In 1814 Blois became the last capital of Napoleon's empire, and the
château walls sheltered the prisoners captured by the imperial army.




CHAMBORD[A]

[Footnote A: From "Old Touraine." Published by James Pott & Co.]

BY THEODORE ANDREA COOK


The road that leads from Blois to Chambord crosses the Loire by a fine
stone bridge, which the inscription sets forth to be the first public
work of Louis Philippe.

For some distance the rails of a small tramway followed the road by
which our carriage was slowly rolling toward the level plains of the
Cologne, but we gradually left such uncompromising signs of activity,
and came into a flat country of endless vineyards, with here and there
a small plaster tower showing its slated roof above the low green
clusters of the vines. We passed through several villages, whose
inhabitants that day seemed to have but one care upon their minds,
like the famous Scilly Islanders, to gain a precarious livelihood by
taking each other's washing. On every bush and briar fluttered the
household linen and the family apparel, of various textures and in
different states of despair; and with that strict observance of
utility which is the chief characteristic of the French peasant, the