“Bobby,” he said, “our film careers are in a shambles, but life must go on. Tomorrow is Sunday. If you could do anything you wanted to do anywhere in France tomorrow, what would you like to do?”
I mulled it over a few moments and replied, “I would like to do something very few people have done. I would like to get a small high-wing plane or glider and go along the Loire River at low altitude photographing the most interesting castles and châteaux from the level birds see them. I want to know from the land why they are located where they are. I want to look down on the complicated royal gardens surrounding the châteaux to get a better idea of what the designers had in mind, from a perspective even they did not have. I want to see how they used flowing water as a design element, whether natural or created.”
His face lit up, and he almost shouted “C’est magnifique!” His eyes sparkled. “I’ve never done it either, and don’t know of any-one who has. If I set the whole thing up tomorrow, could I go up with you?”
“Mais oui, compadre,” I agreed. He was transfixed with my newer knowledge of French.
Yet he looked worried. “But, Bobby, there are more than 400 châteaux and castles along the Loire, you will have to choose just a few.”
“Château” has two quite distinct connotations—fortified castle and grand country house. In many places the second meaning gradually evolved from the first, as the strongholds of local barons (built to safeguard their families and retainers, their villagers and as many cows and sheep as could be crammed within the walls) were enlarged and altered in more peaceful times, rebuilt with a view to luxury rather than protection or domination, surrounded by parks and formal gardens, embellished with ornament. The high walls which surround these mansions now had social rather than military significance: they guarded the grand bourgeois from unwelcome intrusion by the peasants at his gate.
—Simon Loftus,
Puligny-Montrachet: Journal of a
Village in Burgundy
I replied, “Not to worry, Bernard. I have always wanted to visit just three; Chenonceau, Chambord, and Azay-le-Rideau. Chenonceau because it is unique and looks like I imagine a royal residence should look. The River Cher runs right through it, and it has elegant gardens best seen from the air. It reeks of both British and French royal history. Chambord is enormous, structurally very different, solid-looking, and it is located in an enormous park. Azay-le-Rideau just is, a jewel of a château designed just right for an ideal location. If I were president of this country I would make it the presidential residence. And all three of these properties are within 25–50 miles of each other.”
He smiled. “I’ll organize it right now.”
He was back in an hour. “We have a single-engine, high-wing plane at Chartres laid on for 9:00 a.m. It’s an old trainer, but we’ll manage. I’ll pick you up at your hovel”—he knew I preferred inexpensive lodgings on the Left Bank—“at 5:30 a.m. because I want you to see the stained glass at the Chartres cathedral by early light, and it opens at 7:30 a.m. Take a very wide angle lens, the cathedral is narrow, but more than 400 feet high.” He rubbed his hands together with glee. “Today we lost our opportunity to be matinee idols, but tomorrow will be a better day.”
Bernard swung by bright and early the next morning in an old black Citröen, the doors-the-wrong-way model so familiar to movie fans from Jean Gabin’s classic gangster films, and we headed towards Chartres, about 60 miles south and west. The horrible clog of Paris traffic was a breeze on the weekend, and we were out of town in twenty minutes. There is an awe-inspiring view of the cathedral from the junction of two highways just outside Chartres. The architectural details are best seen when the sun is low. The commanding presence of the cathedral over the town can best be appreciated from here. Rodin described the cathedral as “the French Acropolis,” and it is a particularly appropriate description. Both the Acropolis and the cathedral are impressive structures perched high on rocky promontories in the middle of town.
I found it interesting to explore the town of Chartres on foot, particularly the narrow cobblestoned lanes near the River Eure. Locally-made stained glass windows can be seen around town, and glass workshops can be visited without much fuss. Near the cathedral, the International Stained Glass Center is well worth a visit. The cathedral has nearly 150 stained glass windows containing 27,000 square feet of stained glass beauty, depicting mainly religious subjects. Many are 700 years old and extraordinarily complex. They are best seen in the early morning or late afternoon when the light enters at an angle.
But we came down to fly, and we headed off to the airport. The airport manager was singularly unimpressed that Bernard had flown a Flying Fortress many years ago, and assigned a pilot who didn’t appear to be more than fifteen. I wasn’t sure if he had begun to shave, but he told us he knew the plane, and not to worry, flying over the châteaux would be a piece of gâteau. He told us to keep in mind that all of these structures had been created more than 400 years ago. When the manager wasn’t looking, I removed the passenger-side window to have an unobstructed view.
The three of us piled in and headed down the runway, anxious to witness history from this unusual viewpoint. It seemed like miles before we were able to get up enough speed to take off, but finally the old crate lifted and we were on our way. Flying near the cathedral was off limits because the city fathers feared small planes would buzz around the cathedral like gnats all day, so we banked away from the city and headed for the Loire. I found the chugada-chugada-chugada of the prop motor reassuring, but it made it difficult to talk, so we shouted and used hand signals. Bernard translated above the din.
