_Visitors are allowed to see the castle every day in the absence of the owner (the Princesse de Broglie), and on Thursdays when the family is in residence._ When first built, in the tenth century, the fortress belonged to the Counts of Blois, and came afterwards to the family of Amboise. It was burnt by Louis XI. because Pierre d’Amboise (his tomb in Rouen Cathedral has been mentioned) had rebelled against him, and rebuilt in quadrangular form by his son Charles. The side towards the river was pulled down in 1739 to open up the beautiful view. Catherine de Medici appears not to have lived at Chaumont, but she obliged Diane de Poitiers to accept it in exchange for Chenonceaux. The entrance gateway between machicolated towers shows the initials of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne, and the arms of Charles and Georges d’Amboise. Certain apartments are _called_ those of Catherine de Medici and of her astrologer Ruggieri. The Salles des Gardes are hung with Beauvais tapestry. A big cedar holds out beneficent arms in the courtyard, and the steep ravine on the west side of the castle eminence is clothed with trees. Returning to the north side of the river, one passes the mossy-roofed hamlet of Veuves, built close up to the-raised road, and in a short time the strikingly picturesque town of Amboise appears on the south bank of the river. AMBOISE. The first bridge takes one on to the Île St. Jean, where in 496 Clovis held a conference with Alaric, King of the Visigoths, and the second bridge brings one to the town built under the shadow of the castle commenced by Charles VIII., continued by Louis XII., and finished by François I. _Entrance tree every day; gratuity to custodian._ Amboise was the _Ambatia_ of the Romans, and in the fourth century tradition reveals the presence of St. Martin of Tours causing the destruction of a pagan temple. In the Middle Ages there was a castle on the site of the existing one, which belonged to the Counts of Anjou, and afterwards to those of Berri. It came to the Crown in 1434; Louis XI. abode there before he went to Plessis-les-Tours. Charles VIII. was born in the feudal castle which has now vanished, and it was here he began the reconstruction, and died in the unfinished Gothic pile in which he had taken such delight. He brought artists, sculptors, and workmen from Italy and wherever he saw beautiful things, and what the château might have been can be judged by the exquisite little Chapel of St. Hubert, with its exterior _alto-relievo_ representing the conversion of the canonized huntsman. While watching a game of tennis, however, on April 7, 1498, Charles was seized with apoplexy and died. The excellent guide shows a low doorway, against the lintel of which he describes how the King struck his head when going after a tennis-ball. This picturesque story is, nevertheless, untrue.