A Little Tour In France [99]
build the church of Brou as a mau- soleum, for her second husband and herself, in fulfil- ment of a vow made by Margaret of Bourbon, mother of Philibert, who died before she could redeem her pledge, and who bequeathed the duty to her son. He died shortly afterwards, and his widow assumed the pious task. According to Murray, she intrusted the erection of the church to "Maistre Loys von Berghem," and the sculpture to "Maistre Conrad." The author of a superstitious but carefully prepared little Notice, which I bought at Bourg, calls the architect and sculptor (at once) Jehan de Paris, author (sic) of the tomb of Francis II. of Brittany, to which we gave some attention at Nantes, and which the writer of my pamphlet ascribes only subordinately to Michel Colomb. The church, which is not of great size, is in the last and most flamboyant phase of Gothic, and in admirable preservation; the west front, before which a quaint old sun-dial is laid out on the ground, - a circle of num- bers marked in stone, like those on a clock face, let into the earth, - is covered with delicate ornament. The great feature, however (the nave is perfectly bare and wonderfully new-looking, though the warden, a stolid yet sharp old peasant, in a blouse, who looked more as if his line were chaffering over turnips than showing off works of art, told me that it has never been touched, and that its freshness is simply the quality of the stone), - the great feature is the ad- mirable choir, in the midst of which the three monu- ments have bloomed under the chisel, like exotic plants in a conservatory. I saw the place to small advantage, for the stained glass of the windows, which are fine, was under repair, and much of it was masked with planks.
In the centre lies Philibert-le-Bel, a figure of white marble on a great slab of black, in his robes and his armor, with two boy-angels holding a tablet at his head, and two more at his feet. On either side of him is another cherub: one guarding his helmet, the other his stiff gauntlets. The attitudes of these charm- ing children, whose faces are all bent upon him in pity, have the prettiest tenderness and respect. The table on which he lies is supported by elaborate columns, adorned with niches containing little images, and with every other imaginable elegance; and be- neath it he is represented in that other form, so com- mon in the tombs of the Renaissance, - a man naked and dying, with none of the state and splendor of the image above. One of these figures embodies the duke the other simply the mortal; and there is something very strange and striking in the effect of the latter, seen dimly and with difficulty through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab. The monu- ment of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white merble, tormented into a multitude of exquisite pat- terns, the last extravagance of a Gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return upon itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high roof of the church above him, she lies under a canopy supported and covered by a wilderness of embroidery, - flowers, devices, initials, arabesques, statuettes. Watched over by cherubs, she is also in her robes and ermine, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet (her husband, at his, has a waking lion); and the artist has not, it is to be presumed, represented her as more beautiful than she was. She looks, indeed, like the regent of a turbulent realm. Beneath her couch is stretched another figure, - a less brilliant Margaret, wrapped in her shroud, with her long hair over her shoulders. Round the tomb is the battered iron railing placed there originally, with the myste- rious motto of the duchess worked into the top, - _fortune infortune fort une_. The other two monuments are protected by barriers of the same pattern. That of Margaret of Bourbon, Philibert's mother, stands on the right of the choir; and I suppose its greatest dis- tinction is that it should have been erected to a mother-in-law. It is but little less florid and sump- tuous than the others; it has,
In the centre lies Philibert-le-Bel, a figure of white marble on a great slab of black, in his robes and his armor, with two boy-angels holding a tablet at his head, and two more at his feet. On either side of him is another cherub: one guarding his helmet, the other his stiff gauntlets. The attitudes of these charm- ing children, whose faces are all bent upon him in pity, have the prettiest tenderness and respect. The table on which he lies is supported by elaborate columns, adorned with niches containing little images, and with every other imaginable elegance; and be- neath it he is represented in that other form, so com- mon in the tombs of the Renaissance, - a man naked and dying, with none of the state and splendor of the image above. One of these figures embodies the duke the other simply the mortal; and there is something very strange and striking in the effect of the latter, seen dimly and with difficulty through the intervals of the rich supports of the upper slab. The monu- ment of Margaret herself is on the left, all in white merble, tormented into a multitude of exquisite pat- terns, the last extravagance of a Gothic which had gone so far that nothing was left it but to return upon itself. Unlike her husband, who has only the high roof of the church above him, she lies under a canopy supported and covered by a wilderness of embroidery, - flowers, devices, initials, arabesques, statuettes. Watched over by cherubs, she is also in her robes and ermine, with a greyhound sleeping at her feet (her husband, at his, has a waking lion); and the artist has not, it is to be presumed, represented her as more beautiful than she was. She looks, indeed, like the regent of a turbulent realm. Beneath her couch is stretched another figure, - a less brilliant Margaret, wrapped in her shroud, with her long hair over her shoulders. Round the tomb is the battered iron railing placed there originally, with the myste- rious motto of the duchess worked into the top, - _fortune infortune fort une_. The other two monuments are protected by barriers of the same pattern. That of Margaret of Bourbon, Philibert's mother, stands on the right of the choir; and I suppose its greatest dis- tinction is that it should have been erected to a mother-in-law. It is but little less florid and sump- tuous than the others; it has,