Winged Wheels in France by Michael Myers Shoemaker

Author:Michael Myers Shoemaker [Shoemaker, Michael Myers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Travel
ISBN: 4064066138851
Google: 7GpBAAAAIAAJ
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

Pontbrillant, governor of Loches, who certainly knew all the secrets of the donjons found an iron door which, upon being forced open, led in to a long passage cut in the rock, which conducted to a chamber far under ground, where was seated upon a stone a gigantic man, holding his head in his hands. The admission of the air reduced him instantly to dust, and in like manner, there crumbled away a little coffer of wood which had enclosed some linen, very white and carefully folded. Who or what he had been was never known.

In the oubliette of the tower, is to be read an inscription which shows that the Revolution placed its seal upon Loches: "Without fear, we destroy the high walls, break the chains, and cause to disappear the tortures invented by the King, too weak to arrest a people moving to liberty.—1785"

Doubtless this fortress would repay weeks of research and yield up many a present unknown dungeon, each with its grizzly horror and tale of distress. Against modern artillery it would have little show, but in the Middle Ages it was almost impregnable.

The great donjon and inner sections surrounded by its immense wall, with many towers, is in its turn encompassed by a moat completely isolating the whole. The second line of fortifications established subsequently by Philip Augustus comprised also a moat "twenty-five metres in depth," and bastions flanked by round towers and "tours à bec."

On the top of the bastions which were a mile and a half in circuit was a road protected by double walls. One of its outer gates is called the "Gate of the Queen," because Maria de Medici entered there after her escape from Blois in 1619.

That there is so much of Loches standing to-day is probably due to the knowledge of the destroyers of 1793 that Louis, while he would hang a few of the people now and then, turned most of his attention to the upper classes. One was sure of good company if one went to the gibbet or to jail in those days of the fifteenth century.

Loches does not appear to have been inhabited often by royalty after the reign of Louis XII. when the usefulness of such fortresses passed away, but it stood in perfect condition until 1793, and what is left will endure while time lasts, an object of intense interest to all who behold it.

The clouds lower darker and darker as we move to leave this forbidding spot. The air is heavy as though laden with the sorrows of those who never left it, even after death; the winds sough through the ghostly trees, causing their branches to rattle against the walls of the great donjon like skeleton fingers,—and it is with a feeling of relief that we hear the outer portal clang behind us and know that we are outside. As I pause a moment, I can distinguish the sound of the foot-falls of my late guide, dying away fainter and fainter inside, and then silence deep and unbroken settles over the Château of Loches.

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