THE SWISS BORDER: BUGEY AND BRESSE
"La Bresse, le Bugey, le Val-Romey et la Principauté de Dombes" was the
high-sounding way in which that hinterland between Burgundy and Savoy
was known in old monarchial days. Of a common destiny with the two
dukedoms, it was allied first with one and then with the other until the
principality was nothing more than a name; independence was a myth, and
allegiance, and perhaps something more, was demanded by the rulers of
the neighbouring states.
In Roman times these four provinces were allied with the I-Lyonnais, but
by the Burgundian conquerors forcibly became allied with the stronger
power.
Bresse of itself belonged to the Sires de Bagé and in 1272 became a
countship allied with the house of Savoy, which in 1601 ceded it to the
king of France.
Local diction perpetuates the following quatrain which well explains
the relations of Bresse with the surrounding provinces.
"_Pont-de-Veyle et Pont-de-Vaux,_
_Saint Trivier at Romeno_
_Sont quat' villes bien renommo;_
_Mias viv' Mâcon pour beir_
_Et Bourg pour mangi._"
Bresse, more than any other of the subdivisions of mediæval and modern
France, is endowed with renown for the sobriety and purity of the life
of its people; and family ties are "respectable and respected," as the
saying goes. Above all has this been notably true of the nobility, who
were ever looked up to with love and pride by those of lower stations.
Among the common people never has one been found to willingly ally
himself, or herself, with another family who might have a blot on its
escutcheon. The marriage vow and its usages are simple but devout, and
in addition to the usual observations the peasant husband grants, as a
part of the marriage contract, a black dress to be worn at Toussaint and
the Jour des Mortes, and to all family mourning celebrations. If a widow
or widower seeks another partner the event is celebrated by a ball--for
which the doubly wedded party pays.
[Illustration: _Women of Bresse_]
The village fêtes of Bresse, still continued in many an out-of-the-way
little town, are the usual drinking and dancing _festins_ of the comic
opera merry-making variety. They are simple and proper enough
exhibitions, and never descend to the freedom of speech and manners that
such exhibitions often do in the Midi.
None more than Brillat-Savarin has carried the fame of Bresse abroad. A
one-time member of the Cour de Cassation, he perhaps was better known to
the world at large as the father of gastronomy in France. His
"Psychologie de Gout," if nothing else, would warrant giving him this
title.
Val-Romey--the Vallis Romana of the Emperors--and Bugey had for
overlords the Sires de Thoire et Villars. It, too, came in time to the
Ducs de Savoie, by gift and by heritage, and also was ceded in 1601 to
Henri IV, by virtue of the Treaty of Lyons.
Dombes, principality in little, although at first a part of the kingdom
of Burgundy, later fell by favour of circumstances to the Sires of
Beaugé and afterwards to the Sire de Beaujeau. Finally it turned its
fortunes into the hands of the Bourbons, when Mademoiselle de
Montpensier came to rule its destinies. She turned it over to Louis XIV
as payment for his authorization for her marriage with Monsieur de
Lauzun.
The princess made this sacrifice of love in vain, and Dombes fell to the
Duc de Maine, while Lauzun languished in the prison Pignerolo, for the
king did not abide by his back-handed favouritism.
On the border between the mediæval dukedom and the principality of
Dombes, to-day the Départements of the Saône et Loire and the Ain, is a
race apart from other mankind hereabouts. In numerous little villages,
notably at Boz and Huchisi, one may still observe the dark Saracen
features of the ancients mingled with those of to-day. A monograph has
recently appeared which defines these peoples as something quite unlike
the other varied races now welded into the citizens of twentieth century
France.
Modern vogue, style, fashion, or whatever you may choose to call it, is
everywhere fast changing the old picturesque costume into something of
the ready-made, big-store order, but to stroll about the highways and
byways in these parts and see men in baggy Turkish trousers with their
coats and waistcoats tied together by strings or ribbons in place of
conventional buttons, is as a whiff of the Orient, or at least a
reminder of the long ago.
The women dress in a distinct, but perhaps not otherwise very
remarkable, manner, save that an occasional "Turk's-Head" turban is
seen, quite as Oriental as the _culotte_ of the men. A blend of Spain,
of Arabia, of Persia and of Turkey could not present a costume more
droll than that of the "_Chizerots_," as these people are known.
Another _petit pays_, and one of the most remarkably disposed,
politically, of all the old provinces which go to make up modern France,
is what is known even to-day as the Pays de Gex. It belonged
successively to the house of Joinville, to the Comté de Savoie and to
the States of Berne and Geneva. The Duc de Savoie, by the treaty of
1601, ceded it to France, but a strip is still neutral ground for both
Switzerland and France, which by common accord allows Geneva full access
to the territory in order to establish its communications with Swiss
territory on the west and south shores of Lac Leman, particularly to
that region beyond Saint-Gingolphe.
