There are no windows,no apertures,and today no battlements nor roofs.These accessories were removed by Henry III.,so that,in spite of its grimness and blackness,the place has not even the interest of looking like a prison;it being,as I supposed,the essence of a prison not to be open to the sky.The only features of the enormous structure are the black,sombre stretches and protrusions of wall,the effect of which,on so large a scale,is strange and striking.Begun by Philip Augustus,and terminated by St.Louis,the Chateau d'Angers has of course a great deal of history.
The luckless Fouquet,the extravagant minister of finance of Louis XIV.,whose fall from the heights of grandeur was so sudden and complete,was confined here in 1661,just after his arrest,which had taken place at Nantes.Here,also,Huguenots and Vendeans have suffered effective captivity.
I walked round the parapet which protects the outer edge of the moat (it is all up hill,and the moat deepens and deepens),till I came to the entrance which faces the town,and which is as bare and strong as the rest.The concierge took me into the court;but there was nothing to see.The place is used as a magazine of ammunition,and the yard contains a multitude of ugly buildings.The only thing to do is to walk round the bastions for the view;but at the moment of my visit the weather was thick,and the bastions began and ended with themselves.So Icame out and took another look at the big,black exterior,buttressed with whiteribbed towers,and perceived that a desperate sketcher might extract a picture from it,especially if he were to bring in,as they say,the little black bronze statue of the good King Rene (a weak production of David d'Angers),which,standing within sight,ornaments the melancholy faubourg.He would do much better,however,with the very striking old timbered house (I suppose of the fifteenth century)which is called the Maison d'Adam,and is easily the first specimen at Angers of the domestic architecture of the past.This admirable house,in the centre of the town,gabled,elaborately timbered,and much restored,is a really imposing monument.The basement is occupied by a linendraper,who flourishes under the auspicious sign of the Mere de Famille;and above his shop the tall front rises in five overhanging stories.As the house occupies the angle of a little place,this front is double,and the black beams and wooden supports,displayed over a large surface and carved and interlaced,have a high picturesqueness.The Maison d'Adam is quite in the grand style,and I am sorry to say I failed to learn what history attaches to its name.If I spoke just above of the cathedral as "moderate,"I suppose Ishould beg its pardon;for this serious charge was probably prompted by the fact that it consists only of a nave,without side aisles.A little reflection now convinces me that such a form is a distinction;and,indeed,I find it mentioned,rather inconsistently,in my notebook,a little further on,as "extremely simple and grand."The nave is spoken of in the same volume as "big,serious,and Gothic,"though the choir and transepts are noted as very shallow.But it is not denied that the air of the whole thing is original and striking;and it would therefore appear,after all,that the cathedral of Angers,built during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,is a sufficiently honorable church;the more that its high west front,adorned with a very primitive Gothic portal,supports two elegant tapering spires,between which,unfortunately,an ugly modern pavilion has been inserted.
I remember nothing else at Angers but the curious old Cafe Serin,where,after I had had my dinner at the inn,I went and waited for the train which,at nine o'clock in the evening,was to convey me,in a couple of hours,to Nantes,an establishment remarkable for its great size and its air of tarnished splendor,its brown gilding and smoky frescos,as also for the fact that it was hidden away on the second floor of an unassuming house in an unilluminated street.It hardly seemed a place where you would drop in;but when once you had found it,it presented itself,with the cathedral,the castle,and the Maison d'Adam,as one of the historical monuments of Angers.
