Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy

CHAPTER XX

BY THE BANKS OF THE RHÔNE

THE boundary between Dauphiny and Provence was by no means vague; it was a well defined territorial limit, but in the old days, as with those of the present, the climatic and topographic limits between the two regions were not so readily defined. The Rhône, the mightiest of French rivers when measured by the force and, at times, the bulk of its current, played a momentous historic part in the development of all the region lying within its watershed, and for that reason the cities lying midway upon its banks had much intercourse one with another.

Vienne, on the left bank of this swift-flowing river, was the capital of the Counts of the Viennois, and the birthplace of the earliest of the “native” Dauphins, who afterwards transferred their seat of power to Grenoble. For this reason it is obvious that the history of Vienne and that of the surrounding territory was intimately bound up with the later mountain province of Dauphiny, whose capital was Gratianopolis.

As the capital of this mountain empire evolved itself into Grenoble, and the power of the Dauphins gradually waned at Vienne, Comte Humbert, who was then ruler at Vienne, transferred his sceptre to the heir of Philippe de Valois who built his palace in the ancient mountain stronghold of the Romans in preference to continuing the seat of governmental dignity and rule by the banks of the mighty Rhône.

From this one gathers, and rightly, that Vienne is one of the most ancient cities of Dauphiny, and indeed of all the Rhône valley. Its history has been mentioned by Cæsar:

“Accolit Alpinis opulenta Vienna calonis.”

In the fifth century it was the capital of the first Burgundian kingdom, and at a later period the official residence of the native Dauphins, the race that came before those eldest sons of the French kings who wielded their power from their palace at Grenoble.

Vienne’s architectural monuments are many and of all states of nobility, but of palaces, castles and chateaux it contains only the scantiest of memories.

Down by the river, at the terminus of the ugly wire-rope suspension bridge, the modern useful successor of the more æsthetic works of the mediæval “Brothers of the Bridge,” is a most remarkable tower known as the “Tour de Mau Conseil.” It has for a legend the tale that Pontius Pilate threw himself from its topmost story. History, more explicit than the over-enthusiastic native, says that it was only the shore-end or gatehouse of a chateau which guarded the river crossing, and was built by Philippe de Valois. There is a discrepancy here of some centuries, so with all due respect to local pride one had best stick to historic fact.

There is a Chateau de Pilate, so-called, on the banks of the Rhône just below Saint Vallier, a few leagues away, of which the traditional legend is also kept green. It may be only a story anyway, but if one is bound to have it repeated, it had best be applied at this latter point.

This tower of Philippe de Valois as it exists to-day, also known as the “Clef de l’Empire,” is thus much more explicitly named, for it was in a way a sort of guardian outpost which controlled the entrance and exit to and from the neighbouring Lyonnais.

Vienne, being the outgrowth of a city of great antiquity, its Roman remains are numerous and splendid, from the bare outlines of its Amphitheatre to its almost perfectly preserved Temple d’Auguste. Monuments of its feudal epoch are not wanting either, though no splendid domestic or civic chateau exists to-day in its entirety. Instead there are scattered here and there about the town many fragmentary reminders of the days of the first Burgundian kingdom, and of the later city of the counts and Dauphins.

In 879 A.D. the ruler of the province, Boson, Comte de Vienne, Arles et Provence, by his ambition and energy, was proclaimed king by the barons and bishops assembled in the Chateau de Mantaille, belonging to the Archbishop of Vienne and situated at Saint Rambert, between Vienne and Valence.

In the Rue de l’Hopital one sees two coiffed towers rising high above the surrounding gables. They are all that remain of the semi-barbarian Comte Boson’s palace. In the passage entered by an antique portal, and running between two rows of rather squalid buildings, there is a slab which bears the following inscription:

It is not a very convincing souvenir, but the sight of the great round towers, rising above the canyon-like alleys roundabout, at least lends aid to the acceptance of the assertion by one who does not demand more clearly defined proofs.

