In the railway station of Autun we had waited long for our bicycles to be taken out of the train. They did not appear. The porters were all busy with a cattle-truck that they were pushing casually down a siding, till it was stopped in mid-career by the buffers of another truck.

Bang!! Rattle! Bang!! The thicket of horns, visible from without, shook like a wood in a winter gale. A mild white head was thrust over the lime-washed barrier, mutely protesting. We echo the animal's protest, and our own.

"Do you always keep travellers waiting like this?"

"You see, Monsieur, it is because of the cow, she is bien souffrante."

"Then why treat her so?" I pointed to the still trembling truck; "but in any case, are we of less importance than a cow? Are not we, too, bien souffrant?"

"Yes, but you see, Monsieur, if the cow died, the patron would lose four hundred francs; but, had I known, I would have brought your bicycles earlier." We reached the Hotel St. Louis at last.

Then, wishing to escape, until dinner-time, from the still glowing streets, we crossed the Place du Champs de Mars, followed the gentle descent of the Faubourg d'Arroux, and passed beneath the Roman gate that leads northward from the city of Augustus into the open plain. A hundred yards or so further on, a sharp turn to the left brought us to two bridges crossing the tributary streams that wind among the whispering poplars, beneath which, all day long, the kneeling blanchisseuses have been pounding mercilessly their unoffending washing. Continuing our walk between the dusty green hedges of the lane meandering through the fertile plain of Autun, we saw, rising before us, a building whose mysterious, alluring aspect at once rivetted our attention, as it must that of all who have an eye for the spirit of the past, and an ear for her call. We entered boldly by the gate in the hedge, and shared possession of the field with the pale cows, who, placid as the stones, and not unlike them in colour, lifted to us questioning eyes.

The monument,—all that remains of it, rather,—consists of two great stone walls, adjacent sides of a building, ruined and roofless. It rises in the midst of the meadow, from among the grasses and brambles about its base, a huge, weird, Caliban-like thing, shattered, yet still massive, pierced with great tortured openings, and many smaller ones above. The golden light of evening, gilding it, casts into the holes and crevices, between the weather-worn masonry, pitchy shadows from which the stones bristle out defiantly, as though challenging the centuries to undo them, if man will but hold his hand.

This relic of Roman times, called by the peasants, "The Temple of Janus"—though some antiquarians deny that it was ever a temple, and that the three headed god was ever worshipped there—is not the only striking object in the landscape. Away to the north-west, behind the tossing boughs of the poplars, the setting sun is adorning with changing purples the flanks of the distant hills. The broadest of those peaks, crested with dark foliage, is none other than our old friend the Mount.

We turned to the opposite side of the valley. Before us were symbols of two later periods of Burgundy's prosperity—the modern city of Autun, seated proudly upon the lower slopes of a mountain throne, and, high above the roofs, the great mass of the cathedral of St. Lazare lifting her Gothic spire to the sky.

The peculiar interest of the spot, the reason why we chose it as a starting point in our travel through Southern Burgundy, is that here we have, before our very eyes, visible symbols of four clearly marked stages in the history of the Duchy; the Gallic, Roman, Gothic, and modern periods.

We will begin with the Gallic period, in the days when CÆsar wrote of that city, there upon Mont Beuvray; "Bibracte, oppido Aeduorum longe maximo et copiosissimo";[10] and tell, very shortly, the story of the tribe, in their relations with the Roman conquerors.[11]

The Aedui, concerning whom all our available information comes from the Latin writers, were a Gallic tribe, inhabiting, approximately, the space of country bounded on the east by the SaÔne, on the south by the chain of mountains between the Lyonnais and Auvergne, on the west by the Loire, and on the north by the valleys of the Vouge, the Oze, the Brenne and the Yonne. They were a virile, warlike race, that, from a very early period, had been recognised as the superior of the neighbouring races, among which the strongest were, perhaps, their enemies and rivals, the Arverni of mountainous Auvergne. For very many years before the Roman invasion, there had been intercommunication—often of an aggressive nature—between the Aedui and the Italian races; but it was not until the year 123 B.C. that anything in the nature of a direct alliance was formed between the former and the Romans, although Tacitus and Cicero both allude to them as "Brothers of the Roman Nation"; and the weaker people naturally would not be slow to take advantage of the great military strength of the new-comers, if it could be exercised on their behalf. The occasion soon came to put that strength to the test, when, after a series of quarrels with the Arverni and other neighbouring tribes, the latter summoned the Germans to their assistance. The Aedui, feeling that their independence was threatened, sent their chief Druid priest, Divitiacus, to appeal unto CÆsar.

