The gardens were reached from the chateau through external and internal galleries, the most important of which was called the “Galerie des Cerfs” on account of its decoration.  This gallery led to the magnificent staircase which, no doubt, inspired the famous double staircase of Chambord.  It led, from floor to floor, to all the apartments of the castle.

Though La Fontaine preferred the chateau of Francois I. to that of Louis XII., perhaps the naivete of that of the good king will give true artists more pleasure, while at the same time they admire the magnificent structure of the knightly king.  The elegance of the two staircases which are placed at each end of the chateau of Louis XII., the delicate carving and sculpture, so original in design, which abound everywhere, the remains of which, though time has done its worst, still charm the antiquary, all, even to the semi-cloistral distribution of the apartments, reveals a great simplicity of manners.  Evidently, the court did not yet exist; it had not developed, as it did under Francois I. and Catherine de’ Medici, to the great detriment of feudal customs.  As we admire the galleries, or most of them, the capitals of the columns, and certain figurines of exquisite delicacy, it is impossible not to imagine that Michel Columb, that great sculptor, the Michel-Angelo of Brittany, passed that way for the pleasure of Queen Anne, whom he afterwards immortalized on the tomb of her father, the last duke of Brittany.

Whatever La Fontaine may choose to say about the “little galleries” and the “little ornamentations,” nothing can be more grandiose than the dwelling of the splendid Francois.  Thanks to I know not what indifference, to forgetfulness perhaps, the apartments occupied by Catherine de’ Medici and her son Francois II. present to us to-day the leading features of that time.  The historian can there restore the tragic scenes of the drama of the Reformation,—­a drama in which the dual struggle of the Guises and of the Bourbons against the Valois was a series of most complicated acts, the plot of which was here unravelled.

The chateau of Francois I. completely crushes the artless habitation of Louis XII. by its imposing masses.  On the side of the gardens, that is, toward the modern place des Jesuites, the castle presents an elevation nearly double that which it shows on the side of the courtyard.  The ground-floor on this side forms the second floor on the side of the gardens, where are placed the celebrated galleries.  Thus the first floor above the ground-floor toward the courtyard (where Queen Catherine was lodged) is the third floor on the garden side, and the king’s apartments were four storeys above the garden, which at the time of which we write was separated from the base of the castle by a deep moat.  The chateau, already colossal as viewed from the courtyard, appears gigantic when seen from below, as La Fontaine saw it.  He mentions particularly that he did not enter either the courtyard or the apartments, and it is to be remarked that from the place des Jesuites all the details seem small.  The balconies on which the courtiers promenaded; the galleries, marvellously executed; the sculptured windows, whose embrasures are so deep as to form boudoirs —­for which indeed they served—­resemble at that great height the fantastic decorations which scene-painters give to a fairy palace at the opera.