Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its chateau, but the little village itself is charming.  The houses of the village are not very new, nor very old, but the one long street is most attractive throughout its length, and the whole atmosphere of the place, from September to December, is odorous with the perfume of red and purple grapes.  The vintage is not equal to that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor of Chinon, nor Saumur, but “vin du pays” of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, is not to be despised.

Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train from Tours; others drive over from Amboise, and yet others come by bicycle or automobile.  They are not as yet so numerous as might be expected, and accordingly here, as elsewhere in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting the chateau and its park.

If you do not hurry off at once to worship at the abode of the fascinating Diane, one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Francois I. and his son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the Hotel du Bon Laboureur, tho most likely it will be a solitary one, and you will be put to bed in a great chamber over-looking the park, through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the chateau, and you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it flows below the walls.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, like Francois I., called Chenonceaux a beautiful place, and he was right.  It is all of that and more.  Here one comes into direct contact with an atmosphere which, if not feudal, or even medieval, is at least that of several hundred years ago.

Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the middle of the rapidly running Cher, a dozen miles or more above where that stream enters the Loire.  As a matter of fact, the chateau practically bridges the river, which flows under its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on either side, besides filling the moat with water.  The general effect is as if the building were set in the midst of a stream and formed a sort of island chateau.  Round about is a gentle meadow and a great park, which gives to this turreted, architectural gem of Touraine a setting equalled by no other chateau.

What the chateau was in former days we can readily imagine, for nothing is changed as to the general disposition.  Boats came to the water-gate, as they still might do if such boats still existed, in true, pictorial legendary fashion.  To-day the present occupant has placed a curiosity on the ornamental waters in the shape of a gondola.  It is out of keeping with the grand fabric of the chateau, and it is a pity that it does not cast itself adrift some night.  What has become of the gondolier, who was imported to keep the craft company, nobody seems to know.  He is certainly not in evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself into a groom or a chauffeur.

The chateau of Chenonceaux is not a very ample structure; not so ample as most photographs would make it appear.  It is not tiny, but still it has not the magnificent proportions of Blois, of Chambord, or even of Langeais.  It was more a habitation than it was a fortress, a country house, as indeed it virtually became when the Connetable de Montmorency took possession of the structure in the name of the king, when its builder, Thomas Bohier, the none too astute minister of finance in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs.