CHAPTER XVI

Footnotes:[179]The Carte-Taride marks it incorrectly as being outside the wood, whereas it is within it.

Footnotes:

[179]The Carte-Taride marks it incorrectly as being outside the wood, whereas it is within it.

Heading, chapter XVI; Vine Ornament

Ever since we left Beaune, my wife has been endeavouring, at frequent intervals, to extract from me an unconditional promise that, one day, we will go to live there. "It would be lovely," she says, "to live close to the Hôtel Dieu, and to watch the vines, for a whole summer, ripening on the Côte d'Or." So it would.

Certainly, if we are to live in France, we might do worse than choose this little rampart-girdled town, that, though on the main line of the P.L.M., has retained so much of its mediæval charm, and still has houses to show you of every century from the thirteenth onwards.

Beaune has acachet, and surprises all its own. Go where you may, you will find them, or they will find you. Stand in the little Rue de l'Enfer, not happily named, and look up towards the church. Along a white wall, that the sun has fretted with a lace-work of leafy shadow, runs a frieze of ivy, below a rich cornice of blossoming lilac. Within that garden are glimpses of ancient mottled walls, seen through green branches, whose wavy lines lead up to the tower, crowned by the lovely dome and lantern of Notre Dame.

Or stand beneath the exquisite, gothic porch of that same church, and look through its soft, brown shadowy arches to the white walls and flowery gardens of the old houses beside it; or across the place, to where the warm, purple shadows lie upon the rosy oriel and tourelle of the Maison du Colombier.

Beaune; Belfry of the Hospice de la Charité

There are good things, too, in the centre of the town—the Flemish belfry in the Place Monge; ancient houses in the Rue de Lorraine; and especially a glimpse of a fifteenth century, pink-washed corner shop, topped by the graceful lantern of the Hospice de la Charité.

Here we are back at Notre Dame, one of the finest churches in Burgundy, but so hemmed in by other buildings that it is not seen to advantage, except from the west side, at a point in the street beyond the Colombier. There only do you get the whole building and the proportions of the tower in good perspective. The view from the east end, however, is presentable. The apsidal chapels, the ambulatory and lofty choir, leading the eye upward, stage by stage, to the glorious dome tiled in red, green, and yellow, give a quite Burgundian effect of satisfying solidity, and of colouring that, though, on the whole, rather cold, is harmonious in certain lights.

As usual, the heavy flying buttresses, that fail to fly, are an architectural defect.

The gem of the exterior is the early thirteenth-century, triple, open-aisled porch, of two bays, with gloriously carved panelled doors of the fifteenth century. For grace and harmony of proportion this porch is one of the best in France. It recalls that most successful of all façades, Peterborough Cathedral.

The interior has all the features of twelfth-century Burgundian romanesque—an almost barrel-vaulted nave, and aisle, with slightly stilted horseshoe arches, and quadripartite vaulting, groined, without ribs. Some of the cushion capitals are plain, some carved, and the vaulting shafts throughout, except in the transept, take the ordinary Burgundian form of fluted pilasters.

Each bay of the triforium is divided, as usual, into three round-headed arches—of which two are blind and the centre one pierced—with fluted, or zig-zagged pilasters between them. In the chapel of St. Léger are two quite interesting fifteenth century frescoes of the raising of Lazarus, and the stoning of Stephen—both, probably, by a painter of the Flemish school. The former picture, though mutilated and faded, is still quite realistic; too much so, in a sense; for the bystanders are so interested in the miracle that they have elbowed the Christ quite to one side of the picture. Martha is prominent, in the conventional attitude, with her handkerchief to her nose. "Jam Foetet."

Beaune; Porch of Notre DamePORCH OF EGLISE NOTRE DAME—BEAUNEFacing page 232

PORCH OF EGLISE NOTRE DAME—BEAUNE

Facing page 232

But Notre Dame, though good, is not the best of Beaune. The church must yield to the Hôtel Dieu. History, or, at any rate, my history, does not relate how Nicholas Rolin, the Chancellor of Philippe le Bon, came to erect at a little fifth-rate town, such as is Beaune, a hospital unrivalled in all France; yet such is the fact. I do not even know why he built one at all, unless old Louis XI.'s mot be true—that he had "made enough poor to necessitate building a hospital to keep them in." But, there it is, an eighth wonder of the world; beautiful, from the crest on the gable to the knocker on the door.

