1071.

At Bordeaux in Gascony the sea rises about 40 braccia before its ebb, and the river there is filled with salt water for more than a hundred and fifty miles; and the vessels which are repaired there rest high and dry on a high hill above the sea at low tide. [Footnote 2:  This is obviously an exaggeration founded on inaccurate information.  Half of 150 miles would be nearer the mark.]

1072.

The Rhone issues from the lake of Geneva and flows first to the West and then to the South, with a course of 400 miles and pours its waters into the Mediterranean.

1073.

c d is the garden at Blois; a b is the conduit of Blois, made in France by Fra Giocondo, b c is what is wanting in the height of that conduit, c d is the height of the garden at Blois, e f is the siphon of the conduit, b c, e f, f g is where the siphon discharges into the river. [Footnote:  The tenor of this note (see lines 2 and 3) seems to me to indicate that this passage was not written in France, but was written from oral information.  We have no evidence as to when this note may have been written beyond the circumstance that Fra Giocondo the Veronese Architect left France not before the year 1505.  The greater part of the magnificent Chateau of Blois has now disappeared.  Whether this note was made for a special purpose is uncertain.  The original form and extent of the Chateau is shown in Androvet, Les plus excellents Bastiments de France, Paris MDCVII, and it may be observed that there is in the middle of the garden a Pavilion somewhat similar to that shown on Pl.  LXXXVIII No. 7.

See S. DE LA SAUSSAYE, Histoire du Chateau de Blois 4eme edition Blois et Paris p. 175:  En mariant sa fille ainee a Francois, comte d’Angouleme, Louis XII lui avait constitue en dot les comtes de Blois, d’Asti, de Coucy, de Montfort, d’Etampes et de Vertus.  Une ordonnance de Francois I. lui laissa en 1516 l’administration du comte de Blois.

Le roi fit commencer, dans la meme annee, les travaux de celle belle partie du chateau, connue sous le nom d’aile de Francois I, et dont nous avons donne la description au commencement de ce livre.  Nous trouvons en effet, dans les archives du Baron de Foursanvault, une piece qui en fixe parfaitement la date.  On y lit:  “Je, Baymon Philippeaux, commis par le Roy a tenir le compte et fair le payement des bastiments, ediffices et reparacions que le dit seigneur fait faire en son chastu de Blois, confesse avoir eu et receu ... la somme de trois mille livres tournois ... le cinquieme jour de juillet, l’an mil cinq cent et seize._ P. 24:  Les jardins avaient ete decores avec beaucoup de luxe par les differents possesseurs du chateau.  Il ne reste de tous les batiments qu’ils y eleverent que ceux des officiers charges de l’administration et de la culture des jardins, et un pavilion carre en pierre et en