Though La Fontaine preferred the chateau of Francois I. to that of
Louis XII., perhaps the naivete of that of the good king will give
true artists more pleasure, while at the same time they admire the
magnificent structure of the knightly king. The elegance of the two
staircases which are placed at each end of the chateau of Louis XII.,
the delicate carving and sculpture, so original in design, which
abound everywhere, the remains of which, though time has done its
worst, still charm the antiquary, all, even to the semi-cloistral
distribution of the apartments, reveals a great simplicity of manners.
Evidently, the /court/ did not yet exist; it had not developed, as it
did under Francois I. and Catherine de' Medici, to the great detriment
of feudal customs. As we admire the galleries, or most of them, the
capitals of the columns, and certain figurines of exquisite delicacy,
it is impossible not to imagine that Michel Columb, that great
sculptor, the Michel-Angelo of Brittany, passed that way for the
pleasure of Queen Anne, whom he afterwards immortalized on the tomb of
her father, the last duke of Brittany.

Whatever La Fontaine may choose to say about the "little galleries"
and the "little ornamentations," nothing can be more grandiose than
the dwelling of the splendid Francois. Thanks to I know not what
indifference, to forgetfulness perhaps, the apartments occupied by
Catherine de' Medici and her son Francois II. present to us to-day the
leading features of that time. The historian can there restore the
tragic scenes of the drama of the Reformation,--a drama in which the
dual struggle of the Guises and of the Bourbons against the Valois was
a series of most complicated acts, the plot of which was here
unravelled.

The chateau of Francois I. completely crushes the artless habitation