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Chinon, in the days when it was a prize, more than once suffered capture, and at present it is crumbling inch by inch. To the castle, moreover, the lover of the picturesque is earnestly recommended to direct his steps. But one always misses something, and I would rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. Fortunate exceedingly were the few hours we passed on the spot on which we missed nothing.
Miss Cassandra unhesitatingly voted for Chenonceaux, which she emphatically announced to be the château of all others that she had crossed the ocean to see. "It was not a ruin like Chinon," she urged, "the buildings were in perfect condition and the park and gardens of surpassing loveliness."
Which is the oldest city in the world? asked Pantagruel. 'Tis Chinon, sir, or Cainon in Touraine, said I. I know, returned Pantagruel, where Chinon lies, and the painted cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glass of cool wine; neither do I doubt but that Chinon is an ancient town witness its blazon.
Isn't it much better to come and visit our daughter after she is married to a notary of Paris, and live eight months of the year at Chinon, than to begin here to make five sous six blanks, and of six blanks nothing?
George, built by the Plantagenet Kings to protect the one vulnerable point in a position almost impregnable in its day, nothing is left but parts of the lower wall. So ruinous, indeed, is this château, that one is almost ready to accept Pantagruel's derivation of the name of Chinon, or Caino, from Cain, the son of Adam its founder.
Twenty-four such assemblies took place during this period at Bourges, at Selles in Berry, at Le Puy in Velay, at Mean-sur-Yevre, at Chinon, at Sully-sur-Loire, at Tours, at Orleans, at Nevers, at Carcassonne, and at different spots in Languedoc.
In an old cartulary of the abbey of Turpenay, near Chinon, which in those later troublous times had found a resting place in the library of Azay, where the custodian was only too glad to receive it, I met with a fragment under the head of The Hours of Poissy, which had evidently been put together by a merry abbot of Turpenay for the diversion of his neighbours of Usee, Azay, Mongaugar, Sacchez, and other places of this province.
THIS being a beautiful day, and the sunshine more brilliant than is usual on a September morning in this region, we unanimously agreed to dedicate its hours to one of the most interesting of the neighboring châteaux. The really most important question upon which we were not unanimous was whether Chenonceaux or Chinon should be the goal of our pilgrimage.
The game was from Derresley Manor, the duke's Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited. Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had quickened the blood of many a royal gathering at Blois and Amboise and Chenonceaux, the distilled peasant song of the Loire valley.
It was not until the evening was drawing on that we entered the fortress of Chinon, where the King held his Court.
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