Château de Chambord

The same day that we visited Blois we went to the Château de Chambord. It was by far my favorite château that we visited all weekend. However I did not take a lot of pictures because my camera was in the process of not wanting to live anymore. François I, Gaston d'Orléans, Louis XIV are just about the most famous people who lived in this castle. I'm pretty sure François I is my favorite Roi now.

When François was a mere 25 years old he began the construction of the grand castle of Chambord in 1519. This was only four years after his accentuation to the French throne in 1515. He succeeded his cousin Louis XII who died childless, a huge problem for the French Monarchs. Hence the Capetian Miracle (the actual ability to produce a lineage of male heirs that began with Hugh Capet in 987). Anyway after he became the king he ventured to do something his barren cousin could not; conquer Milan. Which he did and nearly single-handedly started the Renaissance in France. After his conquering of Milan he attracted many Italians to the French court.

One of those Italians was none other than Leonardo da Vinci, who was a great friend of François and who designed this beautiful stairway. The picture does it no justice. The stairway is a double helix with two completely independent stairways swirling around each other up the center of the castle. If two people going up the stairs at the same speed they would pass by the windows that are in the stairway at the same time. I was really impressed with it.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I found a door that led me to the terrace roof. The roof has miniature spires, stair turrets going skyward and intricately cupolas. Between the spires and turrets there are sculpted gables (portions of ornate walls).The skyline of the castle looks like and over crowded but wonderfully laid out chessboard.

The château had one major function; hunting chasser. Whether that be animals or women François enjoyed both immensely. To make Chambord the best hunting lodge it could be he personally supervised the making of a grand park around his castle enclosed by a great wall, the most extensive in all of France, (20 miles long and eight feet high). Semi wild boar and stags still wander around in his forest today. He also wished to divert the river Loire for his castle moat but that never panned out and he settled for the river Closson instead.

Hawking and hunting were the favorite pastime of the king and his court. There were around 500 falcons in the king's possession. In the morning he would ride out and prepare a feast while his servants called 'beaters' would select a red deer to hunt. He would then chase, either on horse back or on foot, after the poor beast until he caught it. I can only imagine he did the same with women. The women who weren't allowed to be with the hunting party would watch the hunt from the top of the terraced roof.

 

François was king during an interesting time in history. He met many interesting people including Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Quint of the Holy Roman Empire whom by the way he had a huge rivalry with and challenged to single combat on many occasions, Jacques Cartier who he sent off to the new world to explore the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, and Sulleyman the Magnificent of the Ottomans, whom he made an alliance with.

 Unfortunately for François, another very famous person, whom he did not meet, was active during this time; Martin Luther. Initially, François thought that the Protestant movement would be good for him, as it threatened the power of Charles Quint. But, like most kings, when Protestant movements started in his kingdom he saw them as a threat to his power. He ordered Protestants to be killed in Paris and burned and tortured those who he thought threatened his crown. None however at Chambord, so the castle, unlike Blois remained relatively bloodless.

 

François I's emblem of the crowned salamander, sometimes accompanied with a crowned F was pictured over 700 times in the Château, on walls, on ceilings, on doors, and even on some floorboards. The salamander symbolizes patronage of the good along with destruction of the bad. That was certainly true during his reign. It was François who bought the Mona Lisa from Leonardo and it was also he who commissioned works by Benvenuto Cellini (he's great if you don't know his work you should really look it up.) Also during his reign he destroyed things he thought were bad, like the Protestants at the Massacre of Mérindol. 

However François had his good points. He was a man that loved art and literature and, although he never studied humanism, he was more influenced it by any French king before him. Perhaps the reason I like him so much is his Ordnance of Montpellier of 1537 that stated that every book that was sold in France had to deliver a copy to his library. That is a good law.