The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2). Evelyn John

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Under this is a very wide pair of gates, nailed full of wolves and wild-boars' heads. Behind the castle the present Duke Gaston had begun a fair building, through which we walked into a large garden, esteemed for its furniture one of the fairest, especially for simples and exotic plants, in which he takes extraordinary delight. On the right hand is a long gallery full of ancient statues and inscriptions, both of marble and brass; the length, 300 paces, divides the garden into higher and lower ground, having a very noble fountain. There is the portrait of a hart, taken in the forest by Louis XII., which has twenty-four antlers on its head. In the Collegiate Church of St. Savior, we saw many sepulchres of the Earls of Blois.

      On Sunday, being May-day, we walked up into Pall Mall, very long, and so noble shaded with tall trees (being in the midst of a great wood), that unless that of Tours, I had not seen a statelier.

      From hence, we proceeded with a friend of mine through the adjoining forest, to see if we could meet any wolves, which are here in such numbers that they often come and take children out of the very streets; yet will not the Duke, who is sovereign here, permit them to be destroyed. We walked five or six miles outright; but met with none; yet a gentleman, who was resting himself under a tree, with his horse grazing by him, told us that half an hour before, two wolves had set upon his horse, and had in probability devoured him, but for a dog which lay by him. At a little village at the end of this wood, we ate excellent cream, and visited a castle builded on a very steep cliff.

      Blois is a town where the language is exactly spoken; the inhabitants very courteous; the air so good, that it is the ordinary nursery of the King's children. The people are so ingenious, that, for goldsmith's work and watches, no place in France affords the like. The pastures by the river are very rich and pleasant.

      2d May, 1644. We took boat again, passing by Charmont, a proud castle on the left hand; before it is a sweet island, deliciously shaded with tall trees. A little distance from hence, we went on shore at Amboise, a very agreeable village, built of stone, and the houses covered with blue slate, as the towns on the Loire generally are; but the castle chiefly invited us, the thickness of whose towers from the river to the top, was admirable. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let one fall, if not premonished. It is full of halls and spacious chambers, and one staircase is large enough, and sufficiently commodious, to receive a coach, and land it on the very tower, as they told us had been done. There is some artillery in it; but that which is most observable is in the ancient chapel, viz, a stag's head, or branches, hung up by chains, consisting of twenty browantlers, the beam bigger than a man's middle, and of an incredible length. Indeed, it is monstrous, and yet I cannot conceive how it should be artificial they show also the ribs and vertebræ of the same beast; but these might be made of whalebone.

      Leaving the castle, we passed Mont Louis, a village having no houses above ground but such only as are hewn out of the main rocks of excellent freestone. Here and there the funnel of a chimney appears on the surface among the vineyards which are over them, and in this manner they inhabit the caves, as it were sea-cliffs, on one side of the river for many miles.

      TOURS

      We now came within sight of Tours, where we were designed for the rest of the time I had resolved to stay in France, the sojournment being so agreeable. Tours is situate on the east side of a hill on the river Loire, having a fair bridge of stone called St. Edme; the streets are very long, straight, spacious, well built, and exceeding clean; the suburbs large and pleasant, joined to the city by another bridge. Both the church and monastery of St. Martin are large, of Gothic building, having four square towers, fair organs, and a stately altar, where they show the bones and ashes of St. Martin, with other relics. The Mall without comparison is the noblest in Europe for length and shade, having seven rows of the tallest and goodliest elms I had ever beheld, the innermost of which do so embrace each other, and at such a height, that nothing can be more solemn and majestical. Here we played a party, or party or two, and then walked about the town walls, built of square stone, filled with earth, and having a moat. No city in France exceeds it in beauty, or delight.

      6th May, 1644. We went to St. Gatian, reported to have been built by our countrymen; the dial and clockwork are much esteemed. The church has two handsome towers and spires of stone, and the whole fabric is very noble and venerable. To this joins the palace of the Archbishop, consisting both of old and new building, with many fair rooms, and a fair garden. Here I grew acquainted with one Monsieur Merey, a very good musician. The Archbishop treated me very courteously. We visited divers other churches, chapels, and monasteries for the most part neatly built, and full of pretty paintings, especially the Convent of the Capuchins, which has a prospect over the whole city, and many fair walks.

      8th May, 1644. I went to see their manufactures in silk (for in this town they drive a very considerable trade with silk-worms), their pressing and watering the grograms and camlets, with weights of an extraordinary poise, put into a rolling engine. Here I took a master of the language, and studied the tongue very diligently, recreating myself sometimes at the Mall, and sometimes about the town. The house opposite my lodging had been formerly a King's palace; the outside was totally covered with fleur-de-lis, embossed out of the stone. Here Mary de Medicis held her Court, when she was compelled to retire from Paris by the persecution of the great Cardinal.

      25th May, 1644. Was the Fête Dieu, and a goodly procession of all the religious orders, the whole streets hung with their best tapestries, and their most precious movables exposed; silks, damasks, velvets, plate, and pictures in abundance; the streets strewed with flowers, and full of pageantry, banners, and bravery.

      6th June, 1644. I went by water to visit that goodly and venerable Abbey of Marmoutiers, being one of the greatest in the kingdom; to it is a very ample church of stone, with a very high pyramid. Among other relics the Monks showed us is the Holy Ampoulle, the same with that which sacres their Kings at Rheims, this being the one that anointed Henry IV. Ascending many steps, we went into the Abbot's Palace, where we were showed a vast tun (as big as that at Heidelberg), which they report St. Martin (as I remember) filled from one cluster of grapes growing there.

      7th June, 1644. We walked about two miles from the city to an agreeable solitude, called Du Plessis, a house belonging to the King. It has many pretty gardens, full of nightingales; and, in the chapel, lies buried the famous poet, Ronsard.

      Returning, we stepped into a Convent of Franciscans, called St. Cosmo, where the cloister is painted with the miracles of their St. Francis à Paula, whose ashes lie in their chapel, with this inscription: "Corpus Sancti Fran. à Paula 1507, 13 Aprilis, concrematur verò ab Hæreticis anno 1562, cujus quidem ossa et cineres hìc jacent." The tomb has four small pyramids of marble at each corner.

      9th June, 1644. I was invited to a vineyard, which was so artificially planted and supported with arched poles, that stooping down one might see from end to end, a very great length, under the vines, the bunches hanging down in abundance.

      20th June, 1644. We took horse to see certain natural caves, called Gouttière, near Colombière, where there is a spring within the bowels of the earth, very deep and so excessive cold, that the drops meeting with some lapidescent matter, it converts them into a hard stone, which hangs about it like icicles, having many others in the form of comfitures and sugar plums, as we call them.

      Near this, we went under the ground almost two furlongs, lighted with candles, to see the source and spring which serves the whole city, by a passage cut through the main rock of freestone.

      28th June, 1644. I went to see the palace and gardens of Chevereux, a sweet place.

      30th June, 1644. I walked through the vineyards as far as Roche Corbé, to the ruins of an old and very strong castle, said to have been built by the English, of great height, on the precipice of a dreadful cliff, from whence the country and river yield a most incomparable prospect.

      27th July, 1644. I heard excellent music at СКАЧАТЬ