BY FRANCIS MILTOUN


Blois, among all the other cities of the Loire, is the favorite with
the tourist. Here one first meets a great château of state; and
certainly the Château de Blois lives in one's memory more than any
other château in France.

Much has been written of Blois, its counts, its château, and its many
and famous hôtels of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and
abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote of the plots and
intrigues of other days to those critics of art and architecture who
have discovered--or think they have discovered--that Da Vinci designed
the famous spiral staircase.

From this one may well gather that Blois is the foremost château of
all the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so,
but it is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the
least lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends
at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in
every form and feature--as one sees it to-day--of the attributes of a
museum, and such it really is.

All of its former gorgeousness is still there, and all the banalities
of the later period when Gaston of Orleans built his ugly wing, for
the "personally conducted" to marvel at, and honeymoon couples to
envy. The French are quite fond of visiting this shrine themselves,
but usually it is the young people and their mammas, and detached
couples of American and English birth that one most sees strolling
about the courts and apartments where formerly lords and ladies and