The name Gex is evolved from the Latin Gesium, the capital of a kingdom
owning but a length of six leagues and a width of about half as much.
The Bernese and the Genevois conquered it in turn, and to-day its
personality is _nil_ except that one recalls it as the head centre for
the trade in Gruyère cheese, the kind which we commonly call Swiss
cheese. It is in the Pays de Gex, on the railway line from Gex to
Geneva, that one notes the name of Fernay and endeavours to recall for
just what it stands. At last it comes to one. Fernay possesses a
literary shrine of note that all who pass this way may well remember.
The wonder is that one did not recall it with less effort.
The whole town is virtually a monument to Voltaire. It was he who built
the town, practically; that is, he furnished the land and the means to
erect many of the meaner houses which surround the chateau which he came
himself to inhabit, and from which, for a time, the rays of his
brilliant wit were shed over the whole literary world of the eighteenth
century.
After his flight from Berlin, Voltaire, the Seigneur de Fernay, founded
Fernay, within six kilometres of the frontier and Geneva, and sought to
attract Swiss watch-makers thither that a similar industry might there
be established on French soil. Surely Voltaire was more of a benefactor
of his race than he is usually considered.
The Voltaire manor, or chateau, albeit that it is nothing grandly
monumental, still exists with
[Illustration: _Chateau de Voltaire, Ferney_]
furniture and portraits of the time of the satirist. At the entrance to
the chateau is a tiny chapel, built also by Voltaire when he was in that
particular mood. Over its portal it bears the following words, "Deo
Erexit Voltaire MDCCLXI." Arsène Houssaye called the words an
impertinence, and, admitting Voltaire's genius, one is inclined to
assent to the dictum. "My church," said Voltaire, "is erected to God,
the only one throughout Christendom; there are thousands to Saint Jean,
to Saint Paul and to all the rest of the calendar, but not another in
all the world to God."
Such a romantically storied region as this might naturally be expected
to abound in historic souvenirs and monuments almost without end. To an
extent this is true, but such souvenirs and recollections of the past
more frequently present themselves than do actual castle walls, be they
ruined or well-preserved.
The antique lore of ancient Bresse goes back to Druidical days. Stone
axes, Celtic tombs and medals, skeletons wearing bracelets and anklets
of iron and copper have been found in great numbers, and from these have
been built up a vague history of the earliest times.
Of Roman remains there are still evident many outlines of the camps of
the legionaries, innumerable evidences and tracings of old Roman
highroads, with here and there fragments of aqueducts, baths and
temples. Near Bourg have been discovered various medals of the ancient
colony of Massilia, on the shores of the Mediterranean, and one wonders
what were the relations of the Ostragoth peoples of Bresse with the
Phoceans of Marseilles. History is non-committal.
There are no magnificent monumental remains of Roman times left in these
parts save occasional fragments and towers which presumably served for
signalling purposes as a part of the fortifications of the Saracens. For
any architectural monuments of note one can not with certainty go back
to a period earlier than that in which the Burgundian power was at its
height, or to the time of Charles-le-Chauve in the ninth century.
The feudal memories of Bresse are chiefly the ruins of the seigneurial
chateau at Chateauneuf, the chief-town of the Val-Romey. Built high on
the summit of a peak of rock and surrounded by deep-cut fosses, and
walls which drop down sheer like the sides of a precipice, this chief
feudal residence of the Val-Romey was more a fortress than a delectable
domestic establishment, though it served the functions of both, as was
frequently the case with the feudal edifice of its class. What it lacked
in actual luxury or comfort it made up for in the added protection
offered by its sturdy walls. This was notably true of all seigneurial
residences which occupied isolated positions in the feudal epoch. Its
walls to-day, shorn of any æsthetic beauty which they may once have
possessed, and crumbling and moss-grown on every side, still rise a
hundred or more feet in air above their rocky foundations, and in many
places have a thickness of a dozen or fifteen feet. They built well in
those old days, before the era of armoured cement covered with stucco.
Modern builders make great claims for their product, but will it last?
No man knows, and, from the fact that masonry cannot be built even
to-day so as to stand up against shot and shell, one doubts if modern
work is really as durable as that of a thousand years ago. The military
architecture of feudal France, so often closely allied with that of the
civic and domestic varieties, was preëminent in its time.
The religious architecture, the monasteries and churches, of these parts
have certainly more ornate reminders of the undeniable opulence of the
region than the secular examples still existing.
Connecting Bresse and the Franche Comté is a curious little battery of
townlets that have never been mentioned in the guide-books, nor ever
will be. A motor flight from Bourg-en-Bresse to Besançon evolved the
following: First came a smug little town named briefly Pierre. It
possesses a chateau, too, reckoned as one of the really remarkable
examples of the style of Burgundian building. It certainly looks all
that is claimed for it, though we saw it only in the dim twilight of a
May evening. The impression was all-satisfying, and, that being what one
really travels for, one should be content.
