first opportunity favorable to his design. It soon presented itself.

The very morning of the day appointed for the chase, the King sent word
to him that he was waiting for him on the Escalier du Lys. It may not,
perhaps, be out of place to speak of this astonishing construction.

Four leagues from Blois, and one league from the Loire, in a small and
deep valley, between marshy swamps and a forest of large holm-oaks,
far from any highroad, the traveller suddenly comes upon a royal, nay,
a magic castle. It might be said that, compelled by some wonderful lamp,
a genie of the East had carried it off during one of the "thousand and
one nights," and had brought it from the country of the sun to hide it in
the land of fogs and mist, for the dwelling of the mistress of a handsome
prince.

Hidden like a treasure; with its blue domes, its elegant minarets rising
from thick walls or shooting into the air, its long terraces overlooking
the wood, its light spires bending with the wind, its terraces everywhere
rising over its colonnades, one might there imagine one's self in the
kingdom of Bagdad or of Cashmir, did not the blackened walls, with their
covering of moss and ivy, and the pallid and melancholy hue of the sky,
denote a rainy climate. It was indeed a genius who raised this building;
but he came from Italy, and his name was Primaticcio. It was indeed a
handsome prince whose amours were concealed in it; but he was a king, and
he bore the name of Francois I. His salamander still spouts fire
everywhere about it. It sparkles in a thousand places on the arched
roofs, and multiplies the flames there like the stars of heaven; it
supports the capitals with burning crowns; it colors the windows with its
fires; it meanders up and down the secret staircases, and everywhere
seems to devour with its flaming glances the triple crescent of a