Nearly every street in this central part of old Dijon, around the palace of the Dukes, has many good things. Late Gothic buildings meet you at every turn, and in no town of France that I know, except, perhaps, Toulouse, will you find better Renaissance houses. The fronts of the Maison Milsand and the Maison des Caryatides, are both charming of their kind; and so is the courtyard of the Maison Richard, or Hotel des Ambassadeurs, with a magnificent mediæval staircase, and a fifteenth century gallery of perpendicular woodwork. Behind Notre Dame is the old Hotel Vogué, with one of the fine snake-skin roofs that are a feature of Dijon.
But of all the quiet haunts in the city, the best are the little garden without, and the courtyard within, the Palace of the Dukes. Looking up through green boughs at the beautiful windows of the Salle des Gardes and the Tour de la Terrasse, or, from a post upon the inner flag-stones, peering into the dark shadows of the lovely Renaissance staircase that mounts by the Tour de Bar,[177] you may go back again into the days when Dijon was more famous, more alive, than mustard and gingerbread can ever make it.
The mention of mustard and gingerbread, reminds me that here, opposite to the staircase, is the kitchen, where, between eight great furnaces, two in each wall, below a converging shaft, fashioned to carry the fumes upward to the blue sky, the Duke's chef superintended a small army of perspiring cooks and scullions.
My wife's brains were busy with such dreams, as she sat in that courtyard sketching the well, the staircase, and little Marie Bon, who, for two sous, and the privilege of being allowed to tell about her uncle, also a painter—he worked on back doors—allowed herself to be drawn. And while the picture grew, tiresome boys would come up and jostle each other, and make remarks—usually, however, of a complimentary nature.
"Ma foi, c'est épatant, ça!" "C'est très chic—beaucoup mieux qu'une photographie."
Gallant young men, too, would come, and say boldly, as though prepared to step into the breach, "Madame, n'a pas de cavalier aujourdhui!" And diffident old ladies, shy, but unable to restrain their curiosity, would come up and say, "Est-ce qu'on est permis de regarder un peu, Madame?" And my wife would smile and reply, "Mais oui, certainement." For towards good and diffident old ladies her heart is as soft as it is adamantine towards small and cheeky urchins.