title: Castles and chateaux of old Burgundy and the border provinces,
text: . «> \j* oK V-0^ <S>^ , i. ' • '^^<?- .*^sS:<^,s/^ ^ A^ «j ■Acr » .tC^aVv^*,'^.. O ^-. • %,# '• ■^ vv (\\\ SK ///i o U^ ,• T> '». '^^ n"^" .o''''^^"^©^ *'\=}.^'^'.«V'_'-» ""^^^ " ^0^ ,0°"^ ,1"^ - "^ .^<" .*J ^°%. ^ "•^^o^" :"' •0^ Castles and Chateaux OF OLD BURGUNDY AND THE BORDER PROVINCES By Francis Miltoun Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," " Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre," " Rambles in Normandy," " Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor-Car," etc. With Many Illustrations Reproduced from paintings made on the spot By Blanche McManus Boston L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1909, Bt L. C. Page & Company (incoepokated) All rights reserved First Impression, November, 1909 ©Ci.A2i Electrotyped and Printed by THE COLONIAL PBESS C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A. Contents Hj 'twiniy OHAPTEK I. The Realm of the Burgundians II. In the Valley of the Yonne , III. AVALLON, VeZBLAY, AND ChASTELLUX. IV. Semur - en - Auxois, Epoisses and Bour- BILLY V. Montbard and Bussy - Rabutin. VI. " Chastillon au Noble Dug " VII. TONNERRE, TaNLAY AND AnCY - LE - FrANC VIII. In Old Burgundy IX. Dijon the City of the Dukes. X. In the Cote d'Or : Beaune, La Rochepot AND Epinac XI. Macon, Cluny and the Charollais. XII. In the Beaujolais and Lyonnais XIII. The Franche Comte; Auxonne and Be- sangon XIV. On the Swiss Border: Bugey and Bresse XV. Grenoble and Vizille ; the Capital of the Dauphins XVI. Chambery and the Lac du Bourget. V PAGB 1 19 36 50 62 75 84 101 131 113 153 170 185 199 218 229 VI Contents CHAPTER XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. In the Shadow of La Grande Chartreuse Annecy and Lac Leman The Mountain Background of Savoy By the Banks of the Rhone In the Alps of Dauphiny. In Lower Dauphiny .... Index PAGB 245 259 278 290 300 313 325 * Chateau de Montbeliard (see page 194) * Geographical Limits covered by Contents ^The Heart of Old Burgundy (Map). "Chateau de Saint Fargeau Tour Gaillarde, Auxerre ■Chateau de Chastellux "Semur - en - Auxois. ' Chateau d'P]poisses '' Arnay - le - Due <]hateau de Bussy - Rabutin I/Chateau des Dues, Chatillon ■"Chateau de Tanlay ^Chateau and Gardens of Ancy - le - Franc ./Chateau of Ancy - le - Franc V Monograms from the Chambre des Fleurs vBurgundy through the Ages (Map). -The Dijonnais and the Reaujolais (Map) Key of Vaulting, Dijon .... Cuisines at Dijon / Chateau des Dues, Dijon .... vii PAGE Frontispiece (Map) X facing 2 facing 28 facing 32 facing 38 facing 50 facing 54 facing 60 facing 68 facing 76 facing 90 . 94 facing 96 . 98 . 101 facing 1 12 . 113 . 119 facing 122 viii List of Illustrations PAGE ^'Clos Vougeot. — Chambertin 137 V Hospice de Beaune facing 144 •'Chateau de La Rochepot .... facing 148 Chateau de Sully facing 150 * Chateau de Chaumont - la - Guiche . . facing 154 V Hotel de Ville, Paray - le - Monail . facing 156 Xhateau de Lamartine facing 166 ^Chateau de Noble 169 ■'Palais Granvelle, Besancon . . . facing 192 The Lion op Belfort 195 Women op Bresse facing 200 Chateau de Voltaire, Ferney . . . facing 204 Tower of the Palais de Justice, Grenoble . 219 Chateau d'Uriagb facing 224 Chateau de Vizille facing 226 Portal of the Chateau de Chambery . facing 230 Portal St.  facing 238 Abbey of Hautecombe facing 240 \Maison des Dauphins, Tour -de - Pin . facing 246 \Chateau Bayard facing 248 '^La Tour Sans Venin . ... . . . 255  - Bains to Albertville (Map) . . . 279 Montmelian 280 Chateau de Miolans facing 284 -Conflans facing 286 "^Seal of the Native Dauphins 290 •Tower of Philippe de Valois, Vienne . facing 292 Chateau de Crussol facing 298 Chateau de Briancon facing 304 List of Illustrations ix PAGE vBbiancon; Its Chateau  IChateau de la Sone ..... fating 320 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy and the Border Provinces CHAPTEE I THE REALM OP THE BURGUNDIANS " La plus helle Comte, c'est Flandre; La plus helle ducTie, c'est Bourgogne, Le plus beau royaume, c'est France," This statement is of undeniable merit, as some of us, who so love la helle France — even though we be strangers — well know. The Burgundy of Charlemagne's time was a much vaster extent of territory than that of the period when the province came to play its own kingly part. From the borders of Neustria to Lombardia and Provence it extended from the northwest to the southeast, and from Austrasia and Alamannia in the northeast to Aquitania and Septimania in the southwest. In other words, it embraced practically the entire water- shed of the Rhone and even included the upper reaches of the Yonne and Seine and a very large 1 2 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- portion of the Loire ; in short, all of the great central plain lying between the Alps and the Cevennes. The old Burgundian province was closely allied topographically, climatically and by ties of family, with many of its neighbouring polit- ical divisions. Almost to the He de France this extended on the north; to the east, the Franche Comte was but a dismemberment; whilst the Nivernais and the Bourbonnais to the west, through the lands and influence of their seigneurs, encroached more or less on Burgundy or