NEVERS AND MOULINS.
I found the well-remembered Hôtel de France much as I had left it, just
upon twenty years before, every whit as quiet, comfortable, and moderate
in price, indeed, one of the best provincial hotels of France. The dear
old woman then employed as waitress, had, of course, long since gone
to her rest, and the landlord and landlady were new to me. But, the
traditions of an excellent house were evidently kept up, accommodation,
meanwhile, having been greatly enlarged.
A place is like a book; if worth knowing at all, to be returned to again
and again. After the first brief visit so many years ago, I wrote,
“I envy the traveller who for the first time stands on the bridge of
Nevers.” And more imposing, more exhilarating still, seemed the
view from the same spot now; under the brilliant sky, in the clear
atmosphere, every feature standing out as in a mosaic proudly dominating
all, the Cathedral, with its mass of sombre architecture; stretching
wide to right and left, the gay, prosperous-looking city; white villas
rising one above the other, hanging gardens and terraced lawns, making
greenery and verdure in mid-air. On the occasion of my first visit in
August, 1881, the Loire was so low as to appear a mere thread of palest
blue amid white sands; at the time I now write of, broad and beautiful
it flowed beneath the noble bridge, a deep twilight sky reflected in its
limpid waters.
How well I remember the first sight of this scene years ago! Then it was
early morning of market day, and, pouring in from the country, I had
met crowds of peasants with their products, the men in blue blouses, the
women in neat white coiffes, some bearing huge baskets on their heads,
others drawing heavily laden barrows, driving donkey-carts, the piled-up
fruit and vegetables making a blaze of colour. For three sous I recorded
the purchase of more wild strawberries, peaches, and greengages than I
knew what to do with, each grower doing business on his own account, no
middleman to share his profits; choicest fruit and vegetables to be had
almost for the asking. On this lovely Sunday evening plenty of peasant
folk were about, the men fishing in the Loire, the women minding their
children under the trees. But I noted here, as elsewhere, a gradual
disappearance of the blue blouse and white coiffe. Broadcloth and
bonnets are fast superseding the homely, picturesque dress of former
days.
The aerial residences just mentioned are characteristic of riverside
Nevers. Craning our necks as we strolled to and fro, we remarked how
much life in such altitudes must resemble that of a balloon, folks
being thus lifted above the hubbub, malodours, and microbes of the human
bee-hive below. For my own part I prefer a turnpike level, despite the
engaging aspect of those rose-girt verandahs, bowers, and lawns on a
level with the cathedral tower.
“Nevers makes a fine appearance, rising proudly from the Loire,” wrote
Arthur Young, “but on the first entrance it is like a thousand other
places.”
But the indefatigable apostle of the turnip had no time for archaeology
on his great tour, or he would have discovered that Nevers possesses
more than one architectural gem of the first water. The cathedral
certainly, alike without and within, must take rank after those of
Chartres, Le Mans, Reims, and how many others! but the exquisite little
church of St. Étienne and the Ducal Palace, are both perfect in their
way, and will enchant all lovers of harmony and proportion. The first,
another specimen of so-called Romanesque-Burgundian, has to be looked
for, standing as it does in a kind of _cul de sac_; the second occupies
a conspicuous site, forms, indeed, the centre-piece and crowning
ornament of the town. Daintiest of the dainty, this fairy-like Italian
palace in the heart of France, reminds us that once upon a time Nevers
was the seat of Italian dukes, the last of whom was a nephew of Mazarin.
The great Cardinal, “whose heart was more French than his speech,” and
who served France so well, despite his nationality and his nepotism,
having purchased the Nivernais of a Gonzague, finally incorporated it
into the French crown in 1659.
To this day, Nevers remains true to its Italian traditions. Go into the
tiniest suburban street, enter the poorest little general shop, and you
are reminded of the art that made the city famous hundreds of years ago,
an art introduced by a Duke of Mantua, relation of Catherine de Medicis.
It was in the sixteenth century, that this feudal lord of the Nivernais
summoned Italian potters hither, among these a native of Faenza.
Under his direction a manufactory of faïence was established, the ware
resembling that of his native city, scriptural and allegorical subjects
traced in manganese. The unrivalled blue glaze of Nevers is of later
date. Just as Rouen potters were celebrated for their reds, the
Nivernais surpassed them in blues. No French or foreign potters ever
achieved an azure of equal depth and purity.