This Hôtel Dieu, seen on a grey day or a blue one, is absolutely harmonious and satisfying. Whether you follow the length of soft, yellow, brown wall, the blue-grey expanse of the high-pitched roof, the delicate flêche, or the starry, gabled hood over the entrance, your eye feasts upon a poem in form and colour; you feel at once the intense delight of looking upon a work of art that could not have been better done. But you will stay longest before the porch, the most daring and most completely successful that exists.

The entrance is beneath a flattened arch, through a panelled door with a beautiful forged-iron knocker and alms-box; all protected by a glorious three-gabled hood, crocketed and pinnacled, and built into the main wall, from which it projects without visible support. The pendants have angels, bearing shields, with the arms of Nicholas Rolin and his wife. The hood is slated in grey, as is the roof, and the blue vault beneath is starred with golden stars, symbolizing the little heaven within. Upon the blue tympanum is written in gold letters, "Hostel Dieu, 1443." All these blues and golds harmonise perfectly with the great crested roof, whether in its more sombre, grey mood, or when the richer purples come leaping from it at the call of the sun, to play about the sides of the dormers, or among the shadows of the flagged pinnacles above.

The exterior remains almost unchanged from the time of Nicholas Rolin, when the poor of Beaune first gathered round the stone benches, and beneath the verandah,[180]to receive their dole of five hundred kilos of bread that are still distributed once a year to the needy of the district.

Following a white-winged sister, we passed into the courtyard, to find ourselves in a great, galleried building, of the late Flemish type, with a many-coloured linoleum roof, elaborate pinnacled gables, and, in one corner, a well in the forged ironwork which the Flamands of that time worked with unrivalled skill.

There was only one jarring note—the garish brown colour of the woodwork, laid on, the guide told me, five years ago. It is a thousand pities; for had the oak been merely oiled, or painted a dark brown, or matched with one of the tints in the roof, many visitors would be spared a shock, and I doubt not that the convalescence of certain patients would be considerably accelerated. Yet, in spite of garish paint, we can echo Viollet-le-Duc's sentiment, that it is worth while to be ill at Beaune.

This abode of peace takes you straight back to the fifteenth century, with its beauties all intact, and only its horrors mitigated. Nothing here has changed—from the costumes of the white angels who flit noiselessly through the kitchens and wards, to the tapestry covers laid upon the curtained, oak beds, with the oak chairs beside them. Even the pewter vessels are identical with those in use at the founding of the hospital.

The chapel, too, opening from one of the wards, is a good place to pray in. Through the glorious windows—copies of the original, resplendent with figures and devices—the warm colour streams down upon the altar, where of old was set up Roger Van der Weyden's magnificent Last Judgment; now in the musée above. On great days the volets were drawn back, and the picture exposed; magnificent red tapestries were laid upon the beds, and all was ordered for the best in this little kingdom-of-heaven upon earth.

Here Guigonne de Salins, the great Chancellor's wife, is laid; and her arms (the castle) and his (the key) with his device, "Seulesix-pointed star" (Only Star), are scattered broadcast. No less ubiquitous is her motto, The Bird on the Bough, signifying how lonely she was to be after her lord's death. Guigonne, no doubt, was sincere enough; but one cannot help remembering that the sentiments expressed in these devices were not always lived up to. Did not Rolin's own master, Philippe le Bon, for example, choose the words "Aultre n'Auray" as a chaste allusion to his conjugal devotion? yet we have Olivier de la Marche assuring us that his gracious master had "de bâtards et de bâtardes une moult belle compagnie."

Beaune; Courtyard of the Hôtel Dieu

But I am digressing. We must follow to the musée our guide, whose manner could not be more gentle, were we patients and not visitors,—reminded on the way, by the sight of polished floors and shining pots, that the cleanliness of this building moved a certain worthy Canon Papillon, in the 17th century, to remark, "Ineptiarum stultus est labor," which, freely rendered, means: "They are fools who waste soap."

