Burgundy: The Splendid Duchy

rain. They did not appear. The porters were all busy with a cattle-truck that they were push

ke a wood in a winter gale. A mild white head was thrust over the lime-was

eep travellers w

is because of the cow,

mbling truck; "but in any case, are we of less impo

lose four hundred francs; but, had I known, I would have brough

two bridges crossing the tributary streams that wind among the whispering poplars, beneath which, all day long, the kneeling blanchisseuses have been pounding mercilessly their unoffending washing. Continuing our walk between the dusty green hedges of the lane meandering through the fertile plain of Autun, we saw, rising before us, a building

les about its base, a huge, weird, Caliban-like thing, shattered, yet still massive, pierced with great tortured openings, and many smaller ones above. The golden light of evening, gilding it, casts in

as ever worshipped there-is not the only striking object in the landscape. Away to the north-west, behind the tossing boughs of the poplars, the setting sun is a

prosperity-the modern city of Autun, seated proudly upon the lower slopes of a mountain throne, and, h

through Southern Burgundy, is that here we have, before our very eyes, visible symbols of four c

pon Mont Beuvray; "Bibracte, oppido Aeduorum longe maximo et copiosissimo";[10] and tell

ighbouring races, among which the strongest were, perhaps, their enemies and rivals, the Arverni of mountainous Auvergne. For very many years before the Roman invasion, there had been intercommunication-often of an aggressive nature-between the Aedui and the Italian races; but it was not until the year 123 B.C. that anything in the nature of a direct alliance was formed between the former and the Romans, although Tacitus and Cicero both allude to them as "Brothers of the Roman

of knowledge, riches, birth-for all were of noble blood-they exercised almost despotic power. They were the theologians, philosophers, jurists, astronomers, physicians, and moralists of their times; they were

y the gods. Still subject to those gods, the people would fear the priest not less than the magistrate. Kings

efore the senate. His embassy seems to have been of little apparen

by some Aeduen troops, who now fought for the first time beneath the eagle, met the invaders on the banks of the Sa?ne,[12] and annihilated them in the first great battle of his life. Henceforth, for a ti

re being stirred to revolt. Foremost among the discontents, was the leader of the Aeduen cavalry, Dumnorix, brother to Divitiacus, though his opposite in character. The trusted ally of C?sar, and the friend of Cicero, Divitiacus the Druid accepted philosophically the Roman dominion; his brother, turbulent, adventurous, restless-a Prince Rupert of his

a free citizen of a free country."[14] One is tempted to wish that the people of Autun had raised in the "Pla

?sar, writing from Rome, protested vigorously against the ingratitude of the Aedui. He reminded them of their grievous plight before his legions freed them; of their decimated armies, of their ravaged land, of t

him only a subordinate command. His refusal of any command, other than the highest, was followed by an assembly general of the Gallic tribes at Bibracte, when, on the matter being put to the vote, the great meeting, with o

Bibracte, the oppidum on the wooded hills, will echo no more to the shouts of Gauls acclaiming their general or their victory. Deserted, probably in the first years of the Christian era, silence r

t Autun was built upon virgin soil, and not upon the site of a Gallic city, which would inevitably have yielded tangible proof of its existence in Gaulish coins and other remains. The proportion of Gaulish to Roman coins found in Autun, up to the present time, is about one to fifteen hundred.[16] Further evidence is offered by the fact that the city conforms to the requirements mentioned by Vitruvius at the time of its erection-about fifteen to ten years before the Christian era-that,

tun, which comprises a medi?val and a modern town within the Enceinte of a

, grey stone lifting its head over the village roofs of Couhard. The next morning found us descending the Rue St. Pancras, into the hollow that lies between the village and the town. As we climbed the ascent, the rising sun gave us allu

Cathedral and

son, that bubbles merrily along the side of the hill. It is a dilapidated, picturesque, tangled village, given over to ducks

irty way to death"-when, suddenly, we made a discovery. Couhard is not conservative. On the contrary, it is advanced. Before us, on a placar

m the hillside, in the midst of a little tangled island-the dust bin of the village

osed, or of the mysterious, human-inhuman figure, that the mad sculptor, in Andreev's story, hewed out,

rmed the quarry from which the peasants of Couhard built and maintained their village. On the south-east side of the pyramid are two holes, bored about the year 1640, with the intention of discovering whether the monument was hollow within.[19] It is now believed to be solid throughout. The

ition borne out, not only by the shape of the monument, but by its position at the summit of the Champs Des

he ladies visited the Churches and Convents, which, to them, were the superior attraction, the merry monarch did the round of the Roman monuments, and afterwards restored his jaded faculties with a day's hunting in the neighbouring forest of Planoise, where he lost hims

on that summer day, nearly four hundred years ago. He saw the towers, spires, and gables of a medi?val city-one might almost say, of two medi?val cities-built upon the ruins of the much larger Roman town, the silent immensity of whose shattered walls, palaces, temples, and amphithe

estoient a cha

ssez presque y do

palais furen

eaux pour trainer

who, about the year 269, after a siege of seven months, sacked Augustodunum, leaving it in such a pitiable condition that the emperor Constantine, when he came from Rome in 310, could not restrain his tears at the sight of the wasted coun

the Capitol, ran in a straight line to the Porte d'Arroux, nearly in the direction of the Temple of Janus, still faintly visible to-day, far away on the plain beyond the river. This Voie d'Agrippa roughly bisected the Roman town, all the streets of which were laid out, like those of a modern American City, either parallel or at right angles to that axial line. Augustodunum, though it lacked the lovely gables, lofty spires, and pleasant disorder o

led, palace roofs above the sombre firs, and line of bronzed fortresses, walls, and leaf-clad towers that mark the Roman enc

that view, and the "chasse aux poules" or chicken hunt-the one f

interesting as any in France, known to me, excepting those of Nimes, Orange, and Arles; while, around two of them-the Temple of Ja

