Bigotry and ambition in those days allowed
few of the finer feelings to come to the surface, except with regard
to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of this last there can be no
question, and Blois is as characteristically luxurious as any of the
magnificient edifices which lodged the royalty and nobility of other
days throughout the valley of the Loire.
The interior court is partly surrounded by a colonnade, quite
cloister-like in effect. At the right center of the Francois I. wing
is that wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the invention of which
so much speculation has been launched.
The apartments of Catherine de Medici were directly beneath the
guard-room where the Balafre was murdered, and that event, taking
place at the very moment when the queen-mother was dying, can not be
said to have been conducive to a peaceful demise.
Here, on the first floor of the Francois I. wing, the queen-mother,
held her court, as did the king his. The great gallery over-looked the
town on the side of the present Place du Chateau. It was, and is, a
truly grand apartment, with diamond-paned windows, and rich, dark wall
decorations on which Catherine's device, a crowned C and her monogram
in gold, frequently appears.
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