CHAPTER VII
TONNERRE, TANLAY AND ANCY-LE-FRANC
THE origin of Tonnerre was due to a chateau-fort built here on the right bank of the Armançon, surrounded by a groupment of huddling dwellings which, in turn, were enclosed by a corselet wall of ramparts.
Tonnerre grew to its majority through the ambitions of a powerful line of counts who made the original fortress which they constructed the centre of a tiny capital of a feudal kingdom in miniature. From the suzerainty of the Sennonais, of which it was a county, Tonnerre came to bear the same title under control of the Burgundians, in whose hands it remained until it passed to the house of Luvois.
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
BURGUNDY has ever been known as a land of opulence. Since the middle ages its richesse has been sung by poets and people alike. There is an old Burgundian proverb which runs as follows:
“Riche de Chalon
Noble de Vienne
Preux de Vergy
Fin de Neufchâtel
Et la maison de Beaufremont
D’où sont sortis les hauts barons”
The Burgundians were first of all vandals, but with their alliance with the Romans in the fifth century they became a people distinct and apart, and of a notable degree of civilization. They established themselves first in Savoy, a gift to them of the Emperor Valentinian, and made Geneva the capital of their kingdom.
A new Burgundian kingdom of vast extent came into being under the Frankish kings; this second dynasty of Burgundian rulers finally came to the French throne itself. In the meantime they held, through their powerful line of dukes, the governorship of the entire province with a power that was absolute, – a power that was only equalled by that of independent sovereigns. The Burgundians were no vassal race.
The hereditary Ducs de Bourgogne reigned from 721 to 1361, during which period the duchy rose to unwonted heights of richness and luxury as well as esteem by its neighbours. Under the Frankish line the career of the province was no less brilliant, and when the King of France gave the duchy to his third son Philippe, that prince showed himself so superior in ability that he would treat with his suzerain father only as an equal in power.
In the reign of Louis XIV the eldest son of the house of France bore again the title Duc de Bourgogne, his grandson, born in 1751, being the last prince to be so acknowledged.
Burgundy in 1789 still formed one of the great “gouvernements” of the France of that day, and in addition was recognized in its own right as a Pays d’État. With the new portioning out of old France under Revolutionary rule the old Burgundian province became the modern Départements of the Cote d’Or, the Saône et Loire and the Yonne.
The Burgundian nobles who made Dijon their residence in Renaissance times lived well, one may be sure, with such a rich larder as the heart of Burgundy was, and is, at their door. There is no granary, no wine-cellar in France to rival those of the Cote d’Or. The shop-keepers of Dijon, the fournisseurs of the court, supplied only the best. The same is true of the shop-keepers of these parts to-day, whatever may be their line of trade. Even the religious institutions of old were, if not universal providers, at least purveyors of many of the good things of the table. When the monks of Saint Béninge sent out their lay brothers, sandalled and cowled, to call in the streets of Dijon the wines of the convent vineyards not a wine dealer was allowed to compete with them. This made for fair dealing, a fine quality of merchandise and a full measure at other times, no doubt. The monks who sold this product were accompanied by a surpliced cleric who fanfared a crowd around him and announced his wine by extolling its virtues as if he was chanting a litany.
In Burgundy there has come down from feudal times a series of sobriquets which, more than in any other part of France, have endured unto this time. There were the “buveurs” of Auxerre, the “escuyers” of Burgundy and the “moqueurs” of Dijon. All of these are terms which are locally in use to-day.
The Bourguignons in the fifth century, by a preordained custom, wore, suspended by cords or chains from their belts, the keys of their houses, the knives which served them at table as well as for the hunt (forks were not then invented, or at any rate not in common use), their purse, more or less fat with silver and gold, their sword and their ink-well and pens; all this according to their respective stations in life. When one was condemned for a civil contravention before a judge he was made to deposit his belt and its dangling accessories as an act of acknowledgment of his incapacity to properly conduct his affairs. It was no sign of infamy or lack of probity, but simply an indication of a lack of business sagacity. It was the same, even, with royalty and the noblesse as with the common people, and the act was applied as well to women as men. The Duchesse de Bourgogne, widow of Philippe-le-Hardi, who died covered with debts brought about by his generosity, admitted also that she was willing to share the responsibilities of his faults by renouncing certain of her rights and deposition on his tomb of his ceinture, his keys and his purse.
Isabelle de Bavière, who owed so much to a Duc de Bourgogne of the seventeenth century, was criticised exceedingly when she came among his people because of the luxury of possessing two “chemises de toile,” the women of the court at the time – in Burgundy at all events – dressing with the utmost simplicity. With what degree of simplicity one can only imagine!
Another luxury in these parts in mediæval times was the use of candles. What artificial light was made use of in a domestic manner came from resinous torches, and cires and candles were used only in the churches, or perhaps in the oratories, or private chapels, of the chateaux.