vice versa if one chooses to think of it in that way. To the southeast Dombes, Bresse and Bugey, all closely allied with one another, bridged the leagues which separated Burgundy from Savoy, and, still farther on, Dauphiny. The influence of the Burgundian spirit was, however, over all. The neighbouring states, the nobility and the people alike, envied and emu- lated, as far as they were able, the luxurious life of the Burgundian seigneurs later. If at one time or another they were actually enemies, they sooner, in many instances at least, allied themselves as friends or partisans, and the manner of life of the Burgundians of the mid- dle ages became their own. ^^1 f A The Eealm of the Burgundians 3 Not in the royal domain of France itself, not in luxurious Touraine, was there more love of splendour and the gorgeous trappings of the ceremonial of the middle ages than in Bur- gundy. It has ever been a land of prosperity and plenty, to which, in these late days, must be added peace, for there is no region in all France of to-day where there is more content- ment and comfort than in the wealthy and opu- lent Departments of the Cote d'Or and the Saone and Loire which, since the Eevolution, have been carved out of the very heart of old Burgundy. The French themselves are not commonly thought to be great travellers, but they love '' le voyage " nevertheless, and they are as justifiably proud of their antiquities and their historical monuments as any other race on earth. That they love their patrie, and all that pertains to it, with a devotion seemingly inex- plicable to a people who go in only for '' spreadeaglism, " goes without saying. " Qu'il est doux de courir le monde ! ATi ! qu'il est doux de voyager ! " sang the author of the libretto of '' Diamants de la Couronne," and he certainly expressed the sentiment welL 4 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy The Parisians themselves know and love Bur- gundy perhaps more than any other of the old mediaeval provinces; that is, they seemingly love it for itself; such minor contempt as they have for a Provengal, a Norman or a Breton does not exist with regard to a Bourguignon. Said Michelet: " Burgundy is a country where all are possessed of a pompous and solemn eloquence." This is a tribute to its men. And he continued: " It is a country of good livers and joyous seasons ' ' — and this is an encomium of its bounty. The men of the modern world who own to Burgundy as their patrie are almost too numer- ous to catalogue, but all will recall the names of Buffon, Guyton de Morveau, Monge and Car- not, Eude, Rameau, Sambin, Greuze and Pru- d'hon. In the arts, too. Burgundy has played its own special part, and if the chateau-builder did not here run riot as luxuriously as in Touraine, he at least builded well and left innumerable ex- amples behind which will please the lover of historic shrines no less than the more florid Eenaissance of the Loire. In the eighteenth century, the heart of Bur- gundy was traversed by the celebrated '" coches d'ecm " which, as a means of transportation for The Realm of the Burgundians 5 travellers, was considerably more of an ap- proach to the ideal than the railway of to-day. These " caches d'eau " covered the distance from Chalon to Lyon via the Saone. One reads in the " Almanach de Lyon et des Provinces de Lyonnois, Forez et Beaujolais, pour I'annee bissextile 1760," that two of these " caches " each week left Lyon, on Mondays and Thurs- days, making the journey to Chalon without interruption via Trevoux, Macon and Tournus. From Lyon to Chalon took the better part of two and a half days' time, but the descent was accomplished in less than two days. From Chalon, by '' guimharde," it was an affair of eight days to Paris via Arnay-le-Duc, Saulieu, Vermanton, Auxerre, Joigny and Sens. By diligence all the way, the journey from the cap- ital to Lyon was made in five days in summer and six in winter. Says Mercier in his '' Ta- bleau de Paris " : " When Sunday came on, the journey mass was said at three o'clock in the morning at some tavern en route." The ways and means of travel in Burgundy have considerably changed in the last two hun- dred years, but the old-time flavour of the road still hangs over all, and the traveller down through Burgundy to-day, especially if he goes by road, may experience not a little of the 6 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy charm which has all but disappeared from modern France and its interminably straight, level, tree-lined highways. Often enough one may stop at some old posting inn famous in his- tory and, as he wheels his way along, will see the same historic monuments, magnificent churches and chateaux as did that prolific letter writer, Madame de Sevigne. Apropos of these mediseval and Kenaissance chateaux scattered up and down France, the Sieur Colin, in 1654, produced a work entitled *' Le Fidele Conducteur pour les Voyages en France " in which he said that every hillside throughout the kingdom was dotted with a " belle maison " or a ^' palais." He, too, like some of us of a later day, believed France the land of chateaux par excellence. Evelyn, the diarist (1641-1647), thought much the same thing and so recorded his opin- ion. The Duchesse de Longueville, (1646-1647), on