The ceilings of the great rooms are mostly elaborate works in enamel and carved oak, and there is a tiled floor (_carrelage_) in the portrait gallery, in blue faïence, representing an army in the order of battle, which must have delighted the hearts of the youthful progeny who may have been brought up within the walls of the château. This pavement is moreover an excellent example of the craftsmanship of tile-making. One gains admission to the château freely from the _concierge_, who in due course expects her _pourboire_, and sees that she gets it. But what would you, inquisitive traveller? You have come here to see the sights, and Beauregard is well worth the price of admission, which is anything you like to give, certainly not less than a franc. One may return to Blois through the forest, or may continue his way down the river to Chaumont on the left bank. At Chaumont the Loire broadens to nearly double the width at Blois, its pebbles and sandbars breaking the mirror-like surface into innumerable pools and _étangs_. There is a bridge which connects Chaumont with the railway at Onzain and the great national highway from Tours to Blois. The bridge, however, is so hideous a thing that one had rather go miles out of his way than accept its hospitality. It is simply one of those unsympathetic wire-rope affairs with which the face of the globe is being covered, as engineering skill progresses and the art instinct dies out. [Illustration: _Chaumont_] The Château de Chaumont is charmingly situated, albeit it is not very accessible to strangers after one gets there, as it is open to the public only on Thursdays, from July to December. It is exactly what one expects to find,--a fine riverside establishment of its epoch, and in architectural style combining the well-recognized features of late Gothic and the early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or decrepit in any way, which fact, considering its years, is perhaps remarkable. The park of the château is only of moderate extent, but the structure itself is, comparatively, of much larger proportions. The ideal view of the structure is obtained from midway on that ungainly bridge which spans the Loire at this point. Here, in the gold and purple of an autumn evening, with the placid and far-reaching Loire, its pools and its bars of sand and pebble before one, it is a scene which is as near idyllic as one is likely to see. The town itself is not attractive; one long, narrow lane-like street, lined on each side by habitations neither imposing nor of a tumble-down picturesqueness, borders the Loire. There is nothing very picturesque, either, about the homes of the vineyard workers round about. Below and above the town the great highroad runs flat and straight between Tours and Blois on either side of the river, and automobilists and cyclists now roll along where the state carriages of the court used to roll when François Premier and his sons journeyed from one gay country house to another.