le sketch du jour: Château de Chenonceu. June 20, 1980.

Chenonceau. Mistress booted and the party begins.

I’ll start here which is where I began in my sketchbook.

Upon the death of François I in 1547, Henry II offered the chåteau as a gift to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. She constructed the arched bridge, connecting the chåteau to the opposite bank. The view of the bridge is the most famous and worth looking up.

These are my notes:

“Mistress of Henry II [Diane de Poitiers] lived with Catherine de Medici and Henry II in chåteau. She was thrown out at [the] death of her husband.  She added on to Chenonceau (lived there w/ son) and they had wild parties there. Catherine was very masculine & domineering, her son was homosexual. Parties were wild orgies with topless women in boats, etc.”

Garden laid out geometrically. (typically French-nature conquered by reason & man).

“Va faire cuire on œuf.”= up yours

We picniced again for lunch and headed to Loches.  There was a chateau there, but we didn’t go in as a group and I just sketched.  Two little girls came up to me later and (on the street) asked if they could see my drawing.  They giggled alot (they were French-about high school age) and asked me lots of questions.  They were really cute. “

I don’t know how the French profanity happened to slip into the notes.

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