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

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:

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.

CHAPTER VI

“CHASTILLON AU NOBLE DUC”
(The War Cry of the Bourguignons)

The origin of the Chateau des Ducs is blanketed in the night of time. Savants, even, can not agree as to the date of its commencement. One says that it and its name were derived from Castico, a rich Sequanais; and another that it comes from Castell, an enclosed place; or from Castellio—a small fortress. Each seems plausible in the absence of anything more definite, though according to the castle’s latest historian it owes its actual inception to the occupation of the Romans who did build a castrum here in their time.

During the pourparlers between Henri IV and the League, the inhabitants of the city demanded of Nicolas de Gellan, governor of the place, the giving up of the castle which had for years been the cause of so much misery and misfortune. The place had been the culminative point of the attacks of centuries of warriors, and the inhabitants believed that they had so suffered that it was time to cry quits.

When the surrender, or the turning over, of the castle took place, all the population, including women and children, marched en masse upon the structure, and wall by wall and stone by stone dismantled it, leaving it in the condition one sees it to-day. A castle of sorts still exists, but it is a mere wraith of its former self. There is this much to say for it, however, and that is that its stern, grim walls which still stand remain as silent witnesses to the fact that it was not despoiled from without but demolished from within. Peace came soon after, and the people in submitting to the new régime would not hear of the rebuilding of the chateau, and so for three hundred years its battered walls and blank windows have stood the stresses of rigorous winters and broiling summers, a

silent and conspicuous monument to the rights of the people.

The majestic tower of the chateau, for something more than the mere outline of the ground-plan still exists, is bound to two others by a very considerable expanse of wall of the donjon, and by the courtines which formerly joined the bastions with the main structure.

The suggestion of the ample inner court is still there, and the foundations of still two other towers, as well as various ruined walls. A neighbouring edifice, the buildings formerly occupied by the Canons of Saint Vorles, is inexplicably intermingled with the ruins of the chateau in a way that makes it difficult to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. The chevet of the Eglise de Saint Vorles and its churchyard also intermingle with the confines of the chateau in an extraordinary manner. To say the least, the juxtaposition of things secular and ecclesiastic is the least bit incongruous.

Châtillon’s Tour de Gissey, practically an accessory to the chateau, is a noble work whose well-preserved existence is due entirely to the solidity of its construction. Its lower ranges are of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but its upper gallery and its row of meurtrières were due to the military engineers of Henri IV. who sought to make it the better serve the purpose of their royal master.

Within this tower are two fine apartments, of which the upper, known as the Salle des Gardes, was, before the Revolution, the sepulchre of certain wealthy neighbouring families.

Within the limits of the plot which surrounds the chateau, the church and the tower, is the tomb of Maréchal Marmont, Duc de Raguse.

The present edifice at Châtillon occupied by the Sous-Préfecture was built, as a plaque on the wall indicates, by Madame la Comtesse de Langeac in 1765. It is a fine example of the architecture of the period which, in spite of glaring inconsistencies to be noted once and again, is unquestionably most effective, and suggests that after all the chateau filled its purpose well as a great town house of a wealthy noble. The building plays a public part to-day, and if it serves its present purpose half as well as its former, no one should complain. Within this really superb and palatial structure is still to be seen the magnificent stairway of forged iron of the period of Louis XVI. Besides this are various apartments with finely sculptured wooden panels and rafters of the same epoch, all of which accessories were brought thither from the nearby Chateau de Courcelles-les-Ranges, demolished during the Revolution.

The Chateau de Marmont at Châtillon was formerly the princely residence of the Maréchal de Marmont, rebuilt from the fifteenth century chatelet occupied by the Sires de Rochefort, who were simply the appointed chatelains of the Duc de Bourgogne, to whom the property really belonged.

In various successive eras the edifice was transformed, or added to, until it took its present form, the gradual transformation leaving little or no trace of its original plan.

The Maréchal de Marmont, one of Châtillon’s most illustrious sons, would have transformed his native city into a Burgundian Versailles, or at least a “Garden City.” He did found a great agricultural enterprise, of which the chateau, its gardens and its park, formed the pivot. Too enterprising for his times, the Duc de Raguse saw himself ruined, and then came the German invasion of ’71, when, in a combat with the Garibaldians, the chateau was burned.

Châtillon has perpetuated the name of its great man in the public place, and also by naming one of the principal streets for him, but has not yet erected a statue to him. This indeed may be a blessing in disguise. Statues in trousers are seldom dignified, and this noble duke lived too late for cloak and sword or suit armour.

The Chateau de Marmont, so called even to-day, was rebuilt after the fire and now serves a former Maire of the city as his private residence.