For a neighbour there was Champdivers, which recalled a memory of Odette
de Champdivers, the one time companion of the poor Charles VI. during
his latter unhappy days. Truly this was proving for us a most romantic
region, a region utterly neglected by the great world of tourists who
pick out the big-type names on the map and make up their itineraries
accordingly.
On the banks of the Doubs, near the border of Bresse and the Comté, lies
Molay, whose seigneur, Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the
Templars, died at the stake in Paris during the playing of the great
drama of 1314.
After Molay a succession of dwellings continues to the important
frontier town and fortress of Dole, a decayed county-town whose official
importance, even, has been absorbed by the fortified city and
watch-making metropolis of Besançon. Dole will never be reckoned a city
of celebrated art, but regardless of this its fine old Renaissance
houses and Parliamentary Palace of other days all follow the
architectural scheme which makes the civic and secular edifices of
mid-France the most luxurious of their epoch.
Bourg, the capital of Bresse, has ever been one of the most important
towns of France lying near the eastern frontier, though indeed as a
fortified place the modern French military authorities give it scant
value from a strategic point of view. Six great national highways cross
and recross the city, and many of the narrow streets of the days of the
dukes have lately given way to avenues and boulevards. From this one
puts Bourg down as something very modern--which it is, in parts.
Built on the site of the ancient Forum Sebusianorum, the city came in
time under the sway of Burgundy, of the Empire of the States of Savoy,
and finally definitely allied itself with France in 1601.
Bourg is in the heart of Bresse. Its inhabitants are known as Bressans
de Bresse, in contradistinction to those who live on the borders of the
old province. "_Viv Mâcon pour beir et Bourg pour mangi_"--Mâcon for
drinking and Bourg for eating--say the Bressans of Bresse, and with good
reason.
The Bressan costume is most peculiar, at least so far as that of the
women is concerned; the men might be of Normandy or Poitou. Only on a
fête day will one see the real costume of the women of Bresse, but on
such occasions the mere sight of the triple-decked, steeple-like
coiffe--a good replica of an ornamental fountain in miniature--will
suggest nothing so much as the costume of a masquerade.
The only palatial domestic or civic edifice notable in Bourg to-day is
the Parliament Building of the ancient États de la Bresse. Of the many
princely dwellings of the time of the Seigneurs de Bagé, and of the
Savoyan princes of the sixteenth century, not a fragment remains, though
the records tell of a splendid chateau-fort and an episcopal residence
of like luxurious proportions which existed at the time of the union of
Bresse with France. This may be the edifice of the États which now
shelters the Musée Lorin. The longbeards disagree as to this, but the
casual observer will be quite willing to accept the suggestion. The
monument is certainly a splendid one, even if its history is vague.
The famous Église de Brou at Bourg is intimately bound with the life of
the nobles of mediæval times, as closely indeed as if it had been a
secular establishment where lived lords and ladies and their courts. A
description of this classic wonder of architectural art can have no
extended place here. It must suffice to recall that it was erected by
Philibert le Beau in completion of a vow made by his mother Marguerite
de Bourbon. Within are the magnificently sculptured tombs of the two
royalties and another of Marguerite d'Autriche. The sculpture of these
famous tombs has been the subject of more than one monograph, and indeed
the whole ornate structure--church, tombs and sculpture--is a
never-ceasing source of supply to critics and archæologists.
The Italian style, in the most gracious of its flowering forms, is here
united with the flamboyant Flemish school in a profligate profusion. The
Église de Brou is one of the greatest marvels of Renaissance
architecture in all the world.
North of Bourg, on the road to Louhans, through the heart of the Bresse
so dear to gastronomes, are the well conserved remains of the Chateau
de Montcony, and those of more ruinous aspect which represent the
departed glories of Duretal.
Cuiseaux' monumental remains are even more scant, and the town itself
hardly resembles a town of Burgundy. It is more like a place in
Switzerland or the Jura; indeed, to the latter region it once belonged,
and only came to be Burgundian when the princes of the house, through
some petty quarrel, took it for their own by force, as was the way in
those gallant, profligate days.
Cuiseaux does possess, however, a ruined aspect of wall and rampart
which suggests that it must have been one of the most admirably defended
places of the neighbourhood, judging from an old fifteenth century plan
preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Then it was proud of its
ramparts which possessed thirty-six protecting towers. To-day but two of
these sentinels remain, and it were vainglorious to claim too much for
them, particularly since the modern plan of the town makes it look as
conventionally dull and uninteresting as an Arab _ghourbi_ in the Atlas,
or an adobe village in Arizona.