The homes of the Burgundian bourgeoisie were hardly as luxuriant or magnificent as those of the nobles, nor were they as comfortably disposed in many instances as one would expect to learn of this land of ease and plenty. Frequently there was no board flooring, no tiles, no paving of flag stones, even. A simple hard-pounded clay floor served the humble householder for his rez-de-chaussee. In the more splendid Renaissance town houses, or even in many neighbouring chateaux, it was not infrequent that the same state of affairs existed, but sheaves or bunches of straw were scattered about, giving the same sort of warmth that straw gives when spread in the bottom of an omnibus. If a visitor of importance was expected fresh straw was laid down, but this was about all that was done to make him comfortable. Otherwise the straw was generally of the Augean stable variety, since it was usually renewed but three times during the cold season, which here lasts from three to five months out of the twelve. In time a sort of woven or plaited straw carpet came into use, then square flags and tiles, and finally rugs, or tapis, which, in part, covered the chilly flooring. Elsewhere, as the rugs came into the more wealthy houses, plain boards, sometimes polished, served their purpose much as they do now.
Only the rich had glazed windows. The first window glass used in France was imported from England in the twelfth century, at which time it was reckoned as one of the greatest of domestic luxuries.
Chimneys, too, were wanting from the houses of the poor. Houses with windows without glass, and entirely without chimneys, must have lacked comfort to a very great degree. Such indeed exist to-day, though, in many parts of France. This is fact! A sort of open grate in a lean-to outside the house, and iron barred open windows without even shutters are to be found in many places throughout the Midi of France. One such the writer knows in a town of three thousand inhabitants, and it is occupied by a prosperous “decorated” Frenchman. What comfort, or discomfort!
The Burgundian householder of mediæval times sat with his family huddled around a great brazier upon which burned wood or charcoal. The rising smoke disappeared through a hole in the centre of the roof in primitive redman’s fashion.
As late as the fifteenth century there were no individual chairs in any but the most prosperous and pretentious homes. Their place was taken by benches, and these mostly without backs.
Chiefly the meaner houses were built of wood and thatched after the manner of such thatched roofs as exist to-day, but with less symmetry, one judges from the old prints.
All the world and his wife retired early. This one learns from the Burgundian proverb already old in the time of Louis XII.
“Lever à cinq, diner à neuf
Souper à cinq, coucher à neuf
Fait vivre d’ans nonante et neuf.”
This is probably as true to-day as it was then if one had the courage to live up to it and find out.
The ancient reputation of the wine of Burgundy dates back centuries and centuries before the juice of the grape became the common drink of the French. During the famous schism which divided the Church in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Duc de Bourgogne, Philippe-le-Hardi, was deputed, in 1395, to present to Pope Benoit XIII, then living at Avignon in the Comtat, “rich presents and twenty queues of the wine of Beaune.”
History and romance have been loud in their praises of the rich red wines of Burgundy ever since the dawn of gormandizing. Petrarch has said that his best inspirations and sentiments came from the wine of Beaune, and the Avignon Popes lengthened their sojourn in their Papal City on the banks of the Rhone because of the easy transport and the low price of the fine wines of Beaune. “There is not in Italy,” they said, “the wine of Beaune nor the means of getting it.”
The heart of old Burgundy, that is, the Côte d’Or of to-day, is the region of France the most densely wooded after the Vosges. Great forests exploited for their wood are everywhere, oak and beech predominating. Only the coteaux, the low-lying hillsides, where the vines are chiefly grown, are bare of forest growth.
Two great rivers cross the province from north to south, and two from east to west, the Aube, the Dheune, the Saône and the Vingeanne, and the Seine itself takes birth between Saint Seine and Chanceaux, this last, like most of the great rivers of Europe, being but a humble rivulet at the commencement. Two canals furnish an economical means of communication, and are really remarkable waterways. The Canal de Bourgogne joins up the Saône and the Seine, and more important still is that which joins the Rhône and Rhine.
Eight “Routes Royales” crossed the province in old monarchical days, and where once rolled princely corteges now whiz automobiles without count.
In the seventeenth century from Paris to Dijon was a journey of eight days in winter and seven in summer, by the malle-poste. One departure a week served what traffic there was, and the price was twenty-four livres (francs) a head, with baggage charged at three sols a pound. The departure from Paris was from the old auberge “Aux Quatre Fils Aymon,” and more frequently than not the announcements read that the coach would leave “as soon as possible” after the appointed hour.
Whatever feudal reminiscence may linger in the minds of the readers of old chronicles let no one forget that France in general, and Burgundy in particular, is no longer a land of poverty where everybody but the capitalist has to pick up fagots for fires. Far from it; the peasant hereabouts, the worker in the fields, may lack many of the commonly accepted luxuries of life, but he eats and drinks as abundantly as the seemingly more prosperous dweller in the towns, and if not of meat three times a day (the worn-out, threadbare argument of the English and American traveller who looks not below the surface in continental Europe) it is because he doesn’t crave it. That he is the better in mind and body for the lack of it goes without saying.