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.