East of Paris

M >> Matilda Betham Edwards >> East of Paris

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How much better off was Moulins when, instead of four spires, she
gloried in two? Then, of a verity, the city would have presented as
noble a view as those of La Charite and Nevers from the Loire.

The ancient chateau now used as a prison and the Jacquemart or clock
tower are rare old bits of architecture, of themselves worth the journey
to Moulins. Jacquemart, it may be here explained, is a corruption of
Jacques Marques, the name of a famous Flemish clockmaker who lived in
the fourteenth century. Amongst other achievements of this artist is the
clock of Notre Dame, Dijon, as curious in its way as the still more
celebrated cock-crowing time-piece of Strasburg, and declared by
Froissart to be the wonder of Christendom. World-wide became the
reputation of Jacques Marques, and thus it came about that clock towers
generally were called after his masterpieces.

On my former hurried visit to Moulins, as was the case with my
predecessor, Arthur Young over a hundred years before, "other
occupations" had "driven even Maria and the poplar from my head, and
left me no room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci." In other words, I had
visited Rome without seeing the Pope.

On this second, and more leisurely visit, I had ample opportunity of
making up for the omission. Truly, the tomb of the last Montmorency
deserves a deliberate examination. It is one of the most sumptuous
monuments in the world and as a testimony of wifely devotion worthy to
be ranked with that of the Carian Queen to her lord, the Mausolus, whose
name is perpetuated in the word mausoleum.

French history cannot be at everyone's fingers' ends, so a word here
about the last of the Montmorencys, victim not so much of Richelieu's
policy as of a kinsman's meanness.

When the dashing, devil-me-care, hitherto fortunate Henri de
Montmorency, Marshal of France and Governor of Languedoc, plotted
against Richelieu or rather against the Royal supremacy, it was mainly
at the instigation of Gaston of Orleans. No more abject figure in French
annals than this unworthy son of the great Gascon, Henri IV., thus
portrayed by one whose tongue was as sharp as his sword: "Gaston of
Orleans," wrote Richelieu, "engaged in every enterprise because he had
not the will to resist persuasion, dishonourably drawing back from want
of courage to support his associates."

In the conspiracy of Montmorency, Gaston had played the part of
instigator, leaving the other to his fate as soon as the situation
became perilous. Every effort was made to save the duke, but in vain,
and at the age of thirty-seven he ended a brilliant, adventuresome life
on the scaffold at Toulouse.

One thought was uppermost in my mind when, a few years ago, I visited
that city, the only French city that welcomed the Inquisition. As I
stood in the elegant Capitol, musing on Montmorency's story, it occurred
to me how few of us realise what a respecter of persons was French law
under the ancien regime. Hard as seems the fate of this dashing young
duke, we must remember what would have been his punishment, but for his
titles of nobility. Death swift and sudden, in other words, by
decapitation, was the choicest prerogative of the nobility; tortures
before and after condemnation, breaking on the wheel, burning alive, and
other hideous ends, being the lot of the people.

This monument, so noteworthy alike from a historic and artistic point of
view, was saved from destruction by ready wit. When, in the ferment of
revolution, the iconoclastic spirit had got the upper hand, a citizen of
Moulins met a mob, bent on destroying what they supposed to be the tomb
of some hated grand seigneur, oppressor of the poor. Following the
rabble to the convent, no sooner did he see the mallet and hammer raised
than this worthy bourgeois, who himself deserves a monument, shouted,
"Hands off, citizens! Yonder reposes no aristocrat, but as good a
citizen as any man-jack of you, aye, who had the honour of losing his
head for having conspired against a King."

The crowd melted away without a word, the monument remains intact, and
generations have had bequeathed to them an example of what presence of
mind may effect, not with nerve, sinew, or bodily prowess, but with the
tongue. The Convent of the Visitation, to which Montmorency's widow
retired, and in the chapel of which she raised this memorial, is now
converted into a Lycee. It is a handsome building and was built by
Madame de Chantal, foundress of the Order of Visitadines, or nuns whose
office it was to visit the sick. This pious lady, the friend of St.
Francois de Sales, and herself canonised by Pope Benoit XIV., was the
bosom friend of Felicia Orsini, Montmorency's wife, who succeeded her as
Superior of the convent on her death.

