"Blois was peaceful that morning of the royal arrival, at which announcement it was suddenly filled with all the tumult and the buzzing of a swarm of bees. In the lower city, scarce a hundred paces from the castle, is a sufficiently handsome street called the Rue Vieille, and an old and venerable edifice which, tradition says, was habited by a councillor of state, to whom Queen Catherine came, some say to visit and others to strangle." Not alone is Blois reminiscent of "Les Mousquetaires," but the numberless references in the series to Langeais, Chambord,--the châteaux and their domains,--bring to mind more forcibly than by innuendo merely that Dumas himself must have had some great fondness for what has come to be the touring-ground of France _par excellence_. From "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," one quotes these few lines which, significantly, suggest much: "Do you not remember, Montalais, the woods of Chaverney, and of Chambord, and the numberless poplars of Blois?" This describes the country concisely, but explicitly. Beyond Blois, beyond even Tours, which is Blois' next neighbour, passing down the Loire, is Angers. [Illustration: CASTLE OF ANGERS--CHÂTEAU OF BLOIS] In "La Dame de Monsoreau," more commonly known in English translations as "Chicot the Jester," much of the scene is laid in Anjou. To Angers, with its wonderful fairylike castle, with its seventeen black-banded towers (recalling, also, that this is the "Black Angers" of Shakespeare's "King John"), repaired the Duc d'Anjou, the brother of Charles IX. and Henri III., who then reigned at Paris. To this "secret residence" the duc came. Dumas puts it thus: "'Gentlemen!' cried the duke, 'I have come to throw myself into my good city of Angers. At Paris the most terrible dangers have menaced my life.'... The people then cried out, 'Long live our seigneur!'" Bussy, who had made the way clear for the duc, lived, says Dumas, "in a tumble-down old house near the ramparts." The ducal palace was actually outside the castle walls, but the frowning battlement was relied upon to shelter royalty when occasion required, the suite quartering themselves in the Gothic château, which is still to be seen in the débris-cluttered lumber-yard, to which the interior of the fortress has to-day descended. In other respects than the shocking care, or, rather, the lack of care, which is given to its interior, the Castle of Angers, with its battalion of _tours_, now without their turrets, its deep, machicolated walls, and its now dry _fosse_, presents in every way an awe-inspiring stronghold. Beyond Angers, toward the sea, is Nantes, famous for the Edict, and, in "The Regent's Daughter" of Dumas, the massacre of the four Breton conspirators. Gaston, the hero of the tale, had ridden posthaste from Paris to save his fellows. He was preceded, by two hours, by the order for their execution, and the reprieve which he held would be valueless did he arrive too late.