The golden age of Nevers majolica belongs to that early period, but the
highly ornamented faïence now produced in its ateliers, shows taste and
finish, and in the town itself may be found charming things as cheap as,
if not cheaper than, our commonest earthenware.
As I write, I have before me some purchases made at a small general
dealer’s, a plate, and two small amphora-shaped vases, costing a few
sous each. The colouring of this cheap pottery is very harmonious, and
the glaze remarkable for its brilliance. The shopwoman, with whom we
had a pleasant chat, did not seem astonished at our admiration for her
goods.
“I sell lots of such things as you have just bought, to folks like
you” _(de votre genre)_, she said, “strangers who like to carry away a
souvenir of the place, and all my ware comes from the same manufacture.”
To-day Nevers thrives upon ornamental majolica. A hundred and ten years
ago it throve upon plates and dishes commemorating the Revolution. In
the upper storey of the Ducal Palace we may read revolutionary annals in
faïence, every event being memorialised by a piece of porcelain.
Curious enough is this record in earthenware, one stormy day after
another being thus commemorated; and perhaps more curious still is
the evident care with which these fragile objects have been preserved.
Throughout the Napoleonic era they might pass--had not gold pieces
then on one side the portrait of “Napoleon Empereur,” on the obverse
“République Français”?--but when Louis XVIII was brought back by his
foreign friends, how was it that there came no general smashing, a great
flinging of revolutionary potsherds to the dunghill? Safe enough now is
the Nivernais collection, under the roof of the Ducal Palace, the
rude designs and commonness of the ware strikingly contrasted with the
exquisite things around.
In close proximity to these cheap plates, dedicated to the Phrygian cap
and sans-culottism, are the very choicest specimens of Nevers faïence of
priceless value. Why the municipality, as a rule so generous towards the
public, should thus inconveniently house its treasure, is inconceivable.
The museum is reached by a long spiral staircase, without banister or
support, and a false step must certainly result in a broken leg, or,
perhaps, neck! The room also contains a striking portrait of Theodore de
Bèze, the great French reformer, who, then an aged man, penned a letter,
sublime in its force and simplicity, to Henry IV., conjuring him not
to abandon the Protestant faith. The mention of this fact recalls an
interesting experience. I here allude to the incontestable advance
of Protestantism in France. The traveller whose acquaintance with the
country began a quarter of a century ago, cannot fail to be impressed
with this fact. Alike in towns large and small, new places of worship
have sprung up, Nevers now possessing an Evangelical church. And good
was it to hear the appreciation of the little Protestant community from
my Catholic landlady.
“Yes,” she said, “the Protestants here are worthy of all respect
(_dignes gens_) and the pastor also; I esteem him much.” Evidently the
Lemaitre-Coppée-Déroulède dictum, “Only the Catholic can be called a
Frenchman,” is not accepted at Nevers.
In dazzlingly brilliant weather, and amid glowing scenery, we continued
our journey to Moulins, as we travelled by rail, and not by road unable
to identify “the little opening in the road leading to a thicket” where
Sterne discovered Maria. Has anyone ever identified the spot I wonder,
poplar, small brook and the rest?
Too soon were we also for “the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is
pouring her abundance into everyone’s lap.” For the vintage, indeed,
one must go farther. Sterne must have been thinking of Burgundy when he
penned that line, or the phylloxera has brought about a transformation,
vineyards here being changed into pastures. The scenery of the Allier,
like that around Autun, recalls many parts of England. Meadows set
around with hedges; little rises of green hill here and there; cattle
browsing by quiet streams; just such pictures as we may see in our own
Midlands. I well remember a remark of the late Philip Gilbert Hamerton
on this subject. We were strolling near his home, in the neighbourhood
of Autun, one day, when he pointed to the landscape over against us.
“How like that is to many an English scene,” he said; “and maybe it was
the English aspect of this region that tempted me to settle here.” I had
paid Moulins a hasty visit many years before, but, unlike Nevers and so
many French towns, the _chef-lieu_ of the Allier does not improve upon
further acquaintance. And I surmise, that such is the impression of my
country people generally. English travellers must be few and far between
at Moulins, or why should the appearance of two English ladies attract
so much curiosity? Wherever we went, the good folks of Moulins, alike
rich and poor, turned round to have a good look at us, even stopping
short to stare. All this was done without any rudeness or remark, but
such extraordinary behaviour can only be accounted for by the foregoing
supposition. For some reason or other our compatriots do not, like
Sterne and Maria go to Moulins.
