The Golden-Bristled Boar: Last Ferocious Beast of the Forest

SEVEN: The Noble Domain

Chapter Seven The Noble Domain I first visited the Château de Chambord some twenty years ago during the most frigid winter we’d ever lived through in France. Built on flat land and surrounded by an enormous forestedparkwithinthelargerFor êtDomanialedeBoulogne,thechateau emerges suddenly in an open field, one astonishing building producing a dreamlike cityscape in winter silence. Integrating medieval and Renaissance architecture, the chateau was meant to evoke a utopian ideal, a model of a “celestial Jerusalem” or Constantinople. A medley of monumental turrets, elaborate chimneys resembling towers, conical and pitched roofs, large windows, ramparts, terraces, and staircases conspire to produce this hallucinatory effect. For all its splendor, Chambord served merely as a grandiose hunting lodge, and it remains a consummate symbol of European royal privilege and extravagance. And yet Chambord’s story over the centuries has been one largely of neglect and abandonment. Now, its true glory has never been greater than it is in the twenty-first century. Nearly 2 million people visit it annually. Near the entrance to the park, images of a deer and a wild boar in profile warn that large animals are en liberté. Each year, dozens of automobilists pay a price for taking this intelligence too lightly. On our first trip to Chambord, my mother, Mary, and I stayed at the Saint-Michel, a former dog kennel transformed into a two-story hotel. It might be hard to believe that a hotel with a good-sized restaurant would be fashioned from a dog kennel, but considering that the stables housed up to the noble domain • 59 1,200 horses, the kennel was consistent with Chambord’s preposterous dimensions. That first evening, I walked my mother’s golden retriever, Angel, across the bridge over the frozen Cosson River, which bisects the park, and then onto a path among the black trees. I was confident that large animals would emerge in these openings. Certainly wild boars were beginning their nocturnal stirrings and break cover, but no such luck. Even with the great density of animals on the domain, the only movement we would see was the swirl of snow. Ever since that first visit, I have regularly seized excuses to return to Chambord, mainly bringing friends. It is the largest of the Loire Valley chateaux and one of the most extravagant in the world, with 440 rooms,84staircases,and365fireplaces.Apparentlyhopingtobenearer his mistress, the Comtesse de Thoury, François I had the chateau constructed between 1519 and 1547, creating an architectural symbol of his own majestic stature. François I was so ambitious for his project that he even contemplated directing the Loire River to the chateau, allowing ships to pass its splendor. Paradoxically, as construction was getting under way, François I diverted royal power to Paris and the Île-de-France area, shifting focus away from the Loire Valley, where he had already contributed to the construction and renovation of a number of the chateaux. It also became clear that a residence of Chambord’s proportions was impractical , being too far from sufficient food and supply resources to support the enormous royal entourage and staff. FrançoisIpersonallylaidoutChambord’sfirstroyalhuntingground, ordering the acquisition of lands that included forests, marshes, ponds, thickets, meadows, and farms. These grounds would be dedicated to the conservation of the land itself and to safeguard the “red and black beasts” (as he referred to deer and boars) for the pleasure of hunting them. Several decades later, Charles V doubled the area and had a twentytwo -mile-long wall erected, encircling an area larger than the city of Paris. Such grounds for conserving game and ensuring aristocratic 60 • the golden-bristled boar hunting amusement were typically associated with sixteenth-century French chateaux, such as Fontainebleau, which Francois I vastly transformed and expanded, and Rambouillet, where the great hunter/ builder king died. A century after work started on Chambord, Louis XIII ordered the initial construction of a hunting lodge that would eventually become the vast Château de Versailles, its highly formal grounds meant to symbolize man’s “tyranny over nature.” With the Revolution and historical upheavals, all of these chateaux experienced the vagaries of neglect and revitalization. Just after World War II, the domain of the Château de Chambord was decreed the presidential hunting reserve. Besides serving the French president and various dignitaries for ceremonial hunts, the reserve was dedicated to animal conservation, experimentation in forest management, and environmental education...