But even an abbess, who had taken the veil, could not refuse visits,
some of which must have been as a second entering of iron into this
proud woman's soul. The coward Gaston, when passing through Moulins,
sought an interview. Richelieu, also, whose emissary received the
following message: "Tell your master, that my tears reply for me and
that I am his humble servant." Years after, Louis XIV. visited the once
beautiful and high-spirited Italian, now an aged abbess occupying a bare
cell and from his lips, despot and voluptuary though he was, might
always be expected the right word in the right place. "Madame," he said,
on taking leave, "we may learn something here. I need not ask you to
pray for the King."

[Illustration: TOMB OF MONTMORENCY, MOULINS.]

But interest in personalities is leading me from what I have set myself
to describe, namely, portraiture in marble. For this magnificent work
thus perpetuates the last of the Montmorencys and his wife as they were
when separated for ever in their prime. Imposing although the monument
is as a whole, these two figures in white marble, standing out against a
dark background, engross attention. The entire work covers the wall
behind the high altar, the sculptures being in pure white marble, the
framework in black. Dismissing the niched Mars and Hercules on the one
side, the allegorised Religion and Charity on the other, we study the
central figures both offering interest of quite different kind.

Why a dashing soldier and courtier of the Renaissance should be
represented in the guise of a Roman warrior, is an anomaly,
irreconcilable as that of pagan gods and the personification of
Christian attributes here placed vis-a-vis. Perhaps the grief-stricken
wife, who was, as it appears, of a highly romantic and adventuresome
turn, wished thus to commemorate the heroic qualities of her husband;
she might also have wished to dissociate him altogether from his own
time, a period of which, in her eyes, he would be the victim. Be this as
it may, the Roman undress and accoutrements do not harmonise with a
physiognomy essentially French and French of a given epoch. Whilst the
interest aroused by the Duchess's effigy is purely artistic, that of her
husband excites curiosity rather than admiration. The head is strangely
poised, much as if the artist intended to suggest the fact of
decapitation; obliquity of vision, a defect hereditary in the
Montmorencys, is also indicated, adding singularity. The half-recumbent
figure by the Duke's side, is of rare pathos and beauty. Almost angelic
in its resignation and religious fervour is the upturned face. The
drapery, too, shows classic grace and simplicity, as strongly contrasted
with the martial travesty opposite as are the two countenances in
expression.

Long will art-lovers linger before this monument raised by wifely
devotion, a monument, with so many another, perpetuating rather the
devotion of the survivor than claims on posterity of the dead. And let
not hasty travellers follow Arthur Young's example, jotting down, after
a visit to Moulins, "No room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci."

CHAPTER XII.

SOUVIGNY AND SENS.

A quarter of an hour by rail, an hour and a quarter by road, from
Moulins lies Souvigny, the cradle of the Bourbons, and as interesting
and delightful a little excursion as travellers can desire. On a glowing
September morning the scenery of the Allier looked its very best. Never
as long as I live shall I forget the beauty of that drive. Lightest,
loveliest cumuli floated athwart a pure, not too dazzlingly blue sky,
before us stretched avenue after avenue of poplar or plane trees,
veritable aisles of green letting in the azure, reminding me of the
famous Hobbema in our National Gallery. At many points the landscape
recalled our native land; but for the white oxen of the Morvan, we might
have fancied ourselves in Sussex or the Midlands. And cloudage, to
borrow an expression of Coleridge, suggested England, too. Clouds and
skies of the Midlands, none more poetic or pictorial throughout England
seemed here--those skies above the vast sweeps of undulating chalk
having a peculiar depth and tenderness, the clouds a marvellous
brilliance, transparence, and variety of form! So beautiful are those
cloud-pictures that we hardly needed beauty below. Here on the road to
Moulins we had both, the landscape, if not romantic or striking, being
rich in pastoral charm. Arthur Young, who looked at every bit of country
first and foremost from the farmer's point of view, was so much struck
with the neighbourhood of Moulins that, but for the Revolution, he would
very probably have become a French landowner. Just eight miles from the
city he visited in August, 1789, an estate was offered for sale by its
possessor, the Marquis de Goutte. "The finest climate in France, perhaps
in Europe," he wrote, "a beautiful and healthy country, excellent roads,
and navigation to Paris; wine, game, fish, and everything appears on the
table except the produce of the tropics; a good house, a fine garden,
with ready markets for every kind of produce; and, above all the rest,
three thousand acres of enclosed land, capable in a very little time of
being, without expense, quadrupled in its produce--altogether formed a
picture sufficient to tempt a man who had been twenty-five years in the
constant practice of husbandry adapted to the soil." The price of the
whole was only thirteen thousand and odd pounds, and the seller took
care to explain that "all seigneurial rights _haute justice_" (that is
to say, the privilege of hanging poachers, and others, at the chateau
gates), were included in the purchase money. But the country was already
in a ferment, and had our countryman struck a bargain then and there,
the last-named extras would have proved a dead letter. Seigneurial
rights were being abolished, or rather surrendered, at the very time
that this transaction was under consideration. As Arthur Young tells us,
he might as well have asked for an elephant at Moulins as for a
newspaper. No one knew, or apparently cared to know, what was taking
place in Paris. On asking his landlady for a newspaper, she replied she
had none, they were too dear. Whereupon the irate traveller wrote down
in his diary: "it is a great pity that there is not a camp of _brigands_
in your coffee room, Madame Bourgeau."

