A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 1 of 2
by Augusta Macgregor Holmes · English · Gutenberg #46685 · 485,805 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 1 of 2
Author: Augusta Macgregor Holmes
Release date: August 25, 2014 [eBook #46685]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A RIDE ON HORSEBACK TO FLORENCE THROUGH FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. VOL. 1 OF 2 ***
A
RIDE ON HORSEBACK
TO
FLORENCE
THROUGH
FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND.
DESCRIBED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
BY
A LADY.
“I will not change my horse for any that treads but on four pasterns:
he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn
of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes; he is the prince
of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his
countenance enforces homage: nay, the man hath no wit that cannot from
the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb vary deserved praise
on my palfrey.”—SHAKSPEARE, _King Henry the Fifth_.
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1842.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS,
Stamford Street.
A ride on horseback to Florence
CONTENTS
OF VOL. I.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
Page 1
LANDING at Calais—Meeting of a Custom-House Officer with
Fanny—Historical remains—John’s mode of Confession—The Hero malgré
lui—The Courtgain—St. Omer’s—The Abbey of St. Bertin and the
Cathedral—St. Denis and the miraculous St. Hubert—The strength of
the short Pepin—Lillers, and John’s precautions—St. Pol—Doullens,
the Citadel and the Corporal—The possession of Doullens by the
Huguenots—The taking of Amiens caused by love for a fair
Widow—Hernand Teillo’s stratagem—His success chiefly owing to a
body of Irishmen—Henry the Fourth’s emotion and resolve—Death of
Hernand Teillo—Amiens—The Sunstroke—The warlike show—A religious
Picture strangely imagined—The Beffroi and its tragedy—The
Cathedral and its Tombs—The travelling Crucifix—The Bishop who
sheltered Philip of Valois after the battle of Crecy—The Pavement
marked in fatal memorial—The Grave of Hernand Teillo—Characters and
portraits of the Canons—The contrite Ass and presentation of an
infant, Breteuil
CHAPTER II.
34
Clermont—Château now a penitentiary—A Stronghold of the English in
Charles the Sixth’s time—Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached
the first Crusade—Charles the Sixth’s place of confinement during
his Madness—Chantilly—Écouen—Henry last Duke of
Montmorency—Presentiment of his Father—At eighteen created Lord
High Admiral—His early love in Languedoc—His prudential Marriage
at the Louvre—His Successes at Rochelle—Coldness of Louis the
Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu—His gallantry at
Veillane—Restoration of Prisoners—Humanity during the plague at
Rivoli—His anxiety to become High Constable of France—Richelieu’s
injustice—His retirement to Languedoc—Privileges of
Languedoc—Prince Gaston’s efforts to win over Montmorency—The
Duke’s arrest by Richelieu’s orders, rendered impossible through
the people’s affection—Renewed efforts of Gaston—Persuasions of
the Duchess—Montmorency’s reluctant consent—Gaston’s indecision
and high words with the Duke—Battle of Castelnaudary—His
emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow—The
ditch leaped alone as at Veillane—The troops held back by Gaston
in sight of his peril—Montmorency overpowered—Dragged from under
his dead horse and carried before Schomberg—The female portrait on
his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to
incense the King by the Cardinal—The cries of the people beneath
the Palace windows—His farewell to his wife, and legacy to
Richelieu—The emotion of his Judges—His condemnation—Religious
feeling of his last hours—His farewell to the statue of his
Godfather—His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a
martyr—His burial among the bones of the Sainted—The imprisonment
of his widow—Her sad life—Her taking the veil—Louis the
Thirteenth’s visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the
Cardinal’s messengers—The King’s remorse—The apparition in the
Hall of Écouen—St. Denis—Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert,
St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream—Miraculous
consecration of the church and the leper’s new skin—Tombs—The
column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of
Scotland—Breaking open of the monuments in 1793—Turenne in a
glass case—A lock of Henry the Fourth’s beard making a soldier’s
moustache—Plunder of a nose by an Englishman—The Caveau of the
last Condé—Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth’s
memory—The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being
converted into a Market-house—Paris
CHAPTER III.
70
Departure under an unlucky star—Essonne—Petit Bourg—The Czar
Peter—Fontainebleau—Palace—Apartments of the Emperor Charles
the Fifth—Chamber where Pius the Seventh said mass daily—Chapel
founded in the seventh century—Cypher of the Saviour and Virgin
placed beside those of Henry the Second and Diana of
Poitiers—Princess Mary of Orleans—Napoleon’s apartments—Marie
Antoinette’s boudoir—Carving by Louis the Sixteenth’s
hand—Monaldeschi, favourite of Queen Christina—Gallery where he
was murdered—Account of his murder by the Monk who confessed
him, of his burial at dusk in the church of Avon—Window thrown
open by Henry the Fourth, to announce Louis the Thirteenth’s
birth—Gallery of Henry the Second, called Galerie des
Réformés—Petition in which they took the name presented here by
Coligny—Open chamber above the Donjon—Arch where Louis the
Thirteenth was publicly baptized—Biron’s tower—His treason—His
denial—His last interview with Henry the Fourth—Napoleon—The
Forest—The Comte de Moret, last inhabitant of the Hermitage of
Franchard—Fanny’s sagacity—Croix du Grand Veneur—The spectre
hunt—Apparition and warning to Henry the Fourth, corroborated by
Sully—Avon—Monaldeschi, Christina’s fickle lover—The old
church—The fat porter—The grave beneath the Bénitier—The
Englishmen’s sacrilege—Monaldeschi their relative—Precautions
against travellers
CHAPTER IV.
97
Moret—The Nunnery—Louis the Fourteenth’s black daughter—Two useful
Saints—Villeneuve la Guyard—-Descriptions deceitful—Strange cure
for blood to the head—A River-god on terra-firma—Sens—St. Colombe,
Thomas à Becket’s refuge—Villeneuve le Roy—Place where the Vine was
first cultivated—Auxerre—The Chapter’s hundred years’ Law-suit
concerning fur trimmings—The Canons’ games at ball—The Cathedral
occupying the site of the first Christian Chapel—St. Germain—The
Saint’s refusal to get out of his Grave to reform England—Tombs of
Dukes of Burgundy—Ill-treatment in a Church from a School at its
devotions—Lucy le Bois—The Face in a Hole in the Wall—Taken for a
beast—Arnay le Duc—La Rochepot—A danger avoided through Grizzle’s
affection—An unamiable Carter—Chalons, Cæsar’s head-quarters—Cross
seen by Constantine—Punishment of past times for unskilful
Physicians—A Prince of Portugal, Monk at St. Laurents—Cathedral
CHAPTER V.
120
Tournus—Greuze’s grave—Mâcon—The walking Wedding—Retirement of
a Count of Mâcon, with thirty Knights, to the Abbey of
Cluny—Dealings of his Successor with evil spirits—His exit from
Earth in the Car of a black Visitor—His son turning Monk through
fear—The County sold by his Daughter Alice to France—Bloodless
occupation of Mâcon by the Huguenots—Mâcon retaken through
bribery by the Marshal of Tavannes—Madame de Tavannes’ mode of
increasing her Revenues—Sauteries de Mâcon—Farce of St.
Poinct—Assassination of Huguenot Prisoners—Sang froid of
Catholic Dames—A Russian noble—Villefranche—Privilege granted
to its married men—Descent into Lyons—Monastère des deux Amans,
supposed Herod and Herodias—Fortress of Pierre Encise—The
Prison of Cinq Mars—Fort commanding the Croix Rousse—Homage
paid to the wooden Statue of 1550—Hôtel de l’Europe—View of
Fourvières—Its Church escaping violation throughout the
Revolution—The Antiquaille on the site of the Palace where
Germanicus was born—Traces of fire in Nero’s time—Recollections
of Princess Mary of Württemberg—Her love of Art to the
last—Nourrit’s Funeral—A Racer’s determination to trot—Going
to races—Mistaken for a Candidate—Perrache—Horses, riders, and
accoutrements—Triumph of the King’s Fête—A Boat upset—The
Tower of the fair German—Croix Rousse—Wretchedness of the
Operatives—Causes of Insurrection in 1831—The most ancient
Monastery in Gaul—Church of Aisnay
CHAPTER VI.
152
Heights of Fourvières—Difficult descent—Trade in relics—Our Lady
of Fourvières—Saving Lyons from Cholera—Lunatic
patients—Dungeon where the first Christian Bishop was
murdered—Roman Ruins—The Christians’ early place of
assembly—St. Irénée—A coffin—Subterranean chapels—Bones of
the Nine Thousand—The Headsman’s block, and the murmur from the
well—Bleeding to death—Marguerite Labarge—Her abode for nine
years—Her return to upper air cause of her death—Her family
rich residents in Lyons—Mode of saving the soul—Body dispensed
with—The Pope’s Bull good for ever—A friend’s arrival—Jardin
des Plantes—Riots of November, 1831—The Préfet’s mistake—Capt.
de ——.—Defence of the Arsenal with unloaded cannon—The
murdered Chef de Bataillon—His assassin’s death—The grief of
his opponents—Their usual cruelty and their wild justice—Their
eight days’ occupation of Lyons—Capt. de ——’s defence of
Arsenal—Bearer of proclamation—Danger—Saved by a former
comrade—Interview—Threats—Empty cannon effective—Invitation
to dinner—Retreat—The Hôtel de l’Europe closed against its
master by a National Guard—Three hundred killed in St.
Nizier—The Cathedral—Second Council General—Jaw of St.
John—The ivory horn of Roland—Privilege of the Seigneur of Mont
d’Or—The first Villeroy Archbishop—Refusal to accept him by the
Counts of Lyons—His text and the Dean’s reply—Lyons refuge for
the Pazzi—Their monument destroyed in anger by Marie de
Médicis—The last Prince of Dauphiné becoming prior of the
Jacobin Convention, Paris—Procession in St. Nizier—Chapel of
Ste. Philomène—Place des Terreaux
CHAPTER VII.
184
Place Bellecour—Louise Labé—Clémence de Bourges—Her desertion
by her lover—His death—Her own—Rue de la Belle
Cordière—Abd-el-Kader—The fat Cantinière captive—Presented
to the Emperor of Morocco—The Emperor’s love—Her
obstinacy—Application made to the Consul—Her oaths and
blows—Her return—The Savoyard Regiment’s fidelity—Marquis of
—— and dogs—Cat massacre—Indignant landlady—Pont de la
Guillotière—Bridge at the same spot broken beneath Philip
Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion—Leaving Lyons—Mont
Blanc—La Verpelière—Its accommodation—La Tour du Pin—A
lovely Country—An auberge—Destructive storms—Pont du
Beauvoisin—Curious landlady—Leeches en poste—A smiling
country—A wild pass—La Chartreuse—Valley des
Échelles—Grotto—Cascade of Cours—Chambéry
CHAPTER VIII.
209
Chambéry—The Cathedral—The Château—The Chapel—The holy shroud
distilling blood—Mules’ refusal to carry the relic
away—Respected by the flames—St. Charles of Borromeo’s
pilgrimage to its shrine at Turin—Its authenticity denied by
Calvin—Drawing made of the Saint Suaire by desire of Philip
the Fifth of Spain—Artist on his knees—Savoy—Peter of Savoy
favourite of Henry the Third of England—Savoy Palace, his
residence—The Green Count Amedée—His tournament—The Emperor
Charles the Fourth’s passage—Homage done to the Emperor—The
Banquet served by Horsemen—The Carmelites’ whitewash—The
Crusade—The Green Count’s embarkation—The Red Count
Amedée—His Death-wound in the forest of
Lornes—Poison—Physician beheaded—Duel between Estavayer and
Grandson—Its real cause—Place of combat—Bourg en
Bresse—Otho conquered—His tomb at Lausanne—Duke Amedée’s
retreat to Ripaille—His authority delegated to his Son—Six
Knights his Companions in the Monastery—Astrologers’
prediction—Author of Peace of Arras—Elected Pope—His
renouncement of the Tiara—His return to Ripaille, and
death—His tower and those of four of his knights still
standing—Fête Dieu—The priest commander of the forces—Les
Charmettes—The young Abbé—The old Governor—Censure—Severe
laws for small offences—Rejoicings—Montmeillan—Abymes de
Myans—The Black Virgin’s power—Chignin—Iron
collars—Fortress of Montmeillan—Its resistance—Sully’s
stratagem—Proof of the King’s Catholicity—Treason of the
Governor—Christina of Savoy’s confessor a captive—His vain
intrigues against Richelieu—Richelieu’s anger chiefly excited
by a satire written by Père Monod—Monod’s
death—Bourget—Amedée the Fifth—Hautecombe—Sepulchre of
Counts of Savoy—Tomb of Amedée, who defied to single combat
three English Earls—Abbey changed to a manufactory—Spectres
of the sovereigns of Savoy—Its restoration
CHAPTER IX.
245
Well merited attentions to St. Anthony—The young Countess de
S——.—Leeches paying postilions better than the English—General
de Boigne—Lemenc and its antiquities—Droit de dépouille of the
Bénédictines—Their agreement with the nobles of Chambéry—Ancient
vaults beneath the church—Colossal statues feared by the good
people of Chambéry—Tomb of an Irish Primate—Calvary—Monument of
General de Boigne—His low birth—His struggles—His success in
India—The death of his benefactor Sindiah—His gratitude shown
towards his heir—The story of his betrayal of Tippoo Saib
unfounded—His arrival in England—His marriage with the Marquis of
Osmond’s daughter an unhappy one—His return to Chambéry—His
benefactions—Created Count—His death—Aix—Its antiquities—Tower
and Cascade of Grésy—The friend of Queen Hortense—Her fate—Her
monument—Rumilly—Its convent—Siege by Louis the Thirteenth—The
courage of a nun—The three privileged houses and discipline of a
French soldiery—Frangy, an impertinent innkeeper—Fanny’s
wisdom—L’Éluiset—A sweet evening—A bad night—A welcome
dawning—Geneva—The fusillades of 94—The Secheron
CHAPTER X.
272
Early history of Geneva—Constitution—Duke Amedée the Eighth—Attempt
to become master of Geneva—The Bishop inclined to cede his
rights—The opposition of the citizens—Charles the
Third—Berthelier—Alliance with Fribourg—His courage—Geneva
taken—His refusal to fly—His arrest—A tooth-drawer named his
judge—His execution—The news of his death causing the impression he
had hoped for—Treaty—The Mamelukes—The Confrères de la
Cuiller—Advance of Berne and Fribourg—Charles the Third’s forced
concessions—Want of generosity in the Bernese—Noble conduct of
Geneva—Protestant religion gaining strength—Bonnivard—Seized on
the Jura—Cast into the dungeons of Chillon—Disputes in Geneva—The
Grand Council decides that mass be abolished—Francis the
First—Berne declares war against Savoy—Her alliance with
Francis—The Duke of Savoy’s losses—Berne’s renewed
misconduct—Proud reply of the Genevese—Bonnivard
delivered—Calvin—His early life—His flight from Paris—His
reception by Marguerite of Navarre—Persecution of Francis—Calvin’s
reception by Louis the Twelfth’s Daughter—Geneva—His over
severity—His expulsion—His return—His iron rule—Michael
Servet—His irritating conduct towards Calvin—Calvin’s vow to be
revenged—Servet’s arrest—His escape—Tracked by Calvin—Taken
prisoner on his passage through Geneva—He is accused—Calvin’s
valet—Burned at the stake outside the walls of Geneva
CHAPTER XI.
296
A vain Stork—A German coachmaker—Coppet—Ferney—Voltaire’s
Church—His habitation—Crockery Cenotaph—Shoe-blacking in his
study—The old Gardener—The morning rehearsals in tragic
costume—The story of Gibbon—Voltaire catching his pet
mare—Gibbon’s opinion of Voltaire’s beauty—Their
reconciliation—The tree which shaded Franklin—The increase of his
village—The marble pyramid broken—The gardener’s petites antiquités
and cross wife—Voltaire’s opinions of his correspondents—His
remains the property of a maimed Englishman—Denial to a visitor—His
heart in the larder—Genevese pride—Swiss troops—Swiss
penitentiaries—Genevese smuggling—The Directeur Général des
Douaness an unwilling accomplice—D’Aubigné interred in the
cathedral—The Cardinal de Brogny—A swineherd—Shoes bestowed in
charity—The boy become a cardinal—The poor shoemaker rewarded—His
compassion for John Huss—Courageous death of the latter—De Brogny’s
charity—A modest genius and tolerant cardinal
CHAPTER XII.
321
Arrival of friends—Excursion to Chamouny—The Voiron mountain—Its
monastery—The Babes in the wood—Old castle of Faucigny—Its last
possessor—Her rights over Dauphiny bequeathed to Savoy—Long war
with France—Bonneville—Cluses—Wretched inhabitants—The baronial
capital in the time of the old lords—Cavern of La Balme—The village
of Arache, and Falquet—The Nant d’Arpenas—Sallenches—Mont
Blanc—The lake of Chède filled up—Pont Pelissier—Les Motets—The
Glacier des Bossons—Evening—A tranquil night—Morning cavalcade—My
guide—The Montanvert—Fontaine du Caillet—Source of the
Aveiron—The avalanche—Mer de Glace—Passage of cattle—Priory of
Chamouny founded in eleventh century—The Grands Mulets on Mont
Blanc—Character of the inhabitants of Chamouny—Return—Versoix
destined by Louis the Fourteenth for Geneva’s rival—Coppet—The
monument—Old castle of Wufflens—Bertha—Morges—Lausanne—Cathedral
containing tomb of Duke Amedée and Bernard de Menthon—The
Faucon—The fat innkeeper abandoned—Vevay—Trois Couronnes
CHAPTER I.
Landing at Calais—Meeting of a Custom-House Officer with
Fanny—Historical remains—John’s mode of Confession—The Hero malgré
lui—The Courtgain—St. Omer’s—The Abbey of St. Bertin and the
Cathedral—St. Denis and the miraculous St. Hubert—The Strength of
the short Pepin—Lillers, and John’s precautions—St. Pol—Doullens,
the Citadel and the Corporal—The possession of Doullens by the
Huguenots—The taking of Amiens caused by love for a fair
Widow—Hernand Teillo’s stratagem—His success chiefly owing to a
body of Irishmen—Henry the Fourth’s emotion and resolve—Death of
Hernand Teillo—Amiens—The Sunstroke—The warlike show—A religious
Picture strangely imagined—The Beffroi and its tragedy—The
Cathedral and its Tombs—The travelling Crucifix—The Bishop who
sheltered Philip of Valois after the battle of Crecy—The Pavement
marked in fatal memorial—The Grave of Hernand Teillo—Characters and
Portraits of the Canons—The contrite Ass and presentation of an
infant, Breteuil.
Wednesday, July the 5th 1838.
Hotel de Meurice, à Calais.
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
When we called on you a few weeks since, on our ride from Liverpool to
Dover, you desired a journal of that which was to follow across France
and to Florence. We embarked, then, at seven in the morning of the 4th
of July, with no wind, but a heavy swell and drizzling rain: D—— and
myself, Fanny and the patient Grizzel in their horse boxes, with John
(from Cork!) beside them, combing tails and rubbing curb-chains—his
resource against ennui. Landed at ten: Fanny profiting by her first
free moment to bite a douanier who caressed her; and from his calling
obtained no more pity from the bystanders than from John, who was
grinning derision at his “big ear-ring.” Worried by the Customhouse,
though we have nothing contraband. The signalement of the horses taken
with care and gravity: it would suit any grey mare and bay pony in the
world. The officers do not quite understand the shining of their coats,
and (supposing them cleaned after the fashion of spoons) asked John
“with what powder?” he has been rather awed by the ceremony of
receiving his passport, particularly when standing up to be measured
and described. We remain here three days, as the inn is exceedingly
comfortable, but there is very little to see; on the Grande Place, near
the lighthouse tower, stood, even in 1830, the ruins of the old Halle,
where John de Vienne the governor, and Sire Walter de Mauny
communicated the hard terms of surrender to Eustache St. Pierre: there
is no trace of it now. The site of St. Pierre’s house is marked by a
neat marble slab, at the corner of the street which bears his name. The
building still called “Cour de Guise,” though it has been turned to
various purposes, rebuilt and altered, was the wool staple originally
built by Edward the Third of England; and afterwards bestowed on Guise
the Balafré, in reward of his services when he retook Calais from the
English in 1577. The church has little worth notice excepting its
altar. The vessel, which in Louis the Thirteenth’s time bore it from
Genoa, on its way to Antwerp, was wrecked on the Calais coast. With its
bassi-relievi and crowd of statues and marble columns, it wants
simplicity, and is too large for the place it occupies; for the roof
appears to crush the glory of the Saviour. The old Suisse who shows the
church is most proud of a Last Supper carved in relief, gilded and
coloured: he knocks on the head the little figure of Christ to prove
his assertion, “Monsieur c’est en bois!”
In the old revolution this church was unprofaned: a Club built before
it masked its entrance; and the then mayor of Calais warned Lebon that
he might enter if he would, but that he could not answer for the temper
of his townsmen.
