crowned with pierced balustrades; gone is the no-longer-needed bridge with its guardian lions. All the outlying work which gave the actual building space and dignity has vanished, and we enter directly from the park outside to what was once but the inner court of the Château.

"It is not until we stand within this inner court—until we have passed through the lines of building which enclose it on the western side, and which show the unmistakable signs of stupid and brutal destruction, that we can believe again in the departed glories of Chambord. Lippomano, ambassador from Venice to France in the reign of Henry III., turned out of his way to visit Chambord. 'On the 21st,' he says, 'we made a slight detour in order to visit the Château of Chambord, or, more strictly speaking, the palace commenced by Francis I., and truly worthy of this great prince. I have seen many magnificent buildings in the course of my life, but never anything more beautiful or more rich. They say that the piles for the foundations of the Château in this marshy ground have alone cost 300,000 francs. The effect is very good on all sides. The number of the rooms is as remarkable as their size, and indeed space was not wanting to the architect, since the wall that surrounds the park is seven leagues in length. The park itself is full of forests, of lakes, of streams, of pasture-land, and of hunting-grounds, and in the centre rises the Château with its gilt battlements, with its wings covered in with lead, with its pavilions, its towers and its corridors, even as the romancers describe to us the abode of Morgana or of Alcinoüs. More than half remains to be done, and I doubt it will ever be finished, for the kingdom is completely exhausted by war. We left much marvelling, or rather let us say thunderstruck.'

PLATE LXXIX

CHAMBORD: STAIRCASE, FRANCIS I. WING

"To destroy the character of Chambord from the outside was not difficult. It was not easy to tame the rude defiance of Vincennes, or give facility to the reserved and guarded approaches of Gaillon. Solid rectangular towers, heavy machicolations, and ponderous drawbridges offer a stubborn resistance to schemes of ruthless innovation; but Chambord was no fortress, it was a country house. The very site is motived by no other reason than the pleasures of the chase. The battlements of Gaillon gave back the echoes of the trumpet, but the galleries of Chambord resounded with the huntsman's bugle.

"The construction of these galleries in itself points to the rapid progress of social change. There are not only such as may be called covered passages communicating from the spiral staircases with the rooms on each story; galleries which have their special cause in actual need and daily use; but the roofs of the range of one-storied buildings which connect the side wings on the north and south, and which run along the western front, are finished up from the cornice with a balustrade, and turned into a promenade for courtiers.

"Yet in spite of these marked indications of change the ancient spirit lingers. The unrestrained freedom of grotesque caprice finds expression everywhere, even in those later portions which belong to another reign. Pierre le Nepveu has left on all his work the imprint of profuse and fantastic force; the outlines of his cupolas strike the sky with an audacity which seems to defy the adverse criticism of those who moved within the limits of more cautious rule. Symmetrical balance, for which the masters of a succeeding era sought, and by which they