The walls of this apartment are covered with panelled wainscoting, with florid and festooned columns of the greatest richness. Above the wainscoting there is a row of Venice mirrors; for what purpose they are placed there, unless it is simply for ornament, I am at a loss to say, as they are hung too high for any one to see himself in them. Above the mirrors are ranged, in chronological order,—the most ancient touching the ceiling,—the portraits of all the bishops of Burgos, down from the very first, to the prelate who now occupies the see. These portraits, although in oil-colours, look like crayon drawings, or sketches in distemper. This is occasioned by the practice they have in Spain of never varnishing their pictures, a want of precaution which has been the cause of a great number of very valuable masterpieces having been destroyed by the damp. Although most of these portraits present a tolerably imposing appearance, they are not first-rate paintings; besides, they are hung too high for any one to form a just opinion of the merit of the execution. The middle of the room is occupied by an immense side-board and enormous baskets, made of spartum, in which the church ornaments and sacred vessels are kept. Under two glass cases are preserved, as curiosities, two coral trees, whose branches, however, are far less complicated than the smallest arabesque in the cathedral. The door is ornamented with the arms of Burgos in relief, sprinkled with small crosses, gules.
Juan Cuchiller's room, which we traverse after the one I have just described, offers nothing remarkable in the way of architecture, and we were hastening to leave it as soon as possible, when our guide requested us to raise our eyes and look at an object of the greatest curiosity. This object was a large chest, firmly attached to the wall by iron cramps: it would be difficult to conceive anything more patched, more worm-eaten, or more rotten. It is decidedly the oldest chest in the world; but the following inscription, in black letters, Cofre del Cid, instantly imparted, as the reader may imagine, an immense degree of importance to its four planks of mouldering wood. This chest, if we can believe the old chronicle, is the very same that the famous Ruy Diaz de Bivar, more generally known under the name of the Cid Campeador,—being once, hero though he was, pressed for money, exactly as a mere author might be,—caused to be filled with sand and stones, and left in pledge at the house of an honest Jewish usurer, who made advances on this kind of security. The Cid forbad him, however, to open the mysterious deposit until he, the Cid Campeador, had paid back the sum borrowed. This proves that the usurers of that period were of a much more confiding disposition than those of the present time. We should now-a-days find but few Jews, and I believe but few Christians either, so innocent and obliging as to accept a pledge of this description. Monsieur Casimir Delavigne has used this legend in his piece entitled "La Fille du Cid;" but, for the enormous chest, he has substituted an almost imperceptible coffer, which, in sober truth, could only contain the gold of the Cid's word; and there is no Jew, and there never was one, not even in those heroic times, who would have lent anything upon such a toy. The historical chest is high, broad, massive, deep, and garnished with all sorts of locks and padlocks. When full of sand, it must have required at least six horses to move it; so that the worthy Israelite might have supposed it to be crammed with apparel, jewellery, or plate, and thus have been more easily induced to humour the Cid's caprice, which is one that, like many other heroical freaks, is duly provided for by the criminal law. The real chest being such as I have described, I feel myself necessitated, without wishing to hurt the feelings of Mons. Antenoz Joly, to pronounce the mise en scène at the Théâtre de la Renaissance to be inexact.
CHAPTER IV.
BURGOS—continued.
The Cloisters; Paintings and Sculptures—The Cid's House; the Casa del Cordon; the Puerta de Santa Maria—The Theatre and the Actors—La Cartuja de Miraflores—General Thibaut and the Cid's bones.
On leaving the room of Juan Cuchiller, you enter another which is decorated in a very picturesque manner. The walls are wainscoted with oak and hung with red tapestry, while the ceiling is artesonado, and produces a most pleasing effect. There is a "Nativity" by Murillo, a "Conception," and a figure of "Our Saviour" in flowing robes, all exceedingly well painted.
The cloisters are filled with tombs, most of which are enclosed by strong iron railings placed very close together. These tombs, all of them belonging to various illustrious personages, are placed in recesses hollowed out in the thickness of the wall; they are covered with armorial bearings and decorated with sculpture. On one of them I observed an excessively beautiful group of the Virgin Mary and Our Saviour holding a book in his hand, as well as a most strange and surprising production of the imagination, representing a fanciful monster, half animal, half arabesque. On all these tombs are stretched statues the size of life, of knights in armour, or bishops in full episcopal costume; so truthful are the attitudes in which they are lying, and so minute are the details, that any one looking at them through the iron railings might almost mistake these statues for the persons they represent.
On the jamb of a door, I remarked as I passed along, a charming little statue of the Virgin, executed in the most delicious manner and conceived with extraordinary boldness. Instead of the contrite and modest air that is generally given to the statues and paintings of the Blessed Virgin, the sculptor has represented her with a mixed expression of voluptuousness and ecstasy, and intoxicated with all the pleasure of a woman in the act of conceiving a God. She is standing up with her head thrown backwards, and seems to be inhaling with her whole soul and body, and also with the most original union of passion and purity, the ray of flame which is breathed upon her by the symbolical dove. It was a difficult task to produce any novelty in the treatment of a subject that had been so often used, but for genius nothing is too common.
A detailed description of these cloisters would require a whole chapter to itself; but, on account of my limited space and the short time that was at my disposal, the reader will excuse me for merely mentioning them in this cursory manner, and re-entering the church, where we will take at hazard, without choice or preference, the first chefs-d'œuvre we may happen to see on our right and left; for they are all beautiful and all admirable, and those which we do not mention are at the least quite as valuable as the rest.
We will first stop before this "Passion of our Lord," carved in stone by Philip of Burgundy, who, unfortunately, was not a French artist, as his name or rather his nickname might lead us to suppose. This bas-relief is one of the largest in the world. According to the usual custom in Gothic art, it is divided into several compartments,—namely, the Mount of Olives, the Bearing of the Cross, and the Crucifixion of the Saviour between the two Thieves; an immense composition which, for the fineness of the heads, and the minute accuracy of the details, is equal to the most delicate and lovely things that Albert Dürer, Hemlinck, or Holbein ever produced with their miniature-painters' pencils. This stone epic is terminated by a magnificent "Descent to the Tomb." The groups of sleeping apostles which occupy the lower compartments of the Garden of Olives possess almost the same beauty and purity of style as the prophets and saints of Fra Bartholomew; the heads of the women at the foot of the cross are remarkable for that pathetic and mournful look which Gothic art alone could convey, and which in this instance is united to an uncommon beauty of outline. The soldiers attract attention by the singularity and savage style of their apparel, which is that usually employed during the middle ages in all representations of the Ancients, the Orientals, or the Jews, whose true costume was then not known; the various postures in which they are placed are stamped with a bold swaggering air, which contrasts most happily with the ideality and melancholy of the other figures. The whole is surrounded by carving as delicate as the finest jewellery, and of the most incredible good taste