The chief building in Calais is the Hôtel de Ville with its handsome
tower, and a clock which has a sweet clear chime; before it, each on
its pedestal, are the busts of Richelieu and Guise le Balafré: that of
Eustache St. Pierre holds the place of honour on the façade. To reward
for the trouble of walking up stairs, the old woman only exhibited two
rooms, “là où l’on marie” and “là où l’on reçoit,” she called them: in
the latter, Louis Philip, whom the artist intended to smile, and who
sneers instead, occupies the wall opposite a Surrender of Calais. The
citadel is forbidden ground; we were turned back by the sentinel, as we
were proceeding to search for the ruins of the Chateau of Calais, in
which, by Richard the Second’s order, the Duke of Gloucester was
imprisoned and murdered; they are built into a bastion, called that of
the “Vieux Chateau.”
John has decided that eating a dinner in France is the most wonderful
thing which has happened to him yet. He describes the spreading a white
cloth over his knees preparatory to serving up soup, fish, made dishes
and dessert; he has made acquaintance with the “Garçon d’Ecurie,” whose
thin tall figure is a contrast to his own, with its round head and
bowed legs. They keep up a conversation of signs and contortions; this
hot day they have passed seated in a wheelbarrow on the sunny side of
the court-yard: it was first Pierre’s place of repose, but beginning by
sitting on the wheel, and encroaching by degrees, John made it so
uncomfortable to his comrade, that he gained sole possession, and is
now coiled up asleep. He told me this morning that he must go to
church, the Irish father by whom he was married a month ago not having
“quite done with him in the way of confession:” I represented that
these priests were Frenchmen; that he said was of no consequence,
“Clargy spaking all kinds of languages.” He knew but one exception, and
that was the very father who married him and could not speak Irish; it
was he who (by John’s account) gave him a blow when instead of the
fifteen shillings he demanded he offered him five.
The stout waiter François, known for four and twenty years at the
hotel, is as perfect a specimen of French nature in his class, as is
John of that of Ireland. He informed me he had lately crossed to
England; an ordinary intellect would have supposed it was to see the
country, or the coronation, but no, it was to see Lablache! and being
in London he also saw Taglioni!! and her dancing, he said, went to his
very soul. While we were at dinner, a fair girl, with a wrinkled old
woman on her arm, looked in at the window and touched a bad guitar: I
said we wanted no music, and François scolded her away, but as he
stooped down to arrange the fire, muttered in a low voice, “It was true
that she was troublesome, and had only one excuse, she supported her
old mother.” We gave her something, and François, whose face had grown
radiant, told us his own story, and how he had worked from a boy with
the hope of assisting his father, and at last had purchased him an
annuity of 600 francs, which the old man had enjoyed thirteen years,
proud in the gift of a son, who, like Corporal Trim, thought that
“Honour thy father and thy mother” meant allowing them a part of his
earnings. “He had been looked on as the best son of the province;” and
his own child had promised well likewise but he died—he thought he
might have weathered the storm, but death, François said, was the
strongest and not to be battled with; and with a mixture of feeling and
philosophy, as he changed my soup-plate, he shook his head and added,
“que voulez-vous?”
D—— misses a Commissionaire, a civil fellow well known to all who
frequented the Hotel Meurice, his story being romantic from its
commencement; he has become a hero malgré lui; he was brought from
Portugal when a child by an officer of the 11th Regiment, and left here
when the army of occupation quitted France. He travelled to Paris in
the July of 1830 and was there surprised by the revolution. Being of a
peaceable temper he hid himself within doors; through some unlucky
window a ball came and grazed his arm, and, determined to profit by
events if possible, as soon as danger was passed he emerged, showing
his wounds and claiming cross and pension; he has obtained both as due
to his merit, and is now a “gros portier dans un hôtel de libéral.” We
walked this lovely evening past the Courtgain to the Pier. The
Courtgain is the fishermen’s quarter, being nothing more than a large
bastion ceded them, with permission to build, in 1622; it contains
seven very narrow streets. We watched the fishing-boats towed out
against wind and tide by their owners’ wives and daughters; the men
look picturesque in their red caps and high boots, and they crawl
through the mud and up the sides of their craft, with two oars serving
for ladder, with the dexterity of cats. It blew fresh this evening; the
boats were out at sea a few moments after the women let go the ropes at
the pier head. They did not murmur at their hard work, nor did sign or
token offer them thanks for it. The skiffs sailed on and they just
glanced at them as they lessened in the distance, and returned dragging
along and scolding disobedient children; yet the sky was wild though
the sun shone; sufficiently stormy to make one wonder they looked no
longer.
St. Omer, July 8th, Grande St. Catherine.
One may certainly ride from Calais hither, and say “it is all barren.”
The soil seems a deep sand, and we wondered that it could produce even
thin wheat and dry grass; crossed the “Pont Sans pareil,” which is
thrown over the two canals, where they meet at right angles. Twenty-six
miles of broad straight road, only enlivened by a few pollarded trees,
a great many windmills, some melancholy red chateaux with great gates
and long avenues, and here and there villages of wretched cabins each
in its unwholesome enclosure; the green pond in front and the tall
trees around it: the group surmounted by a spire. Such as they are,
they give the dead flat a look of the living: but they are scantily
scattered. Left Ardres to the right: it has been a strong place, and is
going to decay. Guines is farther on, and the field of “Cloth of Gold,”
which still bears its name, lies between them, but not on the road: but
for D——’s recollection of 1815, and some interest in tracing his old
quarters, it would have been duller still.
Approached St. Omer at last: rode between rows of stripped elms with
deplorable heads; through a long suburb; along a fine avenue skirting
the fortifications, over bridges and drawbridges unending, and we were
in the town. This is a good inn. We walked after dinner to see the
Abbey of St. Bertin; our guide the “grosse fille d’auberge.” Its
interior was burned in the old revolution, and the “Conseil Municipal,”
judging the safety of the townsmen endangered, has caused all to be
taken down, saving a side wall and its beautiful tower. English
visitors still ascend the latter for the sake of the view, but it must
be a work of danger; it is cracked to the very top, and bends awfully.
Over its porch was a fresco painting, whose outline and some faded
colours remain, and above it, sown there by some of the winds of
heaven, grows and flourishes a young pear tree.
We seated ourselves on some timber to look at the sunset and the
falling abbey, and the fille d’auberge sat down also. She said all the
small houses round were inhabited by English, who admire ruins
“furieusement.” When she was tired of talking she remembered she was
wanted and left us. We returned ourselves through handsome desolate
streets, passing some hotels of Louis the Thirteenth’s time, and many
Spanish houses, of I presume Queen Elizabeth’s date, for they exhibit
the gable peaked or in-steps of stone, but have an ugly addition of
shell-like ornaments over doors and windows. The Place du Haut Pont,
which we crossed, is surrounded by these. The Place itself, with its
crooked canal crossed by a wooden bridge and disappearing under a dark
arch of some ancient building—the boats lying on the water ready to
depart for Dunkirk—a group of people collected on its edge round a
street singer—looked in the red indistinct light like a Dutch picture
or a fragment of opera scenery.
July 9th.
The cathedral is very fine, and we regretted that an exceedingly gruff
Suisse would not allow us to stay more than five minutes in the lovely
Gothic chapel behind the altar, which would be faultless, but that it
is over-painted and gilded. Above the altar is a Crucifixion in stone,
with a background of stained glass, through which the light comes on it
with great effect, but rather theatrically. At the foot of the altar
steps was a female figure in almost modern costume, seated on the
floor, looking like a great wooden doll. What she does there I cannot
say, and the Suisse left me no time to examine. We were obliged to rest
satisfied with a passing glimpse of this, and the “grilles de
chapelles,” on either side, in fine Italian marble, and the tomb in the
nave of some monk or bishop who lies here in costly effigy. We went
thence to St. Denis. Its exterior in some degree resembles St. Bertin
and Nôtre Dame, as its square tower has the same character, but it has
been pieced and renewed within. It was “fête” in this church, an old
man said, and to do it honour the high altar was ornamented with
hundreds of roses, and myrtle and orange-trees in their tubs, ranged in
the choir beneath the church banners. On the right of the choir is the
altar of the “Sacré Cœur,” on either side of which hang strings of
silver hearts as big as the palm of the hand, offerings of the faithful!
On the left, in a hole sunk in the wall, framed and lined with
room-paper, except on festivals screened from profane eyes by little
pink calico curtains, is a gilded bust of St. Bertin, adorned with
steel court buttons. Walking down the aisle on this side we arrived
before the chapel of St. Hubert; we looked through the grille, and saw
on the opposite wall a larger recess, its folding-doors thrown back for
the holiday. Within, the saint (a foot high) kneels in a flowing wig
and Roman toga! a tiny tin cor de chasse, such as you have seen on the
caps of the light infantry of the National Guard, tacked to his side!
The background, a piece of room-paper representing a great green tree;
on which (in relief of course) shines out a second and similar hunting
horn! The saint’s dog, in an attitude of astonishment, gazes, as does
Hubert, on a small wooden stag, who stands on a rock; the Crucifix and
two Thieves springing from his forehead in place of antlers. Below is
written, “The Conversion of St. Hubert.”
In a second recess of the same chapel, St. Hubert reappears, rewarded;
in gilded canonicals and holding a bunch of flowers, but still hangs at
his girdle, to prove his identity, the tin cor de chasse of the bonnet
de Voltigeurs.
I saw lower down a devout inscription praying that “St. Joseph’s
presence in that spot might protect all carpenters,” and near the
entrance an ancient basso relievo brought from the tomb of the Abbot of
St. Bertin.
We walked on to the college, and round its fine courts. Some of the
buildings bear the date of Francis the First, but the church and
college themselves were erected by the Jesuits in the time of their
power—1629. The former merely presents to the street a high ornamented
gable, and a vast space within not worth looking at. Its curiosities
(placed here temporarily) are some bassi relievi of Spanish
processions, dug up some miles from St. Omer, and a group representing
St. Pepin (who was the dwarf of his century) killing with his fist a
lion, who is gnawing a bull.
The fire-engines are also here till the Hôtel de Ville, which is in
progress, shall be ready to house them. I was surprised to see their
buckets are baskets saturated with pitch, and hempen vessels of the
same form, and to hear they answer perfectly. We walked on the ramparts
which command the view of the prodigiously strong fortifications, and
the flat, which can at pleasure be inundated a mile round; but like the
broad desolate streets, the prospect is surpassingly melancholy.
Lillers, Hotel de la Poste, July 10th.
A fine avenue, leaving St. Omer; and a rather more interesting country,
through which flows the little river. One hill in the distance (which
we took for Cassel) breaking the flat, and here and there, some rather
pretty looking hamlets—each cabin within its prairie; but between
these no sign of habitation. The light sandy soil is extremely
cultivated, and the unending plain less sad now than it will be later
in the season, as the corn is in ear, and the bean and poppy fields are
in blossom. From the seed of this purple and white poppy is expressed
salad oil. Aire, which we passed through, is a picturesque, fortified
town, its ramparts shaded with fine green trees. Beyond Aire, on each
side of the grand route, are numberless gardens, and it was gay and
sweet with flowers.
At every mile we pass a “petite chapelle,” being usually a small wooden
case with a glass door, perched on a pole, planted at the road-side;
and within, a tiny figure of the virgin, attired in white muslin. I saw
Nôtre Dame de Grâce, Nôtre Dame de Guerison, and Nôtre Dame de Bonne
Fin; the last with no great pleasure, thinking she might be there
installed on account of the arrival of the black fever, which is in
Flanders. We fancied the villagers looked pale, and passed at a gallop.
John had arrived before us at Lillers; and fearing the diligence had
taken him too far, and unable to ask the name of the place in which he
was deposited, he locked up our baggage in a room of the inn, and, with
the great key in his hand, was contemplating a walk back to St. Omer.
This inn is a mere farm-house with bad accommodation; the landlord and
his friends sat smoking in the room where we dined; he regrets we will
not walk three quarters of a league to the fête, and the servant and
the landlady’s daughter are now describing Dominique’s dancing, and a
minute ago had nearly come to high words about Dominique.
St. Pol, July 11th.
Started in burning weather, having found no conveyance for John, who
trudged after cheerfully, though he says “it is these straight roads
what breaks the heart of a traveller.” Stopped to rest whenever the
shade of a bush made it possible, for the fine trees which grew here as
well as on most of the grandes routes of France are all felled. Saw no
traveller, excepting a white haired bishop, in his purple robes, who
passed in his carriage. John said “he would have kneeled to ax a
blessing but he took him for an officer;” at last we came up with a
petite voiture, within which we deposited John, who directly commenced
a conversation no one was likely to sustain. Arrived here ourselves,
having suffered a good deal from the intense heat; and drank some beer
which a peasant sold at four sous a quart, and explained to her how I
sat on Fanny having no one behind to hold me on. Avoid this inn on pain
of bad meat, and bad beds, and mistakes in the bill. Strolled out, for
refreshment, in the heavy dew, and finding a rather pretty walk
compared to the frightful plain, hailed as if it had been Swiss scenery
the dry bed of a little stream with a bridge and broken bank, shaded by
young birch trees, and a path winding upwards from it through corn and
bean fields and a tiny copse to the town.
Doullens, le Grand Turc, July 12th.
Left St. Pol at four in the afternoon, to avoid the heat, and found it
still so excessive that we sat under the shade of the first trees we
found, and let the horses feed until the sun declined. John was to
follow in the “Service des Dépêches,” a heavy cab with a raw-boned
horse. The peasantry hereabouts are worse lodged and more filthy than
between Calais and St. Omer. Woe to whom penetrate within the prairie,
or step across the floor. The evening grew dark so suddenly that we had
some trouble in finding (not the road, for there are no cross-ways or
green lanes) but its least stony part, in the steep rough descent to
Doullens; took a poppy field for a lake; it struck ten as we arrived in
the bad air of the narrow street, where reigns the Grand Turk the moon
rising as our ride ended. John appeared in the mail a few minutes
after; it had changed horses on the road, but certainly not fatigued
either, for ours were not put out of a walk. The fille d’auberge
blinded me by holding her candle in my face to examine hat, habit, and
wearer, before she thought proper to lead the way to a room. The
atmosphere abominable, and the draught which, when I threw open the
windows, came in from the narrow street and dirty yard, worse than the
air it expelled. Nothing to be had but café au lait and cherries, but
the beds comfortable and the dark-eyed bonne good humoured. She swept
the room before breakfast this morning, and the floor bore witness to
its being a favour.
We walked to the citadel, which is just without the town, now occupied
by only twenty-five men; a pretty avenue leads to it up the glacis. We
were admitted without difficulty, though with some formality. The
soldier at the gate summoned the Corporal; the Corporal asked
permission of the Commandant, and returned to conduct us across the two
drawbridges. The form of the citadel is a square, flanked at each angle
by a bastion, and defended by outworks. From his manners and
conversation, the Corporal might have been a nobleman—for he had
perfect ease and no familiarity; he offered his hand to assist me in
climbing where it was rough and steep, but only when assistance was
necessary. On the side of the citadel furthest from the town is the
place where political offenders were confined some years back; it is a
fort within a fort, and has its own defences. The rampart commands it,
and its sentinel kept a constant look out, yet, in spite of all
precautions, some escaped. They were retaken, but unpunished, Louis
Philip having shortly after proclaimed his “general amnesty.”
Subterranean passages opening from this citadel conduct to the town,
and completely mine it. The heat was so intense that we could not make
the entire tour, though it was only eleven o’clock; the Corporal
regretted being deprived of the pleasure of accompanying us further,
and accepted the silver put in his hand without looking at it, and with
seeming reluctance, as a physician does his first fee.
Doullens has belonged to many masters: to the Huguenots during the wars
of religion, then to their enemies, afterwards to the Spaniards, who
took it when Henry the Fourth was yet unsettled on his throne. It was
in 1595, and the surprise of Amiens, which took place two years after,
was accomplished by the governor of Doullens’ love for a fair widow.
The governor was the famous Captain Hernand Teillo, and the lady the
Dame de Monchy, who was rich as well as noble and beautiful. “I was
born at Amiens,” she replied proudly, when he besought her to accept
his hand: “I will espouse no man unless we obey the same royal master;
either abandon the King of Spain and become French as I am, or take
Amiens and make me a Spanish subject.”
Adopting this last alternative, and having sworn to succeed, the
Spaniard Hernand Teillo marched with his troops towards Amiens; before
day broke a strong detachment lay concealed behind hedges near the
town, the chapel of St. Montain and la Madelaine were occupied, and the
cavalry concealed in a valley; at dawn, Hernand Teillo having made
choice of sixteen soldiers and four officers on whose resolution he
could rely, disguised the former as peasants and market women, and sent
them by different paths to the gate of Amiens, carrying on their backs
market baskets of walnuts and apples; the four officers, disguised in
like manner, walked beside a heavy cart laden with wood covered over
with straw; one acting as waggoner. The movement of troops, however
secretly made, could not be entirely concealed, and some peasants not
counterfeits apprized the governor of Amiens of what was passing; it
was said he had been bought over, at all events he treated it as an
idle report. At six o’clock, the gates of the town being opened, the
sixteen soldiers, preceded by their officers and waggon, boldly
presented themselves for admission at the gate called Montre Écu;
arrived under the entrance arch, the waggon stopped, and the waggoner
silently cut the traces that the portcullis might be arrested in its
fall; at the same moment, one of the pretended peasants undid, as if by
mistake, the cord which fastened the mouth of a sack of walnuts, and
its contents were scattered on the pavement. The guard was composed of
wretched mechanics (for Amiens, in her pride, had refused a royal
garrison); they abandoned their post to seize on the prize, and the
Spaniards, drawing their arms from beneath their clothes, in the course
of a few moments had massacred their unresisting enemies, and gained
possession of the guard house. The sentinel placed on the gate heard
the cries of the wounded, and cut the ropes which upheld the
portcullis, but the waggon was exactly beneath, and the portcullis fell
on it and fixed it there, leaving the way open to the foe. The citizens
roused, came in numbers to repulse the Spaniards who poured in, and to
a body of Irishmen under his command Hernand Teillo owed in a great
measure his success. In their gallant defence of the town, perished
numbers of its inhabitants: the Comte de St. Pol, governor of the
province, failed to imitate their noble example; for he fled, as soon
as from the tower of the royal chateau he inhabited he recognised the
red scarfs of the Spaniards. The townsmen were disarmed the same day;
the sack of Amiens permitted for eight more; and these past, the
already ruined citizens reduced to starvation by the exaction of heavy
sums of money. Married to the Lady of Monchy, Hernand Teillo was
rewarded for his success: and Henry the Fourth of France, after a night
passed at a ball, had just lain down to rest when the courier arrived
with news of the surprise of Amiens. Sully was summoned to his bedside,
and Henry, grasping his hand in strong emotion, said, “I have played
the part of king of France long enough; I must return to that of king
of Navarre.”
All the nobility of France encamped before Amiens; the effective force
amounted to 18,000 men, and Hernand Teillo, reduced to extremity,
implored the assistance of the Archduke Albert, who was at Arras, and
who arrived at the head of 4,000 horse and 15,000 foot. It is told that
the day on which Henry was informed of their approach, he rode to a
height whence he could distinguish the Spanish army advancing in good
order; and leaning over his saddle bow, he prayed heaven, “If his sins
deserved heavy punishment to strike the guilty: but not to scatter the
flock for the fault of the shepherd.”
Hernand Teillo never knew that relief was so near; he had already
fallen by a musket shot, near the Porte de Montre Écu—that very gate
by which he entered. Beside it canvass had been spread to conceal the
workmen while they repaired the breaches made in the rampart: a French
soldier fancied he saw a shade through, and fired—it was Hernand
Teillo. His successor Montenegro surrendered Amiens to King Henry on
the 25th of September.
We left Doullens at twelve, for I thought no sun could be so terrible
as the Grand Turk’s air; but the heat proved more intense than I ever
felt it in France, and whenever we found shade, which was but three
times, we stopped exhausted. Overtook, travelling at this rate, John in
the diligence; woke a half-naked child which was blistering in the sun;
let the horses drink in a pool of abomination, and bought sour wine for
ourselves—though the greasy glass clasped in the black paw almost
conquered thirst. We began to feel the effect of the rays on our head;
I could not without consideration recollect where we were—and talking
became so painful, that we rode some hours in perfect silence, till we
came to a few yards of turf under half a dozen trees, the first for
miles; it was like a bit of paradise. We staid there, the horses
feeding till the sun was low; and even then the heat seemed
undiminished, and the remaining three leagues interminable, for
cathedral and town being built in a hollow, the former towers in sight
long before houses are visible. Just as we were reviving in expectation
of an inn we came to a windmill, slowly turning its sails in the light
air, and throwing long shadows, changing as they turned, on the road
before the horses’ feet: it proved a foe to us as it did of yore to Don
Quixote; Fanny kicked, and the patient Grizzel plunged, and a half
hour’s course of backing and beating was necessary to induce them to
pass. When we dismounted at the Hôtel d’Angleterre a fat old gentleman,
an “habitué,” seated on the wicker-seat on the shady side of the Cour
under the Laurier-rose, asked the landlady, if we could be in our
senses who travelled in such weather, and in such a way? but D—— has
suffered no injury, and I, saving faintness and giddiness, have escaped
also.
