In
the state apartments the furniture was of princely richness, the whole
domains of art and industry having been ransacked to provide their most
splendid belongings. Exteriorly the building presented an equally ornate
appearance, glass, gold-work, and ornamental hangings quite concealing
the carpentry, so that "every quarter of it, even the least, was a
habitation fit for a prince."
To what end, in the now far-away year of 1520, and in that rural
locality, under the shadows of a castle which had fallen into
irredeemable ruin, had such an edifice been built,--one which only the
revenues of a kingdom, in that day, could have erected? Its purpose was
a worthy one. France and England, whose intercourse for centuries had
been one of war, were now to meet in peace. Crecy and Agincourt had been
the last meeting-places of the monarchs of these kingdoms, and death and
ruin had followed their encounters. Now Henry the Eighth of England and
Francis the First of France were to meet in peace and amity, spending
the revenues of their kingdoms not for armor of linked mail and
death-dealing weapons, but for splendid attire and richest pageantry, in
token of friendship and fraternity between the two realms.
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