Before we see how he fared, let us glance at this leader, whose statue stands to-day in the Promenade des Marbres at Autun. The Druids were the magistrate-priests of their respective cities, where, by the right of knowledge, riches, birth—for all were of noble blood—they exercised almost despotic power. They were the theologians, philosophers, jurists, astronomers, physicians, and moralists of their times; they were the educators of youth, the depositaries of the holy mysteries of their religion, and of the supernatural forces; the arbitors of life and death—since no human sacrifice might be offered without their sanction.

They were also superintendents of the observance of religious rites, of the practice of the ritual demanded by the gods. Still subject to those gods, the people would fear the priest not less than the magistrate. Kings, even, were awed by these mouthpieces of the most high. Such was he whom the Aedui chose for their ambassador.

Divitiacus went to Rome, and there, in person, pleaded his cause before the senate. His embassy seems to have been of little apparent effect; but, though he lost his suit, he gained a friend—Cicero.

In spite of the Druid's failure, CÆsar's legions were, nevertheless, soon on their way to Gaul. The Helvetii, coveting the fertile land that lay beside theirs, decided to attempt its conquest. CÆsar, aided by some Aeduen troops, who now fought for the first time beneath the eagle, met the invaders on the banks of the SaÔne,[12] and annihilated them in the first great battle of his life. Henceforth, for a time, the two nations are brothers. "Aeduii, fratres nostri, pugnant."[13] Such they remained; until the next nation that threatened them—Ariovistus and his German hordes—had suffered the fate of the Helvetii.

It was, however, inevitable that the warlike tribes of Gaul should endeavour, sooner or later, to throw off the yoke of an alien civilization, which, while it brought them material blessings of inestimable value—of which not the least was the introduction of the vine,—was, nevertheless, galling to their spirit of sturdy independence. Soon the Aedui were being stirred to revolt. Foremost among the discontents, was the leader of the Aeduen cavalry, Dumnorix, brother to Divitiacus, though his opposite in character. The trusted ally of CÆsar, and the friend of Cicero, Divitiacus the Druid accepted philosophically the Roman dominion; his brother, turbulent, adventurous, restless—a Prince Rupert of his day—had other dreams for his country. CÆsar was about to embark on his second expedition to Britain, when the news came that Dumnorix, who was under orders to accompany him, had withdrawn, followed by the Aeduen cavalry. CÆsar, delaying his embarkation, sent his own cavalry in pursuit, with orders to kill or capture the rebel, if he refused to submit.

Soon overtaken, Dumnorix defended himself valiantly, and fell, sword in hand, with the cry on his lips: "I die a free citizen of a free country."[14] One is tempted to wish that the people of Autun had raised in the "Place des Marbres," beside that of his more philosophic brother, a statue to this gallant leader of a forlorn hope.

The example of Dumnorix was followed, before long, by almost the whole of Roman Gaul; the principal cities being quite unable to resist the temptation offered by the long absence of their enemy at the capital. CÆsar, writing from Rome, protested vigorously against the ingratitude of the Aedui. He reminded them of their grievous plight before his legions freed them; of their decimated armies, of their ravaged land, of the heavy tributes, the noble hostages wrung from them. But he spoke in deaf ears. The Aedui had definitely linked their destiny with that of their nation. Only the final arbitrament of force could be appealed to.

They summoned to a council of war, Vercingetorix, the ablest general of his day, chief of their hereditary enemies, the Arverni; but, accustomed for long to regard themselves as the dominant tribe of the Gauls, they offered him only a subordinate command. His refusal of any command, other than the highest, was followed by an assembly general of the Gallic tribes at Bibracte, when, on the matter being put to the vote, the great meeting, with one voice, proclaimed Vercingetorix their leader.[15] The story of his last desperate struggle against the Romans at Alesia, and of his defeat and death, do not properly belong to the history of Autun, nor to that of Bibracte.

