Blois Things to Do

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The Royal Château de Blois is located in the Loir-et-Cher département in the Loire Valley. It is in the centre of the modern city of Blois.

It consists of a number of buildings built between the 13th and 17th centuries. These are centred around a main courtyard.

One of these was the home of the famous French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (December 6, 1805 – June 13, 1871). He has the honour of being the father of modern conjuring and is thought to be the inspiration for Harry Houdini.

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“It is not a woman, it is monarchy itself that has died!”
— Jacques Auguste de Thou (1553-1617) French historian, his exclamation when he heard of the death of Catherine de’Medici at Château Royal de Blois on 5.January.1589

There are some women who have a long-lasting impact on human behavior. Catherine de’Medici, Queen of France was one of those women. Here is how her influence is felt even today.

In the 16th century the Medici family was among the most powerful in the world. Their banking empire stretched across Europe. This wealthy clan ruled Florence, and later Tuscany, for several hundred years. They were great patrons the arts; the family produced three popes; and they married into enough European royal houses to ensure their lasting influence. This included the 1533 betrothal of 14-year old Catherine de’Medici to France’s Henri, duc d’Orleans. He would become the next king, Henri II, and Catherine would be his Queen.

Feelings of insecurity overwhelmed the diminutive Catherine as she prepared to face the dazzling French Court. For help she turned to a clever Florentine artisan. She expressed her fear of disgracing herself and her family unless she impressed the Court at her debut ball. Her confidant was her cobbler!

What he created for this tentative teen-aged girl would captivate the entire Court of Catherine’s father-in-law, François I: a silk shoe with a four-inch heel. For Catherine, he had concocted something that gave her an allure, but also gave her the physical stature she wished for.

High-heeled shoes quickly caught on with fashion-conscious women, as well as men, of the French Court; their popularity spread among the nobility throughout Europe. Both men and women continued wearing heels throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The French Revolution saw to it that wearing heels would decline in France because it was associated with the aristocracy. Throughout the first half of the 1800s, flat shoes were worn by both men and women; but the high heel resurfaced later in the century, almost exclusively for women. Thus, because of her insecurities, Catherine de’Medici helped women through the centuries gain some self-confidence by way of a little extra height.

These grand fireplaces, with their polychromed and ornately carved royal emblems, were refurbished during castle renovations of the 19th century by Félix Duban, who took his inspiration from the royal emblems depicted in the Book of Hours of Louis XII’s queen, Anne, duchesse de Bretagne. Those royal emblems include the porcupine of Louis XII (see photo #5) and the ermine of Anne de Bretagne (see photos #1 & #2).

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“The Regency had retired to Blois. … The Ministers, the members of the Regency, Napoleon’s brothers, his wife and son arrived at Blois in disorder, swept away by the debacle: wagons, baggage-vans, carriages, everything was there; even the royal coaches.”
— from “Mémoires d’outre-tombe” by François-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)

In March 1814 as the Allied Forces arrayed against Napoléon rushed toward Paris to take the man and his capital, his second wife Marie-Louise (1791-1847), empress of the French, took her Regency Government to Blois. Leading a skeletal government, the empress resembled a fugitive rather than a sovereign, who was protecting a sovereign-in-waiting, Napoléon II, King of Rome.

Famous people born in Blois include Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), scientist, clockmaker and writer. He invented several electric clockworks which he named, such as the Horloge-Mère (Mother-Clockwork) and the Pendule Mystérieuse (Mysterious Clock), as well as Auguste Poulain, founder of the chocolate factory Poulain in 1848.

During our July 2008 visit, in front of the Gaston d’Orléans Wing, a group of costumed actors/musicians entertained the crowd in the castle’s courtyard.

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“My third day’s journey brought me to the ancient city of Blois, the chief town of the department of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated for the purity with which even the lower classes of its inhabitants speak their native tongue.”
— from “Outre-Mer,” 1835, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is thought that Colin Biart, a master mason born in Amboise in 1460, was the architect who built the Louis XII Wing of Château Royal de Blois. In 1500 Biart also oversaw construction on the Notre Dame Bridge in Paris and, later, was part of the team that worked on the cathedral at Bourges.

The ground level open gallery is composed of alternating pillars; some are square and turned on at a 45° angle and carved with decorative candelabrum; the others are round and decorated with the royal emblems, fleur-de-lys, for Louis XII, and ermine pelts, for Anne de Britagne (see photos #2 & #3). The candelabrum carved details represent a tentative use of Italian Renaissance decoration, which took its inspiration from Antiquity.

Brick and stone structures were still fashionable at the end of the 15th century in France. I like this combination of materials; it gains its warmth from the brick and its grandeur from the stone. Alternating brick and stone are used in the vaulting of the Louis XII Wing’s staircase (see photos #4 & #5).

