Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy

by M. F. Mansfield

Of the interior arrangements but little remains as it was of old save a range of vaulted rooms on the lower floor, the Salle des Gardes, the apartments of the Tour de Bar and the “Cuisines.” The public functions which have been performed by the structure in late years have nearly swept away the old glamour of romance and chivalry which might otherwise have hung about the place for ages, so that to-day it is, like many edifices of its class in France, simply a hive of office-holders and little-worked authorities of the state and civic administrations. It is difficult to see any romance in the visage of a modern town-clerk or a sergeant-at-arms.

This old palace of the dukes was chiefly the work of Dijon craftsmen, at least those portions which were built in the sixteenth century or immediately after. This is the more to be remarked because the gables and roof-tops are not unlike that Flemish-Gothic of the Hospice de Beaune which was built by alien hands.

At Dijon the northern portal was designed by Brouhée and the roofing of the Grande Salle was made from the plans of Sambin and Chambrette, as was the doorway from the street to the chapel. The Chambre Dorée has a most beautiful ceiling of the time of François Premier, and the boiseries and the grisaille of the same apartment date from the period of Louis XIII.

There are two other notable ceilings in the edifice, those of the Bibliothèque and the Salle d’Assises.

Dijon has ever been noted down by those who know as a city of a distinctly local and a really great and celebrated art. The École de Dijon was a unique thing which had no counterpart elsewhere. Under the liberally encouraging patronage of the Ducs de Bourgogne numerous habile artists banded together and constituted the local “École de Dijon.” It was a body of artists and craftsmen whose careers burned brilliantly throughout the best period of the Renaissance, indeed up to its end, for the Hôtel de Vogué at Dijon, of a very late period, shows the distinct local manner of building at its best.

Hugues Sambin, who designed the Palace of the Burgundian Parliament, was the best known of these Dijon craftsmen—best known perhaps because of his architectural writings (1572), for his work was not indeed superior to that of his fellows. His dwelling exists to-day at Dijon, in the Rue de la Vannerie, somewhat disfigured and not at all reminiscent of the great capabilities of his art which he so freely bestowed on the more magnificent structures of his clients. A tower, presumably a part of the house itself, rises close beside, and on its vaulting one sees the devise “Tout par Compas,” the same that may be seen in the Hôtel de Vogué, though it is declared that there is no other connection between the two save that Sambin had a hand in the construction of both. The motto is undeniably a good one for an architect.

The local Museum contains one of the most important provincial collections in France. It occupies the ancient Salle des Gardes of the Palais and encloses the tombs of Jean-Sans-Peur and Philippe-le-Hardi. As examples of the sculptures of the Burgundian school of the fifteenth century these ornate tombs are in the very first category. They were brought from the Chartreux de Dijon in 1795. How they escaped Revolutionary desecration is a marvel, but here they are to-day in all the glory of their admirable design and execution. If Sargent’s frieze of the prophets in the Boston Public Library was not inspired by these cowled figures surrounding the ducal tombs at Dijon, it must be a dull critic indeed who will not at least admit the suggestion of similarity.

The mausoleum of Philippe-le-Hardi has a single recumbent effigy on the slab above, whilst that of Jean-Sans-Peur is accompanied by another, that of his wife, Marguerite de Bavière. The tiny statuettes in the niches of the arcade below, and surrounding each of the tombs, are similar; finely chiselled, weeping, mourning figures, most exquisitely sculptured and disposed.

The tomb of Philippe-le-Hardi is the older, and is the work of Claus Sluter and Claus de Werve; that of Jean-Sans-Peur was conceived (half a century later) by Jehan de la Heurta and Antoine Moiturier. A statue of Anne de Bourgogne, the Duchess of Bedford, the daughter of Jean-Sans-Peur, stands between these two royal tombs.

It is worthy to note that the robe of the statue of Marguerite de Bavière is sown with that particular species of field daisy which we have come to know as the marguerite, so named from the predilection of the princess in question for that humble flower.