THE BROCHURE SERIES
The Château of Chambord: France
Louis XVI. Sconces
OCTOBER, 1900
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PLATE LXXV
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CHAMBORD: SOUTHERN FAÇADE
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[Pg 151]
THE
Brochure Series
OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION.
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1900.
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OCTOBER
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No. 10.
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THE CHÂTEAU OF CHAMBORD:
FRANCE
The Château of Chambord is one of the
most unique palaces of the Renaissance
in existence. "It is," writes
Jules Loiseleur, "the Versailles
of the
feudal monarchy;
and
was to the
Château of
Blois, that
central residence
of the
Valois, what
Versailles was
to the Tuilleries,—the
country-seat
of royalty.
Tapestries
from Arras,
Venetian mirrors,
curiously
sculptured
chests, crystal
chandeliers,
massive silver
furniture, and
miracles of all
the arts, were
amassed in
this palace during eight reigns, and dispersed
in a single day by the breath of the
Revolution.
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LANTERN OF THE GREAT STAIRCASE
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CHAMBORD
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"It has often been asked why Francis I.,
to whom the banks of the Loire presented
many marvelous sites, selected such a wild
and forsaken spot in the midst of arid
plains for the erection of the strange building
which he
planned. His
peculiar
choice has
been attributed
to his
passion for
the chase and
also because
of the memory
of his
amours with
the beautiful
Comtesse de
Thoury,
whom he had
visited in that
neighborhood
before
he ascended
the throne.
Independently
of these
motives,
which no
doubt counted
in his selection,
perhaps
the very wildness of the place and its distance
from the Loire, which reminded him
too much of the cares of royalty, was a
determining reason. Kings, like private
individuals, and even more than they,
experience the need at times of burying
themselves, and therefore make a hidden
and far-away nest where they may be their
own masters and live to please themselves.
Moreover, Chambord, with its countless
rooms, its secret stairways, and its subterranean
passages, seems to have been built
for one who, tired of the blaze of royal glory,
sought here for shadow and mystery. At
the same time when he was rearing Chambord
in the heart of the uncultivated plains
of the Sologne, Francis I. built in the midst
of the Blois de Boulogne a château, where,
from time to time, he shut himself up with
learned men and artists, and to which the
courtiers, who were positively forbidden
there, gave the name of Madrid, in memory
of the prison in which their master had
suffered. But Chambord, like Madrid, was
not a prison; it was a retreat.
[Pg 152]
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PLATE LXXVI
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CHAMBORD: GENERAL VIEW
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[Pg 153]
"That sentiment of peculiar charm which
is attached to the situation of Chambord
will be felt by every artist who visits this
strange creation. At the end of a long
avenue of poplars breaking through thin
underbrush you see, little by little, peeping
and mounting upward from the earth,
a fairy building, which, rising in the midst
of arid sand and heath, produces the most
striking and unexpected effect. A
jinnee
of the Orient, a poet has said, must have
stolen it from the country of sunshine to
hide it in the country of fog for the amours
of a handsome prince. The park in which
it is situated is twenty square miles in
area, and is surrounded by twenty miles of
walls."
Francis I. had passed his early years at
Cognac, at Amboise or Romorantin, and
when he first saw Chambord it was only an
old feudal manor house built by the Counts
of Blois. There has been much question
as to who the architect he employed to
transform it really was, and the honor of
having designed the splendid residence has
been claimed for several of the Italian
artists, who early in the sixteenth century
came to seek patronage in France. It
seems well established today, however, that
Chambord was neither the work of Primaticcio,
with whose name it is tempting to
associate any building of this king's, nor
of Vignola, nor of Il Rosso, all of whom have
left some trace of their sojourn in France,
for the methods of contemporary Italian
architecture were totally different; but as
M. de la Saussaye, the author of a very
complete and concise history of the building,
proves, it was due to the skill of that
fertile local school of art and architecture
around Tours and Blois, and more particularly
to a comparatively obscure genius,
whose name is also mentioned in connection
with Amboise and Blois, one Pierre le
Nepveu, known also as Pierre Trinqueau,
who is designated in the papers which preserve
in some degree the history of the origin
of the edifice as the
maistre de l'œuvre
de maçonnerie
. "Behind this modest title
apparently," writes Mr. Henry James, "we
must recognize one of the most original
talents of the French Renaissance; and it
is a proof of the vigor of the artistic life of
that period that, brilliant production being
everywhere abundant, an artist of so high
a value should not have been treated by
his contemporaries as a celebrity. We
manage things very differently today."