her journey from Paris called the first chateau passed on the way a '^ palais des fees/' which it doubtless was in aspect, and Mile, de Mont- pensier, in a lodging with which she was forced to put up at Saint Fargeau, named it '' plus beau d'un chateau/' — a true enough estimate of many a maison bourgeois of the time. At The Realm of the Burgundians 7 Pouges-les-Eaux, in the Nivernais, just on the borders of Burgundy, whilst she was still trav- elling south, Mile, de Montpensier put up at the chateau of a family friend and partook of an excellent dinner. This really speaks much for the appointments of the house in which she stopped, though one is forced to imagine the other attributes. She seemingly had arrived late, for she wrote : ' ' I was indeed greatly surprised and pleased with my wel- come; one could hardly have expected such attentions at so unseemly an hour." La Fontaine was a most conscientious travel- ler and said some grand things of the Renais- sance chateaux-builders of which literary his- tory has neglected to make mention. Lippomano, the Venetian Ambassador of the sixteenth century, professed to have met with a population uncivil and wanting in probity, but he exalted, nevertheless, to the highest the admirable chateaux of princes and seigneurs which he saw on the way through Burgundy. Zinzerling, a young Grerman traveller, in the year 1616, remarked much the same thing, but regretted that a certain class of sight-seers was even then wont to scribble names in public places. We of to-day who love old monuments have, then, no more reason to complain than 8 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy had this observant traveller of three hundred years ago. Madame Laroche was an indefatigable trav- eller of a later day (1787), and her comments on the '' belles maisons de campagne " in these parts (she was not a guest in royal chateaux, it seems) throw many interesting side lights on the people, the manners and the customs of her time. Bertin in his " Voyage de Bourgogne " re- counts a noble welcome which he received at the chateau of a Burgundian seigneur — ' ' Salvos of musketry, with the seigneur and the ladies of his household awaiting on the perron.'''' This would have made an ideal stage grouping. Arthur Young, the English agriculturist, travelling in France just previous to the Revo- lution, had all manner of comment for the French dwelling of whatever rank, but his ob- servations in general were more with reference to the chaumieres of peasants than with the chateaux of seigneurs. Time was when France was more thickly bestrewn with great monasteries and abbeys than now. They were in many ways the rivals of the palatial country houses of the seigneurs, and their princely ahhes and priors and prel- ates frequently wielded a local power no The Realm of the Burgundians 9 less militant than that of their secular neigh- bours. Great churches, abbeys, monasteries, for- tresses, chateaux, donjons and barbican gates are hardly less frequently seen in France to- day than they were of old, although in many instances a ruin only exists to tell the tale of former splendour. This is as true of Burgundy as it is of other parts of France ; indeed, it is, perhaps, a more apt reference here than it would be with regard to Normandy or Picardy, where many a medisB- val civic or religious shrine has been made into a warehouse or a beet-sugar factory. The closest comparison of this nature that one can make with respect to these parts is that some Cistercian monastery has become a " wine- chateau " like the Clos Vougeot or Beaune's Hospice or Hotel Dieu, which, in truth, at cer- tain periods, is nothing more nor less than a great wholesale wine-shop. Mediaeval French towns, as well in Burgundy as elsewhere, were invariably built up on one of three plans. The first was an outgrowth of the remains and debris of a more ancient Gaul- ish or Eoman civilization, and purely civic and secular. The second class of community came as a natural ally of some great abbey, sei- 10 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy gneurial chateau, really a fortress or an episco- pal foundation which demanded freedom from molestation as its undeniable right. It was in such latter places that the bishops and abbes held forth with a magnificence and splendour of surroundings scarcely less imposing than that of royalty itself, though their domains were naturally more restricted in area and the powers that the prelates wielded were often no less powerful than their militant neighbours. The third class of mediaBval settlements were the villes-neuves, or the villes-f ranches , a class of communities usually exempt from the exac- tions of seigneurs and churchmen alike, a class of towns readily recognized by their nomen- clature. By the sixteenth century the soil of France was covered with a myriad of residential cha- teaux which were the admiration and envy of the lords of all nations. There had sprung up beside the old feudal fortresses a splendid gal- axy of luxurious dwellings having more the air of domesticity than of warfare, which was the chief characteristics of their predecessors. It was then that the word chateau came to sup- plant that of chastel in the old-time chronicles. Richelieu and