13th July.
We are warned against repeating our folly, by the sight of a poor
fellow, who, as I crossed the court-yard, I found placed there in a
chair between two women, one of whom was sobbing violently; I asked
“what ailed her?” She said she was his sister, and the other his wife;
that he had quitted home to come on a journey here, and two days before
on the river had received a sunstroke. They were sent for, and came
instantly: he had not recognized them or spoken; the physician said his
tongue was paralyzed. He had always been a good husband, yet now when
his fits of fury came on, his violence was wholly directed against his
wife,—(I had not noticed before that he wore a strait waistcoat): the
poor wife said nothing; she leaned on his chair looking at him with red
eyes, which seemed to have no moisture left; and only shook her head,
when her sister added, that the Doctor rested a last hope on his being
taken home to his children. I inquired if they wanted money? She said,
“they had been comfortable while they depended on him, and would try to
aid him in turn;” she seemed too miserable to care about it, or even
glance at what was given her. The horses were put to a few minutes
after, and they led him to the coach; he walked like a man in his
sleep, and I think his sight is impaired, for tho’ his face was
flushed, his eyes were like stone. While we were at the table d’hôte, a
very undaunted looking ballad-singer brought her harp to the door, and
reaped a good harvest: the landlord tried to get up a subscription for
the unfortunate peasant, but failed.
Here is the prettiest fair in the world: but held within the precincts
of an ancient church and monastery, whose outer wall, still standing,
exhibits the remains of fine tombs defaced and broken: part of the
cloister, its arches filled up with masonry, is there also; and these
make strange boundaries to ranges of shops forming streets between
avenues of lime-trees, shows and buffoons, feats of horsemanship and
rope-dancing. If the nuns who lie beneath the old monuments could look
forth, they would understand the meaning of revolution. We walked to
the fair after dinner, when it was brilliantly lighted, and the gay
standings and green branches showed to advantage. It is the resort of
the beau monde of Amiens, and its theatres and temporary cafés were
crowded. I asked the meaning of the frequent discharges of musketry we
heard—“Madame,” said a grave shopman, “c’est la prise de Constantine!”
The exhibition of paintings by Amiens artists is held in the Hôtel de
Ville, and does them no great honour: the subject of one picture you
will think curious. I copy from the catalogue: “Christmas Eve: some
good children are employed in reverently gathering together miraculous
playthings, sent them by the _Enfant Jésus_ down the chimney”!!!
The Gaol joins the Hôtel de Ville. As we came out, we saw a crowd
collected round a large machine like an omnibus, except that it
received light and air from apertures in its roof: it was marked
“Service des Prisonniers,” and is destined to convey some convicts to
Bicêtre to-night: a better mode of transport than dragging them along
the road in chains.
The Beffroi, a strange looking tower which rises alone on the Place de
l'Hôtel de Ville, now serves as a prison for minor offences: it
contains the great bell tolled on solemn occasions. It is said that
this tower was raised by Louis le Gros, but the town records make no
mention of it till the year 1244; it has been twice consumed by
fire—the first time in 1524, when it was the scene of an awful
tragedy. The keeper had ascended to the lantern at its top before the
flames broke forth: and when about to descend, found, to his horror,
that smoke and fire barred his passage. He attempted to force his way,
and they drove him back; he rushed to the top once more, and shrieked
for assistance to the terrified crowd: it was impossible to afford it;
and as the floor heated beneath his feet, he implored, in his agony,
that some one present would fire on him. His sad prayer was granted;
and having recommended his soul to God, he fell dead from a harquebuss
shot.
There is a fine “Établissement des Bains” near our hôtel, supplied by
the river, but before you go thither, do not, as I did, walk in view of
the filthy buildings which hang over the Somme, as the muddy water
causes disagreeable associations, particularly as it also washes the
walls of the church in the principal street, now converted into a
splendid hospital.
I have said nothing of the Cathedral, yet there we have passed the
greater portion of our time; and for its sake remain three days at
Amiens. Its foundations were laid in 1220, when Everard was Bishop of
Amiens, and Louis the Eighth King of France. Excepting its towers, it
was finished about 1288.
415 feet long within, 132 in height, its proportions are so perfect,
that its size fails to strike, except by comparison. I was made aware
of it only by looking at a human figure in the aisle. What a pity that
bad taste should have covered a great part of the carved stone work,
and several tombs in the chapels, with painted and gilt wainscotings!
Among the latter, one in black marble of the churchman who united
Isabella of Bavaria, of infamous memory, to Charles the Sixth, the
royal maniac. The gilding of the altar, railings, &c. was lately
renewed by the testamentary donation of an Englishman, who, together
with his wife and family, embraced the Catholic religion here. They
were converted, the landlady tells me, by the wife of the English
clergyman! who herself had abjured protestantism shortly before!! The
little angel, who beside the kneeling figure of a bishop weeps behind
the high altar, was so prized by the English, that it is said they
offered to purchase him for his weight in gold. He sits with his head
leaned on his hand, and his legs hung carelessly down—an image of
all-absorbing sorrow. The monument was an offering of gratitude from
its sculptor to the memory of the prelate who had been his patron; but
why an ill-executed figure of the Virgin is placed so close as to spoil
the effect, no one can tell.
The organ is voiceless still, notwithstanding the 40,000 francs spent
this year on its repair.
As we are to leave Amiens in the morning, we returned to the Cathedral
after dinner, as I wished, in company of its Suisse, to walk round it
once more—but that this man is straight, and has two eyes, he might be
the original of Quasimodo. We were too early, and staid outside to look
again at the three beautiful porches, deeply sunk in the noble façade,
among whose multitude of carved saints innumerable birds have built
their nests, in cavities made by decapitated heads, and limbs wanting;
they were flying about in quantities. As we entered, the priest was
about to conclude his evening sermon; we waited its close, and I
thought I had not seen the cathedral to advantage before. The weather
was burning and cloudless; and while the coloured rosace of the
transept opposite us looked deeper and richer, because, not fronting
the west, it admitted no sunbeams; they came through a side window, and
the whole cross aisle was a flood of light: roof, columns, and arches
illuminated in all their details; and the figure of Fenelon’s friend,
half reclined on his tomb, seemed about to start up. Through the
stained glass of the large rose above the organ, and the smaller one on
each side, the glory from the west streamed in likewise, brightening
the gay dresses of the still congregation, and the bare head of the
energetic priest, and the pulpit, supported by the three Cardinal
Virtues, and surmounted by an angel whose foot seems hardly to rest on
its roof, and whose hand points upward. You would have moralized on the
Virtues cowering in shadow, and the winged form above them (like their
emanation) floating in splendour.
The Suisse came to conduct us: his pride seemed centered in the
cathedral, and in the study of its walls he says he has passed wakeful
nights. The two bronzed monuments, hardly raised from the floor to
right and left of the principal entrance, a human figure rudely
outlined on each, are those of the founder Everard and his successor
Godefroy.
Walking up the left-hand aisle, the Suisse pointed to the Crucifix
Miraculeux: it is of the seventh century, clad in long gilded robes,
wearing an expression, not of pain, but triumph; such being the mode of
representing the Saviour before the time of Charlemagne. The miracle on
which rests its fame consists in a change of lodging it one night
effected, for it was originally placed in a chapel on the right of the
nave. Why it preferred one opposite, the tradition does not tell.
Here, where the transept crosses the nave, is the tomb of the
ambassador who negotiated peace between Francis the First of France and
the Emperor Charles. The emblematical figures are those of Force
wresting a Salamander from the grasp of Peace—Francis paid tribute. An
altar opposite, erected during a plague, conceals the monument of a
bishop, who, holding the see of Amiens at the period of the battle of
Crecy, received and sheltered Philip of Valois. A pavement stone in the
transept marks the grave of Gresset. The chapel near contains, in a
superb reliquary, a piece of the skull of John the Baptist! and each
time we have visited the cathedral, we have seen the same old lady
kneeling before it, in immovable devotion. The curious stone screen
raised outside the choir represents the various events of John the
Baptist’s life; the small figures, though rudely drawn, have great
expression; arches, canopies and pinnacles, carved above them in the
same stone, form a light and beautiful frame. Formerly this screen
surrounded the choir; the taste of Louis the Fifteenth’s time
substituted the gilt bronze railing. The Suisse stopped a moment to
admire the weeping cherub and criticise (not unskilfully) a beautiful
Virgin, carved by the same hand, in the chapel, behind the high altar.
A few steps further, the pavement stones for a considerable space are
marked each with a deeply carved cross. It would seem that here, during
the religious wars, there once took place a conflict between Huguenots
and Catholics, in which many of the latter died. The pavement of the
transept has one grave-stone more near the side entrance to the right;
the initials it bears are H. T. (Hernand Teillo), for he was buried
here; and it was of him that Henry the Fourth, viewing his small
armour, said, “I had not believed so mighty a spirit could be lodged so
narrowly!”
The carving of the screen, the canons’ seats, &c. of the choir, as they
are celebrated for their beauty, we wished to see nearer; but their
exhibition did not lie in our cicerone’s department—he went in search
of a fat woman who has the key in charge. “Monsieur,” he said, smiling
as he presented her, “c’est la dame du cœur!”
The sculptor of this fairy-work was by agreement bound to sacred
subjects; and only an oversight left to his own taste the adorning of
the wood-work which divides the canons’ seats. The artist was
acquainted with their persons and histories; and when his task was
done, each found his elbow resting on an indiscreet allusion to his
life or himself. Some chafed over their own grotesque portraits; a meek
looking young ass dressed in canonicals gazed sympathetically in the
face of another; and the most unkindly treated of all beheld his own
figure in a contrite attitude, his own hands receiving an infant from
the hands of a lady! We staid in the cathedral till the daylight
failed; and the high roof looked loftier when we could barely
distinguish where it rested on the groups of slender columns. It will
be long ere we forget its beauty, and the beautiful changes of its
aspect; from the time its three portals thrown open after evening
service admitted the whole flood of sunset, which lit it up as for a
rejoicing, till the glow had faded; which it did so slowly, as if it
had been loth to leave it.
Went to bed at twelve; a violent thunder-storm; up again at three; off
at four; and but that the two hotel dogs followed us and we turned back
fearing to lose them, we were in a fair way for Rouen; as the roads
join and we had chosen the wrong one. A beautiful sunrise and
uninteresting country. Arrived at half-past eight this 17th of July at
Breteuil, and its Hôtel de l’Ange, a fallen one!
Doubtful meat, sulky servants, dirty floors; windows commanding the
view of a farrier’s premises, admitting the scent of the smoking hoofs,
which since nine this morning have accommodated themselves to red-hot
shoes; nothing to be seen but “a belvedere,” that is, a circular seat
at the top of a mound, which having climbed, we may look at the road we
have travelled. Starved with the semblance of a dinner, disgusted with
the stairs which act as fowl-house, and some of whose steps the bonne,
to prove her cleanliness, scraped with a dinner knife! Walked out,
weary of the farrier, the two comrades who assist, and the boy who
dusts the flies away, and were driven back by the still dirtier town.
CHAPTER II.
Clermont—Château now a Penitentiary—a Stronghold of the English in
Charles the Sixth’s time—Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached
the first Crusade—Charles the Sixth’s place of Confinement during
his Madness—Chantilly—Écouen—Henry last Duke of
Montmorency—Presentiment of his Father—at eighteen created Lord
High Admiral—His early love in Languedoc—His prudential Marriage
at the Louvre—His Successes at Rochelle—Coldness of Louis the
Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu—His gallantry at
Veillane—Restoration of Prisoners—Humanity during the plague at
Rivoli—His anxiety to become High Constable of France—Richelieu’s
injustice—His retirement to Languedoc—Privileges of
Languedoc—Prince Gaston’s efforts to win over Montmorency—The
Duke’s arrest by Richelieu’s orders, rendered impossible through
the people’s affection—Renewed efforts of Gaston—Persuasions of
the Duchess—Montmorency’s reluctant consent—Gaston’s indecision
and high words with the Duke—Battle of Castlenaudary—His
emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow—The
ditch leaped alone as at Veillane—The troops held back by Gaston
in sight of his peril—Montmorency overpowered—Dragged from under
his dead horse and carried before Schomberg—The female portrait on
his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to
incense the King by the Cardinal—The cries of the people beneath
the Palace windows—His farewell to his wife, and legacy to
Richelieu—The emotion of his Judges—His condemnation—Religious
feeling of his last hours—His farewell to the statue of his
Godfather—His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a
martyr—His burial among the bones of the Sainted—The imprisonment
of his widow—Her sad life—Her taking the veil—Louis the
Thirteenth’s visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the
Cardinal’s messengers—The King’s remorse—The apparition in the
Hall of Écouen—St. Denis—Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert,
St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream—Miraculous
consecration of the church and the leper’s new skin—Tombs—The
column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of
Scotland—Breaking open of the monuments in 1793—Turenne in a
glass case—a lock of Henry the Fourth’s beard making a soldier’s
moustache—Plunder of a nose by an Englishman—The Caveau of the
last Condé—Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth’s
memory—The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being
converted into a Market-house—Paris.
18th July.
One of the pleasures of travelling consists in leaving obnoxious
places. Quitted Breteuil at four, in a fog cold as December; passing
the Abbey, an old building with turrets and Gothic windows, and a grove
whose alleys might have proved a resource, had we known they were so
near yesterday. Long hills, but no view; till a short distance from
Clermont, below the road to the right, we looked down on a wooded
country, and the town, built on its bold hill, appeared before us; and
we continued to skirt a pretty valley, passing chateaux and pleasure
grounds, till, by a gentle ascent, we arrived at the Croissant, really
a very good inn, and after Breteuil, a paradise. Fed a puppy, and Fanny
showed symptoms of a jealous disposition. D—— arrived just in time to
save his life, as she had taken him in her mouth, and was shaking him
by the skin of his back. The heat kept us within doors till evening,
when we climbed the remainder of the hill. Passed the place and the
church to the chateau, which is now a penitentiary, containing 1500
women, and was in early days a fortress of the Franks, to protect them
from Norman invasion; and in Charles the Sixth’s time a stronghold of
the English. French guide-books still call it a Gothic castle, though I
could see no trace of Gothic architecture remaining, except in the
building on the place now the Hôtel de Ville, which has still the
vestiges of battlements, and one old tower. The road leads, beneath an
ancient arch, to the public promenade which surrounds the chateau which
crowns it, like a verdant belt, its fine trees making, in French taste,
stars and circles. The view it commands, as it juts over the valley, is
very lovely; as the river shines below, and seems to lose itself
winding among wooded hills, which succeed each other far to the right.
The townspeople were assembled on the terrace, playing rackets with
much noise and small skill; we sat on one of the stone benches watching
the game, and the sun set—decidedly we prefer setting to rising suns;
D——, in particular, has no taste for the beauties of nature at
half-past four.
Left at five: passing on our way Creil on the Oise, looking from the
bridge towards the west, you see built, in a rather elevated situation,
the village of Montataire. It is said that here Peter the Hermit first
preached the crusade. The ruined castle on the island of Creil was
built in Charles the Fifth of France’s time, and a kind of balcony with
iron gates, which belonged to Charles the Sixth’s apartment, was
formerly shown. He was confined here during his madness, and the well
built in the centre of the floor for heating the rooms with charcoal
(for chimneys were not yet in use) remained also. I do not know whether
they exist now.
It is a romantically situated town, and the view back to it, from the
hill beyond, very interesting. Thence a straight road leads to
Chantilly, and is wearisome enough, though a great part of it skirts
the forest; but the trees here are young, and mostly oak, and yet
without shade or beauty. A long descent conducts to the miserable town,
and we stopped at the Hôtel de Bourbon Condé, the best and very bad, to
breakfast and dine, intending to go on at sunset. I came here long ago
to see the over ornamented park, and the stables for 240 horses; but
to-day, instead of braving the burning sun, I lay down tired at last
with early hours, and read a savage selection from discoveries in
savage islands. John arrived, brought by the pity of the conductor,
joined to the price of his place, of course. There being no room, he
had constructed a pyramid of baggage on his back, preparatory to
walking, when the conductor perched him in some unknown corner. He is
growing troublesome; complaining yesterday of dining on bones, which on
inquiry proved two fricasseed fowls! and anxious to know the punishment
when a foreigner fights a Frenchman. We started after a dear dinner of
bad meat, at the same time with the diligence, whose passengers we
astonished, because, having taken the horses along a pathway and off
the high road, our only way to return was over a ditch, which was
narrow, but excited great shouting notwithstanding. The road through
the forest pretty, but after quitting it, shorn of all its fine
trees—got to Écouen very warm and thirsty—drank some beer in the
street, and looked as we passed at the old chateau, 400 years the
property of the Montmorency. Henry, marshal of Montmorency, was its
last owner of the name. His history is so interesting, that I am
tempted to write some of its circumstances here.
The war-cry of the Montmorency was “Dieu aide au premier baron
Chrétien,” for the first baron was (tradition tells) baptized at the
same time with Clovis, the first Christian king. The last, who was
beheaded in 1632 and left no heir, was born in 1595. An astrologer drew
his horoscope, and predicted that he would outshine his ancestors in
glory, if he could avoid a danger which threatened his thirty-eighth
year. He is described as being from his childhood mild, brave, and
beautiful; possessing those graces of exterior which set off noble
qualities. Henry the Fourth loved him as his own son; and taking
pleasure in talking with the boy, he one day asked, “What is the virtue
best fitted to a monarch?” “Clemency,” said the child; “since only
kings have privilege to pardon.” He was thirteen when Henry bestowed on
him the survivance of the governorship of Languedoc possessed by his
father, who conducted him there, and himself installed him in his
dignities; but when he had placed him in the seat the governor occupied
in the parliament of Toulouse, a sudden presentiment of evil came over
him, and he burst into tears. The king was sad without the boy, and
soon recalled him to court, and proposed his marriage with his own
daughter by Henriette d’Entragues. The constable of Montmorency had
fixed his wishes on his son’s union with Mademoiselle de Beaufort,
Henry’s daughter also, but by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and more beloved by
him, as well as more beautiful; and the King, irritated by opposition,
exiled him to Chantilly. He was there and in disgrace, when a marriage
with the rich demoiselle de Chemilly was proposed to him for his heir.
Thinking the King might disapprove, he desired his brother would
conduct the youth to one of his own mansions, that he might there meet
his destined bride; but Henry the Fourth, apprized of what was passing,
sent an order to Duplessis, the commandant at Saumur, to arrest there,
on their way, the Duke d’Amville and the young governor. Duplessis in
consequence called upon them, and the Duke, suspecting his errand,
invited him to dine. The officer refused, yet, wishing to do his duty
civilly, put off the arrest till after dinner, merely placing a
sentinel at the gates, intending to return in an hour or two. D’Amville
and his nephew, instead of repairing to the eating-hall, walked
straight to the stables, and riding out a private way, joined an escort
of fifty gentlemen. When the King knew he had been outwitted, he sent
the Duke of Soubise, with two companies of the guards, to the house
where the marriage was to take place, with orders (if necessary) to
force an entrance, and bring away Mademoiselle de Chemilly, but
Soubise, on arriving, found them united. Some time after, the
Constable, finding his daughter-in-law less rich than he expected,
determined on dissolving this very marriage. The King gave his assent,
and Montmorency was neither old enough nor sufficiently in love to
resist him. Many thought that this violation of his vow brought on him
the disasters of his after-life. Henry, rather than disoblige his
favourite, broke a former engagement made for Mademoiselle de Beaufort,
and her marriage with Montmorency was about to take place in 1610, when
the King was murdered. The Duke was yet only fifteen. Three years after
he was created Lord High Admiral, and the queen-mother proposed his
union with the Princess Orsini, her relation, for Mademoiselle de
Beaufort’s consequence had died with her father. The young Duke was
disinclined to this marriage, for in his own Languedoc he had fallen in
love with a lady so surpassingly lovely, that for her sake he was ready
to forget ambition and make her his wife. She had been married to an
old man, who, shortly after Montmorency first saw her, slipped as he
feebly descended some steps, and died of the blow received on his head.