Châtillon-sur-Seine was—though all the world seems to have forgotten or ignored it—the seat of a convention in 1814 which proposed leaving France its original territorial limits of 1792, a proposition of the ambassadors which was utterly rejected by Napoleon.

Albeit that Châtillon lies on the banks of the Seine it is well within the confines of Burgundy. Roundabout is a most fascinating and little exploited region.

Thirty kilometres to the north is Bar-sur-Seine and to the northwest Brienne-le-Chateau, where the Corsican first learned the rudiments of the art of war.

“La grand’ville de Bar-sur-Seine a fait trembler Troyes en Champaigne!” Poor grand’ville! To-day it is withered and all but dried up and blown away. Poor grand’ville! It is the same of which Froissart recounts that it lost in one day the houses of nine hundred “nobles et de riches bourgeois” by fire. Without doubt these houses were of wooden frames and offered but little resistance to fire, as the period was 1359. Afterwards the town was rebuilt and became again populous and rich. Then began the decadence, until to-day it is the least populous “chef-lieu” of the department. Its population is, and ever has been, part Bourguignon and part Champagnois, the latter province being but a league to the northward, where, on the actual boundary, is found the curiously named little village of Bourguignons.

South from Châtillon, across the great forest of the same name, one of the great national forests of France so paternally cared for by the Minister for Agriculture, is the actual source of the Seine. Here is what the engineers call a “Chateau d’Faux,” though there is little enough of the real chateau of romance about it. It is simply a head-house with an iron grille and various culverts and canals and what not which lead the bubbling waters of the Seine to a wider bed lower down, there to continue their way, via Paris, to the sea.

A classic sculpture, typifying the Source of the Seine, has been erected commemorating the achievement of the engineers, but appropriate as the sentiment is it has not prevented the dishonouring hand of that abominable certain class of tourist of graving its names and dates thereon.

The Seine at this point is nothing very majestic. It is simply a “humble filet que le nain vert, Oberon, franchirait d’un bond sans mouiller ses grelots.” All Frenchmen, and Parisians in particular, have a reverence for every kilometre of the swift-flowing waters of the Seine. This is perhaps difficult for the stranger, who may be familiar with greater if less historic streams at home, to appreciate until he has actually discussed the thing with some Frenchman. Then he learns that it is the Frenchman’s Niagara, Mississippi and Yosemite and Pike’s Peak all rolled into one so far as his worship goes.

Midway between Châtillon and the source is Duesme, a smug, unheard of little hamlet, the successor of a feudal bourg of great renown in its day. The sparse ruined walls still suggest the pride of place which it once held when capital of the powerful Burgundian Countship of Duesme. Its walls are still something more than mere outlines, but the manorial residence has become one of those “walled farms,” so called, so frequently seen, and so unexpectedly, in the countryside of France. Here and there a gate-post, a wall or a gable, is as of old, and two great ornamental vases support the entrance to the alleyed row of trees which leads from the highroad to the dwelling, suggesting, if in a vague way, the old adage, “Other days, other ways.”

The fall of this fine old feudal residence has been great, but the present occupant—if he has a thought or care for such things—must be content indeed with such a princely farm-house. It must be a fine thing to raise chickens and other barn-yard livestock amid such surroundings!

CHAPTER VII

TONNERRE, TANLAY AND ANCY-LE-FRANC

Only skimpy odds and ends remain of Tonnerre’s one-time flanking gates, walls and towers. Its old chateau—which the counts invariably referred to, and with reason doubtless, as a palace—has been rebuilt and incorporated into the structure of the present hospital, itself a foundation by Marguerite de Bourgogne and dating back to 1293. No doubt many of the wards which to-day shelter the ill and crippled were once the scene of princely revels.

In the nineteenth century the structure was further remodelled and put in order, but it remains still, from an architectural point of view at least, an admirable example of Renaissance building, though none of its attributes to be seen at a first glance are such as are usually associated with a great chateau of the noblesse of other days. At all events its functions of to-day are worthy, and it is far better to admire a mediæval chateau which has become a hospital than one which has been transformed into a military barracks or a prison for thieves and cutthroats, an indignity which has been thrust on many a grand old edifice in France deserving of a better fate. To-day such a hard sentence is seldom passed. The “Commission des Monuments Historiques” sees to it that no such desecrations are further committed.

Within the hospice is the remarkably sculptured tomb of Marguerite de Bourgogne; as remarkably done in fact as the better known ducal tombs at Dijon, and those of the Église de Brou at Bourg-en-Bresse. The workmanship of these elaborate sculptures is typical of that known as the École de Dijon.

