Burgundy: The Splendid Duchy. Stories and Sketches in South Burgundy
by Percy Allen · English · Gutenberg #46689 · 664,031 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Burgundy: The Splendid Duchy. Stories and Sketches in South Burgundy
Author: Percy Allen
Illustrator: Marjorie Nash
Release date: August 26, 2014 [eBook #46689]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURGUNDY: THE SPLENDID DUCHY. STORIES AND SKETCHES IN SOUTH BURGUNDY ***
BURGUNDY: THE
SPLENDID DUCHY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IMPRESSIONS OF PROVENCE. FOOLSCAP QUARTO, 12/6 NET
SONGS OF OLD FRANCE. CROWN 8VO. 6/- NET
LONDON: FRANCIS GRIFFITHS
[Illustration: MONT BEUVRAY
_Frontispiece_]
BURGUNDY: THE
SPLENDID DUCHY
STORIES AND SKETCHES IN SOUTH BURGUNDY
BY
PERCY ALLEN
AUTHOR OF "IMPRESSIONS OF PROVENCE" ETC.
Fully illustrated with eight water-colour and 86 line drawings
by Miss Marjorie Nash
LONDON
FRANCIS GRIFFITHS
34 MAIDEN LANE, STRAND, W.C.
1912
[Illustration: Lion]
TO M.
TANT L VAUT, the Virgin name,
Five hundred years ago,
On stately hall and tower aflame,
Blazoned in gold, bade all acclaim
Her worth in high Rochepot.
Here above London's roar I sit,
To watch the splendour flow
O'er myriad roof-trees glory-lit,
And read,--with golden fingers writ--
A sunset's TANT L VAUT.
Darkness and stars begin to be,
Light leaves the world below;
Turning, a gracious form I see,
And vesper music wakes in me--
Ma deboinaire, très doulce amie,
Seule Etoile, TANT L VAUT.
[Illustration: Grapes]
PREFACE
I have to thank very cordially my friend, Monsieur François Fertiault,
for his kindness in permitting me to make use of the valuable material
comprised in his charming books upon rural Burgundy; and I have also
to thank M. A. de Charmasse and his publisher, M. Dejussieu, of Autun,
for placing at my disposal the information contained in that author's
Précis Historique to "Autun et ses Monuments" and in the archeological
portion of the same work, written by the late M. H. de Fontenay, a book
which I recommend to those who wish to study fully the stones of that
interesting city.
I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Mm. Mame & Fils, of Tours,
in granting permission to translate the Burgundian legends, "Le
Creux du Diable," "Le Puits de St. Martin," and "L'Abbaye de St^{e.}
Marguerite," by the late Abbé B----, published by that house: also the
courtesy of M. Gabriel Hanotaux, of the French Academy, and of his
publishers, Messrs. Hachette, of Paris, in permitting the reproduction
of a portrait of Philippe le Bon (p. 191) from his recent work on
Jeanne d'Arc. My thanks are due, too, to M. Perrault-Dabot, who kindly
allows me to make use of the engraving of Cluny (p. 72) from his work
"L'Art en Bourgogne."
If the support given to this volume on South Burgundy justifies me in
doing so, I hope, before very long, to follow it by a second, dealing
with the northern part of the duchy.
Among the works consulted in writing this book are the following:--
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED
THE DATES REFER TO THE EDITION MADE USE OF
Olivier de la Marche "Mémoires" 1819
Olivier de la Marche "Le Chevalier délibère." 1842
C. R. de Caumont de
la Force "Histoire secrète de la Bourgogne" 1694
Brugière de Barante "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne
de la Maison de Valois" 1825-6
Ernest Petit "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne,
de la Race Capétienne" 9 vols. 1835-1905
Dom Urbain Plancher "Histoire Générale de la
Bourgogne." 4 vols. 1739-81
Philippe de Comines "Chroniques," etc. 5 vols.
Claude Courtépée "Voyages en Bourgogne" 1905
Claude Courtépée "Description du Duché de
Bourgogne" 1775-85
A. Kleinclausz "Histoire de la Bourgogne." 1909
A. Kleinclausz "Régions de la France; La Bourgogne"
Francis Miltoun "Castles and Châteaux of Old
Burgundy" 1909
Sir G. F. Duckett (Bart.) "Abbey of Cluny"; 1839 "Charters
and Records" 1888
P. Lorrain "Essai Historique sur L'Abbaye de
Cluny" 1839
J. Pignot "Histoire de L'Ordre de Cluny"
3 vols. 1868
A. Penjon "Cluny; La Ville et L'Abbaye"
Cistercian Monk "A Concise History of the Cistercian
Order" 1852
H. Collins "The Cistercian Fathers"
M. T. Ratisbonne "Histoire de Saint Bernard" 1843
G. Chevallier "Histoire de St. Bernard" 1888
François Fertiault "Rimes Bourguignonnes" 1899
François Fertiault "Histoire d'un Chant Populaire
Bourguignon" 1883
François Fertiault "En Bourgogne; Récits Villageois" 1898
François Fertiault "Une Noce d'Autrefois en Bourgogne" 1892
François Fertiault "Le Cher Petit Pays" 1903
A. Perrault-Dabot "L'Art en Bourgogne" 1897
A. Perrault-Dabot "Le Patois Bourguignon"
P. G. Hamerton "Round my House"
P. G. Hamerton "The Mount" 1897
H. de Fontenay } "Autun et ses Monuments" 1889
and }
A de Charmasse } "Autun et ses Monuments, Précis
Historique" 1889
Joseph Déchelette "Guide des Monuments D'Autun" 1907
Joseph Déchelette "L'Oppidum de Bibracte"
Alphonse Germain "Les Néerlandais en Bourgogne" 1909
M. L'Abbé B---- "Légendes Bourguignonnes" 1872
M. L'Abbé B---- "Tebsima" 1872
Lettres d'Abailard et d'Héloise; Nouveau receuil, etc. 1720
Matthew Arnold's Poems 1885
Jules Baux "Richesses Historiques et
Archéologiques sur L'Eglise de Brou" 1844.
Camille Jullian "Vercingetorix" 1902
Camille Jullian "Histoire de Gaule" 1908
Camille Jullian "Tableau sommaire de la Gaule sous
la domination romaine." 1892
S. Cambray "Lamartine; A Study" 1890
Lamartine "Confidences" " 1849
Lamartine "Le Tailleur de Pierre de Saint
Point" " 1851
Michelet "Histoire de France"
Viollet-le-Duc "Dictionnaire Raisonné"
INTRODUCTION
Although the history of Burgundy is intimately connected with that
of England--the policy of the Valois Dukes, for example, affected
profoundly our national destinies during the hundred years' war--the
average English reader's knowledge of the subject is contained within
the four corners of a wine list. He knows Beaune--knows the name well,
as that of a drinkable brand, may have blessed it in his heart, when
a ray from the shaded lamp shot through its ruby depths. If by any
chance he loves Meredith, he may, even, under its kindly influence,
have whispered to his fair partner, Dr. Middleton's phrase: "Burgundy
has great genius; Burgundy sings the inspired ode." But should his lady
slip in a question concerning this ruddy heartener of man, he could not
answer; he would stumble between the Côte d'Azur and the Côte d'Or.
Not another town of Burgundy could he name. Dijon he knows, and
remembers; because there he scalded his throat with hot coffee, gulped
down, at three in the morning, on the way home from the Riviera; or,
bound for Switzerland, he may have passed through the town. But he does
not know Dijon as a Burgundian Capital, nor as a proud city of royal
palaces and unrivalled sculpture. At most, when he hears the duchy
named, there floats through his mind a shadowy memory of Henry V., or
of King Lear.[1]
Yet Burgundy was the scene of events vital in the making of Europe. It
was one of the strongholds of Roman civilization. It saw the genesis
of a religious movement that was the greatest feature of eleventh and
twelfth century history. Cluny was a nursery of popes; Citeaux became
a breeding ground of saints; their abbots lorded it over mighty kings;
they dictated to potentates and princes; they bent all western Europe
beneath their sway. Bernard's eloquence fired three nations with
enthusiasm for the second crusade.
That Power, when it had passed from the great monastic houses, fell
later, in a modified form, to the Valois Dukes. Safely housed in Dijon,
or in Bruges, ruling a people sheltered, to some extent, from the
appalling disasters that were transforming the fair kingdom of France
into a howling wilderness, they kept a more than royal state. Gathering
about their persons a great company of distinguished artists and
valiant knights, they established a school of sculpture unmatched in
their time; they held pageants and tournaments the most brilliant that
chivalry had ever seen.
Headstrong and ambitious, they challenged the crown of France, and
defied it; they dreamed dreams of a Burgundian empire extending
eastward beyond the Alps and northward to the Channel.
'Tis true that these ambitions were never sated. The house of Valois
had not the constructive mind of which empire is begotten: moreover,
Destiny, and Louis XI., were too strong for them. But the glorious
tale of ducal efforts towards that goal outshines all other sunset
splendours of dying mediævalism.
When I think of what might be made of such a theme, I could tear these
pages, because my best is not better.
Yet history does not end the attractions of Burgundy. It only begins
them. Nature, too, has her pageant "in this best garden of the
world," she will hold you here, whether you choose the delicious,
poplar-fringed plains of the Saône, the "waterish" Burgundy that the
French king sneers at in "Lear"--he would have gloried in the land had
it been his own--or the stern and silent hills of the Jura and the
Morvan; or the vine-clad slopes of sunny Côte d'Or.
But, best of all, this land and its people have a character wholly
their own. You will not feel here the twilight melancholy of Celtic
Brittany; the quivering, electric atmosphere of romantic Provence; nor
the passionate intensity of dark Languedoc; but you will find a country
well typified by its wines, its sculpture, its architecture--a solid,
ample, full-bodied, full-blooded land; a people strong and vivacious,
concealing, beneath a somewhat harsh and stern exterior, a cheerful
heart and an abundant generosity; comfortable, courageous, eloquent,
sonorous folk, that love a good dinner, and a good story to follow,
that have produced a Bernard, a Bossuet, and a Lamartine.
The key to this Burgundian character, with its blend of Gallic,
Latin, and German elements, the key to Burgundian history, too, is
the geographical position of the country. Its great water-ways flow
northward, by the Yonne, to the English Channel, and southward, by the
Saône, to the Mediterranean and the traffic of the East; along its
valleys run the great trading roads and railways connecting northern
and southern, eastern and western Europe. With the exception of the
Jura, no natural barriers exist between Burgundy and the adjoining
lands. It was open at all quarters; from every point of the compass it
borrowed, and it lent. Michelet's visionary thought has summed up, in
a splendid phrase, the secret of Burgundy. He says, speaking of the
country round Dijon: "La France n'a pas d'élément plus liant, plus
capable de réconcilier le nord et le midi."
There you have it. To reconcile the bitter antagonisms of north and
south, and, in a lesser degree, of east and west, was Burgundy's
destiny; the geographical position that enabled her to do so was at
once the source of her greatness, and the cause of her fall. While she
remained independent, unity was impossible for France; and England's
peace was imperilled by irresistible temptations to attack a weakened
neighbour.
In writing this book, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to
preserve historical continuity. That must be my excuse for geographical
flights which, else, might bewilder my readers.
My hope is that these pages may awaken, here and there, lasting
interest in a land that, whether for varied scenery, sunny climate,
good living, characteristic architecture, or, above all, historical
associations of the first importance, can hold its own with any other
ancient province of France.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Henry V., Act V., Scene 2; King Lear, Act I., Scene 1.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
BENEATH THE MOUNT
PAGE
The Hiring at St. Léger--Distant Beuvray--Fun of the Fair--A
mad wolf--Legends of the Mount--Gaulish Bibracte--St. Martin at
Beuvray--La Pierre de la Wivre--Legend of the Wivern--The Curé
of Monthelon 1
CHAPTER II
THE ROMAN CITY
A Suffering Cow--Temple of Janus--The Aedui--Druids--Divitiacus
and Dumnorix--Vercingetorix--The Founding of Augustodunum--Pierre
de Couhard--Francis I. at Couhard--The Plan of
Augustodunum--Temple of Janus--Restoration--Origin of the
Name--Roman Gates--Porte d'Arroux--Porte St. André--Date of
Construction--Porte des Marbres--Vagaries of Peasant guides 11
CHAPTER III
THE ROMAN CITY (CONTINUED)
French Passion for Statues--Roman Temple at Autun--Ecoles
Méniennes--The Capitol--The Roman Theatre--Two Ways of
Lunching--Promenade des Marbres--The Amphitheatre 31
CHAPTER IV
THE ROMAN CITY (CONTINUED)
Christian Autun--Relics of Lazarus--Translation of the
Relics--Tomb of Lazarus--Exterior of Cathedral St. Lazare--The
Porch--The Interior--Romanesque and Gothic--The East
End--Imbecile Restorations--The Capital--St. Symphorien by
Ingres--Story of St. Symphorien--Fontaine St. Lazare--Hotel
Rolin--The Museums--Napoleon at the Hotel St. Louis--No charge
for Moonlight 41
CHAPTER V
THE MOTHER ABBEY
Cluny and Citeaux--Cluny still the Abbey--The Birth of
Cluny--Duke William's Anathema--Odon--Legend of the
Crumbs--Legend of the Boar--Growth of Cluny--Birth of Hugues--St.
Odilon--Hildebrand--Glory of Cluny--The Monk's Vision--The new
Abbey--Consecration--Gifts--Description of New Cluny--The
Narthex--The Interior--Conventual Buildings--Ambulatorium
Angelorum--The Rule of Cluny--Monkish life at Cluny--Pierre
Damien--Death of St. Hugues--Luxury and Decadence 59
CHAPTER VI
THE MOTHER ABBEY (CONTINUED)
Cluny of To-day--Palace of Pope Gélase--The remaining
Transept--Chapelle Bourbon--Tour du Moulin--Tour des
Fromages--Gate of the Narthex--The Abbey Gate--Notable Visitors
to Cluny--Palais abbatial--Musée--Hotel de Ville--Romanesque
Houses--Hotel des Monnaies--Eglise St. Marcel--Hotel
Dieu--Bouillon Monument--Prud'hon--Women of Burgundy--Hotel de
Bourgogne--An amusing Evening--A Dream--Berzé-le-Châtel--Castle
of Lourdon--St. Point--A Poet's Garden--Lamartine's Home--Tramaye 86
CHAPTER VII
MORE POPE THAN YOU
Decadent Cluny--Birth of St. Robert--Abbey of Molême--The Founding
of Citeaux--White Robes--Black Scapular--Stephen's Vision--The
Coming of St. Bernard--His Appearance--Legend of His
Birth--Bernard converts his Family--Bernard a Cistercian--His
Austerities--Rise of Citeaux--Daughter Abbeys--Ceremony of
Foundation--Character of Bernard--Cistercian
Ideals--Self-sacrifice--Simplicity--Bernard's Letter to Pierre le
Vénérable--Visitors to Citeaux--Albigensian Crusade--Citeaux's
Crime--A Cistercian Site--Citeaux to-day--The Chapter--My Flemish
Guide 111
CHAPTER VIII
CLUNY'S DAUGHTER
Monkish Paray--"Une Simple Formalité"--Burgundian
Manners--Clothes and the Woman--Hotel de Ville--Church of
Paray--Splendid Example of Clunisian
School--"Diorama-Musée"--Burgundian English--North
Door--Porch--Interior--Blasphemy and kindred Matters--A very
young Mule--A Snake-charmer 127
CHAPTER IX
HER THREE CROWNS
Chalon-Sur-Saône--River Pageants--Gontran--Abbey of St.
Marcel--The Story of Bertille 136
CHAPTER X
ABELARD AND HELOISE
Church of St. Marcel--Story of Abélard and Héloise--Olivier de
la Marche--Tournament of la Dame des Pleurs--Tournament of
1273--Modern Chalon-Sur-Saône--Eglise St. Vincent 145
CHAPTER XI
TOURNUS BY THE SAONE
Abbey of St. Philibert--Oldest Clunisian Porch--Interior of St.
Philibert--A Change of Author--The Record of Raoul
Glaber--Raoul's Visions--Famine in Burgundy--Human Vampires--In
a Tournusian Café--"Au Point du Jour"--Greuze--Morning and
Evening on the Saône--Mâcon 160
CHAPTER XII
THE VALLEY OF THE OUCHE
A Page of Dialogue--Castle of Marigny--Legend of
Tebsima--Albéric--Labussière--Albéric's Dream--Aid from
Citeaux--The new Church--Modern Labussière--A magnificent
Mansion--Antigny-le-Chatel--A Vigneron's
Wedding--Arnay-le-Duc--Study in Roofs and Colours--A charming
Town--The Goats--The Poor Man--The Hotel Chrétien--Around Arnay 173
CHAPTER XIII
THE CITY OF THE DUKES
Unknown Dijon--The City in 1364--Philip le Hardi--His jewelled
Coats--The Madness of the Period--Costume of that Day--Madness of
King Charles--Philip's Patronage of Art--Chartreuse de
Champmol--Puits de Moise--Portal of the Chapel--Claus Slater and
his Nephew--Tombs of Philip le Hardi and Jean sans Peur--The
Pleurants--Character of Jean sans Peur--Murder of Duke of
Orleans--Whitewashing--Armagnacs and Burgundians Revenge 184
CHAPTER XIV
CITY OF THE DUKES (CONTINUED)
Salle des Gardes--Dijon Castle--A new Post-Office--Final Struggle
between Charles le Téméraire and Louis XI--Characters of both
Men--Defeats and Death of Charles--Discovery of the
Body--Victorious René--Louis' Joy--New Castles--Entry into
Dijon--End of Burgundian Dreams--Modern Dijon--St.