In the Rue Boson is another edifice which may have something in common with the life of the first Burgundian court. It is a house which combines many non-contemporary features and possesses a marvellously built winding Renaissance stairway and two great towers, one a mere watch-tower, seemingly, the other strongly fortified. Frankly these towers might be accessories of some church edifice, or yet the chimneys of a factory, or of an iron furnace, since, even considering their situation, there is nothing distinctively feudal about them. They are, however, of manifest ancient origin and served either military or chateau-like functions. Of that there is no doubt in spite of their ungainliness.

Valence is a bruyante, grandiose city, which, without the Rhône or the mountains, might be Tours or Lille so far as its local life goes, and this in spite of the fact that it is on the border line between the north and the south.

“À Valence le Midi commence” is the classic phrase with which every earnest traveller in France is familiar, though indeed for three or four months of the year Valence is surrounded by snow-capped mountains. “The women of Valence are vive et piquante” is also another trite saying, but the city itself has nothing but its historic past to recommend it in the eyes of the sentimental traveller of the twentieth century.

The strategic position of Valence has made it in times past the scene of much historic action. With this importance in full view it is really astonishing that the city possesses so few historic monuments.

Almost at the juncture of the Isère and the Rhône, Valence to-day bustles its days away with a feverish local life that, in a way, reminds one of a great city like Lyons, to which indeed it plays second fiddle. There are few strangers except those who have come to town from places lying within a strictly local radius, and there is a smug air of satisfaction on the face of every inhabitant.

Things have changed at Valence of late years, for it was once one of the first cities of Dauphiny where religious reform penetrated in the later years of the sixteenth century, and even in the preceding century it had already placed itself under the protection of Louis XI, fearing that some internal upheaval might seriously affect its local life. Valence has always played for safety and that is why it lacks any particularly imposing or edifying aspect to-day. When Napoleon was staying at the military school at Valence he wrote of it as a city “sombre, severe et sans grace.” There is no cause to modify the view to-day.

Almost the sole example of domestic architecture at Valence worthy to be included in any portrait gallery of great Renaissance houses, is that which is somewhat vulgarly known as the “Maison des Têtes.” It was built in 1531 by the art-loving François Premier, not for himself but as a recompense for some less wealthy noble who had served him during his momentous Italian journey.

The name applied to this historic house is most curious, but is obvious from the decoration of its façade. Who its owner may actually have been has strangely enough been overlooked by those whose business it is to write such things down. Certain it is that he was fortunate to have a patron who would bestow upon him so luxurious a dwelling as it must once have been.

Perhaps, to go deeper into the question, the edifice was one of those “discrets chateaux” which François had a way of building up and down France, where he might repair unbeknownst to the world or even his court. Surely, here, in a tortuous back street of the dull little city of Valence, in the sixteenth century, one might well consider himself sheltered from the few inquisitive glances which might be cast on his trail. The œil de bœuf, that Paris spy or coterie of spies, did not exist for the monarch at Valence.

The Maison des Têtes is the more remarkable by reason of its modest proportions and the exceedingly ornate and bizarre decorations of its façade. Below and above the window-frames is an elaborate sculptured frieze, and between the arceaux of the windows, even, are equally finely chiselled motives.

There is a series of medallions of five philosophers and poets of antiquity, flanked on either side by a head of a Roman emperor and another of Louis XI. Two mutilated effigies, nearly life size, occupy niches on a level with the second story, and directly beneath the roof are posed four enormous heads, typifying the winds of the four quarters.

This interesting façade, no less than the vague history which attaches to the house itself, is in a comparative state of dilapidation. It seems a pity that in a city so poor in artistic shrines it were not better preserved and cared for. But there it is – Valence again! As a matter of fact the lower floor is occupied by a mean sort of a wine-shop, which assuredly casts an unseeming slur upon the proud position that the edifice once held.

Nearly opposite the Maison des Têtes is the house where the young Napoleon lodged in 1785-1786.

Just above Valence, at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhône, is the magnificent feudal ruin of Crussol, the guardian of the gateway leading from the south to the north. It sits at a great height above the swirling waters of the current on a peak of rock, and from the aspect of its projecting, fang-like gable is locally known as the “Corne de Crussol.”