Why should an essentially aristocratic place be so ill-kept, not to say
dirty? The town is no centre of industry. Tall factory chimneys do
not disfigure its silhouette or blacken its walls. Handsome equipages
enliven the streets. But the municipality, like certain saints of
old, seem to have taken vows of perpetual uncleanliness. Alike the
scavenger’s broom and the dust-cart appear to be unknown.
Whilst a riverside walk at Nevers presents nothing but cheerful bustle
and an aspect of prosperity, here you approach the Allier through scenes
of squalor and torpid neglect. The poorer inhabitants, too, are very
un-French in appearance, wanting that personal tidiness characteristic
of their country people in general. An aristocratic place, means an
Ultramontane place, and every third man you meet in Moulins wears a
soutane. What so many curés, Jesuits and Christian Brothers can find to
do passes the ordinary comprehension.
However interesting twins may be in the human family, monumental duality
is far from successful. Unfortunately for this delightfully picturesque
old town, its graceful Cathedral has, in the grand new church of
Sacre-Coeur, a double. But--
“As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine,”
is the second self, the never to be obliterated shadow of the first and
far more beautiful church.
Two towers of equal height, twice two spires like as cherries and
in close juxtaposition rise above the town, an ensemble spoiling the
symmetry of outline and general effect.
How much better off was Moulins when, instead of four spires, she
gloried in two? Then, of a verity, the city would have presented as
noble a view as those of La Charité and Nevers from the Loire.
The ancient château now used as a prison and the Jacquemart or clock
tower are rare old bits of architecture, of themselves worth the journey
to Moulins. Jacquemart, it may be here explained, is a corruption of
Jacques Marques, the name of a famous Flemish clockmaker who lived in
the fourteenth century. Amongst other achievements of this artist is
the clock of Nôtre Dame, Dijon, as curious in its way as the still
more celebrated cock-crowing time-piece of Strasburg, and declared
by Froissart to be the wonder of Christendom. World-wide became the
reputation of Jacques Marques, and thus it came about that clock towers
generally were called after his masterpieces.
On my former hurried visit to Moulins, as was the case with my
predecessor, Arthur Young over a hundred years before, “other
occupations” had “driven even Maria and the poplar from my head, and
left me no room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci.” In other words, I had
visited Rome without seeing the Pope.
On this second, and more leisurely visit, I had ample opportunity of
making up for the omission. Truly, the tomb of the last Montmorency
deserves a deliberate examination. It is one of the most sumptuous
monuments in the world and as a testimony of wifely devotion worthy to
be ranked with that of the Carian Queen to her lord, the Mausolus, whose
name is perpetuated in the word mausoleum.
French history cannot be at everyone’s fingers’ ends, so a word here
about the last of the Montmorencys, victim not so much of Richelieu’s
policy as of a kinsman’s meanness.
When the dashing, devil-me-care, hitherto fortunate Henri de
Montmorency, Marshal of France and Governor of Languedoc, plotted
against Richelieu or rather against the Royal supremacy, it was mainly
at the instigation of Gaston of Orleans. No more abject figure in French
annals than this unworthy son of the great Gascon, Henri IV., thus
portrayed by one whose tongue was as sharp as his sword: “Gaston of
Orleans,” wrote Richelieu, “engaged in every enterprise because he had
not the will to resist persuasion, dishonourably drawing back from want
of courage to support his associates.”
In the conspiracy of Montmorency, Gaston had played the part of
instigator, leaving the other to his fate as soon as the situation
became perilous. Every effort was made to save the duke, but in vain,
and at the age of thirty-seven he ended a brilliant, adventuresome life
on the scaffold at Toulouse.