Bénigne--St. Michel--Notre Dame Jacquemart--Ducal Palace and
Kitchen--Sketching--Palais de
Justice--Plombières--Talant--Fontaine-lez-Dijon--Memories of
Bernard--Tournament of Tree of Charlemagne 203
CHAPTER XV
THE DEVIL'S PIT
Easter Morning--Lux--The Devil's Pit--Dialogue--The
Legend--Serve him right! 221
CHAPTER XVI
BEAUNE AND THE COTE D'OR
"Bits" in Beaune--Notre Dame--Hotel Dieu--An Earthly
Paradise--Exterior--Courtyard--Chapel--Devices--Roger Van der
Weyden's "Last Judgment"--Nicholas Rolin--Guigonne 230
CHAPTER XVII
SAINT MARTIN'S WELL AND THE LEGEND OF SAINT MARGUERITE
Bouilland--Abbey of Sainte Marguerite--The Legend--Vineyards
of the Côte d'Or--Meursault--Rochepot--Story of Philippe
Pot--Crusader's Return--His Marriage at Dijon--Tant L
Vaut--A Talk at Auxey-le-Grand--Through Côte d'Or by
Train--Cussy-la-Colonne--Bewitched--The Column--A Democratic
Journey--St. Martin's Well--Legend of St. Martin's Well 237
CHAPTER XVIII
IN RURAL BURGUNDY
The Road to Verdun--Burgundian Folk-song, "Eho!"--Its
Story--Verdun sur le Doubs--The First of March--Burgundian
Folk-Lore--Teillage--Winter Scene--An old-time Burgundian
Wedding--The Patois--François Fertiault 258
CHAPTER XIX
A LAKE IN THE JURA
Swiss Burgundy--Scenes in the Jura--Nantua from the Hills--Real
Burgundy--A capable Woman--Church of Nantua 272
CHAPTER XX
PRINCESS MARGARET'S CHURCH
Bourg-en-Bresse--Signs of the South--Conveyances--Monument
Historique--Cezenat--Princess Margaret's
Church--Exterior--Interior--Story of Princess Margaret---Loys
von Boghen--Death of Margaret--The Meaning of her Church--The
Tombs--Paradin's Chronique de Savoie--Francis I. at Bourg 276
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Mont Beuvray Frontispiece
A Gaulish Soldier 1
On Mont Beuvray 7
The Wivern 10
The Porte St. André 11
Autun; shewing Cathedral and Mediæval Towers 17
Autun; Pierre de Couhard 19
Autun; Temple of Janus 23
Autun; Porte d'Arroux 25
Burgundian Peasant 30
Head of Augustus 31
Autun; Mediæval Towers 35
A Burgundian Welcome 38
Masks of Comedy and Tragedy 40
Roman Vine Ornament 41
St. Lazarus; from the Porch of Autun Cathedral 46
Autun; Fontaine St. Lazare Facing 50
Autun; Tour des Ursulines 52
Cluny Abbey and Gateway, as they were 59
Cluny; Valley of the Grosne and part of the Abbey Grounds 62
Cluny; Tour Fabri 64
Clunisian Ornament 67
God reproving Adam; from a capital of the Abbey of Cluny 70
Cluny Abbey, as it was at the beginning of XIXth Century (by
permission of M. Perrault-Dabot) 72
Cluny; Clocher de l'Eau Bénite 78
Cluny; ruined Gate of the Narthex 81
A Jewelled Crucifix 85
Early Clunisian Ornament 86
Cluny; Tour des Fromages 87
Cluny; Gateway of the Abbey 90
Cluny; Hotel de Ville 92
Cluny; Pascal Lamb; twelfth century 93
Cluny; Hôtel des Monnaies, twelfth century 96
Ornament 99
Cluny; a Capital from the Abbey 102
Château de Berzé 104
Château de Lourdon 106
House of Lamartine 110
St. Bernard 111
St. John: Burgundian School 119
Justice and Truth 126
Paray-le-Monial; the Church 127
Two Priests 128
Paray-le-Monial; North Door of the Church 132
Gontran and Bertille 136
Her Three Crowns 144
Abélard and Héloïse 145
Beaune; Maison Colombier Facing 150
Chalon-Sur-Saône; Maison de Bois. 159
The Saône near Tournus 160
A Street in Tournus 162
Tournus; the Abbey 170
By the Saône 172
Antigny-le-Chatel 173
Arnay-le-Duc; Corner House, sixteenth century 181
Arnay-le-Duc; Tour de la Motte Forte Facing 182
Dijon 184
Dijon: at the Café 187
Moses; from the Puits de Moïse, Dijon 189
Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy 191
A Corner of the Tomb of Philippe le Hardi 193
Pleurants from the Tomb of Philippe le Hardi 194
Dijon; Corner of the Place des Ducs 197
Pleurant 199
Ornament 200
Sword 202
Dijon: Decorated windows of the Maison Milsand 203
Dijon Museum; Woman at Prayer 204
Dijon; a Street Facing 208
Dijon; Door of Eglise St. Michel 211
Dijon; A Font in the Eglise St. Michel 212
Sculpture; Notre Dame de Dijon 213
Dijon; Well outside the Duke's Kitchen 214
Vine Ornament 215
Dijon; a fifteenth century Window 218
Ornament 219
Arbre Charlemagne 220
The Three Huntsmen 221
Through the Forest 225
Vine Ornament 230
Beaune; Belfry of the Hospice de la Charité 231
Beaune; Porch of Notre Dame Facing 232
Beaune; Courtyard of the Hôtel Dieu 235
Star Ornament 236
Saint Martin and Saint Margaret 237
Ruins of St. Margaret's Abbey 239
La Rochepot 241
Beaune: Porch of the Hôtel-Dieu Facing 242
Tomb of Philippe Pot 245
Taking his Ease 247
Roman Column at Cussy 251
Valley of Nantoux 254
St. Martin Preaching 257
Burgundian Ox-cart 258
In Rural Burgundy 261
Junction of Rivers Doubs and Saône 261
Oxen ploughing Facing 264
Burgundian Cottage 267
Château de Moux 270
Nantua and the Lake 272
Nantua from the Hill 274
Princess Margaret's Tomb 276
Bourg; in the Street 278
Eglise de Brou: Ste. Madeleine from the Tomb of Marguerite
d'Autriche 287
Eglise de Brou: Ornament from the Tomb of Marguerite d'Autriche 290
Princess Marguerite d'Autriche 292
Sketch Map of South Burgundy 293
[Illustration: Heading, chapter I]
CHAPTER I
BENEATH THE MOUNT
We had expected quiet, rural times in this far-away village of
St.-Léger-sous-Beuvray; but I doubt whether we shall get them. The
village green in front of the Hotel du Morvan shows signs of unusual
animation; it is dotted with carts, which are discharging tent-poles,
canvas, golden cars, and other paraphernalia of a country festival;
and, surer sign still, through the door of an open shed, I can see
hanging, headless and lamentable, the gaping corpse of a fatted calf.
Yes! there is his tawny countenance and two mild eyes looking down,
like those of a martyred saint, from the cruel hook. The odour of him,
wafted in succulent puffs, from the dead-house door, has cheered with
a splendid hope half the dogs in the village, and awakened from torpor
two ancient hounds, who prowl, almost youthfully, sniffing fragrant
memories in the air.
"What is going to happen?" I asked the landlord, who was sharpening
tools on a bench.
"'Tis the Louée, Monsieur, the hiring that takes place every year. All
in the neighbourhood who want farm-hands, or domestic servants, and
those who want places, come to-morrow morning and make bargains. And
the Directeur of Enfants Assistés (Foundlings) is coming, too; he is to
stop here at my hotel, and so his children get work."
We were up early the next morning. Only deaf men, or dead ones, sleep
through a Louée. There came to us in our bedroom, with the sunshine, an
indescribable babel of sounds--babble of voices, braying of trumpets,
banging of drums. To a Londoner, strange methods of doing business!
We went out into the din and the sunshine to find the transformation
complete. All the green was dotted with booths bright with gaudy
trinkets of every imaginable colour; shooting galleries, and a hundred
other sou-trapping devices. Before every inn had sprung up, as if by
magic, a salle de bal, with a real wooden floor, and a little balcony
for the musicians. There was a gipsy encampment, too, where, heedless
of the din, a Romany sat upon the trunk of a fallen tree, methodically
skinning hedgehogs with a knife; while his two small sons were
unmethodically currey-combing the yellow pony, and dusting him down
with his own tail, cut off and tied to a stick! The door of the caravan
opened; there was a glimpse of a woman's arm, and a pailful of slops
shot out, sparkling in the sun, to alight where fate might decree.
Brown drops splashed up into the hollow eyes of Grandmother, dreaming
on a chair by the steps. Meanwhile the peasants went on hiring and
being hired; some sealing the bargain with a glass of red wine, in the
Café; some, if the maid were comely, with a kiss. Peasants I call them,
though, at first sight, this array of black blouses and black squash
hats suggests a meeting of nonconformist parsons, rather than farmers
of the Morvan. Yet one learns to accept them so, and to enjoy the deep,
black shadows that lurk in the folds of the garments. Straw hats are
few; but the white caps of the old ladies are there for contrast.
Wearied of the buzzing crowd, the nerve-racking crack of the rifles, we
wandered out of the village, and sat by the edge of a ploughed field,
where we watched, above a rampart of firs shot with spring greens,
the purple mass of dark Beuvray lifting its crested summit into the
cloudless sky,--mysterious Beuvray, whence of old, as darkness closed
upon their homes, the wondering peasants in the valley, heard, from the
mysterious mountain city above their heads, the sound of great gates
creaking harshly upon their hinges.
But to-morrow is for Beuvray. To-day we will watch the long stream of
peasants coming to the Fair, by the lanes that wind, up and down,
among the buttress hills of the mount. They come on foot, in farm
carts, on bicycles; but most of them come in little, trim donkey-carts;
husband and wife sitting primly side by side, their tanned faces
shewing strongly above the silently twitching, brown ears of the
"baudet." Here is a family in a donkey-drawn washing-basket, three
generations of them, packed like sardines. After déjeuner, when the
hiring is done, the older ones leave; the turn of the younger is come.
Then the fillettes begin to appear--Fifines made fine for the Fair--all
cut after the same pattern, with white blouses below much be-ribboned
straw hats; each carrying, because of the mid-day sun, a grey jacket
lined with light blue. These come tripping from village and hamlet,
clinging to each other, with little toddlers holding their hands; all
chattering, smiling, sweltering, happy. The fiddlers will be tuning up
in the Salles de Bal.
So we followed the maids back to the village, and wandered again among
the booths. An old, old lady, beside a not less ancient friend was
nursing a tin mug. They were discussing bargains and their budget. "I
got this for three sous; et je trouve que c'est bien solide." On that
point she was cruelly deceived. But what matter? Thinking makes it so.
What a popping of corks comes from the Café!
Bang! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!! The crowd surges toward a compelling
din. Before the largest of the tents a half-naked, muscular ruffian
stands silent upon a tub; beside him another, clad in shiny velveteens,
shouts himself hoarse.
"Gentlemen, you all know that the 'lutte est le premier gymnastique du
monde.' Come in then, and see. Our professor challenges all comers. He
will wrestle with a great bear. Now for la lutte aux ours! Entrez; we
will show you the véritable gorille, and the most terrible beast in the
world, the Monstre du Pole Nord." And, indeed, above his head was writ
in gold letters, the fearsome legend: "MONSTRE DU POLE NORD."
We went in, with other youths and maidens. The baby that followed us,
shewing signs of strong emotion, was hastily removed by its mother.
"Up against the canvas, please gentlemen. La séance va commencer au
milieu!"
We watched while, before the bars that held the four-legged animals,
the naked bipeds struggled furiously; clutching, writhing, rolling,
till the bare, oily skins were dark with perspiration and sawdust.
Their eyes were so full of it, that, between the rounds, they were
gouging it out with their knuckles. "Ca y est! Ca y est!" "At it again!"
"Bravo monsieur l'amateur, un petit bravo pour l'amateur"--with arms
like telegraph posts--"le plus fort du pays." So it went on--the "lutte
aux hommes," the "lutte aux ours."
For a full five minutes the sanded professor leant up against and
pushed the furry mass of Jean Pierre, the feebly scratching, tangled
bear, who was too bored to be méchant. From behind their bars the
Monstre Du Pole Nord (a sloth bear) and "le véritable gorille" (a
Barbary ape) grunted approval of their companion's efforts.
Through the crowded entrance we pushed our way into the largest of the
Salles de Bal, bright with lit lamps and coloured ribbons. In a scarlet
and green box, with a yellow diamond, slung to the roof of the tent,
the fiddlers and viol players, sitting in their shirt-sleeves, squeaked
and ground lustily. There was babble of voices and rhythmic scuffle of
feet. A young soldier, fair and close-cropped, in uniform, crossed the
salle, bowed to my wife, and asked for a dance. A moment's hesitation,
and she was whirling round with the others. As he said to her at
parting; "You are not in France every day." It was three in the morning
before darkness and silence settled down upon St.-Léger-sous-Beuvray.
The next morning we rode to the Mount by a lane that, undulating,
climbs, through pasture, arable, and woodland, among the buttress hills
of Beuvray, to the Poirier aux Chiens, a lonely farmhouse, where we
left our bicycles. Cyclists are rather worried hereabout by excitable
dogs and hysterical sheep; but the former are not dangerous, as they
are in Languedoc and other parts of the south of France; and we are
happily free to-day from the dangers of two hundred years ago; as when,
on the 18th of June, 1718, at nightfall, St. Léger was visited by a
mad wolf from the top of Beuvray, that wounded and disfigured sixteen
people, of whom all but one died of hydrophobia. The single exception
was a woman, who had only been scratched by the animal's claws.
After this incident a Confraternity of St. Hubert was established in
connection with the Church, and by the authority of the bishop, for the
destruction of wild beasts.[2]
The easiest path by which those who are not familiar with the locality
can climb Beuvray, is from the Croix du Rebout, nearly two kilometres
beyond the Poirier aux Chiens, at the top of the col, just where the
descent begins. Several other paths lead up to it; but as there are
more than twenty miles of Gaulish roads intersecting on the tree-clad
slopes of the Mount, it is very easy to lose yourself completely, as I
did on my first visit; until there was nothing for it but to descend to
the road and seek another path. My only consolation for those two hours
of wasted energy was that, while lunching beside the forest path, I
met, face to face, a red fox ambling jauntily on his way. How we stared
at one another; and how I wished that, for once, he could talk.
But, "after all," the reader may ask, "Why climb Beuvray? When you are
up there, what is to be seen but a view; and what mean these twenty
miles of Gaulish roads through a wilderness of boughs?" To which
pertinent question I reply, that in all France there is but one Beuvray.
You will find more romantic peaks in the Alpines of Provence, you will
find grander, more striking mountains in volcanic Auvergne; in the Alps
you will see summits, clothed in eternal snow, beside which the Mount
is but a molehill; but nowhere will you find such a hill as this, whose
flanks have echoed to the tramp of Cæsar's legions, whose crest, the
council chamber of kings and generals, has flamed through long nights
with the beacon fires of a great city. Nowhere else will you find a
hill that the centuries have so peopled with dragon and saint, with
phantom hound and spectre horseman, and have made as harmonious with
legendary poetry and immemorial voices, as nature has made her woods
vocal with whispering fern and wandering wind, with the ripple of the
brook, and the stir of creeping things in the grass.[3]
For this Beuvray is no other than Bibracte, the Gaulish oppidum that
Cæsar speaks of as "Oppido Aeduorum longe maximo et copiosissimo."[4]
Tradition, as I have said, had rumoured it for centuries as the site
of an ancient city; but many had supposed that Autun was the place
referred to, until the researches of M. Bulliot, the Antiquary of
Hamerton's delightful work "The Mount," settled the problem once for
all. Of the history of the last days of the town I will say something
in the next chapter; for the present, let us be content to mount the
rocky, rain-washed, Gaulish road that leads up, through interlacing
boughs, to the "Grand Hotel des Gaulois," or, in other words, the
little house and sheds near the summit, which the antiquary occupied
while making his researches and excavations.
The path runs beside many of the most interesting discoveries, though
nothing of the remains is to be seen, the owner having stipulated that
all "fouilles" should be covered up, a precaution necessary in any
event, if the primitive Gaulish homes of stones and wood, with mud for
mortar, are ever to be preserved to a later posterity.[5]
After passing the huts, you come, by a grassy woodland path winding up
through ferns and bracken, to the terrace on the summit of the hill,
now mercifully clear of the ubiquitous trees. Here, on the site of
the ancient temple to the Dea Bibracte, one of the many Gaulish gods,
M. Bulliot has erected a little chapel in Romanesque style, dedicated
to St. Martin. Here, also, is a granite cross, with a carving of St.
Martin performing an act of charity at the gate of Amiens; not far away
is a memorial to M. Bulliot himself.
Tradition has given much prominence to the doings of St. Martin here,
as elsewhere in France, and it seems probable that the saint did visit
Bibracte, about the year 377, on his way to Autun. M. Bulliot, and
other authorities, agree that he preached on the plateau of Beuvray,
possibly from the Pierre de la Wivre; and the legend has it that here
he overthrew a pagan temple, arousing thereby such fierce anger among
the inhabitants, that he escaped only by a miraculous leap of his ass
across the gorge of Malvaux (Mauvaise vallée) to the south-west of the
Mount, where the animal's hoof-prints are still to be seen. Later I
shall give fully a precisely similar legend concerning St. Martin in
the valley of Nantoux.
When once we had got our bearings, and accustomed ourselves to the
silence and solitude of the spot, we began to feel the charm of the
lonely plateau, and to realize its attractions for those who would live
close to nature and to the past. When I first visited it, on a bright
autumn afternoon, not a leaf was astir upon the golden oaks, not a
spray of the bramble trembled, not a rustle was heard among the dead
ferns in the grass; only, from far away in the valley below, came the
rumble of a cart-wheel, the crack of a sportsman's rifle in the distant
woods.
[Illustration: ON MONT BEUVRAY]
"So still it was that I could almost hear
The sigh of all the sleepers in the world;
And all the rivers running to the sea."
I looked down through the fringing trees. For mile after mile the
country lay golden before me, fields rising and falling, till they were
lost in the eastern sky. There was little St. Léger, a toy village
among tiny hills; there was the Etang de Poisson, a sapphire set in
emeralds, and far away the evening sun flashing upon the spires of
Autun Cathedral.[6] The sound of a footstep broke the stillness. A
youth was approaching me--a chétif, mis-shapen, shaking thing. He gazed
on me with drooping jaw, and passed muttering--an idiot wandering
through a night-mare world.
Then I, too, began to dream fantastic dreams, and to see spectres of
the past, such as--the peasants tell you--still flit over the crest of
Beuvray,--a white horse galloping at midnight, a loud voice commanding
ghostly legions in Latin; shadowy riders, moving shades of mediæval
knights and barons still climbing the stony paths to this their airy
tilting ground. Winged gabble raches passed screaming over my head,
and, from afar, baying in deep-mouthed thunder, I heard the hounds of
the phantom hunter of Touleur.[7]
But that was a thundery day last autumn, and this is a soft April
evening, with a breeze in the leaves, and silver clouds afloat in a
blue sky. Moreover, I am not alone.
We wandered back by the path along which we had come, and made our way
to the Pierre de la Wivre, a curious, pointed rock rising from the
plateau. Its sulphurous yellow colour is due to the lichen with which
it is covered. From the green headland, surrounded with holly-bushes,
on which it stands, you have magnificent views over rounded,
village-dotted hills, whose brown-green upland fields nestle up to the
dark forests that crown every summit. Up from the valleys come the
shouts of the teamsters urging on the slow, pale oxen.
This Pierre de la Wivre shows signs of man's handling, and has
probably been the scene of human sacrifices, and of other ancient
religious rites. We asked ourselves whether there may not have been
some religious significance in the surrounding belt of holly bushes,
since there are indications of a similar belt round the chapel of St.
Martin. Perhaps the holly tree was sacred to the Gauls. Sitting upon
the stone we recalled the legend as told by Hamerton.[8]
"The peasants believe that the Wivern dwells near it in a hidden cavern
guarding its treasure, but that once a year the cavern opens and the
Wivern goes out, leaving the treasure unguarded. As to the time of
year when this happens the narrators differ. Some say that it is at
midnight on Christmas Eve, others fix it for Easter Day during High
Mass; in either case it is during Mass, as there is a midnight service
at Christmas. The popular legend in its present form goes on to recount
how a certain woman, accompanied by her child, went to the stone of
the Wivern, instead of going to Mass, intending to take his treasure.
She found the cave open, entered, and took as much gold as she could
carry, and came out just in time to escape the Wivern on his return.
On looking round for her child, she could not find him anywhere. The
cavern being now closed again, she knew not what to do, and went in
despair to the priest, who told her to go to the place every day and
pour milk and honey on the stone till the expiration of twelve months,
and then, when the day came for the opening of the cave, to take her
treasure back to it undiminished, and she would find her child. So she
went day by day without fail, in heat and cold, in fine weather and
foul, and poured milk and honey on the stone. At last the day came
when the Wivern left the cave, and the mother found her child within,
sitting quite unhurt, and in perfect health, with an apple before him
on a stone table. So she restored the treasure gladly, and took away
her child."
M. Bulliot thinks that the legend was originally one of some Gaulish
sacrilege and reparatory oblation, the Gaulish priests requiring
a daily offering (perhaps of milk and honey) until certain stolen
treasure was restored. The Catholic character of the legend he looks
upon as nothing but an aftergrowth; and the apple has, in his opinion,
a distinct though undiscoverable significance.
From the Pierre de la Wivre we could see, on the next headland to our
left, the ridge of Pierre Salvée sharply serrated against the sky.
There, half an hour later, we found ourselves rewarded by a glorious
sight. Westward we could see extending mile upon mile, ridge after
ridge, the glowing mountains of Auvergne, and the valley of the Loire,
veiled in a shimmering mist, through whose mysterious wreaths flashed,
here and there, in diamond splendour, the sun-touched roof of a humble
cottage and the tower of a lordly chateau.[9]
With all the thousand other interesting details concerning
Bibracte--the Gaulish roads, the ramparts, the remains, the
descriptions and industries of the town, the visits of Cæsar--I have
no space to deal here; but I recommend particularly to the reader
Hamerton's book, from which I have quoted, and M. Dechelette's handy
guide, "L'Oppidum de Bibracte."
We cycled from St. Léger to Autun, by way of La Grand Verrière
Monthelon, and the Valley of the Arroux. Monthelon, some seven
kilometres from Autun, is a place famous in French Ecclesiastical
history. It has, as is common in Burgundian villages, a delightful
little Romanesque Church, concerning one of whose curés Hamerton tells
a good story which I cannot refrain from giving in the original tongue.
This old curé, then, was fond of putting Latin into his sermons, a
little bit at a time, his own Latin; not of the best. "'Lorsque je
paraîtrai devant Notre Seigneur, il me demandera; 'Curé Monthelonius,
ubi sunt brebetis meis'--ce qui veut dire; 'Curé de Monthelon, où sont
me brebis?' Et moi je lui répondrai; 'bêtes je les ai trouvées, bêtes
je les ai laissées, et bêtes elles sont très probablement encore.'"
Can you refrain from reading "The Mount" after that?
[Illustration: End of chapter I; dragon]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Hamerton's "The Mount," p. 26.
[3] Alesia, though intensely interesting, lacks the mysterious
quality of Beuvray.
[4] De Bello Gallico, lib. 1, cap. 23: "By far the finest and largest
town of the Aedui."
[5] I am told that the fouilles are open every year during a part of
the month of August.
[6] Hamerton says, that, on a clear day you can see Mont Blanc,
157 miles as the crow flies. It is the distance from London to
Scarborough.
[7] "The Mount," pp. 54-56.
[8] "The Mount," pp. 103-4.
[9] The Pierre Salvée has no legend; the name is probably
derived from some ancient divinity.
[Illustration: Heading, chapter II; The Porte St. André]
CHAPTER II
THE ROMAN CITY
In the railway station of Autun we had waited long for our bicycles to
be taken out of the train. They did not appear. The porters were all
busy with a cattle-truck that they were pushing casually down a siding,
till it was stopped in mid-career by the buffers of another truck.