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“Blois, among all the other cities of the Loire, is the favorite with the tourist. Here one first meets a great chateau of state; and certainly the Château de Blois lives in one’s memory more than any other chateau in France.”
— from “Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine” 1908, by Francis Miltoun

Tastes may have changed since Mr. Miltoun wrote his book in 1908. If this town and its castle are popular with tourists they were not visiting the day we did. Few were tourists at the château; that was a welcome relief from the crushing crowds at Château de Chenonceau.

The town of Saint-Calais takes its name from a French hermit Calais, who was the founder of the monastery of Anisole. King Childebert I granted him land, after a forest encounter while the king was hunting.

La chapelle de Saint-Calais was established by monks in the Middle Ages when the castle was still in the hands of le comte de Blois. These monks had fled Saint-Calais, a monastic market town not far from Blois to the northwest, bringing along the relics of their sainted founder.

La chapelle de Saint-Calais was rebuilt by Louis XII. In November 1508 it was consecrated by Antoine Dufour, bishop of Marseille and Queen Anne’s confessor.

Forming the end point of the southern arm of the Louis XII Wing, the present-day facade was created entirely by Félix Duban in the 19th century, when this French architect carried out extensive renovations to the whole castle. The chapel’s nave was destroyed when Gaston d’Orléans’s Wing was built; only the choir remains.

Above the entry door, Duban has recreated the L, for Louis XII, the A, for Anne de Britagne (see photos #3 & #4). Next to the L is a shield with the royal fleur-de-lys; and next to the A is a shield with ermine tails, Anne’s emblem.

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“It is true that for a long time to come the castle of Blois was neither very safe nor very quiet; but its dangers came from within, from the evil passions of its inhabitants, and not from siege or invasion.”
— from “A Little Tour In France” 1884 by Henry James

Henri III attended a Mass of Thanksgiving at chapelle de St-Calais following the assassination of the duc de Guise, the most notorious political act in the castle’s history. This is one of those dangers arising from “evil passions” that Mr. James speaks about.

The interior decoration was restored by Félix Duban too, but bombardment during the Second World War damaged it. Uncertainties plagued Duban during his reconstruction; he gave up any attempt to recreate the chapel as it had been when Louis XI and Anne de Bretagne built the chapel in the early 1500s.

Claude de France, queen consort to François I, was laid to rest in 1524 in this chapel in, build by her parents. There are claims of miracles to have taken place around her body!

The walls, painted in bright colors, were skimmed in 1912. The vaulted ceiling (see photo #2) was painted blue and gilded in 1990. The stained glass window by Claudius Lavergne (1815-1887) did not stand up to the bombardments of 1944, and was replaced by that of Max Ingrand in 1957. Ingrand’s window (see photo #3) tells the principal historic tales of the château, including the importance of the castle to Jeanne d’Arc on 25.April.1429; here she organized her army, which would go on to liberate Orléans from the English.

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“Oh, wretched man! What has he done? Pray for him; I see him rushing towards his ruin.”
— Catherine de’Medici (1519-1589), remarks to a priest on Christmas Day 1588 about the orders of her son, Henri III, to have the duc de Guise assassinated at Château Royal de Blois

A SAVING GRACE Catherine de’Medici was the wife of France’s king Henri II, son of François I, whose Renaissance wing at Blois is quite beautiful. She was also the mother of France’s next three kings, François II, Charles IX and Henri III. Some have said that she was a dominating force in the lives of these three men. She served as Regent until the ten-year-old Charles reached his majority.

What positive contribution to society was made by a woman whom history tells us had a penchant for scheming against and poisoning those who got in her way? Here’s my suggestion.

Today what the world knows as French haute cuisine began in Italy, and Catherine de’Medici brought it to France from her native Florence. A group of capi cuochi, head cooks, that accompanied her helped to comfort the plump 14-year old princess with a taste of home. The delicacies included sorbets, macaroons, frangipani tarts, and zabaglione, a light custard (little wonder she was plump!). Catherine introduced eatables never before tasted in France, such as broccoli, green beans, peas, truffles, artichokes, and melons. The French were taught to prepare delicate sauces for meats instead of rubbing them with strong dry spices, a common Mediaeval practice.

The Caterina de’Medici Gastronomic Society, a culinary group in the USA, praises her for bringing Italian cooking, the most sophisticated of the time, to France. At its headquarters in Rhinebeck, NY, the Culinary Institute of America named one of its restaurants, Ristorante Caterina de’Medici, for this great Italian woman.

These grand fireplaces, with their polychromed and ornately carved royal emblems, were recreated during castle renovations of the 19th century by Félix Duban, who took his inspiration from the royal emblems depicted in the Book of Hours of Louis XII’s queen, Anne, duchesse de Bretagne. Those royal emblems include the porcupine of Louis XII, the salamander of François I and the ermine of Anne de Bretagne.

The Cathédrale Saint-Louis was reconstructed in gothic style towards the end of the 17th century.
It is flanked by a tall Renaissance tower with a domed top. The cryp dates from the 10th=11th centuries.