PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Moulins is a picturesque and attractive town on high ground above the River Allier. The first

conspicuous feature reached on entering from the south is the Tour de l’Horloge, built in 1455, with moving figures in its curiously designed lantern. The narrow streets contain several good houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many of the brick fronts are ornamented with lozenges in darker brick. One house behind the clock-tower is noticeable for its beautiful little gazebo on the roof, with carved corbels and pilasters.

The nave and towers of the Cathedral are modern, having been built under the direction of Viollet le Duc. The spires add to the appearance of the town, as they stand out boldly from a hundred points of view. The beautiful choir was built by Agnes de Bourgogne in 1463, and it has been fortunate in preserving its fine fifteenth to sixteenth century glass. In the sacristy on the north side there is a fine triptych, showing, on the inside, the Virgin surrounded with angels, and Pierre II. de Bourbon and his wife, Anne of France (died 1522), a daughter of Louis XI. On the south side of the choir there is a beautiful spiral stone staircase, and near it, in a chapel, is a gruesome memorial representing the horrors of worms consuming a human body.

Adjoining the cathedral is all that now remains of the Castle of the Dukes of Bourbon, now unfortunately converted into a prison. From the river-side the walls tower up to a great height.

In the Lycée, formerly a convent of the Visitation, one is shown the sumptuous tomb of Carrara marble put up by his widow to the famous Henri, Duc de Montmorenci, who was executed at Toulouse in 1632 on a charge of treason against Louis XIII.

Lord Clarendon wrote a portion of his ‘History of the Great Rebellion’ while he was staying at Moulins, and James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, Marshal and Peer of France, and a natural son of James II., was born here in 1670.

As one goes out of Moulins one notices two massive pillars marking the position of the town walls which have disappeared. The poplar-bordered road gives pretty views of the Allier on the left, and the fresh green of the roadside grass is a pleasant contrast to the

dust farther south. Picturesque timber-framed houses with dark browny-red roofs begin to abound, and the villages increase in charm. Large farmhouses with big stone barns, here and there buildings with quaint crows’ steps to the gables, and two or three windmills, are passed, all adding considerably to the charm of the scenery.

St. Pierre-le-Moutier is a delightful old place. It retains portions of its ramparts, round towers, and a gateway, made more interesting when one remembers that this was one of the towns of the Loire Valley taken by Jeanne d’Arc in 1429. The church belonged to the Cluniac priory of St. Martin d’Autun, and is a very interesting example of the style of the latter half of the twelfth century. The north doorway, with its richly sculptured tympanum showing Christ in the midst of angels, should be seen. The town contains some picturesque houses of the fifteenth century and later.

NEVERS

On approaching this town there is a fine view of its cathedral rising above the old roofs with the Loire in the foreground, and the confluence with the Allier two or three miles to the left.

All remains of the Roman town of Nevirnum, which was of so much strength that Cæsar kept his military stores there, have entirely disappeared, with the exception of a few objects in the Library of the town.

The medieval remains are, on the other hand, of great interest. On the town walls there remain—(1) The Porte de Croux, a most picturesque gateway dating from 1393-1396; it has corner turrets and three openings for the drawbridge supports; (2) the Loire gateway, the lower part of which is as early as the eleventh century; (3) the Tour Goguin, twelfth century; and (4) the Tour St. Eloi, sixteenth century.

The Ducal Palace, now the Palais de Justice, was built in 1475 by Jean de Clamecy, Comte de Nevers, and its Renaissance character was given during the next century, when the Clèves family, and afterwards the Gonzogas of Mantua, held Nevers. In front of the palace there are pleasant gardens, with a view southwards towards Moulins, and to the right (when one faces this prospect) is the Cathedral of St. Cyr. It has a square tower of the Flamboyant period, rather severe in outline, but encrusted with beautiful panelling and statuary, and the south porch belongs to the same period. The curious, almost bizarre, feature of the interior is the apsidal termination at both the east and west ends. At the east end there is a beautiful vaulted ambulatory of the fourteenth century, erected outside the eastern apse of the Romanesque cathedral, built in 1028 and restored and altered in 1194. The early wall-paintings were fortunately preserved by the Gothic architect.

At the west end, the Romanesque crypt remains beneath an apse rebuilt in the sixteenth century. The Saint Sépulcre in the crypt is a hideous group of painted figures bending over a representation of Christ. The beautiful nave, rebuilt in 1188, is enriched with caryatides and sculptured figures.

