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Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy
and the Border Provinces
_WORKS OF FRANCIS MILTOUN_
[Illustration]
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_The Cathedrals of Southern France_ 2.50
_In the Land of Mosques and Minarets_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and
the Loire Country_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and
the Basque Provinces_ 3.00
_Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy
and the Border Provinces_ 3.00
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[Illustration]
_L. C. Page and Company_
_New England Building, Boston, Mass._
[Illustration: _Chateau de Montbéliard_
(See page 194)
]
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
[Illustration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
1909
_Copyright, 1909_,
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
First Impression, November, 1909
_Electrotyped and Printed by
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A._
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE REALM OF THE BURGUNDIANS 1
II. IN THE VALLEY OF THE YONNE 19
III. AVALLON, VEZELAY, AND CHASTELLUX 36
IV. SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS, ÉPOISSES AND BOURBILLY 50
V. MONTBARD AND BUSSY-RABUTIN 62
VI. "CHASTILLON AU NOBLE DUC" 75
VII. TONNERRE, TANLAY AND ANCY-LE-FRANC 84
VIII. IN OLD BURGUNDY 101
IX. DIJON THE CITY OF THE DUKES 131
X. IN THE COTE D'OR: BEAUNE, LA ROCHEPOT
AND ÉPINAC 113
XI. MAÇON, CLUNY AND THE CHAROLLAIS 153
XII. IN THE BEAUJOLAIS AND LYONNAIS 170
XIII. THE FRANCHE COMTÉ; AUXONNE AND BESANÇON 185
XIV. ON THE SWISS BORDER: BUGEY AND BRESSE 199
XV. GRENOBLE AND VIZILLE: THE CAPITAL OF THE
DAUPHINS 218
XVI. CHAMBÉRY AND THE LAC DU BOURGET 229
XVII. IN THE SHADOW OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE 245
XVIII. ANNECY AND LAC LEMAN 259
XIX. THE MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND OF SAVOY 278
XX. BY THE BANKS OF THE RHÔNE 290
XXI. IN THE ALPS OF DAUPHINY 300
XXII. IN LOWER DAUPHINY 313
INDEX 325
[Illustration: List _of_ ILLUSTRATIONS]
PAGE
CHATEAU DE MONTBÉLIARD (_see page_ 194) _Frontispiece_
GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS COVERED BY CONTENTS (Map) x
THE HEART OF OLD BURGUNDY (Map) _facing_ 2
CHATEAU DE SAINT FARGEAU _facing_ 28
TOUR GAILLARDE, AUXERRE _facing_ 32
CHATEAU DE CHASTELLUX _facing_ 38
SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS _facing_ 50
CHATEAU D'ÉPOISSES _facing_ 54
ARNAY-LE-DUC _facing_ 60
CHATEAU DE BUSSY-RABUTIN _facing_ 68
CHATEAU DES DUCS, CHÂTILLON _facing_ 76
CHATEAU DE TANLAY _facing_ 90
CHATEAU AND GARDENS OF ANCY-LE-FRANC 94
CHATEAU OF ANCY-LE-FRANC _facing_ 96
MONOGRAMS FROM THE CHAMBRE DES FLEURS 98
BURGUNDY THROUGH THE AGES (Map) 101
THE DIJONNAIS AND THE BEAUJOLAIS (Map) _facing_ 112
KEY OF VAULTING, DIJON 113
CUISINES AT DIJON 119
CHATEAU DES DUCS, DIJON _facing_ 122
CLOS VOUGEOT.--CHAMBERTIN 137
HOSPICE DE BEAUNE _facing_ 144
CHATEAU DE LA ROCHEPOT _facing_ 148
CHATEAU DE SULLY _facing_ 150
CHATEAU DE CHAUMONT-LA-GUICHE _facing_ 154
HÔTEL DE VILLE, PARAY-LE-MONAIL _facing_ 156
CHATEAU DE LAMARTINE _facing_ 166
CHATEAU DE NOBLE 169
PALAIS GRANVELLE, BESANÇON _facing_ 192
THE LION OF BELFORT 195
WOMEN OF BRESSE _facing_ 200
CHATEAU DE VOLTAIRE, FERNEY _facing_ 204
TOWER OF THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, GRENOBLE 219
CHATEAU D'URIAGE _facing_ 224
CHATEAU DE VIZILLE _facing_ 226
PORTAL OF THE CHATEAU DE CHAMBÉRY _facing_ 230
PORTAL ST. DOMINIQUE, CHAMBÉRY 231
CHATEAU DE CHAMBÉRY _facing_ 232
LES CHARMETTES 235
CHATEAU DE CHIGNIN _facing_ 238
ABBEY OF HAUTECOMBE _facing_ 240
MAISON DES DAUPHINS, TOUR-DE-PIN _facing_ 246
CHATEAU BAYARD _facing_ 248
LA TOUR SANS VENIN 255
CHATEAU D'ANNECY _facing_ 260
CHATEAU DE RIPAILLE _facing_ 272
ÉVIAN _facing_ 276
AIX-LES-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 BRIANÇON _facing_ 304