The best thing in the musée—in fact, the only thing that one really goes there to see—is the Last Judgment of Roger Van der Weyden, which, in spite of the 19th century restoration, remains a splendid example of Flemish art, still very Gothic in treatment, and full of the sadness of decline. The work is executed with all the microscopic accuracy of detail characteristic of the school. There is fine realism, and individual treatment; but no breakaway from tradition: all the figures are consciously attitudinizing, and one feels that the painter is making a last desperate effort to enforce belief in an outworn dogma. The welter of human beings, bursting out from their graves, dragging one another, and being dragged, by hair and limbs, pell-mell down into hell; this biting of fingers, and pulling of ears till they bleed, does not convince. Such a subject was well suited to the primitives of the Romanesque and early Gothic periods, but seems hopelessly archaic for a painter born within hail of the Renaissance. Nevertheless, though, in spite of its horrors, and its unhappy colouring, the picture, as you linger before it, grows on you, it is with a sigh of relief that you turn to its more successful part, the portraits of the donors, magnificent in their energy and expression. Here you have an opportunity to judge concerning the probability of Louis XI.'s alleged slander upon Nicholas Rolin. Did he, or did he not, grind the faces of the poor? My wife says unhesitatingly, "He did"; and, looking at the significant scarlet angel above his head—suggestive of a red aura—I decline to contradict a lady. His is, indeed, a disinheriting countenance. But Guigonne, his seule étoile, is of a different stamp. Piety exudes from her. As the guide somewhat bluntly put it, "She was as good as she was ugly"—a speech which no lady, living or dead, would ever forgive.

End of chapter XVI; Star Ornament

Footnotes:[180]This verandah or hood has disappeared. It is shown on a model of the hospital to be seen in the musée.

Footnotes:

[180]This verandah or hood has disappeared. It is shown on a model of the hospital to be seen in the musée.

Heading, chapter XVII; Saint Martin and Saint Margaret

Leaving my wife to run the gauntlet of the gamins of Beaune, while she sketched the starry hood and the porch of Notre Dame, we fared forth on our bicycles, towards the ancient village of Bouilland, fifteen kilometres away, to which I received my first call when I happened upon the legend of its Abbey.

Bouilland lies beyond Savigny, in the heart of the valley of the Bouxaise, a tributary of the Saône, by a road so lonely that, between Savigny and our destination we met only one individual—and he was sitting in a cart, so fast asleep that, though we longed to do so, we had not the heart to wake him.

Saint Marguerite lies high up in a hollow of the rocky hills, on the edge of the Forêt au Maitre—one of the most deserted spots in all Christendom. What was once a glorious building, with a Romanesque nave and a lovely, late thirteenth-century transept and apse, lightened with carved foliage, capitals, and graceful, slender shafts, is now a roofless ruin. Wild fruit trees grow in the transepts; the floor of the nave is paved with a litter of mossy stones, beneath which the ivy and the brambles take root; cowslips and purple violets jewel the apse with delights beyond the art of even Gothic sculptors; through the roofless arches you look up at the whispering forest-pines. Westward of the Abbey, beside the deserted adjunct buildings, is a grassy terrace, stone-walled, shaded by blossoming fruit trees. From this fresh, green garden you can look, beyond the darkness of the ancient gateway,into the flaming yellow of a field of "Mustard," the symbol of a living world beyond. Sit beside me on the old stone wall, and hear the legend of Saint Marguerite.

In days of yore, there lived in the Castle of Vergy, a maiden, beautiful and pure as an angel; she was named Marguerite.

Many young suitors of noble birth desired her hand: one, in particular, was more handsome than all the others; but his conversation was unchaste, and treachery lurked in his glance and in his smile.

Marguerite would never listen to his profane addresses; she repulsed him, saying: "Speak not to me of earthly love; to me, who have chosen, for all eternity, Jesus, the most loving and tender of husbands."

At the name of Jesus, the face of the handsome youth grew pale; and he turned away.

The holy maid, sometimes followed by one of her companions, went to speak of God and of heavenly things, with an old hermit, who lived in the depths of a neighbouring forest.

One evening, when she was returning from one of these visits, and, mounted on her mule, was crossing the great wood, she perceived the page awaiting her at a bend of the path. Swiftly she turned the animal, and, in her hasty flight, left her veil hanging on the branches of a hawthorn bush.

Her steed moved swiftly; but swifter still follows the treacherous youth; he is lighter than the wind; scarcely do the grasses bend beneath his feet.

But—crowning misfortune—the poor girl, instead of following the broad valley way, as her companion has done, turns into a side path that is soon barred by a great rampart of rocks.

