Old Touraine (Volume 2 ); The Life and History of the Famous Chateaux of France

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1892. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter xxii azay-le-rideau ' Ce chasteau est ung des beaulx des gentils des mignons des mieulx elaborez chasteaulx de la mignonne Touraine, et se baigne tousiours en l'lndre comme une galloise princiere. The Chateau of Azay-le-Rideau was built in 1520 by Gilles Berthelot, a relation of the Brigonnet, Beaune, and Bohier families, to whom Touraine owes so many of its graceful homes. It is remarkable not so much for its history1 as for its extreme beauty as a type of the pure early French Renaissance architecture, untouched by the Italian influence of Primaticcio. The old fortress-dwelling is entirely discarded, nor is any attempt made, as at Chambord, to unite the feudal fortress to the hunting-seat. While Le Nepveu was actually attempting a tour de force 1 The name is apparently derived from one Hugues Ridel, one of the knights-banneret of Touraine instituted by Philip Augustus, originally destined to command the road from Tours to Chinon. The old chateau was taken by the Burgundians in the reign of Charles vi., and retaken by the Dauphin in 1418, to be altogether rebuilt in the next century. Its new owner, Berthelot the financier, was involved in the usual distresses which seemed the inevitable portion of the Beaunes and Bohiers, and died of grief at Cambrai in 1529. that from its very nature could but be doomed to failure, the walls of Azay-le-Rideau were rising at the bidding of a perfect and consistent plan. The luxuriant fancy of the architect has given itself free play in making as beautiful a dwelling-place as could be well imagined, and using only those details of the old fortress architecture which gave solidity to the whole while they added to the picturesqueness of its various parts. The old master masons had wellnigh disappeared, and in their pla...