Louis XI. dreamed fondly of Plessis-les-Tours (Plessis being from the Latin _Plexitium_, a name borne by many suburban villages of France), and he sought to make it a royal residence where he should be safe from every outward harm. It had four great towers, crenelated and machicolated, after the best Gothic fortresses of the time. At the four angles of the protecting walls were the principal logis, and between the lines of its ramparts or fosses was an advance-guard of buildings presumably intended for the vassals in time of danger. This was the castle as Louis first knew it, when it was the property of the chamberlain of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king bought it for five thousand and five hundred _écus d'or_,--the value of fifty thousand francs of to-day. Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, was changed (1463) to Plessis. All the chief features have disappeared, and to-day it is but a scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings devoted to all manner of purposes. A few fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and a brick and stone building, flanked by an octagonal tower, containing a stairway; but this is about all of the former edifice, which, if not as splendid as some other royal residences, was quite as effectively defended and as suitable to its purposes as any. [Illustration: _PLESSIS-Les-TOURS. In the time of Louis XI_] It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Cléry, before whose altar the superstitious Louis made his inconstant devotions. Once a great forest surrounded the château, and was, as Scott says, "rendered dangerous and well-nigh impracticable by snares and traps armed with scythe-blades, which shred off the unwary traveller's limbs ... and calthrops that would pierce your foot through, and pitfalls deep enough to bury you in them for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared, "lost in the night of time," as a French historian has it. The detailed description in "Quentin Durward" is, however, as good as any, and, if one has no reference works in French by him, he may well read the dozen or more pages which Sir Walter devotes to the further description of the castle. Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot should have written so enthusiastically of it, for the castle itself was guarded by the Scottish archers, "to the number of three hundred gentlemen of the best blood of Scotland." An anonymous poet has written of the ancient glory of this retreat of Louis's as follows: "Un imposant château se présente à la vue, Par des portes de fer l'entrée est défendue; Les murs en sont épais et les fossés profonds; On y voit des créneaux, des tours, des bastions, Et des soldats armés veillent sur ses murailles."