Bang!! Rattle! Bang!! The thicket of horns, visible from without, shook
like a wood in a winter gale. A mild white head was thrust over the
lime-washed barrier, mutely protesting. We echo the animal's protest,
and our own.
"Do you always keep travellers waiting like this?"
"You see, Monsieur, it is because of the cow, she is bien souffrante."
"Then why treat her so?" I pointed to the still trembling truck; "but
in any case, are we of less importance than a cow? Are not we, too,
bien souffrant?"
"Yes, but you see, Monsieur, if the cow died, the _patron_ would lose
four hundred francs; but, had I known, I would have brought your
bicycles earlier." We reached the Hotel St. Louis at last.
Then, wishing to escape, until dinner-time, from the still glowing
streets, we crossed the Place du Champs de Mars, followed the gentle
descent of the Faubourg d'Arroux, and passed beneath the Roman gate
that leads northward from the city of Augustus into the open plain.
A hundred yards or so further on, a sharp turn to the left brought
us to two bridges crossing the tributary streams that wind among
the whispering poplars, beneath which, all day long, the kneeling
blanchisseuses have been pounding mercilessly their unoffending
washing. Continuing our walk between the dusty green hedges of the lane
meandering through the fertile plain of Autun, we saw, rising before
us, a building whose mysterious, alluring aspect at once rivetted
our attention, as it must that of all who have an eye for the spirit
of the past, and an ear for her call. We entered boldly by the gate
in the hedge, and shared possession of the field with the pale cows,
who, placid as the stones, and not unlike them in colour, lifted to us
questioning eyes.
The monument,--all that remains of it, rather,--consists of two great
stone walls, adjacent sides of a building, ruined and roofless. It
rises in the midst of the meadow, from among the grasses and brambles
about its base, a huge, weird, Caliban-like thing, shattered, yet
still massive, pierced with great tortured openings, and many smaller
ones above. The golden light of evening, gilding it, casts into the
holes and crevices, between the weather-worn masonry, pitchy shadows
from which the stones bristle out defiantly, as though challenging the
centuries to undo them, if man will but hold his hand.
This relic of Roman times, called by the peasants, "The Temple of
Janus"--though some antiquarians deny that it was ever a temple, and
that the three headed god was ever worshipped there--is not the only
striking object in the landscape. Away to the north-west, behind
the tossing boughs of the poplars, the setting sun is adorning with
changing purples the flanks of the distant hills. The broadest of those
peaks, crested with dark foliage, is none other than our old friend the
Mount.
We turned to the opposite side of the valley. Before us were symbols of
two later periods of Burgundy's prosperity--the modern city of Autun,
seated proudly upon the lower slopes of a mountain throne, and, high
above the roofs, the great mass of the cathedral of St. Lazare lifting
her Gothic spire to the sky.
The peculiar interest of the spot, the reason why we chose it as a
starting point in our travel through Southern Burgundy, is that here
we have, before our very eyes, visible symbols of four clearly marked
stages in the history of the Duchy; the Gallic, Roman, Gothic, and
modern periods.
We will begin with the Gallic period, in the days when Cæsar wrote of
that city, there upon Mont Beuvray; "Bibracte, oppido Aeduorum longe
maximo et copiosissimo";[10] and tell, very shortly, the story of the
tribe, in their relations with the Roman conquerors.[11]
The Aedui, concerning whom all our available information comes from
the Latin writers, were a Gallic tribe, inhabiting, approximately,
the space of country bounded on the east by the Saône, on the south
by the chain of mountains between the Lyonnais and Auvergne, on the
west by the Loire, and on the north by the valleys of the Vouge, the
Oze, the Brenne and the Yonne. They were a virile, warlike race,
that, from a very early period, had been recognised as the superior
of the neighbouring races, among which the strongest were, perhaps,
their enemies and rivals, the Arverni of mountainous Auvergne.
For very many years before the Roman invasion, there had been
intercommunication--often of an aggressive nature--between the Aedui
and the Italian races; but it was not until the year 123 B.C. that
anything in the nature of a direct alliance was formed between the
former and the Romans, although Tacitus and Cicero both allude to them
as "Brothers of the Roman Nation"; and the weaker people naturally
would not be slow to take advantage of the great military strength of
the new-comers, if it could be exercised on their behalf. The occasion
soon came to put that strength to the test, when, after a series of
quarrels with the Arverni and other neighbouring tribes, the latter
summoned the Germans to their assistance. The Aedui, feeling that their
independence was threatened, sent their chief Druid priest, Divitiacus,
to appeal unto Cæsar.
Before we see how he fared, let us glance at this leader, whose
statue stands to-day in the Promenade des Marbres at Autun. The
Druids were the magistrate-priests of their respective cities, where,
by the right of knowledge, riches, birth--for all were of noble
blood--they exercised almost despotic power. They were the theologians,
philosophers, jurists, astronomers, physicians, and moralists of their
times; they were the educators of youth, the depositaries of the holy
mysteries of their religion, and of the supernatural forces; the
arbitors of life and death--since no human sacrifice might be offered
without their sanction.
They were also superintendents of the observance of religious rites,
of the practice of the ritual demanded by the gods. Still subject
to those gods, the people would fear the priest not less than the
magistrate. Kings, even, were awed by these mouthpieces of the most
high. Such was he whom the Aedui chose for their ambassador.
Divitiacus went to Rome, and there, in person, pleaded his cause before
the senate. His embassy seems to have been of little apparent effect;
but, though he lost his suit, he gained a friend--Cicero.
In spite of the Druid's failure, Cæsar's legions were, nevertheless,
soon on their way to Gaul. The Helvetii, coveting the fertile land
that lay beside theirs, decided to attempt its conquest. Cæsar, aided
by some Aeduen troops, who now fought for the first time beneath the
eagle, met the invaders on the banks of the Saône,[12] and annihilated
them in the first great battle of his life. Henceforth, for a time, the
two nations are brothers. "Aeduii, fratres nostri, pugnant."[13] Such
they remained; until the next nation that threatened them--Ariovistus
and his German hordes--had suffered the fate of the Helvetii.
It was, however, inevitable that the warlike tribes of Gaul should
endeavour, sooner or later, to throw off the yoke of an alien
civilization, which, while it brought them material blessings of
inestimable value--of which not the least was the introduction of
the vine,--was, nevertheless, galling to their spirit of sturdy
independence. Soon the Aedui were being stirred to revolt. Foremost
among the discontents, was the leader of the Aeduen cavalry, Dumnorix,
brother to Divitiacus, though his opposite in character. The trusted
ally of Cæsar, and the friend of Cicero, Divitiacus the Druid
accepted philosophically the Roman dominion; his brother, turbulent,
adventurous, restless--a Prince Rupert of his day--had other dreams
for his country. Cæsar was about to embark on his second expedition
to Britain, when the news came that Dumnorix, who was under orders to
accompany him, had withdrawn, followed by the Aeduen cavalry. Cæsar,
delaying his embarkation, sent his own cavalry in pursuit, with orders
to kill or capture the rebel, if he refused to submit.
Soon overtaken, Dumnorix defended himself valiantly, and fell, sword
in hand, with the cry on his lips: "I die a free citizen of a free
country."[14] One is tempted to wish that the people of Autun had
raised in the "Place des Marbres," beside that of his more philosophic
brother, a statue to this gallant leader of a forlorn hope.
The example of Dumnorix was followed, before long, by almost the whole
of Roman Gaul; the principal cities being quite unable to resist the
temptation offered by the long absence of their enemy at the capital.
Cæsar, writing from Rome, protested vigorously against the ingratitude
of the Aedui. He reminded them of their grievous plight before his
legions freed them; of their decimated armies, of their ravaged land,
of the heavy tributes, the noble hostages wrung from them. But he spoke
in deaf ears. The Aedui had definitely linked their destiny with that
of their nation. Only the final arbitrament of force could be appealed
to.
They summoned to a council of war, Vercingetorix, the ablest general
of his day, chief of their hereditary enemies, the Arverni; but,
accustomed for long to regard themselves as the dominant tribe of the
Gauls, they offered him only a subordinate command. His refusal of any
command, other than the highest, was followed by an assembly general
of the Gallic tribes at Bibracte, when, on the matter being put to the
vote, the great meeting, with one voice, proclaimed Vercingetorix their
leader.[15] The story of his last desperate struggle against the Romans
at Alesia, and of his defeat and death, do not properly belong to the
history of Autun, nor to that of Bibracte.
Gaul had become a province of the great Roman Empire. A higher
civilisation, already familiar to the conquered tribes, is to impose
its dominion, its architecture, its art, upon the conquered land.
Bibracte, the oppidum on the wooded hills, will echo no more to the
shouts of Gauls acclaiming their general or their victory. Deserted,
probably in the first years of the Christian era, silence reigns
henceforth over the hills; silence broken only by the patter of rain
drops, by the moan of the wind, or the weird howl of the wolf, roaming,
at midnight, among the ruins of the abandoned city.
Meanwhile, here, upon the plain below, another and fairer city was
arising--Augustodunum, the Roman capital of Gaul, now known as Autun.
It has often been asserted that the location of Bibracte upon Mont
Beuvray is merely legendary, and that Autun is the historic site of
the great city of the Aedui. But this theory, as we have seen, has
been finally exploded by the researches of M. Bulliot. He proves
conclusively, not only that Bibracte was situate on the summit of
Beuvray, but also that Autun was built upon virgin soil, and not
upon the site of a Gallic city, which would inevitably have yielded
tangible proof of its existence in Gaulish coins and other remains. The
proportion of Gaulish to Roman coins found in Autun, up to the present
time, is about one to fifteen hundred.[16] Further evidence is offered
by the fact that the city conforms to the requirements mentioned by
Vitruvius at the time of its erection--about fifteen to ten years
before the Christian era--that, in building a town, the first necessity
is to choose a healthy site, elevated, not subject to fogs, of good
temperature, not exposed to extremes of heat and cold, away from
marshy land, and facing south or west.[17] One of the chief features
of Burgundian towns is the excellence of their sites. This feature,
due no doubt, to Roman example, is nowhere more noticeable than at
Autun, which remains to-day one of the best situate, and among the most
interesting, of all the cities of France.
* * * * *
The first thing to be done, it seems to me, in exploring such a place
as Autun, which comprises a mediæval and a modern town within the
Enceinte of a Roman city, is to get your bearings, to orient yourself,
as the French say.
On the previous evening, looking up from our sunset seat on the grass,
beside that mysterious pile known as the Temple of Janus, we had seen,
far above the city, to the south-east, on the slope of the hills which
enthrone Autun, a gaunt, grey stone lifting its head over the village
roofs of Couhard. The next morning found us descending the Rue St.
Pancras, into the hollow that lies between the village and the town. As
we climbed the ascent, the rising sun gave us alluring glimpses of the
mysterious stone, seen through the curling mists of an autumn morning;
yet, many a time, we turned from it, to watch the light playing upon
ancient wall and tower, and gilding the spire of the cathedral of St.
Lazare.
[Illustration: AUTUN; shewing Cathedral and Mediæval Towers]
A bend to the left brought us into Couhard, a straggling group of
dishevelled cottages and huts lining the Ruisseau de la Toison, that
bubbles merrily along the side of the hill. It is a dilapidated,
picturesque, tangled village, given over to ducks and dirt, and to
washerwomen, who, like flies in summer, settle upon the running waters
of France, to wash their toisons d'or.
"Quite an ancient, conservative, stagnant village," we were saying to
ourselves; "built beside a Roman burial ground, and itself going its
dirty way to death"--when, suddenly, we made a discovery. Couhard is
not conservative. On the contrary, it is advanced. Before us, on a
placard, we read: "Association des Femmes de Saône et Loire. Les Femmes
doivent Voter." And they tell you there is no feminist movement in
France!
Here is the Pierre de Couhard; a gaunt, uncouth, pointed mass of
rubble, rising from the hillside, in the midst of a little tangled
island--the dust bin of the village--where every ill weed grows. 'Tis a
characteristic setting for a Burgundian monument.
But the stone is impressive. Inchoate, formless, it yet suggests
a lost form, that of a corpse long-exposed, or of the mysterious,
human-inhuman figure, that the mad sculptor, in Andreev's story, hewed
out, after he had talked with one returned from the dead, and had gazed
deep into death's basilisk eyes.[18]
A close inspection reveals the truth--that the Pierre de Couhard was
in the form of a quadrangular pyramid upon a cubical base--the lower
part faced with large blocks of sandstone, the pyramidal portion with
limestone. All the facing has suffered the usual fate of similar work
in France--it formed the quarry from which the peasants of Couhard
built and maintained their village. On the south-east side of the
pyramid are two holes, bored about the year 1640, with the intention
of discovering whether the monument was hollow within.[19] It is now
believed to be solid throughout. The Aeduen Society, and others, have
undertaken excavations at various times; but local antiquaries have not
yet discovered any cella containing coins or relics that determine the
date of erection, which, however, M. de Fontenay, with good reason,
assigns to the reign of Vespasian (A.D. 69-79).
[Illustration: PIERRE DE COUARD · AUTUN ·]
As to the purpose of the Pierre, there is now little reason to doubt
that it was a memorial stone; a supposition borne out, not only by the
shape of the monument, but by its position at the summit of the Champs
Des Urnes, as it is popularly called, the great burial ground which
bordered the Roman road from Lyons to Autun.
Curiously enough, the same opinion was adopted, after a long
examination and discussion, by that mighty hunter, and amateur
antiquary, Francis I., when he came here, in August, 1521, accompanied
by his mother, Louise de Savoie, and by his wife, Claude de France.
While the ladies visited the Churches and Convents, which, to them,
were the superior attraction, the merry monarch did the round of the
Roman monuments, and afterwards restored his jaded faculties with
a day's hunting in the neighbouring forest of Planoise, where he
lost himself, and might have passed the night in the wilds had he
not happened upon the old castle of Porcheresse, whose lord, Celse
de Traves, led him back to Autun. The delighted populace, anxious
over their lost king, received him with "chiming bells and flaming
torches."[20]
Yet, however great the preparations and rejoicings with which the
inhabitants received their monarch--as, five years earlier, they had
welcomed his predecessor, Charles VIII.--it was neither a flourishing
nor a cheerful town that Francis looked down upon, from the Pierre de
Couhard, on that summer day, nearly four hundred years ago. He saw the
towers, spires, and gables of a mediæval city--one might almost say,
of two mediæval cities--built upon the ruins of the much larger Roman
town, the silent immensity of whose shattered walls, palaces, temples,
and amphitheatre, dwarfed into insignificance the small houses amongst
which they stood, and chilled, with a nameless fear, the hearts of
those who watched the shadows of evening falling about them, and heard
the spirit voices of the past calling, in the moonlight, from among the
haunted stones.
"Ou ses temples estoient a chaque coin de vue
Les buissons herissez presque y donnent la terreur;
Ou les riches palais furent, le laboureur
Y couple ses taureaux pour trainer la charrue."[21]
Less fortunate than Dijon and other towns of Burgundy, Autun had
suffered a sequence of disasters. When Francis I. saw the town, neither
the Roman walls nor the Roman buildings had recovered from the ravages
of Tetricus, King of the Gauls, who, about the year 269, after a siege
of seven months, sacked Augustodunum, leaving it in such a pitiable
condition that the emperor Constantine, when he came from Rome in 310,
could not restrain his tears at the sight of the wasted country and
ruined towns through which he had passed; nor could the banners of
the corporation, the statues of the gods, nor the groups of musicians
at the secret corners, blind the emperor to the real poverty hidden
beneath official pomp.[22]
There is no better spot than the Pierre de Couhard from which to
picture Augustodunum as it was on that day when Constantine rode
through the Porte de Rome, now known as the Porte des Marbres, which
then stood where the cemetery now abutts on to the end of the Rue de la
Jambe de Bois. Thence the main street of the city, the Voie d'Agrippa,
bordered by the important and imposing buildings, such as the Temple
of Apollo, the Schools, the Forum, and the Capitol, ran in a straight
line to the Porte d'Arroux, nearly in the direction of the Temple of
Janus, still faintly visible to-day, far away on the plain beyond the
river. This Voie d'Agrippa roughly bisected the Roman town, all the
streets of which were laid out, like those of a modern American City,
either parallel or at right angles to that axial line. Augustodunum,
though it lacked the lovely gables, lofty spires, and pleasant disorder
of Gothic Autun, must yet have shown to the traveller looking back from
the road to Rome, a splendid pile of temples and palaces and gardens,
as his glance wandered from the gleaming marble gates, and the flashing
dome of the Capitol, to the majestic arches and sculptured columns and
colonnades of the great arena and lovely theatre, whose ruins are yet
seen through the avenue of lime trees, above the ivy-crowned stones of
the ancient enceinte.[23]
Lovely is this spectacle, even to-day. On the left, to the south-west,
the mediæval city, the Castrum, lifts its pile of gabled, palace roofs
above the sombre firs, and line of bronzed fortresses, walls, and
leaf-clad towers that mark the Roman enceinte. Higher yet, over all,
the spires and pinnacles of the cathedral of St. Lazare glitter against
the background of hills.
On the way back, our attention was divided between the glories of that
view, and the "chasse aux poules" or chicken hunt--the one form of
sport indulged in by the old ladies of a Burgundian village.
A very few hours in Autun were enough to reveal the fact that this
largest Gallo-Roman city of Burgundy contains Roman remains as
interesting as any in France, known to me, excepting those of Nimes,
Orange, and Arles; while, around two of them--the Temple of Janus[24]
and the Pierre de Couhard--there still lingers an element of mystery
that renders them doubly attractive to the curious mind.
The "Temple de Janus" lies, as the reader will remember, at the foot
of Autun, in the meadow beside the Arroux. Its original purpose is
doubtful. M. Viollet le Duc held it to be a Fort Détaché, built outside
the ramparts, for the purpose of barring the passage of the river,
and commanding the plain.[25] M. de Fontenay, on the other hand,
asserts,--and I venture to think proves,--that the building was not
designed for military purposes, and was, in fact, a temple; though
there is no evidence to tell us to which deity it was dedicated.[26]
M. le Duc contends that the tower had no door on the ground floor,
and was entered by means of a ladder; but one of the features that
first strike any observer who is endeavouring mentally to reconstruct
the building, is, that, along both remaining walls, between the lower
openings and the upper windows, run two lines of rectangular holes
pierced in the masonry. The purpose of those holes, was, undoubtedly,
to carry the roof timbers of a peristyle, or outer gallery, whose
foundations have been unearthed at a distance of between five and six
metres from the main wall,--a discovery which seems at once to demolish
M. le Duc's theory of entry by ladder. The design of the peristyle is
not known, nor the order of its architecture; but it probably took the
ordinary form of a stylobate, or base, columns with capitals supporting
an entablature, and a sloping roof. The niches on the interior sides of
the walls, and the traces of red colouring--a mixture of powdered brick
and chalk, still easily visible in their more protected parts--are
further evidence that the tower was indeed a temple.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF JANUS · AUTUN]
M. de Fontenay dates the building, conjecturally, from the founding of
Autun. Concerning its popular name, "Temple of Janus," he has some very
interesting information to give.
It appears that, until the 17th century, the tower was known as the
"Tour de la Gênetoie," a term which a local savant took to be a
corruption of Janitect, "à Jani tecto." This legend was accepted by the
historians for about the next two centuries, until, in 1843, another
Burgundian writer reluctantly announced the truth,--that Gênetoie
did not mean "Temple of Janus," but simply, "Champ des balkins" or
"genets," the broom known to all Englishmen as the device of our
Plantagenet kings. So much for the Temple of Janus. Whatever may have
been its purpose, no one who has visited Rome, looking up at the huge,
shattered walls, gilded by the sunset, standing out against the purple
shadows of the hills far away across the plain, can fail to recall
memories of the Roman Campagna.
The Roman city of Augustodunum possessed four gates, at the north-west,
north-east, south-west, and south-east corners of the town, leading
to the roads for Boulogne, Besançon, Bourbon L'Archambaud, and Lyons
respectively. The first and last of these was known also as the "Voie
d'Agrippa." The gates, taking them in the same order, are known as the
Porte d'Arroux, the Porte St. André, the Porte St. Andoche, and the
Porte de Rome. The first two of these are still standing; the others
have disappeared.
The Porte d'Arroux is distant only a few minutes walk from the Temple
of Janus, near the river, at the foot of the Faubourg d'Arroux.
Incomplete though it is, the grace and dignity of the fallen monument
yet contrast strongly with the squalor of its setting. It is backed,
on either side, by a medley of disreputable villas, and dilapidated,
half-timbered cottages, whose squalor is not without charm. To-day
hordes of ragged children play beneath the arches that once echoed to
the roll of chariot wheels, and to the tramp of lictors' feet.
