XIV
RANCONEZZO
The Tomb of Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti in Santa Prassede
ROCHER-ST.-POL
FRENCH TOWNS
It is a drowsy little Burgundian town, very old and ripe, with crooked streets, vistas always oblique, and steep moss-covered roofs.... I carried away from Beaune the impression of something autumnal,—something rusty yet kindly, like the taste of a sweet russet pear.
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At Le Mans as at Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to which I lost no time in directing my steps.... It stands on the edge of the eminence of the town, which falls straight away on two sides of it, and makes a striking mass, bristling behind, as you see it from below, with rather small but singularly numerous flying buttresses. On my way to it I happened to walk through the one street which contains a few ancient and curious houses,—a very crooked and untidy lane, of really mediæval aspect, honored with the denomination of the Grand Rue. Here is the house of Queen Berengaria.... The structure in question—very sketchable, if the sketcher could get far enough away from it—is an elaborate little dusky façade, overhanging the street, ornamented with panels of stone, which are covered with delicate Renaissance sculpture. A fat old woman, standing in the door of a small grocer's shop next to it,—a most gracious old woman, with a bristling moustache and a charming manner,—told me what the house was.
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