We had good beds and a decent stable at the inn; but its butcher and cook are “leagued to destroy.” Our French acquaintance had arrived before us,—just as the lady-innkeeper was telling me her country people were far better travellers than formerly, as they ate and drank and paid uncomplainingly now, as the English once had done, my friend, who had seen us dismount, came to greet me, and tell (in the landlady’s presence) that every thing in the house was extravagant and execrable; and then, having surveyed the chamber selected for us, insisted on her yielding one better, in which we are installed, thanks to her. We walked together in the evening to the pretty gardens outside the town: it has a similar entrance at its other extremity, and the ancient walls and towers of the fortifications remain; and the moat, converted to peaceful uses, now forms bright gardens, covered with blossom.
I bought for a franc an enormous basket of carrots for the horses; and when we returned to the inn, my companion elevated one before the eyes of the landlady, reproaching her with its being the same size for which that morning she demanded five sous!
12th April.
Left Villeneuve for Auxerre; a north-east wind and gloomy sky again, under which the scene looked disenchanted. A less uninteresting country as far as Joigny, which is built on the height, its houses and churches rising in terraces with a broad quay and handsome bridge, but neither trees nor flower-gardens as in a country town in England; looking this grey, cold day only dirt and barrenness. We met, as we passed along, our feverish acquaintance, he walking to cool his head without a hat; his lady abusing the hotel, where their horse was feeding; they too were bound for Auxerre.
Nothing more melancholy than Joigny, excepting the road beyond it; it crosses the bridge, and lies over a marshy flat, lately overflowed by the river, and seeming to produce little, saving a few willows and broom-like poplars. We have pavement again for some miles here, and the sides of the road were impassable. Leaving Bassou, a hopeless looking place, behind, we were in the vine country: an ugly one it is, but this is the place of all Gaul where the grape was first grown in the third century. From a long steep hill we looked back on a most gloomy though extensive view; its descent leads to Auxerre. At the Porte de Paris was our hatless friend, who had passed us on the way; he was good-naturedly watching our coming to point out the road to the Leopard; we should otherwise have made a long round instead of riding down the avenue to the quay where it stands. It is a comfortable and reasonable inn, and the view up and down the broad river, with bridge and islands and barges, very pretty. The avenue before the hotel, and along the Yonne, is the walk of the Auxerre fashionables; a formidable looking “jeune France” was promenading there, but now magnificent in curls and beard and crimson cloak and cigar. The town, whose streets are high and narrow, looks to advantage from the river; it is built in an amphitheatre, the old abbey of St. Germain, the prefecture, the cathedral towers, and those of other fine churches, rising tier above tier over the quay. I walked in quest of letters to the post-office, and found that to do so required strength of mind, for a bonnet forms no part of my baggage: and I went in my riding habit, as I dismounted, followed by all the little boys and girls, and some of their papas and mammas: the very clerk at the post-office, civil as he was, could not refrain from several questions, the “how and whence” respecting the first habit which had been seen at Auxerre. Yet we are only forty leagues from Paris, and the Parisians have lately made riding so fashionable, that I have heard young ladies, asked whether they liked the exercise, exclaim they “adored it,” and seen gentlemen of fifty on ponies follow in the train of the riding master. The cathedral is small and beautiful; we stood near one of the side entrances admiring the elegance of its Nun’s-walk, and the view down the aisle, where it circles round the choir, and arches and columns seem crowded together.
The finely carved capitals of these columns were lighted brilliantly and variously by the sunbeams through the rich stained windows. The prospect from the nave would be open to the chapel behind the high altar, but that modern taste has suspended over the latter a wooden ornament, closely resembling the tester of a bed; it intercepts the view of the lovely little chapel, and the strangely light pillars which support it; on one of these is pasted a paper, promising “plenary indulgence” to all such as on saints’ days, therein specified, shall recite particular prayers. So all who are “heavy laden” repair to the chapel at Auxerre.
On the wall close by is a tablet to the memory of Georges de Beauvoir, Marshal of Chastellux, who, in the year 1444, retook the town of Crevant from the English, and with his own hand (says the inscription) killed the Lord High Constable of Scotland. The celebrated Amyot, preceptor of King Henry the Third, is also interred here; it is said that the chapter, formerly rich, ruined itself by lawsuits, and one is particularly cited which lasted a long time. The canons asserted their right of wearing ermine on their robes; it was forbidden them; some yielded, others were stubborn: they were called, to distinguish them, “Trimmed” and “Untrimmed.” Litigation ensued, and the last named gained the lawsuit, when it had been pending one hundred years.
The cathedral has some customs peculiar to itself. A strange one was abolished only in the sixteenth century. The canons were in the habit of playing at ball in the nave, and for money, and the sums thus won were expended in feasts for the chapter. It is said that it was erected on the site of the first Christian chapel, raised here in the third century.
The old church of St. Germain near (now that of the Hôtel Dieu, and barbarously whitewashed) takes its name from the sixth Bishop of Auxerre, who first built it on the spot where stood the house in which he was born, and who was buried here in 448. The saint’s story says, that having travelled to England he there met and converted at Oxford one Micomer, a learned doctor, whom he then made his coadjutor in reclaiming Great Britain from Paganism. Micomer returned to France, died, and was buried. St. Germain visiting his tomb at Tonnerre, apostrophized his disciple, now a saint. “Micomer,” he said, “rise from your tomb: there are fresh disorders and fallings away in England and Ireland; rise and go, set all in order.” A voice replied from the tomb, “Be tranquil, father, on that subject, for England and Ireland will not need our interference, and heaven commands my body to remain in peace here, and my soul in eternal glory.” St. Germain rejoined, “It is well, may I soon be with you in paradise.” The subterranean church of St. Germain is famous for its antiquity, and also because it contains, besides the tombs of sainted bishops, those of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, father of Hugues Capet of France, as well as of other dukes of Burgundy, and counts of Auxerre; (for the county of Auxerre belonged by turns to France and her turbulent province.) It was united to the crown in Charles the Fifth’s reign, ceded to the duchy by Charles the Sixth, and became finally French when Charles the Téméraire, last sovereign of Burgundy, was killed before Nancy. We did not see the vaults, for the pale, diseased faces which came round us, as this is now the hospital church, made it by no means tempting to stay. Near the church stands its ancient belfry, a picturesque tower. We went in search of St. François, which is in the lower part of the town, and seen outside is a noble gothic building; within it disappointed me, though indeed I had barely time to judge of it, for as we entered we found a whole school on its knees, which, without any change of position, saluted my habit and myself with shouts and hootings notwithstanding the reproving looks of a young priest, and fairly drove us out and followed us home, pushing against us to stare closer; so, having had no room to walk, and barely enough to breathe to-day, I must buy a bonnet at Chalons.
Rouvray, 14th of April.