Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy

by M. F. Mansfield

Amid all this sumptuousness there was a notable regard for the conservation and safeguarding of governmental funds and property. This is to be remarked the more because of the fact that the overlord generally took for his own, and that of his heirs, all that came within his immediate presence. The Burgundian dukes at Dijon administered their rule with prudence and good judgment in all particulars until the Duché and the neighbouring Comté (afterwards the Franche Comté) stood almost alone among the European states of their time in not being obliged to own to a profligate hierarchy of administrators.

In all phases of their history the Dijonnais have ever been jealous of their personal liberties. François Premier, a prisoner at Madrid, had ceded Burgundy as a part of unwillingly given ransom to Charles Quint, who had already acquired the Franche Comté. The Dijon parliament would hear nothing of such a project, and energetically refused to ratify the treaty, sending their deputies to Cognac, to the convention which had been called, in protest.

Dijon’s chateau was first built by Louis XI to hold in leash his “bonne ville de Dijon.” The edifice was only completed in 1572, under Louis XII. It was in its prime, judging from historical descriptions, a most curious example of fifteenth century military architecture. The Dijonnais of late years demanded the suppression, and the clearing away, of the débris of this old royal chateau, believing (wrongly of course) that the ducal palace was sufficient to sustain the glory of their city. Accordingly, there remains nothing to-day of the chateau of the Louis but a scant funeral pile built up from the stones of the former chateau merely as a historical guide post, or rather, memorial of what has once been. Historical enthusiasm and much palavering on the part of a certain body of local antiquarians against the popular wave of feeling, could accomplish no more of a restoration. For the past fifty years the ruin has been, it is true, something of an eye-sore, an ill-kept, badly guarded, encumbering ruin, and unless it may be better taken care of, it would be as well to have it removed.

In form this chateau was a perfectly rectangular tower, sustained at each corner by a round tower of lesser proportions. As a whole it was one of the most massive works of its era in these parts. Its defence towards the north was a great horse-shoe shaped redoubt, a most unusual and most efficient rampart. Towards the city it was defended by a moat over which one entered the chateau proper by the traditional drawbridge.

The vast monumental pile at Dijon which bears the name of Hôtel de Ville to-day has been variously known as the Palais des Ducs, the Logis du Roi and the Palais des États. It has served all three purposes and served them well and with becoming dignity.

The exact origin of the structure has been left behind in the dim distance, but it is certain that it was the outgrowth of some sort of a foundation which existed as early as the tenth century, a period long before the coming of the so-called chateau.

In the twelfth century Hugues III built the Sainte Chapelle, all vestiges of which, save certain decorative elements built into the eastern wall of the Palais des Ducs, have now disappeared.

Philippe-le-Hardi, in 1366, almost entirely rebuilt the palace as it then existed, and Philippe-le-Bon actually did complete the work in 1420, when the great square Tour de la Terrasse, of a height of nearly fifty metres, was built. There is still existing another minor tower, the Tour de Bar, so named from the fact that for three years it was the prison of René d’Anjou, the Duc de Bar. In 1407 and 1502 this tower was nearly destroyed by fire, which carried away as well a great part of the main structure of that time.

The edifice is to-day occupied by many civic departments, including the Musée, the Archives and the École des Beaux Arts, but the Salle des Gardes and the “Cuisines des Ducs” still remain, as to their general outlines of walls and ceilings, as they were when they served the dukes themselves.

The present edifice, in spite of being known as the Ducal Palace, was not inhabited by any of the nobles of the first race; there is no part which dates from so early a period as that of the end even of their régime. The most ancient of the elements which formerly made up the collective block of buildings was the Sainte Chapelle, which was demolished in 1802, and the rez-de-chaussee of the Tour de Bar, which still exists. The lower part of this tower dates from the thirteenth century, the upper portions from the fourteenth.