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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
other, we study the central figures both offering interest of quite different kind.
Why a dashing soldier and courtier of the Renaissance should be represented in the guise of a Roman
warrior, is an anomaly, irreconcilable as that of pagan gods and the personification of Christian attributes
here placed vis-a-vis. Perhaps the grief-stricken wife, who was, as it appears, of a highly romantic and
adventuresome turn, wished thus to commemorate the heroic qualities of her husband; she might also
have wished to dissociate him altogether from his own time, a period of which, in her eyes, he would be
the victim. Be this as it may, the Roman undress and accoutrements do not harmonise with a
physiognomy essentially French and French of a given epoch. Whilst the interest aroused by the
Duchess's effigy is purely artistic, that of her husband excites curiosity rather than admiration. The head
is strangely poised, much as if the artist intended to suggest the fact of decapitation; obliquity of vision, a
defect hereditary in the Montmorencys, is also indicated, adding singularity. The half-recumbent figure
by the Duke's side, is of rare pathos and beauty. Almost angelic in its resignation and religious fervour is
the upturned face. The drapery, too, shows classic grace and simplicity, as strongly contrasted with the
martial travesty opposite as are the two countenances in expression.
Long will art-lovers linger before this monument raised by wifely devotion, a monument, with so many
another, perpetuating rather the devotion of the survivor than claims on posterity of the dead. And let not
hasty travellers follow Arthur Young's example, jotting down, after a visit to Moulins, "No room for the
Tombeau de Montmorenci."
CHAPTER XII. SOUVIGNY AND SENS.
A quarter of an hour by rail, an hour and a quarter by road, from Moulins lies Souvigny, the cradle of the
Bourbons, and as interesting and delightful a little excursion as travellers can desire. On a glowing
September morning the scenery of the Allier looked its very best. Never as long as I live shall I forget the
beauty of that drive. Lightest, loveliest cumuli floated athwart a pure, not too dazzlingly blue sky, before
us stretched avenue after avenue of poplar or plane trees, veritable aisles of green letting in the azure,
reminding me of the famous Hobbema in our National Gallery. At many points the landscape recalled
our native land; but for the white oxen of the Morvan, we might have fancied ourselves in Sussex or the
Midlands. And cloudage, to borrow an expression of Coleridge, suggested England, too. Clouds and
skies of the Midlands, none more poetic or pictorial throughout England seemed here - those skies above
the vast sweeps of undulating chalk having a peculiar depth and tenderness, the clouds a marvellous
brilliance, transparence, and variety of form! So beautiful are those cloud-pictures that we hardly needed
beauty below. Here on the road to Moulins we had both, the landscape, if not romantic or striking, being
rich in pastoral charm. Arthur Young, who looked at every bit of country first and foremost from the
farmer's point of view, was so much struck with the neighbourhood of Moulins that, but for the
Revolution, he would very probably have become a French landowner. Just eight miles from the city he
visited in August, 1789, an estate was offered for sale by its possessor, the Marquis de Goutte. "The
finest climate in France, perhaps in Europe," he wrote, "a beautiful and healthy country, excellent roads,
and navigation to Paris; wine, game, fish, and everything appears on the table except the produce of the
tropics; a good house, a fine garden, with ready markets for every kind of produce; and, above all the
rest, three thousand acres of enclosed land, capable in a very little time of being, without expense,
quadrupled in its produce - altogether formed a picture sufficient to tempt a man who had been
twenty-five years in the constant practice of husbandry adapted to the soil." The price of the whole was
only thirteen thousand and odd pounds, and the seller took care to explain that "all seigneurial rights
haute justice" (that is to say, the privilege of hanging poachers, and others, at the chateau gates),
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