Burgundy: The Splendid Duchy

present. We have not far to go; for the town is still the

ace du Marché, on the opposite side of which is a building that was once the monastic stable. The upper story of the fa?ade has fine Gothic windows, forming almost an arcade. The trefoiled tracery is satisfactory, and exquisitely carved faces look down upon you from the corbels of the drip-stones. It was to Cluny, during the abbacy of Pons, that Gélase II., ill-treated and threatened by the partisans of Henry V., fled for rest and refuge; and here, a few days af

immeasurable folly and ignorance of man have inflicted upon a long-suffering world, this is the most insufferable, the most unpardonable. I can understand, I can almost forgive, a Puritan Cromwell, blinded by a fanaticism, that, though savage and ignorant, was yet, in intention, religious, battering down the statues of Mary from their niches, and shattering with fusilades the glass that, for hundreds o

rain, which threatened ruin to the fabric. It was decided, therefore to close the gaping arches of the collateral on the east and west, and to build a wall on the north side. The immense height of the transept, emphasized by the vaulting shafts, is made more striking by the small space within which

e was buried Pierre de Chastelux, abbot from 1322 to 1343, who bought the Palais des Thermes, at Paris, where Jean de Bourbon, a century later, was to commence the Hotel de Cluny. Here, too, was buried, in the middle of the chapel, Jacques d'Amboise (1480-1510), the successor of

lance, that it was a good example of late Gothic art. Around it were ranged, on a series of sculptured corbels or consoles, the heads of fifteen prophets, painted in colours. They are not lacking in expression, but are clumsy and heavy. These busts served as supports for fifteen stone statues, those of St. Paul, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and the twelve Apostles, all of whi

and the second is close to the church of Notre Dame. The origin of its curious name is not known. Of the exterior relics of the abbey, the most interesting, architecturally and historically, is the great entrance gate, which is high up on the side of the hill, at the top of the road leading from the Hotel de Bourgogne,

luny. The thickness of the pillars behind the door, and the absence of windows in the adjoining wing of the Palais Abbatial, point to the conclusion that the gate was fortified in the late middle ages, probably by a quadrangular tower. Interesting as this shattered old relic is architecturally, its charm lies in the memories of the great ones to whom it opened. All those who made the most glorious pages of the history of Cluny have passed beneath its arches-Priests and Saints, as St. Hugues, Pier

evolution, and now serving as the Musée and the Hotel de Ville. That nearest to the gate was built, in the latter half of the fifteenth

état monastique et ruine des bons monastères,"[91] since under it the rule and revenues of the abbey passed into the hands

neur," he appears to have done something to re-establish discipline in the monastery. It soon became apparent to him that the frequent visits of distinguished persons to his palace within the church p

s. On the east side, a later age has painted imitations of similar windows upon the stone wall. Within the palace are some handsome staircases and doors, and two excellent chimney-pieces, restored, showing the arms of Jean de Bourb

memorial stone, in the corner, on the left of the fire-place, with the epitaph of Aimard (Sanctus Aimardus), third abbot of Cluny, who died in 964. Until 1872, this stone formed the threshold of a house

ve effect. So strong are they, that the Gothic capitals in the collection look weak beside them. The best of them represents God driving a terrified Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. Eve is hiding behind Adam, who is draped in fig leaves. Another shows the sacrifice of Abraham at the moment when he is interrupted by the angel; another the creation of the world; and anothe

ot in both hands, while, beside them, a fiddler passes the time in harmony. There is also a charming Pascal Lamb, endowed with a seeing eye and a cloven fore-foot, which, turned upwards, balances a Greek

est of the fifteenth century, banded with iron, in which were kept the famous Rouleaux de Cluny, archives that disappeared during the Revolution. No

the Abbés Commendataires, was the official residence of the grand prior. It has been so much altered within as scarcely to be worth a visit, but the exterior, though somewhat mutilated, retains

owers are decorated with sculpture, in the form of flamboyant church-window tracery below, and panels above, carved with arabesques, foliage, lilies, grotesques, shell ornaments, etc., all in the purest and lightest style of that early Renaissance wor

