Henry IV.'s additions are also obvious, and more modern _improvements_ have considerably altered its original appearance.
The entrance is comparatively modern and ugly; which is the more to be regretted, since, from this spot the Maire Guiton--the great hero of La Rochelle, spoke to the people when obliged to consent to the capitulation of the town.

However, the site itself cannot but be interesting; and all that surrounds it remains as it must have been at his time.

The singular gallery, and its ornamented roof in compartments, with a thousand interlaced letters and devices, as mysterious as those at the house of Jacques Coeur, at Bourges, the facade, and statues, and foliage, and ornamental mouldings, the curious windows, the ancient screen, the outer walls, and _tourelles_ of the thirteenth, and battlements and door-ways of the fifteenth century, all are singular and attractive.
It was, probably, in this palace that the accident happened to Charles the Seventh, _Le Bien Servi_, told with so much characteristic simplicity by Mezeray.
When the news of the death of his father, the unfortunate Charles the Sixth, was brought to the Dauphin, says the Chronicler, "he was then at Espally, in Auvergne, a castle belonging to the Bishop of Le Puy.

He wore mourning only one day; and the next morning changed this sad colour to scarlet.

In this habit he went to hear mass in the chapel of the castle; as soon as it was over he ordered the banner of France to be displayed, at the sight of which all present cried out, _Vive le Roy_! And from that time he was recognised and called king by all good Frenchmen.