Low-level fluffy cumulus clouds gave the landscape a dappled look as we went from sun to shade and back to sun again. When we climbed we found that the clouds were all at the same level, as if they had been pasted to an invisible net at 500 meters, so we continued climbing to 1000 meters for a smoother flight. When the Loire River first came into view Bernard shouted in my ear, “Bobby, if you know the history of that river down there you will understand much of the history of France.” There was no doubt Bernard was having a marvelous time. Even if I didn’t get a single picture the trip was already a huge success for him. He was trying to talk to the pilot over the noise of the motor, gesticulating and laughing as memories of flying flooded back.
The pilot pointed down with the pride of Lindberg approaching LeBourget, and Bernard shouted “There it is, Chenonceau.” But the cloud cover had thickened and we had to go down through it if we were going to get any pictures. Because of limited cabin space available and anticipated plane movement I was using my trusty old Leica M2 range finder camera with just a wide angle and short telephoto. As we came into the clouds the old cloth plane groaned, creaked, twisted, and pitched. Suddenly it dropped several hundred feet, as if the bottom had fallen out. Then it hit an invisible bottom, and it felt like the plane had stopped dropping, but the passengers hadn’t. I thought I might lose my croissant, and remembered news stories of old crop-dusters breaking up in lowlevel turbulence. The creaking noises made me worry the wings would fall off. But suddenly we broke through and the château exploded into view, set in formal gardens which can only be fully appreciated from the air.
The centerpiece is a 75-yard two-storied gallery that spans the slow-moving River Cher by means of five massive arches. I signaled the pilot with a stiff hand that I wanted to bank on the side of the open window so I could look down without wing or strut obstructions, and then moved my hand in a circle to suggest doing a tight circle. The pilot nodded and set about it, but I hadn’t realized that a tight circle meant practically standing me on my head with gravity pull, nor that going through each pretty cloud meant I would be bouncing and hanging on to the bracings of the plane for dear life, rather than taking pictures. The next time around we made a larger circle, avoided the clouds, and I was able to squeeze off some shots emphasizing different aspects of the castle and grounds. We went around again for good measure so I could just look at this magnifi
cent sight.
Bernard shouted that more than one million people visited every year and enjoyed paintings by Rubens and 16th-century tapestries in the sixteen rooms open to the public. Henry II gave the castle to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. But when the king died his wife, Catherine de Medici, gave the mistress the boot and moved in, making many changes, particularly the gallery and the formal gardens. The castle became a royal social center and over time François II, Charles IX, and Henri III and their courts resided here.
Chambord was just a few minutes away, but it is very different from Chenonceau in concept and execution. We went jouncing through the clouds again and circled the property at different altitudes, this time with less turbulence. My eyes were directed to the large, boxy, three-story structure by a very long, royal-looking, tree-lined road leading straight to it like an arrow, through patches of woods within the 13,000-acre hunting park. The gardens were neat but smaller, less complex, and less impressive than Chenonceau. A most curious collection of spires, domes, cupolas, gables, and turrets on the château roof looked like a small village from the air.
Some say Chambord lacks the woman’s touch seen in Chenonceau, but others say it was constructed as a basic hunting lodge by François II, not as a château, and its three-story rectangular structure was appropriate for its 440 rooms and 365 chiseled turrets and chimneys. Several days later I visited the château and the guide described the roof scene as a “busy terrace.” The royal château is known for the extraordinary superimposed circular stairway, and is well decorated with furniture, paintings, and tapestries of the time. François chose the salamander as his royal emblem, and the guide told us there were more than 700 representations of salamanders within the structure. I took his word for it. Although it took many years to construct François lived there only about a month. During World War II the art treasures of the Louvre were hidden there.
Leaving Chambord, we followed the Loire River towards the ocean to Blois with its fine castle on a rock spur overlooking the river. Now we were free of clouds. The castle is located on a hill overlooking the town with a commanding view of the river in both directions and the bridge across it. A large wall surrounds the castle, emphasizing its importance. The pilot said there was enough space to house the townsfolk inside the walls in an emergency. More than the other locations we had viewed this morning, Blois gave the impression that this castle was built with the idea it would have to be defended.
Azay-le-Rideau was just a few more miles down river. I was prepared to like Azay-le-Rideau from pictures I had seen, but they did not prepare me for the jewel-like setting in a tiny tributary of the Loire, the Indre. Unlike the larger stand-alone counterparts we had seen earlier which dominated their surroundings, Azay-le-Rideau is small, just the right size for the setting, and blends into the willow-lined banks of the Indre. It belongs there. It exudes peace, class, and style; it is the Jackie Kennedy of châteaux. I remembered Balzac had described Azay as “a multi-faceted diamond in the setting of the Indre,” and we saw the diamond aspect when the sun glinted off the river. We circled around several times at different altitudes trying to get a balance of the château, the river, and the trees to capture the harmony it reflects; to put on film the impression I had in my mind.
The pilot waved cheerfully as we climbed to our cruising altitude. He was very proud of his châteaux, and he had been right, the trip had been a piece of cake, but it was a gift of unforgettable memories as well, hopefully now on film. The view of the châteaux from the air had given us a perspective as to why they were placed where they were, in a way that walking around on the ground could not. We had seen the design of the royal gardens as the makers intended. It also helped me to understand the historical perspective—what had gone on in these buildings. Bernard cupped his hand and shouted, “The portion of the river we are following was the path Joan of Arc took when she led the army in Chinon to victory over the British in Orleans several months later—about 100 years before these châteaux were constructed.”