[Illustration: PORTE D'ARROUX · AUTUN ·]
The Porte d'Arroux has four openings for traffic,--two large central
arches, by which chariots could pass in and out, and two smaller gates,
at the sides, for foot passengers. Each of the central arches is
grooved for a portcullis, which some authorities, including M. Viollet
le Duc, think were not added till the middle ages,[27] a supposition
that M. de Fontenay seems effectually to disprove by pointing out
that, since the Roman rampart at that period was broken down in many
places, any additional defences to the gates would have been a useless
precaution.
Autun, in mediæval times, comprised what were, in effect, two
distinct towns, both built within the Roman enceinte. These were the
Castrum, the centre of which was the Cathedral of St. Lazare, and the
Marchaux--still known by the same name,--in the lower part of the town,
north of the Place des Champs de Mars. Each of these towns was then
sheltered within its own walls and towers, of which portions are still
in existence.
The upper part of the gate consisted of a pierced gallery or arcade,
of ten bays,--seven of them still intact,--forming a Chemin de Ronde,
on a level with that running along the crest of the Roman wall. This
gallery, serving the double purpose of ornament and defence, could
be closed at any time by wooden shutters.[28] The gate was flanked
on either side by two rectangular towers (corps de garde) with
semi-circular apses projecting far beyond it, as though--in the phrase
of Eumenes, a local historian and orator of the late 3rd and early 4th
centuries--they were stretching out welcoming arms to those about to
enter the town.[29]
All who are interested in the development of Burgundian architecture,
should give careful attention to the Porte d'Arroux, which is certainly
the source of one of the most marked characteristics of the style,--the
use of the fluted pilasters, which, for some reason or other, seem to
have struck the fancy of the architects of this part of France. We
shall see this arcade imitated closely in the triforium gallery of the
cathedral of St. Lazare, and also influencing, in turn, the churches of
Cluny, Paray le Monial, Notre Dame de Beaune, and others.
The masonry of the gate is very finely executed, with close joints,
without mortar, in the manner of the period, and is, on the whole, in a
wonderfully good state of preservation. The lower part of the work is
quite plain. The archivolts, the entablature, including the architrave
and the frieze, show little ornament; the cornice, however, is richly
decorated with dentals, palmettes and other designs, as is also the
remaining fragment of cornice above the arcade, whose fluted pilasters
have beautiful capitals in the Corinthian style.
The other surviving Roman gate,--the Porte St. André,--is on the
north-east boundary of the city, not far from the Porte d'Arroux, by
way of the Faubourg Arroux and the Rue de la Croix Blanche. It is less
picturesquely situate, and, though very similar, is distinctly inferior
to its neighbour in design and finish. The central arches are lower,
and heavier, while the gallery lacks the lightness and grace which are
characteristic of the Porte d'Arroux, and is, moreover, built in a
stone darker and less pleasing to the eye than the oolithic limestone
of the lower portion.
M. de Fontenay suggests that this upper part was restored at some
later and degenerate period of Roman architecture. Certainly the plain
pilasters are badly designed and carelessly set, while the capitals,
of a composite, semi-ionic order, appear to be too narrow for their
pilasters--not too wide, as stated by M. de Fontenay, and also by M.
Déchelette in his careful little guide to Autun. The Porte St. André
shows no signs of having been fitted with a portcullis. Hamerton[30]
states, no doubt correctly, that the door was barred by strong beams
inserted into holes and grooves. These are still visible.
The Porte St. André, it should be noted, is one of the most complete
Roman gates existing in France. The lower portion of one of the
flanking towers, which rose originally several feet above the attic
story of the gate, owes its escape from destruction to its shape,
which, coinciding with that of a typical Romanesque chapel, tempted
certain ecclesiastics of the middle ages, to dedicate it to St. André,
as a place for Christian worship.[31] These flanking towers comprised
three stories. The first communicated with the Chemin de Ronde, along
the crest of the walls, the second was a vaulted chamber, and the third
remained open to the sky. Access was obtained by a double staircase.
On the question of the period during which these gates were built,
M. de Fontenay and Viollet le Duc are again at variance,--the latter
attributing them to the fourth or fifth centuries,[32] the former to
the reign of Vespasian (A.D. 69-79).[33] Strange as it may seem that
another writer should contradict continually so eminent an authority as
the last-named, the author of "Autun et ses Monuments" again has reason
on his side, since he can refer to the orator Eumenes as describing the
gates in the year 311 A.D.
Moreover, since the Roman walls were admittedly broken down in many
places during the siege by Tetricus, in the year 269 A.D.,--an event
of which Eumenes was a witness,--and the inhabitants were already
beginning to retire within the safer precincts of the Citadel; what
would be the reason for erecting elaborate gates on the line of the
ruined wall? I am not an authority upon ancient architecture; but I
was certainly astonished to read the date given in the "Dictionnaire
Raisonné"; and I should be glad to know whether other experts support
M. le Duc's theory.
Of the two other gates--the Porte St. Andoche, on the south-west,
and the Porte de Rome on the south-east, in the direction of
Lyons,--nothing remains except the rectangular portion of one of the
lateral towers of the former. The loss of the Porte de Rome, or the
"Porte des Marbres," as it was popularly called, is especially to be
regretted, since that name alone suggests the truth, of which evidence
exists, that it was by far the most beautiful of the four. Moreover, it
has additional historic interest as being the gate by which Constantine
entered Autun in 311.
The old writers agree in describing the Porte des Marbres as a
thing of beauty,--a quality which was its undoing, as offering an
irresistible attraction to the Mediæval and later builders. Several
ancient Corinthian capitals, not otherwise easily accounted for, are
to be seen to-day in the porch of the cathedral built at the close of
the 12th century. It appears, indeed, that around the present site of
the Fountain of the Pelican was a burial ground named Les Marbres, on
account of its richness in borrowed sculpture. The site of the gate was
known from the 14th century onwards as "à Marbres" or "de Marboribus."
At the time of the construction of the bastion of the Jambe de Bois,
the workmen unearthed many marbles, including columns, capitals, and
bases of the Corinthian or some composite order.[34] The date of the
final destruction of the Porte des Marbres is uncertain; but its
flanking towers, then known as the Fors de Marboribus, were still
standing in the middle of the 14th century.
Before beginning another chapter, let me speak one word of warning.
If you ask one of the humbler inhabitants of Autun where the Porte
St. Andoche stood, you will be directed, without hesitation,--as we
were,--to the bank of the river, near the railway station. Having
reached that spot and crossed the bridge, you will obtain a lovely
view of the Roman wall and the river beside it, but will fail to find
the remaining tower of the gate, for the reason that it is not there.
The Porte St. Andoche stood at the foot of the Boulevard Schneider,
opposite to the Couvent du Sacrement, on the road leading, by way of
the enceinte, to the Tour des Ursulines.
The reader may ask why the peasants should misdirect him? They
misdirect him, in this particular instance, because they believe that
the gate really stood on the town side of the western bridge of the
Arroux, in the corresponding position to that of the Porte d'Arroux.
But my point is, that, had your informant been utterly ignorant of
the supposed whereabouts of the gate, he would, very probably, have
directed you with almost equal facility. The Burgundian peasant is very
ignorant; but he is also very proud,--much too proud to admit that he
does not know the whereabouts of a monument that a stranger has come,
perhaps, a thousand miles to visit. His swift imagination, therefore,
promptly creates the site; and he, or she, will tell you promptly,
volubly, and with much circumstantial detail, exactly how to get there.
In this snare we have been taken many times during our travels among
the Burgundians. The Provençals have a different and preferable method.
They do not invent a site for the monument; they deny its existence.
Speaking with some experience of the peculiar ways of the French
peasant in such matters, my advice to the gentle stranger is--not to
trust him. Get the best guide and map that you can find in the local
librairie; and rely on them, and on your own intelligence. You may
then, when you are at fault, consult the passer by as to details,
letting your judgment decide whether, in his particular case, he is to
be trusted.
If it be a Château that you are seeking, you must be doubly careful. To
a French peasant many a tiny cottage is a "fine house" (belle maison),
and almost every modern house, of any pretentions at all, is a château.
To us, on the contrary, a château means a castle; usually an ancient
one.
Many a time has a blue-shirted peasant looked up from his work by the
road side, to address me somewhat as follows:
"The Château de Bon Espoir; Certainly, Monsieur, 'tis there, three
kilometres away, up the hill, tout droit en montant."[35]
We climb the three kilometres, wander about for an hour, and return
disconsolate. The labourer, hearing the whirr of bicycle wheels, looks
up again.
"M'sieur et Dame have found the Château?"
"No, Monsieur. They told us up there that the ancient Château de Bon
Espoir was on the other side of the valley to the north."
"Oh! that one? That's only an old ruin. I thought you meant the château
de Monsieur Pigot."
"No. Who is Monsieur Pigot?"
"Monsieur Pigot, 'Sieur Dame, is the proprietor of the grand magasin du
Louvre at Paris. He has a lovely château, up there where you went. They
would have let you in if you had gone up the drive."
"We are sorry we missed it. Good day, Monsieur."
The "lovely château" was a terrible erection of red brick and stone,
defiling the landscape for a mile around.
[Illustration: End of chapter II; Burgundian Peasant]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] De Bello Gallico, lib. 1, cap. 23: "Bibracte, by far the finest
and largest town of the Aedui."
[11] I refer all who want full details of the period to M. Camille
Jullian's book "Histoire de la Gaule," and to Mm. de Fontenay
and de Charmasse's "Autun et ses Monuments avec un précis
historique," a very useful book obtainable at the "Libraire
Dujessieu" at Autun.
[12] The battle took place probably near Montmort, about 5 kilometres
north of Toulon.
[13] De Bell: Gall: lib. i, cap. 15: "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 12.
[14] "Ille enim revocatus resistere, ac se manu defendere--saepe
claimitans liberum se liberaque civitatis esse." Cæsar de Bell.
Gall. lib. v. cap. 7; "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 19.
[15] "Autun et ses Monuments," Précis Historique, p.27.
[16] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 8.
[17] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 8 and 9.
[18] See "Lazarus" in "Judas Iscariot" by Andreev.
[19] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 216-232.
[20] "Autun et ses Monuments," "Précis Historique," p. 206-7.
[21] François Perrier, poet of the 16th century, quoted in
"Autun et ses Monuments," from the Mémoires of the Société Eduenne.
[22] Ibid, p. 71-73.
[23] See the interesting map of the Roman City in "Autun et ses
Monuments." Roman Autun was sacked again by the Saracens in 731
A.D.; the havoc on that occasion being even more complete than
that wrought by Tetricus.
[24] "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome 9, p. 68.
[25] "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome 9, p. 68.
[26] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 216-232.
[27] "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome vii., p. 214. Note I.
[28] "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome vii., p. 314.
[29] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 36.
[30] P. G. Hamerton, The Mount, p. 190.
[31] Déchelette, "Guide des Monuments d'Autun," p. 10.
[32] "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome vii., p. 314.
[33] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 46.
[34] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. cliv., 45 and 414.
[35] Straight ahead as you go up.
[Illustration: Heading, chapter III; Head of Augustus]
CHAPTER III
THE ROMAN CITY
Leaving the Hotel St. Louis, about which I shall have more to say later
on, and passing along the Rue de l'Arquebus, you emerge upon an open
space, where stands a statue to a Gaulish chieftain with whom we have
already made acquaintance--the Druid, Divitiacus.
It may be heresy on my part, but I must admit that I have very little
sympathy with the French passion for erecting statues of known or
unknown persons, in every public place, quite irrespective of any
ulterior considerations, such as whether such a monument is in any way
expressive of the celebrity's particular talent or genius, or whether
modern garments in carved stone are desirable in a "Place," often
bordered with the most beautiful examples of Gothic or Renaissance
architecture.
Many an open space in the ancient cities of France might have been
spared such an indignity, had the French people cared to remember that,
in the absence of a more worthy memorial--such as a house that can
be lived in--a wall-tablet is sufficient for all practical purposes.
M. Emile Montégut, in his "Souvenirs de Bourgogne," has very justly
satirized the French idiosyncracy; but France in general, and Burgundy
in particular, still bristles with unnecessary statues.
The memorial of Divitiacus, however, is an exception to the general
rules, for the figure is a successful and spirited piece of work,
showing the Druid, bareheaded, pointing down the Roman Road. His helmet
lies at his feet, and he carries a shield on which a battle scene is
engraved. The figure stands upon a historic site; for here, on the west
side of the Voie d'Agrippa, joining gate with gate, stood three of the
most important buildings of the Roman city,--the Temple of Apollo, the
Schools, and the Capitol.
The Aedui had always conceived of Apollo as surrounded by the Muses.
He was their God of poetry, of youth, of joy, of prosperity, and of
beauty; he was the healer and enlightener; to him the woods and streams
were consecrated in the days
"When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;"
In the third century the Healer was already the most venerated of the
Roman divinities in the hierarchy of Augustodunum, and his temple was
probably the most important of them all, until 270, when it fell, with
many another Roman temple and palace, before the hordes of Tetricus.
The Emperor Constantius Chlorus, however, decided that the temples
should rise again; and it appears, from the records of Eumenes, that,
by the end of the third century, the house of "Apollo Noster" was
restored to more than its former beauty. The house was restored; but
not the cult. Influences more powerful than the decree of Constance
Chlore, or of Constantine, were at work within the Roman city. Every
year, meaner gifts were offered, fewer vows were made before the Temple
of Apollo; every year more citizens--at first in fearful secrecy, later
with open enthusiasm--worshipped the Carpenter of Nazareth.
Excavations have revealed the substructure of the circular building
which is generally accepted as having been the Temple of Apollo. The
character of the remains, shewing that strings of bricks were used in
the construction of the building,[36] point to the reign of Constantius
Chlorus, or of his son Constantine,[37] as the probable date. Readers
familiar with the Roman buildings of Arles, will recognise the same
architectural feature in the Palace of Constantine in that town.
The great schools of Autun, the Ecoles Méniennes, as they were called,
were probably situate between the Temple of Apollo and the Capitol,
just below the site of the present Sous-préfeture. They appear to have
been well known throughout the Roman Empire; for Tacitus[38] mentions
the capital of the Aedui as a place where the children of the Gaulish
nobility were wont to apply themselves eagerly to the study of the
liberal arts, while Eumenes speaks of them as "a sanctuary consecrated
to instruction and eloquence, a very home of literature; for," says he,
"the study of letters is the foundation of all the virtues; they are,
indeed, a school of temperance, of modesty, of vigilance, of patience;
and when all these virtues are implanted as a habit in the heart of
childhood, they penetrate, like a vigorous sap, all the functions of
civil life, and even those which seem to be in opposition to it, I mean
the charges and duties of military life."[39]
Many men, celebrated in their day, must have attended these schools,
which seem to have retained their popularity well into the third
century, though, at the time of their destruction in the catastrophy
of 270 A.D., they may, perhaps, have been living, to a certain
extent, upon their past glories. We do not know much concerning their
architecture; but Eumenes says they were known as a monument of
imposing beauty, and adds this interesting detail--that "the buildings
were surrounded by galleries or porticos, in which the students could
see every day the extent of all the lands and of all the seas, the
towns restored by the good-will of the invincible emperors, the nations
conquered by their valour, and the barbarous countries chained by the
terror of their arms. There were shewn the name and situation of each
country, its extent, its relative distance, the source and outfall of
each river, the windings of the banks, and the circuits of the sea
which washes the continents and the shores of the countries swept by
its impetuous movement. The whole universe was there pictured. There
were to be seen the two rivers of Persia, the parched regions of Lybia,
the joined branches of the Rhine, and the many mouths of the Nile."[40]
The schools had been named after these galleries, on whose walls or
ceilings the young nobles of Gaul could learn all that was known of
the world of their day, that is to say, the whole of the Roman Empire.
Maeniana,--in French, Ménienne,--means a construction projecting from
the front of an edifice, an exterior gallery or balcony, which appears
to have been so common a characteristic of the schools of Augustodunum,
that the term Maeniana came to be applied to them generally.[41]
In 270 A.D. the schools suffered the general fate, and the scholars,
henceforth, had to be accommodated in separate quarters. Eumenes talked
of restoring the porticos, and repainting the map of the world; but,
probably, the work was never carried out, and the schools remained in
their shattered state, even after the adjoining buildings--the Temple
of Apollo and the Capitol--had been restored to something of their
former glory.
The Capitol was probably the building whose foundations, circular
on plan, have been traced to the garden of the Hospice St. Gabriel,
beside the Ecoles Méniennes, and fronting also upon the great central
street leading from gate to gate. Authorities appear to have differed
considerably on this point; but many Corinthian capitals, fragments of
entablatures, statuettes, groups of goddesses, etc., have been found
on this site, suggesting that it was once occupied by a building of
great importance,[42] decorated as one would expect of such a temple,
and dedicated, as the Capitol was, to the principal divinities of the
official hierarchy. Eumenes, moreover, states that the Capitol was
situate beside the schools. M. de Fontenay, however, thinks that,
possibly, the Capitol may have occupied the other circular site, now
attributed to the Temple of Apollo; and, conversely, that the latter
building should be placed below the schools.
* * * * *
Not far from this centre of Roman civilization, beyond the shady
plantation of plane trees, the Promenade des Marbres, dotted with
seats of Roman stone, and stretching eastward from the statue of
Divitiacus, you will find, if you follow the Faubourg des Marbres, on
the right side of the downward slope, a board with the legend "Caves
Joyaux." Then, turning up the path to the right, passing a hideous
modern cottage devoted principally to "tir," from the walls of which
the counterfeit presentments of dead citizens look out stonily upon
you from the Roman stele, you will come upon a grassy, semi-circular
terrace, planted with lime trees, whose green banks slope down towards
a smaller semi-circle of sward below.
Beyond it lies a broad expanse of allotment garden, in which peasant
women are bending over their crops. Standing among the leaves, that,
on this bright autumn day, are fluttering upon the grass, and looking
down more closely into the semi-circle, one observes irregularities
in the surface of the horseshoe, lines suggestive of terracing;
strangely shaped, hollow, grassy boulders that seem to have shouldered
their way up from below. Here, at the end of the curve, is a mass of
broken stone; there a black shadow below the revealed head of an arch
projecting from the weed-entangled débris.
The reader will have guessed his whereabouts. This is, or was, the
Roman theatre. Upon those heavy shoulders rested the marble seats;
there were the entrances and exits by which the spectators passed to
and from the staircases and corridors. From the flat semi-circle below
us, the chorus chanted their melodious comments upon the play that was
being enacted on the stage where now the women are at work.
[Illustration: ·AUTUN·
·MEDIAEVAL TOWERS·]
There are those who will tell you that the Theatre is not worth the
trouble of a visit,--that it has lost all charm. I cannot agree. On the
contrary, ruined though the monument is, hardly one stone of it left
upon another, there is nothing more impressive to be seen in Autun;
for the general contour of the building is so preserved, that, for any
person in the least degree familiar with the forms of these monuments,
no great effort of the imagination is needed to restore the play-house
to some of its ancient glory, and to re-people it with the voices of
the past. Moreover, the spectator, though he cannot see the graceful
columns, that, probably, as at Arles, rose from the back of the stage,
nor the sculptured frieze, nor the marble capitals and statues that
adorned the proscenium, nor the arcaded gallery that crowned the upper
rows of seats, though he may not follow with the eye the distant white
roads of Vesentio and Agrippa; yet still his glance can range over the
same landscape that met the Roman of old, the near fields and meadows,
the distant uplands and gloomy forest lit by the rising sun.
Still more impressive must the theatre be, when moonlight has shed her
revealing mystery over the terraces of this forsaken garden.
Tradition has it, that, until the latter part of the 17th century, a
considerable portion of the Roman theatre was still standing; and M. de
Fontenay gives a very interesting sketch of the ruins in 1610, showing
that soil and débris had not then obliterated the tiers of seats, and
that the fore-part and the arcaded gallery of the semi-circle were
still in existence.[43] This comparatively happy condition of affairs
might have endured until to-day, but for an unfortunate temptation that
overcame Gabriel de Roquette, Bishop of Autun, in 1675, to make use of
the Roman theatre as a quarry for the new seminary he was building. It
was a deed doubly inexcusable, because, at so late a period, after the
publication of Eden Thomas' book, and others dealing with the subject,
he had no longer the commonly-urged excuse that no interest was taken
in the ancient monuments of Autun.[44] It is quite possible, however,
that we are blaming the bishop needlessly. After the fate of Cluny,
who shall say of what a Frenchman is not capable, when the lust of
destruction is upon him?
The theatre of Autun was 147m.80. in diameter, the largest in Gaul,
and the fourth largest of the known buildings of the kind; coming
immediately after that of Bacchus at Athens, and those of Ephesus and
Smyrna.[45] The orchestra was paved in red marble, and the stage lined
with white marble veined with red.
