MONTBARD AND BUSSY-RABUTIN
Montbard lies midway between Semur and Châtillon-sur-Seine, on the great
highroad leading from Burgundy into Champagne. The old Chateau de
Montbard is represented only by the donjon tower which rises grimly
above the modern edifice built around its base and the sprawling little
town which clusters around its park gates at the edge of the tiny river
Brenne.
The "grand seigneur" of Montbard was but a simple man of letters, the
naturalist Buffon. Here he found comfort and tranquillity, and loved the
place and its old associations accordingly. Here he lived, "having
doffed his sword and cloak," and occupied himself only with his literary
labours, though with a gallantry and _esprit_ which could but have
produced the eloquent pages ascribed to him.
Buffon was a native of the town, and through him, more than anyone else,
the town has since been heard of in history.
Having acquired the property of the old chateau, the donjon of which
stood firm and broad on its base, he made of the latter his study, or
_salon de travail_. This is the only remaining portion of the mediæval
castle of Montbard. The ancient walls which existed, though in a ruined
state, were all either levelled or rebuilt by Buffon into the dependent
dwelling which he attached to the donjon. The Revolution, too, did not a
little towards wiping out a part of the structure, as indeed it did the
tomb of the naturalist in the local churchyard.
Buffon, or, to give him his full title, Georges-Louis-Leclerc-de-Buffon
lived here a life of retirement, amid a comfort, perhaps even of luxury,
that caused his jealous critics to say that he worked in a velvet coat,
and that he was a sort of eighteenth century "nature-fakir." This is
probably an injustice.
In 1774 Louis XV made the "_terre de Buffon_" a countship, but the
naturalist chose not to reside in the village of the name, but to live
at Montbard some leagues away.
Montbard's actual celebrity came long before the time of Buffon, for its
chateau was built in the fourteenth century and was for centuries the
possessor of an illustrious sequence of annals intimately associated
with the dukedom of Burgundy.
Jean-Sans-Peur, it is to be noted, passed a portion of his youth within
its walls. This gives it at once rank as a royal chateau, though that
was not actually its classification. The Princesse Anne, sister of
Philippe le Bon, here married the Duke of Bedford in 1423. All this
would seem fame enough for Montbard, but the local old men and women
know no more of their remote rulers than they do of Buffon; local pride
is a very doubtful commodity.
It is disconcerting for a stranger to accost some _bon homme_ or _bonne
femme_ to learn the way to the Chateau de Buffon, and to receive in
reply a simple stare and the observation, "I don't know the man." Aside,
to some crony, you may hear the observation, "Who are these strangers
and what do they want with their man Buffon anyway?" This may seem an
exaggeration, but it is not, and furthermore the thing may happen
anywhere. Glory is but as smoke, and local fame is often an
infinitesimal thing. _Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas!_
Buffon wrote his extensive "Histoire Naturelle" at Montbard. It created
much admiration at the time. To-day Buffon, his work and his chateau are
all but forgotten or ignored, and but few visitors come to continue the
idolatry of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who kissed the "_seuil de la noble
demure_."
Not long since, within some few years at any rate, a former friend of
Alfred de Musset quoted some little known lines of the poet on this
"_berceau de la histoire naturelle_," with the result that quite
recently the local authorities, in establishing the Musée Buffon, have
caused them, to be carved on a panel in the naturalist's former study at
the chateau.
"Buffon, que ton ombre pardonne
A une témérité
D'ajouter une fleur à la double couronne
Que sur ton front mit l'Immortalité."
Buffon's additions to the old chateau were made for comfort, whatever
they may have lacked of romanticism. The French Pliny was evidently not
in the least romantically inclined, or he would not have levelled these
historic walls and the alleyed walks and gardens laid out in the profuse
and formal manner of those of Italy. The result is a poor substitute for
a picturesque grass-grown ruin, or a faithfully restored mediæval
castle.
Between the Brenne and a canal which flows through the town rises an
admirable feudal tower indicating the one time military and strategic
importance of the site. It is called Mont Bard, and marks where once
stood the fortress that surrendered in its time to the "Ligueurs."
Near Montbard is a hamlet which bears the illustrious name of Buffon,
but it is doubtful if even a few among its three hundred inhabitants
know for whom it is named.
Still further away, on the Châtillon road, is the little town of
Villaines-en-Dumois, a bourg of no importance in the life of modernity.
It is somnolent to an extreme, comfortable-looking and apparently
prosperous. The grand route from Paris to Dijon passes it by a dozen
kilometres to the left, and the railway likewise. Coaching days left it
out in the cold also, and modern travel hardly knows that it exists.