Ville, you get some fine views of Cluny and the Tour de l'Eau Bénite,

for seven or eight centuries almost unchanged, but the utilitarian and commercial spirit of the age has made itself felt, even in this out of the way corner of Burgundy, and, one by one, the Romanesque houses are disappearing. Two remain, however, in the middle of the town; and, in addition to those in the Rue d'

en. The first floor front room was the bedroom of the tenant, his wife, and children; while the servants and apprentices did as best they could in the attic above; for the practice of rigidly separating the sexes did not come in until the twelfth century. Each house showed a pleasing elevation, and was erected with a solidity and elegance of design far excelling anything seen in the same class of building to-day. The shop front was formed by one great arch, without windows, but closed at night by a shutter, which, dropped during the day, formed a counter for the exhibition of the shopman's

d houses is that popularly known as the Hotel des Monnaies, on the right as you go up the Rue d'Avril. In this case the windows are square-headed, but the most interesting characteristics are the projecting chimney, and the great arches, revealing the extraordinary thickness of the walls, a feature which len

ctive; though its thirteenth-century fa?ade is mutilated. Birds rest upon the backs of the gargoyles, and upon the ends of the broken shafting; and dirty children play, all day long, upon the steps of the porch. The interior, however, has some good work in the capitals, mouldings, and vaulting shafts of the nave. The engaged vaulting shafts of the aisles are pro

tly, I remember almost nothing of the fabric itself, and my general impression is little more than a blaze of garden flowers, tempered by delicious palm-leaves, and dotted here and there with pale invalids, chatting in groups, or walking or sitting beside the flowers. Within the entrance hall the frail voices of nuns earnestly intoning prayers in unis

outhern end of the small transept of the abbey church-opposite to the Chappelle Bourbon-a monumental tomb that should be worthy of

port of d'Aguerriau, which preceded the royal veto, put it, "That every part of this design tended equally to preserve and immortaliz

Revolution; consequently, its statues would not, to-day, adorn the chapel of the Hotel Dieu at Cluny. The loss of the mausoleum we need not regret; but the statues, though, to my mind, too artificial and conscious to be pleasing, a

lly, in the quality of his art, some of the characteristics of the land of its birth. On this more mountainous side of Burgundy, west of the C?te d'Or, we should expect to find, in a modified form, along with the typical Burgundian qualities of vivacity, strength, solidity, and grace, some of the passion, the sterner qualities of the harder, hill-bred race, more closely in touch with the sterner aspects of nature-especially in the case of one whose birth synchronized with the birth-throes of the great Revolution. It may be, too-and it ap

t, in his book, "L'Art en Bourgogne," and Montégut also, in his "Souvenirs," speak of a type of feminine be

Cluny belongs to that region of our province where the massy heads and highly-coloured complexions that distinguish the mountain-dweller, disappear, to give place to subtler

ater on. Yet the types we met hereabouts, if not, on the whole, attractive, were certainly not without the individuality that natural vivacity imparts. My wife, sketching the great gate of the abbey, was scandalized by the inordinate amount of child-smacking indulged in by the mo

ent. The ways of the establishment were refreshingly unconventional. For example, they rang neither bell nor gong for dinner, but sent up two maids, who popped their

Weyden's great picture in the hospital at Beaune. I gathered that the digestive organs were the seat of his troubles; for he rejected, with a grunt, the normal fare, p

onal lowering brows and cunning smile, was transmitting improper stories to a delighted Falstaffian neighbour; just as certain decadent fat abbots of Cluny were wont to do, over a bottle of sparkling Meursault, in those generous, degen

r in a game of cards. Two of them at once consented; but a third invité-an elephantine Burgundian voyageur de commerce-ruminating over a petit verre in the corner, declined, on the plausible pretext that he had "no small vices." Indeed, nothing about him was small! For our part, we fell into agreeable conversation with another habitué of the hotel, a gentleman also s

of tatters and dirt, who abruptly announced their intention of entertaining us with a "petit chanson." Taking our silence for consent, they stood, side by side, in the middle of the sanded floor, and, lifting grimy faces to the fly-spotted ceiling, proceeded, with one accord, t

verely, and, smoothing the ruffled yellow sat

, across the shadowy aisles, and up to where, upon the eastern dome, the Eternal Father Himself, cloud-borne, among the symbols of His creation, lifted the Right Hand in blessing, and laid His Left Hand upon the Book sealed with seven seals. Suddenly, while our souls were pouring themselves out in rapt adoration, a fearful detonation resounded above our heads. Startled, terrified, we looked up. As we did so, while yet the echoes of the shock were rolling through the upper darkness, a series of crackling explosions shook the whole fabric to its foundations. The floor heaved, the vaulting above our heads cracked from side to side, the huge pillars trembled and tottered. Then an awful cry of alarm was stilled into the louder silence of horror, as the whole mighty building swayed, and towers, colum

and finding, to my sorrow, a real historical analogy between that t

uite unfamiliar to me. He assured me, however, that he had met us at Bourg en Bresse; and I, being unable either to deny or to affirm the assertion, must needs listen. Having finished with the weather, he paused, turned, waved his