The exterior arcades of the hemi-cycle were formed of large blocks,
the space between ornamented with pateræ. Anfert's, the oldest
description we have, dating from the 17th century, mentions that
the circumference of the theatre is broken by several chambers and
subterranean passages; these chambers are vaulted; they are seven or
eight feet wide, and known as "Caves Jolliot."[46]
This brings us back to the legend "Caves Joyaux," which greeted our
approach to the theatre. Up to the end of the 16th century, the remains
appear to have been known as the "Grotto" (Grottes), an interesting
example of the extraordinary vulgarity of popular nomenclature.
Later, a certain worthy Autunois, whose line of business has not
come down to us with his name, decided that these vaulted chambers
would suit him excellently as a domicile. No doubt his venture proved
successful, for the Grotto soon became known as the "Cellier Jolyot,"
or "Caves Jolyot," a name which, in the form of "Caves Joyaux," still
passes current among the vulgar of Autun.[47] This is by no means the
first time that the substructure of a Roman monument has been dubbed
"cellars" by an indiscriminating public.
For us the Roman theatre was more than a historic relic,--it was our
favourite lunching place in Autun! However severe a shock the admission
may be to some of my readers, I admit boldly, that never, during all
our travels in France, do we, if we can avoid it, lunch either in
restaurant or hotel. To go twice a day, with credit, through the six
courses of a French déjeuner and dinner, is a gastronomic effort of
which we confess ourselves wholly incapable; consequently, before
setting forth on our day's excursion, we may be seen passing into the
épicerie, boulangerie, or other boutique of the village street, whence,
our pockets bulging with sundry small paper parcels, we emerge, amid
the not wholly disinterested curiosity of all the old ladies who have
been eyeing us from door and window during our journey down the street.
The custom of picnic lunches is one that I recommend to all travellers
in Burgundy, including those to whom the saving of a five-pound note,
at the end of a month's holiday, is a matter of no moment whatever.
The Burgundians feed more richly, perhaps, than any other people of
Europe, and their dinners, like the country's monuments--rich rather
than dainty--need a healthy appetite to do them justice. Further,
the secrecy that these picnic methods necessarily involve--for you
cannot proclaim your intention to a maître d'hôtel, whose luncheon
tables groan beneath their burden of good things appointed for you to
eat,--will titillate deliciously the insatiable curiosity of the lady
his wife, who passes hours in wondering where and how you lunched.
[Illustration: A Burgundian Welcome]
"Monsieur et Dame will not be in to lunch to-day?"
"No, Madame."
"Monsieur et Dame were not in to lunch yesterday."
"No, Madame." A pause, during which our hostess, screwing up her
courage for the plunge, eyed us with a glance, half-timid, half-amused.
"Where did Monsieur et Dame lunch yesterday?" The speaker looked at my
wife; my wife looked at me. I looked innocently at Madame.
"On a wall, Madame." Madame's eyebrows rose slightly. She could make
nothing of it.
"But it was raining all day yesterday, Monsieur!"
"Not on the wall, Madame. The fact is, we never lunch at an hotel--even
when it rains."
"Vous faites bien" was what she said to us. What she said to her
husband, an hour later, I leave to the reader to guess. But we parted
excellent friends.
These picnic lunches, of course, are rather scrappy. Things get blown
away sometimes, or are fastened upon by ants. Il faut souffrir pour
bien vivre.
While I have been writing these notes, my wife has left the bench of
Roman stone that is our table, and is seated on the grass half way down
towards the orchestra, where she is exercising her not inconsiderable
powers of imagination in recreating the traditions of the spot. Also
she is proving, unwittingly, the excellent acoustic properties of the
natural theatre, constructed in the Greek, rather than in the Roman
method; that is to say, by hollowing out of the hill, not building up
upon the plain. The keeper of the buvette told us that a play is to be
given in the theatre next June (1911) and "a little bull-fight."
Going back to the hotel that day, we noticed, among the crisp leaves of
the Promenade des Marbres, many a handful of confetti,--souvenirs of
the great fair or festival of St. Lazare, that, for nearly the whole
of September, disturbs the tranquillity of Autun. Let the traveller,
therefore, see the Roman city before September, or after it.
The stone benches beneath the trees of the Promenade des Marbres,
placed there about 1765, appear to have been taken from another of the
most important Roman monuments of Autun, the Amphitheatre, a building
which, in the middle ages, was known by the same name as its neighbour,
the Theatre, and suffered a similar fate. It was situate to the north
of the Caves Joyaux, close to the wall of the town, in such a position
that the Faubourg des Marbres nearly bisects its site. Not very much
is known concerning it; but its dimensions have been determined by
excavations that prove it to have been the largest of the known
amphitheatres of France, as it is of Burgundy as a whole.
Here are the figures, compared with those of the Arènes of Arles and
Nimes, both of which still exist.[48]
-----------------------------------------------
| | Large diameter. | Small diameter. |
| |-------------------+------------------|
| Autun | 154 metres | 130 metres. |
| Arles | 140 metres.28 | 103 metres.20. |
| Nimes | 135 metres.27 | 105 metres.87. |
-----------------------------------------------
M. de Fontenay publishes in his work, a drawing which shows that, in
1610, there remained of the amphitheatre two parallel, vaulted arcades;
but he does not venture on an attempt to reconstruct the building.
It appears that, by the 18th century, all trace of the construction
had vanished, except the oval site, which, being at a lower level
than the surrounding land, is still popularly known as the Crot-Volu
(Creux Volu), the latter name being that of a 14th century family
who occupied part of it.[49] One of the most significant discoveries
made among the ruins was that of the skull of a lion, probably the
victim of a gladiator. It is supposed that the amphitheatre was built
contemporaneously with the theatre, and, in the year of the siege,
suffered the same fate.
A walk round the quiet roads and avenues of this outlying portion of
Autun, and half an hour spent on the grassy slopes of the theatre,
cannot fail to impress the most casual observer with a sense of the
grandeur and extent of the Roman city. Modern Autun is a town of
respectable dimensions; but here, within the Roman Enceinte, the few
dwelling houses stand isolated among their own gardens; and ancient,
immemorial trees cast their shadows over quiet spots once resounding
with the hum and rumour of Roman life.
All those who would visualize Burgundian history will be grateful that,
in spite of the destructive enmity of her foes, and the scarcely less
destructive ignorance and folly of certain of her inhabitants, enough
of Augustodunum is left to enable us to group round her our mental
pictures of this part of Gallo-Roman Burgundy.
[Illustration: End of chapter III; Masks of Comedy and Tragedy]
FOOTNOTES:
[36] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 151.
[37] Constantius Chlorus died 306 A.D. Constantine reigned from 306-337.
[38] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 160.
[39] Ibid, p. 161.
[40] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 165.
[41] Ibid, p. 167.
[42] Ibid, pp. 152-158.
[43] "Autun et ses Monuments." Facing p. 181.
[44] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 183.
[45] Ibid, p. 189.
[46] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 181.
[47] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 178-179.
[48] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 193.
[49] Ibid, p. 196.
[Illustration: Heading, chapter IV; Roman Vine Ornament]
THE ROMAN CITY
CHAPTER IV
After two or three days among the relics of Pagan civilization, we were
ready to turn our attention to Christian monuments of the town, and
it was with our expectations fully aroused that we left what might be
described as the neutral ground of the Hôtel St. Louis, and climbed the
busy streets that lead within the castrum to the Cathedral of Saint
Lazarus, in which the relics of the saint are enshrined.
Readers unfamiliar with the Provençal legends will ask, not
unnaturally, how the body of Christ's friend came to the city of Autun.
The answer is that, according to tradition, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and
others, driven from Palestine after the crucifixion of Christ, and
cast adrift in an open boat, were blown, on the wings of a great wind,
westward across the Mediterranean, and eventually, by miraculous aid,
were cast ashore, unhurt, on the coast of Provence. This land they
proceeded to evangelize, Lazarus finding his way to Marseilles, of
which city he became the first bishop.[50]
Nearly a thousand years later, at the end of the 10th century, the
body was translated to Autun, through the efforts of one Gerrard, the
then bishop, and was housed in the basilica of St. Nazaire. So holy a
relic naturally demanded a worthy shrine, and already, during the first
quarter of the 12th century, we find proposals on foot for the erection
of a new church for the housing of the body.
Hamerton, indeed, says that the work was planned in the 11th century;
the original idea being due to Robert I., Duke of Burgundy.[51] This
building, the existing cathedral of St. Lazarus, begun in 1120, was
ready for consecration by Pope Innocent II. when he passed through
Autun, in 1132.
Although the work was not completed at this time, the porch, in
particular, being wanting, the Bishop of Autun resolved to take
advantage of the great gathering of Vézelay, for the preaching of the
second crusade, to announce the translation of the relics. King Louis
VII. attended in person, and the ceremony was performed with great
éclat, on Sunday, October 20th, 1146. Four weeks of continuous rain
had given place to warm sunshine, and enormous crowds of pilgrims
gathered to celebrate the event, among whom were Eudes II., Duke of
Burgundy, and many bishops and nobles. After the all-night ceremonies
which preceded the principal function, two stonemasons, says the old
chronicle, were taken into the church to effect the opening of the
tomb. The stone was raised, the vault exposed, and, to the sound of the
TE DEUM, those present pressed forward to venerate the relics.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, followed with the fervent religious
emotion characteristic of the time, Humbert de Bage wrapped the body
of St. Lazarus, together with the winding-sheet and the deerskin bag
which covered it, in a silken covering, and with new straps bound
the precious bundle upon a wooden bearer destined for the solemn
translation. Meanwhile, outside the church, an immense crowd was
awaiting admission. Soon the pressure became so great that the gates of
the church were forced, and the mob broke in with such violence that
the iron grill barring the sanctuary would have been broken, had it
not been supported by sheer muscular effort on the part of the clerks.
"Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, William, Count of Chalon, and other brave
nobles, each hurriedly putting down his chlamys, and arming himself
with sword or stick, began to cut and thrust, right and left, among the
crowd, to open a passage for the cortège, which, with great pomp, was
transporting the holy relics to the church of St. Lazarus. This church,
too, was so gorged with humanity, that the bearers, breathless with
fatigue and fright, and despairing of ever reaching the altar, set down
their precious burden upon some wooden planks, where it long remained
in the middle of the nave."[52]
During the whole of the following week, the crowd surged round the
holy relics, and miraculous cures followed one another with such
rapidity that the priests engaged in chanting Te Deums, in gratitude
for each healing, were unable to keep pace with the calls made upon
them. While prayer, praise, and cries of "Miracle!" were resounding
through the church, blood was being shed freely outside. A trivial
quarrel between some nobles had strewn the neighbouring streets with
wounded men.[53] Such contrasts were a common feature of the age.
The tomb of Lazarus occupied a position in the apse, behind the great
altar. According to the evidence of an eye-witness, it was a monument
of unusual magnificence, built in the form of a church, constructed
of porphyry, and black and white marble. Its sculpture comprised a
recumbent figure of Lazarus, in his winding-sheet, with Christ's word,
written below it, "Lazare veni foras (Lazarus, come forth)." Among
other figures were those of Christ, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and,
before the head of Lazarus, two statues in stone representing Martha
and Mary, one of them lifting to her nose a handkerchief, recalling
the "jam foetet" (by this time he stinketh) of the Gospel story. This
priceless monument, interesting to all, doubly interesting to those
who believe that it did, indeed, house the relics of the friend of
Christ, was destroyed during the course of improvements carried out in
the choir of the cathedral during the 18th century; but three of the
figures--those of St. Andrew, Martha and Mary, are still preserved in
the little Musée Lapidaire of Autun, of which collection they are the
gems. A glance at them reveals the fact that, even at this early epoch,
the art of sculpture was well developed in Autun. The rapt expression
of the countenances, the graceful lines of the draperies, the
comparative delicacy of the execution, without sacrifice of strength,
recall something of the Græco-Roman tradition, that probably had never
perished wholly from the Roman city. That these figures, the work of
one Martin, were the result of no mere sporadic outbreak of genius is
proved, I think, by the rapport they bear with the work of Geraldus,
which, when seen in the apse of the Musée, they instantly recall.
But before succumbing to the attractions of that unique porch of the
cathedral of Autun, we could not resist the temptation to get a first
general impression of a building which, we had always been told, was
one of the best to be found, even in this land of beautiful Romanesque
churches. The exterior effect, however, is not entirely satisfactory,
especially if the approach be made by one of the streets leading up
from the middle of the town. The western towers are, indeed, still
Romanesque; but they have been re-handled, not too happily; and
the unity of the whole has been lost by the substitution, for the
Romanesque work, of Gothic side chapels, and pierced parapets of
varying designs, with a profusion of mediæval and classical ornament,
in the spandrels and below the parapets, all utterly at variance with
the simple grandeur of the original building. Moreover the north-east
door, in the tympanum of which was a magnificent piece of sculpture
representing the raising of Lazarus, has been replaced by a heavy
production, of the revolution period, in the latest and ugliest
classical style. The 15th century spire,--a beautiful piece of work,
somewhat after the manner of that of Lichfield Cathedral,--has a rather
squat appearance from this lower side of the church. Its grace and
lightness, and the harmony of its proportions, are better seen from the
higher lane to the south-east; but the finish of the spire, is not, in
my judgment, wholly successful. The crocketing is somewhat overdone,
and the decoration rather fussy in treatment.
The original Romanesque tower, which was probably in some danger of
collapse, was at last destroyed by fire. Cardinal Rolin, brother of
Nicholas Rolin, whom we shall meet later on, rebuilt the new tower in
1480. The state of the foundations necessitated lightness for the new
work, which relies for its security almost wholly upon excellence of
construction. The spire, built without any internal support whatever,
is said to be only seven inches thick at the base, and six towards the
summit.[54] Towards the close of the 13th century, probably, the walls
of the nave, threatening to collapse under the vault, were supported
by flying buttresses surmounted by heavy pinnacles. These additions,
lightened during the 15th century, almost complete the transformation
of the exterior effect from that of a Romanesque to a late Gothic
church.
The greatest glory of Autun Cathedral, is its magnificent two-storied,
barrel vaulted, open porch with aisled bays, forming the western
entrance. In the tympanum of the door is the famous sculpture by
Geraldus, respresenting the Last Judgment. Standing at the foot of the
noble flight of steps leading up to the stately hall, where of old the
lepers, and the horde of unclean, torn between the love of life and
its miseries, must have trembled and hoped before that awful vision of
judgment, we first realised that here is one of the most majestic and
impressive ante-chambers that Burgundy, or France, ever built at the
gates of her houses of God.
This porch owes its existence indirectly to Clunisian influence,
and directly to the cult of Saint Lazarus. Among the thousands of
pilgrims drawn every year, for solace or for healing, to the sacred
tomb, were many ladres, or lepers, whose admission to the interior
of the church would have been a menace to the public health. Under
these circumstances, the Chapter obtained from Hugues III., Duke of
Burgundy, in 1178, permission to construct a porch, on the condition
that it should not be of a military character.[55] This work was duly
carried out; but it must not be supposed that the original was as we
see it now. The first porch did not extend as far as the two side
doors, but comprised a vault supported on two walls, whose position
is now represented by two pairs of columns. The ground adjoining
was levelled up to the porch, and the entrance was through an arch
pierced in the eastern wall.[56] Some years later, as the cult of
St. Lazarus increased, the porch was modified to its present design.
The magnificent flight of steps, built in the 18th century, was the
only improvement that the colossal foolishness of the revolutionary
iconoclasts succeeded in effecting in the cathedral.
The upper storey of the porch, and the niche in the facade above it, is
also interesting, as being entirely characteristic of the architecture
of this part of France, though limited to a very short period, from
about 1130 to 1200.[57] In the 13th century, with the advent of
developed Gothic, these appendages disappear.
The magnificent central doorway, taken as a whole, is the best example
of its kind, both as regards design and sculpture, to be seen in
Burgundy, with the exception of Vézelay, which, politically, belongs
rather to the Nivernais than to the land of the Dukes.
The God in Judgment of the tympanum, one of the most ancient and
complete of the many examples of the subject to be seen in France, is
striking, terrifying almost, in vigour, in that dramatic power which,
even so early, was one of the marked characteristics of Burgundian
sculpture. With hands outstretched He sits between the elect and the
damned. On His left, in the place of torment, the sinners, weighed in
the angel balance, and found wanting, are handed over, for torment, to
the powers of darkness, whose bony claws, reaching down, fasten upon
more victims from a sinful world. The hideous malignity upon the faces
of these tormentors, the twisted, tortured postures of the despairing
victims, all heighten the effect, and contrast strongly with the still
somewhat rigid, though easier, lines of the other picture, where mighty
angels are lifting into a heavenly mansion the spirits of the redeemed.
[Illustration: ST. LAZARE.]
Not less effective, probably, in execution and symbolism, was the
figure of the door-post upon which rests this early conception of the
world's destiny. Here was Lazarus, who triumphed over death, and beside
him, his sisters, Martha and Mary, symbols of two aspects of personal
service. The original statues were destroyed at the Revolution, but
the lines of their substitutes, among the most successful modern
imitations that I know, have still, in form and drapery, something of
Hellenic delicacy, suggesting that the original sculptor's eye was lit
by the dying radiance of Grecian art, or by the herald beams of an
earlier, unremembered Renaissance. The author of this ancient sculpture
is known. He has written his name above the lintel: "Gisilbertus hoc
fecit."
I need not enumerate all the other subjects of the carvings on
this beautiful porch; the reader will not have any difficulty in
discovering some of them for himself--Jerome and his Lion; Hagar and
Ishmael driven out by Abraham; Balaam and the Ass; the Presentation in
the Temple; and, on the archivolt, the signs of the Zodiac.
It is curious that Voltaire appears to have had some influence, good
and bad--the good was involuntary--over the destiny of this porch of
Autun. While staying at the Château of Montjeu, where he attended
the marriage of the Duc de Richelieu, he condescended to visit the
cathedral, and so ridiculed the barbarism of its architecture, and
especially of its sculptured adornments, that the Canons had the whole
of the great tympanum plastered over, to hide the composition of the
Last Judgment. In doing this, they preserved it from damage during
the Revolution, and it remained so hidden for seventy years.[58]
Eventually, after its existence had been entirely forgotten, an
intelligent inhabitant of the city suspected that there might be
carving beneath the plaster, and made the great discovery.
One glance round the interior of the church is sufficient to show
that, in spite of the loss of unity caused by the addition of a
Flamboyant Gothic Jubé, and Gothic side chapels, we have here the best
of lower Burgundian churches, modelled on Cluny, and comprising all
the characteristics of the classical Romanesque style; although the
pointed arches of the bays of the nave, and of the high vault, not
quite a barrel vault, might lead some people to suppose, wrongly, that
the church is essentially Gothic. The fluted pilasters on the piers, a
feature which we shall see repeated in many a church hereabouts, and
the triforium gallery, imitated obviously from the arcade of the Porte
d'Arroux, with further fluted pillars between pierced arches, and the
cornice above, all show how persistent was the influence of the Roman
tradition. Another feature that strikes one immediately is the stunted
height of the triforium and clerestory, a fact easily accounted for
when we remember that the Burgundians of the 12th century, while they
liked a lofty first storey, had not developed the art of buttressing
sufficiently well to enable them to lift their vaults very high. Even
so the settlement, in an outward direction, above the springing of
the aisle arches, is very noticeable, and, as we have already seen,
necessitated the insertion of flying buttresses to prevent collapse
within two hundred years of their erection.
Yet, despite these drawbacks, an observer, standing in one of the
transepts, and looking across at the other transept, and down the
nave, cannot but be struck by the grandeur of the whole effect;
by the lightened solidity, the well-tempered massiveness which is
characteristic of Burgundian architecture, as it is of Burgundy as a
whole.
I am not one of those who consider that the building art of the 12th
century, here or elsewhere, can ever rival the developed Gothic in
inspiring power, as a setting for, or as a symbol of, the mystical
spirit of Christianity, and I think that this opinion applies
especially to the work of these Burgundian architects, whose adherence
to classic detail must inevitably recall, to cultured minds, the
Hellenic myths with which they are historically associated, and carry
down an architectural tradition of horizontal effect, utterly at
variance with the dominance of vertical line that was to be one of the
main characteristics of 13th century development.
This clashing of two styles, however, has been tempered in Autun
Cathedral by the insertion at the transepts, between the piers, of
round shafts which carry the eye up to the vault, and break the
severity of the square angles of the crossing.
The top of the little spiral staircase in the north transept, is the
best place from which to see the detail of the triforium arcade, the
decoration of the archivolts, and the band of roses above them. Here,
too, is to be had a good view of the domed vault.