Although Le Nepveu was the chief architect,
Cousin, Bontemps, Goujon, Pilon and
other noted artists were engaged in the
decoration of Chambord. Many changes in
the structure were afterwards carried out,
especially by Louis XIV. and by Marshal
Saxe, to whom that monarch presented it
in 1749. From 1725 to 1733 Stanislaus Leszczynski,
the ex-king of Poland, who spent
the greater part of his life in being elected
and in being ousted from his throne, dwelt
at Chambord. During the Revolution the
palace was as far as possible despoiled of
every vestige of its royal origin, and the
apartments to which upwards of two centuries
had contributed a treasure of decoration
and furniture were swept bare. In
1791 an odd proposal was made to the
French Government by a company of English
Quakers, who had conceived the bold
idea of establishing in the palace a manufacture
of some peaceful commodity not
today recorded. Napoleon I. presented
Chambord to Marshal Berthier, from whose
widow it was purchased in 1821 for the sum
of £61,000 raised by national subscription
on behalf of the Duke of Bordeaux, formerly
Comte de Chambord.
[Pg 154]
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PLATE LXXVII
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CHAMBORD: NORTHERN FAÇADE
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[Pg 155]
The Château, only the north part of
which is completed, consists of two square
blocks, the larger of which, five hundred
and twelve feet long by three hundred and
eighty-five feet broad, encloses the smaller
in such a way, that the northern façade of
the one forms the centre of the northern
façade of the other. The corners of each
block terminate in massive round towers,
with conical roofs crowned by lanterns, so
that four of these towers appear in the principal
façade. In plan it will be seen that
Chambord resembles the typical French
château; with the habitation of the seigneur
and his family in the centre, and this
habitation enclosed on three sides by a
court, while like most feudal dwellings,
the central donjon shares one of its sides
with the exterior of the whole. The central
part is adorned with an unexampled profusion
of dormer-windows, turrets, carved
chimneys and pinnacles, besides innumerable
mouldings and sculptures, above all of
which rises the double lantern of the tower
containing the principal staircase.
"It is a forest of campaniles, chimneys,
sky-lights, domes and towers, in lace-work
and open-work, twisted according to a
caprice which excludes neither harmony
nor unity," writes M. Loiseleur. "The
beautiful open-work tower of the large
staircase dominates the entire mass of pinnacles
and steeples, and bathes in the blue
sky its colossal fleur-de-lis, the last point
of the highest pinnacle among pinnacles,
the highest crown among all crowns.
"We must take Chambord for what it is,
an ancient Gothic château dressed out in
great measure according to the fashion of
the Renaissance. In no other place is the
transition from one style to another revealed
in a way so impressive and naïve;
nowhere else does the brilliant butterfly of
the Renaissance show itself more deeply
imprisoned in the heavy Gothic chrysalis.
Chambord, by its plan which is essentially
French and feudal, and by its enclosure
flanked with towers, and by the breadth
of its heavy mass, slavishly recalls the
mediæval
manoirs
. By its lavish profusion
of ornamentation it suggests the
creations of the sixteenth century as far as
the beginning of the roofs; it is Gothic as
far as the platform; and it belongs to the
Renaissance when it comes to the roof itself.
It may be compared to a rude French
knight of the fourteenth century, who wears
on his cuirass some fine Italian embroideries,
and on his head the plumed felt of
Francis I.,—assuredly an incongruous costume,
but one not without character."
"With a sympathetic denial of any extreme
over-technical admiration," writes
Mr. Cook in his
Old Touraine
, "Viollet
le Duc gives just that intelligible account
of the Château which is a compromise between
the unmeaning adulation of its contemporary
critics and the ignorance of the
casual traveller. 'Chambord,' says he,
'must be taken for what it is; for an attempt
of the architect to reconcile the
methods of two opposite principles,—to
unite in one building the fortified castle of
the Middle Ages and the pleasure-palace
of the sixteenth century.' Granted that
the attempt was an absurd one, it must be
remembered that the Renaissance was but
just beginning in France; Gothic art
seemed out of date, yet none other had
established itself to take its place. In literature,
in morals, as in architecture, this
particular phase in the civilization of the
time was evident, and if only this transition
period is realized in all its meanings, with
all the 'monstrous and inform' characteristics
that were inevitably a part of it, the
mystery of this strange sixteenth century
in France is half explained."
