Amboise gains even more from the river than the other chateaux of the Loire.  The magnificent round tower that springs from the end of Charles VIII.’s facade completely commands the approaches of the bridge, and the extraordinary effect of lofty masonry, produced by building on the summit of an elevation and carrying the stone courses upward from the lower ground, is here seen at its best....

But Amboise has a history before the days of Charles VIII.  There was without doubt a Roman camp here, but the traditions of the ubiquitous Caesar must be received with caution.  The so-called “Greniers de Caesar,” strange, unexplained constructions caverned in the soft rock, are proved to be the work of a later age by that same indefatigable Abbe Chevalier to whom we have been already indebted for so much archeological research.  A possible explanation of them is contained in an old Latin history of the castle, which goes down to the death of Stephen of England.  According to this, the Romans had held Amboise from the days of Caesar till the reign of Diocletian; the Baugaredi or Bagaudee then put them to flight, but let the rest of the inhabitants remain who, “being afraid to live above ground, tunnelled beneath it, and made a great colony of subterranean dwellings in the holes they had dug out,” a custom apparently common in Touraine from the earliest times.  The Romans at any rate left unmistakable traces of their presence; many of their architectural remains still exist, and their fort is spoken of by Sulpicius Severus; but they can have built no bridge of alone, for in St. Gregory’s time there were only boats available for crossing the river.

Not till the fifteenth century did the castle become royal property, when it was confiscated by Charles VII. as a punishment for treacherous dealings with the invading English very similar to the treason discovered at Chenonceaux just before.  But beyond strengthening the fortification of the place this king did little for his new possession.

In a few years the castle is overshadowed by the cruel specter of Louis XI., whose memory has already spoiled several charming views for us.  It was to Amboise that the father of this unfilial prince was carried from Chinon on his way north, when wearied out by the annoyance caused by the Dauphin’s plots.  The castle had become a royal residence, and soon after the whole town turns out to meet the new king with a “morality-play made by Master Etienne for the joyous occasion of his arrival,” for Amboise was already famous for those dramatic performances always so dear to the French, and particularly to these citizens, in the old days at any rate.  There is no trace of such frivolities now in the sleepy little town....