the Fronde destroyed many a mediaeval fane whose ruins were afterwards re- The Realm of the Burgundians 11 built by some later seigneur into a Kenaissance palace of great splendour. The Italian builder lent his aid and his imported profusion of de- tail until there grew up all over France a dis- tinct variety of dwelling which quite outdis- tanced anything that had gone before. This was true in respect to its general plan as well as with regard to the luxury of its decorative embellishments. Fortresses were razed or re- modelled, and the chateau — the French cha- teau as we know it to-day, distinct from the chastel — then first came into being. Any review of the castle, chateau and palace architecture of France, and of the historic inci- dent and the personages connected therewith, is bound to divide itself into a geographical or climatic category. To begin with the manner of building of the southland was only trans- planted in northern soil experimentally, and it did not always take root so vigorously that it was able to live. The Renaissance glories of Touraine and the valley of the Loire, though the outcome of vari- ous Italian pilgrimages, were of a more florid and whimsical fashioning than anything in Italy itself, either at the period of their inception or even later, and so they are to be considered as something distinctly French, — indeed, it was 12 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy their very influence which was to radiate all over the chateau-building world of the four- teenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By contrast, the square and round donjon towers of the fortress-chateaux — like Arques, Falais and Coucy — were more or less an indigenous growth taking their plan from nothing alien. Midi and the centre of France, Provence, the Pyrenees and the valleys of the Ehone and Saone, gave birth, or development, to still another variety of mediaeval architecture both military and domestic, whilst the Ehine provinces developed the species along still other constructional lines. There was, to be sure, a certain reminiscence, or repetition of common details among all ex- tensive works of mediaeval building, but they existed only by sufferance and were seldom in- corporated as constructive elements beyond the fact that towers were square or round, and that the most elaborately planned chateaux were built around an inner courtyard, or were sur- rounded by a fosse, or moat. In Burgundy and the Bourbonnais, and to some extent in the Nivernais, there grew up a distinct method of castle-building which was only allied with the many other varieties scat- tered over France in the sense that the fabrics The Realm of the Burgundians 13 were intended to serve the same purposes as their contemporaries elsewhere. The solid square shafts flanking a barbican gate, — the same general effect observable of all fortified towns, — the profuse use of heavy Renaissance sculpture in town houses, the interpolated Flemish-Gothic (seen so admirably at Beaune and Dijon), and above all, the Burgundian school of sculptured figures and figurines were details which flowered hereabouts as they did nowhere else. So far as the actual numbers of the edifices go it is evident that throughout Burgundy ec- clesiastical architecture developed at the ex- pense of the more luxuriously endowed civic and domestic varieties of Touraine, which, we can not deny, must ever be considered the real '' chateaux country," In Touraine the splen- dour of ecclesiastical building took a second place to that of the domestic dwelling, or coun- try or town house. For the most part, the Romanesque domestic edifice has disappeared throughout Burgundy. Only at Cluny are there any very considerable remains of the domestic architecture of the Romans, and even here there is nothing very substantial, no tangible reminder of the palace of emperor or consul, only some fragments of 14 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy more or less extensive edifices which were built by the art which the Eomans brought with them from beyond the Alps when they overran Gaul. If one knows how to read the signs, there may still be seen at Cluny fragments of old Eoman walls of stone, brick, and even of wood, and the fact that they have already stood for ten or a dozen centuries speaks much for the excellence of their building. It was undoubtedly some- thing just a bit better than the modern way of doing things. Of all the domestic edifices of Burgundy dat- ing from the thirteenth century or earlier, that enclosing the '' cuisines " (the only name by which this curious architectural detail is known) of the old palace of the dukes at Dijon is credited by all authorities as being quite the most remarkable, indeed, the most typical, of its environment. After this comes the Salle Synodale at Sens. These two, showing the civic and domestic details of the purely Bur- gundian manner of building, represent their epoch at its very best. In Dauphiny and Savoy, and to a certain extent the indeterminate ground of Bresse, Dombes and Bugey which linked Burgundy therewith, military and civic architecture in the middle ages took on slightly different forms. The Realm of the Burgundians 15 Nevertheless, the style was more nearly allied to