IN THE VALLEY OF THE OUCHE
Ever since developing a keen interest in the fortunes of the great
Burgundian monasteries, we had decided to take the first opportunity of
seeing the Valley of the Ouche, and Labussière, the adopted daughter of
Citeaux.
It was a public holiday; and the train from Dijon was packed with
excursionists. I found myself the only male in a compartment crammed
with eight old ladies, mostly stout, and all in holiday spirits. We
fell into conversation. They all expressed kindly interest in the task
that had brought me to Dijon. I was catechized.
"Has Monsieur seen the prisons of Dijon?"
"No, Madame; je n'aime pas beaucoup ces endroits là." Little tinkling
laughs ran all round the carriage.
"But I only just missed seeing them yesterday--because I had left
behind me my permis de circulation. You have so many regulations in
France."
"Talking of regulations, Monsieur," said the stoutest and shrewdest of
the old ladies, with a wicked twinkle in her eye, "Permit me to call to
your attention to the fact that you are in a "Dames seules!"
"Mille pardons, Mesdames; but permit me to observe that I have chosen
my company well."
This time the compartment rang with laughter; and eight bonnetted heads
bobbed in recognition of the courtoisie.
"And if we let him stay, Monsieur will promise to be bien sage?"
"Assurément, Mesdames, foi de Lion." So the banter went on, until our
station was called; and in ten minutes we found ourselves lunching in a
meadow of St. Victor, and looking up at the Castle of Marigny perched
upon its rock.
In the time of the first Crusade, Marigny, the great fortress, whose
lord was one of the four most powerful barons of Burgundy, proudly
dominated the valley. Now it is but a charming relic, where you may
wander beneath broken arches and the ivied vaults of great chambers,
from whose crannied floors young fir-trees grow, and bushes hoary with
silver lichen. There, too, you may wile away all a summer day, lying
upon mossy, blossom-jewelled lawns, and dreaming dreams of the great
lords of Marigny, and of Brother Albéric of Labussière, or of Tebsima,
the Arab exile, whose bones rest in a mountain tomb not far away. All
the hills hereabout are full of memories of this most gracious of all
Burgundian legends.
Tebsima Ben-Beka (Smile Son of Tears)--so named because his birth
brought joy and death to his mother--was a direct descendant of the
prophet himself. Growing up a strong and courageous youth, imbued with
a fierce hatred of all Christians, he fought valiantly for Islam in the
great struggle of the Crescent against the Cross,[136] but was taken
prisoner by Guillaume, Lord of Marigny, at the assault of Jerusalem in
1099. Guillaume, from the first, was drawn towards his young prisoner,
whom he tried earnestly to convert to the Christian faith. His prayers
were heard, and answered by a wonderful miracle. Tebsima and some
companions were present one day, as spectators at a holy celebration.
The officiating priest had pronounced the sacramental formula, and
was elevating the host, when, suddenly, the sacred emblem was seen by
all to change into the form of a young child of marvellous beauty.
All present fell upon their faces. Before the priest stood a crystal
chalice, filled with white wine and water. He took it between his
hands, and spoke the mysterious words. As he did so, the wine changed
to blood. Before the new miracle the hardest heart surrendered. Tebsima
became a Christian.
In the chalice rested ever after a drop of blood. Guillaume de Marigny
was given the sacred relic by the priest, on condition that he would
stay two years longer in Palestine. This condition he fulfilled; then,
taking with him Tebsima, whose life, as a Christian, was in mortal
danger so long as he stayed in the East, Guillaume set out for France.
For three long years his wife, Matilde, sorrowing, had awaited her
lord. Imagine, then, her joy when, gazing one day from the battlements
of the castle, she heard, floating from far down the valley, the blare
of the Crusader's trumpets, then caught the glint of sun on shining
armour, and, at last, the white plume tossing upon her husband's helmet.
The Holy Tear, as people had learned to name the sacred relic that
Guillaume had brought with him, was placed, with all reverence, in the
tabernacle of the chapel, and every year a solemn fête was celebrated
in its honour. Tebsima, the exile, lived in the Castle of Marigny,
where Guillaume and his lady treated him as their brother. But his
heart ached to see his own people again; and, when the winter cold of
Burgundy pierced him through and through, he longed for the strong suns
of the East. So he told his friends of his resolution, and, despite
their protests, returned whence he came. But his own family, much as
they loved him, would not receive him when they knew the truth. How
could the very children of Mahomet welcome a follower of the Christ?