This part of France is not a region of prosperous peasant farmers, nor
is it a chess-board of tiny crops, the four or five acre freeholds of
small owners cut up into miniature fields. I had a long talk with a
countryman, and he informed me that, as in Arthur Young's time, the land
belongs to large owners, and is still, as in his time, cultivated by
_metayers_ on the half-profit system. At the present day, however,
another class has sprung up, that of tenant farmers on a considerable
scale; these, in their turn, sublet to peasants who give their labour
and with whom they divide the profits. Now, the half-profit system does
certainly answer elsewhere; in the Indre, for example, it has proved a
stepping-stone to the position of small capitalist. Here I learned, with
regret, that such is not the case. Land, even in the highly-favoured
Allier, cannot afford a triple revenue. In the Indre, on the contrary,
there is no intermediary between land-owners and _metayers_, the former
even selling small holdings to their labourers as soon as they have
saved a little capital.

"No; folks are not prosperous hereabouts," said my informant. "There are
no manufacturers at Moulins to enrich the people, and, what with high
rents and low prices, the half-profit system does not pay. If money is
made, it is by the tenant-farmer, not by the _metayer_." Curious and
instructive is the fact that the most Catholic and aristocratic centres
in France should often be the poorest; Moulins and the Allier afford but
one example out of many.

A beautiful drive of an hour and a quarter brought us within sight of
Souvigny. Towering above the bright landscape rose the Abbey Church, its
sober dun, red and brown hues, the quaint houses of similar colour
huddled around it, contrasted with the dazzling brightness of sky and
verdure.

Still more striking the contrast between the pile so majestic and
surroundings so homely! Here, as at La Charite, nothing is in keeping
with the mass of architecture, which, in its apogee, stood for the town
itself, what of town, indeed, there was being the merest accessory,
inevitable but unimposing entourage, growing up bit by bit. The present
population of Souvigny is something over three thousand, doubtless, as
in the case of La Charite, less than that of its former monastery and
dependencies. As we wind upwards, thus flanking the town and abbey, we
realise the superb position of this cradle and mausoleum of the
Bourbons. For Souvigny was both. Two thousand and odd years ago, here,
in the very heart of France, Adhemar, a brave soldier, nothing more,
became the first "Sire de Bourbon," Charles le Simple having given him
the fief of Bourbon as a reward for military services, its chief
establishing himself at Souvigny, and of course founding a religious
house. The Benedictine abbey, being enriched with the bones of two
saints, former Abbots of Cluny, became a famous pilgrimage. Adhemar's
successors transferred their seat of seigneurial government to Bourbon
l'Archimbault, but for centuries here they found their last
resting-place, and here they are commemorated in marble.

Indescribably picturesque is this whilom capital of the tiny feudal
kingdom; topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, coated of many colours are its
zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of its neighbour,
another having contrived to wedge itself between two of portlier bulk, a
third coolly taking possession of some inviting frontage, shutting out
its fellow's light, air, and sunshine; here, meeting the eye, breakneck
alley, there aerial terrace, and on all sides architectural reminders of
the Souvigny passed away, the Souvigny once so splendid and important,
now reduced to nothingness, as is, politically speaking, the so-called
House of France.