All is over; she must fall a victim to her pursuer.... Already he stretches out his arms to seize her. As his hands, quivering with passion, touch the young girl, he breaks into a peal of infernal laughter that resounds through the whole valley.

Then Marguerite remembers her betrothed in Heaven. She calls upon Him for aid; she murmurs His name, and arms herself with His sign.

At the name of Jesus, spoken with that faith which removes mountains, the rock opens before her, and the mule carries the Christian maid to safety.

But the false page, a demon in disguise, fell down into a fiery gulf that opened suddenly beneath his feet. Afterwards, when the earth had closed again over the spot, the peasants found, lying upon the wayside grass, a girdle of white silk, the symbol of Marguerite's purity and innocence.

Ruins of St. Margaret's Abbey

The maid of Vergy reined in her mule before a fountain, a few paces from the parted rock. She dismounted, and, prostrating herself, she consecrated to the Lord her virginity that had been so miraculously preserved.

In a later year, with the dowry left her by her father, she built, on this spot, a monastery, to which she gave the name of Ste. Marguerite, her patron saint, as a song of thanksgiving in praise of her Heavenly Spouse.

Philippe Pot being a name to conjure with in Burgundy, we took the first opportunity to make acquaintance with his eagle's nest, the Roche-Pot. The road from Beaune skirts the Côte d'Or, as far as Pommard, and climbs, between the vineyards, into the hills. These vineyards, in which are produced some of the choicest vines of the district, are surrounded each with a stone wall and gateway, with the name of thecloswritten on it—"Clos des Chênes," "Clos des Antres," etc. As you rise, there opens out a lovely view over the fruitful plain of Burgundy, a golden sea of vines. Below us, ahead, the dark roofs and spires of Meursault rise from the trees, and beyond them, shining in a blue mist, the widening southern hills of the Côte d'Or.

About half a mile from Meursault, the road, turning due west, plunges down into the valley of the Clous, between the hills, rock-clad at their summits, vine-clad below. Thence the way undulates past Auxey-le-Grand and Melin, until suddenly you sight, above the trees, the towers of Rochepot perched upon its crag. Leaving my wife to sketch, I made my way up through the dilapidated village, and soon found myself crossing the drawbridge of a mediæval castle, glowing as brightly with gold and colour, and with blazoned coats of arms, as on the day when it was first built. Here were round towers, machicolated battlements, a pepper-pot roof, with not a stone or tile of them disordered. I had expected a ruin—a lizards' playground; yet here before my eyes was Philippe Pot's own legend, "TANT L VAUT," as fresh as painter and gilder could make it.

"Whose is this castle?" I asked of the harmless, necessary guide, who by now had put in an appearance, and was assuring some gaping visitors that Philippe was called Pot because he always carried a pot about with him—a paint pot, judging by the condition of his castle.

"This is M. Carnot's castle, Monsieur, the eldest son of the late President. He has already spent millions in restoration, and he is about to convert into a terrace the remains of the 11th century Château, up there." He pointed to a fine, rounded-headed window, of two lights, high above us on the rock. While we were being hurried round this fortress of all the centuries, I fell to thinking of Philippe Pot, of his home, and his legend.

La Rochepot

Begun in the thirteenth century, by Alexandre de Bourgogne, Prince de Morée, the castle was fortified in the early fifteenth by René Pot,[181]whose son Philippe[182]was the only man of them all to leave it a popular name.

In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Sultan, Mahomet II., was threatening Constantinople, then in the hands of Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium, who appealed to Pope Nicholas V. for help against the Islamite invasion. To young Philippe Pot, nearly twenty-five years of age, the bravest, most handsome, and most eloquent chevalier of his day, and a poet withal—a crusade was as the candle to the moth. Never might come such another opportunity to win his spurs away from home. So he wrote to his fiancée, the richest and loveliest heiress of all Burgundy, Jeanne, daughter of Pierre de Baufremont, Comte de Charny, great chamberlain of Philippe le Bon.

