DEO, APOL
LINI BORVONI
ET DAMONAE
C DAMINIUS
FEROX CIVIS
LINGONUS EX
VOTO
Its later application to the land which sheltered the race is elucidated by a French writer, thus:
"Considering that the names of all the cities and towns known as des sources d'eaux thermales commence with either the prefix Bour or Bor, indicates a common origin of the word ... from the name of the divinity which protects the waters."
This is so plausible and picturesque a conjecture that it would seem to be true.
Archæologists have singled out from among the most beautiful chapelles seigneuriales the one formerly contained in the ducal palace of the Bourbons at Moulins. This formed, of course, a part of that gaunt, time-worn fabric which faces the westerly end of the cathedral.
Little there is to-day to suggest this splendour, and for such one has to look to those examples yet to be seen at Chambord or Chenonceaux, or that of the Maison de Jacques Cœur at Bourges, with which, in its former state, this private chapel of the Bourbons was a contemporary.
The other chief attraction of Moulins is the theatrical Mausolée de Henri de Montmorency, a seventeenth-century work which is certainly gorgeous and splendid in its magnificence, if not in its æsthetic value as an art treasure.
The fresh, modern-looking cathedral of Notre Dame de Moulins is a more ancient work than it really looks, though in its completed form it dates only from the late nineteenth century, when the indefatigable Viollet-le-Duc erected the fine twin towers and completed the western front.
The whole effect of this fresh-looking edifice is of a certain elegance, though in reality of no great luxuriousness.