Fort Détaché, built outside the ramparts, for the purpose of barring the passage of the river, and commanding the plain.[25] M. de Fontenay, on the other hand, asserts,-and I ventu

The purpose of those holes, was, undoubtedly, to carry the roof timbers of a peristyle, or outer gallery, whose foundations have been unearthed at a distance of between five and six metres from the main wall,-a discovery which seems at once to demolish M. le Duc's theory of entry by ladder. The design of the peristyle is not known, nor the order of its architec

founding of Autun. Concerning its popular name, "Temple o

843, another Burgundian writer reluctantly announced the truth,-that Gênetoie did not mean "Temple of Janus," but simply, "Champ des balkins" or "genets," the broom known to all Englishmen as the device of our Plantagenet kings. So much for the Temple of Janus

esan?on, Bourbon L'Archambaud, and Lyons respectively. The first and last of these was known also as the "Voie d'Agrippa." The gates, taking them in the same order, are

of the fallen monument yet contrast strongly with the squalor of its setting. It is backed, on either side, by a medley of disreputable villas, and dilapidated, half-timbered cott

central arches is grooved for a portcullis, which some authorities, including M. Viollet le Duc, think were not added till the middle ages,[27] a supposition that M. de Fontenay seems eff

he centre of which was the Cathedral of St. Lazare, and the Marchaux-still known by the same name,-in the lower part of the town, north of th

ery, serving the double purpose of ornament and defence, could be closed at any time by wooden shutters.[28] The gate was flanked on either side by two rectangular towers (corps de garde) with semi-circular aps

acteristics of the style,-the use of the fluted pilasters, which, for some reason or other, seem to have struck the fancy of the architects of this part of France. We shall see this a

The lower part of the work is quite plain. The archivolts, the entablature, including the architrave and the frieze, show little ornament; the cornice, however, is richly decorat

It is less picturesquely situate, and, though very similar, is distinctly inferior to its neighbour in design and finish. The central arches are lower, and heavier, while the gallery lacks t

ls, of a composite, semi-ionic order, appear to be too narrow for their pilasters-not too wide, as stated by M. de Fontenay, and also by M. Déchelette in his careful little guide to Autun. The Porte St.

escape from destruction to its shape, which, coinciding with that of a typical Romanesque chapel, tempted certain ecclesiastics of the middle ages, to dedicate it to St. André, as a place for Christian worship.[31] These flanki

fth centuries,[32] the former to the reign of Vespasian (a.d. 69-79).[33] Strange as it may seem that another writer should contradict continually so eminent an authority

were already beginning to retire within the safer precincts of the Citadel; what would be the reason for erecting elaborate gates on the line of the ruined wall? I am not an authority up

the lateral towers of the former. The loss of the Porte de Rome, or the "Porte des Marbres," as it was popularly called, is especially to be regretted, since that name alone suggests the t

f the 12th century. It appears, indeed, that around the present site of the Fountain of the Pelican was a burial ground named Les Marbres, on account of its richness in borrowed sculpture. The site of the gate was known from the 14th century onwards as "à Marbres" or "de Marboribus." At the time of the construction of the bastion o

nk of the river, near the railway station. Having reached that spot and crossed the bridge, you will obtain a lovely view of the Roman wall and the river beside it, but will fail to find the remaining tower of the gat

t; but he is also very proud,-much too proud to admit that he does not know the whereabouts of a monument that a stranger has come, perhaps, a thousand miles to visit. His swift imagination, therefore, promptly creates the site; and he, or she, will tell you promptly, volubly, and with much circumstantial detail, exactly how to get there. In this snare we have been taken many times during our travels among the Burgundians. The Proven?als have a different and preferable method. Th

tiny cottage is a "fine house" (belle maison), and almost every modern house, of any pretentions

looked up from his work by the road s

nsieur, 'tis there, three kilometres away

n hour, and return disconsolate. The labourer, he

ame have foun

the ancient Chateau de Bon Espoir was on t

old ruin. I thought you meant

is Monsie

sin du Louvre at Paris. He has a lovely chateau, up there where y

missed it. Good

erection of red brick and stone, def

tno

p. 23: "Bibracte, by far the fine

re de la Gaule," and to Mm. de Fontenay and de Charmasse's "Autun et ses Monuments avec u

robably near Montmort, about

. i, cap. 15: "Autun et

epe claimitans liberum se liberaque civitatis esse." C?sar d

Monuments," Préci

et ses Monum

ses Monuments

s" in "Judas Isc

ses Monuments

onuments," "Précis H

ntury, quoted in "Autun et ses Monuments,"

bid, p

s." Roman Autun was sacked again by the Saracens in 731 a.d.; the havoc

aire Raisonné,

aire Raisonné,

ses Monuments

Raisonné," Tome v

re Raisonné," To

et ses Monum

merton, The M

Guide des Monument

re Raisonné," To

et ses Monum

s Monuments," pp.

ht ahead as