At Belleville-sur-Saône is a little strip of the earth’s surface called by the French the finest panorama in the world and “le plus bel lieu de France.” It is beautiful, even beyond words, a smiling radiant river valley with nearly all the artistic attributes which go to make up the ideal landscape. Just how near it comes to being the finest view in the world is a matter of opinion. The New Zealander thinks that he has that little corner of God’s green earth, and so does many a down-east farmer, to say nothing of the man from the Missouri Valley and the occasional Scotch Highlander.
The tiny little city of Anse has few recollections for most travellers, but it possesses an admirable ruin of a chateau-fortress, with two towers bronzed by time and still proudly erect. This ruin, together with the memory that Augustus once had a palace here in the ancient Anita of the Romans, and the neighbouring ruin of the chateau of the Sires de Villars over towards Trévoux, are all that Anse has to-day for the curious save its delightful situation in a bend of the Saône.
Opposite Belleville-sur-Saône is Montmerle. In the middle ages it was one of the sentinel cities which guarded the Principality of Dombes. Sieges and assaults without number were its portion, from the Bourguignons, the troops of the Sire de Beaujeau, the Dauphinois and the Counts and Dukes of Savoy.
The imposing ruins of the former chateau-fortress tell the story of its mighty struggle which endured for nearly a century. For the most part the bulk of the material of which it was built has disappeared, or at least has been built up into other works, but the massive signal tower which once bolstered up the main portal still rises high above the waters of the Saône. The tower supposedly dates from the twelfth century – the period to which belonged the chateau – and is distinguished by its hardiness and height rather than for its solidity and massiveness.
At Farcins, near-by, is a magnificent and still habitable chateau of the end of the reign of Henri IV, built by Jean de Sève, Conseiller du Roi, on the plans of Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau. From Montmerle one may see the towers and roofs of half a dozen other minor chateaux of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries scattered here and there through the Beaujolais, but nothing distinctive arrests one’s attention until Villefranche and Trévoux are reached.
The Sires de Beaujeau, from motives of policy if from no other, ever respected the privilege of Villefranche (founded by Humbert IV). The traditions of Villefranche’s old Auberge du Mouton are classic, and have been used time and again by playwright and novelist without even acknowledgment to history. It was here in the “Free City” beside the Rhone that Edward II swore to observe the city’s claims of municipal liberty.
Villefranche has no other notable monuments save the Hôtel de Ville of to-day, which is an admirable Renaissance town house, and another equally striking in the Rue Nationale. The latter is almost palatial in its proportions.
Just below Villefranche is Trévoux, the ancient capital of the Principality of Dombes. It comes into the lime-light here only because of its ruined castle on a height above the town which travellers by road or rail cannot fail to remark even if they do not think it worth while to become intimately acquainted.
The old castle is situated on the summit of a hill to the west of the town, its two black-banded towers of the middle ages proclaiming loudly the era of its birth. The octagonal donjon is a master-work of its kind and dates from the twelfth century. Since the Revolution this remarkable donjon has been shorn of a good two-thirds of its former height, and the effect is now rather stubby. With another twenty metres to its credit it must indeed have been imposing, as well by its construction as its situation. It is no wonder that this powerful defence was able to resist the attack of the Sire de Varambon, who, after capturing the city, sought vainly to take the chateau in 1431. It was a cruel victory indeed, for the wilful seigneur, not content with capturing the city, drove out all its wealthy and comfortably rich inhabitants and charged them a price of admission to get in again, mutilating their persons in a shocking manner if they did not disgorge all of their treasure as the price of this privilege.
The local seigneur, his family and immediate retainers, were meanwhile huddled within the walls of the chateau and only escaped starvation at the hands of the victor by his having tired of the game of siege and by his withdrawal, carrying with him all the loot which he could gather together and transport.
It was at Trévoux that the Jesuits compiled the celebrated Dictionary and Journal which made such a furor in the literary annals of the eighteenth century.