The Abbey Church, like that of La Charite, shows a mixture of many
styles, the general effect being magnificent in the extreme. Throughout
eastern France you find no more imposing facade. But, as observes M.
Emile Montegut, in the work before quoted, the church has been created
as Nature creates a soil, each age contributing its layer; Byzantine,
Roman, Gothic, each style is here seen, the latter in its purity.

Whilst the church itself stands taut and trim, a mass of sculptured
masonry in rich browns and reds, the interior shows melancholy
dilapidation. But, indeed, for the stern lessons of history, how sad
were the spectacle of these mutilated effigies in marble, exquisite
sculptures when fresh from the artist's hand, to-day torsos so hideously
hacked and hewn as hardly to look human! We cannot, however, forget that
the history of races, as of nations and individuals, is retributive.
When the 'Roi-Soleil,' that incarnation of the Bourbon spirit, was so
inflated with his own personality as to forbid the erection of any
statue throughout France but his own, he paved the way for the
revolutionary iconoclasts of a century later. It was simply a recurrence
of the old fatality, the inevitable moral, since History began.

For here, defaced to such a point that sculptures they can be called no
longer, are memorialised not only Louis XIV.'s ancestors, but his
offspring, namely, Louise Marie, one of his seven children by Madame de
Montespan, all, as we know, with those of Madame de la Valliere,
legitimised, ennobled and enriched. Pierre de Beaujeu, husband of the
great Anne of France, was also buried here. Anne it was who, on the
death of Louis XI., governed France with all her father's astuteness,
but without his cruelty, and pleasant and comforting it is to find that
Duke Pierre, her husband, seconded her in every way, himself remaining
in the background, acting to perfection the difficult role of Prince
Consort. The sight of these once exquisite marbles may perhaps awaken in
other minds the reflection that crossed my own. Heretical as I shall
seem, I venture to express the opinion, that in such cases one of two
courses are advisable, either the removal of the torsos, or restoration;
why should not some genius be able in this field to do what Viollet le
Duc has so successfully achieved in another? But for that great
architect, the cathedral of Moulins--and how many other beautiful French
churches?--would long ago have tumbled to pieces, been handed over as
storage to corn merchants, or brewers! Is it so much more difficult to
restore a marble effigy, whether of human being or animal, than a facade
or an altar-piece? If impossible, then, I say, let broken marbles like
those of Souvigny be hidden from view.

The agreeable town of Sens on the Yonne is here described for
completeness' sake. Although not lying in the Bourbonnais, Sens formed
the last stage of our little tour in this direction, a direct line of
railway connecting the town with Moulins. What a change we found here!
Instead of unswept, malodorous streets, and sordid riverside quarters,
all was clean, trim, and cared for, one wholly uncommon feature lending
especial charm.

For the tutelar goddess of Sens, benignant genius presiding over the
city, is a stream, or rather parent of many streams, that water the
streets of their own free will, supplying thirsty beasts with copious
draughts in torrid weather, and keeping up a perpetual air of rusticity
and coolness.

Wherever you go you are followed by the musical ripple of these runlets,
purling brooks so crystalline that you are tempted to look for
forget-me-nots.

The voluntariness of this street watering constitutes its witchery. Post
haste flows each tiny course; not having a moment to spare seems every
current. Need we wonder at the fabled Arethusas and Sabrinas of more
youthful worlds?

Of itself Sens is very engaging. We can easily understand the fact of
the late Mr. Hamerton having made his first French home here. In the
memoir of her husband, affixed to his autobiography, Mrs. Hamerton gives
us particulars, not only of individual, but of super-personal interest.
I use the last expression because the idiosyncrasy described is common
to most men and women of genius or exceptional talent. The charming
essayist then, the art-critic, gifted with so much insight and feeling
settled down at Sens we are told, for the purpose of painting
'commission pictures.' His career was to be decided by the brush and not
by the pen. The author of "The Intellectual Life," with how many other
works of distinction, had, at the outset, wholly mistaken his vocation.
"The first thing considered by Gilbert when he settled at Sens," writes
Mrs. Hamerton, "was the choice of subjects for his commission pictures,
which he intended to paint directly from nature; and he soon selected
panoramic views from the top of a vine-clad hill, called Saint Bon,
which commands an extensive view of the river Yonne, and of the plains
about it." Unfortunately, rather we should say fortunately, anyhow, for
the reading world, the 'commission pictures' were declined. The
disappointed artist, out of humour with Sens, made a series of journeys
in search of an ideal home, the result being that most entertaining and
successful book, "Round My House," and the final devotion of its author
to letters.