For years this typical feudal castle and military stronghold of great power belonged to the family of Crussol, the old Ducs d’Uzes. So vast was it originally in extent that it contained a whole village within its walls, and indeed there was no other protection for those who called the duke master, as the castle had appropriated to itself the entire mountain-top plateau.

Certainly Crussol must have been as nearly impregnable a fortress as any of its class ever built, for from its eastern flank one may drop down a sheer thousand feet and then fall into the whirlpool waters of the Rhône. This was sure and sudden death to any who might lose their footing from above, but it was also an unscalable bulwark against attack.

The panorama which opens out from the platform of the ruined chateau is remarkable and extends from the Alps on the east to the Cevennes on the west, and from the Vivarais on the north to the distant blue of the Vercors on the south, and perhaps, at times, even to Mont Ventoux in Vaucluse.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE ALPS OF DAUPHINY

IN the high Alpine valleys back of the Barre des Écrins is a frontier land little known even to the venturesome tourist by road, who with his modern means of travel, the automobile, goes everywhere. The conventional tour of Europe follows out certain preconceived lines, and if it embraces the passing of the Alps from France into Italy it is usually made by the shortest and most direct route. If the Saint Bernard or the Mont Cenis route seems the shortest and quickest, few there are who will spend a day longer and pass by the highway crossed by Hannibal, even though they would experience much that was delectable en route.

Southeast from Grenoble and Vizille is Bourg d’Oisans, the end of a branch railway line, and a diminutive, though exceedingly popular, French Alpine station. To the traveller by road it is the gateway to the high Alpine valleys of Dauphiny, whose heart is the palpitating mountain fortress of Briançon, the most elevated of all French cities.

The highroad between Bourg d’Oisans and Briançon, really the only direct communication between the two places, was begun by Napoleon, that far-seeing road-builder whom future generations of travellers in France have good reason to rise up and call blessed. The roadway climbs up over the Lautret Pass, leaving the Galibier – the highest carriage road in Europe except the Stelvio – to the left, finally descending the southeastern slope and entering Briançon via Monetier-les-Bains, just opposite the famous Barre des Écrins, the highest of the French Alps, a peak of something over thirteen thousand feet, the first ascent of which is credited to Whymper as late as 1864.

Briançon’s chateau, or rather Fort du Chateau, is no chateau at all, being a mere perpetuation of a name. Its history is most vivid and interesting nevertheless. Briançon itself is one vast fortress, or a nest of them. The bugle call and the tramp of feet are the chief sounds to awaken mountain echoes roundabout. It has rightfully been called the Gibraltar of the Alps, and commands the passage from France into Italy.

The town sits most ravishingly placed just above the pebbly bed of the incipient Durance, which rushes down to the Mediterranean in a mighty torrent. Save Briançon’s barrier of forts and fortresses and mountain peaks roundabout, the town is a sad, dull place indeed, where winter endures for quite half the year, and, until the last century, it was entirely cut off from the world, save the exit and entrance by the single carriage road which rises from Gap via Embrun and Argentière.

Charles le Chauve died here at Briançon in the edifice which stood upon the site of the present Fort du Chateau, and to that circumstance the place owes its chief historic distinction.

Above the city, a dozen kilometres away only, rises the famous international highroad into Italy. On one side of the mountain the waters flow through the valley of the Po into the Adriatic, and on the other, via the Durance and the Rhône, to the Mediterranean.

On the extreme height of the pass is the famous Napoleon obelisk, commemorating the passage of the First Consul in 1806, though indeed the pass was one of the chief thoroughfares crossing the Alps for long centuries before. In 1494 Charles VIII crossed here with the army with which he invaded Italy.

There remains little of actual monumental aspect at Briançon which has come down from other days. There is still something left of the old chateau of the Seigneurs de Briançon, but not much. This was the same edifice in which Charles le Chauve died, and the mountain retreat of the lords of the Tarentaise. The general outlines of its walls are still to be traced, and there is always the magnificent site to help one build it up anew, but that is all.

The donjon is built on a peak of triangular rock rising sheer from the torrent at the bottom of the gorge which has cut its way through the town from the source higher up under the Montagne de la Madeleine.