In spite of this the town owns to something more than the trivial
morsels of stone which many a township locally claims as a chateau. Here
was once a favourite summer residence of the Burgundian dukes, and here
to-day the shell, or framework, of the same edifice looks as though it
might easily be made habitable. The property came later to the Madame de
Longueville, the sister of the Grand Condé. There is nothing absolutely
magnificent about it now, but the suggestion of its former estate is
still there to a notable degree. The walls and towers, lacking roofs
though they do, well suggest the princely part the edifice once played
in the life of its time.
In spite of the fact that the name of the town appears in none of the
red or blue backed guide-books, enough is known of it to establish it as
the former temporary seat of one of the most formal of the minor courts
of Europe, where--the records tell--etiquette was as strict as in the
ducal palace at Dijon. Four great round towers are each surrounded by a
half-filled moat, and the suggestion of the old chapel, in the shape of
an expanse of wall which shows a remarkably beautiful ogival window,
definitely remains to give the idea of the former luxury and
magnificence with which the whole structure was endowed.
A detached dwelling, said to be the house of the prior of a neighbouring
monastery who attached himself to the little court, is in rather a
better state of preservation than the chateau itself, and might indeed
be made habitable by one with a modest purse and a desire to play the
"grand seigneur" to-day in some petty gone-to-seed community. These
opportunities exist all up and down France to-day, and this seems as
likely a spot as any for one who wishes to transplant his, or her,
household gods.
Beyond Montbard is Les Laumes, a minor railway junction on the line to
Dijon, which is scarcely ever remembered by the traveller who passes it
by. But, although there is nothing inspiring to be had from even a
glance of the eye in any direction as one stops a brief moment at the
station, nevertheless it is a prolific centre for a series of historical
pilgrimages which, for pleasurable edification, would make the traveller
remember it all his life did he give it more than a passing thought. One
must know its history though, or many of the historic souvenirs will be
passed by without an impression worth while.
On Mont Auxois, rising up back of the town, stands a colossal statue of
Vercingetorix, in memory of a resistance which he here made against the
usually redoubtable Cæsar.
Six kilometres away there is one of the most romantically historic of
all the minor chateaux of France and one not to be omitted from
anybody's chateaux tour of France. It is the Chateau de Bussy-Rabutin,
to-day restored and reinhabited, though for long periods since its
construction it was empty save for bats and mice. This restoration,
which looks to-day like
[Illustration: _Chateau de Bussy-Rabutin_]
a part of the original fabric, was the conceit of the Comte de
Bussy-Rabutin, a cousin of Madame de Sévigné in the seventeenth century.
It gives one the impression of being an exact replica of a seigneurial
domain of its time.
The main fabric is a vast square edifice with four towers, each marking
one of the cardinal points. The Tour du Donjon to the east, and the Tour
de la Chapelle to the west are bound to a heavy ungainly façade which
the Comte Roger de Bussy-Rabutin built in 1649. This ligature is a sort
of a galleried arcade which itself dates from the reign of Henri II.
As to its foundation the chateau probably dates from an ancestor who
came into being in the twelfth century. In later centuries it frequently
changed hands, until it came to Leonard du Rabutin, Baron d'Epiry, and
father of the Comte Roger who did the real work of remodelling. It was
this Comte Roger who has gone down to fame as the too-celebrated cousin
of Madame de Sévigné. To-day, the chateau belongs to Madame la Comtesse
de Sarcus and although it is perhaps the most historic, at least in a
romantic sense, of all the great Renaissance establishments of these
parts, it is known to modern map-makers as the Chateau de Savoigny. Much
of its early history is closely bound with that picturesque owner,
Comte de Bussy-Rabutin.
In Holy Week in 1657, at the age of forty-one, Bussy became involved in
some sort of a military scandal and was exiled from France. The
following year he made peace with the powers that be and returned to
court, when he composed the famous, or infamous, "Histoire Amoureuse des
Gaules," a work of supposed great wit and satirical purport, but
scandalous to a degree unspeakable. It was written to curry favour with
a certain fair lady, the Marquise de Monglat, who had an axe to grind
among a certain coterie of court favourites. Bussy stood her in great
stead and the scheme worked to a charm up to a certain point, when Louis
XIV, not at all pleased with the unseemly satire, hurried its
unthinking, or too willing, author off to the Bastile and kept him there
for five years, that no more of his lucubrations of a similar, or any
other, nature should see the light.