BRIANÇON; ITS CHATEAU AND OLD FORTIFIED BRIDGE 305
CHATEAU QUEYRAS _facing_ 308
CHATEAU DE BEAUVOIR _facing_ 316
CHATEAU DE LA SONE _facing_ 320
[Illustration: Geographical Limits covered _by_ Contents]
Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy
and the Border Provinces
CHAPTER I
THE REALM OF THE BURGUNDIANS
"_La plus belle Comté, c'est Flandre;_
_La plus belle duché, c'est Bourgogne,_
_Le plus beau royaume, c'est France._"
This statement is of undeniable merit, as some of us, who so love _la
belle 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 watershed of the Rhône and
even included the upper reaches of the Yonne and Seine and a very large
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
political divisions. Almost to the Ile de France this extended on the
north; to the east, the Franche Comté 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
emulated, 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 middle ages
became their own.
[Illustration: Map
The HEART
_of_
OLD
BURGUNDY
]
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 Burgundy. 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 contentment and comfort than in the wealthy and opulent Departments
of the Côte d'Or and the Saône and Loire which, since the Revolution,
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 inexplicable to a people who go in only
for "spreadeaglism," goes without saying.
"_Qu'il est doux de courir le monde!_
_Ah! qu'il est doux de voyager!_"
sang the author of the libretto of "Diamants de la Couronne," and he
certainly expressed the sentiment well.
The Parisians themselves know and love Burgundy perhaps more than any
other of the old mediæval provinces; that is, they seemingly love it for
itself; such minor contempt as they have for a Provençal, 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 numerous to catalogue, but all will recall the names of
Buffon, Guyton de Morveau, Monge and Carnot, Rude, Rameau, Sambin,
Greuze and Prud'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 examples behind which will
please the lover of historic shrines no less than the more florid
Renaissance of the Loire.
In the eighteenth century, the heart of Burgundy was traversed by the
celebrated "_coches d'eau_" which, as a means of transportation for
travellers, was considerably more of an approach to the ideal than the
railway of to-day. These "_coches d'eau_" covered the distance from
Chalon to Lyon via the Saône. One reads in the "Almanach de Lyon et des
Provinces de Lyonnois, Forêz et Beaujolais, pour l'année bissextile
1760," that two of these "_coches_" each week left Lyon, on Mondays and
Thursdays, making the journey to Chalon without interruption via
Trévoux, Mâcon 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 "_guimbarde_," 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 capital to Lyon was made
in five days in summer and six in winter. Says Mercier in his "Tableau
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 hundred 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 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 history 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 Sévigné.
Apropos of these mediæval and Renaissance chateaux scattered up and down
France, the Sieur Colin, in 1654, produced a work entitled "Le Fidèle
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 opinion.
The Duchesse de Longueville, (1646-1647), on her journey from Paris
called the first chateau passed on the way a "_palais des fées_," which
it doubtless was in aspect, and Mlle. de Montpensier, 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 Pouges-les-Eaux, in the Nivernais, just on the borders of
Burgundy, whilst she was still travelling south, Mlle. 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 welcome; one could hardly have expected
such attentions at so unseemly an hour."