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PLAN OF THE CHÂTEAU OF CHAMBORD
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"At Chambord," writes Mrs. Pattison, in
her
Renaissance of Art in France
, "which
was building in 1526, the stories are, it is
true, forcibly indicated, but the whole
building is pulled together in Gothic fashion
by the towers of the
corps de logis
, and by
those which flank the pavilions or wings
which stretch out on either side of the main
body. In a building of the size of Chambord
the result of this treatment is hardly
satisfactory, for the lines of the wings to
right and left of the main body seem to
droop away from the heavy towers on
either side. Inside the court, however, the
unpleasant effect, even at Chambord, disappears,
for the apparent length of the
wings is greatly abbreviated by the effect
of the two spiral staircases which run up
outside the building at the internal angles
on opposite sides.
[Pg 156]
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PLATE LXXVIII
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CHAMBORD: FRANCIS I. WING
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[Pg 157]
"Chambord is, indeed, throughout truly
typical of the earlier stage of the new Renaissance
movement. In the general arrangement,
in the
ordonnance
, late Gothic
caprice and fantastic love of the unforeseen
rule triumphant. The older portions
of the Château, the seemingly irregular
assemblages of half Oriental turrets and
spires, are debased Gothic, full of audacious
disregard of all outward seeming of order.
The architect, instead of seeking to bring
home to the eye the general law, the plan
on which the whole is grouped, has wilfully
obscured and concealed it beneath the obviousness
of the wild and daring conceits
heaped above.
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VIEW OF CHAMBORD (1576)
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ENGRAVING FROM DU CERCEAU
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"But even at Chambord the mark is set
which promises other days. It is the transition
moment; Gothic fancy may wildly
distribute ornament and obscure design,
but the ornament which it distributes is
Gothic no longer. The
obscæna
which
haunt the cathedrals of the middle ages,
which infest the earlier towers of Amboise,
and linger defilingly about Gaillon, are
banished. In their place come faint foliated
traceries and arabesques in low relief,
enriching every surface, disturbing none,
moving with melodious adaptation of subtle
line, winding, falling, rising in sympathy
with every swiftly ascending shaft or hollowing
curve.
"It is not now possible to approach Chambord
carrying in our eyes a vision of the
great Renaissance palace, as engraved by
Du Cerceau in his
Plus excellens Bâtimens
de la France
. Burdened by the weighty
labors of Louis XIV., weakened by eight
improving years at the hands of Stanislaus
Leszczynski, mutilated by Marshal Saxe,
the Chambord which we now go out from
Blois to visit is not the Chambord of Francis
I. The broad foundations and heaving
arches which rose proudly out of the waters
of the moat no longer impress the eye.
The truncated mass squats ignobly upon
the turf, the waters of the moat are gone;
gone are the deep embankments crowned
with pierced balustrades; gone is the no-longer-needed
bridge with its guardian
lions. All the outlying work which gave
the actual building space and dignity has
vanished, and we enter directly from the
park outside to what was once but the inner
court of the Château.
"It is not until we stand within this
inner court—until we have passed through
the lines of building which enclose it on
the western side, and which show the unmistakable
signs of stupid and brutal destruction,
that we can believe again in the
departed glories of Chambord. Lippomano,
ambassador from Venice to France
in the reign of Henry III., turned out of
his way to visit Chambord. 'On the 21st,'
he says, 'we made a slight detour in order
to visit the Château of Chambord, or, more
strictly speaking, the palace commenced
by Francis I., and truly worthy of this
great prince. I have seen many magnificent
buildings in the course of my life, but
never anything more beautiful or more
rich. They say that the piles for the foundations
of the Château in this marshy
ground have alone cost 300,000 francs. The
effect is very good on all sides. The number
of the rooms is as remarkable as their
size, and indeed space was not wanting to
the architect, since the wall that surrounds
the park is seven leagues in length. The
park itself is full of forests, of lakes, of
streams, of pasture-land, and of hunting-grounds,
and in the centre rises the Château
with its gilt battlements, with its
wings covered in with lead, with its pavilions,
its towers and its corridors, even as
the romancers describe to us the abode of
Morgana or of Alcinoüs. More than half
remains to be done, and I doubt it will
ever be finished, for the kingdom is completely
exhausted by war. We left much
marvelling, or rather let us say thunderstruck.'
