CHATEAU DE CHAUMONT-LA-GUICHE
Of these, that of Chaumont-la-Guiche, two kilometres from Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux, is quite the most splendid when it comes to best fulfilling the mission of a luxurious Renaissance maison de campagne. It is to-day the magnificent twentieth century residence of the Marquis de la Guiche, but is a lineal descendant of the edifice built in the reign of François Premier and terminated by Philibert de Guiche, who died in 1607. At the time of the Saint Bartholomew massacre he was Bailli de Mâcon, and, throughout, the Mâconnais and the Charollais took a firm stand against the killing off of the Protestants as an unholy means to a Christian end.
Before the chateau is an equestrian statue of its sixteenth century chatelain, and the stables, a great vaulted hall whose ceiling is upheld by more than fifty svelt colonnettes, are in no small way reminiscent of the still more extensive Écuries at Chantilly. There is also, as a dependency of the chateau, a remarkably beautiful Gothic chapel with fine old glass in its windows—Gothic of a late construction, be it understood, but acceptable Gothic nevertheless.
At Paray-le-Monail—a place of sainted pilgrimage, because of the miracle of the Sacré Cœur which took place here—is to be seen the luxurious dwelling of a local seigneur who was closely allied to the Comte de Charolles. It is a palace in all but name, and were it on the well-worn travel track in Touraine would be accounted one of the marvels of the brilliant array of Renaissance dwellings there. It holds this distinction to-day among the comparatively few who know it, and, as it serves the public functions of a Hôtel de Ville, its future as a “monument historique” worthy of preservation seems assured. Chateau or palace it may not be; it may be only a luxurious town house; who shall make the distinction after all? Let the reader, or better yet, the visitor, to this admirable Renaissance wonder-work be assured that it is more royally palatial than many which have sheltered the heads and persons of the most fastidious of monarchs.
South from Charolles, behind the hills of the Brionnais, almost on the edge of the ancient Forez, in part only Burgundian, is the coquette bourgade (a French expression absolutely untranslatable) of Marcigny, all ochre and brown after the local colouring. It is a town of a great tree-bordered Place, or Square, with decrepit old houses overhanging its narrow streets, made famous in the past by a celebrated Benedictine priory which received only the daughters of the nobility. Of this monastery there remains only the prior’s palace, a princely sort of abode which to-day has been turned into a hotel. Here one may experience one of the greatest and most joyful surprises of French travel, and pick up his historical lore on the spot.
Leaving Marcigny for Semur-en-Brionnais, one passes a vestige of the feudal past in the shape of an elaborately decorated feudal tower. At a distance this decorative effect seems to be produced by shot still clinging to the walls, an effect that may be seen also at Arques in Normandy and at Tarascon in the Midi. Here this is an illusion. As one approaches nearer it is easy to see these round bosses transform themselves into mascarons, or sculptured decorative details, like the escutcheons and plaques so frequently seen stuck into the walls of so many civic edifices in Italy. This old tower is of a different species, but manifestly it is a memorial of some sort. Its peaked head rises above a sort of pavillon, or loft, like a gigantic pigeon-house. There is a diminutive barbican on one side, and on the other are narrow slits of Gothic