In 1666 Bussy got back to his native land and was again heard of by
boiling over once more with similar indiscretions at Chazeu, near Autun.
Finally he got home to the chateau and there remained for sixteen
consecutive years, not a recluse exactly, and yet not daring to show
his head at Paris. It was a long time before he again regained favour in
royal circles.
The Cour d'Honneur of the chateau is reached by a monumental portal
which traverses the middle of the _corps du logis_. Above this are two
marble busts, one of Sainte-Jeanne-de-Chantal, which came originally
from the Couvent de Visitation at Dijon, and the other of Colbert, the
minister of Louis XIV.
The ancient Salle des Devises (now the modern billiard room) has a very
beautiful pavement of hexagonal tiles, and a series of allegorical
_devises_ which Bussy had painted in 1667 by way of reproach to one of
his feminine admirers. On other panels are painted various reproductions
of royal chateaux and a portrait of Bussy with his emblazoned arms.
The Salon des Grands Hommes de Guerre, on the second floor, is well
explained by its name. Its decorations are chiefly interlaced monograms
of Bussy and the Marquise Monglat, setting off sixty odd portraits of
famous French warriors, from Duguesclin and Dunois to Bussy himself,
who, though more wielder of the pen than the sword, chose to include
himself in the collection. Some of these are originals, contemporary
with the period of their subjects; others are manifestly modern copies
and mediocre at that, though the array of effigies is undeniably
imposing.
The Chambre Sévigné, as one infers, is consecrated to the memory of the
most famous letter writer of her time. For ornamentation it has
twenty-six portraits, one or more being by Mignard, while that of "La
Grande Mademoiselle," who became the Duchesse de Berry, is by Coypel.
Below a portrait of Madame de Sévigné, Bussy caused to be inscribed the
following: "Marie de Rabutin: vive agreable et sage, fille de Celse
Béninge de Rabutin et Marie de Coulanges et femme de Henri de Sévigné."
This, one may be justified in thinking, is quite a biography in brief,
the sort of a description one might expect to find in a seventeenth
century "Who's Who."
Beneath the portrait of her daughter--Comtesse de Grignan--the
inscription reads thus: "Françoise de Sévigné; jolie, amiable, enfin
marchant sur les pas de sa mere sur le chapitre des agreements, fille de
Henri de Sévigné et de Marie de Rabutin et femme du Comte de Grignan." A
rather more extended biography than the former, but condensed withal.
Another neighbouring room is known as the Petite Chambre Sévigné, and
contains some admirable sculptures and paintings.
Leading to the famous Tour Dorée is a long gallery furnished after the
style of the time of Henri II, whilst a great circular room in the tower
itself is richly decorated and furnished, including two _faisceaux_ of
six standards, each bearing the Bussy colours.
Legend and fable have furnished the motive of the frescoes of this
curious apartment, and under one of them, "Céphale et Procris," in which
one recognizes the features of Bussy and the Marquise, his particular
friend, are the following lines:
"Eprouver si sa femme a le coeur précieux,
C'est être impertinent autant que curieux:
Un peu d'obscurité vaut, en cette matière,
Mille fois mieux que la lumière."
Not logical, you say, and unprincipled. Just that! But as a documentary
expression of the life of the times it is probably genuine.
Here and elsewhere on the walls of the chateau are many really worthy
works of art, portraits by Mignard, Lebrun, Just, and others, including
still another elaborate series of fourteen, representing Richelieu,
Louis XIII, Anne d'Autriche, Mazarin, Louis XIV. Again in the _plafond_
of the great tower are other frescoes representing the "Petits Amours"
of the time, always with the interlaced cyphers of Bussy and Madame la
Comtesse.
From the Chambre Sévigné a gallery leads to the tribune of the chapel.
Here is a portrait gallery of the kings of the third race, of the
parents of Bussy, and of the four Burgundian dukes and duchesses of the
race of Valois. The chapel itself is formed of a part of the Tour Ronde
where are two canvasses of Poussin, a Murillo and one of Andrea del
Sarto.
The gardens and Park of the chateau are attributed to Le Notre, the
garden-maker of Versailles. This may or may not be so, the assertion is
advanced cautiously, because the claim has so often falsely been made of
other chateau properties. The gardens here, however, were certainly
conceived after Le Notre's magnificent manner. There is a great
ornamental water environing the chateau some sixty metres in length and
twelve metres in width, and this of itself is enough to give great
distinction to any garden-plot.