Come with me into the building, and, before I tell Margaret's story, look, for a moment, round this amazing church. The nave, though it conveys at once to the mind of the devotee of pure Gothic, a sensation of wintry decadence, that neither the richness of the lovely jubé, nor a glimpse, through its open door, of the wonderful marble tombs within the choir, can quite dispel, is pleasing in its grace and simplicity, qualities which the exterior would not have led you to expect. So restful, too, are the flowing lines of the columns and engaged colonnettes rising, unbroken by capitals, to the low vaults, that one imagines the architect to have planned deliberately this cool, white marble hall, in which worshippers could soothe spirits wrought to intensity by sights seen within. They may well have needed such repose, since we need it to-day; though the love which brought this church into being was left lonely four hundred years ago. Pass through that open doorway, and see for yourself. You stand in a maze of sculptures, among a thousand flowers, figures, emblems, devices, and myths, feminine fantasies carved everywhere, in regal profusion upon many a pedestal and column, upon shadowy niches and overhanging tabernacles, upon dainty shaft, and lightest fretwork pinnacle, their marble whiteness all warmed in blue, crimson, and golden light streaming from the painted windows. Whether you look down upon the blue enamelled bricks at your feet,[199] at the silent figures beneath those strangely decorated canopies, and the myriad carven shapes about them, or whether you look up at the resplendent saints, kings, and nobles ablaze upon the panes, your sensation is one of unsatisfied wonder, and you know yourself to be in a building, that, for all its faults, is unrivalled in the world of art. Let me tell how it came to be so.
The story of Margaret d'Autriche, the unfortunate princess to whom we owe this extraordinary Eglise de Brou, is closely linked with events and personalities already mentioned in these pages. Born in 1480, she was the daughter of Maximilian and Marie de Bourgogne, and grand-daughter of Charles le Téméraire. In the closing years of his life, that old fox, Louis XI., had chosen her out as the future wife of his Dauphin, and would, no doubt, have had his will, had not his erstwhile ally, death, turned against him at last, and claimed forfeiture.
The childhood of Marguerite passed peaceably in that lovely Château of Amboise by the Loire, in the company of her official husband, Charles VIII., and his French Court, was not foreshadowed by sorrows that were soon to come. The King torn between desires to unite Burgundy and Brittany to the French crown, and finding that he could not have both, decided in favour of the latter. Acting upon that decision, he broke his sworn faith to Marguerite, dismissed his fiancée, and married Anne of Brittany. Marguerite left in anger; nor did she ever forgive Charles. Henceforth, France was her enemy. So, for many years, was Fortune. The next stroke fell swiftly.
In April, 1497, Marguerite married Juan, Prince of Castille, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, who died of fever at Salamanca in the same year—a misfortune that—if we are to believe her historiographer, Jean Lemaire—neither crushed the girl's spirit, nor extinguished her natural wit; "for, being on shipboard, and having passed a horrible and tempestuous night, in fear of perilous shipwreck, as the following day the sea had been calm and tranquil, while Marguerite was conversing with her maids upon their past fears and perturbations, the proposal was made that each should compose her own epitaph; whereupon she promptly composed her own in this manner":
"Cy gist Margot la gentil' Damoiselle, Q'u ha deux marys et encore est pucelle."[200]
Truly a very joyous epitaph, as Lemaire says, "si plein de vraie urbanité." Not so did she salute the death of her next husband.[201]
It was on the 26th of September, 1501, that was signed the treaty of her marriage with Philibert le Beau, Duke of Savoy—the event that first links Marguerite's story with that of Brou.
The fifth of August in the following year, when Philibert and Marguerite paid their first visit to Bourg, was a memorable day in the annals of the town. Artillery boomed, joy bells clashed; every house was bright with gay hangings of all colours, with festoons, and the arms of Burgundy and Savoy. Soon the call of the trumpet drew all the crowd to the Town Hall, whence issued the corps municipal, preceded by the syndics clothed in red robes, one of whom bore the keys of the town upon a silver plate.