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American writer James, referring to this staircase says, ‘‘ This 
exquisite, this elegant, this transcendent piece of architecture is 
the most joyous utterance of the French Renaissance. It is 
covered with an embroidery of sculpture in which every detail is 
worthy of the hand of a goldsmith.” Writing of the interior of 
the staircase, Theodore Andrea Cook says, that ‘‘ the spiral upon 
the central column is the exact curve contained within a sea- 
shell—the Voluta Vespertilio—and it seems more than probable 
that an actual shell was used consciously as a model,”’ &c. 
Our journey down the Loire brings us to the Chateau of 
Chaumont, where Henry Plantagenet met Thomas 4 Becket for 
the last time before that Prelate’s murder. Like Chambord, 
Chaumont shows clearly the transition from the fortress to the 
later chateau. The towers of Chaumont rise upon a wooded hill 
overlooking the river, and the little village lying below dwarfs 
into insignificance under their shadow. Here are to be seen the 
vine-covered cottages and the white cap and wooden sabots of 
the women. Passing to Amboise, the castle is again the chief 
attraction. To distract their grief on the loss of their infant 
son, Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany built two great towers. 
They are 90 feet high, 42 feet in diameter, and spring from the 
base of the rock. They do not contain staircases, but inclined 
spiral planes. We read of Francis I., and his guest Charles V., 
of Germany, riding on horseback up these towers amid a blaze 
of torchlight. In recent years (1842) the Duke of Orleans drove 
aceach and four up one of the towers on the occasion of his 
wedding. Memories cling to this castle of the famous conspiracy 
of Amboise resulting in the execution of 1,200 Huguenot 
prisoners, and which butchery was only a prelude to the still 
more wholesale massacre of §. Bartholomew. Chenonceaux, 
sometimes considered the most lovely of all the Touraine 
chateaux, is our next call, we proceed to Tours, noticing the 
Palais de Justice, the Cathedral, Hotel de Ville, &c., and then 
pass on to Loches. The ancient Donjon keep is an object of 
interest. An American writer describes it as ‘‘one of the 
greatest impressions of central France.” The castle is of 
absorbing interest to Englishmen, for it was the cradle of our 
Plantagenet Kings. In Loches there is a cotton mill, which 
gets its water supply from the Indre, an affluent of the Loire. 
Journeying to Chinon we pass Azay-le-Rideau, ‘‘ perhaps the 
purest expression of the beautiful French Renaissance,” and 
Langeais. Chinon is a quaint old town, the birthplace of 
Rabelais, and to which place Joan of Arc walked from her home 
at Domrémy to see the King, Charles VII. From Chinon we go 
to Saumur, and thence to Angers, the old capital of Anjou, and 
at Nantes we reach the last stage of our journey. 