Tonnerre’s most remarkable sight is neither its chateau, nor its hospice, at least not according to the inhabitant. There is nothing to the native more curious or interesting to see than the celebrated Fosse Dionne (the Fons Dionysius of the ancients), a fountain which supplies the city with an abundance of fresh water coming from no one knows where, but spouting from the earth like a geyser, and with a sufficient force to turn a couple of water-mills. An ordinary enough bubbling spring is interesting to most of us, so that one enjoying an ancient and mysterious reputation is put down as a local curiosity well worth coming miles to see.

Half a dozen kilometres out from Tonnerre, on the road to Châtillon-sur-Seine, is the Chateau de Tanlay, not known at all to the travellers by express trains who are whisked by to Switzerland with never as much as a slow-up or a whistle as they pass the little station but a short distance from the park gates.

The Chateau de Tanlay is a superb relic of a sixteenth century work. This was a period when architectural art had become debased not a little, but here there is scarcely a trace of its having fallen off from the best traditions of a couple of centuries before. It is this fact, and some others, that makes Tanlay a sight not to be neglected by the lover of old chateaux.

In the midst of a great flowered and shady park sits this admirable edifice belonging to the descendants of the family of Coligny. It was here, to be precise, that the Coligny and the Prince de Condé leagued themselves together against the wily Catherine de Medicis and her crew, and much bad blood was shed on both sides before they got en rapport again.

The Chateau de Tanlay is perhaps the finest, certainly one of the most monumental, chateaux of Burgundy. Frankly Renaissance, the best of it dating from 1559, it was begun by Coligny d’Andelot, the brother of the “Admiral.”

One of the most notable of its constructive features is the imposing Tour de la Ligue where, previous to that dread Saint Bartholomew’s night, the Colignys and the Prince de Condé and their followers plotted and planned their future actions, and those of their associated Ligueurs.

The Marquis de Tanlay, the present owner of the ancient lands of the Courtneys of royal race, graciously opens the portal of the chateau that the world of curiosity-loving folk who pass by may enter if they will, and marvel at the delights within.

The “Terre de Tanlay” in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries belonged to the de Courtneys, by whom, it was sold to Louise de Montmorency, the mother of the Huguenot Admiral of Henri IV. This latter, in 1559, ceded it to another of her sons, François d’Andelot, the Coligny who began the work of construction of the chateau forthwith. In 1574 d’Andelot bequeathed the unachieved work to Anne de Coligny, the wife of the Marquis de Mirabeau, who, still working on the original plans, left it uncompleted at his death in 1630. His daughter Catherine fell heir to the property, but sold it five years later to Porticelli d’Hémery—Mazarin’s Surintendant des Finances, who called in the architect Lemuet to carry the work to a finish. This he did, or at least brought it practically to the condition in which it stands to-day.

The name of Hémery did not long survive as chatelain of the property, and the lands passed by letters patent to the Thévenin family, its present owners, who were able to have the fief made into a marquisat. The chateau fortunately escaped Revolutionary destruction and to-day ranks as one of the most beautiful examples of the Renaissance-Bourguignonne style of domestic architecture to be seen.

The edifice in its construction and exterior decoration shows plainly its transition between the moyen-age manner of building and that which is considerably more modern. It is towered and turreted after the defensive manner of the earliest times, and moat surrounded in a way which suggests that the ornamental water is something more than a mere accessory intended to please the eye. Entrance is had by a bridge over this moat and finally into the Cour d’Honneur through a fortified gateway, as pleasingly artistic in its disposition as it is effective as a defence.

Chiefly, the chateau shows to-day d’Hémery’s construction of the seventeenth century, paid for, says one authority, by silver extorted from the poor subjects of his king in the form of general taxes. This may or may not be so, but as d’Hémery’s wealth was quickly acquired only when he had need of it to build this great chateau, it is quite likely that some of it came from sources which might never otherwise have produced a personal revenue.

Another distinct portion of the chateau is that arrived at through the Cour d’Honneur, and known as Le Petit Chateau, a sort of distinct pavillion, a beautiful example of late Renaissance work at least a century older than the main fabric.

Though non-contemporary in its parts, the chateau taken entire is intensely interesting and satisfying in every particular. Furthermore, its sylvan site is still preserved much as it was in other days, and its alleyed walks are the same through which strolled the Colignys and the de Courtneys of old. No sacrilege has been committed here as in many other seigneurial parks, where more than one virgin forest has been cut down to make firewood, or perhaps sold to bring in gold which an impoverished scion of a noble house may have thought he needed. One avenue alone of this great park runs straight as the proverbial flight of an arrow, only ending at the chateau portal after a course of two kilometres straightaway.