So, after sorrows and adventures, too many to tell, Tebsima came a
second time to the great Castle by the Ouche. Warm, indeed, was the
welcome he received, and great the rejoicing, when he told how he had
sworn never to leave Burgundy again.
One day a brilliant cavalcade was seen riding down the valley. It was
the cortège of Hugues,[137] the Duke of Burgundy, come to celebrate, by
a day's hunting with the lord of Marigny, the safe return of the young
Emir. An hour later the horns sounded the ballad of St. Hubert from
the Castle tower, and the hunt was laid on. A noble stag broke from
the thicket. There was hue and cry down into the valley of Labussière,
where the beast was brought to bay. Suddenly, with a splendid bound,
it cleared the baying hounds, and made furiously for the lady of the
castle, who had followed the hunt. Tebsima, on his Arab steed, that
many a time had been his saviour, saw the danger, and pressed forward.
His blade pierced the stag's body up to the hilt, but not before the
terrible horns had buried themselves deep in the horse's side.[138]
The violence of Tebsima's fall, the loss of his horse, that, to an
Arab, is as the loss of a brother, and the chill winds of Burgundy,
wrought mortal harm in the young Arab. Then came a yet greater
disaster. It was on the great day of the veneration of the Sainte
Larme. A young page, nobly dressed in black, came at evening to the
castle chapel, and knelt in prayer before the relic. A moment later
the page and the relic had gone. Tebsima, who first noticed the theft,
rode headlong in pursuit. Seeing the black rider in front of him, he
summoned him, by the blood of Christ, to halt; and, behold, the mule,
despite its rider's efforts, stood immovable, as though changed to
stone. Tebsima drew near to the thief, demanded the return of the relic.
"Since I cannot keep it," said the page, "let it be lost for ever to
the Chapel of Marigny." He hurled the chalice down the face of the
rock, and, drawing his sword, attacked the Emir, who, while avoiding
the blow, plunged his scimitar into the mule's body. The animal bounded
into the air; and man and beast rolled headlong over the brink of the
abyss, and were dashed to pieces on the stones below. Weeping bitterly,
Tebsima descended to seek the fragments of the cup. He found them lying
in a dozen pieces, where a little stream bubbles from the rock. That
stream is called to this day the Fontaine de Sainte Larme; and still
its limpid waters seem to weep the sacrilege its name commemorates.[139]
The holy relic had vanished for ever. So, with the precious object that
had served always to remind Tebsima of the miracle of his conversion,
all hope in this life departed from the stricken Emir. Feeling himself
to be dying, he left the Castle of Marigny, and withdrew to the
pleasant grotto that by chance he had discovered, near by, in the
side of the hill. There he lived the life of a hermit, giving his
mind wholly to devotion and earnest prayer--which was granted--for
conversion to the Faith of Christ of his relatives in the East. There
he was visited frequently by the lord and lady of Marigny, who brought
him food, and oil for his lamp. He had another friend, to whom he told
all his story--the good Albéric, the infirmier at the neighbouring
monastery of Labussière.
Into that grotto of Marigny there entered, one stormy night, a group of
monks. One of them bore the cross of the monastery; another, Brother
Albéric, carried a robe and a scapular. Two novices, torch in hand,
preceded the Abbot, who carried the oil and the holy mysteries. Then
they clothed Tebsima in the robes of the order, and consecrated him
to the service of the church.[140] And so, while a great wind howled
through the hollows of the wooded hills, peacefully, with folded hands,
and lips pressed upon the cross of olive, the new monk passed to the
joys of the new life.
