It was an ironical fate that chose such means for preserving the statues, which were already on their way from Rome. Had the Roi Soleil permitted the erection of the monument, not a vestige of it, probably, would have survived the Revolution; consequently, its statues would not, to-day, adorn the chapel of the Hotel Dieu at Cluny. The loss of the mausoleum we need not regret; but the statues, though, to my mind, too artificial and conscious to be pleasing, are carved with skill and vivacity, and are generally considered to be among the best examples of their kind. The bas-relief of the battle scene, on the plinth below the male figure, is, to many, the most interesting part of the work.
On the way back to the town, on the right hand side, a lion, quite Byzantine in character, and taken, I imagine, from the abbey church, forms the sign of the café "Lion d'Or." In the lower part of the town, in the Rue Prudhon, not far from the church of St. Marcel, is a modest little dwelling, whereon the passer-by may read the name of the greatest Burgundian painter, Prudhon, born there on April 4th, 1758. The French Correggio, as he has been called, after the Italian master who exercised most influence upon him, represents very faithfully, in the quality of his art, some of the characteristics of the land of its birth. On this more mountainous side of Burgundy, west of the Côte d'Or, we should expect to find, in a modified form, along with the typical Burgundian qualities of vivacity, strength, solidity, and grace, some of the passion, the sterner qualities of the harder, hill-bred race, more closely in touch with the sterner aspects of nature—especially in the case of one whose birth synchronized with the birth-throes of the great Revolution. It may be, too—and it appeals to one's historic sense to believe—that something of the stern ethical ideal of Cluny had passed into the mind of one who was born beneath the shadow of the abbey towers. Many of those, however, to whom the works of Prudhon are familiar, find greater pleasure in his lighter, allegorical paintings, such as those in the Musée at Montpellier, which, perhaps, show the influence of his predecessor Greuze, who, born in Tournus, by the wide pastures of the Saône, represents the more peaceful, pastoral, and lighter aspect of Burgundian art.
In connection with Prudhon, and with a parallel drawn between his work and that of Greuze, M. Perrault-Dabot, in his book, "L'Art en Bourgogne," and Montégut also, in his "Souvenirs," speak of a type of feminine beauty at Cluny, which, I must confess, escaped my notice, as it did also the not unobservant eyes of my wife.
"In the same way," says M. Perrault-Dabot, "the type of woman that one still meets to-day, at Cluny, recalls to us the shadowy grace and the warm suavity of Prudhon's talent. Cluny belongs to that region of our province where the massy heads and highly-coloured complexions that distinguish the mountain-dweller, disappear, to give place to subtler, slighter forms, and to faces of an exquisite pallor. It is not that perfect beauty in which every feature is regular; but it is beauty in its most suave and touching form."
We were the more disappointed, because, though we had not expected to find in Cluny any rivals to the classic beauties of Arles and St. Rémy, we had come prepared for a welcome break in the monotonous plainness of Burgundian humanity, a subject on which I shall have more to say later on. Yet the types we met hereabouts, if not, on the whole, attractive, were certainly not without the individuality that natural vivacity imparts. My wife, sketching the great gate of the abbey, was scandalized by the inordinate amount of child-smacking indulged in by the mothers of the neighbourhood. I was not a witness on that occasion, but I am inclined to think, that, in most cases, she failed to allow for the excitability of a semi-southern temperament, and, could she have read them, would have found more hardness in the hands than in the hearts.
The little Hotel de Bourgogne, a white, straggling old building, snugly placed beneath the protecting walls of the Tour de l'Eau Bénite, added its quota to our amusement. The ways of the establishment were refreshingly unconventional. For example, they rang neither bell nor gong for dinner, but sent up two maids, who popped their tousled heads simultaneously in at the bedroom door, and invited us to come down to a meal, which, by the way, quite maintained the traditions of later Clunisian luxe.
The company, too, was notable. We sat at the head of the table. On my right was an individual whose cruel, yet suffering, face reminded me of the executioner in Van der Weyden's great picture in the hospital at Beaune. I gathered that the digestive organs were the seat of his troubles; for he rejected, with a grunt, the normal fare, preferring to dine on lightly-boiled eggs, whose liquid contents he imbibed by a peculiar, sucking process, that was, in its way, a clever, though noisy, gastronomic feat.
To us there entered an angelic newsboy, ragged yet smiling. He distributed evening "Matins" all round the table, and departed, as radiant as he had come. At the far end of the table, a twentieth-century Mephistopheles, with the traditional lowering brows and cunning smile, was transmitting improper stories to a delighted Falstaffian neighbour; just as certain decadent fat abbots of Cluny were wont to do, over a bottle of sparkling Meursault, in those generous, degenerate days. The ample man on his left listened covertly, and cleaned his mouth with his fingers, while the red wine, poured in that nervous, spasmodic, Burgundian manner, gurgled from the bottle neck into the bubbling, ruby lake below.
After dinner, came coffee and cigars, in the little café adjoining, of which the floor is covered with sawdust, and the ceiling with flies. Madame, a good-natured woman, dressed in flaming yellow satin, adorned with much lace and passementerie, and possessing a very arch manner, where the men were concerned, suggested to some of her intimates that they should join her in a game of cards. Two of them at once consented; but a third invité—an elephantine Burgundian voyageur de commerce—ruminating over a petit verre in the corner, declined, on the plausible pretext that he had "no small vices." Indeed, nothing about him was small! For our part, we fell into agreeable conversation with another habitué of the hotel, a gentleman also suffering from the amplitude engendered by two six-course meals a day, washed down with copious libations of red wine. He displayed a kindly interest in my wife's sketches, and was particularly complimentary concerning one reproduced in this book, representing a corpulent person—who might well have been himself—sitting on a dangerously small chair before a café table.