With the exception of François Premier all of the French monarchs from Philippe-Auguste down to Louis XIV acknowledged the independence of the Principality of Dombes, and owed them the allegiance of supplying men and money in case they were attacked. The Parliament met at Trévoux and the Principality was one of the earliest and smallest political divisions of France to coin its own money.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FRANCHE COMTÉ: AUXONNE AND BESANÇON
EAST of Dijon, from the centre of which radiated Burgundian influence and power, was a proud and independent political division which, until 1330, never allied itself intimately with the royal domain of the French kings nor with Burgundy. From this time, as a part of the Burgundian dukedom, it retained the right to be known as the Franche Comté, and was even then exempted from many impositions and duties demanded of other allied fiefs: “Burgundiæ Comitatus, Liber Comitatus,” was its official title.
It is characteristic of the independent spirit of the people of these parts that they should tell Henri IV, who praised the wine they offered him, when he was making a stay among them, and was being entertained in Besançon’s citadel, that they had a much better one in the cellar which they were saving for a more august occasion.
The Franche Comté is in no sense a tourist region; its varied topography has not been given even a glance of the eye by most conventional tourists, and its historical souvenirs have been almost entirely ignored by the makers of romances and stage-plays. Switzerland-bound travellers have an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with this comparatively little known corner of old France as they rush across it by express train via Pontarlier, but few avail themselves thereof. For this reason, if no other, the architectural monuments of the Franche Comté come upon one as genuine surprises.
From Dijon our way lay through Genlis and Auxonne to Besançon, and there is no better way of approaching the heart of things, though it will require some courage on the part of travellers by train to accommodate themselves to the inconvenient hours of departure and arrival. The traveller by road will have a much easier and a much more enjoyable time of it; and right here is a suggestion of a new ground for touring automobilists who may be tired of well-worn roads. It is just as enjoyable to hunt out historic monuments with an automobile as with a Cook’s ticket and a railway train – more so, some of us think. It would certainly not have been possible for the makers of this book to have otherwise got over the ground covered herein, so let not the ultra-sentimentalist decry the modern mode of locomotion.
Winding its way between the confines of Burgundy and the Comté the highroad from Paris to Pontarlier and Switzerland led us first to Auxonne. Genlis we passed en route and almost had a thrill over it by recalling the notorious Comtesse de Genlis. We racked our brains a moment and then remembered that the celebrated “bas bleu” hailed from somewhere in Picardy, so, then, this particular Genlis had no further interest for us, above all in that there was no chateau in sight.
Auxonne (the old Ad Sonam of the Romans, afterwards corrupted into Assona, then Assonium and finally as it is to-day) was but a dozen kilometres beyond Genlis, and, sitting astride the great highway from Paris to Geneva, was early a fortified place of great strategic importance. Vauban traced its last ramparts and it was thought likely to hold its rank for all time, but now the fortifications have disappeared and the city no longer takes its place as a frontier outpost, that honour having been usurped by Besançon in the Jura.
Of the military and feudal past there are still vivid memories at Auxonne. The chateau-fort is still there, built in different epochs by Louis XI, Charles VIII and Louis XII, and these works combined to make an edifice seemingly all-resistant, or at least formidable to a high degree. The chateau is still there, in part at least – not much has actually been despoiled, but actually the railway station is more militant in aspect. The stranger coming to Auxonne for the first time – unless he be prepared beforehand – will have grave doubts at first as to which is the chateau and which is the gare. The latter has a crenelated cornice, meurtrières pierced in its walls, and the vague appearance of bastions, all of which are also found in the real in the old chateau grimly overlooking the swift-flowing Saône. The enormous flanking towers of the real chateau, in spite of the city having been shorn of its prime military rank, are still kept in condition for the service of long-range guns, for the French are ever in a state of preparedness for the invasion which may never come. The lesson of “71” was well learned.
On the great entrance portal of the chateau is blazoned a stone-sculptured hedgehog, the devise of Louis XII, and in opposing niches are two carven angels holding aloft an escutcheon. Another doorway is hardly less impressive, though somewhat vague as to the purport of its ornament, which stands for nothing military or even civic.
This introduction to the militant glory of the Auxonne of other days is a ripe indication of the dignity with which the place was one day enhanced. Of a population to-day of something less than five thousand souls, the city shelters nearly three thousand soldiers of all arms. Its warlike aspect can hardly be said to have changed much from what it was of old in spite of the fact that its importance is lower down in the scale.
Another warlike reminder is the statue which rises proudly in the Place d’Armes. It is that of the Sous-Lieutenant Bonaparte as he was upon his arrival at Auxonne, a pallid youth just out of the military school of Brienne.
