extending then, as now, from the river to the crest of the hill which
commands the right bank, lies a triangular plateau, bounded to the
west by a streamlet, which in these days is of no importance, for it
flows beneath the town; but in the fifteenth century, so say
historians, it formed quite a deep ravine, of which there still
remains a sunken road, almost an abyss, between the suburbs of the
town and the chateau.

It was on this plateau, with a double exposure to the north and south,
that the counts of Blois built, in the architecture of the twelfth
century, a castle where the famous Thibault de Tircheur, Thibault le
Vieux, and others held a celebrated court. In those days of pure
fuedality, in which the king was merely /primus inter pares/ (to use
the fine expression of a king of Poland), the counts of Champagne, the
counts of Blois, those of Anjou, the simple barons of Normandie, the
dukes of Bretagne, lived with the splendor of sovereign princes and
gave kings to the proudest kingdoms. The Plantagenets of Anjou, the
Lusignans of Poitou, the Roberts of Normandie, maintained with a bold
hand the royal races, and sometimes simple knights like du Glaicquin
refused the purple, preferring the sword of a connetable.

When the Crown annexed the county of Blois to its domain, Louis XII.,
who had a liking for this residence (perhaps to escape Plessis of
sinister memory), built at the back of the first building another
building, facing east and west, which connected the chateau of the
counts of Blois with the rest of the old structures, of which nothing
now remains but the vast hall in which the States-general were held
under Henri III.

Before he became enamoured of Chambord, Francois I. wished to complete