"Gentille Damoiselle, I am setting forth to Constantinople; I wish before our bridal to render myself worthy of you and of your valiant father." Before dawn, on an August morning, in the year 1452, he left Rochepot, and rode to Notre Dame de Dijon, where he met four hundred other young knights sworn to follow his lead. There they heard Mass before the altar of the Virgin, and bespoke her blessing on their banner, that bore her picture, and the device: "Notre Dame de Bon Espoir, soyez-nous en aide." Then they rode eastward through the streets of Dijon. "Honneur aux preux!" shouted the crowds; "Honneur aux chevaliers de Notre Dame!"[183]

We have no time to follow all the adventures of our chevalier in the land of Islam—how with his own hand, he slew and slew, until the bravest of the Saracens learned to fear the prowess of the "Chevalier de la Mort"; how, at last, he was captured by the Turks, before Constantinople, imprisoned, flogged, almost to death, because he would not become the Sultan's man, nor bow to the name of the Prophet—how he consoled himself in prison by writing verses to the Lady Virgin to whom he was vowed.

Beaune: Porch of the Hôtel-DieuPORCH OF HOTEL DIEU—BEAUNEFacing page 242

PORCH OF HOTEL DIEU—BEAUNE

Facing page 242

"Sauve-moi, Dame glorieuse,De la prison tant rigoureuse,Où l'on ne voit que cruauté;Garde-moi d'y être bouté,Car à chacun tu es piteuse,Mère de Dieu."[184]

His prayer was answered. For, before long, the Sultan, wishing to make an end of his prisoner, brought him one day into the arena, and caused to be handed to him, for his only weapon, a light scimitar, that was but a toy compared with the young chevalier's mighty sword, beneath whose deadly strokes so many Turks had already fallen. Then was loosed upon him, thus armed, a magnificent lion, that had already been the death of many prisoner knights.

"This is no combat," murmured the assembled thousands, one to another, "'Tis an execution—already the old lion has slain his hundreds—and he has eaten nothing these three days," Meanwhile the adversaries stood face to face. With two great bounds the lion is upon his man; but, as he crouches for the third spring, the hero makes a swift movement; the scimitar flashes, falls upon the animal's front paws. Roaring with pain and fury, the beast rolls upon his back, and licks the stumps of his wounded legs. Again, like lightning, the scimitar plays. In a moment the lion's tongue is lying at the feet of the Sultan. With a last effort the wounded beast rises, open-mouthed. Philippe, seizing his opportunity, plunges the blade down the ravening throat. The great lion falls dead. Loud rings the applause of the crowd, as the hero, waving aloft his smoking weapon, cries, "Gloire à Notre Dame. Tant elle vaut!"

The Sultan, who loved courage first and last, descended into the arena, hung a rich chain about his prisoner's neck, and said: "Such valour deserves freedom. Return to your lady, and to your home."

So the victorious Philippe reached France again, and, in poor man's guise, begging his bread by the way, came to Rochepot, on the day following the Fête des Trépassés, the great Autumn festival that the Catholic church has appointed in celebration of the dead. There he found the castle all hung with black, and a great company mourning a living man's death. So he made himself known, and sorrow changed into exceeding great joy.

On the 11th November, 1453, through the fresh warm air of a St. Martin's summer, a brilliant cortège issues from the Ducal Palace at Dijon, and turns towards the church of Notre Dame. At their head rides Philippe le Bon, crowned with the crown of Burgundy, and wearing, about his neck and breast, the collar of the Golden Fleece, and a purple mantle, lined with ermine. He is leading by the arm a slim girl, veiled, and clothed in white. Behind them follows a young chevalier, in shining armour, with a lion's skin clasped upon his shoulder. 'Tis Philippe Pot; his feet still bleeding from the stones of the pilgrim way. In one hand he carries a candle, the other arm supports the Duchess of Burgundy, splendid in a robe of cloth of gold. Beside them walk two heralds-at-arms, one bearing a scimitar, the other a veiled picture. From balcony and window the people acclaim their passage: "Noel! Noel!"

They enter Notre Dame—its walls splendid with tapestries of Arras—and kneel in the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon-Espoir. Philippe lights his candle, and places it upon the altar. The picture is uncovered, and hung before the black virgin. It shows the knight, under his Lady's protection, slaying the lion in the arena. Below are written the words—

"Tant L vaut et a valuA celui qui a recouruA celle pour qui dit ce motLe suppliant Philippe PotQui de tout mal l'a secouruTANT L VAUT."[185]

Tomb of Philippe Pot

Having accomplished his vow, the knight puts on his spurs. The Duke of Burgundy approaches, embraces him, gives him the collar and mantle of the Toison d'Or. The fiancée is led forward. Lover and lady join hands, and—the due ceremonies accomplished—Philippe and his bride leave the church.

