Darberg, Auditor of the
Council of State, and without whose leave no admittance could be
obtained. Twenty-five horse gendarmes regularly mounted guard about
the castle, and every person found in its vicinity without a regular
passport, was confined and strictly examined.
At a small distance, is the residence of Marshal Victor, Duc de
Belluno, whom I met walking in the grounds. I was very civilly
permitted to enter, on sending a message desiring permission, as a
traveller, to see it. It stands at the entrance of the village of
Menard, and was once the favourite residence of Madame de Pompadour,
the mistress of Louis XV. The river Loire winds beautifully beneath
the terrace. The grounds are of a vast extent, and tastefully laid
out. Over the entrance, the workmen were then placing the arms of the
Marshal, finely executed in stone.
The country is thickly enclosed on each side of the river, varied with
hill and dale, clothed with vineyards. The villages and small towns
along the banks, as far as Orleans, are numerous and invariably
picturesque. Nothing can be more beautiful than the natural festoons
which are formed by the long shoots of the vines as they project over
the road. The peasants and the vignerons live in the midst of their
vineyards; their dwellings are excavations in chalky strata of the
solid rock, which afford them warm and dry habitations; some of them
were so covered with the vines that the entrance was scarcely visible,
and the comparison of them to so many birds nests is not badly
imagined.
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