the Cher springing
| from the original building aid spanning
the river to the farther shore.
There are two stories over the bridge.
long corridors. all windows. and lovely
green and gold river lights netted over
the floors and walls the most exquisite
effect. walked there. calling up the spir-
its of vanished queens and princesses-the
s1ao lnal ss@y ia
that used to fall and hang about their
shoulders" Oh, I've got the quotation
| wrong, but it's Aunt Marys fault, for at
this very minute she's reading aloud to
herself in guide book about Rousseau
and lot of other shining lights who used
to visit Chenonceanx when 1t belonged to
Monsieur and Madame Dupin; but those
days were comparatively modern, /
don't take much interest. Nothing at Che
nonceaux seems worth while unless it hap
pened before the days oe Charles the
Ninth.
Tours looked at first sight very sedate
and gray, after Chenonceaux for the airy
picture of the castle had kept floating be-
fore my eyes during our run. 1t seems to
me We are always on the other side of the
river from things, and have to get to them
by crossing long bridges. We did 1t again
at Tours, and it was particularly long. and
very fine But 1t was evening, and dim
and bitterly cold; and I'm afraid shouldn't
have paid as much attention to 1t as did
If Brown hadn't said that Balzac called 1t
"one of the finest monuments of France.
And then in a minute, at the entrance to
the town, we saw two ghostly white stat
ues glimmering IN a wide green place
There miss, are the two tutelary genius
es of this part of France" said Brown.
| "Rabelais and Descartes." By that time
we had flashed past but screwed my neck
round to look back at them till l got a
| "crick" in 1t. Have you ever noticed that
most Of the things people tell you to look
at or that you particularly want to see IN
life. are always behind your back or on
one side, us if to give you the greatest
nJs.nI c trouble? 1t seems as Il there
must be moral in it, as Alice's duchess
Tours appeared that" evening q have
motive for the emphasis) to con
sist of one long, straight street;
nm1led ND at the door of hotel. Just an
nrdinary-looking hotel it was on the out
side and I little thought what my i'm
pressions of it would be by-and-by.
what we had done, but with the feeling
that nv capacity for admiring and enjoying
things had been filled up and brfmmed over,
so that drop. more in would actually hurt
Do won know that sensation? 1t was just
the mood to appreciate warmth and cozi-
ness We got both. Aunt Mary and had
two bed rooms opening off a sitting room;
dear. old-fashioned rooms, and, above all,
french oId-fashioned, which to me is fasci-
mating. We made ourselves as pretty as
nature ordained US severally to be, and
went downstairs. The dining room was our
| first big surprise. 1t was almost worthy of
one of the chateaux, with its dignified tap
F.! estried and wainscoted walls, and It's big,
branching candelabra. I'm sure If we'd
| been dining at a chateau we shouldn't have
got a better dinner. don't think anything
ever tasted so good to me in my life, and I
couldn't help wondering how poor, tired
Brown was faring while we lazy ones feast
| ed in state in the sale a Manager thought
| of you, too for you would have loved the
| things to eat. They were rich and southern,
and tasted in ones mouth just the way the
word provence sounds in ones ear.
! Aunt Mary had read in one Of her ubiQui-
| tous guide books that Touraine as well as
| Provence is famous for its "succulent cook
ing" and for once a guide book seems to
be right They had all sorts Of tricky, rich
| little dishes for dinnerArillettes and other
| things which would have made your mouth
water (though II 1t did. and were by. I'd
| shut my eyes,, and the head waiter told me
] when asked that they were specialties of
| Tours and of the hotel. think he must be
| a specially of Tours and the hotel too He
| has the softest, most engaging yet digni-
! fed manner; and the way he has Of setting
down a dish before you seems to season it
and give you double appetite. There's
| another man in the hotel. too, who adds to
| the AROMA" he's like bush to wine"
| or something I've heard you say By day
he's valet de chambre in a scarlet waist.