The eastern end of the cathedral has no ambulatory, but is in the
form of a circular apse, with eastern chapels. In the 15th and 16th
centuries were carried out the drastic changes that have completely
altered the character of the exterior, and destroyed the unity of the
cathedral. At this time the Romanesque apse underwent considerable
modifications; and, two centuries later, further futile improvements
were made. The western towers were practically rebuilt and domed; the
Last Judgment in the porch was mutilated and covered with plaster,
and--crowning feat of all--the magnificent tomb of Lazarus, by Brother
Martin, which had sheltered for 600 years the relics of Autun's patron
saint, was utterly destroyed. Lastly, these imbecile clergy of the 18th
century, lined the apse, nearly up to the walls of the comparatively
new Gothic windows, with panels of red Sicilian marble, divided by
columns of grey, antique marble, and adorned them with gilded capitals,
fat cherubs, and other utterly incongruous ornaments. It is generally
believed that a portion of this marble was taken from the tomb of
Lazarus, which they used as a quarry, and the remainder from the Roman
ruins.
The capitals of the church,--among the best of their period existing
in France--are typically Burgundian in their animation and vigour,
their richness of detail, and their freedom of treatment, both as
regards figures and foliage. They are at too high an elevation, and
not sufficiently well lighted, to be studied thoroughly from below;
but they are full of interest; and any enthusiast who is well versed
in these matters, can pass a very pleasant hour in making more or less
successful guesses at the subjects illustrated. Here are some of them.
On the south-west side: The body of Saint Vincent guarded by Eagles;
The History of Simon the Magician; The Washing of Feet; The Martyrdom
of Stephen; The Ark on Mount Ararat; The History of Judas. On the
north-east side: The Birth of the Virgin; The Sacrifice of Isaac; Saint
Joakim in the Desert; The Hebrews in the Furnace; Daniel in the Lions'
Den; Christ on the Roof of the Temple; The Resurrection; The Visit of
the Magi to Herod; The Flight into Egypt.[59]
The few monuments to be found in the cathedral are not of great
interest. The best are the kneeling statues which originally formed
part of the Gothic tomb of Pierre Jeannin, the famous Minister of Henry
the Fourth, and of his wife. The tomb, now destroyed, was by Nicolas
Guillain, about the year 1626; but M. de Fontenay thinks that the bust
of Jeannin, much superior to the other, dates, more probably, from
the end of the 16th century. Those who wish to know more than I can
tell them of the subjects of this monument, are referred to Montégut's
charming book, "Souvenirs de Bourgogne," which is well worth reading,
for the aptness of its observation, its many interesting historical and
local references, its delicate wit, and its literary style.
The many Gothic chapels thrown out from the aisle in the 15th and 16th
centuries, and the flamboyant jubé, are not of particular interest,
and, moreover, destroy the unity of the interior. I will, therefore,
pass them by; but, before leaving the church, I must call attention
to what some people consider to be one of its chief treasures,--the
martyrdom of Saint Symphorien, by Ingres--a painting ranked by some
connoisseurs as the masterpiece of the 19th century. It was specially
ordered for the cathedral in 1824, but was not delivered until some
thirty years later.
One cannot pretend to any enthusiasm for the result of those thirty
years of labour. The picture leaves me absolutely cold, as it does
nine out of every ten who see it. The figures are vigorous, and the
colouring is, perhaps, more pleasing than is the case with some
of Ingres' paintings--probably because the canvas is dirty and
ill-lighted--but the picture is overcrowded, and the general effect
theatrical. On the whole I am not disposed to quarrel with the critics
who regretted that ever Ingres forsook the pencil for the brush.
Here, in a few words, is the story of Saint Symphorien which the
reader will find in full in the "Précis Historique" of "Autun et ses
monuments." It appears that, in the middle of the twelfth century,
the gods chiefly favoured by the Autunois, were, Berecynthia--or
Cybele--Apollo, and Diana. One day, when the image of Berecynthia,
accompanied by an enormous crowd, was being wheeled on a cart through
the streets of the city, Symphorien, having refused to do homage to
her, was arrested and brought before the Roman magistrate, Heraclicus,
to whom he boldly confessed his Christian faith. The magistrate,
unwilling to deal harshly with a patrician youth, read to him the
ante-Christian edict of Marcus Aurelius, which decrees the capital
punishment of obstinate heretics, and endeavoured, in vain, to bring
Symphorien to reason. Finally, he gave orders for the prisoner to be
beaten by the lictors, and brought before him again, after passing
three days in prison. Some of the dialogue that took place at the
second interview is worth recording as the _acta sincera_ of Symphorien
probably give it to us in a nearly verbatim form, and support, in
a very interesting way, the other evidence we can produce to show
that the worship of the Romans, as of the Greeks, whose religion
they honoured, was, to our way of thinking, somewhat indecently
commercial--the purchase, for value received, of the divinity's favour.
Thus the magistrate: "How much wiser you would be, Symphorien, by
sacrificing to the immortal gods, to obtain promotion in the army, and
rewards from the public treasury. If to-day you do not bend the knee
before the image of the goddess mother, if you do not practice the
cult due to Apollo and Diana, you will be put to death, and nothing
can prevent it. If you consent, I will have the altar of the gods made
ready; prepare, then, to let the smoke of the incense rise in their
honour, and to render to the divinity the rights which are his due."
Symphorien replied:
[Illustration: FONTAINE ST LAZARE--AUTUN
_Facing page 50_]
"The judge in whom is vested the public authority should not accompany
his sentence with vain and useless words. If it be perilous not to make
every day further progress in the way of perfection, how much more so
to wander from the straight path and to risk foundering upon the reefs
of sin?"
Again the magistrate spoke:
"Sacrifice to the gods, that you may enjoy the honour granted by the
prince to those who serve him." Symphorien replied in the same strain.
"A judge degrades his authority when he thus publicly puts a price upon
the observance of the law. He does irreparable wrong to his soul, and
shames his good name for ever."
Finally, the official, irritated, cut short Symphorien's discourse,
with the following sentence:--"That Symphorien, guilty of public crime,
in having committed sacrilege by refusing to sacrifice to the gods, and
seeking to profane our holy altars, should be struck by the avenging
sword, that the dread effects of his crime may be cancelled, and the
law, human and divine, satisfied."
In Ingres' picture, Symphorien is on his way to execution outside the
town walls, while, from the rampart, his mother is addressing to him
her last words of farewell and encouragement. He was decapitated by
the executioner, and his body buried at night near a fountain "extra
publicum campum," probably one of the vast burial places on the road to
Langres and Besançon.[60]
Here we leave the cathedral of Autun, comforting ourselves with
the assurance that, though we pass no more beneath its magnificent
porch, we shall meet sister churches, not less beautiful, in other
ancient towns of Burgundy. Meanwhile, before descending the steep old
street that leads downwards, by the Hotel Rolin, to the centre of
modern Autun, wander awhile through the narrow ways of the cathedral
precincts, where still, as of old, the priests, living relics of a
shadowy past, muttering into their breviaries, pace up and down before
many a curious Gothic building.
In the sixteenth century--1543, to be precise--the chapter of the
cathedral commissioned an architect unknown, who may possibly have been
Jean Goujon, to erect a fountain which was placed, at first, near the
corner of the Place St. Louis and the Place des Terraces.
In 1784, it was decided that the fountain obstructed the road; and it
was accordingly removed to its present site, where it remains, after
many moving accidents and adventures, and in spite of alterations, a
gem of the Renaissance.[61] No description can convey an idea of the
harmonious and decorative effect of this little fountain, unmatched
for felicity in all France. The design is in two superposed pierced
lanterns, the lower one surrounded by a cupola, and containing a basin
below. The Ionic columns, the pilasters, the vases surmounting the
entablature, and the pelican crowning the whole, are all perfectly
proportioned and harmonized; and enough is left of the original
sculpture to show how exquisite in every detail was the execution of
the original work.
[Illustration: ·AUTUN ·TOUR DES URSULINES·]
Just below the fountain, in the Rue des Bancs, is the Hotel Rolin, the
most interesting of the many museums with which Autun is favoured.
Personally, I must confess to a very lukewarm enthusiasm for the
majority of provincial museums; and I am inclined to wish that Autun
had collected its relics in one good building, instead of having them
in various quarters of the town; but the Hotel Rolin is well worth
a visit for its own sake. It is the annexe of the ancient palace of
the Rolins, the _magna domum Johannis Rolini_, which faced the church
of Notre Dame on the site of the Place St. Louis; and was built by
Guillaume de Beauchamp, son of Nicholas Rolin, the famous chancellor
of Burgundy, to accommodate the numerous members of the suite of that
august personage.
The courtyard and the glimpse it gives of the Hotel, when you have
emerged from the darkness of the gate, is quite characteristic of its
period, though, if nature should have imparted to you the least degree
of timidity, where animals are concerned, you will probably leave that
courtyard without regret, owing to the attentions of the concierge's
very strenuous dog, who will make frantic and disconcerting endeavours
to break out upon you through a frail, ground-floor window, which alone
stands between you and a violent death. But all travellers must be
prepared to face danger, and Cerberus at the gate will enhance your
appreciation of the home of the Eduen Society.
The building contains some stele from the Roman burial grounds, and
numerous interesting relics, collected, for the most part, by M.
Bulliot, from the Oppidum Bibracte. It has also some good recumbent
mediæval statues, Guillaume de Brasey, 1302, Jehan de Brasey, 1305, and
the Sire de Rousillon, of the end of the thirteenth century. There is
a relic of Charles le Téméraire, from Granson, and good portraits of
Nicholas Rolin and his brother.
Just below the Hotel Rolin are the remains of the old tower of the
Porte des Bancs, of the fifth century, part of the rampart surrounding
the Castrum, or upper city of Autun.[62]
The museum which ranks next in interest to the Hotel Rolin, is the
Musée Lapidaire in the Rue St. Nicholas, in the Marchaux, the lower
part of the town. It is housed in a nice little Romanesque chapel of
the twelfth century, once attached to the Hôpital St. Nicholas et St.
Eloi de Marchaux. I found the bell at the entrance broken, and had to
apply for admission at the concierge's cottage, No. 10, on the right.
Knowing what I do of French provincial museums, I have little doubt
that the reader will find the bell in the same condition. But let
him not be deterred. The building, a charming and typical example of
Burgundian Romanesque, on a small scale, is worth seeing. Its walls
still show the remains of some faded frescoes, probably, thinks M.
Fontenay, of late twelfth century, representing Christ in glory.
The chapel is filled with odds and ends of different periods; of the
most important of which, the statues of Martha and Mary, from the
cathedral, we have already spoken. In addition to these, there is, in
the apse, a good Renaissance vierge from Autun, treated in a manner
that contrasts very thoroughly with the saints on the wall behind her.
The Renaissance remains from the chapel of Denis Poillot, ambassador
of Francis I. in England, are of the highest order of merit, and make
one regret much that the building has not survived. On the floor is
a fine Roman mosaic, now covered with a cloth, and, close to it, a
well-executed Roman sarcophagus, from Arles, representing the chase of
the wild-boar of Calydon. The realistic sculpture is typical of much
that is still to be seen in the most interesting Musée Lapidaire of
that provincial town.
Beside the chapel is a pleasant little garden, surrounded by an open
shed which houses numberless relics of Roman and early Christian Autun,
chiefly stele, tombstones, fragments of mosaic, etc. Historically the
most interesting are the débris of the grey marble sarcophagus that
once contained the body of Queen Brunehault, one of the most energetic
and clear-sighted personalities of Merovingian times. In the name
of her grandson, Thierry, she governed Burgundy for fifteen years
(598-613), establishing her court at Autun, and, although more than
sixty years of age, showed a "sagacity in council and administrative
ability" which is noted by Gregory of Tours. Finally, some of the
Burgundian chiefs, who hated her, delivered her over to her enemy, King
Clotaire II. He caused her to be paraded for three days on a camel's
back, in sight of all the army, and then had her tied by her hair, and
by one foot and arm, to the tail of a wild horse, which was then driven
far away. Her remains, buried in the Abbey of St. Martin, at Autun, not
far from the chapel of St. Nicholas, were discovered there in 1632, in
a leaden coffin, which contained, also, among other objects, a spur,
said to be that which was used upon the horse to which the Queen was
bound.
There are worse places to wander in, and to dream in, than these open
galleries, where the silent ones stand, side by side, upon their
funeral stones, and the chickens scratch among Roman capitals. The
gardienne's children are at play on the path, and, in the centre of
the green cloister garth, the ripening pears tremble upon the swaying
branches. The old caretaker--blessed among caretakers--leaves you
alone, until you summon her. She is ready for a chat, but can impart no
information whatever concerning the monuments in her charge.
"Good-bye, Madame; and when I come again, in the spring, I shall expect
to find the bell mended." "Parfaitement, Monsieur; Ha! ha! ha!" and her
gossip friend, across the road, joins in the chorus, "Ha! ha! ha! Ha!
ha! ha!" But the bell will not be mended--and they know it.
The Musée municipal in the Hotel de Ville--the last musée which I shall
inflict upon the reader--is as dreary as a haunted house, and much
less interesting. You wander through gallery after gallery of second
and third rate paintings, to be rewarded, at last, in the end room, by
two little bronze crupellaires, or fighting gladiators of the first
century, so called because, according to Tacitus, they were completely
hidden beneath an iron armour, so thick as to make the wearer as
immune against blows as he was incapable of dealing them.[63] The most
interesting thing in the museum is the famous Greek inscription which
has excited the interest of antiquarians and theologians all over the
world. The stone is a piece of white marble, broken into fragments
which are pieced together again, and on which is a Greek acrostic, and
something supposed to stand for a Sigma. The inscription, believed to
be of the third or fourth century, is as follows. The translation I
give is from the French, as quoted by Hamerton in "The Mount."
"O divine race of heavenly Ιχθυς, receive with a heart full of respect
life immortal among the mortals. Renew thy soul's youth, O my friend!
in the divine waters, by the eternal waves of wisdom that flow from the
true riches. Receive the delicious food of the Saviour of saints. Take,
eat and drink, thou holdest Ιχθυς in thy hands. Ιχθυς grant me this
grace, ardently I desire it, Master and Saviour; may my mother rest in
peace, I conjure thee, light of the dead. Aschandeus, my father, thou
whom I cherish, with my tender mother and all my relations in the peace
of Ιχθυς. remember thy Pectorius."[64]
The Hotel de Ville in which the Musée Municipal is housed, fronts upon
the Champ de Mars, formerly the Champ St. Ladre (campus sancti Lazari)
the centre of the life of the town. It was built over in Roman times,
as proved by the substructures that have been found, but the land was
cleared about the twelfth century. Throughout all the middle ages its
convenient position between the Castrum and the Marchaux rendered it
a kind of forum, or general public meeting place, and the site of the
great fêtes and fairs. During the visit of Charles VIII. to Autun,
in 1516, the inhabitants constructed in St. Ladre an immense wooden
amphitheatre, with a linen velarium as a protection, quite in the old
Roman manner. Here, too, from time immemorial, has been held, and is
still held, in September, the great fête de St. Ladre, and cattle
fair that draws so many traders to Autun, and destroys for a month
the peace of the cathedral city.[65] The wars of religion and the
great revolution have brought their quota of victims to the stake, the
gallows, or the guillotine, that in turn were set up in the centre of
the place. At the north-east corner, opposite the Hotel de Ville, are
the best cafés of the town, where, I remember, we learned the latest
news of the Portuguese Revolution.
Just round the corner, in the Rue de l'Arbalète, is the best Hotel
of Autun, "St. Louis et de la Poste," a great rambling building of
the early seventeenth century, that, in itself, is a lasting souvenir
of great historical events. On the 10th of January, 1802, Napoleon
Buonaparte passed through Autun on the way to Lyons. He stayed one
night, with the Empress Josephine, at the Hotel St. Louis, where he
received the local authorities. Several ladies of the town, eager for a
sight of the great man, obtained the hotelier's permission to officiate
as waitresses, for that night only. Josephine discovered the ruse at
once, and was so amused thereby that she proceeded to play her part in
the game with the utmost grace and charm.
The hundred days saw Napoleon again at the Hotel St. Louis. He had
left Elba on the 26th February, 1815, and arrived at Autun on the 15th
of March. According to the account of an eye witness[66] the troops
accompanying him were utterly exhausted, and could keep no sort of
order; their ranks were broken, and soldiers of all arms were marching
pell-mell. Napoleon was surprised and deeply hurt by his reception at
Autun. No crowds came out to meet him, and scarcely a cry of "Vive
l'Empereur" was heard. The houses were shut, the streets deserted, and
only a small company of nobodies, in blouses and sabots, formed his
cortège.... No sooner had he descended at the Hotel de la Poste, than
he asked for the mayor and the municipal council. They were brought
into a balconied room looking on the street.
The Emperor, attended by Marshal Bertrand, General Brayer, and five or
six other military men, appeared to be in a state of great agitation.
He was pacing up and down, holding in his hand the proclamation of the
night before, stepping at every moment on to the balcony, and leaving
it with angry looks. When all had entered he stood in the middle of the
apartment, and asked which was the mayor of Autun.
"I am," said M. Piquot.
"I know what you are," the Emperor replied, "a man always ready to pay
court to nobles; one who would sacrifice his dignity for a dinner. You
are mayor no longer; only a fanatic and a madman could have drawn up
such an act as this. You dare to treat me as an usurper!"
"Sire," said M. de la Chaise, president of the civil tribunal, "by your
abdication you have freed us from our oaths, and we have sworn fealty
to Louis XVIII."
"I have abdicated, you say. I did it only to assure the happiness of
the French. France is not happy. She recalls me, and you would oppose
her.... Madman! you would have civil war, then!"
"But, enfin, sire, you have abdicated."
"Be silent!" cried Napoleon, angrily, "you are only a wretched
attorney."
We need not follow any further a quarrel which led nowhere. Amid the
same cold silence that had marked his arrival, Napoleon left early the
next morning, to face the last triumphs and the crushing disaster of
those fateful hundred days.[67]
Another visitor to the Hotel St. Louis was George Sand, who came in the
midst of all the bustle and excitement of the fair of St. Ladre, on the
2nd September, 1836, and was served, with two children and a nurse,
under a fruit tree in the garden into which the guests had overflowed.
She must have overheard, at the large table, words which offended her,
for, says St. Fonteney, she left her repast and the hotel in haste,
and, two months afterwards, took a full revenge in the columns of the
"Revue des deux Mondes," in which she referred darkly to the occasion
as an "obscenity" and an "orgie of patricians." One would hardly have
thought George Sand so squeamish.
We, too, being only passers by, must leave Autun in haste. The autumn
sun was setting, and the ruby mists of evening were creeping up the
purple slopes of the Morvan, as the train steamed out of the station.
Our compartment was quite unlit, and gradually, as night fell, darkness
enwrapped us so completely that we could not so much as see a hand held
before the face. When we drew up at Epinac, a bent old woman, standing
huddled up on the platform, peered into the compartment, in a futile
endeavour to see what it might contain. She called the guard. They
both looked in. "Fait ben noir" (very dark), she muttered. He shrugged
his shoulders. The old woman wandered off vacantly. Third class fare
on a monopoly railway does not entitle you to light; and she knew it.
Along the darkened train ran a legend that they were buying oil and
wick in the town. We waited, waited, long enough for them to have
bought up the whole town and the one beyond it. But no light came,
until, southward, I saw a faint, silvery glimmer. Then I knew what we
were waiting for. There is no charge for moonlight--not even on that
railway. But it was still dark as pitch. With a jerk the train began to
move out; a large parcel, the property of a young French girl in front
of me, fell down upon the head of her small and sleepy nephew, Madelon,
who howled plaintively. The soldier in the corner, compelled by the
presence of ladies to refrain, for an hour past, from indulging in his
ruling passion, could contain himself no longer. He spat voluminously,
vociferously, like a hen clucking. Almost as loudly Madelon sucked
at a lozenge bestowed for the soothing of the bruised head. As the
moon rose, the darkness paled. I could just see Madelon regarding
complacently the lozenge that he had removed from his mouth.
"Madelon, Madelon, how many times have I told you not to take things
from your mouth when you are eating? Once in, they must stay in. Veux
tu m'obéir." The rich sucking noise ceased, to be followed by the light
breathing of a child asleep. We stopped at another station. Not content
with the moon, people put their heads out of the windows, and clamoured
for light. They chaffed the station-master; they ragged the guard. Like
rabbits the men ran up and down over the roofs of the carriages. Five
porters gathered in a little woe-begone group, and looked on vacantly.
But no light came. A tin trumpet blew, and the train started. An hour
later we were climbing the hills of the Côte d'Or and dropping down
into the eastern plain. That is how we left Autun.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] "Impressions of Provence," pp. 118-121.
[51] P. G. Hamerton. "The Mount," p. 115.
[52] "Autun et ses Monuments."
[53] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 143-147. For full description of
the tomb of Lazarus, see p. 148.
[54] P. G. Hamerton. "The Mount," p. 167.
[55] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 153.
[56] Dictionnaire Raisonné, V. le Duc, tom: vii., p. 275.
[57] Dictionnaire Raisonné, V. le Duc, tom: vii., p. 278.
[58] P. G. Hamerton. "The Mount," p. 171.
[59] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 422-438.
[60] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 52-54.