The Duke, who witnessed this awful death, first consoled and then loved
the widow: but overruled by his father, and perhaps influenced by all
this high alliance promised him, he quitted Languedoc for Paris,
accompanied by a hundred gentlemen and nobles of his province. He was
lodged in the Louvre, and married there with all the ceremonial which
accompanies the wedding of a prince; but either because his heart was
far away with the fair lady of Montroux, or because something whispered
that out of this ill-starred union would grow all his future
misfortune, his joy was ill feigned. There was even an unwonted
bitterness in his manner which brought on him a foolish quarrel; for,
presenting to the Duke of Retz (who had espoused his deserted bride,
Madlle. de Chemilly) a bowl of sweetmeats, which he had himself tasted,
he said, “Take these, Sir; it is not the first time you have accepted
what I have left;” they fought in consequence, but Montmorency disarmed
him. The Duchess Mary of Orsini was gentle and of a fine figure, but by
no means handsome. In spite of his infidelity, which she knew and
deplored the more, seeing its object so beautiful, she was fondly
attached to her husband and gained his esteem and affection by her
uncomplaining gentleness. Once he remarked with sorrow, that she looked
pale and changed. “It is true that my countenance is so,” she replied
mildly, “it must suffice you that my heart is not.” His history would
occupy too much space if told in detail. For many years almost
constantly successful in the civil wars which desolated France; a
faithful as well as brave subject; notwithstanding that the Cardinal
Richelieu and the Duke of Luynes were his enemies, he refused to join
the queen-mother against the King when they parted in anger. He was
called the “King of Men” by his soldiers, who adored him. Sent to
command the naval attack of La Rochelle, he was denied the needful
supplies through the influence of Richelieu, and spent, to procure
them, a part of his private fortune. He found the Dutch Admiral
Houstain had lost a vessel, and wanted munition, and furnished him with
both; yet when, having succeeded gloriously, he returned to court, he
was coldly received by Louis the Thirteenth, and the jealous Cardinal
soon after caused the suppression of the post of Lord High Admiral.
The religious wars ended, the King sent an army into Italy to support
the Duke of Mantua against the Austrians. Richelieu had the command,
and rather than not serve, Montmorency went as volunteer. The King
bestowed on him, shortly after, the command of his army at Pignerol;
then sent him to head the troops which entered Piedmont, where he
obtained a signal victory. His army had received orders to join that of
Marshal Laforce, but the Duke of Savoy lay between. The latter
commenced the attack in an unexpected quarter, and the Marquis of
Effiat and others advised rather to sacrifice the one regiment in peril
than to risk the army. Montmorency exclaimed, “Who love me, follow!”
and rushed forward at the head of the King’s gens-d’armes. Prince Doria
was approaching; and the duke, to meet him with less delay, and well
mounted, leaped a broad ditch which lay between them, and, though
unfollowed, forced his way before a regiment of infantry, whose fire
did not stop him, and through the ranks of a squadron commanded by
Prince Doria, whom he wounded; and had arrived fighting and unharmed in
the sixth rank of these horsemen before he was joined by any of those
who had made a detour instead of leaping after him, and who, having
believed him dead, found that he alone had half routed a squadron. By
this and other exploits, continued throughout the day, the battle of
Veillane was won; and the generous duke, who among his prisoners had
taken almost all the officers of the Piedmontese army, sent them back
to the Duchess of Savoy, who was King Louis’s sister. He had received
no wound, but came from the field, the gold ornaments hacked from his
splendid armour, and himself so bruised that he was hardly to be
recognised. His horse, which was called “Le Remberge,” was wounded in
twenty places, though slightly; and as it was a strong and beautiful
animal, one of Montmorency’s officers wished for and received him from
his general.
His troops were attacked at Rivoli by the plague, and to aid sick
friends and soldiers he sold luxuries and comforts, and his
head-quarters, far from being kept free from infection, rather
resembled an hospital. Spite of his successes and the love of his army,
or rather on account of them (for Richelieu envied his popularity, and
already meditated his ruin), he was recalled. The soldiers mourned over
him. “Who,” they said, “will lead us to victory when we lose
Montmorency?” And yet, when the duke arrived at Lyons, and found there
the King to all appearance dying, and Richelieu torn by anxiety, he
took pity on the latter and frankly offered him protection in the
province he commanded: relays were held in readiness to bear the
Cardinal thither in case of the fatal termination of Louis’s malady; he
vowed eternal gratitude, but forgot it as the King recovered.
Montmorency had yielded his assent to the suppression of the States of
Languedoc,—a loss of privilege which the province deplored, and he too
repented. The King at his request promised their re-establishment, but
avoided keeping his word; and the duke, whose ambition was to hold,
like so many of his ancestors, the office of constable of France, being
only created marshal, and otherwise coldly treated at court, retired to
Languedoc. The Duke of Angoulême, his brother-in-law, said, when he
bade him farewell, “that the king could never forget his services, and
that his friends would always have sufficient influence to efface the
false impressions made by the Cardinal;” but the duke shook his head
sadly. “I do not flatter myself,” he said; “I shall not return to
court, if affairs there continue as at present; my welfare is in the
hands of God.”
Retired to the seat of his government, the duke’s heart was set on
recovering the privileges of the province. By the King’s command the
subject occupied the states-general assembled at Pézenas, but the
King’s commissaries, Miron and Hemery, had the Cardinal’s private
instructions to yield in nothing, for he hoped to wear out the patience
of the governor by oppression of the province. He knew by his spies
that the King’s brother Gaston intended striving to win over
Montmorency; and as it was his maxim to treat as guilty those who
possibly might become so, he dispatched an order to Hemery to arrest
the duke. The latter just then making a journey to Montpellier, Hemery
and the Marquis des Fossés followed, intending to make him prisoner
there; but they judged the people’s love for him would render it
impossible. Des Fossés altered his opinion when he found he was to
attend the representation of a drama acted in his honour by the
Jesuits’ pupils. He placed soldiers at the college gates to seize him,
and issued an order to the garrison of the citadel, which joined it, to
remain under arms. The duke, warned of what was passing, at first would
not believe it possible, but the report spreading, persons of rank and
condition flocked round him, offering to seize Hemery and Des Fossés,
and to take possession of the citadel, which would have been easy, as
it was feebly garrisoned, but the duke refused; a proof he did not then
contemplate the treason to which Richelieu’s injustice was urging him.
He went, contrary to advice, to the college, and returned, none having
dared molest him, and two days after returned to Pézenas, where he told
what had happened to the duchess, and his uncle, and other private
counsellors there; they were loud in their cry for vengeance. The
bishop of Alby, who was with Montmorency, had a nephew, partizan of
Gaston and the queen-mother, with whom he corresponded. Just about this
time a new commission arrived from court empowered to tax the province,
and Alby and his nephew, who had come in disguise to treat with the
governor, took advantage of it to influence him. They reminded him of
reward denied and services forgotten; of the death of his cousin De
Bouteville; the refusal to restore the privileges of Languedoc; the
execution of the innocent Marshal of Marillac; yet all would have
failed, had not the duchess joined to persuade, for she was niece of
the queen-mother. A young girl who served her overheard a conversation
between them. The duchess spoke low, in sentences broken by sobs; and
the duke at last answered: “I will do so; you need persuade me no
longer, your ambition shall be satisfied: but remember it will cost me
my life.” Soud’heilles, the captain of his guard, was then in Paris;
and the cardinal, alarmed when the duke had declared himself,
dispatched him to Languedoc to try his influence with his master.
Montmorency wavered, but the duchess and his confidants persuaded him,
that to desert Gaston would be dishonour. He had a final conference
with them, and returned from it straight to Soud’heilles. “My dear
friend,” he said, “the stone is thrown, I cannot call it back again.”
The weak Gaston, then, as afterwards, incapable of opposing a foe as of
protecting a friend long, was ill advised at this juncture, and arrived
before the time agreed on with Montmorency, and before his measures
could be taken. He had fifteen hundred half-armed men, the sympathy of
the people, but neither Narbonne nor Montpellier. Lodeve received him,
and from thence he sent a messenger to the duke.
“He has advisers who betray him,” he said, “and his over haste impairs
his cause: but be it so, we must face the storm; and I feel it will
fall on me.”
On the way to Beaucaire, which opposed Gaston, the duke passed
Montpellier, and the people came out, weeping as they understood his
danger. Beaucaire would have been taken; but when the army was before
it, the Duke of Elbeuf claimed the chief command, which had been
promised Montmorency; and Gaston being undecided, as usual, the delay
of the attack gave time for the king’s troops to come up. He soon
after, through the treason of some of his advisers, lost St. Felix de
Carmain, and when the news of its surrender reached the prince, there
came with it that of the advance of the royal troops to take
Castelnaudary; near which lay his forces. The duke disposed his army in
order of battle, near a brick bridge, which crossed the road, half a
league from the town. “The time of your triumph is come,” he said to
Gaston; “but this sword,” touching his own, “must be red to the hilt
first.” The prince coldly answered, “Your rodomontades are never
ending, Monsieur de Montmorency, but as yet, when you have promised me
success, I have only been indebted to you for hope.” “I am not sorry to
say to you now, that it will always be easy for me to make my peace
with the King, and with two or three more to retire.” In consequence of
this, high words ensued between the duke and Gaston, and they parted
hardly reconciled.
It was a subject of emulation between the Comte de Moret and
Montmorency to strike the first blow in the battle; and the latter, to
make sure of himself doing so, asserted, as he advanced precipitately,
that he went only to reconnoitre a post, and with some impatience
commanded the noblemen who followed him to keep back! The Comte de
Rieux, who rode close, reminded him, that it was his duty to be
prudent, as on the general’s fate hung the army’s. Montmorency knew him
for a brave man, yet he said what was far from his thoughts, “It would
seem you are afraid;” and to shorten remonstrance as well as distance,
he leaped his horse, as at Viellane, across a broad fence, and found
himself at the other side with the Comte de la Feuillade, the Vicomte
du Pujol Villeneuve, and a few more, in the midst of the enemy’s
infantry. At the first fire, all with him fell, except Pujol, who
fought by his side till a shot in the leg disabled him. His company of
gens-d’armes came up, but the infantry, posted to advantage, kept up a
fire which few escaped; yet the duke was unshaken; he opened a way
wherever he turned, and might have retired with ease, and gloriously,
to bring up the army; but being within their sight, he believed the
troops would advance to support him; and a corps of cavalry, commanded
by Baron de Laurières, coming up, he spurred so impetuously to meet
him, that horse and man, as he encountered them, went down; and
discharged on the head-piece of the leader’s son, Baron de Bourdet, so
violent a blow, that the casque, examined after the battle, seemed
indented by a battle-axe rather than a sword. His father rose from the
ground at the moment, and seeing his son stagger, he wounded mortally
the duke’s charger, and Montmorency fell with and under his dying
horse. If Gaston had then brought up the army, this misfortune might
have been repaired. The Duke of Elbeuf and Puy Laurens, and La Ferté
Imbaut, (the two last suspected of having been bought over,) persuaded
him to hold back, though his peril was visible from where they stood. A
report next reached the prince, that his general had fallen, whereupon,
flinging down his arms, and panic-struck, he exclaimed, “Sound the
retreat, I will play this game no further.”
During this time Guiltaut and St. Preuil, captains of the royal guard,
had come up with the duke, and mourned over him as he was drawn with
difficulty from under his dead horse, covered with its gore and his
own, for he was desperately wounded; and the blood which gushed from
his mouth, as he lay with the weight pressing on him, had almost
stifled him. “I sacrificed myself to ungrateful cowards,” he said, as
soon as he could speak, “though it was told me, even before Beaucaire,
that I was betrayed in the prince’s army.” Four soldiers raised him
gently, and carried him to Marshal Schomberg, who received him with the
esteem and tenderness which were his due. It is told that he wore on
his arm, when taken prisoner, a portrait enriched with diamonds; this
was perceived by his friend, De Bellièvre, who was afterwards President
of the Parliament. Recognizing the female head, he pretended to
question the duke, and taking his arm as he spoke to him, adroitly drew
forth the miniature; but dexterously as it was done, it could not be
hidden from a spy of the cardinal, present at the scene, and it was
reported to Richelieu, who made use of it as a means to render Louis
the Thirteenth implacable, as the picture was that of his queen, Anne
of Austria!
The Count de Moret, natural son of Henry the Fourth, received his
death-wound not thirty paces from his companion in arms. The latter, in
consequence of the refinement on cruelty practised by the cardinal, and
while all the people, loud as they dared, murmured shame, was borne in
a litter to Toulouse, notwithstanding the insupportable heat and his
uncured wounds. The inhabitants of Toulouse vowed to save him at any
cost, but the cardinal received intimation of their resolves, and the
prisoner was carried through without stopping to Leitoure. Arrived, he
was conducted to the castle, and here a chance of escape presented
itself again, for the Marchioness of Castelnaud bribed one of the
guards, and provided him with ropes, by which the duke might be lowered
to a place whence a passage led out into the country; and the
marchioness, who was a determined woman, advanced with twenty horsemen
as near to the citadel as they dared; but the guard was discovered with
the ropes in his possession, by the lieutenant of the citadel, and
killed by him on the spot, in the first burst of passion.
Notwithstanding the prayers of the army and the people, those of his
brothers-in-law, the Prince of Condé and Duke of Angoulême, the agony
of the duchess—the proceedings against Montmorency went on, and to a
fatal termination. He expressed penitence for his conduct, and showed
as much firmness as in his best days. He was persuaded by De Launay and
his confessor to ask his pardon of the king: “Tell the cardinal,” he
added to Launay, charged with the message, “that if he saves my life,
he will have no reason to repent of it: but also that I do not ask the
king’s council to act against conviction, if they believe my death more
useful to the state than might be the rest of the years I have to live.”
Anne of Austria, the queen consort, solicited by the Duke of Épernon
and the principal nobility of the court, to intercede with the king,
feared the cardinal’s misinterpretation, and applied to him in the
first instance. He answered that he did not doubt the king’s granting
any favour she desired, but that she herself should also consider, that
the annoyance she was about to cause him would injure his health,
which, since his malady at Lyons, he had never recovered; and Anne,
seeing by the cardinal’s manner, that, by saving the captive she risked
his anger, determined rather to let him die. The people assembled under
the king’s windows, and their cry reached his ears: he asked its
import, it was “Mercy for Montmorency!” The king merely permitted him
to dispose of his property, notwithstanding the confiscation about to
be pronounced, and the duke occupied himself with the payment of his
debts and the care of his vassals. He wrote an affectionate farewell to
his unhappy wife, who was not in a state to read it, and sent to
Richelieu, who had once wished to possess it, a fine picture of St.
Sebastian, as his dying gift.
The last night of his existence he slept during six hours, tranquilly,
as if the coming events of the next day were unknown to him, and prayed
fervently when he woke. The hour arrived for his being conducted to the
palace, he received the Count of Charlus, who came to seek him,
cheerfully as ever, but refused to allow his surgeon to dress his
wounds, saying they would soon be cured. He asked for something to eat,
and then got into the carriage, which was open. The Counts of Charlus
and Launay followed, and four companies of soldiers escorted him; the
rest of the army lined the streets he passed through, or filled the
squares of the town. As he stood with mild demeanour and bareheaded
before his judges, his noble presence was that of the governor, not the
criminal. The judges seeing him they loved, and were perforce about to
doom, looked down to hide the tears which rose in spite of them, or
buried their faces in their handkerchiefs. He was desired to sit on the
criminal’s stool, which however, contrary to custom, had been raised to
the level of the judges’ seats, and, contrary to custom also, he was
left unbound. He was painfully affected while replying to the question,
“Whether he had children by his marriage,” for he mourned the want of
an heir.
The trial over, he was conducted from the Palace of Justice back to the
Hôtel de Ville, where he recommenced his devotions, and these ended,
conversed with his friends and wrote some private instructions for his
family; and the Count de Charlus, his face covered with tears, asking
in the king’s name for his order of the Holy Ghost and bâton of
marshal, he delivered them calmly, saying, “it was true that one crime
had cancelled the services which obtained them;” and then took some
slight refreshment. He next repaired to the chapel. The commissaries of
the court arrived to read his sentence to him, he listened with perfect
tranquillity, kneeling before the altar, and rising when they
concluded, and sobbed with their emotion, he spoke to them with great
kindness. He was informed that the royal favour (though indeed it was
the cardinal’s fear) allowed his being executed within the courts of
the Hôtel de Ville instead of on the public square. De Launay was at
this time with the king, who had sent for him, and the duke’s friends
felt hope revive; but Louis merely desired “that he should die
unbound,” and this he declined, saying, “he would end life as he
deserved, like a criminal.” He cut off his own hair, and changed his
rich attire for the poor clothes of a soldier; he had bowed, as he came
along, to the troops who guarded him, and bade them farewell. There was
some delay, (perhaps in consequence of changing the place of
execution,) and during this time the duke remained seated on a bench
adjoining the chapel balustrade, and conversed with his confessor, too
low for others to overhear. He asked for water to wash his mouth, for
he suffered from sore throat: “Father,” he said, “can you explain to me
my feelings? Before heaven I assure you that I go to death with
satisfaction, without regret or dread; and if I had never believed in
God until now, this firmness vouchsafed to my weak nature would make me
adore him.” Efforts, even in this last hour, were made to save him, but
in vain, though the Pope’s nuncio was one who pleaded. He calmly
presented his arms to be bound by the executioner, and desired Father
Arnoux to take from his hand the crucifix, since “the just might not be
bound with the guilty.” He was led into the court where was the
scaffold, and his surgeon cut his hair which he had left too long, and
fainted when he had done; even the executioner wept. The marble statue
of Henry the Fourth stood above one of the entrances, and he gazed at
it earnestly. The confessor noticing it, he said, “Father, he was a
good and generous prince.” Continuing to advance, he ascended the steps
of the scaffold as firmly as if they had led to glory. He spoke to a
jesuit who stood beneath: “I pray you,” he said, “prevent, if you may,
my head from falling to the earth; receive it, if possible.” He kneeled
and prayed once more, and adjusted himself on the block, which gave him
great pain, as it was too low; a single stroke severed his head from
his body. The gates were thrown open; people and troops thronged in
with cries of grief, crowding round and on the scaffold, reverently
dipping kerchiefs in his blood, which they held to be that of a martyr.
That day, a soldier drew on the executioner to kill the wretch by whose
vile hand the best and bravest of men had died. The people withheld and
concealed him, for the cardinal caused search to be made that he might
be put to death. His hatred was not quenched in Montmorency’s blood,
for he persecuted his friends and relatives.
After the execution, the duke’s body was folded in a black silk velvet
pall, and conveyed in a carriage to the abbey of St. Sernin, where it
was buried in a chapel in which only the bones of saints had been laid,
and the counts of Toulouse had been refused a sepulchre. Masses for the
repose of his soul were said in every part of France, as well as by the
command of the empress at Vienna, and the arch-duchess in the Low
Countries. The king imprisoned the unhappy widow in the castle of
Moulins, where she remained eight months reproaching herself with her
husband’s untimely death; but feeling that time elapsed, that there
could be no reason for doubting her, and ashamed of his rigour, he
desired her to choose her place of residence, either within or without
his kingdom; she staid at Moulins. Having purchased a house adjoining
the convent of La Visitation, she there lived an exemplary life during
ten years, her only consolation a portrait of the duke, gazing on which
she spent whole days. Before her marriage she had wished to become a
nun, and the desire now reviving, in her mistaken fervour, she believed
it a duty to part with this which she looked on as a last tie to the
world, and ere she entered the convent she wept over it once more and
then parted from it.
Some time after, the king passing through Moulins, did her the honour
of a visit, and the next day the cardinal sent to offer her his
compliments. In her cell hung with black, the shadow of what she had
been, the duchess received his officer: “Tell your master,” she said,
“that I thank him, but that my tears are still undried!” After his
general’s death, the king’s remorse was awakened; and he confessed that
he repented of many things which had been done during his inauspicious
journey to Languedoc. He once arrived late at Écouen, intending to pass
the night there. It was evening, and the monarch passed slowly along
one of the vast halls on his way to the apartment prepared for him. His
suite followed at a little distance, but rushed to his side when he
uttered a faint cry, and stretched his arm forth in the gloom as if to
put back some one advancing on him.
“What ails you, sire,” they exclaimed as he stood still, and in an
attitude of defence against what appeared to them empty space. “He was
there! I saw Montmorency there,” said the king; “I cannot sleep in this
castle;” and turning precipitately, Louis the Thirteenth left the hall.
Écouen now again, as during the empire, belongs to the Legion of
Honour. As we rode down the hill, the fine view of Paris once more
stretched below us in the sunshine. I had not seen it for some years,
and looked at it now with a strange sensation, pleasant and painful,
for it seemed like home, because so much of early association is
connected with it, and I felt it was not home, because death and
marriage, time and revolution have so severed and scattered all the
links which held me here, that I shall scarcely find a trace of where
they were once riveted.
From Écouen to St. Denis the way seemed wearisome, for we had ridden
fifteen leagues since morning, yet Fanny went prancing into the inn
yard gay as at starting. A disagreeable hotel from its unconquerable
bad air. To-day, 19th July, D—— is gone to Paris in search of
apartments; and I, followed by John, have passed an hour in the
cathedral. The Suisse, I believe, thought his countenance suspicious,
for he was unwilling to lead the way. Near the principal entrance, on
the left hand, is a strange monument, erected by St. Louis to Dagobert.
