[CHAPTER XVI]
ANCIENT BOURGES—ITS CATHEDRAL—HOUSE OF JACQUES CŒUR—LOUIS XI. AND THE HÔTEL LALLEMENT—THE HÔTEL CUJAS—THE RIDE TO MEILLANT—ITS SUPERB CHÂTEAU—ITS LEGEND
Bourges, the ancient capital of Berry. The very name brings to the mind visions of stately days, panoramas of mediæval France, and those who come here will find the theatre of those times still intact. The great cathedral around which every thing centres remains unchanged in all its majesty; crooked streets, narrow and dark, yet in this sunshine cheerful withal, wind off and away from it down into the old city. If you take that one to your right you will find the house where Louis XI. was born; or the one to the left will lead you straight to the palace of "Jacques Cœur" as they call him; turn in any direction and these old streets will show you houses and palaces of the long ago, smiling down upon you or retiring in magnificent seclusion behind high walls. You may here have, if you so desire it, memories of Julius Cæsar, as he besieged this city, but the figures which flit across the shafts of sunlight move in stately procession into the cathedral or steal stealthily off into the shadows are to me those of the Maid, of the weak Charles, of the generous Jacques,—or of the malign and terrible Louis XI., the latter bent perhaps upon an urgent errand to poison his father a little more in yonder Castle of Mehun on the river Yèvre.
THE SOUTH PORTAL OF THE CATHEDRAL AT BOURGES
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein
Bourges was evidently a Court City, a home of the aristocracy; even to-day with its air of seclusion it impresses the beholder as very much the fine gentleman. Your automobile clothes worry you, you feel an inclination to return to your hotel and don silks and velvets, a plumed hat and sword and high-heeled shoes, as you may be summoned into the presence of the King to be questioned as to your purpose in coming here and also about that strange and devilish machine which in old times would have brought you to the stake promptly, unless you could have first induced His Majesty to take a ride through the sunny lands stretching out on all sides of the ancient city. After which Louis would probably have locked you up in one of his cages and kept the machine.
In these days of flying, many pass this way to whom the stones of Bourges are dumb, but such is often the case. At Monte Carlo I met the owner of a great machine, who stared at me in dumb amazement when I asked him what he thought of Carcassonne. Actually he had not even seen it,—had sped by under the very walls of that vision on the hill and not known it was there,—remembered nothing save that he did not like the hotel in the modern town. Likewise later in Tours, when I asked one of the ancient faith, from America, what he thought of the châteaux which make Touraine an open book which he who runs may read, he replied that he would not give two dollars for the whole lot. He had "left Biarritz at eight o'clock in the morning" and "would reach Paris on record breaking time." His machine "was the best on the road"—a swish, and a swirl, a cloud of dust, a starting, and a getting there, that was his idea of what automobile life should be, causing one to regret that so many at home through lack of means can never see these places save in dreams, while unstinted gold is thrown away upon those who cannot appreciate them.