At Pont-de-Vaux, between Bourg and Louhans, one comes to a trim little
town, an outgrowth of the ancient village of Vaux, belonging at one time
to the Sires de Baugé, and later to the Duc de Savoie, Charles III, who
made it a Comté in 1623. It afterwards grew to the dignity of a Duché,
so made by Louis XIII. Much is preserved to-day of the ancient manner of
building, and, all in all, it is quite as satisfactory an example of a
mediæval town as has been left untouched by the mature hand of progress
of these late days.
Nantua is known to the traveller in modern France only as another of
those lakeside resorts which are such delightful places of sojourn for
those who would avoid for a time the strife of great cities. It is a gem
of a town, set in a diadem of beauty which surrounds the tiny lake of
the same name, but it has no historic monuments, if we except the tomb
of Charles le Chauve in the church. This at least entitles it to a
passing comment here, this and the memory of a happy afternoon we passed
by the crystal waters of this brilliant lake.
Midway between Bourg and Mâcon is Pont-de-Veyle. This old feudal town
was once the particular possession of a brilliant line of seigneurs of
France and Savoy, the last, under François I, being the Comte de
Furstemburg, who acquired it as a payment for certain levies of Germans
that he had furnished the French monarch.
The ancient manor of the Furstemburgs still exists, but it is hardly of
a proportion or architectural merit to have distinction. Here, too, are
the reconstructed remains of the eighteenth century of a family chateau
of the Maréchal de Lesdiguières, whose fortunes were more intimately
bound up with Gap and Vizille than with this less accessible property.
Like Vizille it has been "put into condition" in recent years, and,
while lacking the mossy, romantic air of mediævalism, fulfils most of
the demands of the worshipper at historic shrines.
There is still standing here an old city gate dating from the thirteenth
century, and this in turn is surmounted by a belfry of the sixteenth.
The ensemble suggests that it was once a part of a more noble
fortress-chateau. The Maison des Savoyards was probably a princely
rest-house when the nobles of its era passed this way. Beyond its name,
and the elaborate decorations of its façade, there is nothing else to
support the conjecture. Its history, whatever it may have been, is lost
in the confusion with which many ancient records are covered to-day.
Turning southwest on the highroad, from Burgundy into Savoy through the
heart of Dombes, one soon reaches Châtillon-les-Dombes. As its name
indicates, it is a descendant of the town which grew up around an
ancient seigneurial residence here of the fourteenth century. Chiefly
this is memory only, for the fragmentary débris takes on no distinction
to-day beyond that of any other indiscriminate pile of stones and
mortar.
Montluel, near-by, is in much the same category. It is famous only for
the fact that it was here that Amé VII was presented the Duché de Savoie
by Sigismond in 1496, and that in troublous, mediæval days it was the
safe haven for many political refugees from Geneva and Florence.
Montluel, in Latin Mons Lupelli, was the capital of the fief of
Valbonne. The remains existing to-day, and locally called "le chateau,"
are those of an edifice which had an existence and a career of sorts in
the eleventh century, but which since that date has no recorded history.
To Pont d'Ain and Belley is still on the direct road to Savoy. On the
great "route internationale" from Paris to Turin sits the ancient
chateau of Pont d'Ain, which owes its name to the old bridge which once
spanned the Ain at this point.
On an eminence high above the river is the old chateau built by the
Sires de Coligny in 1590, the ancestors of the great admiral. Previously
it had been the residence of the rulers of Savoy, and to this luxurious
dwelling the princesses of the house invariably came to give birth to
the inheritors to the throne. Louise de Savoie, the mother of François
Premier, was born here in 1476, and here died Philibert II, Duc de
Savoie, in 1504, he whose death gave impetus to the erection of that
magnificent mausoleum, the Église de Brou.
Belley, a matter of fifty kilometres further on, is a veritable gateway
through which passed the ancient Route de Savoie along which trotted the
palfreys and rolled the coaches of Renaissance days.
Lacking entirely mediæval monuments of note, Belley ranks, judging from
positive documentary evidence, as one of the most ancient towns of the
border province lying between Burgundy and Savoy. Its episcopate dates
from the year 412 A.D., and, if its feudal monuments have disappeared,
its great episcopal palace of later centuries is certainly entitled to
be considered an example of domestic architecture quite as appealing as
many a feudal chateau of more warlike aspect.
So strong a centre of the church as Belley was bound to be prominent
politically, and its bishops bore as well the title of Princes of the
Empire.
Herein has been given an epitome of a round of travel in this forgotten
and neglected border country lying between old Burgundy, Switzerland and
Savoy. What it lacks in elaborate examples of feudal and Renaissance
architecture it makes up for in storied facts of history, which though
too extensive to be more than hinted at here are as thrilling and
appealing as any chapter of the history of old France. For that reason,
and the fact that some acquaintance with these tiny border provinces is
necessary for a proper appreciation of the exterior relations of both
Burgundy and Savoy, the détour has been made.