that obtaining in mid-France than to that of the Midi, or to anything specifically Italian in motive, although Savoy was for ages con- nected by liens of blood with the holder of the Italian crown. It was only in 1792 that Savoy became a French Departement, with the rather unsatis- factory nomenclature of Mont Blanc. It is true, however, that by holding to the name of Mont Blanc the new department would at least have impressed itself upon the travelling pub- lic, as well as the fact that the peak is really French. As it is, it is commonly thought to be Swiss, though for a fact it is leagues from the Swiss frontier. Before a score of years had passed Savoy again became subject to an Italian prince. Less than half a century later ' ' La Savoie ' ' became a pearl in the French diadem for all time, form- ing the Departements of Haute Savoie and Savoie of to-day. The rectangular fortress-like chateau — in- deed more a fortress than a chateau — was more often found in the plains than in the mountains. It is for this reason that the cha- teaux of the Alpine valleys and hillsides of Savoy and Dauphiny differ from those of the 16 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy Rhone or the Saone. The Ehine castle of our imaginations may well stand for one type ; the other is best represented by the great paral- lelogram of Aigues-Mortes, or better yet by the walls and towers of the Cite at Carcas- sonne. Feudal chateaux up to the thirteenth century were almost always constructed upon an emi- nence; it was only with the beginning of this epoch that the seigneurs dared to build a coun- try house without the protection of natural bul- warks. The two types are represented in this book, those of the plain and those of the mountain, though it is to be remembered that it is the specific castle-like edifice, and not the purely residential chateau that often exists in the mountainous regions to the exclusion of the other variety. After that comes the ornate country house, in many cases lacking utterly the defences which were the invariable attribute of the castle. Miolans and Montmelian in Savoy stand for examples of the first mentioned class ; Chastellux, Ancy-le-Franc and Tanlay in Bur- gundy for the second. Examples of the hotels privees, the town houses of the seigneurs who for the most part spent their time in their maisons de campagne. The Realm of the Burgundians 17 of the large towns and provincial cities are not to be neglected, nor have they been by the au- thor and artist who have made this book. As examples may be cited the Maison des Dau- phins at Tour-de-Pin, that elaborate edifice at Paray-le-Monail, various examples at Dijon and the svelt, though unpretending, Palais des Granvelle at Besancon in the Franche Comte. To sum up the chateau architecture, and, to be comprehensive, all mediseval and Renaissance architecture in France, we may say that it stands as something distinctly national, some- thing that has absorbed much of the best of other lands but which has been fused with the ingenious daring of the Gaul into a style which later went abroad to all nations of the globe as something distinctly French. It matters little whether proof of this be sought in Touraine, Burgundy or Poitou, for while each may pos- sess their eccentricities of style, and excellen- cies as varied as their climates, all are to-day distinctly French, and must be so considered from their inception. Among these master works which go to give glory and renown to French architecture are not only the formidable castles and luxurious chateaux of kings and princes but also the 18 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- great civic palaces and military works of con- temporary epochs, for these, in many instances, combined the functions of a royal dwelling with their other condition. CHAPTER II IN THE VALLEY OF THE YONNE Theee is no more charming river valley in all France than that of the Yonne, which wan- ders from mid-Burgundy down to join the Seine just above Fontainebleau and the artists' haunts of Moret and Montigny. The present day Departement of the Yonne was carved out of a part of the old Senonais and Auxerrois; the latter, a Burgundian fief, and the former, a tiny countship under the suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, Man- ners and customs, and art and architecture, however, throughout the department favour Burgundy in the south rather than the northern influences which radiated from the lie de France. This is true not only with respect to ecclesiastical, civic and military architecture, but doubly so with the domestic varieties rang- ing from the humble cottage to the more ambitious manoirs and gentilshommeries, and finally, to the still more magnificent seigneurial chateaux. Within the confines of this area are some of the most splendid examples extant of 19 20 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy Burgxmdian domestic architecture of the Ee- naissance period. The Yonne is singularly replete with feudal memories and monuments as well. One re- marks this on all sides, whether one enters di- rect from Paris or from the east or west. From the Morvan and the Gatinais down through the Auxerrois, the Tonnerrois and the fipoisses is a definite sequence of architectural