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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
that you are tempted to look for forget-me-nots.
The voluntariness of this street watering constitutes its witchery. Post haste flows each tiny course; not
having a moment to spare seems every current. Need we wonder at the fabled Arethusas and Sabrinas of
more youthful worlds?
Of itself Sens is very engaging. We can easily understand the fact of the late Mr. Hamerton having made
his first French home here. In the memoir of her husband, affixed to his autobiography, Mrs. Hamerton
gives us particulars, not only of individual, but of super-personal interest. I use the last expression
because the idiosyncrasy described is common to most men and women of genius or exceptional talent.
The charming essayist then, the art-critic, gifted with so much insight and feeling settled down at Sens
we are told, for the purpose of painting 'commission pictures.' His career was to be decided by the brush
and not by the pen. The author of "The Intellectual Life," with how many other works of distinction, had,
at the outset, wholly mistaken his vocation. "The first thing considered by Gilbert when he settled at
Sens," writes Mrs. Hamerton, "was the choice of subjects for his commission pictures, which he intended
to paint directly from nature; and he soon selected panoramic views from the top of a vine-clad hill,
called Saint Bon, which commands an extensive view of the river Yonne, and of the plains about it."
Unfortunately, rather we should say fortunately, anyhow, for the reading world, the 'commission pictures'
were declined. The disappointed artist, out of humour with Sens, made a series of journeys in search of
an ideal home, the result being that most entertaining and successful book, "Round My House," and the
final devotion of its author to letters.
Sens might well seem an ideal place of abode to many. Formed from the ancient Province of Burgundy,
the Department of the Yonne has the charm of Burgundian scenery, with the addition of a wide, lovely
river. All travellers on the Lyons-Marseilles Railway will recall the noble appearance of the town from
the railway - the Cathedral, with its one lofty tower, rising above grey roofs, no factory chimneys
marring the outline, and, between bright stretches of country, the Yonne, not least enchanting of French
rivers, if not the most striking or romantic, perhaps the sweetest and most soothing in the world. The
favourable impression of Sens gained by this fleeting view, is more than justified on nearer acquaintance.
The Cathedral, externally less imposing than those of Bourges, Rheims, or even Rodez and Beauvais, is
of a piece alike without and within, no tasteless excrescence disfiguring its outer walls, little or no
modern tawdriness to be seen inside, an architectural gem of great purity. For the curious in such matters,
the sacristy offers many wonders, among others a large fragment of the true cross, presented to Sens by
Charlemagne. Less apocryphal are the vestments of our own Archbishop Thomas, alb, girdle, stole, and
the rest, all most carefully preserved and exhibited in a glass case. It will be remembered that, when the
turbulent Thomas of London, afterwards known as Becket, was condemned as a traitor, he fled to France.
"This is a fearful day," said one of his attendants on hearing the sentence. "The Day of Judgment will be
more fearful," replied Thomas. It was not at Sens, however, that the refugee took up his abode, but in the
Abbey of St. Colombe, now in ruins hard by.
On the other side of the bridge, crowning an islet, stands one of those curious churchlets, or
churclings I was about to say, that possess so powerful a fascination for the archaeological mind.
Particularly striking was the little Romanesque interior in the September twilight, a picturesque group of
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, rehearsing canticles with their pupils at one end, the subdued light just
enabling us to realise the harmony of proportions. This little church of St. Maurice dating from the
twelfth century, partly restored in the sixteenth, must not on any account be missed. Its pretty spire
crowns the Isle d'Yonne, or island of the Yonne.
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