This church (my authority is the Benedictine who wrote its history) was
founded under singular circumstances. When Clotaire the Second was king
its place was occupied by a small chapel, which had already miraculous
properties, being built over St. Denis’s tomb. A stag, hard pressed,
had one day taken refuge within, and the hounds were unable to follow.
Prince Dagobert witnessed this fact. He soon after incurred his
father’s anger by barbarously ill-treating his governor, and he
repaired to the sanctuary. The royal guards sent to seize him were
invisibly withheld, and the prince fell asleep while they rushed to and
fro, vainly attempting to come nearer. St. Denis appeared to him in a
dream, and desired that he would erect a building in his honour. Become
king he obeyed the saint’s mandate; and when the day for the
consecration of the church came (the 24th February, 636), and a great
crowd assembled to witness it, the people were all forced to retire,
excepting one poor leper, who hid himself in a corner of the chapel.
Night closed in, and of a sudden he beheld a great light shining
through one of the windows, filling the whole church; and continuing to
fix his eyes on the same window, he saw the Saviour enter at it,
followed by St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Rustique and St. Éleuthère, and
also by a great multitude of saints and angels. He consecrated the
church, walked round it, heading the procession, scattered holy water
on the pavement, poured celestial oil on the walls, and at last
perceived the leper: he commanded him to tell faithfully what he had
seen to king and prelate. “Alas!” said the leper, “I cannot approach
them for my rags and my leprosy.”
He had no sooner said this, than he felt the skin of his face gently
lifted, and being cast against the wall it stuck there, and that which
remained in its place was pure as a child’s; and looking at his clothes
he saw he was richly habited: this miracle performed, he watched the
Saviour and the celestial procession issue forth by the same window,
and went and told the king.[1]
More interesting than Dagobert’s tomb, or those of Louis the Twelfth,
and Anne of Brittany, and Henry the Second, and Catherine de Médicis,
with her countenance telling of a life of intrigue, public massacre and
private murder, is the slight marble column, at whose foot are three
weeping angels,—for it was raised by Mary of Scotland to the memory of
her young husband, who died when she had been a wife and queen of
France but one short year. The monument of Francis the First is in the
opposite aisle; the figures of himself and his wife Anne, kneeling on
the top of the stone canopy, under which they are again represented
dead. The alto relievo of the battle of Marignan, which surrounds the
tomb, is very beautiful. On each side of the choir steps lead down to
the crypt, and the Suisse unlocked the iron gate, though still I saw
against his will, and we walked through the avenue of royal tombstones,
wherein kings and queens do not sleep now; since a municipal decree,
proceeding from St. Denis itself, in conformity with the decree of the
Convention, ordered on the 12th of October, 1793, the breaking open of
the monuments for the sake of the lead they might contain, and the
scattering of bones, some of which had lain there near 1500 years.
Curiosity induced the workmen to commence by the grave of Turenne. He
was found in an extraordinary state of preservation, perfectly
resembling the portraits and medals which we possess of him, only that
the skin had darkened. The distortion of feature, caused by his violent
death (by a cannon ball), remained, as the mouth was very wide open. He
was, at the suggestion of some present, confided to one “Host,” keeper
of the cathedral, and by him placed in an oaken case with a glass
cover, and for eight months exhibited in the vestry. The vault of the
Bourbons and the tomb of Henry the Fourth were next opened, and the
body found so perfect, that the features had undergone no change. He
also was exhibited during the two following days, and then borne to the
churchyard, called De Valois, where he was buried in a grave dug at its
extremity, on the right hand and north side. A soldier present at the
time rushed towards the corpse, and with his sabre cut from it a lock
of the long beard, exclaiming, that “He too was a Frenchman,” and
henceforth would wear no other mustachio; and holding the lock on his
upper lip, and saying he was sure of conquering any enemy of France,
went away.
The remainder of the bodies, some in a state of putrefaction, which
during this unnatural work produced malignant fever, others, reduced to
skeletons or ashes, were dragged from their coffins, and flung by
torchlight into one wide grave. The Suisse pointed out the side door
near Mary Stuart’s funeral column, as that through which they were
carried. The monuments in the crypt are ranged in chronological order:
among the most ancient, those of the royal fury Frédégonde and her
daughter-in-law Brunehaude, who died torn by wild horses. The vaults
are but half under ground, and a dreary daylight enters, falling on the
figures stretched on the tombs, for those only of the earliest period
are mere outlines. The rest are dressed in the costume of their time,
with hands crossed and raised, and the dog or lion couched at the feet.
“Here,” said the Suisse, stopping before one of the Capetian race, and
pointing to the very prominent nose which had been broken from his face
and lay there yet uncemented, “is the token of the last English visit.
A gentleman came, conversed with me, walked by my side, and when he
thought me not attending to his movements, wrenched off this nose. I
seized it in his hand in his coat pocket; he said he had broken it by
mistake, and pocketed it in absence of mind. “Mon pauvre nez, que je
n’ai pas encore restitué,” said the Suisse in indignation. I understood
at last why he had an objection to showing the church, and
tranquillized him by making John walk on before. Here were laid Clovis,
the first Christian king, and his wife, Bertha, who converted him; King
John after his ill-fortune at Poitiers; his excursion on his white
horse through the streets of London, beside his conqueror, on his pony;
his visit to his own kingdom, and voluntary return to captivity to die.
We wished to enter the vault where the Bourbons are interred, but this
the Suisse said was impossible, as he had not the keys, and even Mons.
Thiers had been denied admittance some days before. The last buried was
Louis the Eighteenth, whose chapelle ardente I saw here when I was a
child, and with its splendid sarcophagus, purple velvet hangings, and
thousand lights, and the silent crowd pressing to see, was a scene of
melancholy brilliancy. The “chapelle ardente” occupied the whole of the
nave, inclosed by the hangings, and terminated by a burning cross.
The “caveau,” which holds the last Condé, is totally dark, excepting
where the lamp, which burns so feebly in its bad air, just shows the
damp-decaying pall hanging in ribands. The lapse of centuries robs in
some measure of its sadness the long range of monuments we passed
before; but it is not so as we look through the iron gate at these
dimly-seen coffins.
We think of the ditch of Vincennes and the bed-room of St. Leu!
It was in the now-closed vault of the Bourbons that Henry the Fourth
lay. One anecdote more I must tell you, as it proves the respect
entertained for his memory. It is told by Le Noir, the antiquarian:—
“The day following that of the allied armies’ entrance into Paris, a
Russian general, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry, presented
himself at eight in the morning at the museum of the Petits Augustins.
He said he had heard in Russia of the collection I had formed, and as a
lover of the arts it was the first place he desired to visit in Paris.
I opened the gates to him, and he and his soldiers dismounted. Arrived
in the hall of the sixteenth century, a statue in white marble absorbed
his attention. I said to him, ‘It is the statue of Henry the Fourth.’
He repeated my words in Russian to his companions, and all, uncovering
their heads, kneeled on one knee to do homage to the dead king of
France.”
In January, 1815, the remains of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie
Antoinette were transferred to the vault of the Bourbons. In 1817, all
the noble or royal remains cast forth from the violated tombs were once
more deposited within them in presence of the chancellor, the necessary
authorities and witnesses, a company of the gardes du corps and the
clergy of St. Denis. Immense crowds flocked thither, by a bright
moonlight which shone on the old towers, making the numberless torches
which flashed on the walls almost useless; the broken and mingled bones
were returned to their first place of repose, after a twenty-four
years’ exile.
The Cathedral of St. Denis will shortly be in complete repair, though
it was ravaged in the revolution, and roofless during twelve years;
though it was several times offered for sale without finding a
purchaser; and its destruction had been commanded, when Petit Radel,
architecte des domaines, proposed, with a view to preserve it, that it
should be left as it stood then, with uncovered walls, and rain, or
snow, falling in its aisles, and serve as a kind of market-house in the
fairs which occur frequently during the year!
Paris, and in our old apartment, 20th of July.
Unforeseen circumstances have postponed till next spring our ride to
Italy, when I will continue these notes for you, and we shall go as
heretofore, except that John will no longer be of the party; his
disposition has become so warlike that we intend sending him back to
Ireland.
-----
Footnote 1:
History of the Abbey of St. Denis, by Doublet.
CHAPTER III.
Departure under an unlucky star—Essonne—Petit Bourg—The Czar
Peter—Fontainebleau—Palace—Apartments of the Emperor Charles
the Fifth—Chamber where Pius the Seventh said mass daily—Chapel
founded in the seventh century—Cypher of the Saviour and Virgin
placed beside those of Henry the Second and Diana of
Poitiers—Princess Mary of Orleans—Napoleon’s apartments—Marie
Antoinette’s boudoir—Carving by Louis the Sixteenth’s
hand—Monaldeschi, favourite of Queen Christina—Gallery where he
was murdered—Account of his murder by the Monk who confessed
him, of his burial at dusk in the church of Avon—Window thrown
open by Henry the Fourth, to announce Louis the Thirteenth’s
birth—Gallery of Henry the Second, called Galerie des
Réformés—Petition in which they took the name presented here by
Coligny—Open chamber above the Donjon—Arch where Louis the
Thirteenth was publicly baptized—Biron’s tower—His treason—His
denial—His last interview with Henry the Fourth—Napoleon—The
forest—The Comte de Moret, last inhabitant of the Hermitage of
Franchard—Fanny’s sagacity—Croix du Grand Veneur-The spectre
hunt—Apparition and warning to Henry the Fourth, corroborated by
Sully—Avon—Monaldeschi, Christina’s fickle lover—The old
church—The fat porter—The grave beneath the Bénitier—The
Englishmen’s sacrilege—Monaldeschi their relative—Precautions
against travellers.
Hôtel de France, Fontainebleau,
April 5th, 1839.
Set forth once more on the second, under an unlucky star, for the rain
commenced as we passed the barrier, and having received it on our heads
during a walk of four hours, (for over the broken pavement, or through
the three-foot-thick mud at its sides it was impossible to trot,) we
were glad to take refuge in a wretched auberge at Essonne. I think I
mentioned to you “a country inn” in England where we stopped, tempted
by its quiet appearance, and charmed by the brilliantly white curtains
of the tiny bed-room: but alas! the farmers were returning from
Tewkesbury fair, and they drank and sang in the kitchen below. We
rejoiced that this could not pass a certain hour, but they had smoked,
and the fumes of tobacco rose to our room through the chinks of the
floor, and there being no chimney could not get out again; then the
family put the house to rights; then we heard the horses kick all
night, there being in the shed next theirs pigs, with whom they would
not fraternize; and the rats galloped to and fro, and squeaked at our
very pillows, and when these were quiet, at dawn up rose mine host and
hostess, and the maid of all work to scour the house from top to
bottom, and run about it in pattens. All this is comfort, compared to a
country auberge in France. Arriving wet and weary, to stand in the
middle of a great brick-floored room, in which there has been no fire
all the winter, in expectation of seeing damp faggots burn; and finding
when they do that the door into the corridor must be left wide open,
that the draught may conduct towards the chimney the smoke, and the
steam of wet clothes and damp sheets which must be dried there, as the
economical kitchen hearth exhibits only a few dying embers,—this was
our case. The good old woman to be sure offered a remedy, as she said
that we might, if we liked, take a dry pair of sheets, which had been
slept in only once, and recommended hanging the dripping habit and
cloaks in the grenier, whose unglazed windows let in full as much rain
as wind. Add to my previous enumeration a dinner of dry bouilli, and
greasy cabbage, a faggot for our feet serving as a rug, and dirty
alcove with plenty of cobwebs but no curtains.
I believe the descent of the road into Essonne commands a pretty view,
but the rain blinded me. We passed on the right hand the château du
Petit Bourg, once the Duke d’Antin’s, now the property of the parvenu
Spanish banker, whose collection of pictures is the finest in Paris,
and who once, history says, kept a wine-shop on the boulevard. It was
here the Czar Peter dined on his way to Fontainebleau, May 30th, 1700,
where the Duke de Villeroy received him; and after a stag-hunt in the
forest and a carouse in the Pavilion de l’Étang, it was necessary to
carry himself and his suite into the boats, and thence into the
carriages, which bore inebriated majesty back to Petit Bourg.
Awaking the 3d with a cold on my chest, and determined at least on
being ill in better quarters, set out, rain having subsided to fog: a
bad and weary road, till, two leagues from Fontainebleau, we entered
the forest, and it looks really royal with its magnificent trees and
hills of rock: green (though spring is so backward) with the luxuriant
holly, which flourishes everywhere, and the different coloured bright
mosses which clothe its old trunks, and masses of strange shaped stone.
Stopped at the Hôtel de France, on the Place du Château opposite the
palace; a fine, frowning, old building, looking as if sorrow and crime
might have lodged within its walls without tales told. This inn has
every possible comfort to recommend it, and is reasonable besides. Some
of our country-people, who formerly spoiled the road by extravagance,
now drive rather hard bargains. What do you think of a post-carriage
containing six, having just now stopped, wanting beds, tea, and eggs
for their party for six francs?
April 5th.
Went yesterday to see the Château, and returned there to-day. The
surveillant of yesterday gruffly turned us back, as the Infant of Spain
was expected, but admitted us in consideration of the fee. Our guide
to-day showed the Château much more fully, and could be prevailed on by
no entreaty to accept payment. They are strictly enjoined to take
nothing. The grand staircase, whose entrance is in the Cour du Cheval
Blanc, was built in Louis the Thirteenth’s time. The apartments on the
right, now those of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, and splendidly
furnished on their marriage, are the same in which the Emperor Charles
the Fifth was lodged when he visited Francis the First in 1539;
afterwards those of Catherine de Médicis, and, when she and her bloody
line had passed away, of Anne of Austria; and next of Maria Theresa,
wife of Louis the Fourteenth. The portraits of the two last are placed
above the entrance doors of the chamber next the saloon, which still
bears the name of Chambre des Reines-Mères. Here in this very room was
mass daily said by Pius the Seventh, during his forced stay in 1812, in
the same apartments which had been decorated for his arrival when he
came to crown Napoleon in 1804.
The most ancient as well as the most interesting part, of the Château
is the Gothic chapel of St. Saturnin. Built by Louis the Seventh in the
twelfth century, and consecrated by Thomas à Becket, archbishop of
Canterbury, to whose tomb, considering him a saint and martyr, Louis
the Seventh afterwards made a pilgrimage, it was restored by Francis
the First, and embellished by Henry the Second. The cyphers puzzled me;
and they are indeed strangely mingled, for those of the Saviour and the
Virgin, I and M, are placed alternately with the H, D, those of King
Henry the Second, and his mistress Diana!
The chapel is small and low, a most impressive place: the heavy masonry
looking likely to stand till the crumbling of the world shakes it down,
and dimly lighted by three narrow windows, whose coloured glass was
painted at Sèvres, from drawings by poor Princess Mary. The young
artist beatified the members of her family before their time. St.
Philip is an excellent likeness of the king, made saint-like by a long
beard. The superb confessional, in carved oak, looks coeval with the
walls, but it is the recent work of a clever Parisian artisan.
The apartments now Louis Philip’s were once Napoleon’s. The Cabinet de
Travail precedes the Emperor’s bed-room, and contains the small plain
table on which he signed his abdication, and the fac simile of its
rough copy in his own hand, so scrawled and blotted, I could not read a
word. The bed-room is still furnished as it was in his time, saving the
golden eagles, which were removed on the restoration, and are about to
be replaced now. The king occupies, not this chamber, but the next in
order, which was the unfortunate Marie Antoinette’s boudoir. The Salle
du Trone which follows is also in the same state as during the empire,
except that the portrait of Louis the Thirteenth, which hung here when
this was his bed-chamber, replaces that of Napoleon.
The charming little room next it, which was the Queen’s boudoir, would
interest you, not so much for its lovely decorations, as because it was
constructed for Marie Antoinette by Louis the Sixteenth’s order; and
the beautiful espagnolettes of the windows (up which the delicately
carved gold acanthus leaves twine on a blue ground) were the work of
the king’s own hand. This suite of apartments looks on the Cour de
l’Orangerie, of which the Galerie de Diane, and the apartments directly
beneath it, which were once the Galerie des Cerfs, form another side. I
was most anxious to see the latter, which is interesting as the scene
of Monaldeschi’s murder, the favourite of the crowned barbarian
Christina of Sweden. It is not shown now; it was falling into decay in
the Emperor’s time, the guide said, and by him replaced by apartments
for the King of Rome. From the window at which we were standing, he
pointed to the one near which Monaldeschi was assassinated. An
inscription marks it, the third from where the gallery joins the main
building.
Christina abdicated the 16th of June, 1654. She crossed France in her
way to Italy. As she was about to proceed to Paris, a command of Louis
the Fourteenth stopped her at Fontainebleau, where she arrived the 3d
of October, 1657. The following extract is from the account given by
Lebel, the head of the Mathurin monastery.
“The 8th of November, 1657, at a quarter past nine in the morning, the
Queen of Sweden, who was lodged in the conciergerie of the château,
sent a running footman to fetch me. He said, ‘If you are the superior
of the monastery, I have her majesty’s order to bring you where you may
have speech together.’ I replied, I was so, and would accompany him to
learn her will; and without taking any one along with me, fearing to
make her wait, I followed the valet to the antechamber. I was detained
there some minutes, but the valet having at last returned, I was
conducted to the Queen’s chamber. I found her alone, and having offered
her my humble respects, I asked what she required of her servant. She
desired me to follow her to the Galerie des Cerfs, where we might speak
undisturbed; and being entered there, she asked whether we had ever met
before. I replied, I had merely had the honour of saluting her, and
offering my best services, for which her goodness thanked me. Whereupon
she said, that the robe I wore induced her to confide in me, and
desired that I would promise to keep her secret as one under the seal
of confession. I answered, that whenever I was intrusted with aught, I
became naturally dumb on that subject; and being discreet with regard
to the humble, I had of course stronger reason for discretion now; and
I added, Scripture saith, ‘it is good to keep the king’s secret.’
Having asked me this question, she placed in my hands a packet of
papers, without superscription, but sealed with three seals, bidding me
to return it to her in such time and presence as should be commanded me
by her majesty. She desired also that I would take note of the day,
hour, and place in which she gave it to my care, and without further
conversation I retired with the packet, leaving the Queen in the
gallery. On Saturday, the 10th day of the same month, at one in the
afternoon, the Queen of Sweden again sent a valet to fetch me;
whereupon I went to a cabinet and took thence the packet, thinking she
might demand it of me. I followed the footman, who conducted me through
the gate of the donjon, and into the Galerie des Cerfs, and as soon as
I was within, closed the door on me with a vivacity which surprised me.
Perceiving about the centre of the gallery the Queen, talking to one of
her suite, whom she called Marquis, (I afterwards knew it was
Monaldeschi,) I approached her, and she asked in a rather loud tone of
voice, in hearing of the marquis and of three men who stood near, for
‘the papers.’ Two of these men were some steps from her, and the third
by her side. I drew near and presented the packet. Her majesty took and
examined it for a time, and then opening the enclosure, gave the
letters it contained to the marquis, saying with a grave voice and
commanding manner, ‘Are not these known to you?’ He denied that they
were, but turned very pale. ‘You will not avow these,’ rejoined the
Queen, (they were in truth only copies made by her own hand;) and
having allowed him to examine them, she next drew from under her robe
the originals, and, showing them, called him traitor, and made him
acknowledge his writing and signature. She asked him the same question
several times, and the marquis strove to excuse himself, and cast the
blame on others. At last he threw himself on his knees, craving her
forgiveness; and the three men present at the same moment drew their
swords from the scabbard. He started up again, imploring her to hear
him, and drew her as he spoke earnestly from one corner to another of
the gallery. Her majesty did not refuse, but listened very patiently,
never showing anger or weariness. When he pressed her most to receive
his excuses, she turned to me, and said, ‘Bear witness, father, that I
hasten nothing against this man, but that I give to a perfidious
traitor all the time that he requires; yea, even more, to justify
himself if possible;’ and approaching the marquis again she leaned on
the rounded head of her ebony cane.
“The Marquis of Monaldeschi, hard pressed by the Queen, gave her other
papers, and with them two or three small keys, which he took from a
pocket, whence at the same time fell several pieces of silver. Their
conference lasted rather more than an hour, and his replies not having
satisfied her, she again walked up to me, saying in a voice still
rather loud, but grave and calm, ‘Father, I retire, and leave you this
man; have a care of his soul, and prepare him to die.’ If her sentence
had been pronounced against myself, I should scarcely have felt more
terror. I and the marquis both kneeled down to implore her pardon; she
said, ‘He was more criminal than many condemned to the wheel, and she
could not grant it;’ that, thinking him a faithful subject, she had
communicated to him her most important affairs and secret thoughts;
that she would not remind him of the benefits she had conferred on him,
as his conscience might serve for tormentor, for she had favoured him
more than a brother.’ The Queen then retired, and the marquis, left
with me and the three with their drawn swords, continued on his knees,
praying me to follow her majesty, and strive to soften her. The men
desired him to confess, pointing their swords at his throat, but
forbearing to touch him, and I with tears in my eyes besought him to
ask pardon of God.