One thought was uppermost in my mind when, a few years ago, I visited
that city, the only French city that welcomed the Inquisition. As I
stood in the elegant Capitol, musing on Montmorency’s story, it occurred
to me how few of us realise what a respecter of persons was French law
under the ancien régime. Hard as seems the fate of this dashing young
duke, we must remember what would have been his punishment, but for
his titles of nobility. Death swift and sudden, in other words, by
decapitation, was the choicest prerogative of the nobility; tortures
before and after condemnation, breaking on the wheel, burning alive, and
other hideous ends, being the lot of the people.
This monument, so noteworthy alike from a historic and artistic point of
view, was saved from destruction by ready wit. When, in the ferment of
revolution, the iconoclastic spirit had got the upper hand, a citizen of
Moulins met a mob, bent on destroying what they supposed to be the
tomb of some hated grand seigneur, oppressor of the poor. Following the
rabble to the convent, no sooner did he see the mallet and hammer raised
than this worthy bourgeois, who himself deserves a monument, shouted,
“Hands off, citizens! Yonder reposes no aristocrat, but as good a
citizen as any man-jack of you, aye, who had the honour of losing his
head for having conspired against a King.”
The crowd melted away without a word, the monument remains intact, and
generations have had bequeathed to them an example of what presence of
mind may effect, not with nerve, sinew, or bodily prowess, but with
the tongue. The Convent of the Visitation, to which Montmorency’s widow
retired, and in the chapel of which she raised this memorial, is now
converted into a Lycée. It is a handsome building and was built by
Madame de Chantal, foundress of the Order of Visitadines, or nuns whose
office it was to visit the sick. This pious lady, the friend of St.
François de Sales, and herself canonised by Pope Benoît XIV., was the
bosom friend of Felicia Orsini, Montmorency’s wife, who succeeded her as
Superior of the convent on her death.
But even an abbess, who had taken the veil, could not refuse visits,
some of which must have been as a second entering of iron into this
proud woman’s soul. The coward Gaston, when passing through Moulins,
sought an interview. Richelieu, also, whose emissary received the
following message: “Tell your master, that my tears reply for me and
that I am his humble servant.” Years after, Louis XIV. visited the once
beautiful and high-spirited Italian, now an aged abbess occupying a
bare cell and from his lips, despot and voluptuary though he was, might
always be expected the right word in the right place. “Madame,” he said,
on taking leave, “we may learn something here. I need not ask you to
pray for the King.”
[Illustration: TOMB OF MONTMORENCY, MOULINS.]
But interest in personalities is leading me from what I have set myself
to describe, namely, portraiture in marble. For this magnificent work
thus perpetuates the last of the Montmorencys and his wife as they were
when separated for ever in their prime. Imposing although the monument
is as a whole, these two figures in white marble, standing out against
a dark background, engross attention. The entire work covers the wall
behind the high altar, the sculptures being in pure white marble, the
framework in black. Dismissing the niched Mars and Hercules on the one
side, the allegorised Religion and Charity on the other, we study the
central figures both offering interest of quite different kind.
Why a dashing soldier and courtier of the Renaissance should
be represented in the guise of a Roman warrior, is an anomaly,
irreconcilable as that of pagan gods and the personification of
Christian attributes here placed vis-à-vis. Perhaps the grief-stricken
wife, who was, as it appears, of a highly romantic and adventuresome
turn, wished thus to commemorate the heroic qualities of her husband;
she might also have wished to dissociate him altogether from his own
time, a period of which, in her eyes, he would be the victim. Be this
as it may, the Roman undress and accoutrements do not harmonise with a
physiognomy essentially French and French of a given epoch. Whilst the
interest aroused by the Duchess’s effigy is purely artistic, that of her
husband excites curiosity rather than admiration. The head is
strangely poised, much as if the artist intended to suggest the fact
of decapitation; obliquity of vision, a defect hereditary in the
Montmorencys, is also indicated, adding singularity. The half-recumbent
figure by the Duke’s side, is of rare pathos and beauty. Almost angelic
in its resignation and religious fervour is the upturned face. The
drapery, too, shows classic grace and simplicity, as strongly contrasted
with the martial travesty opposite as are the two countenances in
expression.
Long will art-lovers linger before this monument raised by wifely
devotion, a monument, with so many another, perpetuating rather the
devotion of the survivor than claims on posterity of the dead. And let
not hasty travellers follow Arthur Young’s example, jotting down, after
a visit to Moulins, “No room for the Tombeau de Montmorenci.”