[61] In 1863 it was removed for some years to the Musée Lapidaire.
[62] The Rue des Bancs was so called from the butchers' benches which
once lined it. "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 379.
[63] "Crupellarios vacant, inferendis sitibus inhabilis, accipiendis
impenetrabilis."--Taciti Aun: lib. iii., c. 43, quoted "Autun et
ses Monuments," p. 38
[64] Hamerton. "The Mount," p. 184.
[65] "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 332.
[66] Dr. Guyton. "Mes Souvenirs de Soixante Ans pour servir à
l'Histoire d'Autun," quoted in "Autun et ses Monuments," p. 354.
[67] "Autun et ses Monuments," pp. 354-357.
[Illustration: Heading, chapter V; Cluny Abbey and Gateway, as they
were]
CHAPTER V
THE MOTHER ABBEY
The loitering train, that, climbing, winds among the vine-clad slopes
of the Mâconnais, gave us our first glimpse of the vendangeurs
gathering the last of a scanty crop. Those blue shirts, moving
through the bronze-clad bushes, were our first intimation that the
Saône-et-Loire had escaped the utter ruin that the winds and rains of
a wintry summer had wrought among the vines of the Côte d'Or. But this
incident did not impress us as it might have done at another time or in
another place. Our thoughts were not with the wine-harvest; they were
ahead, busy with the memories the name of Cluny evokes.
To one who cares for what was best in the middle ages, no place in
France, no place in Europe, unless, perhaps, it be Citeaux, can
exercise an equal charm. But, as we shall see, though Citeaux rivalled,
and ultimately eclipsed Cluny in power, and, through the influence
of St. Bernard, outshone her, not in material splendour, but by the
dazzling whiteness of her purity, the historic interest of the site of
the Cistercian house, there, by the deserted woods and wind-ruffled
pools of the eastern plain, could not survive, in the minds of many,
the destruction of the ancient monastery. Cluny, the Mother Abbey of
Europe, the school of popes, holds first place, by right of birth, by
right of what she was, and is. For Cluny still stands. The little town
nestling upon the lower slopes of the valley, through which the Grosne
winds between her poplars, is not merely built upon the site of the
Abbey. It is the Abbey.
From the moment, when, on the way from the station, you see the ancient
towers raising, one by one, their hoary heads above the roofs, as
they have raised her past from oblivion, till, having climbed the
cobble-stoned street that winds upwards through the town, you look down
through the ruined gateway that once gave passage to kings and abbots,
from every street corner, from every church, and dwelling-house, Cluny
calls to you out of the past.
We did not hear her at first; and we were disappointed. The Grande
Rue, by which you enter the town from the east, is so narrow, that
it affords no glimpse of what lies on either hand; and it was with
unexpected suddenness, that, turning to the right, after a few minutes
of wandering, we stood before the Hotel de Bourgogne, and looked up
from the little, white building, at the great, grey, octagonal tower
and the wall of masonry, that, we knew, must be the last survival of
the Abbey Church itself. At that moment we were standing on the site of
the nave; but we did not know it. It takes time to orient oneself.
* * * * *
Following upon the Gallo-Roman and early Christian periods, centred in
the Autunois, the story of the rise of Cluny from humble beginnings to
her apothegm of spiritual and temporal power marks the second notable
period of Burgundian history. From this source, also, was to flow the
main stream of progress, religious and artistic, that culminated in
the mediæval triumphs of thirteenth-century European civilization. At
the time of the rise of Cluny, Burgundy, under the capetian dukes, was
already established as a vassal province of France, but the inwardness
of Burgundian history--of French history, indeed, in the 11th and 12th
centuries--will be understood only by those who realize that, until the
advent of the semi-royal dukes of the house of Valois, in 1364, the
controlling forces of the duchy are to be sought, not in Dijon, nor in
Auxerre, but here, in this the mother abbey of Western Europe.[68]
In the year 909, the veteran Duke William of Aquitaine, haunted by
the shades of the many warriors who had fallen in the service of his
ambition, or troubled by the whispers of conscience, or moved, perhaps,
by that not wholly disinterested piety which sometimes awakens with
the approach of death, decided to follow the course then usual in
such cases, and to found a monastery. For this purpose, he took into
his confidence his friend, Bernon, Abbot of Gigny, who, accompanied
by Hugues, Abbot of St. Martin at Autun, paid a visit to the Duke in
his villa of Cluny, and was bidden to search out a place meet for
the service of God. But the monk, gifted with a keen eye for all the
amenities of a monastic site, could find none more fitting than this
"in a spot withdrawn from all human society, so full of solitude, of
repose and of peace, that it seemed in some sort a picture (image) of
the heavenly solitude."[69] The Duke, however, stung by a last pang of
regret for the loss of his lovely valley, had objections to raise. The
spot was not suitable; for, all day long, the shouts of huntsmen and
the baying of hounds broke the silence of the neighbouring forest.
"Drive the dogs away," said Bernon, with a laugh, "and replace them
with monks; for you well know which shall stand you best before God,
the bay of the hounds, or the monks' prayers."
"Surely, Father," replied the Duke, "your advice is sound, and since
you give it unfeignedly, be it done, with Christ's aid, as thy goodness
bids me do."
In the year 909, the 11th year of Charles the Simple, the old Duke,
lest, at his last hour, he should deserve the reproach of having
thought only of the care of his body, and of the augmentation of
his earthly possessions, wrote in his will, as follows:--"I declare
that, for the love of God and of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, I give
and bequeath to the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, all that I possess
at Cluny ... without excepting anything dependent upon my domain of
Cluny (Villa), farms, oratories, slaves of both sexes, vines, meadows,
fields, water, water-courses, mills, rights of way, lands, cultivated
or uncultivated, without any reserve."[70]
[Illustration: ·NEAR CLUNY]
He gives this, he goes on to say, for the good of soul and body of
himself, his wife, his relatives, and dependents, "on condition that a
monastery shall be built at Cluny, in honour of the apostles, Peter and
Paul, and that there shall gather monks, living according to the rule
of St. Benedict[71] to hold and administer for ever the things given,
so that this house may become the true house of prayer, that it may be
filled for ever with faithful vows and pious supplications, that here
shall be desired and besought, with ardent wish and earnest longing,
the wonders of communion with Heaven, that prayers and supplications be
addressed without ceasing to God, both for me and for those persons of
whom I have already made mention."
Further:--"By God, in God and all His Saints, and under the fearful
menace of the last judgment, I beg, I beseech, that no secular prince,
nor count, nor bishop, nor the Pontiff himself of the Roman Church, do
invade the possessions of God's servants, nor sell nor diminish, nor
give in benefice to whomsoever it may be, anything to them belonging,
nor allow any head to be set over them against their will. And that
this prohibition may be more strongly binding upon the wicked and the
headstrong, I insist and I add, and I conjure you, Oh! Holy Apostles,
Peter and Paul, and Thou, Pontiff of the Pontiffs of the apostolic
seat, to cut off from communion with the Holy Church and from life
eternal, by the canonical authority thou has received of God, all
robbers, invaders, or sellers of that which I give, of my full
satisfaction and of my evident will."
Sometimes, reading the old Duke's powerful anathema, that tells us
more of the spirit of the time in which he lived than could any long
narration of facts, I wonder, as I think of the after history of Cluny,
whether that awful curse may not have alighted, or may not alight
hereafter, upon the souls of those who have violated the conditions of
its grant, or in blind fury have laid impious hands upon the hallowed
stones of its church.
Here, then, in the solitary valley of the Grosne, on the slope of a
hill forming one of a range which marks the northern extremity of the
Cevennes, was planted the tree whose branches were to over-shadow
Europe. The site was well chosen for the birthplace of such a destiny.
Occupying a middle position between Gothic and Latin influences, Cluny
could here best fulfil her mission, which, indeed, has been and is
still, in some sort, the mission of Burgundy, that of reconciling the
conflicting, and often bitterly antagonistic, elements of north and
south. Situated within a few kilometres of the Roman Road of Agrippa,
which, passing Clermain and St. Cécile, connected Lyons and Boulogne,
by way of Mâcon and Autun, the Abbey was also connected with Italy by
that magnificent waterway, the Saône and the Rhône. Travellers could
come by land or by river to Cluny.
In the early years of the monastery, few came. Faith had weakened
throughout all the land, and in many houses the monks of Gaul had
departed from the strict rule of St. Benedict. It was the mission of
Odon, the first of the long line of great and saintly abbotts, to be
a reformer of that rule, and, by the example of his holy life, to
augment the numbers, and increase the prosperity of the Abbey. From his
earliest years, while yet he was in the monastery of Balme, says his
chronicler, Jean de Salerne, his merits, becoming known throughout all
the district, were finding expression in the gracious legends of the
time. One of the best known was the miracle of the crumbs.
[Illustration: TOUR FABRI]
An article of the rule bade the monks gather carefully the crumbs of
bread from the table, and eat them before the end of the meal. When the
signal to rise had been given, it was forbidden to lift any more food
to the mouth. Odon, intent, one day, upon the lesson that was being
read aloud in the refectory, forgot the crumbs. Not daring either to
eat them, or to leave them on the table, he kept them in his hand,
while he and his companions left the refectory and went into the church
where grace was sung. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Odon threw
himself at the feet of the father, and asked forgiveness; but, when he
opened his hand to show him the crumbs, behold, to the astonishment of
the brothers, each crumb was a precious pearl! By the order of Bernon,
the stones were fastened to one of the ornaments of the church.[72]
Under such heavenly guidance, even the very beasts of the forest
ministered to the growing community. When Odon had completed the early
church, which Jean de Salerne modestly speaks of as an oratory and
chapel, replaced, a century later, by a larger one, the bishop came
to consecrate the building. Forgetting the poverty of the monks, he
brought with him such a lordly retinue of attendants and servants,
that the abbot was sorely troubled as to how his guests were to be
worthily received, and suitably fed. On the day of the ceremony, when
the grey dawn had driven westward the shadows of the night, a great
wild boar emerged from the neighbouring forest, and ran, at full
speed, to the monastery. The guardian of the church, who was busy
adorning the exterior porch, struck with terror at the sight, retreated
hastily, shut the door behind him, and drew the bolts. But the fierce
animal, fierce no longer, began to lick the door--leaving upon it
marks of white foam--and to tap gently with its hoof, as though to beg
admittance. But all who saw the beast, fled, until, weary with much
knocking, it lay down across the threshold. When the bishop and his
suite arrived, a cry of terror rose from the company. They aroused
the neighbours, who came, armed with sticks. But the boar, instead of
shewing fight, offered himself voluntarily to death, and his flesh,
prepared with all the art of the monastic cooks, satisfied the refined
tastes of the prelates.
Every day Cluny grew in grace, in wisdom, in numbers, in riches, in
influence, in power civil and spiritual. One after one, she founded
new monasteries, and reformed those already in existence, until, under
Odilon, in the beginning of the 11th century, a cluster of priories had
been built upon lands ceded to the abbey, and Cluny was attaining an
importance greater than any other order had acquired until that day. In
the plains, upon the summits of the hills, by the banks of river and
stream, in the depths of the forests, in the solitude of the valley,
even in remote and silent places, were springing up little communities
of monks, whose clocher, was, for the peasants, a symbol of charity, of
refuge, of God come down among men;[73] and every year, nobles, not a
few, gave lands in the neighbouring comtés to the Abbey of Cluny.
The great fervour with which the monastic revival was received, had
been due, in part, to the awful miseries of France during the 10th
century, and in part to an almost universal belief that the year
1000 A.D. would herald the second coming of Christ, and the end of
the world; but, by the time that year had passed without the advent
of any of the expected phenomena, the more clear-sighted, perceiving
the immense possibilities which the religious revival shadowed forth,
for the welfare of a people crushed beneath the harsh feudal laws of
the time, saw therein an additional inducement to encourage monastic
effort. Gratitude for preservation had also its effect. All omens were
propitious for the rise of Cluny to great glory.
In the year 1024, a lady of noble Burgundian family, knowing that the
hour was come in which she should give birth to a child, and following
the custom of the time, summoned a priest, who, by the sacrifice of the
mass, should assure her a happy delivery. At the moment when, while
consecrating the host, he was wrapt in fervent prayer, there appeared
to him, shaping itself upon the golden bottom of the cup, a child's
face radiant with a heavenly light. At the conclusion of the ceremony,
he hastened to tell the mother what he had seen, and, finding the child
already born, predicted that, God granting him life, the boy was chosen
out for a great destiny, and would surely be found worthy, one day,
to minister the cup in which his birth had been thus signalized. To
the great joy of the mother, that hope was gloriously fulfilled; for
the son born under such happy omens was Hugues, the greatest of the
great abbots of Cluny, he, under whom the abbey, and, indeed, the whole
church of Rome, was to establish an authority never before dreamed of
in Christendom.
Braving the anger of his father, Delmace, an ambitious and violent
Seigneur, who would fain have seen his son don the knight's armour
rather than the monk's cowl, Hugues, already ardently set upon a life
of piety, obtained admission to the monastery of St. Marcel de Chalon,
which he soon left, in order to place himself under the protection of
Odilon, the then abbott of Cluny. This new father of the young Hugues
was one of the best beloved of the abbotts of that monastery. Lacking
the austerity of his predecessor, Odon--the great reformer whose
energies had given new life to the Benedictine order--Saint Odilon,
this "dernier et le plus méprisable des frères de Cluny," as he styled
himself, though short and thin in person, was, at the same time, robust
and virile; a humble, grave, sympathetic, fatherly man, whose pale face
could flush with anger, and his gentle voice become terrible in rebuke
of wrong-doing; one whom the sins and sorrows of the living and the
dead[74] touched to the heart, as attested by the many healings with
which legend has credited his name.
Such was the man, already abbot for more than forty years, under whose
worthy protection young Hugues placed himself. The new-comer, elected
abbot on the death of Odilon in 1048, soon showed himself to be of yet
sterner stuff even than his predecessor. Humble as regards his personal
pretensions, kind and charitable to the poor and needy, he had,
nevertheless, an eye which could read in their faces the souls of men;
and he was fired with a holy ambition for the glory of the church.
[Illustration: Clunisian Ornament]
In bringing about the realization of these dreams, he found a worthy
ally in that Napoleon of the Church, Hildebrand (Gregory VII.), one of
the four monks, who, from a cell at Cluny, passed to the throne of St.
Peter.[75] We need not here deal at length with that long struggle--the
most significant event of the eleventh century--between the civil
and religious rules of Christendom, in which Gregory succeeded in
enforcing, if only for a time, the most tremendous and all-embracing
claims that the church has ever advanced; but I shall be excused for
recalling again that extraordinary scene enacted, in 1076, on the
castled summit of the craggy Apennine hills, the rock of Alba Canossa,
where the representative of temporal power, Henry IV., King of the
Germans, attired in a penitent's garb of coarse wool, waited barefoot,
through three bitter winter's days, in the courtyard of the castle,
upon the pleasure of God's vice-regent on earth. Hugh, then Abbot of
Cluny, was present at that scene; and it was largely owing to his
mediation, backed by the influence of the Countess Matilda, that Henry
was at last admitted to the royal presence.[76]
Remembering how brief was Gregory's pontificate--a span of ten
years--and his bitter last words at Palermo: "I have loved justice
and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile," it may appear to
some readers that the triumph of this little, ill-shaped homuncio
was short-lived; but we have to remember that, as Bishop Mathew has
pointed out, his influence upon succeeding generations was greater than
upon his own, and that without Gregory VII. there would have been no
Innocent III. to become, in effect, "the king of kings, lord of lords,
the only ruler of princes" in all Christendom.
In many sublime and dramatic scenes, then being enacted throughout
Europe, Hugues was called upon to play the part of peacemaker, but in
none was his task more difficult than in that struggle between Gregory
and Henry, to whom he was equally bound by ties of close friendship.
That he remained on good, even on intimate terms, with both men,
is strong testimony to his integrity of character. More than once,
in later years, he allayed the storms that Gregory was raising; he
defended Henry IV. against the ingratitude of his son; and it is to
Hugues that we find the dethroned and fugitive emperor turning for
consolation and advice concerning that revolt.[77]
In such hands, at such a time, the glories of Cluny were safe. Nor
was the papacy unmindful of all it owed to the great abbey. Here is
Gregory's own eulogy of Cluny, delivered before the Council of Rome, in
1077. "Among all those situate beyond the hills, shines in the first
rank that of Cluny under the protection of the holy seat. Under its
holy abbots, it has reached so high a degree of honour and of religion,
that, by the fervour with which God is there served, it surpasses
undeniably all other monasteries, not excepting even the most ancient;
so that none other in this part of the Christian world may be compared
with it. To this day, all her abbots have been raised to the honour
of sainthood. Not one among them, not one of their monks, obedient
sons of the Romish Church, has fallen away nor bowed the knee to
Baal; but, faithful always to the dignity and liberty granted to them
by the Church from the foundation of the monastery, they have nobly
upheld its authority, and will submit to no other power than that of
St. Peter."[78] The privileges of Cluny became the ideal type for all
others, and Gregory always regarded a comparison with the Burgundian
abbey as a peculiar sign of favour, as in the case of St. Victor of
Marseilles, whose monks he wished to console for the loss of a beloved
abbot.
Not unnaturally, an institution so growing in grace, power, and
riches, was growing also in numbers. The new monks must be housed; God
must be honoured in, and by, a nobler Church. Nor was the Deity long in
making known His will.
One night, a monk of Cluny, sick and paralytic, was asleep in bed, when
he saw appear before him the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and Stephen, the
first Martyr. The monk asked them who they were, and what their will
might be. Then St. Peter spoke:--
"I am St. Peter, and these are St. Paul and St. Stephen. Rise, without
delay, brother, and bear our orders to Hugues, Abbot of this Church.
It pains us to see so many brothers gathered into so small a space,
and our wish is that the Abbot should build a greater. And let him not
consider the cost; we shall know how to provide all things necessary
for the work."
"I dare not take it upon me to bear your orders," replied the monk.
"For no heed would be given to my words."
"You have been chosen before all others," said St. Peter, "to transmit
our commands to Hugues, so that your miraculous healing may gain
credence for your message. If you obey faithfully, seven years shall be
added to your life, and if Hugues defers the execution of our will, the
sickness, upon leaving you, shall pass into his body."
So speaking, St. Peter proceeded to measure out with cords the length,
breadth, and height of the new building; then, showing the monk its
proportions, the style, the necessary ornament, and the nature of
the materials to be used, he counselled him to keep all these things
faithfully in his memory.
The monk, for whose funeral the bell-ringers were already awaiting the
summons, awakened with a start, ran, safe and sound, to the Abbot's
room, and told him the whole story. This midnight appearance of a man,
dying an hour ago, and now healed by a marvellous vision, greatly
astonished the good Abbot. Threatened with his brother's sickness,
if he postponed the commencement of the building, and encouraged,
moreover, by the heavenly aid promised to the enterprise, he believed,
obeyed, and, with God's help, raised, in twenty years, a temple that
was the glory of its age, and remained, for centuries, one of the
marvels of Western Europe.[79]
Tradition adds, that Hugues, not knowing exactly where to build the
Church, threw a hammer into the air, and chose the spot where it
fell for the site of his sanctuary. In after years, before the abbey
buildings were mutilated, the inhabitants would still show, near one
of them, an enormous stone that all the workmen and all their machines
were unable to lift. St. Hugues only, during the night, by Divine help,
could raise the huge mass, and place it in position; and ever after the
stone retained the imprint of the Holy Founder's hand.
Often the workmen, as they built the walls of the Church, would notice,
watching them unweariedly, working silently in their midst, but sharing
never in their repasts, a mysterious and wonderful figure. Some said
that he was an angel presiding over the erection of the House of God;
some said that he was none other than St. Hugues himself.
It was in 1095 that Pascal II., crossing Provence by way of Tarascon
and Avignon, arrived at Cluny, in the month of November, accompanied
by a large suite of cardinals, bishops, and priests. Everywhere he was
received with transports of joy; for no living man had yet seen the
Vicar of Christ in this part of the land of Burgundy. At the request
of Hugues, he had come to consecrate the great altar of the unfinished
basilica. This he did, and also superintended the consecration, by
attendant archbishops, of the other altars in the transept. In the
midst of these ceremonies, turning to the crowd of on-lookers who
had surrounded the building on all sides, Pascal reminded them of
the special privileges with which the monastery had been endowed, of
his own connection with it as monk under the same Abbot, who still,
by God's mercy, was alive and well in their midst; then, in the name
of God, and by the holy memories he had awakened, he implored all to
uphold and respect the sanctity of the new abbey-church.
[Illustration: LE BON DIEU
CLUNY]
It was not until 1131 that the great basilica, completed at last, was
consecrated by Innocent II., amid scenes similar to those that had
attended the visit of Urban II.