Before leaving Nevers the very fine Church of the Cluniac Priory of St. Étienne, begun in 1063 by William I., Count of Nevers, and finished in 1097, should be seen. It is a remarkably fine example of the Burgundian-Romanesque style. The cloisters belong to the thirteenth century.

Bernadette Soubirous, the unfortunate heroine of the Lourdes apparition of the Virgin, spent her last years, and died at the early age of thirty-five, in the nunnery of St. Gildard at Nevers. Throughout most of her life, and especially towards the end, her physical infirmities were a great burden to the poor girl. Her grave is in the convent garden, and one marvels that the Roman Catholic authorities did not order a sumptuous tomb in the pilgrimage church at Lourdes! (See p. 235.)

The road goes northwards through Pougues-les-Eaux, and runs close to the Loire from the hamlet of La Marche for a considerable distance. The river is broken up with sandy islands covered with low green bushes and thin wire-grass.

La Charité is a very picturesque and cheerful little town with several good old houses, and an old stone bridge across the river. The extremely interesting and beautiful Romanesque church belonged to one of the most important Cluniac priories in France, so famed for its good deeds that the place received the name it now bears. A town sprang up round the abbey, and ramparts defended with several towers were built in 1184, but the fortifications standing to-day were rebuilt in 1364. It is surprising that there are any of the defences left when one reads of the frequent sieges and sackings the town endured, particularly during the religious wars of the sixteenth century.

The Church of Ste. Croix, just mentioned, was consecrated in 1107 by Pope Pascal II., but not finished until some years later. The nave and south-west tower were ruined in 1557 during the religious wars. The choir, with picturesque stilted arches, the transepts, and the central tower, are all that remain of one of the finest Romanesque basilicas in France.

The road goes northwards through the mossy-roofed village of Mesves, which has a twelfth-century barn, and for mile after mile the Loire appears on the left as a blue ribbon threaded through the lacework of the intervening trees.

Pouilly is a cheerful little town with high-pitched roofs and stone walls, a seventeenth-century château, and a partially Gothic church. The white wine of the neighbourhood is considered exceedingly good.

COSNE

is a considerable town with iron foundries, barracks, and a hospital. The church of St. Aignan has a fine Romanesque apse with richly carved capitals to its pillars, and a greatly enriched west door of the same period. Pope Pius VII., when in France under Napoleon’s orders, stayed at the Hôtel du Grand Cerf.

One passes through the village of Myennes, with the houses standing back from the road, and two or three hamlets, including Bonny-sur-Loire, with the oddest spire to its church, and then enters the village of Briare, where the road to Orleans goes off to the left.

The quaint Hôtel de France, with a courtyard, can furnish a modest déjeuner.

SECTION XXIV

BRIARE TO MELUN, 64 MILES
(103 KILOMETRES)

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

Briare is the Roman Brivodurum, but it is now a quiet, uninteresting little town where buttons are manufactured.

After passing through the old-fashioned village of La Boussière, one turns to the left towards the château, at a corner where a board indicates the ‘Route de Paris.’ The yellow-coloured road, with a fine surface, goes on through a well-wooded country to Nogent-sur-Vernisson, a village without interest, and soon afterwards Mormant, a hamlet with a small Romanesque church.

MONTARGIS

This historic town has, unfortunately, only preserved a gateway of its twelfth-century château, at one time called le Berceau des Enfants de France, owing to the French queens coming thither, before the building of Fontainebleau, when they were about to become mothers. Two circular towers of the medieval fortifications are the only relics of the walls that resisted the English army under the Earl of Warwick during the Hundred Years’ War.

The church has a fine twelfth-century nave, an ornate west end, and an exceedingly graceful and unusually designed choir, built between 1540 and 1618. The tall pillars of the ambulatory are without capitals, and they support roofs of equal height above the choir and the ambulatory. Interior and exterior show the change from the Gothic to the Classic style.

The long canal extending from Briare to the Loing passes through Montargis, which was at one time surrounded by marshy country, now drained and cultivated.

On leaving the town one passes a statue of Mirabeau, and, after crossing three bridges, the road to Fontainebleau turns sharply to the left past the goods entrance of the railway-station, and then keeps to the western side of the fairly extensive forest of Montargis.

Mistletoe grows luxuriantly in this district, and all the way from Moulins the trees are tufted with the curious parasitic plant, which English folk buy from the French in huge quantities as each Christmas festival approaches.

At the hamlet of Fontenay one goes to the right at the fork, and the road continues through a scattered forest, with prodigious quantities of mistletoe, and at a point 13½ kilometres from Nemours there is a caniveau in the middle of the village.

