What grief for those who love the great historic
monuments of our country to know that soon those eloquent stones will
be lost to sight and knowledge, like others at the corner of the rue
de la Vieille-Pelleterie; possibly, they will exist nowhere but in
these pages.
It is necessary to remark that, in order to watch the royal court more
closely, the Guises, although they had a house of their own in the
town, which still exists, had obtained permission to occupy the upper
floor above the apartments of Louis XII., the same lodgings afterwards
occupied by the Duchesse de Nemours under the roof.
The young king, Francois II., and his bride Mary Stuart, in love with
each other like the girl and boy of sixteen which they were, had been
abruptly transferred, in the depth of winter, from the chateau de
Saint-Germain, which the Duc de Guise thought liable to attack, to the
fortress which the chateau of Blois then was, being isolated and
protected on three sides by precipices, and admirably defended as to
its entrance. The Guises, uncles of Mary Stuart, had powerful reasons
for not residing in Paris and for keeping the king and court in a
castle the whole exterior surroundings of which could easily be
watched and defended.
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