the chateau of Blois by adding two other wings, which would have made
the structure a perfect square. But Chambord weaned him from Blois,
where he built only one wing, which in his time and that of his
grandchildren was the only inhabited part of the chateau. This third
building erected by Francois I. is more vast and far more decorated
than the Louvre, the chateau of Henri II. It is in the style of
architecture now called Renaissance, and presents the most fantastic
features of that style. Therefore, at a period when a strict and
jealous architecture ruled construction, when the Middle Ages were not
even considered, at a time when literature was not as clearly welded
to art as it is now, La Fontaine said of the chateau de Blois, in his
hearty, good-humored way: "The part that Francois I. built, if looked
at from the outside, pleased me better than all the rest; there I saw
numbers of little galleries, little windows, little balconies, little
ornamentations without order or regularity, and they make up a grand
whole which I like."

The chateau of Blois had, therefore, the merit of representing three
orders of architecture, three epochs, three systems, three dominions.
Perhaps there is no other royal residence that can compare with it in
that respect. This immense structure presents to the eye in one
enclosure, round one courtyard, a complete and perfect image of that
grand presentation of the manners and customs and life of nations
which is called Architecture. At the moment when Christophe was to
visit the court, that part of the adjacent land which in our day is
covered by a fourth palace, built seventy years later (by Gaston, the
rebellious brother of Louis XIII., then exiled to Blois), was an open
space containing pleasure-grounds and hanging gardens, picturesquely
placed among the battlements and unfinished turrets of Francois I.'s
chateau.