Sens might well seem an ideal place of abode to many. Formed from the
ancient Province of Burgundy, the Department of the Yonne has the charm
of Burgundian scenery, with the addition of a wide, lovely river. All
travellers on the Lyons-Marseilles Railway will recall the noble
appearance of the town from the railway--the Cathedral, with its one
lofty tower, rising above grey roofs, no factory chimneys marring the
outline, and, between bright stretches of country, the Yonne, not least
enchanting of French rivers, if not the most striking or romantic,
perhaps the sweetest and most soothing in the world. The favourable
impression of Sens gained by this fleeting view, is more than justified
on nearer acquaintance. The Cathedral, externally less imposing than
those of Bourges, Rheims, or even Rodez and Beauvais, is of a piece
alike without and within, no tasteless excrescence disfiguring its outer
walls, little or no modern tawdriness to be seen inside, an
architectural gem of great purity. For the curious in such matters, the
sacristy offers many wonders, among others a large fragment of the true
cross, presented to Sens by Charlemagne. Less apocryphal are the
vestments of our own Archbishop Thomas, alb, girdle, stole, and the
rest, all most carefully preserved and exhibited in a glass case. It
will be remembered that, when the turbulent Thomas of London, afterwards
known as Becket, was condemned as a traitor, he fled to France. "This is
a fearful day," said one of his attendants on hearing the sentence. "The
Day of Judgment will be more fearful," replied Thomas. It was not at
Sens, however, that the refugee took up his abode, but in the Abbey of
St. Colombe, now in ruins hard by.

On the other side of the bridge, crowning an islet, stands one of those
curious church_lets_, or churc_lings_ I was about to say, that possess
so powerful a fascination for the archaeological mind. Particularly
striking was the little Romanesque interior in the September twilight, a
picturesque group of Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, rehearsing
canticles with their pupils at one end, the subdued light just enabling
us to realise the harmony of proportions. This little church of St.
Maurice dating from the twelfth century, partly restored in the
sixteenth, must not on any account be missed. Its pretty spire crowns
the Isle d'Yonne, or island of the Yonne.

Chapter XIII.

ARCIS-SUR-AUBE.

Late and tired, I arrived, one September evening, at Arcis-sur-Aube,
birthplace and home of the great Danton.

I had brought with me letters of introduction to friends' friends,
unaware that at such a moment the sign-manual of the President of the
Republic himself would hardly have secured me a night's lodging. For at
this especial moment the little town, from end to end, was in the
possession of the military headquarters of that year's manoeuvres.

Every private dwelling showed a notice of the officers in command
sheltered under its roof. Here and there, the presence of sentinels
indicated the location of generals. The hotels were crowded from
basement to attic, folks who let lodgings for hire had made bargains
long before, whilst the very poorest made up beds, or turned out of
their own, to accommodate the rank and file. At the extreme end of the
town, close to the ancestral home of the Dantons, stands the straggling
old-fashioned Hotel de la Poste, a hostelry, I should suppose, not in
the least changed since the days of the great conventionnel. All here
was bustle and excitement. Mine host was spitting game in the kitchen,
and could hardly find time to answer my application; soldiers and
officers' servants, scullions and men of all-work, almost knocked each
other down in the inn-yard, the landlady, generally so affable a
personage in provincial France, gave me the cold shoulder. I turned out
in the forlorn hope of finding a good Samaritan. Of course, to present a
letter of introduction under such circumstances, was quite out of the
question, my errand would have been the last hair to break the camel's
back, final embarrassment of an already overdone hostess. But night was
at hand; the last train to Troyes, the nearest town, had gone, no other
would pass through Arcis-sur-Aube until the small hours of the morning.
Unless I could procure a room, therefore, I should be in the position of
a homeless vagrant. Well, not to be dismayed, I set out making inquiries
right and left, to my astonishment being rebuffed rather surlily and
with looks of suspicion. The fact is, during these manoeuvres, a lady
arriving at head-quarters alone is apt to be looked upon with no
favourable eye. Especially do people wonder what on earth can bring a
foreigner to an out of the way country place at such a time--she must
surely be a spy, pickpocket or something worse!

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