efore you gain the crest of the ridge, and find yourself looking down, and away for mile after mile, until, between a succession of rugged hills, that lie like prehistoric monsters couchant towards the southern sun, among golden vineyards dotted with ancient villages and immemorial walls, the ser

and the Abbots of Cluny. It gave to the Seigneurs of Berzé-le Chatel, the right to administer justice over the abbatial lords in the neighbourhood of the castle, including Berzé-la Ville. Moreover, it bound the tenants of these lands to come together "at the clamour of the castle," to defend and guard it, in return for w

e Berzé, tiring of his diurnal occupations, namely, hunting in the morning and beating his servants at night, raised an impious hand against, and let it descend upon, the archdeacon of Macon, who, through the chapter, brought a complaint before parliament; with the result that Geoffrey and his successors were condemned, in perpet

, who, by magnificent promises, succeeded in inducing the governor to betray the Duke of Burgundy. It did not remain long in the hands of the French; for local knowledge of the subterranean passages soon effected its recapture by the Burgundians, who, to the terror of

the geraniums, and the soft tints of the laburnum. Crossing this grassy, stoutly-walled terrace, you pass beneath another fortified gate, where scarlet creepers cling, to the court yard of the castle, bright with beds of fuschias, and masses of ball-shaped white flowers. Shade is given by a great walnut-tree; and here, too, is an adjunct, indispensable now, as in medi?val times,-a well. The fa?ade of the ho

nesque church of the Village of Berzé, I stood, looking at the curious staircase that leads, between roofed-in buttr

tle is thi

e bowed slightly; whether to me or to the great name, I

bas-not by reason of any legendary connection between that potentate and the chateau of B

hments. In 1632, Richelieu, who had obtained possession of the Abbey of Cluny, ordered the demolition of the donjon and castle of Lourdon, a command so faithfully carried out that nothing was left of the fortress, except what is to be seen to-day-a ruined ivy-hung wall, its line broken by a round tower, through whose windows you can see the concierge moving, and by a curious row of great columns, like o

If you ask the way, you will probably be told, as we were, to turn at the next lane, which is longer, less convenient, an

poet Lamartine, whose name is frequently heard by travellers in the Maconnais or the Dauphiné; though the nation as a whole, soon forgot him, after that swiftly rising wave of

years of retirement, were passed, tempted me to pay a visit to that valley. In a very improbable, though naturally written and pathetic study of rustic

m, shorn of the spires at their summits, are useless to-day, except to flank a heavy square mass of naked stone, pierced with a winding stair and several vaulted rooms-such is my abode.... Thence the view, falling and rising, extends over the most beautiful part of the valley of St. Point. One's glance, following the rapid slope of the pastures, rests upon a field through the middle of which runs the river 'Vallonge.' Great nut trees with bronze foliage, motionless as metal leaves, poplars with trunks storm-twisted, and with foliage more hairy and whiter than the head of an old man, Europ

xford, that he had added to the principal fa?ade. Here the peacocks perching, day and night, bordered

w near, across the tangled graves, the tomb of Lamartine, a pretentious, but quite unsuccessful, production, in bastard gothic style, the interior hung round with horrible wre

artificial to the real, to the monument in which nature's art,

roof, the stone corner-heads of a thousand years ago watch silently over a tree-embowered, weed-entangled, dreamy garden of the dead. For these are the living memorials of a poet-the wide, green meadow of the valley, the undulating boughs, and gray and silver glimpses of the breeze-s

woodpecker in the far-off forest, or of some follower of that stone-cutter of St. Point, with whom Lamartine, high up in the mountain quarry, talked of the ways of God with man. One day,

ppears to be a patchwork of many dates, marred by some wretched, modern imitations, and the hideous device, not infrequent hereabouts, of painting sham gothic windows on a plaster wall; but the general effec

date than the nineteenth century,[96] was so rude that I felt much more disposed to discuss with her, g

ally; or he can grant admission on payment, or on other reasonable conditions; but, upon whatever terms he admits you, he must make you welcome, so long as

ceived most apologetically by several villagers, who assured me that the present inhabitants were "gentils," and that my

ddle distance, shone, in the afternoon sun, bronze and white among the tapering poplars, the Village of St. Point, crowned by the ancient gray church; and, higher yet, the sombre trees of the garden, and the towers of Lamartine's chateau. Above Tramaye, itself a very eagle'

tno

orain,

c state and ruin of good monaste

of a barn, but once formed part

ollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome vi., p. 222 and on

le et l'Abbaye," pa

e Pierre de St. Poi

occupied by Guillaume de St. Point, Governo

ticles of wearing apparel, and other personal relics of Lamartine, also many