Gaul had become a province of the great Roman Empire. A higher civilisation, already familiar to the conquered tribes, is to impose its dominion, its architecture, its art, upon the conquered land. Bibracte, the oppidum on the wooded hills, will echo no more to the shouts of Gauls acclaiming their general or their victory. Deserted, probably in the first years of the Christian era, silence reigns henceforth over the hills; silence broken only by the patter of rain drops, by the moan of the wind, or the weird howl of the wolf, roaming, at midnight, among the ruins of the abandoned city.

Meanwhile, here, upon the plain below, another and fairer city was arising—Augustodunum, the Roman capital of Gaul, now known as Autun. It has often been asserted that the location of Bibracte upon Mont Beuvray is merely legendary, and that Autun is the historic site of the great city of the Aedui. But this theory, as we have seen, has been finally exploded by the researches of M. Bulliot. He proves conclusively, not only that Bibracte was situate on the summit of Beuvray, but also that Autun was built upon virgin soil, and not upon the site of a Gallic city, which would inevitably have yielded tangible proof of its existence in Gaulish coins and other remains. The proportion of Gaulish to Roman coins found in Autun, up to the present time, is about one to fifteen hundred.[16] Further evidence is offered by the fact that the city conforms to the requirements mentioned by Vitruvius at the time of its erection—about fifteen to ten years before the Christian era—that, in building a town, the first necessity is to choose a healthy site, elevated, not subject to fogs, of good temperature, not exposed to extremes of heat and cold, away from marshy land, and facing south or west.[17] One of the chief features of Burgundian towns is the excellence of their sites. This feature, due no doubt, to Roman example, is nowhere more noticeable than at Autun, which remains to-day one of the best situate, and among the most interesting, of all the cities of France.

The first thing to be done, it seems to me, in exploring such a place as Autun, which comprises a mediÆval and a modern town within the Enceinte of a Roman city, is to get your bearings, to orient yourself, as the French say.

On the previous evening, looking up from our sunset seat on the grass, beside that mysterious pile known as the Temple of Janus, we had seen, far above the city, to the south-east, on the slope of the hills which enthrone Autun, a gaunt, grey stone lifting its head over the village roofs of Couhard. The next morning found us descending the Rue St. Pancras, into the hollow that lies between the village and the town. As we climbed the ascent, the rising sun gave us alluring glimpses of the mysterious stone, seen through the curling mists of an autumn morning; yet, many a time, we turned from it, to watch the light playing upon ancient wall and tower, and gilding the spire of the cathedral of St. Lazare.

A bend to the left brought us into Couhard, a straggling group of dishevelled cottages and huts lining the Ruisseau de la Toison, that bubbles merrily along the side of the hill. It is a dilapidated, picturesque, tangled village, given over to ducks and dirt, and to washerwomen, who, like flies in summer, settle upon the running waters of France, to wash their toisons d'or.

"Quite an ancient, conservative, stagnant village," we were saying to ourselves; "built beside a Roman burial ground, and itself going its dirty way to death"—when, suddenly, we made a discovery. Couhard is not conservative. On the contrary, it is advanced. Before us, on a placard, we read: "Association des Femmes de SaÔne et Loire. Les Femmes doivent Voter." And they tell you there is no feminist movement in France!

Here is the Pierre de Couhard; a gaunt, uncouth, pointed mass of rubble, rising from the hillside, in the midst of a little tangled island—the dust bin of the village—where every ill weed grows. 'Tis a characteristic setting for a Burgundian monument.

But the stone is impressive. Inchoate, formless, it yet suggests a lost form, that of a corpse long-exposed, or of the mysterious, human-inhuman figure, that the mad sculptor, in Andreev's story, hewed out, after he had talked with one returned from the dead, and had gazed deep into death's basilisk eyes.[18]

A close inspection reveals the truth—that the Pierre de Couhard was in the form of a quadrangular pyramid upon a cubical base—the lower part faced with large blocks of sandstone, the pyramidal portion with limestone. All the facing has suffered the usual fate of similar work in France—it formed the quarry from which the peasants of Couhard built and maintained their village. On the south-east side of the pyramid are two holes, bored about the year 1640, with the intention of discovering whether the monument was hollow within.[19] It is now believed to be solid throughout. The Aeduen Society, and others, have undertaken excavations at various times; but local antiquaries have not yet discovered any cella containing coins or relics that determine the date of erection, which, however, M. de Fontenay, with good reason, assigns to the reign of Vespasian (a.d. 69-79).