After passing Souppes, a hamlet with a twelfth-century church, the scenery changes. On the right great isolated masses of rock stand on the grassy slopes, and on the left the shallow little valley of the Loing is beautified with the picturesque mills and weirs on the river. The low wooded hills on the left, full of faint purples and browny greens in spring-time, form a delightful background to the bright green of the grass near at hand. The rocky slopes on the right are often covered with juniper, and here and there pines scent the atmosphere.

Nemours is a quiet little town, with a collegiate church of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, with the lower part of the tower of the thirteenth century; but the château, built in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, is the most interesting and picturesque feature. It has circular towers, with conical roofs at each corner, and another tower (the keep) to the north is joined to the main building with a passage three stories in height. The castle has been converted into a museum, and the whole of the interior is shown to visitors by an indefatigable old gardienne, who insists on showing the view over the surrounding forests, which can be seen from the donjon tower.

It was at Nemours, in July, 1585, that Catherine de Medici, on behalf of Henri III., signed the treaty revoking all edicts in favour of the Protestants, and enforcing the universal profession of Catholicism.

At the present time the title of Duc de Nemours is borne by the second son of Louis-Philippe.

On leaving Nemours the road keeps to the west of the Loing, and almost at once enters the Forest of Fontainebleau. Most of the trees are without any beauty, being thin and tall and of an average size. There are no suggestions of the primeval, such as every English forest contains, including even the Londoner’s paradise of Epping. The only feature of this great tree-grown area which is interesting, apart from its associations, is the strange appearance of great lumps of rock, tilted up at curious angles, and sprawling about among the trees in such an odd fashion that in the twilight the forest seems full of giant sloths and other prehistoric beasts!

FONTAINEBLEAU

The town of Fontainebleau stands in the midst of the forest, with the palace and park on the east side.

The palace is open to visitors every day between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

As long ago as 1137 a French king—Louis le Jeune—dated an Act ‘apud fontem Bleaudi.’ François I., that mighty builder of Renaissance palaces, was, however, the real creator of the Fontainebleau of to-day. He planned, and to a considerable extent carried out, a structure he desired to be the finest palace in the world. The Galerie de François I. and that called after and decorated by Henri II. were built by François, and so were the Chapelle de la Sainte Trinité, the Chapelle St. Saturnin, and the magnificent Salon de François I. Henri II., Henri IV., and various other sovereigns carried on the building of the immense pile, Fontainebleau being popular for various reasons, particularly on account of the hunting in the great forest.

Perhaps it is the figure of Napoleon in the midst of the accumulated royal splendours of Fontainebleau that appeals most to the imagination. The young Corsican soldier, transformed into an Emperor, and dwelling with his Empress wife in palaces such as this, causes one to gaze with more than ordinary interest at the sumptuous apartments, with their gilded furnishings, their heavy silken coverings, their thrones, bedsteads, mirrors, and a thousand features, all of which were backgrounds to the short, dark-haired, and clean-shaven man who had put the States of Europe, with one notable exception, into the melting-pot of his ambition. One is shown the little round table upon which ‘the Usurper’ signed his abdication, and the famous horseshoe-shaped staircase where he said good-bye to the weeping soldiers of the Old Guard.

THE ROAD TO MELUN

goes northwards through the forest, and about 8 kilometres from Fontainebleau passes the stone Table du Roi, dated 1723. On emerging from the forest Melun is close at hand.

SECTION XXV

MELUN TO ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE,
45¼ MILES

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

The interests of Melun to the passing stranger are summed up in the two churches of Notre Dame and St. Aspais. The first is on the island formed by the Seine, and is a curious specimen of eleventh-century architecture, with alterations and additions made in the twelfth, fifteenth, and later centuries. The Tour de César, also on the island, is a relic of the royal castle demolished in 1740. The Church of St. Aspais, on the north side of the river, is an irregularly shaped building of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a beautiful choir, having a fine vaulted ambulatory.

Henry V. captured Melun in 1420, but ten years later Joan of Arc stirred up the people to regain their liberty, and with her help the English were expelled.

Three straight roads lead away from Melun towards Paris, and it is necessary to be careful to take the central one, going through Lieusaint. This road goes as straight as an arrow to Montgéron and Villeneuve-St.-Georges, suburbs of Paris. By using the accompanying map, one will easily find the turning to Choisy-le-Roi, which crosses the railway to the left of the busy street of Villeneuve.