La Fontaine was a most conscientious traveller and said some grand
things of the Renaissance chateaux-builders of which literary history
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 German 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 had this observant
traveller of three hundred years ago.
Madame Laroche was an indefatigable traveller 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" recounts 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 Revolution, had all manner of comment for the French
dwelling of whatever rank, but his observations in general were more
with reference to the _chaumières_ 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 _abbés_ and priors
and prelates frequently wielded a local power no less militant than
that of their secular neighbours.
Great churches, abbeys, monasteries, fortresses, 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 mediæval 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
certain periods, is nothing more nor less than a great wholesale
wine-shop.
Mediæval 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 débris of a more ancient Gaulish or Roman civilization, and
purely civic and secular. The second class of community came as a
natural ally of some great abbey, seigneurial chateau, really a
fortress or an episcopal foundation which demanded freedom from
molestation as its undeniable right. It was in such latter places that
the bishops and abbés 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 mediæval settlements were the
_villes-neuves_, or the _villes-franches_, a class of communities
usually exempt from the exactions of seigneurs and churchmen alike, a
class of towns readily recognized by their nomenclature.
By the sixteenth century the soil of France was covered with a myriad of
residential chateaux which were the admiration and envy of the lords of
all nations. There had sprung up beside the old feudal fortresses a
splendid galaxy 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 supplant
that of _chastel_ in the old-time chronicles.
Richelieu and the Fronde destroyed many a mediæval fane whose ruins were
afterwards rebuilt by some later seigneur into a Renaissance palace of
great splendour. The Italian builder lent his aid and his imported
profusion of detail until there grew up all over France a distinct
variety of dwelling which quite outdistanced 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 remodelled, and the chateau--the French chateau 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 incident 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 transplanted
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 various 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 their very influence which
was to radiate all over the chateau-building world of the fourteenth,
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 Rhône
and Saône, gave birth, or development, to still another variety of
mediæval architecture both military and domestic, whilst the Rhine
provinces developed the species along still other constructional lines.
There was, to be sure, a certain reminiscence, or repetition of common
details among all extensive works of mediæval building, but they existed
only by sufferance and were seldom incorporated 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 surrounded 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 scattered over France in the sense that
the fabrics 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 ecclesiastical architecture developed at the expense
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 splendour of ecclesiastical building
took a second place to that of the domestic dwelling, or country 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 more or less extensive
edifices which were built by the art which the Romans 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 Roman 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 something just a bit better than the
modern way of doing things.
Of all the domestic edifices of Burgundy dating 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 Burgundian 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. 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 connected by liens of
blood with the holder of the Italian crown.
It was only in 1792 that Savoy became a French Département, with the
rather unsatisfactory 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 public, 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, forming the Départements of
Haute Savoie and Savoie of to-day.
The rectangular fortress-like chateau--indeed more a fortress than a
chateau--was more often found in the plains than in the mountains. It is
for this reason that the chateaux of the Alpine valleys and hillsides of
Savoy and Dauphiny differ from those of the Rhône or the Saône. The
Rhine castle of our imaginations may well stand for one type; the other
is best represented by the great parallelogram of Aigues-Mortes, or
better yet by the walls and towers of the Cité at Carcassonne.
Feudal chateaux up to the thirteenth century were almost always
constructed upon an eminence; it was only with the beginning of this
epoch that the seigneurs dared to build a country house without the
protection of natural bulwarks.
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 Burgundy for the second.
Examples of the _hôtels privées_, the town houses of the seigneurs who
for the most part spent their time in their _maisons de campagne_ of
the large towns and provincial cities are not to be neglected, nor have
they been by the author and artist who have made this book. As examples
may be cited the Maison des Dauphins at Tour-de-Pin, that elaborate
edifice at Paray-le-Monail, various examples at Dijon and the svelt,
though unpretending, Palais des Granvelle at Besançon in the Franche
Comté.
To sum up the chateau architecture, and, to be comprehensive, all
mediæval and Renaissance architecture in France, we may say that it
stands as something distinctly national, something 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 possess their eccentricities of style, and excellencies
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 great civic palaces and military
works of contemporary epochs, for these, in many instances, combined the
functions of a royal dwelling with their other condition.