As to the purpose of the Pierre, there is now little reason to doubt that it was a memorial stone; a supposition borne out, not only by the shape of the monument, but by its position at the summit of the Champs Des Urnes, as it is popularly called, the great burial ground which bordered the Roman road from Lyons to Autun.

Curiously enough, the same opinion was adopted, after a long examination and discussion, by that mighty hunter, and amateur antiquary, Francis I., when he came here, in August, 1521, accompanied by his mother, Louise de Savoie, and by his wife, Claude de France. While the ladies visited the Churches and Convents, which, to them, were the superior attraction, the merry monarch did the round of the Roman monuments, and afterwards restored his jaded faculties with a day's hunting in the neighbouring forest of Planoise, where he lost himself, and might have passed the night in the wilds had he not happened upon the old castle of Porcheresse, whose lord, Celse de Traves, led him back to Autun. The delighted populace, anxious over their lost king, received him with "chiming bells and flaming torches."[20]

Yet, however great the preparations and rejoicings with which the inhabitants received their monarch—as, five years earlier, they had welcomed his predecessor, Charles VIII.—it was neither a flourishing nor a cheerful town that Francis looked down upon, from the Pierre de Couhard, on that summer day, nearly four hundred years ago. He saw the towers, spires, and gables of a mediÆval city—one might almost say, of two mediÆval cities—built upon the ruins of the much larger Roman town, the silent immensity of whose shattered walls, palaces, temples, and amphitheatre, dwarfed into insignificance the small houses amongst which they stood, and chilled, with a nameless fear, the hearts of those who watched the shadows of evening falling about them, and heard the spirit voices of the past calling, in the moonlight, from among the haunted stones.

Less fortunate than Dijon and other towns of Burgundy, Autun had suffered a sequence of disasters. When Francis I. saw the town, neither the Roman walls nor the Roman buildings had recovered from the ravages of Tetricus, King of the Gauls, who, about the year 269, after a siege of seven months, sacked Augustodunum, leaving it in such a pitiable condition that the emperor Constantine, when he came from Rome in 310, could not restrain his tears at the sight of the wasted country and ruined towns through which he had passed; nor could the banners of the corporation, the statues of the gods, nor the groups of musicians at the secret corners, blind the emperor to the real poverty hidden beneath official pomp.[22]

There is no better spot than the Pierre de Couhard from which to picture Augustodunum as it was on that day when Constantine rode through the Porte de Rome, now known as the Porte des Marbres, which then stood where the cemetery now abutts on to the end of the Rue de la Jambe de Bois. Thence the main street of the city, the Voie d'Agrippa, bordered by the important and imposing buildings, such as the Temple of Apollo, the Schools, the Forum, and the Capitol, ran in a straight line to the Porte d'Arroux, nearly in the direction of the Temple of Janus, still faintly visible to-day, far away on the plain beyond the river. This Voie d'Agrippa roughly bisected the Roman town, all the streets of which were laid out, like those of a modern American City, either parallel or at right angles to that axial line. Augustodunum, though it lacked the lovely gables, lofty spires, and pleasant disorder of Gothic Autun, must yet have shown to the traveller looking back from the road to Rome, a splendid pile of temples and palaces and gardens, as his glance wandered from the gleaming marble gates, and the flashing dome of the Capitol, to the majestic arches and sculptured columns and colonnades of the great arena and lovely theatre, whose ruins are yet seen through the avenue of lime trees, above the ivy-crowned stones of the ancient enceinte.[23]

Lovely is this spectacle, even to-day. On the left, to the south-west, the mediÆval city, the Castrum, lifts its pile of gabled, palace roofs above the sombre firs, and line of bronzed fortresses, walls, and leaf-clad towers that mark the Roman enceinte. Higher yet, over all, the spires and pinnacles of the cathedral of St. Lazare glitter against the background of hills.

