Castles -- France; Touraine (France) -- Description and travel
We set forth promptly, a gay party, the three women folk upon the back
seat, M. La Tour and Archie vis a vis, and Walter with the chauffeur in
front. A nice intelligent young fellow is this chauffeur, with whom
Walter has become so intimate that he seems to be able to converse with
him without any apparent language. His name is Francois and Walter has,
in some way, fathomed the secrets of his soul and tells us that he is
the _fiance_ of the pretty black eyed Eloisa who showed us around the
chateau of Langeais. The confidence came about in this wise, Francois
asked us if we had seen Langeais, a very noble chateau, and did the
little _gardienne_, the pretty, dark-eyed one, take us about? Yes! that
is the one he knows, they both belong to the country around Tours, than
which there is nothing finer in the known world. Although living at
Blois, for financial reasons, he hopes to go back to that garden spot of
France and there to end his days. After which Walter, by means of
gestures and signs, extracted the story of his love. We did not feel it
incumbent upon us to reveal to Francois the sad fact that Eloisa was
flirting quite openly with one of the red-legged upholders of the
military glory of France, when we saw her at Langeais.
"That was doubtless an innocent diversion to which she resorted, in
order to pass away the time during her lover's absence," Archie
remarked, with a fine touch of sarcasm in his tone, for at this moment
Lydia, who is wearing some forget-me-nots that were beside her plate
this morning, is having a very animated conversation with M. La Tour.
Lydia is very charming in a blue linen suit, the tang of salt in the
air, which is quite evident here, has given her a brilliant color, and
every stray lock of her golden brown hair has curled up into bewildering
little ringlets. I don't wonder that Archie resents the forget-me-nots.
"Where the deuce does the fellow get them?" he asked me this morning.
"Francois and I have been looking all about the town before breakfast
and we can't even find a bunch of pansies."
Pansies would be a good offset to forget-me-nots; but as only sweet peas
and roses were to be found, Archie scorned to bestow these which grow in
such abundance, and so contented himself with a beautiful basket of
fruit which we all enjoyed.
I need not tell you, after our experience with Roman camps, that there
was little to be seen upon the site of this one of Angers; but we were
interested in the glimpse that we had, in passing through Ancenis, of
its ancient chateau with its tower-flanked doorway, the work of an
Angevin architect. Within this chateau, M. La Tour tells us, an
important treaty was signed by Francois II of Brittany and Louis XI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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