monuments which in a very remarkable way suggest that they were the outgrowth of a distinctly Bur- gundian manner of building, something quite different from anything to be seen elsewhere. In the ninth century, when the feudality first began to recognize its full administrative pow- ers, the local counts of the valley of the Yonne were deputies merely who put into motion the machinery designed by the nobler powers, the royal vassals of the powerful fiefs of Auxerre, Sens, Tonnerre and Avallon. The actual lease of life of these greater powers varied consid- erably according to the individual fortunes of their seigneurs, but those of Joigny and Ton- nerre endured until 1789, and the latter is in- corporated into a present day title which even red republicanism has not succeeded in wiping out. The real gateway to the Yonne valley is prop- In the Valley of the Yonne 21 erly enough Sens, but Sens itself is little or nothing Burgundian with respect to its archi- tectural glories in general. Its Salle Synodale is the one example which is distinct from the northern born note which shows so plainly in the tower and fagade of its great cathedral; mostly Sens is reminiscent of the sway and tastes of the royal Bourbons. A few leagues south of Sens the aspect of all things changes precipitately. At Villeneuve- sur- Yonne one takes a gigantic step backward into the shadowy past. Whether or no he ar- rives by the screeching railway or the scorch- ing automobile of the twentieth century, from the moment he passes the feudal-built gateway which spans the main street — actually the great national highway which links Paris with the Swiss and Italian frontiers — and gazes up at its battlemented crest, he is trans- ported into the realms of romance. Travellers there are, perhaps, who might prefer to arrive on foot, but there are not many such passionate pilgrims who would care to do this thing to- day. They had much better, however, adopt even this mode of travel should no other be available, for at Villeneuve there are many aids in conjuring up the genuine old-time spirit of things. 22 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy At the opposite end of this long main street is yet another great barbican gate, the twin of that at the northerly end. Together they form the sole remaining vestiges of the rampart * which enclosed the old Villeneuve-le-Roi, the title borne by the town of old. Yet despite such notable landmarks, there are literally thousands of stranger tourists who rush by Villeneuve by road and rail in a season and give never so much as a thought or a glance of the eye to its wonderful scenic and romantic splen- dours ! Before 1163 Villeneuve was known as Villa- Longa, after its original Eoman nomenclature, but a newer and grander city grew up on the old emplacement with fortification walls and towers and gates, built at the orders of Louis VII. It was then that it came to be known as the king's own city and was called Villeneuve-le-Roi. By a special charter granted at this time Villeneuve, like Lorris on the banks of the Loire, was given unusual privileges which made it exempt from Crown taxes, and allowed the inhabitants to hunt and fish freely — feudal favours which were none too readily granted in those days. Louis himself gave the new city the name of Villa-Francia-Regia, but the name was soon corrupted to Villeneuve-le- In the Valley of the Yonne 23 Roi, For many years the city served as the chief Burgundian outpost in the north. The great tower, or citadel, a part of the royal chateau where the king lodged on his brief visits to his pet city, was intended at once to serve as a fortress and a symbol of dignity, and it played the double part admirably. At- tached to this tower on the north was the Eoyal Chateau de Salles, a favourite abode of the royalties of the thirteenth century. Little or nothing of this dwelling remains to-day save the walls of the chapel, and here and there an expanse of wall built up into some more humble edifice, but still recognizable as once having possessed a greater dignity. There are various fragmentary foundation walls of old towers and other dependencies of the chateau, and the old ramparts cropping out here and there, but there is no definitely formed building of a sufficiently coromanding presence to warrant rank as a his- torical monument of the quality required by the governmental authorities in order to have its patronage and protection. Philippe-Auguste, in 1204, assembled here a parliament where the celebrated ordonnance '* Stabilementum Feudorum " was framed. This alone is enough to make Villeneuve stand out large in the annals of feudalism, if indeed 24 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy no monuments whatever existed to bring it to mind. It was the code by which the entire machinery of French feudalism was put into motion and kept in running order, and for this reason the Chateau de Salles, where the king was in residence when he gave his hand and seal to the document, should occupy a higher place than it usually does. The Chateau de Salles was called " royal " in distinction to the usual seigneurial chateau which was merely " noble.'' It was not so much a permanent residence of the French monarchs as a sort of a rest-house on