“He who seemed the chief of the three men, himself taking pity on him,
did indeed seek the Queen, but returned sorrowful, and said, weeping,
‘Marquis, think only of God, for you must indeed die.’ The marquis, who
at the words seemed half frantic, prostrated himself on the ground once
more, and desired that I would myself seek her, and try the effect of
my prayers. I did so, and found her alone in her chamber, her
countenance serene, and her manner betraying no emotion. I sunk down
before her, conjuring her majesty by the sorrows of Christ to have
mercy. She said, ‘She regretted the necessity she was under to refuse
me, for, from his perfidy to her, he could expect neither respite nor
pardon.’
“Finding that entreaties availed nothing, I took the liberty of
representing that she was beneath the roof of the King of France, and
bade her beware of what she did, as he might disapprove. She called
heaven to witness that she bore no personal hatred to the marquis, but
that she chose to punish an unparalleled treason; that she was not
lodged by the king as one who took refuge, neither was she a captive;
and as she obeyed nought save her own will, she chose to administer
justice to her servants at all times and in all places.
“In this extremity I knew not what to resolve on. I could not quit the
château; and even had it been in my power, I felt bound by charity and
my conscience to dispose the marquis to die. I returned then to the
gallery, and embracing the unhappy man, who was drowned in tears, I
exhorted him to turn all his thoughts to God and his conscience, as
there was no hope for him on earth.
“At this news, having uttered two or three melancholy cries, he kneeled
down before me as I sat on one of the benches, and commenced his
confession, which having nearly concluded, he rose and cried aloud
twice. He then ended his confession, mingling French, Latin, and
Italian in his fear and confusion. The Queen’s almoner at that moment
entered, and the marquis, without waiting to receive absolution, went
to him, conceiving hopes from his favour with her majesty. They
whispered apart, holding one another by the hand for some time, and
then the almoner went out, taking with him the chief of the three. The
latter returned alone, and said, ‘Marquis, you must die without more
delay: have you confessed?’ Saying this, he pressed him against the
wall at that end of the gallery where hangs the picture of St. Germain
en Laye, and I could not so suddenly turn aside as to avoid seeing him
struck in the chest on the right side, and that he, trying to ward off
the blow, caught the blade in his right hand, from which, as the other
drew it back, it cut off three fingers.
“He then exclaimed that he wore a shirt of mail, as in truth he did,
one which weighed nine or ten pounds, and the same man repeated the
blow, aiming it at his face, and the marquis cried out, ‘Father,
father!’ I went to him, and the other retreated a little, and he
confessed somewhat more, and I gave him absolution, imposing on him for
penitence that he should suffer a violent death. He threw himself on
the floor, and as he fell, one of the men gave him a blow on the head,
which carried away part of the skull; and, being stretched on his face,
he made signs that they should cut his throat; and they wounded him
there several times, but not mortally, because the shirt of mail rose
high under the collar of his doublet, and deadened the blows. All this
time I exhorted him to think of heaven, and bear all patiently. The
chief of the three then asked me whether he should finish him, and I
answered angrily, and said, I had no advice to give, as I had prayed
not for his death, but his life; and then he begged my pardon, and said
he was wrong to ask me such a question.
“The poor marquis, who lay expecting the last stroke, now heard the
door of the gallery open, and recalled his courage, seeing the almoner
enter, and dragged himself towards him, supporting himself against the
wainscoting. I was on his right hand, and the almoner passed to his
left, and the marquis, joining his hands, said something, as if he was
confessing; and the almoner, having first asked my leave, gave him
absolution and retired, desiring me to remain while he went to the
Queen. At this moment, the same who had wounded him in the throat
before, and who had stood by the almoner’s side, pierced it through
with a long narrow sword, whereupon the marquis fell on his right side,
and did not speak again, but continued to breathe yet a quarter of an
hour, during which time I exhorted him as well as I was able. Having
lost all his blood, he expired at three quarters past three. I recited
the De Profundis, and the chief of the three men moved a leg and then
an arm, to see if he were really dead, and searched his pockets, but
found nothing, excepting a small knife and a prayer book: we then all
three departed to receive the Queen’s orders. She said she regretted
having been forced to command his execution; but that she had done
justice, and prayed heaven to pardon him. She desired me to see that
his corpse was carried away and buried, and that masses were said for
the repose of his soul. I had a coffin made, and because of the
darkness, the bad road, and the weight, it was placed in a cart, and I
sent with it my chaplain and vicar to the church of Avon, with three
men to assist, and orders to bury the body within the church near the
‘bénitier,’ and this was done at three quarters past five that same
evening.
LEBEL.”
The church, or rather chapel of the Holy Trinity, was founded by
Francis the First, but ornamented in Henry the Fourth’s reign. The
niches near the altar contain the statues in white marble of
Charlemagne, and Louis the Ninth, the sainted king. Louis the
Fifteenth’s marriage with the daughter of the unfortunate Stanislas,
king of Poland, was celebrated here, and latterly that of the Duke of
Orleans with the Princess Helen.
It is to be repaired without delay, not before reparation is needful,
as the deep cracks through the ceilings and faded frescoes testify. The
Galerie de François Premier was built and decorated in his time and yet
unrestored; the pale salamanders are barely visible on the walls. The
queen’s antechamber was the imperial dining-room in Napoleon’s time,
and the Salon de Reception the apartment in which Louis the Thirteenth
was born. King Henry threw open one of those windows to announce the
news to his courtiers, who were walking in the oval court below. The
chamber of St. Louis formed part of a pavilion built during his reign,
but bears no trace of ancient architecture; over its chimney is a fine
Henry the Fourth on horseback, in white marble; it belonged to a
chimney piece, which gave its name to the hall, changed in Louis the
Fifteenth’s time to a shabby theatre, for it was called Salle de la
belle Cheminée. The statues of Strength and Peace were the chivalrous
king’s fitting supporters. The whole was thrown aside in the stores of
the Château, and left there dusty and forgotten, till Louis Philip’s
command replaced the equestrian statue in St. Louis’s chamber, and the
other two in the Salle des Gardes adjoining.
A corridor conducts to the gallery of Henry the Second. It was built by
Francis the First, and decorated by his son; and now its ancient glory
revived with scrupulous fidelity, the deep ornamented recesses in which
the five tall windows on each side are sunk, the gorgeous ceiling, the
walls covered with gold, and frescoes by Primatice or Nicolo, are, even
to the silver crescent and the cypher, reappearing at every step, the
same as when Diana of Poitiers and her royal lover trod its floor. The
only loss it has sustained is that of the two bronze satyrs eight feet
high which supported the chimney-piece: they were seized for ammunition
in 1793, and Napoleon replaced them by two pillars now standing. The
chimney-piece was the work of Rondelet, Francis the First’s famous
sculptor; its centre exhibits the arms of France, encircled by a wreath
and crowned by Diana’s crescent. There are two pictures at this end of
the hall; one of Francis killing a wild boar in the forest, the other
of the famous combat of a condemned man with a loup-cervier, which
desolated the country round Fontainebleau. He was a nobleman, and
besought permission to meet his death in this manner, but, having
exterminated the monster, he was pardoned. At one time this hall was
called Galerie des Réformés; for the Calvinists, with Admiral Coligny
at their head, here presented to Francis the Second the first petition
in which they styled themselves “Reformers.” The Admiral was their
organ to the young king, whose brother was to be his murderer. The ball
on the Duke of Orleans’ marriage was given in this hall. The windows to
the park look on the Étang and its pavilion, which bore the name of
Cabinet de Conseil, when Catherine de Médicis, and after her the
Cardinal de Richelieu, retired there with their secret advisers.
Directly beneath the gallery is the Salle Louis Philippe, which was, in
Louis the Fourteenth’s reign, the Dauphin’s apartments, now a
magnificent dining-hall, supported by Doric columns, and ornamented in
the taste of the Renaissance. Opposite its five windows, on the
parterre, are three superb entrances, opening on a corridor lighted by
glass doors, which look on the Cour Ovale; a fourth entrance
communicates with the Porte Dorée. It is a splendid porch or portico,
brilliant with gilding and just revived frescos, its length the width
of the dining-hall—at one end opening on the Allée de Maintenon,
named, by the proudest and vainest king in Europe, after his plebeian
wife; at the other on the Oval Court, which I mentioned before, but did
not tell you that the donjon which terminates it is the spot where
Louis the Thirteenth was christened when seven years old. A flight of
steps on either side of the entrance arch conducts to the open chamber
it supports, and the child was named there in public; all catholic
ceremonial observed, that no doubts of his creed might rest on the
people’s minds.
Perhaps my long description of Fontainebleau has wearied you, and yet I
might continue it much longer; so large a portion of French history is
connected with its walls. The guide pointed to the tower in which the
Marshal, Duc de Biron, past the night after his arrest, ere he was
transferred to the Bastille. Notwithstanding that Henry the Fourth had
three times saved his life in battle, and designed to make him his
son-in-law, he conspired against him with the Duke of Savoy. France was
to be divided into as many petty sovereignties as provinces, all placed
under the protection of the king of Spain; and the bribe which seduced
Biron, who was the vainest and bravest man of his day, consisted of
Franche Comté and Burgundy, and a marriage with a daughter of Spain or
Savoy. Lafin, confidant of the traitor-duke, betrayed him in turn, but
had the art to persuade him of the king’s ignorance, when he summoned
his former friend to his presence, and the marshal denied everything.
“Marshal,” said the king, “I must hear from your own mouth what I
unhappily know already. Speak to me but frankly, and whatever your
crime against me, I promise you protection and pardon.”
“Your majesty presses a man of honour too far,” said the marshal
impatiently.
“Would to God it were so,” rejoined Henry the Fourth sadly; “reflect
ere you reply.” The general remained silent, and the king walked slowly
to the door; and, as he reached it, said, still more in sorrow than in
anger: “Adieu, Baron de Biron.” He was tried and condemned; and
beheaded within the gates of the Bastille.
The Cour du Cheval Blanc, silent as it is now, calls back Napoleon’s
adieus to his old guard, which took place here.
April 6th.
Notwithstanding the most bitter of east winds, we have ridden over
great part of the forest, the wildest and finest I ever saw. Its groves
of old oak, interspersed with tracts clothed with black firs, and
hills, and valleys of barren stone; the Hermitage of Franchard; the
wonderful Roche qui pleure, through which filters water, which the good
peasants still collect as a sovereign remedy against disease, are on
the Paris side of the forest. Shortly before arriving at Franchard,
there is a plain iron cross raised on a heap of flints, the scene of
some old murder. Our road from the town lay through oaks in their
hundred years’ majesty: the box forming dark thickets everywhere, and
the ground between already blue and white with periwinkles and
anemones. In summer it is one carpet of flowers. Franchard had a
hermitage even in the time of our Richard Cœur de Lion; it became
afterwards a monastery which was also deserted: shortly after the
battle of Castelnaudary, its last inhabitant arrived thither, and lived
and died alone in its ruins. It was whispered at the time, that the
Comte de Moret, who (some said) had perished in the battle, had on the
contrary received but some slight wounds which in no way endangered his
life; he had disappeared: and the recluse who hid himself in poverty
and solitude at the same period was believed to conceal from the
vindictive cardinal the companion in arms of the unhappy Montmorency.
The valley of La Solle is on the other side of the grande route. The
steep road dips suddenly down, winding among fantastic rocks, piled one
on the other, overgrown with brilliant mosses, trees growing
luxuriantly on or among them. I noticed some whose trunks shot upwards
from so narrow a place of support, that the branches on either side
seemed extended to poise them, as a bird spreads its wings for the air
to bear it up; and others, whose roots stretched themselves over the
bare granite platform, casing it to its edge, and thence dropped down
to plant themselves in the earth which nourishes them scantily. In this
part of the forest the holly grows everywhere, and is gay with red
berries even now. We were doubtful of the way back; and Fanny, whose
sagacity has been so often proved, was called on to assist. When the
reins are laid on her neck, she is perfectly aware of her own
importance, and stops and snuffles at each road she sees, often
choosing short-cuts and footpaths. To-day, after leaving the valley, we
came suddenly on one of the abrupt rocky hills which we have met with
often here; there was a broad alley on each side, but Fanny chose
neither, and taking a little track through the trees, trotted on and
up, climbing like a cat, and when I dismounted to ease her, pulling me
on by the rein I held. Arrived at the top, from the little arid plain
we found a view worth our trouble; down the other side she led again,
emerging in a bridle-road, from which branched eight others. She
considered a moment, and then, hurrying as she does when her mind is
made up, she chose one of these alleys, and in five minutes we passed a
finger-post, which marked it, “Chemin de Fontainebleau.”
On the Paris road is the Croix du Grand Veneur: he is the hero of
terrible tales, being a spectre, who often and on various occasions has
appeared to the kings of France. The last who saw him was Henry the
Fourth. One day of the year 1599 he had been hunting unsuccessfully,
for his hounds had twice lost the scent, and he was slowly riding back
through the forest on the Moret side, when his ill-humour was increased
by suddenly hearing the cry of dogs and the flourish of hunting horns,
which seemed to sound a triumphant blast. The king, who rode at some
distance from his attendants with the Count of Soissons, turned angrily
to him, “Note who the bold intruder may be,” he exclaimed, and the
count, with several of the courtiers, spurred towards the sound. As
they disappeared, the king started back, for a tall huntsman,—tall
beyond human height,—attired in black, with a shining eye and livid
cheek, stood before him. He accosted the monarch in a voice of thunder,
and said, “Amendez-vous.” Henry’s look for a moment quailed before him;
and when he fixed it on the spot where the huntsman had stood, he was
gone. The Count of Soissons and his companions returned, said they had
seen, but at a distance, a dark huntsman, at the head of a numerous
hunt, mounted on horses which seemed to feel the rocky soil no
obstacle. Whether he came to warn the king of a darkening future and
bloody close, I cannot tell; some say he spoke more than the monarch
told; he rode the rest of the way in silence. After this apparition the
Grand Veneur continued to be heard at times, though he was not seen
again. Once, (Sully says,) when he waited impatiently for Henry’s
return to communicate some important affair, he heard the horns and
horses’ hoofs close to the chateau, and ran out to meet him, but
nothing was visible; and when the king had really come, he learned he
had been at the time four leagues away.
7th April.
Walked to-day (the east wind sharper than ever) to the church at Avon,
where Monaldeschi lies, under the bénitier. The crime for which
Christina murdered him was never precisely known; but it was hinted
that he had been a favoured and then fickle lover. Taking the right
road through the park, and along the canal made by Henry the Fourth, it
is hardly distant the quarter of a league it is called; we took the
wrong and a much longer way. The little old edifice was built in the
tenth century, and stands at the end of the unpaved dirty village. A
washerwoman and a dozen children came to see what we wanted. We wanted
to get into the locked-up church, and were desired to apply at the
seminary, which is nearly opposite. The porter issued with the key. He
was the roundest, merriest, ugliest, piece of human nature imaginable;
I should think he acted cook as well as porter, and he is quite out of
keeping with the spot where he stood. With its low gloomy arches, and
damp irregular pavement of worn tombstones, it seems the fitting place
for the hurried interment of a murdered man, in the dusk of a winter’s
evening. One of the flags of the choir is marked with the
fleurs-de-lis, and a half-effaced figure; below is the heart of Philip
le Bel’s queen, who died here about 1304. Two old painted windows light
the church dimly; near the entrance door, just in front of the antique
vessel for holy water, is the narrow stone inscribed with ancient
letters, “Ci gît Monaldexi.” The porter told a strange story.
Three years since, (the village church being then always left open,) a
party of Englishmen came to visit it. They arrived with a number of
workmen, hired in the cottages, and whom they had paid beforehand, and
liberally, for the work to be done. By their employers’ order these men
opened the grave, to take possession of the skeleton, for the English
gentlemen asserted that Monaldeschi was their relation. The curé had
been absent, but returned during this extraordinary operation, and flew
to forbid sacrilege! The workmen ceased, but they had been so diligent
that the bones were already uncovered, and the Englishmen insisted on
carrying them away; and, despite of the curé, held the skull fast.
Finding his remonstrances useless, the priest hurried away, and
returned with some gens-d’armes, when the skull was replaced in the
coffin.
The Englishmen were allowed to depart. They had cracked, in their
labour, the grave-stone, and crumbled a good many of those beside it; a
large square of brick-work replaces them. “Since then,” the porter
said, winking at us, as if he fancied we too had some design on the
bones he guards, “when strangers are curious, I accompany them, and we
keep the church locked.”
CHAPTER IV.
Moret—The Nunnery—Louis the Fourteenth’s black Daughter—Two useful
Saints—Villeneuve la Guyard—Descriptions deceitful—Strange Cure
for Blood to the Head—A River-god on terra firma—Sens—St. Colombe,
Thomas à Becket’s refuge—Villeneuve le Roy—Place where the Vine was
first cultivated—Auxerre—The Chapter’s hundred years’ Law-suit
concerning Fur Trimmings—The Canons’ Games at Ball—The Cathedral,
occupying the site of the first Christian Chapel—St. Germain—The
Saint’s refusal to get out of his Grave to reform England—Tombs of
Dukes of Burgundy—Ill-treatment in a Church from a School at its
devotions—Lucy le Bois—The Face in a Hole in the Wall—Taken for a
beast—Arnay le Duc—La Rochepot—A danger avoided through Grizzel’s
affection—An unamiable Carter—Chalons, Cæsar’s head-quarters—Cross
seen by Constantine—Punishment of past times for unskilful
Physicians—A Prince of Portugal, Monk at St. Laurents—Cathedral.
10th April.
A pretty road through the forest, on whose borders is the old town of
Moret; its ancient gateway and the ruins of its fortifications and
strong castle looking picturesque through the trees. The fine gothic
church remains, but the convent, which was honoured by the presence of
a royal nun, no longer exists. Louis the Fourteenth had by his wife,
Maria Theresa, a daughter, who came into the world perfectly black. The
King not choosing to own a negress, it was asserted that she had died;
she was committed to the custody of these walls, and well and
respectfully treated, for the abbess received a large annuity on her
account. It is said that her royal father and mother sometimes came to
see her; perhaps the comparison between what she was and might have
been, but for the caprice of nature, preyed on her mind, for her life
was not a long one. Two saints, of unquestionable merit, have chapels
in their honour near Moret. St. Nicaise will cure the most obstinate
cough, and St. Memert the bite of a mad dog.
The next post very uninteresting, to Fossard, which is one of those
wretched-looking villages which straggle along each side of the broad,
bad roads of France. Stopped to sleep at Villeneuve la Guyard, a
hopeless-looking place with a good inn, though it does not fulfil the
promise of its printed card, which speaks of “new and splendid
furniture, French and English attendance, large and commodious stables,
baths, and a garden of rare plants adjoining.” The chambers hung with
painted canvass, thick with the dust of years, and the square hole cut
in the panel of the door, that the blast rushing in might prevent the
chimneys smoking, did not quite answer the expectations raised. The
groom of the filthy stable, for French stables are cleaned once a year
only, was a feeble, gray peasant. The fat girl waited alternately on us
and the diligence dinner; the baths were invisible, as was the garden,
unless represented by the strip where primroses and cabbages grew among
broken crockery, protected by the paling, on which hung to dry an
avenue of cotton pocket-handkerchiefs. There was nothing to see when we
had walked round the little church, and been driven home by the troop
of urchins who, just out of school, clattered after me in sabots.
Returned to the inn yard, we found there an amusing specimen of French
manners in a certain class. By the well sat, in an oilskin cape and
cloak, an old gentleman, who with his wife we had seen arrive in a
one-horse vehicle. He was dripping like a river-god, and she, in the
attitude of Hebe, pouring on his bare head jugs of well-water. As
neither were at all embarrassed, we were soon acquainted; he had
attacks of blood to the head, and therefore the watering of it by three
buckets at a time is performed twice a day, and the operation of
cupping three times a week, by his wife, who has taken lessons on
purpose; like some other good people, she likes complaining, and before
we had been known to each other five minutes, she told me that since
her husband had retired from business, this malady had come upon him;
that they had travelled to see the sea, and it had ennuyé him; that
they were now on their way to drink the waters in Savoy, and he already
spoke of turning back; in short, that he was impatient and fanciful,
and made her life insupportable. A great source of grief and fidget to
him was the old horse, lean and uncleaned, who daily dragged themselves
and baggage in the heavy vehicle. He wondered he was not fat and hungry
like ours.
11th April.
Left early, intending to sleep at Sens for the sake of the cathedral.