"Noel! Noel!" shout the people. "Honneur au chevalier de Notre Dame!"

Now you know why you may read, in letters of gold, upon the walls and windows of Philippe's castles—at Rochepot, at Château-neuf, and at others—that device—TANT L VAUT.[186]

On our way home from Rochepot, we halted for a rest at Auxey le Grand, and dropped into an inn, where we found two workmen hobnobbing over a bottle of red wine. One of them—the listener—was just an ordinary workman; common, base, and popular, as Pistol would have said. His companion, however, was a man of mark—a handsome, bronzed rascal, whose fiercely curled moustache and Paderewski hair, well set off by enormously baggy corduroys, a scarlet belt, and a blue shirt, suggested the merry bandit of an Elizabethan drama. Our curiosity being aroused, we addressed the brigand, who was not slow to reveal his identity. He was one François Paulin, a vine-dresser, and no brigand, as he proved by the production of a greasy document, stating that "The administrative council of the Société Vigneronne of the arrondissement of Beaune certifies that Monsieur Paulin (François) successfully passed the examinations of March 24th, 1889, and is skilled in pruning (apte à greffer) the vine, and in teaching that operation." Vines and vineyards naturally became our topic.

"Ah!" said the brigand; "What a season we have had. Nothing but rain and cold, cold and rain! It is just ruin for us poor workmen." He drained his glass, and put it down, with a tense Gallic movement of the arm. He failed, somehow, to convey the idea that he was ruined. Such are the triumphs of personality.

"Did the crop fail utterly hereabouts?" I asked.

"Utterly, Monsieur," said Mathilde Duhesme, the innkeeper's daughter, as she brought us our coffee. "Not a bunch of grapes."

Taking his Ease

Mathilde was a perfectly charming French girl, of the type that you will come upon, here and there, even in the remotest part of that country. England breeds few such women, in her station of life. That easy, graceful manner, and natural amiability and dignity are found here—when they are found at all—only among the educated or the high-born.

"Yes, yes; mon Dieu, you have come in the wrong year for the vines," said the brigand, thumping the table. "You should have chosen a good season. Then lots of visitors come. They come in carts, full ofbelles angeswith gentlemen standing behind in top-hats. And they all take photographs. This very day we ought to have been in full vendange."

His pride would have been solely hurt, had he guessed how little his description allured us.

"Let's drink to a full vendange," said I. Mathilde ran off for another bottle.

"What do you earn, you vignerons, in a good year?"

"Four francs, and a litre of wine, per man, per day. And it is worth it; for we make good stuff here on the hillside, though this village of Auxey is the end of it. Yes, good wines!"

"Tell me more about them," I said.

"The best wines of all are called Aligote, and the second-best—still very good—are called Pinot. The boite ordinaire that grows away there in the plain, is called Gamay. When the Gamay is not red enough, we put it into some Otellot; that's as black as your hat, and colours the rest up beautifully. Do you drink much wine in your country, Monsieur?"

"No, only the rich drink wine in our country. The poor never taste it. They drink mostly beer!"

"Sapristi!"

It was now our turn to be questioned. Mathilde, in particular, was very much interested in my wife's appearance and clothes. Were we married? Were we married in church? Why were we travelling? Were the English peasantry poor, and were they provident?

"More poor than provident," we said.

"Ah! now; the French poor are provident. They kill one pig a year, and lose not a hair of it. First comes the bacon; the fat is used for preparing meat; the blood for pudding; the entrails for sausages. It lasts from winter to winter—ah, Madame is making a picture!"

Madame was sketching the brigand.

"I shall put you into our book," said she. The brigand beamed approval. Five minutes later my wife thoughtlessly gave him the sketch. He tried not to look hurt—he was not, then, to go into the book, after all. Her woman's readiness saved the situation.

"I never forget what I have once drawn," she said.

"Vous y serez quand même." He was quite pacified.

Then we left the men over their wine, while Mathilde took us the round of the church and village. She certainly was a charming person. I am not so sure that we shall live at Beaune after all.

