10 Weeks in a Box - Day 13 - Part 2

Diane of Poitiers – Royal Groupie - 21/07/2007



Having left Chartres behind earlier in the day, a coffee stop in Anet turned into something else entirely, as we noticed a curiously mish-mashed Chateau. It was festooned with a plethora of different symbols, ranging from the hunting goddess Diana, to mathematical, gyroscopic and physics icons, sundials, clocks, and religious iconography.
Atop the entrance a relief of a reclining nude Diana was dwarfed by a large Stag surrounded by four hounds.
Intrigued, we paid our money, and in we went… It proved to be the house of Diane of Poitiers, who, at sixteen years of age, married a guy forty years her senior, the senechal of Normandy, Louis de Breze. Upon reaching her thirties she fancied a bit of new blood, and, obviously employing the method of starting at the top and working down, assumed the role of “friend” to the sixteen year old King Henry the Second.
Apparently he had numerous “friends” (I think they call them Groupies now) but Diane was his favourite, and he indulged her in some serious gift giving, this Chateau for example, he had built for her. Plainly, he had adored her since early childhood. I quote from Philippe Erlange’s Diane of Poitiers;
“He saw once more the unchangeable huntress, majestic, glorious. Timid, he hardly spoke to her, but from this moment she was his Lady, the Lady whom a paladin serves to death. He was eleven years, she, thirty one. "
The architect, Phillipe De l’ Orme, was fascinated with Maths Physics and the Sciences, and the chateau just drips with his input, all strangely interwoven with the rampant religion of the private chapel. Science and God, strange bedfellows indeed, but it seems Diane had her share of those…… Her “Double D” logo is simply everywhere, from carvings to crockery to floor tiles. She reached a ripe old age for the time, too, sixty-six, and then only succumbing to a fall from her horse. She was enshrined in the funerary chapel on the estate, but fast forward 200 years to the revolution and those jolly fellows defiled her tomb, where she then lay at rest between her daughters, and reburied what they hadn’t destroyed in the peasants graveyard in Anet. Her sarcophagus was used as a trough for pigswill.

Mercifully, prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the French had an attack of conscience and the tomb was rescued and rebuilt, and though the remains of this remarkable woman no longer rest here, one can feel a presence as you enter the chapel and gaze on her black marble sarcophagus. Perhaps the weight of history is a tangible force.
Heady with the historical delights of the day, we pointed the Boomobile Northwards once again, me at the wheel, Miki consulting the Motorhome Rest-stop guide, where she had found an interesting entry.
Apparently there was a rest stop in a small town called Cleres, about 40 k short of Dieppe, with free water, waste disposal AND electricity, it said. Scarcely able to believe it, we made for it anyway. As we drew nearer, we began laying bets on the number of motorhomes there. There were place for twelve, it said in the guide…I thought at least 7 would be there, and indeed that was the case. The amazing thing was, it really WAS free electricity, with four access points….and one of them was EMPTY!! I whipped the cable out faster than you could say “alternating current” and there we were, plugged in for the rest of the day and night. Bliss!



Text by Kev Moore
Drawing & Photos by Miki
Both on Planet Goodaboom

10 Weeks in a Box - Day 11

French Spaghetti Junction & A Waste of Bamboo - 19/07/2007


After a good night’s sleep we hit the road again, refreshed, only to be reduced to acute mental fatigue and despair when we arrived in the traffic system madness that is known as Tours. When I am confronted with design horrors such as this, I find myself imagining the board meeting where they first float the idea of a new traffic system. (I did a similar thing when I saw the aesthetic abortion that is the Renault Multiplas)
Picture the scene;

“So, Pierre, I ‘ave designed ze main street to spiral round a round a few times, culminating in a six lane catastrophe with no signs, so ze ‘apless motoriste has to take ze spleet second decision on their direction, and almost inevitably gets it wrong!”
The Director replies; “Bravo, Michel! I shall be recommending you for ze Nobel Transport prize! Your road systems are genial! Why, even I myself could not find my own home for three hours yesterday!”

It took us three times of asking just to get the damn Motorhome going parallel with the Loire….only the finding of further cheap diesel avoided our mental meltdown. Upon refuelling, we pulled in at the first opportunity to have a coffee.
We resolved to follow the Loire as long as possible and perhaps take in a Chateau. (God know there are so many along here, the French architects must have been having a “Buy one, get one free” promotion in the Sixteenth Century!)

Having escaped the murderous clutches of Les Rues de Tours, we came and went through Amboise, where we spied a glorious looking chateau, but the town seemed to be overrun with tourists (even one of those damnable trains) and we declined to stop, finally arriving in our final “Cha” for the time being, Chaumont, complete with its own Chateau. The Loire here spreads its banks into a wide flood plain which expands for about 500 meters from its shores, rising up to a gentle mound providing a fantastic natural parking place for Motorhomes. We pitched up here, along with a host of fellow travellers, amazed to find there were no prohibition signs, nor indeed, requests for payment. As I’m sure you’re coming to realise, we like that sort of thing.

Heading up to the Chateau that overlooks the river here, we were subjected to some Spinning wheel like devices constructed from bamboo, a quick twirl of which induces the contraption to emit an initially interesting, but ultimately insanity-inducing, “tune” of sorts. Pandas are dying of hunger for the sake of this so called art….. A personal view, and possibly not true, but, I think valid, nonetheless….

Cresting the hill, we got our first view of the Chateau, a beautifully constructed edifice, complete with drawbridge. Initially more like a Castle, its riverside walls were demolished to give a more impressive view of the Loire. Now that’s what I call seriously implementing open-plan idealism! Originally the site of a fortress to protect the town of Blois, it was razed to the ground by Louis XI in 1465. In that same year Pierre D’Ambrose began rebuilding the Chateau that stands today, the work being continued by his son and grandson and finally being completed in 1510.

Surviving the Revolution, it had a long and colourful history before finally being handed over to the State in 1938 by the ruined sugar heiress Marie-Charlotte Say. I have pondered this. How can you become a ruined sugar heiress? I mean, if you invented the pogo stick for example, one can understand your empire collapsing as the fad wore off, but sugar? It’s practically a staple, isn’t it? Did France have an epidemic of diabetes? After careful consideration, I have reached the conclusion that Madame Say was just bad with money.

All this is well and good, and I am ever aware of the weight of history that drips from the eaves of these grand old houses, but we had to pay 5.30 euros to have a quick shufti, and three-quarters of the place was closed!
Chateau, Schmateau!

Well, having done the Cha-cha, we spent a quiet night on the banks of the Loire (our bloody fridge doing its best to interrupt our slumber, deciding to shut down on a whim.) The Fridge, now nicknamed The Lunatic Fridge, would now begin to engage us in a battle of wills that was to last the entire journey…….




Text by Kev Moore
Drawing & Photos by Miki
Both on Planet Goodaboom