We landed in Chartres without incident and repaired to the bar to have an opportunity to chat with our young pilot without shouting over the noise of the motor. He told us he was a university student and found it thrilling to study what had happened in these châteaux during the week and then on the weekend be able to view them from the perspective of a bird, something even the royal families had not been able to do. We headed back to Paris in the squat old Citröen. It had been a marvelous day, and we decided we much preferred the spontaneous reality of high adventure to the disciplined creation of fantasy in films.
Bob Bradfield directed Harvard’s program on the Amazon River, carried out research at Cambridge as a Guggenheim Fellow, was a clinical professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and a civil rights attorney. He has lived in many parts of the world and has now returned to his first love—travel writing.
If the rest of us go to Paris for romance, where do the Parisians go? Some go to one of the most beautiful country houses in the world: a 443-year-old château with lovers’ initials intertwined over the door.
Château d’Esclimont is only 37 miles southwest of Paris, next to a village you’ve probably never heard of—St-Symphorien-le-Château—off the main road to Chartres. But those directions are misleading. Esclimont is not on the way to or from anyplace. For two people who have a great deal to say to each other, it is a hidden place far from anywhere.
—Richard Reeves, “Château d’Esclimont,” Travel & Leisure
IRENE-MARIE SPENCER
Sacred Hill of the North
An artist becomes part of an eternal tapestry.
THE TOLLING OF THE BELLS OF SACRÉ-COEUR SERVED AS A DAILY reminder of the sacred aspects of Montmartre. Their heady, metal pandemonium blotted out all other sound, emptying everything from my head for the minutes of the tolling. The bells were both a mantra and a white-out. I was living at the foot of Sacré-Coeur, the sugar-coated triple-domed spectre of white, which rules one of the seven hills of Paris, where the spirits of generations of mystics and artists have all played a role in the creation of this place.
The quartier is diverse, ethnic, Arabic, decaying. It does not possess the modern aura of Montparnasse. On some streets just below Sacré-Coeur, it takes a good hard look to realize you are not walking the marketplaces of Tunisia or Egypt. Shop vendors stand outside, heckling you as you pass, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, beautiful, please come in, want to buy a suitcase, a watch? You name it. None of the trendy shops of Boulevard St-Germain or St-Michel here.
To go home, I got off at Métro stop Château Rouge. One long block up, past the mostly Tunisian open market which was there on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a block left, and two blocks up. My studio apartment was located on a long narrow passageway, Passage Cottin, at the foot of an interminable flight of decrepit cement steps frequented by stray cats. The building had a decidedly industrial appearance, very basic. And my one-room studio on the third floor had only one window, which looked out to a blind court, a square of walls and rooftops, windows which glowed strangely orange in the lavender-indigo twilight. I could, on occasion, see the moon and a few stars by craning my neck and looking straight up into the black square. There was a large vent fan on the wall perpendicular to mine, which turned ceaselessly around and around, throwing shadows across the court at a certain time of day. I had no kitchen, just a hotplate. And a bathroom with a very deep but short bathtub, in which I spent many hours soaking in an embryonic trance induced by sandalwood bath oil, in the aftermath of a freezing afternoon visiting art galleries with my portfolio. The primordial landscape of my tiny apartment at the foot of Sacré-Coeur was not drawn with visual elements, however. It was the tolling of the bell, La Savoyarde, the largest in France, I’m told, the bell of Sacré-Coeur. This bell was the landscape which flooded my body, my eyes, my soul. I began to live according to the tolling of this amazing bell, as a monk’s day is delineated with ethereal chiming reminders signifying a transition, such as the call to ve
spers. Inside, I felt this way about the sound of this bell. It had become a call to prayer.
One night walking in Montmartre, I felt a longing—I wanted to see the ghosts of Picasso and Apollinaire come strolling arm-in-arm around the corner from a no-longer existing Bateau Lavoir, or Toulouse-Lautrec and Aristide Bruant, smoking and chatting outside the Chat Noir.
The sky was a deep violet, and the windows were all yellow and orange lit salons, as if by gas lanterns, with people in them living out different Paris dreams.
I felt myself go inside those lives. I smelled the smoke of a wood fire. I walked past Erik Satie’s house. I thought about a “way” of living in Paris, a style which flows with the character of the city, and blends in continuously. G.I. Gurdjieff frequented the cafés of Montmartre. He could not have been blind to its charm, to the subtle sounds and sublime vision through the fog of a deserted Sacré-Coeur towering above the butte. Vestiges of the ancient pagan tradition were everywhere, if you looked through Paris eyes. I had met so many people here who directed me to new paths, and that’s what living in Montmartre seemed to be about. But just what was it about Montmartre? The history I began to look at revealed some new twists.
“You are born French, but become Parisian.” I never learnt who said this, but it is true. All foreign students soon become Parisians and navigate the turbulent waves of the great city to their advantage.
Travelers' Tales Paris Page 21