Lest we should entirely forget the Roman occupation that was so much in our minds at Autun, we decided to make a pilgrimage to Cussy, a village due west of Beaune, where the Romans have set up a column, in memory of an event, or of a person, unknown. If a motor car be not available, you can best get there by taking the steam tramway, between Beaune and Arnay-le-Duc, as far as Lusigny; thence by bicycle, or as you will. The journey is worth making, for the sake of the climb you get through the gorge of Nantoux, and up the valley of Mavilly, where the train mounts, by a series of steep zig-zags, into the heart of the Côte d'Or. The view that opens out is quite Swiss in quality and magnificence. You look from the summit of a gigantic devil's cauldron, down rocky steeps, shaped like cathedral organ-pipes, whose eerie mountain music cheers the vignerons at their work below. All this great expanse of brown, cliff-bound upland, dappled in spring-time with blossoming fruit trees, is curiously chequered by dark hedges and whiteserpentine roads. Stage by stage the land falls away from you, until all detail is lost, and far away, over range after range of shining hills, the boundless plains of lower Burgundy merge imperceptibly into the sky.

So the train puffs up to the col, then rattles down into the quaint village of Lusigny. The road to Cussy climbs the opposite hill for two kilometres or so, before switchbacking through the village of Montceau to this lovely spot that the Romans, or Gallo-Romans, have so chosen to honour.

Not a human being could we discover in all Cussy. Some destroying angel, I thought, must have passed over, leaving only chickens alive, and, by oversight, one old woman, of whose close-fitting, white cap we caught a glimpse through an open window.

But my wife would not accept that solution.

"No; there has been no destroying angel here. There has just been a most wicked old witch, who, in revenge for some insult, has changed all the villagers into ducks and hens. Let's speak to them. I'm sure they'll answer."

She addressed a lanky, yellow hen, that had left scratching, to watch us. Poised on one leg it stood, with its head bent inquiringly.

"Please, Mrs. Hen; can you tell me the way to the colonne?"—only, of course, it being a French hen—if it was really a hen at all—she spoke to it in French. The hen moved its head to the other side.

"La colonne, Madame, est là bas, dans la prairie."

My wife danced for joy. Itwasa talking hen. The people were really bewitched! "How lovely!" But I knew all the time that she was wrong. The hen had not spoken—not a word. No such luck. It was that dark girl, who had been watching us from the shed by the house. So we just thanked her, for politeness sake, and walked sadly down the hill towards the Colonne. I looked round. The hen was scratching again.

We found the Colonne at last—a fine one, of the composite Corinthian style, its shaft beautifully ornamented with the favourite Roman leaf pattern. Round the base are eight statues in relief. Every antiquary in the kingdom has puzzled his brains over the motif of this column; and, except Courtepée, who says that "selon toute apparence c'est un monument sépulcral,"[187]and Lempereur and Montfauçon, who respectively believed it to be a Gaulish tomb, and a religious monument, all agree that it is in memory of a great victory.

But what victory? One has said that it commemorates the triumph of Cæsar over the Helvetiib.c.58; another that it was raised by the Emperor Claude, conqueror of the Goths; others believe it to have been erected by the Aedui to Maximian Hercules, after his victory over the Bagaudes in 286a.d.; finally the Burgundian, Girault, maintains that the monument remembers the victory of Silius over Sacrovir in 22a.d.[188]

Beyond expressing a doubt whether the column is of later date than 100a.d., and my conviction that it is triumphal not monumental, I venture no opinion upon any of these interesting theories. The antiquarians must settle that among themselves.

Meanwhile, let me inform the visitor who may find himself there in the autumn, that blackberries of a very choice quality grow in those prairies of the Colonne. I devoured them steadily, while the cows chewed their cud, and my wife sketched. She sketched; but she was not happy, as she usually is when thus occupied. A cruel wind came out of the north, and chilled her to the bone. She shivered; almost she wept. I, too, in spite of blackberries, was all comfortless within, and felt an uncanny sensation in the small of my back.

"Come along, Marjorie; you were quite right. Itwasthe hen who spoke. This place is bewitched." She cheered up.

"How lovely! I was so afraid witches had quite died out."

Then we went home in the gloaming, by the same plucky, cheerful, little train that puffed up the hills, and chattered tumbling down them. Opposite to us, in the dimly-lit, bare apartment, a fat farmer and a slim little sister of mercy slept, nodding in time to the jerks and vibrations that shook them from head to foot.

At the first station a wrinkled old woman, leaning out of the window, held so animated a debate with another on the platform, concerning peaches, that the company were constrained to chip in, as one may do in democratic France. Across the compartment came the laconic tones of an unseen listener.