On the way back, our attention was divided between the glories of that view, and the "chasse aux poules" or chicken hunt—the one form of sport indulged in by the old ladies of a Burgundian village.

A very few hours in Autun were enough to reveal the fact that this largest Gallo-Roman city of Burgundy contains Roman remains as interesting as any in France, known to me, excepting those of Nimes, Orange, and Arles; while, around two of them—the Temple of Janus[24] and the Pierre de Couhard—there still lingers an element of mystery that renders them doubly attractive to the curious mind.

The "Temple de Janus" lies, as the reader will remember, at the foot of Autun, in the meadow beside the Arroux. Its original purpose is doubtful. M. Viollet le Duc held it to be a Fort DÉtachÉ, built outside the ramparts, for the purpose of barring the passage of the river, and commanding the plain.[25] M. de Fontenay, on the other hand, asserts,—and I venture to think proves,—that the building was not designed for military purposes, and was, in fact, a temple; though there is no evidence to tell us to which deity it was dedicated.[26]

M. le Duc contends that the tower had no door on the ground floor, and was entered by means of a ladder; but one of the features that first strike any observer who is endeavouring mentally to reconstruct the building, is, that, along both remaining walls, between the lower openings and the upper windows, run two lines of rectangular holes pierced in the masonry. The purpose of those holes, was, undoubtedly, to carry the roof timbers of a peristyle, or outer gallery, whose foundations have been unearthed at a distance of between five and six metres from the main wall,—a discovery which seems at once to demolish M. le Duc's theory of entry by ladder. The design of the peristyle is not known, nor the order of its architecture; but it probably took the ordinary form of a stylobate, or base, columns with capitals supporting an entablature, and a sloping roof. The niches on the interior sides of the walls, and the traces of red colouring—a mixture of powdered brick and chalk, still easily visible in their more protected parts—are further evidence that the tower was indeed a temple.

M. de Fontenay dates the building, conjecturally, from the founding of Autun. Concerning its popular name, "Temple of Janus," he has some very interesting information to give.

It appears that, until the 17th century, the tower was known as the "Tour de la GÊnetoie," a term which a local savant took to be a corruption of Janitect, "À Jani tecto." This legend was accepted by the historians for about the next two centuries, until, in 1843, another Burgundian writer reluctantly announced the truth,—that GÊnetoie did not mean "Temple of Janus," but simply, "Champ des balkins" or "genets," the broom known to all Englishmen as the device of our Plantagenet kings. So much for the Temple of Janus. Whatever may have been its purpose, no one who has visited Rome, looking up at the huge, shattered walls, gilded by the sunset, standing out against the purple shadows of the hills far away across the plain, can fail to recall memories of the Roman Campagna.

The Roman city of Augustodunum possessed four gates, at the north-west, north-east, south-west, and south-east corners of the town, leading to the roads for Boulogne, BesanÇon, Bourbon L'Archambaud, and Lyons respectively. The first and last of these was known also as the "Voie d'Agrippa." The gates, taking them in the same order, are known as the Porte d'Arroux, the Porte St. AndrÉ, the Porte St. Andoche, and the Porte de Rome. The first two of these are still standing; the others have disappeared.

The Porte d'Arroux is distant only a few minutes walk from the Temple of Janus, near the river, at the foot of the Faubourg d'Arroux. Incomplete though it is, the grace and dignity of the fallen monument yet contrast strongly with the squalor of its setting. It is backed, on either side, by a medley of disreputable villas, and dilapidated, half-timbered cottages, whose squalor is not without charm. To-day hordes of ragged children play beneath the arches that once echoed to the roll of chariot wheels, and to the tramp of lictors' feet.

The Porte d'Arroux has four openings for traffic,—two large central arches, by which chariots could pass in and out, and two smaller gates, at the sides, for foot passengers. Each of the central arches is grooved for a portcullis, which some authorities, including M. Viollet le Duc, think were not added till the middle ages,[27] a supposition that M. de Fontenay seems effectually to disprove by pointing out that, since the Roman rampart at that period was broken down in many places, any additional defences to the gates would have been a useless precaution.