The good Albéric had been one of the three brothers who, at the close
of the eleventh century, had founded a little monastery beside the
Ouche, in the lonely vale of Labussière, where three mountain ranges
and three valleys meet.[141] He had once been a rich lord; but, when
years of famine came, he sold all that he had, and gave to the poor
and to God; then, having nothing beside to give, he gave his heart,
vowing himself to the religious life. Virtues such as his soon raised
him to the head of the monastery; but, well though he filled his post,
troubles beset his way. Monk after monk was laid in the cemetery;
the cells were empty, and none came to fill them. All the stream of
monastic vocation was turned towards Citeaux, the then flourishing
Abbey, whose fortunes we have already followed.
One summer night, in 1131, when the tale of the monks of Labussière had
dwindled to the original number, three, a mysterious vision came to
Albéric.
He was walking, on a bright morning, in the monastery garden. Suddenly
he paused before a hive whose tenants seemed to be few and ailing. He
raised the cover; the hive was almost empty. "Poor little bees,"[142]
he said, with a sigh, "What will become of you during the winter?" He
thought of his own convent, and he wept. Suddenly he heard a noise
coming from the mountain, then he perceived a vigorous swarm humming
above his head; and, in a moment, the bees of the valley had come forth
to greet their sisters of the hill. All together entered the hive,
and set to work with joyful hum. Towards the close of the day Brother
Albéric lifted the basket. It was heavy, and already half full. "God be
praised," said he. "The future of the hive is assured." As he awoke, at
dawn, he heard a voice saying to him, "Do as the bees of the valley,
and your work shall live."
At first Albéric did not understand this vision; but the next day,
while giving alms at the gate of the convent, one of the poor told him
that a great fire had destroyed the monastery of Aseraule, whose monks
were in dire distress. This news was a ray of light to Albéric. He told
his brother monks of the dream that had come to him, and of the burning
of the neighbouring monastery. They marvelled greatly, and all knew
surely that God's will bade them summon the Cistercians of the mountain.
In all haste they went to offer aid to their homeless brothers; and
there they met the pious English monk, Stephen Harding, friend of St.
Robert, and St. Bernard's master, who had come to offer the shelter
of Citeaux. Falling at Stephen's feet, and kissing his hand, Albéric
begged him to take into his order himself, his companions, and their
monastery. Stephen willingly consented. He gave to Albéric and his
companions the white robe of Citeaux, and soon after traced with his
own hand upon the soil of Labussière the plan of a new monastic church.
Stone by stone the building grew, until, on the 10th September, 1172,
in the presence of a vast assemblage, before all the clergy and nobles
of Burgundy, the new church was consecrated by Saint Pierre, Archbishop
of Tarentaise, who, by prayer and the laying on of hands, wrought so
many miracles of healing that day, that the people, witnessing these
prodigies, shouted, till the three valleys were echoing with their
cries of "Noel, Noel!" The Abbey of Labussière was well founded at last.
* * * * *
A great part of the Abbey buildings still remain, restored almost
beyond recognition, and transformed into a magnificent mansion, now in
the occupation of a family whose name I have forgotten. To our great
regret we were unable to see the house, as the gardien had vanished,
taking the keys with him; so we had to content ourselves with glimpses
of glorious Gothic arcades, Romanesque staircases, and a west front,
apparently of the fifteenth century, with a flamboyant door. But much
of the building may be entirely new, for all I know.
It was late in the afternoon that we rode into Labussière, and as
we had to get on to Bligny that night, very little time was left in
which to do more than explore the church, a thoroughly good sample of
Cistercian severity, of the eleventh or twelfth century, with a square
apse. It has some fine tombs, and Gothic monumental slabs. Dining that
night in the "Cheval Blanc" at Bligny, where the host served to us,
at half an hour's notice, a dinner that the Carlton could not have
bettered, for hungry men, we agreed that it would not be easy to find a
more charming _pays_ than the valley of the Ouche, in which to pass a
lazy fortnight, tracing out some of its hundred legends, and steeping
oneself in its romantic past.
The road to Arnay-le-Duc, without being more than ordinarily
interesting, gives you some fine views over the Côte d'Or. You pass
through Antigny-le-Chatel, where there is a fine ruin on a hill, and
below it a later ghostly castle of the 14th or 15th century, with
the high-pitched roof of the period, and a round tower. At Froissy,
entering an inn in search of déjeuner, we found a wedding in full
swing. Through a glass panelled door we could see half a dozen
perspiring couples scuffling round what would be described in England
as the bar parlour. We were detected at once; hot faces were pressed
against the glass, while Madame produced an armful of bread, and some
cheese on a broken plate.