"Twenty sous the livre, for peaches! eh! ma foi!"

Roman Column at Cussy

The train started, snorting violently; the old lady sat, firm-lipped, vigilantly on guard among her baskets of fruit. There arose around her a running commentary concerning peaches, and the ethics of trade therein.

"Moi, je vous dis"—"Eh bien moi je vous dis...."

"And half of them were rotten—the robber!" "Et quand même!" The old lady defended herself warmly.

"Rattle, rattle, rattle," commented the train, as it plunged downhill into the pitchy darkness of the valley of Nantoux. Still the passengers babbled. I grew weary of it, and my dreams went back to St. Martin, and the Christianity he planted there. Were they really honest, these chattering peasants? I thought of all the bad money palmed off on us in Burgundy—the Italian, Spanish, Belgian rubbish; any coin at all that your carelessness or trustfulness will accept. I thought of the lumps of lead unblushingly handed to me in the dark by a Paris cabman, on the steps of St. Lazare. I thought ... I yawned ... I joined the fat farmer and the slim nun in dreamland.

"Beaune Ville!" said the guard. And the drowsy company searched vacantly—every man for his pack.

During a hunt for Burgundian lore and legend among the libraries of Beaune, we found ourselves in conversation with a very entertaining bookseller, who described to us his boyhood holidays in the valley of Nantoux, and the legendary haunts of St. Martin.

"Many a summer afternoon," he said, "we spent climbing the valley hills, and playing upon the rock in which is St. Martin's well; and never once, not even in the hottest summers—and some were very hot—did we find the well dry. Always there was water in it. I cannot tell why. But it was so."

Next morning I mounted my bicycle, and went to see for myself, whether, after a week of cloudless October skies, I should find water in St. Martin's well.

Following the valley road as far as Pommard—every name hereabouts is borrowed unblushingly from a wine-list—you turn northward, and, always following the railway, come to the little, grey village of Nantoux, where the valley narrows, until you see, on your right, almost overhanging the road, a ridge of jagged, grey rock, crossing the sparsely-wooded hill. Just beforeit, on the Nantoux side, at a rather lower elevation, projects another shoulder of the rock. There is the Puits de St. Martin.

If you call a passer-by, or one of the workmen in the roadside quarries, he will show you the way, or take you up. It is not very easy to find without help. You pass the overhanging cliff, and take a narrow path, at the first bend of the road; not the wider one at the top of the slight ascent. I enlisted the services of a brawny, good-tempered, blue-trousered young quarryman, who landed me in a trice upon the terrace of weather-worn rock, known locally as the Saut (leap) de St. Martin. As I stood facing the gorge, my guide pointed to an oval-shaped, red-edged basin, not a foot in diameter, filled, to within a few inches of the surface, with clear water.

"That is St. Martin's Well, Monsieur; it is never empty. And see, here beside it is the mark of his horse's hoofs clear-cut in the rock. Those long marks there were made by the lash of his whip. There are more hoof-prints nearer the edge. He jumped clean across, in one bound. Ma foi! it needed jarrets!"

We looked down at the rough-hewn gashes in the limestone. Gold-green mosses, ivy, and warm, red rock plants were creeping out from every cranny of the terrace, where of old the people beset St. Martin. Elderberry bushes trembled in the breeze.

"Now look down the valley, Monsieur! There is Nantoux, towards the midi where the rains come from. No rain while the sky is clear there. Come now, and see the view up the valley."

Climbing to the topmost northward ridge, we found ourselves standing before a majestic amphitheatre of dusky, brown hills of the Côte d'Or, whose threatening, almost terrible, aspect suggested rather the wicked brew of a devil's cauldron, than the juice of the merry vines over which black spider workmen were bending. Threatening clouds, driven before a rising wind, darkened with flying shadows the narrow roads that serpented up to the lofty, lonely villages of Mavilly and Mandelot. A rumbling sound broke the silence. Below us we saw, writhing and snorting up the hill, like a legendary, fire-breathing demon, a black train, fouling with wreaths of purple smoke the lovely valley of Nantoux.

We returned to the Puits de St. Martin. Sitting on the very edge of the cliff, we looked across at the wooded hill where the Saint alit, and down the road, over the scrub, the vines, and the red quarries, still echoing the sound of the pick; over the winding row of silvery willows and dark alders that mark the valley stream bubbling towards the welcoming roofs of Beaune.

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