The flowing Doubs nearly surrounds the “Roc” of Besançon with a great horse-shoe loop which gives a natural isolation and makes its citadel more nearly redoubtable than was ever imagined by Vauban, its builder.
From an artistic point of view Besançon’s monuments are not many or varied if one excepts the Palais Granvelle and the military defences, which are made up in part of a number of mediæval towers and Vauban’s citadel. There are four great sentinel towers surrounding the city, all dating from the period of Charles Quint, but the city gates, piercing the fortification walls, were built also by Vauban between 1668-1711, and are by no means as ancient as they look.
The Palais Granvelle, of the sixteenth century, has a fine dignified monumental aspect wholly impressive regardless of its lack of magnitude and the absence of a strict regard for the architectural orders. Liberties have been taken here and there with its outlines which place it beyond the pale of a thoroughly consistent structure, but for all that it undeniably pleases the eye, and more. And what else has one a right to demand unless he is a pedant? In general the civic and domestic architecture of the Franche Comté are of a sobriety which gives them a distinction all their own; the opposite is true of the churches, taking that at Pont-à-Mousson as a concrete example.
The street façade of the Palais Granvelle is undeniably fine, with a dignity born of simplicity. Its interior façade, that giving on the courtyard, is freer in treatment, but still not
Palais Granvelle, Besançon
violent, and its colonnaded cloister forms a quiet retreat in strong contrast with the bustle and noise which push by the portal scarce twenty feet away.