The park in turn is enclosed by a wall nearly six kilometres long, and the chief ornamental water is considerably over five hundred metres in length, and merits well its appellation of Grand Canal. This water which fills the moat and surrounds the chateau is not stagnant, but flows gently from the Quincy to the Armançon after first enveloping the property in its folds.

The greater portion of the structure, that of Lemuet, is imposingly grand with its central corps de logis and its two wings which advance to join up with the extended members of the Petit Chateau, forming with them the grand Cour d’Honneur, more familiarly known as the Cour Verte.

The actual entrance is known as the Portail Neuf (1547) and serves as the habitation of the concierge. At the right is the imposing Tour de la Ligue (1648) and to the left the Tour des Archives, each enclosing a large spiral stairway and surmounted by a dome terminated with a lanternon. At each end of the outer façade are two other towers, in form more svelt than those in the courtyard.

In the vestibule within, as one enters the main building, are the marble busts of eight Roman Emperors, of little interest one thinks in a place where one would expect to find effigies of the former illustrious occupants of the chateau. Various trophies of the chase are hung about the walls of this corridor and are certainly more in keeping with the general tone of things than the cold-cut visages of the noble Romans before mentioned.

A gallery of mythological paintings opens out of the vestibule and leads to the seventeenth century chapel, which contains a “Descent from the Cross,” by Peregrin, and other religious paintings of the Flemish school. Distributed throughout the various apartments are numerous paintings and portraits by Mignard, Nattier, Philippe-de-Champaigne, and others, and some pastels by Quentin de la Tour.

The chimney-pieces throughout are notable for their gorgeousness; that in the Chambre des Archevèques, at least a dozen feet high, is decorated with two pairs of massive caryatides and other statuettes in relief. On another is a carven bust of Coligny, the Admiral, with a cast of countenance suggesting a sinister leer towards the statue of a sphinx which is supposed to represent the features of Catherine de Medicis.

The paintings of the Tour de la Ligue, supposedly by Primataccio, representing mythological divinities in the personages of the members of the court of the Medicis, bespeak a questionable taste on the part of the Colignys who caused them to be put there. It would seem as though spite had been carried too far, or that the artist was given carte blanche to run a riot of questionable fantasy for which no one stood responsible. All these gods and goddesses of the court are, if not repulsive, at least unseemly effigies. Catherine herself is there as Juno, her son Charles IX as Pluto, the Admiral as Hercules, Guise as Mars, and Venus, of course, bears the features of the huntress, Diane de Poitiers.

About as far south from Tonnerre as Tanlay is to the eastward is Ancy-le-Franc. It is in exactly the same position as Tanlay; its charms are pretty generally unknown and unsung, but its sixteenth century chateau of the Clermont-Tonnerre family is one of the wonder works of its era. Rather more admirably designed to begin with than many of its confrères, and considerably less overloaded with meaningless ornament, it has preserved very nearly its original aspect without and within. The finest apartments have been conserved and decorated to-day with many fine examples of the best of Renaissance furnishings. This one may observe for himself if he, or she, is fortunate enough to gain entrance, a procedure not impossible of accomplishment though the edifice is not usually reckoned a sight by the guide-books.

At present the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre holds possession of the property, and keeps it up with no little suggestion of its former magnificent state.

If not notable for its fine suggestive feudal nomenclature, Ancy-le-Franc certainly claims that distinction by reason of the memories of its chateau, which dates from the reign of Henri II. Nearly three-quarters of a century were given to its inception. Of a unique species of architecture, presenting from without the effect of a series of squat façades, ornamented at each corner with a two storied square pavillon, it is sober and dignified to excess. The interior arrangements are likewise unique and equally precise, though not severe. The whole is a blend of the best of dignified Italian motives, for in truth there is little distinctively French about it, and nothing at all Burgundian.

The structure was begun by the then ruling Comtes de Tonnerre in 1555, and became in 1668 the property of the Marquis de Louvois, the minister of Louis XIV, and already proprietor of the countship of Tonnerre which came to him as a dot upon his marriage with the rich heiress Anne de Souvre.

The gardens and park, now dismembered, were once much more extensive and followed throughout the conventional Italian motives of the period of their designing. Enough is left of them to make the site truly enough sylvan, but with their curtailment a certain aspect of isolation has been lost, and the whole property presents rather the aspect of a country place of modest proportions than a great estate of vast extent.

