GRENOBLE AND VIZILLE: THE CAPITAL OF THE DAUPHINS
Dauphiny owes its name as a province to the rightful name of the eldest
sons of the French kings down to the middle of the nineteenth century.
The actual origin of the application of the name seems to have been
lost, though the Comtes de Vienne bore a dolphin on their blazon from
the eleventh century to the fourteenth, when Comte Humbert, the last
Dauphin, made over his rights to the eldest son of Philippe de Valois,
who acquired the country in 1343, bestowing it upon his offspring as his
patrimony. Thus is logically explained the absorption of the title and
its relations with the province, for it was then that it came first to
be applied to that glorious mountain region of France lying between the
high Alpine valleys and the shores of the Mediterranean.
The Dauphin, Humbert II, first established the Parlement du Dauphiné at
Saint Marcellin in 1337, but within three years it was transferred to
Grenoble, where it held rank as third among the provincial parliaments
of France.
[Illustration: Tourelle _du_ Palais _de_ Justice GRENOBLE B. McM. '08.]
Saint Laurent, the Grenoble suburb, not the mountain town hidden away in
the fastness of the mountain _massif_ of Chartreuse, occupies the site
of an ancient Gaulish foundation called Cularo. Its name was later
changed to Gratianopolis, out of compliment to the Emperor Gratian,
which in time evolved itself into Grenoble, the capital of "the good
province of our most loyal Dauphin."
Grenoble's chief architectural treasure is its present Palais de
Justice, the ancient buildings of the old Parliament of Dauphiny and its
Cour des Comptes. Virtually it is a chateau of state and is, moreover,
the most important monument of the French Renaissance existing in the
Rhône valley. Begun under Louis XI, it was terminated under François
Premier, when, following upon the Italian wars, it was a place of
sojourn for the kings of France.
On entering the portal at the right one comes directly to the Chambre du
Tribunal of to-day, its walls panelled with a wonderful series of
wood-carvings coming from the ancient Cour des Comptes, the work of a
German sculptor, Paul Jude, in 1520.
The portal to the left leads to the Cour d'Appel--the Chambres des
Audiences Solennelles--whose ceiling was designed in 1660 by Jean
Lepautre, a great decorative artist of the court of Louis XIV, and
carved by one Guillebaud, a native of Grenoble. The ancient chapel, or
such of it as remains, where the parliament heard mass, is reached
through this room. The ancient Chambre des Comptes dates from the reign
of Charles VIII.
The Grande Salle on the upper floor is one of the notable works of its
epoch with respect to its decorations, though the noble glass of its
numerous windows was destroyed long years ago, leaving behind only a
record of its magnificently designed _armoiries_ and inscriptions. The
chief, out-of-the-ordinary, decorations still to be observed are the
sculptured fronts of thirty-eight cupboard doors which enclose the
provincial archives. From an artistic, no less than a utilitarian, point
of view, they are certainly to be admired, even preferred, before the
"elastic" book cases of to-day.
Much of the old Palais des Dauphins' former magnificent attributes in
the shape of decorative details remain to charm the eye and senses
to-day, but of the extensive range of apartments of former times only a
bare three or four suggest by their groinings, carvings and
chimney-pieces the splendour with which the elder sons of the kings of
France were wont to surround themselves.
A remarkably successful work of restoration of the façade was
accomplished within a dozen years on the model of the best of
Renaissance details in other parts of the edifice, until to-day the
whole presents a most effective ensemble.
In Grenoble's museum is a room devoted to portraits of the good and
great of Dauphiny. There are a dozen busts in marble of as many
Dauphins, a portrait of Marie Vignon, the wife of Lesdiguières, and a
crayon sketch of Bayard, which is the earliest portrait of the
"Chevalier" extant. In the Église Saint Andre is the tomb of Bayard.
The funeral monument surmounting it was erected only in the seventeenth
century. The official chapel of the Dauphins has a great rectangular
_clocher_ remaining to suggest its former proportions. This fine tower
is surmounted by an octagonal upper story and is flanked at each corner
with a _clocheton_ rising hardily into the rarefied atmosphere. The grim
tower braves the tempests of winter to-day as it has since 1230.
Grenoble's Hôtel des Trois Dauphins is an historic monument as replete
with interest as many of more splendour. It was here that Napoleon
lodged, with General Bertrand, on the night when he passed through the
city on that eventful return from Elba when he sought to kindle the
European war-flame anew.
Grenoble's sole vestige of ancient castle or chateau architecture, aside
from the temporary royal abode of the French kings and the Dauphins, is
a round tower--La Grosse Tour Ronde--now built into the Hôtel de Ville,
the only existing relic of a still earlier Palais des Dauphins which in
its time stood upon the site of the ancient Roman remains of a structure
built in the days of Diocletian.
Grenoble's citadel possesses to-day only a square tower with
_machicoulis_ to give it the distinction of a militant spirit. It was
built in 1409, but to-day has been reduced to a mere barrack's accessory
of not the slightest military strength, a "_colombier militaire_," the
authorities themselves cynically call it.
Vauban's ancient ramparts have now been turned into a series of those
tree-planted promenades so common in France, but the militant aspect of
Grenoble is not allowed to be lost sight of, as a mere glance of the eye
upward to the hillsides and mountain crests roundabout plainly
indicates.
Grenoble, with its fort-crowned hill of "La Bastille," has been called
the Ehrenbreitstein of the Isère, a river which has played a momentous
part in the history of Savoy and Dauphiny, but which is little known or
recognized by those who follow the main lines of French travel.