the way down to their Burgundian posses- sion after they had become masters of the duchy. The donjon tower that one sees to-day is the chief, indeed the only definitely defined, fragment of this once royal chateau which still exists, but it is sufficiently impressive and grand in its proportions to suggest the magnitude of the entire fabric as it must once have been, and for that reason is all-sufficient in its appeal to the romantic and historic sense. Situated as it was on the main highway be- tween Paris and Dijon, Villeneuve occupied a most important strategic position. It spanned this old Eoute Eoyale with its two city gates, and its ramparts stretched out on either side in a determinate fashion which allowed no one to In the Valley of the Yonne 25 enter or pass through it that might not be wel- come. These graceful towered gateways which exist even to-day were the models from which many more of their kind were built in other parts of the royal domain, as at Magny-en- Vexin, at Moret-sur-Loing, and at Macon. A dozen kilometres from Villeneuve-sur- Yonne is Joigny, almost entirely surrounded by a beautiful wildwood, the Foret National de Joigny. Joigny was one of the last of the local fiefs to give up its ancient rights and privileges. The fief took rank as a Vicomte. Jeanne de Valois founded a hospice here — the predeces- sor of the present Hotel Dieu — and the Cardi- nal de Gondi of unworthy fame built the local chateau in the early seventeenth century. The Chateau de Joigny, as became its digni- fied state, was nobly endowed, having been built to the Cardinal's orders by the Italian Serlio in 1550-1613. To-day the structure serves the functions of a schoolhouse and is little to be remarked save that one hunts it out knowing its history. There is this much to say for the schoolhouse- chateau at Joigny ; it partakes of the construct- ive and decorative elements of the genuine local manner of building regardless of its Italian origin, and here, as at Villeneuve, there is a dis- 26 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy tinct element of novelty in all domestic archi- tecture which is quite different from the varie- ties to be remarked a little further north. There, the town houses are manifestly town houses, but at Joigny, as often as not, when they advance beyond the rank of the most humble, they partake somewhat of the attributes of a castle and somewhat of those of a palace. This is probably because the conditions of life have become easier, or because, in general, wealth, even in mediaeval times, was more evenly dis- tributed. Certainly the noblesse here, as we know, was more numerous than in many other sections. Any one of a score of Joigny's old Eenais- sance houses, which line its main street and the immediate neighbourhood of its market-place, is suggestive of the opulent life of the sei- gneurs of old to almost as great a degree as the Gondi chateau which has now become the ficole- Communal. Of all Joigny's architectural beauties of the past none takes so high a rank as its magnificent Gothic church of Saint Jean, whose vaultings are of the most remarkable known. Since the ruling seigneur at the time the church was re- built was a churchman, this is perhaps readily enough accounted for. It demonstrates, too. In the Valley of the Yonne 27 the intimacy with which the affairs of church and state were bound together in those days. A luxurious local chateau of the purely resi- dential order, not a fortress, demanded a worthy neighbouring church, and the seigneur, whether or not he himself was a churchman, often worked hand in hand with the local prel- ate to see that the same was supplied and em- bellished in a worthy manner. This is evident to the close observer wherever he may rest on his travels throughout the old French prov- inces, and here at Joigny it is notably to be re- marked. Saint Fargeau, in the Commune of Joigny, is unknown by name and situation to the majority, but for a chateau-town it may well be classed with many better, or at least more popularly, known. On the principal place, or square, rises a warm-coloured winsome fabric which is the very quintessence of medisevalism. It is a more or less battered relic of the tenth century, and is built in a rosy brick, a most unusual method of construction for its time. The history of the Chateau de Saint Fargeau has been most momentous, its former dwellers therein taking rank with the most noble and influential of the old regime. Jacques Coeur, the celebrated silversmith of Bourges and the 28 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy intimate of Charles VII, Mademoiselle de Mont- pensier, and the leader of the Convention — Lepelletier de Saint Fargeau — all lived for a time within its walls, to mention only three who have made romantic history, though widely dis- similar were their stations. An ornate park with various decorative de- pendencies surrounds the old chateau on three sides and the ensemble is as undeniably theatri- cal as one could hope to find in the real. In general the aspect is grandiose and it can read- ily enough be counted as one of the '' show- chateaux " of France, and would be were it better known. Mile, de Montpensier — 'Ma Grande Made- moiselle ' ' — was chatelaine of Saint Fargeau in the mid-seventeenth century. Her comings and goings, to and from Paris, were ever writ- ten down at length in court chronicles and many were the ' ' incidents " — to give them a mild definition — which happened here in the valley of the Yonne which made good reading. On one occasion when Mademoiselle quitted Paris for Saint Fargeau she came in a modest '' ca- rosse sans armes." It was for a fact a sort of sub-rosa sortie, but the historian was discreet on this occasion. Travel in the old days had not a little of romanticism about it, but for a ?