Whether the building was inspired of God, or was merely a successful
exercise of a fast-developing art, the new Cluny was not unworthy of
the great order for which it stood. Not only was it, with the exception
of St. Peter's at Rome, the largest Church in existence,[80] but it
remained also one of the most perfect examples of the Romanesque
architecture, and became the accepted model for many a later Burgundian
church and cathedral. The architect, according to Pignot, was a former
canon of Liège, named Etzebon; artist, orator, theologian, and author
of the life of St. Hugues. He appears to have had no difficulty in
acquiring the first necessity of his work, namely, funds. Kings,
nobles, and bishops vied with one another in their eagerness to make
offerings to the new Church; the neighbouring princes made handsome
donations, the pious of all classes brought gifts, offered voluntary
labour, or the loan of beasts of burden. The two lordliest givers were
Alonzo VI., King of Castille, and Henry I. of England, the former of
whom was deeply indebted to Hugues, whose influence with his kinsman,
Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, had often smoothed Alonzo's path. The Abbot,
in recognition "of the incessant benefits of this faithful friend,"
founded, on his behalf, almsgivings and special prayers throughout the
order, and every day served, at the chief table, as though the King
were present, a royal dinner, which was afterwards distributed among
the poor.
Meanwhile, as the gifts poured in, the building grew. From the great
double gates,[81] Roman in style, and imitated, probably, from the
Porte d'Arroux, at Autun, the land sloped downwards to the parvis,
from the midst of which rose a great stone cross. Thence flights of
balustraded steps, broken, at intervals, by terraced platforms, led
down to the porch, flanked on each side by square towers, the Tour
de la Justice, and Tour des Archives, each a hundred and forty feet
high, and crowned with a pyramidal flêche. This porch, ornamented with
statues of the saints and the Virgin, was surmounted, in the space
between the towers, by a great rose, thirty feet in diameter, with the
figure of a Benedictine monk above.
[Illustration: THE ABBEY OF CLUNY AS IT WAS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
XIX^{TH} CENTURY·]
It opened into a magnificent church of five bays, one hundred and ten
feet long, and one hundred and eighteen feet high, the narthex of the
great basilica.[82] It was divided into a nave and two aisles, the
whole supported by enormous square pillars, their sides decorated with
fluted pilasters, which also helped to carry the pointed arches of the
bays. From the capitals of the pilasters, clusters of four shafts rose
to the level of a frieze, just above the tops of the arches, from which
other columns carried the high vault. A cornice supported on consoles
separated the clerestory from the triforium arcade of four round-headed
arches, enclosed in pairs under a larger arch. Cornices, friezes, and
capitals were decorated with flowers, birds, figures, and grotesque
animals in the Clunisian style. Many a pilgrim visitor, standing in
this great church, nearly as large as the Church of Notre Dame de
Dijon, believed himself to be in the basilica itself, never dreaming
that this was but the porch or ante-nave.
Many theories have been advanced as to the purpose of this narthex,
which became a usual feature of Clunisian construction, from about
the middle of the twelfth century. Some have suggested that it was
for overflow congregations from the new church, or that it served
for the servants of the Abbey, for the suites of noble visitors, for
the peasants from the neighbouring towns, or for criminals seeking
refuge, as they were wont to do, in the shadow of the porch. Others
have supposed, perhaps rightly, that it was used for the reconciliation
of the excommunicated, for rites of exorcism, or for the dispensation
of justice; but the most probable solution is that the narthex was
a temple, in which, at Easter and other seasons of the year, the
crowds of penitents and pilgrims--too numerous to be admitted into the
basilica, or to be left outside--might hear the Word of God at the very
threshold of, but not within, the building reserved for the monks. The
narthex was, in effect, a purgatory, a sojourning place between earth
and Heaven; the natural development of a custom which had arisen, for
the priest, by order of the bishop, to say mass as near as possible to
the gates of church, for the benefit of the penitents in the porch.
There existed, until the 18th century, on the left of the door of the
narthex, a stone table, which, perhaps, was formerly an altar, though
made use of, at that time, only by mothers and nurses, who believed
that they could hush their crying charges by depositing them thereon.
At the end of the vestibule was the original gate of the basilica,
of which the impost was the stone that St. Hugues had miraculously
raised. Twenty-three figures were carved upon it in relief, and in the
tympanum above was seated the Heavenly Father, as Teacher, His right
Hand raised in benediction, His left holding the Gospel. Beside Him the
four Evangelists listened to His words, and cloud-borne angels held the
medallions upon which were shown the Throne and Person of Christ.
The interior of the great basilica must have been of the most majestic
and impressive character, with its two transepts[83] and double row
of aisles on each side of the nave. The great pillars supporting the
central vault were seven and a half feet in diameter, with pilasters
on the side of the nave, and engaged columns on the other three sides,
meeting the aisle vaults. At the transept, the columns, together
with the pillars they surmounted, rising in unbroken lines, formed
the ribs of the vaulting. Above each bay was a triforium of two rows
of superposed, romanesque, round-headed, arcaded arches, in threes,
the lower row separated by pilasters, and the upper by colonnettes.
The arches of the bays and the transepts were pointed; a feature,
which, though quite usual in Burgundian work of the period, was more
or less accidental, and was necessitated, or rendered advisable, by
practical considerations, rather than by a deliberate departure from
an architectural style that was still of the purest Romanesque. The
capitals everywhere were ornamented with characteristic sculpture, of
extraordinary freedom and boldness, representing scriptural, and many
other subjects.
At the bottom of the nave, close to the entry of the choir, was placed,
in after years, the tomb of Pope Gélase, and two altars, which, with a
gate at the entrance, screened the monks from the eyes of the laymen.
Here, too, against the pillars of the nave, were four large, painted,
wooden statues, representing St. Hugues, holding the model of the
church in his right hand, St. Mayeul, St. Odon, and St. Odilon.
The choir occupied the space between the two transepts; the sanctuary
was carried on eight columns, three of which were of African marble,
and three of Pentelic Greek marble, veined with blue, which St. Hugues
brought from Italy by way of the Durance and the Rhône. The transept
had many lateral chapels, and the east end, which was in semi-circular
form, had five apsidal chapels, vaulted in half dome. A processional
ambulatory circled the sanctuary and the tomb of St. Hugues, in front
of which stood the great altar. Here, too, at opposite ends of the
ambulatory, were placed the tombs of the Abbot Pons, and of Pierre le
Vénérable. The vault of the apse was adorned with a fine painting,
of the end of the eleventh, or beginning of the twelfth century,
representing the Eternal Father borne upon clouds, one hand raised, and
the other placed upon the Apocalypse sealed with seven seals. At his
feet was the Lamb without Blemish, and about Him were winged figures of
man, the lion, the eagle, and the ox.
But, in spite of the realism of the sculpture and the painting,
in spite of the gorgeous tapestries, the golden candelabra, the
pearl-encrusted ornaments of every kind, which the noblest men and
women of the time, and of later times, showered upon Cluny, it is in
the sense of spacious dignity and majesty, rather than in the sense
of ostentation and magnificence, that we must interpret the words of
Hildebrand de Mans, when he said that, "If it were possible for the
inhabitants of the heavenly mansions to be happy in an abode fashioned
by the hand of man, Cluny would be the angels' walk (ambulatorium
angelorum)."
Nor was the church less noble without than within. From the circular
chapels lying about her transepts and her apse, along the collateral
and the double row of flying buttresses,[84] rising higher than the
narthex, the eye was lifted, stage after stage, high above her lofty
nave, to the mighty towers that rose to the sky, in witness, for ever,
one would have said, of Him whose Dwelling was not made with hands.
The conventual buildings were on the south side of the basilica. From
the principal south transept, a processional, and a smaller, door,
opened upon the great romanesque cloister, of which a fragment here and
there remains, built into the modern work. It was similar in style to
the other buildings of the period. Further south were the Lady Chapel
and the great refectory. Abutting on the great wall of the Abbey, by
the side of the Grosne, was a mill and a thirteenth century bake-house,
which still exist. Among the many other buildings, chapels, baths,
schools for the young, pharmacy, workshops, dormitories, and stables,
which are the necessary equipment of a great monastery, was a large
infirmary, with its own cloister and refectory--a small establishment
within the larger one. On the east side, extending to the fortified
wall that enclosed the whole monastery, were the gardens of the abbey.
Such, in its essential aspects, was the "ambulatorium angelorum."
How did its occupants live? What was the rule observed within those
walls? The rule, as kept in those early days, was stern and exacting.
The first of the regulations was silence, except at stated intervals.
In the church, in the dormitory, in the refectory, in the kitchen,
absolute silence, broken only by the summoning bell or by the chanting
of prayers. Like ghosts, the sandalled monks glided about the echoing
corridors; deaf mutes speaking by signs. The times for speech were
the mornings, after chapter, and evenings after sexte. A parlour was
reserved for the talkers, where, seated, book in hand, they might
converse on spiritual and other topics. Yet they were recommended
rather to remain in the cloister, and there meditate, read, pray, or
copy manuscripts. This was the hour, too, for drying their clothes in
the sun, for visiting the sick in the infirmary, for washing their
cups, or for sharpening their knives on the grindstone in the cloister.
Their daily food was limited to bread, vegetables, and fruits--meat
was given only to the sick--eggs, cheese, and fish were allowed only
occasionally, and nothing whatever might be eaten after complines.
At certain seasons, the use of fat for flavouring vegetables was
forbidden. If wine were permitted, on days of great solemnity, and
during exhausting fasts, it must be free from spirituous seasoning, and
from the spice that flatters the palates of the worldly. Still less was
it permitted to drink hypocras, or oriental or Italian liqueurs--the
"little wine" of the apostle was to suffice them. Only two repasts a
day were allowed, except to the young, or to those engaged in specially
hard work.
The monks might shave one another once in three weeks, chanting psalms
the while, and not until the days of decadence were they shaved by a
secular barber. "In bygone times," says the chronicler, "they were not
shaved, they were skinned."[85] They might not bathe often, lest the
habit should engender softness, and they did not usually indulge in
full ablution more than twice a year--before Christmas and Easter. Sick
monks, however, might bathe as often as they pleased.
The clothing allowed to the brothers consisted of a woollen shirt of
dark colour--one for the day, another for the night. Their garments
were rustic in form and substance; such as were worn by the peasants.
Over the tunic was a scapular, with a hood or capuchon attached, and
over all the frock was sometimes worn. Precious stuffs, silks, and
gay colours were forbidden; for it was unfitting, said the statutes,
that monks should be apparelled like brides for the nuptial chamber.
The strict rule of St. Benedict allowed no furs; but a concession was
made to the rigour of the Burgundian climate, and the monks might wear
sheep-skin or goat-skin cloaks in winter, and fur boots for sleeping
in, but no rich and costly skins from foreign lands--"For those who are
softly clothed dwell in kings' Palaces." No monk might eat or drink at
other than the regular hours; he might not go out at night, nor leave
the monastery without the abbot's permission. When on a journey, he
should receive only monastic hospitality, and, in any event, must never
accept wine or meat; nor might he eat outside the gates, unless it were
impossible for him to return home before sunset.
The vice of property was resisted to the utmost. Each monk received
from the Superior, in addition to his clothing, all necessary articles,
such as a handkerchief, a knife, a needle, a writing pencil and tablet.
Nothing was the monk's own; no brother possessed money; testaments were
forbidden; and those who violated the precepts were excommunicated, and
refused ecclesiastical burial.
Above all, the Clunisian monk must earn his bread with his hands. The
earth, whence his body came, and whither it should return, must support
him. This held good for long; but in later times, the monasteries
increased in size, manual labour naturally became specialized, and some
did little more than mend their clothes, wash their linen, clean and
grease their boots, and take their turn in the kitchen.
[Illustration: ·CLOCHER DE L'EAU BENITE
·CLUNY·]
"To speak truth," remarks Udalric, "the work which I saw done most
often was to free the beans of the leaves which retarded their growth,
to pluck the ill weeds from the garden, and sometimes to knead the
bread in the bake-house." Manual work, however, remained always part of
the strict rule. "Then will you be monks," said St. Benedict, "when you
live by the work of your hands, after the example of the holy preachers
of the monastic law." Bitter must it have been to Pierre le Vénérable,
the last of the great abbots, to have to write as he did of the growing
decadence:--"Idleness is the enemy of the soul: and do we not see the
greater part of the brothers ... both within and without the cloister,
in a state of absolute inactivity. How few are they who read, still
fewer they who write! Do not the greater number sleep, leaning against
the walls, or do they not waste their day from dawn to sunset in vain
and idle, or in what is yet worse, malicious conversation." But, in
the earlier years of Cluny, the rule was not easily broken, nor broken
with impunity. A continuous surveillance, day and night, was exercised
so regularly, by monks called "circateurs," that scarcely the least
fault could be committed unseen, and punishment, inflicted in grave
cases by the abbot himself, followed hard upon the offence. Sometimes
the delinquent was condemned to solitary confinement, or to stand,
all day long, at the door of the church; sometimes he was flogged, in
full chapter, by his brother monks, or, if the fault had been publicly
committed, the whipping was administered before all the people. It
was customary, also, to expose certain delinquents before the door of
the basilica, at the hour of mass, while one of the servants of the
abbey announced the cause of his penance to the worshippers as they
entered. The sinner was denied all participation in the solemnities and
in Christian communion; he was denied the kiss also. If he revolted
against his punishment, the outraged monks would drag him voluntarily
to a fearful dungeon, without door or window, into which he must
descend by a ladder.
And over all their day of toil, of silence, of fasting, and of prayer,
hung a shadow, dark as those that fell from the vaulted nave, or
lingered at sunset in the cool cloister galleries--the shadow of
ever-present death. When a brother died, each monk, with his own hand,
must sew stitches in the winding-sheet, whose clinging folds should
recall vividly to his spirit that all flesh is as grass, and that the
way of life is the way of death.
The monks' day was divided between work, prayer, and psalmody; the
latter sub-divided into the office and the mass, thus fulfilling
literally the words of the psalmist;[86] "Seven times in the day have
I celebrated Thy praises, and I rose in the middle of the night to
confess Thy Name."
The intervals for rest or sleep were short, and, during a part of the
year, the monks slept less than half the night. Udalric, the author of
the widely-circulated manual of the customs of Cluny, gives a vivid
picture of the discipline observed by the brothers during the "regular
hours," as they were called. At the first sound of the bell announcing
nocturnes, they sat up in bed, put on the frock without throwing
off the blankets, finished dressing without showing their legs, and
descended to the church. As it might well chance that one of them
would be overcome by sleep during the psalmody or prayer, a brother
was appointed to go the round of the choir, carrying a wooden lantern,
which he would hold under the eyes of any monk whom he believed to be
asleep. If he had made a mistake, and found that his brother was merely
wrapped in meditation, he would bow low before him by way of excusing
himself; if, on the contrary, the delinquent was really asleep, the
light would be held awhile, close to his eyes. This warning would be
repeated three times during the round, and if, at the third time, the
light did not awaken the sleeper, the lantern would be left at his
feet; and upon the somnolent monk, when he awoke, fell the duty of
doing the next round.
At the signal for matins, the monks would descend to the cloister, and
there wash their hands and faces, and comb themselves, returning to
the choir before the last stroke of the bell. There, whether they were
sitting or standing, the feet must be in line, and neither the long
sleeves, nor the skirt of the frock, must touch the ground.
With the addition of regular hours for reading and study, such, in
short, was the life led by the Clunisian monk, from the day of his
entry, until the tolling of bells, and the coming of the brothers with
cross, candles, and incense, announced that one more devotee had gone
to receive--let us hope--the reward of a life of self-sacrifice.
One might be pardoned for supposing that an existence such as this we
have outlined, would have been austere enough to satisfy even the most
rigorous ascetics of the time. But it was not so. To old Pierre Damien,
for example, when he rested awhile at Cluny, to nurse in good company
his aged back, scarred by the strokes of iron rods, the rule seemed
almost voluptuous. He spoke about it to Abbot Hugh.
"If you could abstain for two days more in the week from using fat in
your victuals, you, who are so perfect in other points, would, in the
matter of mortification, be in no way behind the anchorites."
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ABBEY GATEWAY·-CLUNY·]
The wary Abbot replied with a smile:--
"Before attempting, well-beloved father, to augment our merits by
augmenting our abstinence, try yourself to bear, for eight days, the
burden of our rule; and then judge whether we can add aught to our
austerities."
The brave old ascetic accepted the challenge, and at the end of eight
days decided that things might well remain as they were.[87] The rule
of Cluny was more severe than his own.
Under the government of St. Hugues, grown old and gray, Cluny had
reached the summit of worldly power, and of moral influence; with him,
her best days passed. On the 29th April, 1109, the priests, loudly
lamenting, were gathered round the body of their dead saint. Clothed
in his sacerdotal robes, he lay, for three days, in the church, and a
great crowd of lords and ladies, of bourgeois, woodsmen, labourers from
field and vineyard, women and children, came to kiss his feet, and lift
his raiment to their lips. On the day before, Bernard de Varennes heard
Saint Denis the Areopagite announce to him, in a vision, that, if he
wished to see again, for the last time, his friend and abbot, Hugues of
Cluny, he must haste to the dying man. Bernard obeyed the summons, but,
on his arrival, fell sick and remained three days in a lethargy. When
he came to himself, he said to the monks around him, "Unhappy man that
I am. I had come to salute my abbot, and he is dead before the grace is
granted me. But what I might not see with the eyes of the body, I saw
with the eyes of the spirit. I saw the dwellers in Heaven descend among
men, and the Mother of God, brighter than the morning star, standing in
the midst of the monks around the death-bed of Seigneur Hugues. At the
moment of the passing of his soul, spirits, armed with arrows, flew to
seize upon it, but the Mother of Mercy, raising her hand, struck them
with terror, and put them to flight, as the wind scatters the autumn
leaves. Martin, the pearl of priests, Benedict the sun of abbots,
at the head of the heavenly cohorts, bore the soul of Hugues into a
fair and fertile vineyard, that there it might rest awhile. Hugues,
perceiving me in this place, addressed me thus: 'Eat, dear friend,
these bunches of white grapes, eat and rest with me awhile; not for
long am I here. When my feet are freed from the swelling and the dust
of a long earthly pilgrimage, I shall pass into the home that God hath
prepared for me throughout eternity. Recommend to Pons, my successor,
to treasure humility and innocence, to forget his own needs for those
of others, and to follow my example of monastic rule.'"
Pons did not follow Hugues' example of monastic rule. When his vanity,
weakness, and love of pomp had alienated a portion of his following, he
resigned his abbacy and retired. His successor, Hugues II. held office
only a few months, when the task of presiding over the destinies of
Cluny passed to Pierre le Vénérable, the last of the great abbots, a
name that already links us in memory with him whose destiny it was,
by a return to simplicity, as a source of strength, to rival, and,
for a time, to exceed the power of Cluny. I speak of St. Bernard, the
champion of the Cistercian order. We shall meet him again at Citeaux
and elsewhere.
It is probable that St. Hugues himself, by acquiring such great wealth
for the abbey, prepared its ultimate downfall. Be that as it may,
though the rhyming Burgundian proverb,
"En tous pays ou le vent vente
L'Abbaye le Cluny a rente,"
may not have been coined until a later century, it is certain that
Cluny was fast acquiring wealth, and succumbing to a luxury utterly
alien to the Spirit of Him Whose benediction was upon the poor and the
humble. It was natural that the order, following the fashion of the
age, should wish to house worthily the many priceless relics brought
back by pious, though too credulous, crusaders from the Holy Land, and
the members of the Clunisian school of art soon learned to vie with one
another in fashioning châsses for the miraculous rod with which Moses
brought forth water in the desert, or for the stone from Mount Sinai
on which he kneeled when he received from God the table of the law, or
for the alabaster vase from which Mary Magdalen anointed the Saviour's
Feet.[88]
As the treasures grew in number, the skill of the artificers, and their
passion for exercising it increased simultaneously, until, at last, the
story of the treasures of Cluny, in the monastic inventories, is like
a tale from the "Thousand and one Nights," told in gold and jewels.
When there were no more relics to work for, the monks turned to what
was next to hand, and soon, from the crosses, from the pastoral baton,
from the candelabra of gold and silver, of crystal and ivory, from the
draped altars, from the pontifical mitres, even, diamonds and rubies
flashed, opals sparkled with their changing rays, while, sometimes, a
softly-shining pearl dropped from the Abbot's sandal, as he stepped
into the blaze of light in which the great altar was bathed.
Not less gorgeous were the sacerdotal robes, woven always of the most
precious stuffs, and in the choicest colours, and worked, on body and
sleeves, with an infinite number of designs, lions and griffons, kings
and dragons, angels, eagles, leopards and serpents, crosses, arms,
lilies, and roses. All the rich and varied symbolism of the times shone
out from the robes of Cluny. Nor were the altars, statues, and tombs
less gorgeous. The magnificent châsse of St. Hugues was of precious
wood, entirely covered with silver, the reliefs representing, in gold,
the mysteries of the Life and Death of the Saviour.
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