Hôtel de Ville, Paray-le-Monail
windows, as if for defence rather than as a means of letting light and air within.
“This is some ancient historic monument, no doubt?” you query of some passing peasant. And to be precise he answers: “Yes, a tower.” That is all the information you can get beneath its shadow, but you are content and go your way. It fulfils exactly your idea of what a mediæval donjon should be, and what it lacks in apparent authenticated history can be readily enough imagined by anyone with a predilection for such musings.
Leaving the Charollais and the Brionnais, one turns toward Mâcon by the gateway of Cluny. Mediævalism here is rampant in memory, song and story, though the monuments are unfamiliar ones. It is an echo of the days when abbots and priors were often barons, and barons were magistrates who held the keys of life and death over other of mankind. These were the days, too, when the Pope was the real ruler of many a kingdom with another titular head. Large parcels of land, from the Black Sea to Brittany, fiefs, countships and even dukedoms, were church property, and others held their brief sway therein only by the tolerance of the Pontiff.
Seemingly exempt from this domination, the powerful monks of Cluny knew no lord nor master. On one occasion a Pope and a King of France, with numberless prelates and nobles in their train, took refuge in the old abbey, but not a brother put himself out in the least to do them honour.
By the fifteenth century, the hour of decadence had rung out for Cluny; no more was it true
“En tout pays où vent vente
L’Abbe de Cluni à rente.”
It was at this time that the “arbitres des rois” lost their power.
The great Abbey of Cluny may readily enough be included in any contemplation of the great civic and domestic establishments of these parts. The only difference is that in some cases the chatelains or chatelaines were princes or princesses instead of abbés or abbesses.
Cluny’s destinies were presided over by an abbé, but kings and cardinals and popes all, at one time or another, came to dwell within its walls.