In the plain neighbouring upon Auxonne, a sort of mid-France Flanders, is a populous town with a momentous and romantic history, albeit its architectural monuments, save in fragments, are practically nil. The Revolutionary authorities took away its old name and called it “Belle Defense,” in memory of a heroic resistance opposed by the place to the invading Duc de Lorraine in 1616. Gallas had freed the Saône with thirty thousand men, and with Cardinal La Valette at the head of his army (a cardinal whom Richelieu had made a general) found Dijon so well guarded that he turned on his steps and attacked what is to-day Saint Jean-de-Losne. Fifty thousand soldiers in all finally besieged the place, and less than fifteen hundred of the inhabitants, and a garrison of but a hundred and fifty, held them at bay. The Duc d’Enghien, the future Grand Condé, then Governor of Burgundy, was able to send a feeble body of reinforcements and thus turn the tide in favour of the besieged.
For this great defence Louis XIII exonerated the city from all future taxes, and the grand cross of the Legion d’Honneur was allowed to be incorporated into the city arms, as indeed it endures unto to-day. The tracings of the former fortifications are plainly marked, though the walls themselves have disappeared.
Dole is commonly thought of as but a great railway junction. Besançon and Montbéliard are the real objectives of this itinerary through the Franche Comté and the half-way houses are apt to be neglected. For fear of this we “stopped over” at Dole.
Dole’s historic souvenirs are many and have in more than one instance left behind their stories writ large in stone. The present Hôtel de Ville was the old Palais du Parlement, built in the sixteenth century, from the designs of Boyvin, who was himself President of the Chambre at the time. Within the courtyard of this old Parliament House is an impressive donjon of a century earlier, the Tour de Vergy, which offers as choice a lot of underground cells, or oubliettes, as one may see outside the Chateau d’If or the Castle of Loches. The Palais de Justice at Dole, with a magnificently carved portal, was formerly the Couvent des Cordeliers and dates from 1572.
The memory of Besançon in the minds of most folk – provided they have any memory of it at all – will be recalled by the opening lines of Stendhal’s “Rouge et Noir.” “Besançon n’est pas seulement une des plus jolies villes de France, elle abonde en gens de cœur et d’esprit.”
The flowing Doubs nearly surrounds the “Roc” of Besançon with a great horse-shoe loop which gives a natural isolation and makes its citadel more nearly redoubtable than was ever imagined by Vauban, its builder.
From an artistic point of view Besançon’s monuments are not many or varied if one excepts the Palais Granvelle and the military defences, which are made up in part of a number of mediæval towers and Vauban’s citadel. There are four great sentinel towers surrounding the city, all dating from the period of Charles Quint, but the city gates, piercing the fortification walls, were built also by Vauban between 1668-1711, and are by no means as ancient as they look.
The Palais Granvelle, of the sixteenth century, has a fine dignified monumental aspect wholly impressive regardless of its lack of magnitude and the absence of a strict regard for the architectural orders. Liberties have been taken here and there with its outlines which place it beyond the pale of a thoroughly consistent structure, but for all that it undeniably pleases the eye, and more. And what else has one a right to demand unless he is a pedant? In general the civic and domestic architecture of the Franche Comté are of a sobriety which gives them a distinction all their own; the opposite is true of the churches, taking that at Pont-à-Mousson as a concrete example.
The street façade of the Palais Granvelle is undeniably fine, with a dignity born of simplicity. Its interior façade, that giving on the courtyard, is freer in treatment, but still not violent, and its colonnaded cloister forms a quiet retreat in strong contrast with the bustle and noise which push by the portal scarce twenty feet away.
The Palais Granvelle actually serves to-day the purpose of headquarters of Besançon’s Société Savante.
Nicolas Perrenot, Seigneur de Granvelle, its builder (1533-1540), was the chancellor of Charles Quint, and brother of the Cardinal de Granvelle, minister of Charles Quint and Philippe II. He was descended from a noble Burgundian family, not from a blacksmith as has faultily been given by more than one historian.
Charles Quint, in writing to his son, after the death of his chancellor – “in his palace at Besançon,” said: “My son, I am extremely touched by the death of Granvelle. In him you and I have lost a firm staff upon which to lean.”