^1 55 CO O In the Valley of the Yonne 29 lady of quality to travel thus was, at the time, a thing unheard of. This princess of blood royal thus, for once in her life, travelled like a plebeian. Closely bound up with the Sennonais were the fiefs of Auxerre and Tonnerre, whose capitals are to-day of that class of important provincial cities of the third rank which play so great a part in the economic affairs of modern France. But their present commercial status should by no means discount their historic pasts, nor their charm for the lover of old monuments, since evidences remain at every street corner to re- mind one that their origin was in the days when knights were bold. The railway has since come, followed by electric lights and automobiles, all of which are once and again found in curious juxtaposition with a bit of mediaeval or Eenais- sance architecture, in a manner that is surpris- ing if not shocking. Eegardless of the apparent modernity roundabout, however, there is still enough of the glamour of mediaevalism left to subdue the garishness of twentieth century in- novations. All this makes the charm of French travel, — this unlooked for combination of the new and the old that one so often meets. One can not find just this same sort of thing at Paris, nor on the Eiviera, nor anywhere, in 30 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- fact, except in these minor capitals of the old French provinces. The Comte d'Anxerre was created in 1094 by the Roi Robert, who, after the reunion of the Burgnndian kingdom with the French monar- chy, gave it to Renaud, Comte de Nevers, as the dot of one, Adelais, who may have been his sister, or his cousin — history is not precise. The house of Nevers possessed the countship until 1182, when it came to Archambaud, the ninth of the name. Sire de Bourbon. One of his heirs married a son of the Due de Bour- gogne and to him brought the county of Aux- erre, which thus became Burgundian in fact. Later it took on a separate entity again, or rather, it allied itself with the Comtes de Ton- nerre at a price paid in and out of hand, it must not be neglected to state, of 144,400 livres Tour- nois. The crown of France, through the Comtes d'Auxerre, came next into possession, but Charles VII, under the treaty of Arras, ceded the countship in turn to Philippe-le-Bon, Due de Bourgogne. Definite alliance with the royal domain came under Louis XI, thus the prov- ince remained until the Revolution. With such a history small wonder it is that Auxerre has preserved more than fleeting mem- ories of its past. Of great civic and domestic In the Valley of the Yonne 31 establishments of mediaevalism, Auxerre is poverty-stricken nevertheless. The Episcopal Palace, now the Prefecture, is the most impo- sing edifice of its class, and is indeed a worthy thing from every view-point. It has a covered loggia, or gallery running along its fagade, ma- king one think that it was built by, or for, an Italian, which is not improbable, since it was conceived under the ministership of Cardinal Mazarin who would, could he have had his way, have made all things French take on an Italian hue. From this loggia there is a wide-spread, distant view of the broad valley of the Yonne which here has widened out to considerable pro- portions. The history of this Prefectural pal- ace of to-day, save as it now serves its pur- pose as a governmental administrative build- ing, is wholly allied with that of Auxerre 's mag- nificent cathedral and its battery of sister churches. Within the edifice, filled with clerks and offi- cials in every cranny, all busy writing out docu- ments by hand and clogging the wheels of prog- ress as much as inefficiency can, are still found certain of its ancient furnishings and fittings. The great Salle des Audiences is still intact and is a fine example of thirteenth century wood- work. The wainscotting of its walls and ceiling 32 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy is remarkably worked with a finesse of detail that would be hard to duplicate to-day except at the expense of a lord of finance or a king of petrol. Not even government contractors, no matter what price they are paid, could presume to supply anything half so fine. It was at Auxerre that the art and craft of building noble edifices developed so highly among churchmen. The builders of the twelfth century were not only often monks but church- men of rank as well. They occupied themselves not only with ecclesiastical architecture, but with painting and sculpture. One of the first of these clerical master-builders was Geoffroy, Bishop of Auxerre, and three of his prebend- arys were classed respectively as painters, glass-setters and metal-workers. 