Autun, in mediÆval times, comprised what were, in effect, two distinct towns, both built within the Roman enceinte. These were the Castrum, the centre of which was the Cathedral of St. Lazare, and the Marchaux—still known by the same name,—in the lower part of the town, north of the Place des Champs de Mars. Each of these towns was then sheltered within its own walls and towers, of which portions are still in existence.

The upper part of the gate consisted of a pierced gallery or arcade, of ten bays,—seven of them still intact,—forming a Chemin de Ronde, on a level with that running along the crest of the Roman wall. This gallery, serving the double purpose of ornament and defence, could be closed at any time by wooden shutters.[28] The gate was flanked on either side by two rectangular towers (corps de garde) with semi-circular apses projecting far beyond it, as though—in the phrase of Eumenes, a local historian and orator of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries—they were stretching out welcoming arms to those about to enter the town.[29]

All who are interested in the development of Burgundian architecture, should give careful attention to the Porte d'Arroux, which is certainly the source of one of the most marked characteristics of the style,—the use of the fluted pilasters, which, for some reason or other, seem to have struck the fancy of the architects of this part of France. We shall see this arcade imitated closely in the triforium gallery of the cathedral of St. Lazare, and also influencing, in turn, the churches of Cluny, Paray le Monial, Notre Dame de Beaune, and others.

The masonry of the gate is very finely executed, with close joints, without mortar, in the manner of the period, and is, on the whole, in a wonderfully good state of preservation. The lower part of the work is quite plain. The archivolts, the entablature, including the architrave and the frieze, show little ornament; the cornice, however, is richly decorated with dentals, palmettes and other designs, as is also the remaining fragment of cornice above the arcade, whose fluted pilasters have beautiful capitals in the Corinthian style.

The other surviving Roman gate,—the Porte St. AndrÉ,—is on the north-east boundary of the city, not far from the Porte d'Arroux, by way of the Faubourg Arroux and the Rue de la Croix Blanche. It is less picturesquely situate, and, though very similar, is distinctly inferior to its neighbour in design and finish. The central arches are lower, and heavier, while the gallery lacks the lightness and grace which are characteristic of the Porte d'Arroux, and is, moreover, built in a stone darker and less pleasing to the eye than the oolithic limestone of the lower portion.

M. de Fontenay suggests that this upper part was restored at some later and degenerate period of Roman architecture. Certainly the plain pilasters are badly designed and carelessly set, while the capitals, of a composite, semi-ionic order, appear to be too narrow for their pilasters—not too wide, as stated by M. de Fontenay, and also by M. DÉchelette in his careful little guide to Autun. The Porte St. AndrÉ shows no signs of having been fitted with a portcullis. Hamerton[30] states, no doubt correctly, that the door was barred by strong beams inserted into holes and grooves. These are still visible.

The Porte St. AndrÉ, it should be noted, is one of the most complete Roman gates existing in France. The lower portion of one of the flanking towers, which rose originally several feet above the attic story of the gate, owes its escape from destruction to its shape, which, coinciding with that of a typical Romanesque chapel, tempted certain ecclesiastics of the middle ages, to dedicate it to St. AndrÉ, as a place for Christian worship.[31] These flanking towers comprised three stories. The first communicated with the Chemin de Ronde, along the crest of the walls, the second was a vaulted chamber, and the third remained open to the sky. Access was obtained by a double staircase.

On the question of the period during which these gates were built, M. de Fontenay and Viollet le Duc are again at variance,—the latter attributing them to the fourth or fifth centuries,[32] the former to the reign of Vespasian (a.d. 69-79).[33] Strange as it may seem that another writer should contradict continually so eminent an authority as the last-named, the author of "Autun et ses Monuments" again has reason on his side, since he can refer to the orator Eumenes as describing the gates in the year 311 a.d.

Moreover, since the Roman walls were admittedly broken down in many places during the siege by Tetricus, in the year 269 a.d.,—an event of which Eumenes was a witness,—and the inhabitants were already beginning to retire within the safer precincts of the Citadel; what would be the reason for erecting elaborate gates on the line of the ruined wall? I am not an authority upon ancient architecture; but I was certainly astonished to read the date given in the "Dictionnaire RaisonnÉ"; and I should be glad to know whether other experts support M. le Duc's theory.

