At the drawbridge, as one enters Chaumont to-day, one sees the graven initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, the arms of Georges d'Amboise, surmounted by his cardinal's hat, and those of Charles de Chaumont, as well as other cabalistic signs: one a representation of a mountain (apparently) with a crater-like summit from which flames are breaking forth, while hovering about, back to back, are two C's: [IMAGE OF TWO JOINED LETTER 'C' POSITIONED LIKE THIS: )(]. The Renaissance artists greatly affected the rebus, and this perhaps has some reference to the etymology of the name Chaumont, which has been variously given as coming from _Chaud Mont_, _Calvus Mont_, and _Chauve Mont_. Georges d'Amboise, the first of the name, was born at Chaumont in 1460, the eighth son of a family of seventeen children. It was a far cry, as distances went in those days, from the shores of the shallow, limpid Loire to those of the forceful, turgent Seine at Rouen, where in the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this first Georges of Amboise, having become an archbishop and a cardinal, was laid to rest beneath that magnificent canopied tomb before which visitors to the Norman capital stand in wonder. The mausoleum bears this epitaph, which in some small measure describes the activities of the man. "Pastor eram cleri, populi pater; aurea sese Lilia subdebant, quercus et ipsa mihi. "Martuus en jaceo, morte extinguunter honores, Et virtus, mortis nescia, mort viret." His was not by any means a life of placidity and optimism, and he had the air and reputation of doing things. There is a saying, still current in Touraine: "_Laissez faire à Georges._" The second of the same name, also an Archbishop of Rouen and a cardinal, succeeded his uncle in the see. He also is buried beneath the same canopy as his predecessor at Rouen. The main portal of the château leads to a fine quadrilateral court with an open gallery overlooking the Loire, which must have been a magnificent playground for the nobility of a former day. The interior embellishments are fine, some of the more noteworthy features being a grand staircase of the style of Louis XII.; the Salle des Gardes, with a painted ceiling showing the arms of Chaumont and Amboise; the Salle du Conseil, with some fine tapestries and a remarkable tiled floor, depicting scenes of the chase; the Chambre de Catherine de Medici (she possessed Chaumont for nine years), containing some of the gifts presented to her upon her wedding with Henri II.; and the curious Chambre de Ruggieri, the astrologer whom Catherine brought from her Italian home, and who was always near her, and kept her supplied with charms and omens, good and bad, and also her poisons.