|
Matilda Betham-Edwards - Holidays in Eastern France
world of enchantment in which I had been living for weeks past, to find ourselves in the region of prose
and common-place! In other words, we were in the wide, highly cultivated plain of La Bresse. At
Bourg-en-Bresse I halted, as everyone else must do, in order to see its famous Church of Brou. The
Church was built in consequence of a vow made by Margaret of Burgundy, that if her husband, Philibert
the Second, Duke of Savoy, was healed from injuries received in the hunt, she would erect a church and
found a monastery of the Order of St. Benoit. The Duke recovered, but his wife died before
accomplishing her work, which was, however, carried out by her daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria,
wife of Philibert le Beau. She summoned for this purpose all the best artists of the time to Bourg, and the
church begun in 1506 was finished in 1532, under the direction of Loys von Berghem.
This spirited and imperious Margaret of Austria, known as Margot la Flamande, played an important part
in history, as readers of Michelet's eloquent seventh volume know. She adored her second husband, the
handsome Philibert, and owed all her life a grudge against France, on account of having been, as a child,
promised in marriage to Charles VIII., and afterwards supplanted for political reasons by the no less
imperious Anne of Brittany. Aunt and first instructress of Charles V., King of Spain and Emperor of
Germany, she is regarded by Michelet as the founder of the House of Austria, and one of the chief agents
in humiliating France by means of the Treaty of Cambrai. Margaret of Austria, Anne of Brittany, Louise
of Savoy, mother of Francis I., writes the historian, "cousant, filant, lisant, ces trois fatales Parques ont
tissu les maux de l'Europe" (sewing, spinning, reading, these three fatal Parcae were the misfortune of
Europe), and the student of French history will follow the career of all three with interest after the clue
here given them. Margaret, bitter, vindictive, and designing, seems to have had one poetic thread in her
life only, namely, her passion for her husband, whose beauty lives in marble before us.
The Church of Brou - magnificent case for these gems of monumental art - cost seven millions of francs,
and the combined labours of the best living architects and artists of the time, may be considered as the
last efflorescence of Gothic architecture, for the spirit of the Renaissance was already making itself felt.
It is less, however, the church, in spite of its rich exterior and elegant proportions, that travellers will
come to see than the exquisite mausoleum of the choir, each deserving a chapter to itself. You quit the
quiet old-fashioned town of Bourg, and after a walk of twenty minutes, come suddenly on the church,
standing in the suburb, or as it seems, indeed, in the open country. A sacristan is at hand to unlock the
door of the choir, but it is best to give him his fee in advance, and tell him to return in an hour; generally
speaking, other strangers are coming and going, in which case such a precaution is not necessary, but it is
impossible to enjoy this artistic treat with a guide hovering about you, doling out pieces of stale
information, and impatiently awaiting to be paid. The choir is screened off from the nave by a rich,
although somewhat heavy rood-loft, and great is the contrast between the two portions of the church; in
the first, all is subdued, quiet in tone, and refreshing; in the last, the eye is troubled by too much light,
there is no stained glass to soften down the brilliant sunshine of this fine October day, and, although the
architectural proportions of the entire building are graceful and on a vast scale, the beholder is much less
delighted than he ought to be on this account. In fact the effect is dazzling; but how different are our
sensations when once on the other side of the richly sculptured rood-loft! Here the impression is one of
peerless beauty, without a shadow of disillusion or the slightest drawback to aesthetic enjoyment, except
one, and that very trifling. These three mausoleums are so well defended against possible iconoclasts that
the thick, closely set iron bars almost prevent us from seeing the lower part of the three tombs, and, in
two cases, these are as interesting as any. Surely in the present day such measures are unnecessary! It
may be mentioned that the church and tombs narrowly escaped destruction during the great Revolution,
and the world is indebted for their safety to the public spirit of one of the civil authorities, who filled the
|
