Azay le Rideau, built on a beautifully wooded island on the river Indre, though less known than Chambord, was and is an exquisite specimen of the Renaissance. It owes the fascination of its graceful outlines and peculiar ornamentation to the masterhand which has graven his crowned F and Salamander on its quaint façades. The Louvre and Fontainebleau are also signed by these monograms. He, and his son Henry II., made these piles the historic monuments we now behold. Such was Francis, the artist. As a soldier, he followed in the steps of Bayard, “Sans peur et sans reproche.” He perfected that poetic code of honour which reconciles the wildest courage with generosity towards an enemy. A knight-errant in love of danger and adventure, Francis comes to us as the perfect type of the chivalrous Frenchman; ready to do battle on any provocation either as king or gentleman, either at the head of his army, in the tournament, or in the duello. He loved all that was gay, bright, and beautiful. He delighted in the repose of peace, yet no monarch ever plunged his country into more ruinous and causeless wars. Though capable of the tenderest and purest affection, no man was ever more heartless and cruel in principle and conduct. Francis, Duc de Valois,[1] was educated at home by his mother, Madame Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d’Angoulême, Regent of France, together with his brilliant sister, Marguerite, “the pearl of the Valois,” poetess, story-teller, artist, and politician. Each of these royal ladies was tenderly attached to the clever, handsome youth, and together formed what they chose to call “a trinity of love.” The old Castle of Amboise, in Touraine, the favourite abode of Louis XII., continued to be their home after his death. Here, too, the hand of Francis is to be traced in sculptured windows and architectural façades, in noble halls and broad galleries, and in the stately terraced gardens overlooking the Loire which flows beneath its walls. Here, under the formal lime alleys and flowering groves, or in the shadow of the still fortified bastions, the brother and sister sat or wandered side by side, on many a summer day; read and talked of poetry and troubadours, of romance and chivalry, of Arthur, Roland, and Charlemagne, of spells and witcheries, and of Merlin the enchanter whose magic failed before a woman’s glance. Printing at that time having become general, literature of all kinds circulated in every direction, stirring men’s minds with fresh tides of knowledge. Marguerite de Valois, who was called “the tenth Muse,” dwelt upon poetry and fiction, and already meditated her Boccaccio-like stories, afterwards to be published under the title of the _Heptameron_. Francis gloated over such adventures as were detailed in the roundelay of the “Four Sons of Aymon,” a ballad of that day, devoured the history of _Amadis de Gaul_, and tried his hand in twisting many a love-rhyme, after the fashion of the “Romaunt of the Rose.”