Pont-sur-Yonne, which lies on the road, has an old church and fine
bridge. The entrance to Sens under the arched gateway is striking; and
its boulevards and public promenades remarkably neat and pretty. When
we rode into the yard of the Ecu, we found mine host, who came to meet
us, high in his charges and impertinent besides; so turned the horses’
heads again,—merely fed them at an auberge close by, and went on. I
saw only the exterior of the fine cathedral. A quarter of a league from
Sens was the abbey of St. Colombe, where Thomas à Becket hid himself
three years from the fury of Henry of England. A beautiful shining day,
for the east wind has yielded at last. The approach to Villeneuve le
Roy is through a pretty tranquil country, the road winding along the
bank of the river, and sheltered on the other side by an abruptly
rising ground, planted with vineyards. An elbow in this road brings
suddenly in sight the old town’s gateway: like that of Moret, an
entrance-arch, flanked by turrets, with the gouttière above, whence
boiling pitch and lead poured on the intruder.
It is of Louis the Sixth’s time, I was going to say it has frowned
there ever since; but this evening, in the golden sunshine, it smiled
in harmony with all the rest: the troops of gay boys at play under the
care of a good-natured priest, and the bright little stream which
bathed Fanny’s tired feet.
We had good beds and a decent stable at the inn; but its butcher and
cook are “leagued to destroy.” Our French acquaintance had arrived
before us,—just as the lady-innkeeper was telling me her country
people were far better travellers than formerly, as they ate and drank
and paid uncomplainingly now, as the English once had done, my friend,
who had seen us dismount, came to greet me, and tell (in the landlady’s
presence) that every thing in the house was extravagant and execrable;
and then, having surveyed the chamber selected for us, insisted on her
yielding one better, in which we are installed, thanks to her. We
walked together in the evening to the pretty gardens outside the town:
it has a similar entrance at its other extremity, and the ancient walls
and towers of the fortifications remain; and the moat, converted to
peaceful uses, now forms bright gardens, covered with blossom.
I bought for a franc an enormous basket of carrots for the horses; and
when we returned to the inn, my companion elevated one before the eyes
of the landlady, reproaching her with its being the same size for which
that morning she demanded five sous!
12th April.
Left Villeneuve for Auxerre; a north-east wind and gloomy sky again,
under which the scene looked disenchanted. A less uninteresting country
as far as Joigny, which is built on the height, its houses and churches
rising in terraces with a broad quay and handsome bridge, but neither
trees nor flower-gardens as in a country town in England; looking this
grey, cold day only dirt and barrenness. We met, as we passed along,
our feverish acquaintance, he walking to cool his head without a hat;
his lady abusing the hotel, where their horse was feeding; they too
were bound for Auxerre.
Nothing more melancholy than Joigny, excepting the road beyond it; it
crosses the bridge, and lies over a marshy flat, lately overflowed by
the river, and seeming to produce little, saving a few willows and
broom-like poplars. We have pavement again for some miles here, and the
sides of the road were impassable. Leaving Bassou, a hopeless looking
place, behind, we were in the vine country: an ugly one it is, but this
is the place of all Gaul where the grape was first grown in the third
century. From a long steep hill we looked back on a most gloomy though
extensive view; its descent leads to Auxerre. At the Porte de Paris was
our hatless friend, who had passed us on the way; he was good-naturedly
watching our coming to point out the road to the Leopard; we should
otherwise have made a long round instead of riding down the avenue to
the quay where it stands. It is a comfortable and reasonable inn, and
the view up and down the broad river, with bridge and islands and
barges, very pretty. The avenue before the hotel, and along the Yonne,
is the walk of the Auxerre fashionables; a formidable looking “jeune
France” was promenading there, but now magnificent in curls and beard
and crimson cloak and cigar. The town, whose streets are high and
narrow, looks to advantage from the river; it is built in an
amphitheatre, the old abbey of St. Germain, the prefecture, the
cathedral towers, and those of other fine churches, rising tier above
tier over the quay. I walked in quest of letters to the post-office,
and found that to do so required strength of mind, for a bonnet forms
no part of my baggage: and I went in my riding habit, as I dismounted,
followed by all the little boys and girls, and some of their papas and
mammas: the very clerk at the post-office, civil as he was, could not
refrain from several questions, the “how and whence” respecting the
first habit which had been seen at Auxerre. Yet we are only forty
leagues from Paris, and the Parisians have lately made riding so
fashionable, that I have heard young ladies, asked whether they liked
the exercise, exclaim they “adored it,” and seen gentlemen of fifty on
ponies follow in the train of the riding master. The cathedral is small
and beautiful; we stood near one of the side entrances admiring the
elegance of its Nun’s-walk, and the view down the aisle, where it
circles round the choir, and arches and columns seem crowded together.
The finely carved capitals of these columns were lighted brilliantly
and variously by the sunbeams through the rich stained windows. The
prospect from the nave would be open to the chapel behind the high
altar, but that modern taste has suspended over the latter a wooden
ornament, closely resembling the tester of a bed; it intercepts the
view of the lovely little chapel, and the strangely light pillars which
support it; on one of these is pasted a paper, promising “plenary
indulgence” to all such as on saints’ days, therein specified, shall
recite particular prayers. So all who are “heavy laden” repair to the
chapel at Auxerre.
On the wall close by is a tablet to the memory of Georges de Beauvoir,
Marshal of Chastellux, who, in the year 1444, retook the town of
Crevant from the English, and with his own hand (says the inscription)
killed the Lord High Constable of Scotland. The celebrated Amyot,
preceptor of King Henry the Third, is also interred here; it is said
that the chapter, formerly rich, ruined itself by lawsuits, and one is
particularly cited which lasted a long time. The canons asserted their
right of wearing ermine on their robes; it was forbidden them; some
yielded, others were stubborn: they were called, to distinguish them,
“Trimmed” and “Untrimmed.” Litigation ensued, and the last named gained
the lawsuit, when it had been pending one hundred years.
The cathedral has some customs peculiar to itself. A strange one was
abolished only in the sixteenth century. The canons were in the habit
of playing at ball in the nave, and for money, and the sums thus won
were expended in feasts for the chapter. It is said that it was erected
on the site of the first Christian chapel, raised here in the third
century.
The old church of St. Germain near (now that of the Hôtel Dieu, and
barbarously whitewashed) takes its name from the sixth Bishop of
Auxerre, who first built it on the spot where stood the house in which
he was born, and who was buried here in 448. The saint’s story says,
that having travelled to England he there met and converted at Oxford
one Micomer, a learned doctor, whom he then made his coadjutor in
reclaiming Great Britain from Paganism. Micomer returned to France,
died, and was buried. St. Germain visiting his tomb at Tonnerre,
apostrophized his disciple, now a saint. “Micomer,” he said, “rise from
your tomb: there are fresh disorders and fallings away in England and
Ireland; rise and go, set all in order.” A voice replied from the tomb,
“Be tranquil, father, on that subject, for England and Ireland will not
need our interference, and heaven commands my body to remain in peace
here, and my soul in eternal glory.” St. Germain rejoined, “It is well,
may I soon be with you in paradise.” The subterranean church of St.
Germain is famous for its antiquity, and also because it contains,
besides the tombs of sainted bishops, those of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy,
father of Hugues Capet of France, as well as of other dukes of
Burgundy, and counts of Auxerre; (for the county of Auxerre belonged by
turns to France and her turbulent province.) It was united to the crown
in Charles the Fifth’s reign, ceded to the duchy by Charles the Sixth,
and became finally French when Charles the Téméraire, last sovereign of
Burgundy, was killed before Nancy. We did not see the vaults, for the
pale, diseased faces which came round us, as this is now the hospital
church, made it by no means tempting to stay. Near the church stands
its ancient belfry, a picturesque tower. We went in search of St.
François, which is in the lower part of the town, and seen outside is a
noble gothic building; within it disappointed me, though indeed I had
barely time to judge of it, for as we entered we found a whole school
on its knees, which, without any change of position, saluted my habit
and myself with shouts and hootings notwithstanding the reproving looks
of a young priest, and fairly drove us out and followed us home,
pushing against us to stare closer; so, having had no room to walk, and
barely enough to breathe to-day, I must buy a bonnet at Chalons.
Rouvray, 14th of April.
Cold weather still, but sunny, and the bridge and steep road which
looks on Auxerre, once passed, no view to reward for the long
succession of bare hills. Near the town the vine is much cultivated,
but in France its stunted stumps give no charm to scenery. Further on
the soil is worse, but prodigiously manured, and they grow oats and rye
in what appears a stiff red clay, lightened only by layers of flat
stones, which would break English hearts and ploughs. Nothing to
relieve the eye, not a bush, not a speck of green, not an habitation
for miles on either side of the glaring white road; we travelled for
ever up the steep rise, and down the sharp descent, which succeed as
like each other and uninteresting as if all had been cast in the same
mould. Fed the horses at a lone farm-house, and reached at sunset the
prettier country near Lucy le Bois; for the road for about a mile
passes through a young oak wood, and it was really refreshing to the
sight, as we had not seen a tree for twenty-seven miles. The village
stands in a sheltered and rather pretty valley, at the foot of a hill,
which is a petty mountain, so thought the post horses, who toiled up
it. We got in at dusk. The sharp landlady was out, and her delegates
were two good civil old women, her aunt and mother-in-law, and though
it is an humble inn, we had good beds and a bright fire, and an
excellent dinner from the hands of poor Annette, whose province is to
clean the house, attend the comers, cook the meals, wash the linen,
milk the cows, make bread, cheese, and butter, and bear (she told me in
confidence) the blows of the spoilt child.
When the hostess returned, we saw no more of the old people and their
civility, but the fine lady and her imposition instead.
Slept at Lucy, and rode on in the morning to this town, Rouvray, a
melancholy road and wretched place, but the beds, cook, and stabling of
the Hôtel de l’Ancienne Poste very good. As D—— always stops to feed
the horses on the way, and the wonder my costume excites becomes very
annoying, I to-day took refuge in the stable, and saw there a great
face in a blue night-cap, staring at me through a hole in the wall.
Before reaching the town we passed a group of labourers at work, and
men and women ran to the edge of the high bank above the road to look
down at me. I laughed at their astonishment; a fact the foremost of the
group communicated to the rest, saying, “Voilà que cela nous rit.”
“Cela” does not mean a human being, so that I do not exactly know for
what they took me. Mons. Digy’s printed card asserts, in English, that
“Post hotel is situated in the most fine quarter of town,” which means,
the dirtiest end of the long street. The wind is high, and this room
smokes, so that we sit with the door ajar, and the creaking sign, which
hangs just at our windows by iron links, and swings backwards and
forwards, excites agreeable thoughts of dead men hung in chains. We are
to remain a day or two, notwithstanding, as I am not well.
We hear there is great poverty hereabouts, yet provisions, except
bread, which sells at the Paris price, are very reasonable. Meat is
only eight or nine sous a pound; but the labourer receives no more than
twenty-four sous for his day’s hire, and the country people, like the
Irish, live almost entirely on potatoes.
19th April.
Left Rouvray for Arnay le Duc, and saw nothing which at all interested
me by the way, excepting the return post horses trotting gaily home by
themselves. We have fine weather at last, and so warm, that we stopped
on a little plain, and sat in the shelter of one of its hillocks,
thinking to do so undisturbed; but a bevy of half black Bourguignonnes,
who were tending thin sheep and unsightly pigs at a distance, took up a
position which commanded ours, and grinned fearfully till they drove us
out. They form a very unengaging population. The women, from hard work,
soon lose all trace of feminine features, and their costume is
unbecoming, as their short petticoats display their bare, thick, brown
ancles. Arnay le Duc is rather prettily situated on the river Arroux,
in a valley, which was formerly commanded by its strong castle, of
which remains but one heavy tower. The Hôtel de la Poste is exceedingly
good, and through this town, for the first time, I was not hooted, as
near it lives a young French lady, who rides.
20th April, Hôtel du Parc, Chalons.
Sixty miles in two days of burning weather. I feared Fanny might
suffer, and we decided on remaining a day in this noisy inn, which is
not an agreeable one. I believe the “Trois Faisans” to be better. The
plain of Givry, which we passed over, is surrounded by an interesting
country, as on the right are wooded defiles, backed by a range of bold
hills; and to the left, beyond the slender white pillar raised in the
meadows, (none could tell me wherefore,) the view is fertile and
extensive, stretching back towards Arnay. In front lay the dirty town,
once fortified. We fed our horses there, and found the inhabitants more
savagely insolent than usual. When we remounted, Fanny, and even the
patient Grizzel, excited by their shouts, plunged so violently that
they soon cleared a way through the night-capped crowd. From the long
hill above Givry, the green plains and distant heights look to
advantage, as does the old château, with peaked roof and turrets, which
stands by the winding river in the hollow. We next came on a broad
moor, and the horses enjoyed a long gallop over turf, the first since
Salisbury Plain. It is broken by a few patches of brushwood, and
covered with a very beautiful purple flower, whose name is unknown to
me. We saw no habitation for miles; none, indeed, till we reached its
extremity, where there is a lone inn, with ruined outhouses, in a wild
and solitary situation, just fitting for the last scene of a Porte St.
Martin melodrama.
The road thence descends suddenly, edging a precipice, and commanding a
view which is a contrast to all we have toiled through till now. We
rode under abrupt banks, and fragments of reddish rock, and below was a
glen, shut in by hills, or rather small stony mountains, planted with
vines, wherever cultivation is not impossible. There was no verdure,
for the vine stalks are yet bare of leaves, and the face of the hills
is only varied by the different tints of rock and soil, and the
enclosures of the small fields, formed by piles of slaty stones thrown
up from them; yet the prospect was beautiful as well as grand. The
broken hill nearest us stood forth in deep shadow; those before, as
well as the narrow valley, lay in splendid sunshine, and beyond them,
through the haze of heat and distance, shone the windings of the Saône,
and stretched the rich plains of Bresse, and above all towered the
range of the Jura, resembling the cloud which hung over it, but that
its rosy white was more delicate still. At our feet were two villages,
so hidden in their nooks, that we perceived them only when the road
passed directly above. The furthest is La Rochepot; its square castle,
flanked by four massive towers, covers the surface of the solitary rock
which forms its foundation, and rises among the cabins, yet at a
commanding distance, as (ere power had departed and respect had
followed) the old noble once did among his vassals.
Two watch-towers are still standing, and the windows opened at
different epochs, some arched, some Elizabethan, make frames for the
blue sky seen through them, or are lightly curtained by ivy, which
seldom grows luxuriantly in France; its situation and itself are such,
as, had Scott seen, would not have been left without a story.
The grande route winding, passes directly in its front, and the
precipice is scarcely pleasant with a starting horse, particularly as
the carters we meet crack their whips at me, kindly curious to know
whether the lady’s seat is as unsafe as strange. Arrived at the stone
cross on the hill, we lost sight of the castle, but obtained a lovelier
view of the valley, as green meadows and fruit-trees in flower
enlivened the same bold scenery. I had led Fanny down, as the descent
is rapid, and as I was about to remount, only Grizzel’s affectionate
disposition spared us an inconvenient adventure. By the road-side are
various marly pools, whose thin mud seems unlikely to tempt even a
thirsty horse; yet Grizzel left free when D—— came to assist me,
walked towards, and into it, bending her knees and making preparations
for rolling, in utter disregard of the saddle and valise she carries.
D—— ran to the edge, but the edge was slippery and the pool deep, and
Grizzel too intent on her bath to listen to shouts or commands; a
stroke of the long whip was the last resource, and out of the water she
splashed, and, to our dismay, trotted up a by-path. What was to be
done? to pursue would have quickened her retreat; by a lucky thought,
we led away little Fanny, and the poor grey had not gone a hundred
yards ere she turned to look for her, and though she hesitated a
little, preferred the risk of feeling the whip again to losing her
companion; so we rode peaceably on to Chagny, which is situated in a
rather pretty country, though beyond the valley. I asked an old woman
who was there at work, the name of its tiny river; she turned round to
gaze at it, as if she then saw it for the first time, and said “Cela?
cela s’appelle la _rivière_.” Met again to-day several soldiers going
on furlough; one from Africa, bronzed by its sun. We stopped him to ask
whether we are likely to find our friend Captain ——’s regiment at
Lyons. From Chagny to Chalons, though but four leagues, seemed a long
distance from the badness of the road: between them, on a lone flat, we
passed the stone erected to the memory of Antoine Prévost a countryman,
assassinated here for the sake of a five-franc piece in his pocket. Met
an exceedingly uncivil waggoner with his team, who made a face at me!
and got in at sunset, the frogs in the ditches croaking so loud a “good
night,” that they startled the horses.
Chalons existed as a town of importance, even previous to Cæsar’s
entrance into Gaul, and was called Orbandale. Cæsar made it the
head-quarters of several legions, and it increased in importance till
the reign of Constantine. The inhabitants boast that near their city he
beheld in the clouds the luminous cross which converted him to
Christianity.
It was at Chalons that the marriage was negotiated between Clovis and
Clotilda, by whose influence he afterwards became first Christian King
of France. It was to him that St. Remy made that fine speech before his
baptism; “Bow the head, barbarian! burn what you have adored; reverence
what you have burned.” The scene of the exploits of the famous
Brunehaud was also laid here; she was second wife to King Gontran; his
first spouse Austragilda, who died at Chalons, made a singular request
to her husband:—“I pray you, sire, put to death all those unskilful
leeches who have failed to cure my malady.” King Gontran promised to
give her this token of affection, and kept his word, and yet—he has
been canonized!!! The parish of St. Laurent, which was formerly a
little town with privileges of its own, occupies an island formed by
the Saône. It had once a convent of Cordeliers, in the church of which
was the tomb of a monk who was its superior. The historian of Chalons
says he was the only brother of Alphonso the Fifth, King of Portugal;
in 1481, he wandered hither and assumed the cowl: the king dying
childless, ambassadors came to offer him the crown he had inherited; he
refused it, and dismissed them as well as his mother the queen dowager,
who strove to persuade him by entreaties and vain tears. At last, in
despair, she departed and retired to die among the poor Cordeliers of
St. Claire of Auxonne, where she is interred. Of all the riches of
Portugal, Father John only accepted what sufficed to decorate the
church of his convent, and died in 1525, having chosen to be the
principal of five and twenty mendicant monks, rather than to rule a
kingdom.
Having purchased a bonnet, I walked after dinner to the cathedral. It
is believed to have existed from the earliest epoch of Christianity;
ruined by the Saracens, it was magnificently rebuilt by Charlemagne in
the commencement of the ninth century. It fell into decay five hundred
years after, and the present edifice is of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It is an extensive and solemn-looking building. We saw it
imperfectly and for a few minutes only; not arriving till after sunset.
The side aisles are shorter than the nave, and the arch, which descends
lower where the transept crosses the latter, gives it weight and gloom;
but the nun’s walk, with an open gallery below and above, is light and
beautiful. The armed and gilded figures, which seem to guard the choir,
belong to the tombs of some of the old Counts of Chalons buried here.
The chapels are rich in ornaments, having belonged to the chief
families of the country, mostly to those which have given bishops to
Chalons. In one of them kneels a painted statue attired in its robes,
which, though it might possess little illusion in broad daylight, made
us start in the gloom, looking though “lifeless so very lifelike.” The
unfinished portal is about to be completed; and this part of the
cathedral is screened off for the present by most curious old tapestry,
seemingly of Francis the First’s time. The small irregular place in
front of the church is surrounded by houses with projecting upper
stories, and carved cherubims at their corners, resembling those at
Tewkesbury; but nothing at Chalons appears to date back to 590, though
it is pretended that a part of the palace occupied by King Gontran
still remains. We go to-morrow, for the quay below our windows is the
spot whence the Saône steamers start; and the noise exceeds that of a
Saturday night at Birmingham: the horses are uncomfortably situated,
not only from the extreme filthiness of the stable, but because one end
of its enormous space is merely separated by a curtain from the open
coach-house, and the other by a glass partition from the kitchen;
luckily they are good travellers. We dined yesterday in our own rooms
and well, and to-day at the table d’hôte, the worst I have seen yet,
and having a nasty appendage in a lavoir opposite, with often-used soap
on its edge, and dirty towels for drapery; the diners washed their
hands as they came in—a most odious custom.
CHAPTER V.
Tournus—Greuze’s grave—Mâcon—The walking Wedding—Retirement of
a Count of Mâcon, with thirty Knights, to the Abbey of
Cluny—Dealings of his Successor with evil Spirits—His exit from
Earth in the Car of a black Visitor—His Son turning Monk through
fear—The County sold by his Daughter Alice to France—Bloodless
occupation of Mâcon by the Huguenots—Mâcon retaken through
bribery by the Marshal of Tavannes—Madame de Tavannes’ mode of
increasing her Revenues—Sauteries de Mâcon—Farce of St.
Poinct—Assassination of Huguenot Prisoners—Sang froid of
Catholic Dames—A Russian Noble—Villefranche—Privilege granted
to its married Men—Descent into Lyons—Monastère des deux Amans,
supposed Herod and Herodias—Fortress of Pierre Encise—The
Prison of Cinq Mars—Fort commanding the Croix Rousse—Homage
paid to the wooden Statue of 1550—Hôtel de l’Europe—View of
Fourvières—Its Church escaping violation throughout the
Revolution—The Antiquaille on the site of the Palace where
Germanicus was born—Traces of fire in Nero’s time—Recollections
of Princess Mary of Württemberg—Her love of Art to the
last—Nourrit’s Funeral—A Racer’s determination to trot—Going
to races—Mistaken for a Candidate—Perrache—Horses, riders, and
accoutrements—Triumph of the King’s Fête—A Boat upset—The
Tower of the fair German-Croix Rousse—Wretchedness of the
Operatives—Causes of Insurrection in 1831—The most ancient
Monastery in Gaul—Church of Aisnay.