The Chateau de Ancy-le-Franc is commonly accredited as one of the few edifices of its important rank which has preserved its general aspect uncontaminated and uncurtailed. No parasitical outgrowths, or additions, have been interpolated, and nothing really desirable has been lopped off. With Chambord and Dampierre, Ancy-le-Franc stands in this respect in a small and select company. Ancy-le-Franc is even now much the same as it was when Androuet du Cerceau included a drawing of it in his great work (1576), “Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France.”

He was an architect as well as a writer, this Androuet du Cerceau, and he said further: “For my part I know no other minor edifice so much to my liking, not only for its general arrangements and surroundings, but for the dignified formalities which it possesses.”

Comte Antoine de Clermont, Grand Maitre des Eaux et Forêts, built the chateau of Ancy-le-Franc on the plans of Primataccio, probably in 1545, certainly not later, though the exact date appears to be doubtful. That Primataccio may have designed the building there is little doubt, as he is definitely known to have contributed to the royal chateaux of Fontainebleau and Chambord. For a matter of three-quarters of a century the edifice was in the construction period however, and since Primataccio died in 1570 it is improbable that he carried out the decorations, a class of work upon which he made his great reputation, for the simple reason that they were additions or interpolations which came near the end of the construction period. This observation probably holds true with the decorations attributed to the Italian at neighbouring Tanlay. It may be that Primataccio only furnished sketches for these decorations and that another hand actually executed them. Historical records are often vague and indefinite with regard to such matters. Again, since Primataccio was chiefly known as a

decorator the doubt is justly cast upon his actually having been the designer of Ancy-le-Franc. It is all very vague, one must admit that, in spite of claims and counterclaims.

All things considered, this chateau ranks as one of the most notable in these parts. The surrounding walls bathe their forefoot in the waters of the Armançon and thus give it a defence of value and importance, though the property was never used for anything more than a luxurious country dwelling.

Built, or at any rate designed, by an artist who was above all a painter, its walls and plafonds naturally took on an abundance of decorative detail. For this reason the chateau of Ancy-le-Franc, if for no other, is indeed remarkable. Two of its great rooms have been celebrated for centuries among art-lovers and experts, the Chambre des Fleurs, with its elaborately panelled ceiling, and that of Pastor Fido, whose walls show eight great paintings depicting the scenes of a pastoral romance. The Chambre du Cardinal contains a portrait of Richelieu, and the Chambre des Arts is garnished most ornately throughout. The monograms and devises of the ceiling of the Chambre des Fleurs suggest the various alliances of the Clermonts, but the painted arms are those of the Louvois, who substituted their own marque for that of the Clermonts wherever it could readily be done.

The present Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre has ably restored the chateau of his ancestors and put the family arms for the great part back where they belong. His arms are as follows: “De gueules aux deux clefs d’argent en sautoir avec la tiare pour cimier.” The motto is “Etsi omnes ego non.” These arms were originally conceded to Sibaut II de Clermont by Pope Calixtus II in recognition of his having chased the Anti-Pope Gregoire VIII from Rome in 1120.

In the Salle des Empereurs Romains are a series of paintings of Roman Emperors which makes one think that Tanlay’s sculptured Roman busts must have set the fashion hereabouts or vice versa.

The Bibliothèque contains a remarkable folio showing plans and views of the chateaux of Ancy-le-Franc and Tonnerre, the latter since destroyed as we have found.

In the Chapel, dedicated to Sainte Cécile, are a series of admirable painted panels of the apostles and prophets, a favourite religious decorative motif in these parts, as one readily recalls by noting the Puits de Moise and the tomb of the Burgundian dukes at Dijon, the inspiration doubtless of all other similar works since.

The Grand Salon of to-day was once the sleeping apartment of Louis XIV when one day he honoured the chateau with his presence.

A dozen kilometres south from Ancy-le-Franc is Nuits-sous-Ravières. Nuits, curiously enough, a name more frequently seen on the wine-lists of first class restaurants than elsewhere, here in the heart of Burgundy, is supposedly of German origin. Its original inhabitants were Germans coming from Neuss in Prussia, whose inhabitants are called Nuychtons, whilst those of Nuits are known as Nuitons. Again, near Berne, in Switzerland, is a region known as Nuitland, which would at least add strength to the assertion of a Teuton origin for this smiling little wine-growing community of the celebrated Cote d’Or.

Nuits possesses a minor chateau which to all intents and purposes fulfils, at a cursory glance, its object admirably. It is a comfortably disposed and not unelegant country house of the sixteenth century, sitting in a fine, shady park and looks as habitable as it really is, though it possesses no historical souvenirs of note.

A fortified gateway leads from the north end of the town towards Champagne, Nuits being on the borderland between the possessions of the Ducs de Bourgogne and those of the Comtes de Champagne.

CHAPTER VIII

IN OLD BURGUNDY