Mont Rachet forms the underpinning of "La Bastille" and gives a foothold
to an old feudal fortress now built around by a more modern work. Below
is the juncture of the Isère and the Drac, and the great plain in the
midst of which rests the proud old capital of the Dauphins. The site is
truly remarkable and the strategic importance of the fortress was well
enough made use of in mediæval times as a feudal stronghold. What its
value for military purposes may actually be to-day is another story. The
walls of the fortress certainly look grim enough, but it is probable
that even the puniest of Alpine mountain batteries could reduce it in
short order.
Grenoble, as might be expected of a wealthy provincial capital, is
surrounded by a near-by battery of palatial country houses which may
well take rank as _chateaux de marque_. Some are modern and some are
remodelled from more ancient foundations, but all are of the imposing
order which one associates with a mountain retreat. These of course are
of a class quite distinct from the countless forts, fortresses, towers
and donjons with which the whole countryside is strewn.
Uriage, a near neighbour, is a popular resort in little, in fact, a
_ville d'eau_, as the French aptly name such places. The Chateau
d'Uriage will for most folk have vastly more sympathetic interest than
the semi-invalid attractions of the spa itself. It is at present the
property of the Saint Ferreol family, and though not strictly to be
reckoned as a sight, since it is not open to the public, it still
remains one of the most striking residential chateaux of these parts. It
was built by the Seigneurs d'Allemon under the old régime. Its
architecture is frankly of the nondescript order, a mélange of much that
is good and some that is bad, but all of it effective when judged from a
more or less distant view-point. With respect to its details it is a
livid mass of non-contemporary elements to which the purist would give
scant consideration, but the effect, always the most desirable quality
after all, is undeniably satisfying. The situation heightens this
effect, no doubt, but what would you? The high sloped roof, in place of
the mansards one usually sees, may be considered an innovation in a
structure of its epoch. It was so built, without question, that it might
better shed the snows of winter, which here come early and stay late.
The Chateau de Vizille, in a wooded park bordering upon the little
industrial suburb of Grenoble bearing the same name, is a most imposing
pile, and is fairly reminiscent of its eighteenth century contemporaries
in Touraine and elsewhere in mid-France. It was the place of meeting of
the États Généraux of Dauphiny in 1788, one of the momentous preambles
to the French Revolution, a chapter of the great drama which was
vigorously spoken and acted.
It was on July 21, 1788, under the presidency of the Comte de Marges,
that were voted the preliminary paragraphs of the famous "Declaration
des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen." The occasion is perpetuated in
memory by a monument erected in the town to "La Gloire de l'Assemblée de
Vizille ... et prepare la Revolution Française."
This was the first parliamentary vote against the sustaining of
aristocratic hereditary government in favour of popular
representation--really the general signal for revolution, a year before
the convention at Versailles.
The massive pile, ornate but not burdensome, with its mansards, its
towers and terraces, composes with its environment in a most agreeable
manner.
Known originally as the Chateau des Lesdiguières, for it was built
originally by that celebrated Constable, Vice-Roi du Dauphiné, the
Chateau de Vizille was formerly the property of the family of Casimir
Perier, that which gave a president to the later Republic.
In the early part of the seventeenth century a German traveller, Abraham
Goelnitz, "greatly admired" the chateau, and compared it to that of the
Duc d'Epernon at Cadillac, which contained seventy rooms. That of the
Maréchal Lesdiguières had a hundred and twenty-five, among them (at that
time) a picture gallery, an arsenal with six hundred suits of armour,
two thousand pikes and ten thousand muskets, as the inventory read. No
wonder Richelieu would have reduced the power of the local seigneurs
when they could get, and keep together, such a store as that.
Vizille abounds in historical memories the most exciting; the very fact
that it was the home of Lesdiguières, the terrible companion of the
Baron des Adrets--a Dauphinese tyrant, a warrior-pillager and much more
that history vouches for--explains this.
"_Viendrez ou je brulerai_," Lesdiguières wrote to the recalcitrant
vassals of his king who originally had a castle on the same site. And
when they stepped out, leaving the edifice unharmed, he stepped in and
threw it to the ground and built the less militant chateau which one
sees to-day. This edifice as it now stands was practically the work of
Lesdiguières. The Protestant governor of Dauphiny was reckoned a "sly
fox" by the Duc de Savoie, and doubtless with reason. It is a recorded
fact of history that the governor built his chateau with the unpaid
labour of the neighbouring peasants. This was in conformity with an old
custom by which a governor of the Crown could release his subject from
taxes by the payment of a _corvée_, that is, labour for the State. He
took it to mean that as the representative of the state the peasants
were bound to work for him. And so they did. The charge goes home
nevertheless that it was a case of official sinning.
This "Berceau de la Liberté" is in form an elegant pavilion of the style
current with Louis XIII. Originally it possessed certain decorative
features, statues and bas reliefs, all more or less mutilated to-day.
What is left gives an aspect of magnificence, but after all these
features are of no very high artistic order. Within, the decoration of
the apartments and their furnishings rise to a considerably higher
plane. Everywhere may be seen the arms of the Constable, three roses and
a lion, the latter rampant, naturally, as becomes the device of a
warrior.
The later career of the Chateau de Vizille has been most ignoble. Twice
in the last century it suffered by fire, in 1825 and 1865, and finally
it was rented as a store-house for a manufacturing concern, later to
become a boarding house controlled by a Société Anglaise. Nothing good
came of the last project and the enterprise failed, as might have been
anticipated at the commencement. To-day the property is on the market,
or was until very recently.