Choisy-le-Roi is a manufacturing suburb of Paris. The palace, in which Louis XV. spent his time in profligacy and debauchery, and where Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette often stayed, was destroyed in 1797, during the Revolution.

Beyond Choisy-le-Roi the road curves and twists frequently, and there are about 4 kilometres of pavée. Near Chatenay one reaches some straight sections of road, bringing one rapidly to

VERSAILLES

The town is a large and pleasant outer suburb of Paris, with wide streets and large open spaces. Louis XV. laid the first stone of the cathedral in 1743.

The palace of Versailles is the largest royal residence in the world. It almost tires one to look at the enormous frontage with its great wings, and the waste of gravel, extending over several acres outside the gates and railings, gives a dreary appearance to the town side of the palace. It takes a whole day to go over the buildings and the park, and on a tour such as this it may be wiser to leave the historic palace for some other occasion. There is, unfortunately, no opportunity of including any adequate description of the buildings and their story here, but the literature obtainable in handy form on the spot is amply sufficient for all.

It was Louis XIV. who made Versailles the Court residence instead of St. Germain, and his successors, Louis XV. and Louis XVI., continued to spend vast sums on the palace, until it became the wilderness of great apartments through which the tourist is conducted at the present day. The two small residences in the park—the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon—were built for Marie de Maintenon and Madame du Barry, and were appreciated as retreats from the immensities of the palace.

ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

is a delightfully situated town commanding beautiful views across a great loop of the Seine towards Paris. The famous terrace by the side of the park and above the river has a wonderful prospect towards the east, wherein the capital appears on a bright, sunny day as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

The château, built of red brick and stone, belongs to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and has only just been subjected to an excess of restoration, leaving the exterior with the freshness of a new building. The earliest portion of the château is the chapel, a beautiful example of the style prevalent in the reign of St. Louis (IX.). This was spared when, in 1539, François I. ordered the famous Pierre Chambiges to rebuild the medieval castle. Henri II. continued the work, but the form of the letter D in the plan probably has no connection with his beloved Diana de Poitiers, as the plans were prepared several years earlier.

SECTION XXVI

ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE TO GISORS,
37½ MILES
(60 KILOMETRES)

The Forest of St. Germain-en-Laye, through which the route goes towards Pontoise, occupies practically the whole of the area enclosed by the third loop of the Seine below Paris, and was formerly part of the immense forest of Laye, one of those which surrounded Paris in the Middle Ages, and formed a great attraction to the French monarchs on account of the excellent hunting they provided.

From the long avenue there are interesting views of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower conspicuous, and on fine sunny days it has the fantastic aspect of a city of palaces and temples.

On emerging from the forest of very indifferent trees, the road crosses the Seine, and one turns to the right at once for Conflans-Ste. Honorine, where the ruins of its two castles, with an old tower conspicuous, look out over the soft green of the willows bordering the river. The late Gothic church, with a tower of the twelfth century, contains a picture attributed to Zurbaran, a Spanish artist of the seventeenth century who was Court painter to both Philip III. and Philip IV. The association of Conflans with St. Honorine has been mentioned in connection with Graville (Section I.).

About eight kilometres north of Conflans the River Oise is crossed at

PONTOISE,

an historic town picturesquely situated on high ground above the river.

It became the capital of the ancient province of Vexin when Philippe I. of France united one-half of Vexin to the Crown, and the castle became a royal residence. The boundaries of the province were, roughly, the Oise, the Seine, and the Andelle, and dividing it into two portions, known as Vexin Français and Vexin Normand, was the little River Epte. In the tenth century the Epte was decided upon as the boundary of the Duchy of Normandy, and it remained so until Philippe Auguste (II.) added the Norman half of Vexin to France. It is an interesting fact that the French half of Vexin, through having been a possession of the Abbey of St. Denis, gave the viscounts of the province the right of carrying in battle the celebrated banner of the oriflamme: thus, when Philippe I. acquired the territory he obtained the privilege, and the oriflamme of St. Denis was transferred to the royal standard.

There was a bridge at Pontoise in Roman times, for it was then called Pons Iscaræ, and before the present steel structure made its appearance in recent years there was a stone bridge of five arches.

It is unfortunate that the remains of the Château are inconsiderable, for its history as a royal residence in early times is interesting, St. Louis (IX.) having spent much of his youth in its massive walls at the time when his mother, Blanche of Castile, was endeavouring to keep him from his wife, Marguerite de Provence. It was also at Pontoise that St. Louis, when ill, vowed that he would lead a Crusade if he recovered. It was the fifth expedition to the Holy Land which he eventually headed. The town was often besieged in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and under Louis XIV. and Louis XV. the Parliament was held there in 1652, 1720, and 1753.