"Par ici, m'sieur et dame," said she; "Vous serez mieux dans la
charmesse." She opened the panelled door, and, one carrying the
bread, and the other the cheese on a broken plate, we walked in grand
procession through the ballroom--so shaking with our inward mirth that
the cheese nearly came to grief. The poor bride, however--a study in
sticky purple and white, not good to look upon--did not relish the
joke; she scowled upon the intruders; but madame seemed glad to have
us--and ready to talk to us, as we sat in the charmesse--a little
dusty, rickety arbour, through which the south wind was blowing clouds
of dust.
"That castle over there. Oh! no one has lived in it these many years
now, except rats. You can't tax them. You see the Government put such
heavy taxes upon the castles that they just drive people away. There's
not a habited château now in all Côte d'Or. And what weather! Such a
wind! Nous n'avons plus de saisons en Bourgogne."
"Whose wedding is this?" said my wife, looking towards the ballroom
bar-parlour.
"Oh that's my nephew; he is a vigneron, and a good lad. Is madame
married, and has she children? No children! Then madame, je vous
souhaite un beau fils."
As for me, I was speculating on the market price of rat-poison, of
castles in the Côte d'Or, and on the squeezability of the French
government in the matter of assessments.
* * * * *
Few incidents in life give more pleasure than happy discovery. That is
why we so much enjoyed Arnay-le-Duc. We just found it out, by instinct,
or by chance. For nobody knows about it; not even the learned people
who write guide-books. And as for the motorists; they come in with the
darkness, and go out with the dawn--"Must be at Dijon by ten."
In all France I do not know a richer study in warm, red roof-colours
than towered Arnay, seen at sunset from the high land on the road to
Saulieu, nor a more satisfying example of the outlines of a ramparted
Gothic-Renaissance town. Nor, as is sometimes the case, does close
acquaintance disenchant you. Wander through its streets, and prove for
yourself that it is one of the most unspoiled places in all Burgundy.
There is something good at every turn--a high-pitched, pierced,
white gable, from which black window-eyes look out upon a dark,
brown-green, mottled roof touched with red; a wall with a warm tiled
hood; a glimpse, through a trefoiled gate, of a miniature Renaissance
garden, with box and ivy edged borders, fruit trees jewelled with
white blossom, and a lovely, pierced balustrade, leading up to a
Kate-Greenaway House.
But these are the town's less substantial, and less obvious
attractions. Plain for all to see are the flamboyant church with
its octagonal lantern, and, at the back of it--best approached by a
charming staircase such as we have neither time nor skill to design
now-a-days--the old round tower of the Motte Forte. In the central
_Place_ is a charming white, turretted, and gabled house, reminding
one of the Colombier at Beaune, and close to it, beside the Marché,
are fifteenth-century, cupid-bow windows, and an old Gothic arch
leading into a Gothic courtyard. Some of the houses have curious stone
benches before them, with lovely round and square-edged mouldings,
and everywhere are quaintly designed handles and knockers of forged
ironwork. The women, too, it seemed to us, were less heavy in feature,
and more spirituelle, than in other parts of Burgundy. The naughtiest
of all the naughty children who crowded and criticised round my wife's
easel, was a beautiful blonde girl. We reproved her pranks more often
than those of the others--because she looked so lovely when she
blushed.
[Illustration: ·CORNER HOUSE·ARNAY·LE·DUC·]
Another attractive spot in Arnay is the walk, by a red path, between
the towering, moss-grown, grey-brown ramparts, where in autumn
the wallflowers blow. Good company, too, are the willow-fringed,
elder-shaded stream, across which you have a glimpse of garden and
orchard, and the green slopes over which anxious ganders take their
fluffy yellow children out for exercise.
But I have not yet mentioned the building that many of the locals,
including the landlord of the Cheval Blanc at Bligny, regard as the
crowning glory of Arnay; and that is the splendid, transitional,
Gothic-Renaissance manoir of the Ducs de Burgogne; though, of course,
the landlord of the Cheval Blanc does not know it is anything of
the kind. For him it is the Limier or file-factory--the best in all
France. For us it is a defiled manoir--still showing traces of ancient
loveliness, in slated turret, snake-skin roof, and daintily-carved
friezes above the ruined dormer-windows.