Of the two other gates—the Porte St. Andoche, on the south-west, and the Porte de Rome on the south-east, in the direction of Lyons,—nothing remains except the rectangular portion of one of the lateral towers of the former. The loss of the Porte de Rome, or the "Porte des Marbres," as it was popularly called, is especially to be regretted, since that name alone suggests the truth, of which evidence exists, that it was by far the most beautiful of the four. Moreover, it has additional historic interest as being the gate by which Constantine entered Autun in 311.

The old writers agree in describing the Porte des Marbres as a thing of beauty,—a quality which was its undoing, as offering an irresistible attraction to the MediÆval and later builders. Several ancient Corinthian capitals, not otherwise easily accounted for, are to be seen to-day in the porch of the cathedral built at the close of the 12th century. It appears, indeed, that around the present site of the Fountain of the Pelican was a burial ground named Les Marbres, on account of its richness in borrowed sculpture. The site of the gate was known from the 14th century onwards as "À Marbres" or "de Marboribus." At the time of the construction of the bastion of the Jambe de Bois, the workmen unearthed many marbles, including columns, capitals, and bases of the Corinthian or some composite order.[34] The date of the final destruction of the Porte des Marbres is uncertain; but its flanking towers, then known as the Fors de Marboribus, were still standing in the middle of the 14th century.

Before beginning another chapter, let me speak one word of warning. If you ask one of the humbler inhabitants of Autun where the Porte St. Andoche stood, you will be directed, without hesitation,—as we were,—to the bank of the river, near the railway station. Having reached that spot and crossed the bridge, you will obtain a lovely view of the Roman wall and the river beside it, but will fail to find the remaining tower of the gate, for the reason that it is not there. The Porte St. Andoche stood at the foot of the Boulevard Schneider, opposite to the Couvent du Sacrement, on the road leading, by way of the enceinte, to the Tour des Ursulines.

The reader may ask why the peasants should misdirect him? They misdirect him, in this particular instance, because they believe that the gate really stood on the town side of the western bridge of the Arroux, in the corresponding position to that of the Porte d'Arroux. But my point is, that, had your informant been utterly ignorant of the supposed whereabouts of the gate, he would, very probably, have directed you with almost equal facility. The Burgundian peasant is very ignorant; but he is also very proud,—much too proud to admit that he does not know the whereabouts of a monument that a stranger has come, perhaps, a thousand miles to visit. His swift imagination, therefore, promptly creates the site; and he, or she, will tell you promptly, volubly, and with much circumstantial detail, exactly how to get there. In this snare we have been taken many times during our travels among the Burgundians. The ProvenÇals have a different and preferable method. They do not invent a site for the monument; they deny its existence. Speaking with some experience of the peculiar ways of the French peasant in such matters, my advice to the gentle stranger is—not to trust him. Get the best guide and map that you can find in the local librairie; and rely on them, and on your own intelligence. You may then, when you are at fault, consult the passer by as to details, letting your judgment decide whether, in his particular case, he is to be trusted.

If it be a ChÂteau that you are seeking, you must be doubly careful. To a French peasant many a tiny cottage is a "fine house" (belle maison), and almost every modern house, of any pretentions at all, is a chÂteau. To us, on the contrary, a chÂteau means a castle; usually an ancient one.

Many a time has a blue-shirted peasant looked up from his work by the road side, to address me somewhat as follows:

"The ChÂteau de Bon Espoir; Certainly, Monsieur, 'tis there, three kilometres away, up the hill, tout droit en montant."[35]

We climb the three kilometres, wander about for an hour, and return disconsolate. The labourer, hearing the whirr of bicycle wheels, looks up again.

"M'sieur et Dame have found the ChÂteau?"

"No, Monsieur. They told us up there that the ancient ChÂteau de Bon Espoir was on the other side of the valley to the north."

"Oh! that one? That's only an old ruin. I thought you meant the chÂteau de Monsieur Pigot."

"No. Who is Monsieur Pigot?"

"Monsieur Pigot, 'Sieur Dame, is the proprietor of the grand magasin du Louvre at Paris. He has a lovely chÂteau, up there where you went. They would have let you in if you had gone up the drive."

"We are sorry we missed it. Good day, Monsieur."

The "lovely chÂteau" was a terrible erection of red brick and stone, defiling the landscape for a mile around.