The ramparts still exist in part, but there has apparently been a great deal of reckless destruction in the town, for it has been robbed of many of its old buildings.

The Hôtel Dieu, built by St. Louis down by the river, was rebuilt in 1823-1827, and its only interest now is the picture, ‘The Healing of the Paralytic,’ by Philippe de Champaigne, who was one of the artists who helped to decorate the Luxembourg in Paris for Marie de Medici, the wife of Henri IV.

Bossuet, the most famous man in the Church of France in the seventeenth century, was consecrated Bishop of Meaux in 1681 in the church of the Cordeliers, which had a splendid refectory. This church, with others, and several convents has disappeared.

St. Maclou, the more important of the two which remain, is in part a twelfth-century building, although mainly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The west front has a fine Flamboyant porch. Pierre Lemercier, who was grandfather of Jacques Lemercier, who built the Sorbonne, the Sorbonne church, and the Palais Royale (1585-1660), was the architect of the Renaissance portions of the church.

Notre Dame, the other church, is chiefly in the Classic style of the latter half of the sixteenth century. It contains a fine altar-tomb of 1146, bearing the recumbent effigy of St. Gautier, Abbé of Meulan, with four angels swinging censers. There is also an ancient Madonna which attracts pilgrims to the church.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Leaving Pontoise by the road to Gisors, one passes through several picturesque villages. The first is Cormeilles-en-Vexin, whose church (partly twelfth century), with big flying buttresses and gargoyles, stands out prominently over the green and wooded country as the village is approached.

There are two or three stretches of paving-stones on this road, necessitating a slow pace to avoid dislocating every part of the car and its occupants, and there is thus plenty of time to enjoy the rural charm of the red-roofed villages, the big picturesque farms, and the extensive woods.

Marines is a small village with a seventeenth-century château containing a notable staircase. It belonged to Chancellor Sillory, who was Chancellor of France under Henri IV. In the church is the sixteenth-century chapel of St. Roch, standing over an octagonal crypt.

Three short stretches of pavé follow after leaving Marines, then the road drops down through a cutting in yellow sandstone to Chars (on the River Voisne), where there is a church of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The earlier work is worth studying, and there is also an interesting tomb to Jeanne de Ferrières, of the fourteenth century.

Passing over a level-crossing, the village of Bouconvilliers lies on the left. It has a large farm of the Sussex Downs type, sheltered by big trees, a church with a Romanesque tower, and a castle of the time of Louis XIII. (seventeenth century) on the site of a much earlier one, of which the entrenchments remain.

Just beyond the hamlet of Lierville (on the left) five roads meet. The direct way to Gisors is straight ahead, but a notice warns one of bad paving-stones, and recommends going to the right through Chaumont-en-Vexin. By doing so the distance is only slightly increased, and the pavé is entirely avoided.

The road winds down steeply into the leafy hollow in which the little town of Chaumont-en-Vexin stands. Its church, with a curious Classic tower of stumpy proportions, contains rich Flamboyant work, and is conspicuous on the shoulder of a hill above the houses.

There are remains of the eleventh-century castle where some of the French kings resided when the Norman frontiers were defended by a chain of castles. In the chief street there is a picturesque sixteenth-century house of timber-framing.

The Pierre-Trouée (or des Druids) is a very fine dolmen, composed of four stones, situated about two kilometres south-east of Trie-Château. An artificial circular hole has been cut through the base of the side stone, and Fergusson infers from this that the dolmen was probably never intended to be covered up with earth, or at the most only partially. The age of dolmens of this type is a matter of the greatest uncertainty. Although in a general way regarded as prehistoric burial-places, some of them may belong to post-Roman times.

TRIE-CHÂTEAU

is an interesting place. Its Hôtel de Ville is the Maison de Justice of the twelfth century, and it still has its round-headed windows with small pillars. The Romanesque façade of the church is richly ornamented, and the rest of the building belongs to the twelfth, thirteenth, and sixteenth centuries.

A fortified gateway (fifteenth century) of the château is passed through on the way to Gisors, and by it is a big round tower of the same period, although much restored. There can also be seen vaulted underground portions of this formerly important castle.

Charles François Dupuis, who wrote ‘Origins de tous les Cultes’—a book which did much to precipitate the irreligious crisis of the Revolution—was born at Trie-Château in 1742.

On entering Gisors there is a bad caniveau.

SECTION XXVII

GISORS TO ROUEN, 41 MILES