It was at Auxerre that the art and craft of building noble edifices developed so highly among churchmen. The builders of the twelfth century were not only often monks but churchmen of rank as well. They occupied themselves not only with ecclesiastical architecture, but with painting and sculpture. One of the first of these clerical master-builders was Geoffroy, Bishop of Auxerre, and three of his prebendarys were classed respectively as painters, glass-setters and metal-workers.
The towering structure on the Place du Marché is to-day Auxerre’s nearest approach to a chateau of the romantic age, and this is only a mere tower to-day, a fragment left behind of a more extensive residential and fortified chateau which served its double purpose well in its time. It is something more than a mere belfry, or clock tower, however. It is called the Tour Gaillarde, and flanked at one time the principal breach in the rampart wall which surrounded the city. It is one of the finest specimens of its class extant, and is more than the rival of the great Tour de l’Horloge at Rouen or the pair of towers over which conventional tourists rave, as they do over the bears in the bear-pit, at Berne in Switzerland.
The entire edifice, the tower and that portion which has disappeared, formed originally the residence of the governor of the place, the personal representative of the counts who themselves, in default of a special residence in their capital, were forced to lodge therein on their seemingly brief visits. The names of the counts of Tonnerre and Auxerre appear frequently in the historical chronicles of their time, but references to their doings lead one to think that they chiefly idled their time away at Paris. That this great tower made a part of some sort of a fortified dwelling there is no doubt, but that it was ever a part of a seigneurial chateau is not so certain.
With respect to the part Auxerre played in the military science of the middle ages it is interesting to recall that the drum, or tambour, is claimed as of local origin, or at least that it was here first known in France, in the fourteenth century. No precise date is given and one is inclined to think that its use with the army of Edward III at Calais on the 3rd August, 1347, was really its first appearance across the Channel after all.
Above Auxerre the Yonne divides, or rather takes to itself the Armançon and the Seruin to swell its bulk as it flows down through the Auxerrois. Above lies the Avallonnais, where another race of seigneurs contribute an altogether different series of episodes from that of their neighbours. It remains a patent fact, however, that the cities and towns of the valley of the Yonne give one ample proof of the close alliance in manners and customs of all mid-France of mediæval times.
The inhabitants of this region are not a race apart, but are traditionally a blend of the “natural” Champenois and the “frank and loyal” Burgundian, – “strictly keeping to their promises, and with a notable probity in business affairs,” says a proud local historian. Here in this delightful river valley were bred and nourished the celebrated painter, Jean-Cousin; the illustrious Vauban, the builder of fortresses; the enigmatical Chevaliere d’Eon; the artist Soufflot, architect of the Pantheon; Regnault de Saint-Jean d’Angely, Minister of Napoleon; Bourrienne, his secretary and afterwards Minister of State under the Bourbons.
Following the Yonne still upwards towards its source one comes ultimately to Clamecy. Between Auxerre and Clamecy the riverside is strewn thickly with the remains of many an ancient feudal fortress or later chateaux. At Mailly-le-Chateau are the very scanty fragments of a former edifice built by the Comtes d’Auxerre in the fifteenth century, and at Chatel-Censoir is another of the same class. At Coulanges-sur-Yonne is the débris, a tower merely, of what must one day have been a really splendid edifice, though even locally one can get no specific information concerning its history.
From Clamecy the highroad crosses the Bazois to Chateau Chinon in the Nivernais. The name leads one to imagine much, but of chateaux it has none, though its nomenclature was derived from the emplacement of an ancient oppidum gaulois, a castrum gallo-romain and later a feudal chateau.
The road on to Burgundy lies to the southwest via the Avallonnais, or, leaving the watershed of the Yonne for that of the upper Seine, via Tonnerre and Châtillon-sur-Seine lying to the eastward of Auxerre.
CHAPTER III
AVALLON, VEZELAY AND CHASTELLUX
AVALLON owes its origin to the construction of a chateau-fort. It was built by Robert-le-Pieux, the son of Hugues Capet, in the tenth century. Little by little the fortress has crumbled and very nearly disappeared. All that remains are the foundation walls on what is locally called the Rocher d’Avallon, virtually the pedestal upon which sits the present city.
Avallon, like neighbouring Semur and Vezelay, sits snugly and proudly behind its rampart of nature’s ravines and gorges, a series of military defences ready-made which on more than one occasion in mediæval times served their purpose well.
It was in the old Chateau d’Avallon that Jacques d’Epailly, called “Forte Épice,” was giving a great ball when Philippe-le-Bon beseiged the city. Jacques treated the inhabitants with the utmost disrespect, even the ladies, and secretly quitted the ball just before the city troops surrendered. History says that the weak-hearted gallant sold out to the enemy and saved himself by the back door, and in spite of no documentary evidence to this effect the long arm of coincidence points to the dastardly act in an almost unmistakable manner.
Near Avallon are still to be seen extensive Roman remains. A Roman camp, the Camp des Alleux, celebrated in Gaulish and Roman history, was here, and the old Roman road between Lyons and Boulogne in Belgica Secundus passed near by.
It is not so much with reference to Avallon itself, quaint and picturesque as the city is, that one’s interest lies hereabouts. More particularly it is in the neighbouring chateaux of Chastellux and Montréal.
The Seigneur de Chastellux was one of the most powerful vassals of the Duc de Bourgogne. By hereditary custom the eldest of each new generation presented himself before the Bishop of Auxerre clad in a surplice covering his military accoutrements, and wearing a falcon at his wrist. In this garb he swore to support Church and State, and for this devotion was vested in the title of Chanoin d’Auxerre, a title which supposedly served him in good stead in case of military disaster. It was thus that the Maréchal de Chastellux, a famous warrior, was, as late as 1792, also a canon of the cathedral at Auxerre. It was, too, in this grotesque costume that the Chanoin-Comte d’Chastellux welcomed Louis XIV on a certain visit to Auxerre. At Auxerre, in the cathedral, one sees a monument commemorative of the Sires de Chastellux. It was erected by César de Chastellux under the Restoration, to replace the tomb torn down by the Chapter in the fifteenth century. This desecration, by churchmen themselves, one must remember, took place in spite of the fact that a Chastellux was even then a dignitary of the church.
Chastellux, beyond its magnificent chateau, is an indefinable, unconvincing little bourg, but from the very moment one sets foot within its quaintly named Hotel de Maréchal de Chastellux he, or she, is permeated with the very spirit of romance and mediævalism. The bridge which crosses the Cure in the middle of the village owns to the ripe old age of three hundred and fifty years, and is still rendering efficient service. This is something mature for a bridge, even in France, where many are doing their daily work as they have for centuries. Will the modern “suspension” affairs do as well? That’s what nobody knows! The hotel, or auberge rather, can not be less aged than the bridge, though the manner in which it is conducted is not at all antiquated.
A rocky, jagged pedestal, of a height of perhaps a hundred and fifty feet, holds aloft the fine mass of the Chateau de Chastellux. For eight centuries this fine old pile was in the making and, though manifestly non-contemporary as to its details, it holds itself together in a remarkably consistent manner and presents an ensemble and silhouette far more satisfactory to view than many a more popular historic monument of its class. Its great round towers, their coiffes and the pignons and gables of the roof, give it all a cachet which is so striking that one forgives, or ignores the fact that it is after all a work of various epochs.
Visitors here are welcome. One may stroll the corridors and apartments, the vast halls and the courtyard as fancy wills, except that one is always discreetly ciceroned by a guardian who may be a man, a woman, or even a small child. There is none of the espionage system about