The centre of the admirable town house of the sixteenth century is occupied by a vast courtyard surrounded by a series of Doric columns in marble, supporting a range of low arcades. The principal façade is built of “marbre du pays,” which is not marble or anything like it, but a very suitable stone for building nevertheless. It might be called “near-marble” by an enterprising modern contractor, and a fortune made off it by skilful advertising. It is better, at any rate, than armoured cement.
The structure rises but two stories above the rez-de-chaussée, but is topped off with an “attique” (a word we all recognize even though it be French) and three great stone lucarnes, ornamented with light open-work consoles à jour.
Each story is decorated at equal intervals by a superimposed series of columns. The first is Doric, the second Ionic and the third Corinthian, and each divides its particular story into five travées.
The entrance portal is particularly to be remarked for its elegance. It is flanked on either side by a Corinthian column and is surmounted by a pair of angel heads in bronze.
Drawing closer and closer to the frontier, the face of everything growing more and more warlike the while, one comes to Montbéliard, practically a militant outpost of modern France, though actually its importance in this respect is overshadowed by neighbouring Belfort. At Belfort Bartholdi’s famous lion – a better stone lion by the way than Thorwaldsen’s at Luzerne – crouches in his carven cradle in the hillside ready to spring at the first rumours of war. If France is ever invaded again it will not be by way of the gateway which is defended by Belfort and Montbéliard, that is certain!
Montbéliard is a little fragment of Germany that has become French. Rudely grouped around the walls of the old chateau of the Wurtemburgs, the town remains to-day an anomaly in France, more so than the greater Strassbourg and Metz are to Germany, because they have become thoroughly Germanized since “la guerre” and the “annexation,” which are the half whispered words in which the natives still discuss the late unpleasantness.
How did this little German stronghold become French? One may learn the story from “Le Maréchal de Luxembourg et Le Prince d’Orange,” by Pierre de Ségur, better even than he may from the history books. The tale is too long to retell here but it is undeniably thrilling and good reading. The town, the chateau and the local duke were, it seems, all captured at one fell swoop. There was no defence, so it was not a very glorious victory, but it came to pass as a heroic episode and a Wurtemburg castle thus came to be a French chateau.
The Chateau de Montbéliard has all the marks of a heavy German castle. It has little indeed of the suggestion of the French manner of building in these parts or elsewhere. To-day it serves as a barracks for French soldiers, but its alien origin is manifest by its cut and trim.
The history of Montbéliard has been most curious. Its name was derived from the Latin Mons Peligardi (in German Munpelgard) and the principality, as it once was, had a council of nine maîtres-bourgeois, as the city councilmen were called. The principality comprised the seigneuries of Héricourt, Blamont, Chatelet and Clémont. For a time it was a part of the Duchy of Lorraine, then it passed to the house of Montfaucon, and then to the Wurtemburgs, who built the castle. The Treaties of Luneville and Paris made it possible for the tricolor to fly above the castle walls, otherwise it might have remained a German town with a burgomaster instead of a French ville with a maire.
The Tour Neuve of the chateau dates from 1594 and the Tour Bossue from 1425. The main fabric was restored in such a manner that it would seem to have been practically remodelled, if not actually rebuilt, in 1751. It preserves nevertheless the cachet that one expects to see in a castle of its time, albeit that an alien flavour hovers around it still.
It is worth continuing in this direction a step farther to Belfort in the “territory,” although it is actually beyond the confines of Burgundy’s “Free County.” Belfort is worth seeing for the sake of its “Lion,” though if one is pressed for time he may take a ride in Paris over to the Rive Gauche and see the same thing in the Place de Belfort, or at least a miniature replica of it.
In the midst of the great entrenched camp of Belfort rises “La Chateau,” as Belfort’s citadel is known. It sets broad on its base nearly five hundred metres above sea-level. The chateau and the “Roc” were first fortified in the sixteenth century, since which time each year has added to the strength of the defences until to-day it is perhaps the most strongly fortified of all the frontier posts of France.
It is at the base of the massive “Roc” which bears aloft the chateau that is sculptured Bartholdi’s celebrated lion. Its proportions are immense, at least seventy-five feet in length and perhaps forty in height.
The ancient Tour de la Miotte is all that remains of a fortress of the middle ages, so Belfort’s claims rest on something more than its artistic monumental remains, though the silhouette and sky-line of the grouping of its chateau and citadel are imposingly effective and undeniably artistic.