Tournus, Hôtel de l’Europe,
23d April.
Arrived here last evening, having left the inn yard at Chalons under
the inspection of all the guests assembled there for breakfast.
Remembered, when we had crossed the bridge, having left no address for
my bonnet, which is to be sent after me to Mâcon; and were obliged to
ride back.
From Chalons to Sennecey, two posts; a long fertile plain bounded by
hills; to the left, in the distance, the Swiss mountains. The only
sights at dirty Sennecey, a horridly gigantic head grinning with its
tongue out, transplanted from some fountain to the wall of the first
house, and a very old fort at its extremity, within whose walls the
parish church has been lately erected. The extensive plain which again
succeeds is skirted by nearer and wooded hills, whose shade, as we
ascended them, made a pleasant contrast to the burning, treeless flat
below. We let poor Fanny drink from a clear stream gushing forth at the
foot, over which has been built a neat lavoir. As we walked the horses
up the steep, the view bespoke more comfort and plenty than does any
part of France I have yet travelled. Green meadows and fruit trees in
flower, and villages dotting valley and rising ground, reminded me of
England; from the summit the prospect was enchanting. The descent
before us was rapid, and a few crags made a bold foreground, as did the
Swiss mountains a splendid distance. Tournus rose in the plain, with
its old church towers and grey abbey, and suspended bridge across the
Saône, whose shores, seen for many a mile of its windings, merit their
name of “bords fleuris.” This is one of the very best inns we have yet
rested in; close to the bridge and the river; in all respects superior
to its rival, the Sauvage, which is at the entrance of the town in a
dull and dirty situation: but, as it pays postilions at a ruinous rate,
attracts the larger proportion of post carriages. My indifferent health
alters our destination, for, dreading the heat of an Italian summer, we
go hence to Switzerland instead of Nismes. Here we remain some days for
letters, and to give rest to our horses, though they appear to require
none. Our most intimate acquaintance is a fat gentleman, who is anxious
we should take a furnished château in these environs, which has its own
private theatre, (he has discovered D——’s taste already,) and, with
grounds and large vineyard, is to be let for thirty pounds a year; and
an old soldier of the empire, one of the few returned from Moscow, who
holds young France in great contempt, and showed us the scar of a lance
thrust in his throat; and a sabre cut which crippled his hand: two of
the six wounds for which a grateful country bestows on him a pension of
eight sous a day. Do not suppose him a beggar, or one to whom you could
presume to offer money. Before he was drawn for the conscription he was
a carpenter. After his military life, unable to return to his first
trade, he took up another, and is now a carrier, and transports goods
in his cariole from Tournus to the villages surrounding it. We made
acquaintance in the stable, where I had gone to see Fanny luxuriously
rolling on her clean straw; and he particularly prides himself on being
divested of all prejudices belonging to the untravelled. Greuze, the
painter of the sweet family-pieces we have so often admired in the
Louvre, was born at Tournus; in the church is a monument erected in his
honour.
27th April, Mâcon.
We loitered away the fine weather at Tournus, and took to-day the
melancholy road hither, with a north-east wind which whirled its dust
in our faces, and made us shiver, as we rode up and down long hills,
which succeed each other without view or interest. We met a wedding
trudging along a little path which wound through the clods of a
ploughed field, and crossing the high road and ourselves in the
direction of a village. Three fiddles preceded bride and bridegroom,
who walked arm in arm, and half a dozen couples of friends and
relatives followed; we made a bow to the bride, who was very plain and
looked very proud. The fiddlers were conscientiously playing with all
their might, and we heard the sharp, squeaking notes, “like the cracked
treble of an old man’s voice,” long after we lost sight of them. The
female peasantry hereabouts wear a strange kind of tiny hat tied on the
top of the head, and the white cap: it is about large enough to fit
that of a doll, and above a fair face might be picturesque, but worn
over weather-beaten features, which the “foreign aid of ornament cannot
serve,” adds to their natural ugliness; and being so small as barely to
shade one eye, affords no protection against the burning summer. The
Hôtel de l’Europe where we are lodged is a good inn situated on the
quay: the view is pretty across the broad river, and to the plains
beyond, and bounded by the Alps. The inn has good beds and civil
masters, but a bad cook. We dined to-day at the table d’hôte, which
consisted of only two besides ourselves, young men of no very brilliant
intellect, for one asked the waiter whether the radishes served at
table were of this or last year’s growth; and nothing could persuade
the other that the insurrection of the Lyons workmen was not suscitated
by the English, with a view to destroy the silk-trade. There is an old
horse in these stables thirty-two years of age, they tell me once a
favourite charger of Napoleon.
Mâcon is a very ancient town, and was of importance even in Cæsar’s
time. Under the first race of French kings it formed part of the
kingdom of Burgundy; under the second race the Counts of Mâcon had
insensibly become hereditary, and after the reign of Hugues Capet, one
of these, yielding to the devotional feelings which took sudden and
absorbing possession of his mind, retired with his sons and thirty
knights to the monastery of Cluny, where they assumed the cowl, while
at the same time their wives became nuns in the abbey of Marcigny. The
county of Mâcon then again formed part of Burgundy, and in 1245 it was
sold to St. Louis, King of France, by Alice, who had inherited it from
her father and brother.
The parent of the Countess Alice had, it was said, dark dealings with
bad spirits; and choosing to place no bridle on his love of enjoyment,
laid violent hands on property belonging to the two chapters of Mâcon,
and to the abbey of Cluny. The hour of reckoning came, and a black man
of fearful exterior appeared one day, and summoned the count at the
foot of his palace stair. Forced to obey, he mounted, at his silent
companion’s sign, a kind of car, and thereupon miraculously disappeared
from his wondering subjects. His cries of despair were heard and lost
in the distance. “Had he sunk into earth, or melted in air,” they knew
not; but his son, witness of this event, became a monk, and ceded the
county to his sister Alice, who had espoused a prince of the blood of
France, and her wishes according with her husband’s, sold to Louis the
holy king, a domain whose unholy lords ended so fatally. The palace was
allowed to go to decay, and in the sixteenth century its ruined walls
were still visible within the citadel which was in the centre of the
town. The Countess Alice retired to the Abbaye des Lis near Melun, and
died its abbess. Long after, in the year 1562, the Huguenots had
obtained possession of Mâcon with little violence, and no shedding of
blood. The Marshal of Tavannes several times, and each unsuccessfully,
attempted to retake the town, until at last he entered it by the means
of traitors bought over. Notwithstanding, in each street a combat
awaited him, but the Huguenot party, weaker than his own, and
unprepared, wasted its bravery. With the victorious troops there
re-entered the town a number of women, who, on account of their
shameful lives, had been expelled thence, as well as the priests, in
whose habitations many of them had been found: they served to point out
the houses belonging to men of the Huguenot creed, particularly of
those who had been active in driving them forth.
The butchery which took place would be too horrid for minute detail;
and by means of merciless pillage, Tavannes and other leaders made or
augmented their fortunes. Madame de Tavannes was noted for being
particularly clever in discovering in houses, which already seemed
sacked, the hiding-places of plate, jewels and linen, with all which
Mâcon at this time was better supplied than any town in France. The
mournfully famous Sauteries de Mâcon took place when Tavannes, having
departed, left in his place as governor, a certain St. Poinct, son of a
woman who asserted that a priest was his father. This man was in the
habit of terminating pastimes and festivals, to which he had invited
all the Catholic ladies of the town, by inquiring if the farce were
ready to be acted (it has since been called the farce of St. Poinct);
and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, he led the way to the
bridge—I believe the very same which still crosses from Mâcon to
Bresse, built of stone, with thirteen arches. Hither by his command,
one or two, sometimes more, of the Huguenot prisoners had already been
summoned; and when St. Poinct arrived, surrounded by ladies richly
attired, he would enter into gay conversation, joke with them, and give
them hope of pardon, till at his well-known signal they were seized and
cast from the bridge into the river. It does no honour to the Catholic
dames and damsels of the day, that D’Aubigné wrote that “this man could
instil into the minds of females, even maids and children, with the
fruits and wines of his desserts, such feelings as taught them to look
on without pity at the execution of a Huguenot.” Last night there
arrived a Russian noble, with his train of serfs. The north-east wind
blew bitterly, yet by the master’s order the groom, who had in some
wise offended, passed the hours till morning, shivering on the box of
the travelling-carriage. One of the hôtel waiters in pity carried him a
bottle of wine, but as he passed
“Betwixt the wind and his nobility,”
the Russian interfered, the servant received a reprimand, and the serf
no wine.
28th April.
From Mâcon to Villefranche the country improving; the low hills on the
right relieve the eye, barren as they are. At St. George de Rognain’s,
through which we passed, it was fair-day, and the streets so crowded,
that we were forced to proceed at a slow walk,—stared, laughed, and
hooted at, with what patience we might. At Villefranche it was
market-day, and our progress was impeded by droves of horned cattle
along the road: found, when we arrived, all the good rooms occupied at
the post-house, therefore pay high prices for bad accommodation. We
dined at the same table with a gentleman who has travelled on horseback
from Dijon hither, and complains of the fatigue piteously! Humbert the
Fourth, sire de Beaujeu, who died in 1202, singularly privileged the
husbands of Villefranche, allowing them to beat their wives till the
blood flowed, provided they did not die!!
29th April.
From Villefranche to Anse,
La plus belle lieue de France,
says the popular rhyme, and truly as we rode it, this warm, lovely
morning, it was fair and fertile beyond any country we have travelled
over. The high grounds on the right covered with vineyards; on the
left, the meadows rich and green, and the Saône—a sheet of silver, and
enough hill to give the scenery the boldness it would want otherwise.
Droves of oxen again on their way to supply Lyons; their drivers not
more civil than yesterday,—for they merely said they were dangerous,
without an attempt to leave us room at either side of the broad road;
and their being savage was a likely consequence of the heat, and their
fatigue—joined to the blows of the men, and the bites of their dogs.
We kept in the rear till they opened their ranks themselves, and then
cantered through this most unromantic peril. Our next meeting was with
a runaway cow! galloping at full speed from her master, whom her
unceremonious haste had commenced by overturning at the top of the
hill, and who was making vain efforts to come up with her. As we left
valiantly as much room with as little delay as possible for the
fugitive, two post-carriages passed us, their inmates asleep as usual.
We have not yet met two travellers with their eyes open.
We passed Anse, and its bridge over the narrow river, which is perhaps
a branch of the Saône:—there is an air of comfort about the
habitations of the poor, not visible in the north of France or nearer
Paris. We noticed that the improvement commenced near Chalons. At Anse
the cottages have neatly-enclosed gardens, gay with flowers and fruit
trees; the sides of the Grande Route, which here turns abruptly towards
the high hill which towers between it and Lyons, is bordered by poplars
and willows; the green lanes, branching from it, have hedges, now white
with hawthorn; and the peach-trees, which it is here the custom to
plant between the rows of vine, are covered with their delicate
blossoms. We remarked, that nowhere had we noticed so many fine
châteaux as we saw dotting the country here; either placed, in
commanding situations, on the hills to the right, or nestled in the
nooks of the Mount d’Or itself, which we were ascending. Perhaps this
accounts for the happier aspect of the dwellings of the poor: they are
not, like those in Normandy, long, unmeaning buildings, with mansarde
roofs; but for the most part extremely picturesque, built with high
peaked turrets,—probably in the architecture of Henry the Fourth’s
time. The steep road is uneven and stony, and we suffered from its
dust, as well as the heat of the day; but the view of the country to
the left, and that we were leaving behind, was at every step lovelier,
and when we reached the summit, that of Lyons and its environs which
lay below, in no degree inferior to it, though a thick haze shut out
the Swiss mountains. We asked three men, within the space of five
minutes, what might be the distance to Lyons: the first said two
leagues; the second, one; and the third, three. The descent is long and
rapid, passing some wild and beautiful gorges of the mountain, where
the summer residences of the Lyonnese citizens are thickly scattered,
and when we reached the bottom we were on the bank of the Saône, its
windings on the left hand leading among green shores, and to the Isle
Barbe, and on the right into Lyons. The Faubourg de Vaise, through
which the grande route runs, gives no very favourable first impression.
We believed that we had mistaken our way; but the crooked, narrow
streets opened at last on the fine quay, and the finest town-view ever
seen. We both made an exclamation of surprise at its beauty, which
increased as we proceeded; but my enjoyment of which Fanny very much
interfered with, as she chose to start more violently than ever, and
the busy quays have often no barrier between them and the river below
but rare placed curbed stones; sometimes not even these. We passed the
ruined Monastery des Deux Amans, a Gothic building, of which little
remains but the walls and a few windows with light and elegant tracery.
It was of the order of St. Francis, and took its name from a tomb
without an inscription, which existed here in the sixteenth century,
and from time immemorial had been called that of the Two Lovers. Some,
who exercised their erudition on the monument, affirmed it to be that
of Herod, king of Judea, and his mistress Herodias, exiled to Lyons by
Caligula. The high crag, which we rode beneath immediately after,
starting so strangely up from the quay and among houses, with
vegetation on its top, and a mere vestige of broken wall, was the seat
of the strong fortress of Pierre Scise, held by the archbishops of
Lyons till Henry the Fourth thought it wiser to take possession of it
for the crown.
During Louis the Thirteenth’s reign, it was a state prison, and became
that of Cinq Mars, whose memory Alfred de Vigny has made imperishable;
another victim to the weakness of Gaston, and the jealousy of
Richelieu. The rock was of considerable extent, for its fortifications
were cut in its stone, and it hung over the river; but it has been
blasted, and removed, to widen the quay and afford a passage for the
fine road which leads in zigzags up the hill to the new fort, which
commands the entire city, and whose cannon would above all find no
difficulty in reducing to powder the Faubourg of the Croix Rousse,
(built on a corresponding elevation on the other side of the river,)
should the Croix Rousse think fit to renew its revolts of 31 and 34. At
a guard-house we rode by, seeing 66th regiment on the soldiers’ caps,
D—— asked news of our friend Capt. ——. His battalion is not here,
but is expected shortly, and we have decided on remaining, as “we
three” have not met for years.
After passing the rock of Pierre Scise, there is another and lower
crag, on which are the rotting remains of a wooden statue. The people
merely know that it is the bon homme de Vaise, or Monsieur de la Roche,
who, in days of yore, gave marriage portions to their daughters, as is
exemplified by the large wooden purse he holds in his hand. I find that
he was an “échevin” of Lyons, of German family: his name was John
Fleberg, and he had been so successful in commerce, that when the
domains of the traitor Constable of Bourbon were confiscated to the
crown, he was enabled to purchase various châteaux and estates situated
in the neighbourhood of Lyons, and freed the inhabitants of Vaise of
various seignorial exactions, which had before lain heavily on them.
As the statue has stood and mouldered on its present pedestal since the
year 1550, or 1560, it has been thrown down by storm or accident
several times, and on such occasions re-installed with great ceremony.
It was long the custom to carry it in procession, once a year, through
the streets, repaired and fresh painted, and adorned with flowers; but
it has been discontinued of late, and the head and one arm are now
broken away. We continued to ride along the quay till we had passed the
cathedral, and crossing the second of the splendid suspension bridges
which traverse the Saône, arrived at the Hôtel de l’Europe, whose
entrance is from the Place Bellecour, and whose superb rooms look on
the river, and the bridges of Foy and Fourvières; a glorious view, with
the lights and shadows of sunset on it. This 30th of April has been
more like August. We have arrived heated and tired, but the horses
neither: both very hungry, and little Fanny rolling: which from the
character we purposely give her, she has room to do in comfort, French
‘cochers’ standing in awe of quadrupeds.
1st of May.
I think a Frenchman, wishing to impress a foreigner favourably, might
succeed better in affording him a glimpse of Lyons, than the same of
Paris. Fancy yourself for a moment standing at one of these windows,
the atmosphere more clear than further northward in France. The old
church on the opposite bank of the Saône, with two low massive towers,
each surmounted by a cross, is St. Jean, the cathedral, in part erected
during the reign of Philip Augustus, contemporary of Richard Cœur de
Lion. The ugly ruinous looking building adjoining is the Archevêché.
Pius the Seventh, on his way to crown Napoleon, in Paris, Napoleon, on
his road to be crowned in Italy, slept here! Behind St. Jean rise
vineyards and fruit gardens in steep terraces, gay with white blossom
and delicate verdure,—a background from which the grey cathedral
stands darkly out. Directly above, on the extreme summit of the hill,
is the small church of Notre Dame des Fourvières, remarkable for having
escaped the ravages of the old revolution, during the whole of which it
remained closed, and was re-opened by Pius the Seventh. A square tower
built near it, on the same platform, in some degree hurting the effect
of the tiny steeple, is a new and useless observatory. A little to the
left, and lower on the hill, a long building with three pavilions, half
concealed among old trees, is the Antiquaille, now an hospital and
house of refuge: built on the site—it is said on the foundations—of
the palace of the emperors, where Germanicus was born. Fourvières took
its name from a splendid market erected there in Trajan’s reign, and
called Forum Vetus. On the hill have been found at various times,
pieces of fused metal and calcined stones, traces of the great fire
which ruined the city in the time of Nero. The heights of Foy join
those of Fourvières, and are equally bold, but more barren. When the
poor young Princess Mary of Württemberg came to Lyons on her way to
Pisa, where she died, she insisted on painting this view, though she
did so supported by cushions. The landlord’s sister showed me her
apartments, which join ours: she says the Princess was so gentle and
uncomplaining, her husband so attached to her, and both she and the
Prince so fond of their infant, whose sleeping place was in a cabinet
adjoining their bed-chamber, and whom they were hanging over and
admiring twenty times a-day, that it was heart-breaking to see her
increasing feebleness. When they continued their journey, he would
suffer no other person to give the assistance necessary, but himself
carried her down the hôtel stairs, and lifted her into the carriage.
She was an artist to the last; but a day or two before her decease at
Pisa, cheered by warmth and sunshine, she asked for a pencil, and
commenced a sketch of the fine view from the windows. “The ruling
passion was strong in death.” When the Prince again passed through
Lyons, on his return to Paris, without her, his appearance was so
changed, that (the people of the inn say) they barely recognized him.
I have just been summoned to the Hôtel Terrace, which looks on the
Place Bellecour, to see the passage of Nourrit’s funeral procession.
His body had arrived at Lyons in a travelling carriage, and
(transferred to a hearse only to cross the city) will again be
deposited in a coach at its gates, and hurried up to Paris. The hearse
was preceded by military, with music and drums muffled, and the pall
covered with crowns of flowers, offerings made by the towns he has thus
been borne through since Naples; but the two postilions, who in their
common dress rode the hearse horses, were out of character with its
plumes and draperies. A crowd of Lyons artists and of Nourrit’s
admirers followed, but the archbishop has refused religious rites to
the actor.
This is a most lovely night, like one in summer, and Lyons looks proud
and imposing seen through the partial obscurity. The fine deep toll of
the cathedral bell, and the discharges of cannon echoed back from the
range of hills, and carried along by the dark river, adds to its
effect. To-morrow, the fête of St. Philip, there will be gay
rejoicings. We intend riding to see the races at La Perrache; for last
year a horse who had excited great hopes, in the hour of trial, despite
whip and spur, went round the course at a trot.
May 2nd.
As we were about to mount our horses in the inn yard this morning, a
considerable crowd assembled to gaze at us, and completely filled the
archway; so that when we attempted to ride out at it, the porter was
obliged to employ rough words, as well as entreaties, and his wife
whispered in my ear, that the people were so curious, because one of
them had told the rest that I had arrived in Lyons for the sole purpose
of riding one of these races. We could do nothing but move very slowly
and patiently among the wide-eyed and open-mouthed spectators. I heard
some one say close to me in a tone of contemptuous pity, “Sure, your
honour, the likes of them knows no better,” and looking round,
wondering to find so perfect a brogue so far from its birthplace, the
speaker again replied to the expression of my face, “Is it where I come
from, your honour? why then, from Cuffe-street,” and I saw a very red
round face, with a merry blue eye, belonging to an Irishman with a
wooden leg. Paddy has been a sailor, first in the English, then in the
French service; but to quiet his conscience, which might reproach him
with this caprice of which he has been guilty, he yields to the first
the palm of superiority, which he says “altogether proceeds from the
system of flogging,” as “the French navy will never flourish without
that same.” He is now a good shoemaker, or rather he might be, for,
like many of his countrymen, he abhors control; and prefers living on
the good will of his acquaintances, in which he succeeds pretty well,
as he is allowed to walk in and out o
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