Yes: this place is good to wander in. Here comes an old man followed by
a flock of tinkling goats. He stops before a house, and knocks at the
door. The tinkling stops, too. Then a cup is handed out to him, to be
filled from an accommodating goat. He hands it back quite full of warm
milk. The door slams; the tinkling begins again.
A very ancient, bent, bearded man, ragged and dirty, was sitting
munching bread, on the steps that lead down from the _place_.
"Would you like to give him half a franc?" I said to my wife. She
would, very much. In a moment the two were in conversation.
"Why do you give me this?" said the old man, looking down at the coin
in his hand.
"Because we saw you having déjeuner yesterday, and were interested.
This is for to-day."
"It is much for one who is poor. Are you French?"
"No, English."
"All the English are rich. Are you selling things here?"
"No: I am making pictures for a book my husband is writing."
"Ah! you gain much by that?"
"Not very much. But we like it: we did a book on Provence once."
"Ah Provence. I know Provence. I am from the Basses Alpes. I like
Provence very much; you get such good wine there."
"Don't you? Now I must go back to the Café--and finish _my_ wine."
"Yes, and I'll finish mine." He put his head under the pump, and drank.
[Illustration: TOUR DE LA MOTTE FORTE--ARNAY-LE-DUC
_Facing page 182_]
Then there was the Hotel Chrétien, as I think it was called; an
establishment rather casually run, but marked by a bonhomie and
insouciance that enlivened the monotony of wet days. The commercial
travellers made themselves very much at home with Madame and the
waitress. One of these gentlemen, in particular, subjected the latter
to a flow of chaff that ceased not even with the coffee. He always
began with a request to her to recite the ménu aloud, and whenever a
lull came, he would turn to her, and say in the most innocent tone:
"By the way, Madamoiselle, what have we to eat this evening?"
"Is Monsieur stone deaf?"
"Not at all, Mademoiselle; only hungry. And I like to regulate appetite
by the dishes that are coming!"
Dessert came on. The voluble one cut an apple in half. It was rotten.
"Hey, Mademoiselle; regardez-moi ça. Il y en a une qui marche (There's
one walking)."
"So I see. He would willingly be quit of Monsieur."
The other men would sit round sniggering--and occasionally chipping in;
but they seldom got the better of the maid, who had a fund of repartee
that I have rarely heard matched, even in France.
From this house of frivolity and good cooking--the chef had been seven
months at the Carlton--hence enough quite incomprehensible jargon to
warrant the legend "English spoken" on the hotel omnibus--we made some
good excursions over the undulating country that lies around Arnay;
through miles of spring woods where brave nightingales sang on a spray
before your very eyes; by lofty green uplands, through plateaux,
suggestive of Normandy, where the cattle and the lady's-smock dapple
with splashes of white and mauve the rich green meadows; where the
cloudless skies are mirrored in bluer than English ponds, and peasants'
sabots clatter through the most tangle-wood villages of France; wide
silences where your eye can roam all ways, along the distant hills
shimmering in silver and blue, quivering with living light, to majestic
Château-Neuf of Philippe Pot, and the tower-crowned castles of other
lords of ancient Burgundy.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] Godefroy de Bouillon left France for the crusade in 1096.
[137] Hugues le Pacifique, one of the worthiest of the Capetian Dukes
of Burgundy, died in 1142.
[138] The spring that marks the site of this incident is still called
the _Fontaine-Cheval_. It runs into the rivulet De Larvot, by
the "Pré de l'Etang." See l'Abbé B---- s "Tebsima," p. 179.
[139] Tebsima, p. 185.
[140] Ibid, p. 220.
[141] The spot was called originally Tres Valles--The Three Valleys.
[142] He did not use the word abeille, but the prettier mediæval form,
_avette_, from the Latin _apicula_ little bee.
"Labussière et Citeaux," p. 233 of Tebsima, by l'Abbé B----.
[Illustration: Heading, chapter XIII; Dijon]