[Pg 158]
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PLATE LXXIX
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CHAMBORD: STAIRCASE, FRANCIS I. WING
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[Pg 159]
"To destroy the character of Chambord
from the outside was not difficult. It was
not easy to tame the rude defiance of Vincennes,
or give facility to the reserved and
guarded approaches of Gaillon. Solid rectangular
towers, heavy machicolations, and
ponderous drawbridges offer a stubborn
resistance to schemes of ruthless innovation;
but Chambord was no fortress, it was
a country house. The very site is motived
by no other reason than the pleasures of
the chase. The battlements of Gaillon
gave back the echoes of the trumpet, but
the galleries of Chambord resounded with
the huntsman's bugle.
"The construction of these galleries in
itself points to the rapid progress of social
change. There are not only such as may
be called covered passages communicating
from the spiral staircases with the rooms
on each story; galleries which have their
special cause in actual need and daily use;
but the roofs of the range of one-storied
buildings which connect the side wings on
the north and south, and which run along
the western front, are finished up from the
cornice with a balustrade, and turned into
a promenade for courtiers.
"Yet in spite of these marked indications
of change the ancient spirit lingers.
The unrestrained freedom of grotesque
caprice finds expression everywhere, even
in those later portions which belong to
another reign. Pierre le Nepveu has left
on all his work the imprint of profuse
and fantastic force; the outlines of his
cupolas strike the sky with an audacity
which seems to defy the adverse criticism
of those who moved within the limits of
more cautious rule. Symmetrical balance,
for which the masters of a succeeding era
sought, and by which they strove to harmonize
every portion of their design,
obliged them to reject the aid of those varied
resources which Le Nepveu shrewdly
marshaled with a vigorous hand.
"Chambord is in truth a brilliant example
of transition. The early Renaissance
is there to be seen, taking on itself
the burden beneath which the failing
forces of the Gothic spirit had sunk. But
the intention of the work is wholly foreign
to the main direction taken by the new
movement, and condemned, by its very
nature, to remain, in spite of the wonderful
genius lavished upon it, an unfruitful
tour de force
."
The interior of the palace is now but a
great wilderness of hewn stone. The sixteenth
century treasures of art which had
adorned it were all stolen or destroyed in
the Revolution, the spoliation being so
complete that it was stripped of even the
carved wainscots, panels, doors and shutters,
and the four hundred and forty enormous
apartments now give only the
impression of a vast and comfortless barrack.
In the original arrangement of the
interior all ideas of practical defense were
sacrificed to produce a pleasure palace, and
it was furnished with innumerable secret
stairways (there are thirteen great staircases,
not to mention numberless smaller
ones) isolated turrets and a hundred facilities
for what the gallant Viollet le Duc
calls "
les intrigues secrètes de cette cour
jeune et tout occupée de galanteries
."
"On the whole," writes Mr. Henry
James, "Chambord makes a great impression—there
is a dignity in its desolation.
It speaks with a muffled but audible voice
of the vanished monarchy, which had been
so strong, so splendid, but today has become
a sort of fantastic vision. I thought,
while I lingered there, of all the fine things
that it takes to make up such a monarchy;
and how one of them is a superfluity of
mouldering empty palaces."
A Change in
The Brochure Series
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The attention of subscribers to
The
Brochure Series
is again called to the
fact that, beginning with the Seventh Volume,
January, 1901, the magazine is to be
enlarged, and that the subscription price
will then be increased to $1.00 a year, and
the price of single copies to ten cents each.
[Pg 160]
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PLATE LXXX
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CHAMBORD: FROM THE WEST
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[Pg 161]
[Pg 162]
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PLATE LXXXI
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CHAMBORD: THE ROOFS
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[Pg 163]
[Pg 164]
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PLATE LXXXII
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CHAMBORD: DORMERS AND CHIMNEYS
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