The donjon is still there in all its solidity and sadness, but it takes a climb of two hundred and fifty steps up an exceedingly steep stair to reach the platform of rock on which it sits, and this after one has actually arrived at the base.

The retreat was practically untakable by the enemy, and the seigneurs conceived the idea of making it still more difficult of access by ignoring any convenient and comfortable means of approach. This must have been a great annoyance to themselves, but those were the days before time was money, so what matter? The old Roman way through the Tarentaise ran close along by the base of the chateau.

There are four distinct ruined elements to-day from which one may build up anew the silhouette of this mediæval stronghold. Chiefly these elements have been crumbled by stress of time, but here and there a reminder more definite in form, a gaunt finger of stone, points skyward, – a battery of them in fact surround the actual donjon.

The bridge on which the Roman road crossed the Durance was fortified, but was built of wood brought from the neighbouring mountain sides. It is supposed that the present stone structure is the direct successor of this wooden bridge, though it possesses the antique look which may well claim a thousand years. Aymon, the Seigneur de Briançon, when occupying the donjon on the heights, committed many extortions for toll on travellers passing this way. It was a sort of scandalous graft of the eleventh century which finally induced Héraclius, Archbishop of the Tarentaise, to petition

Humbert II, the overlord, Comte de Maurienne, to call his brother lord to a more reasonable method of procedure. This was to the Comte de Maurienne’s liking, for he fell upon him tooth and nail and drove Aymon from his castle, leaving it in the ruined and dismantled condition in which it stands to-day.

This toll of roads and bridges was, by inherited right, the privilege of many local seigneurs throughout the feudality, but here the demand was so excessive, so much greater than the traffic could stand, to put it in modern parlance, that the concession was suppressed in the same fashion as has been often brought to bear on latter day monopolies badly administered. This thing doesn’t happen often, but with the precedent of the toll bridge at Briançon it has been steadily growing as a commendable practice. Incidentally the Seigneur of Briançon was killed in the struggle which deprived him of what he thought his right, but that was seemingly a small matter; the main thing was to do away with the oppression, and the Lord of the Maurienne, being one of those who did things thoroughly, went at the root of the evil. It is to his credit that he did not continue the toll-gathering for his own benefit.

The enormous flanks of wall of the Chateau de Briançon, which still stand, show a thickness in some instances of thirty feet, and the mortar of eight centuries still holds the blocks firmly together here and there. What a comparison between the ancient and modern manner of building!

The same strategic position which first gave a foothold to the seigneurial chateau was newly fortified in 1536, in order to resist the troops of François I. The French by chance, or skill, finally took the position, and occupied it for a quarter of a century, until the time when Savoy was returned to Emmanuel-Philibert by the victory of Saint Quentin. Again it was captured in 1690 by Lesdiguières, the date of the conquest of Savoy by Henri IV.

The walls of the chateau which are to be remarked to-day are probably of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; all other works are of the later fortifications, or of the more modern military structure of the present war system of France.

Briançon from the plain below has the appearance and dignity of a monumental and prosperous city. Near-by this aspect is lost entirely. As the French say, it is like a shako stuck rakishly over the ear of a grenadier. One may take his choice of view points, but at all events Briançon is marvellously imposing and romantic looking from a distance. Roundabout on every peak and monticule are forts bristling with guns, all pointing Italy-wards; whilst on the height of Mont Genèvre the Italians in turn train their cannon on Briançon’s chateau and the plain beyond.

South from Briançon runs the great route nationale from Dauphiny and the Alps to Provence and the Mediterranean. It is replete with historic and romantic souvenirs, but like all the rest of these more or less poverty-stricken mountain regions, it lacks any great or splendid domestic or civic monuments on its route. Souvenirs of mediæval times there are, and many, but they were born of warlike deeds rather than peaceful ones.

Midway between Briançon and Embrun is Mont Dauphin, another key to the Italian gateway. The fortress is a conspicuous point of rock sitting strategically at the mouth of the river Guil at its junction with the Durance. The fortress was the work of Vauban, and its bastions are built of a curious pink marble found in the valley of the Queyras. No doubt but that the fortress is impregnable, or was when built, but it would avail little to-day against modern explosives.