Auxerre

“ You can do exactly as you like. Either stay here, or come with me. If you go to Auxerre there's no need at all for you to see the execution. It's an interesting old town--cathedral and so on. But of course if you can't bear to be in the same town as a guillotine, I'll go alone. ”

“ Manufactures of ochre, of which there are quarries in the vicinity, and of iron goods are carried on. The canal of Nivernais reaches as far as Auxerre, which has a busy port and carries on boat-building. Trade is principally in the choice wine of the surrounding vineyards, and in timber and coal.
Auxerre (Autessiodurum) became the seat of a bishop and a civitas in the 3rd century. Under the Merovingian kings the abbey of St Germain, named after the 6th bishop, was founded, and in the 9th century its schools had made the town a seat of learning. ”

“ The avenue before the hotel, and along the Yonne, is the walk of the Auxerre fashionables; a formidable looking “jeune France” was promenading there, but now magnificent in curls and beard and crimson cloak and cigar. The town, whose streets are high and narrow, looks to advantage from the river; it is built in an amphitheatre, the old abbey of St. Germain, the prefecture, the cathedral towers, and those of 104 other fine churches, rising tier above tier over the quay. ”

“ But when I came to live at Auxerre, I saw that he spoke the truth. It is a large district, or bishopric, and the mountains, hills, and plains are covered with vines. There they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; but they send their wine by river to Paris, where they sell it nobly; and live and clothe themselves from the proceeds. Three times I went all about the district with one or another of the brothers: once with one who was preaching and affixing crosses for the Crusade of the French king (St. Louis) ”

“ Ridiculous, absurd, and burlesque motions injured incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and enlightened patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, in case of necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable contrasts. ”

“ Auxerre is a good town, pleasantly situated, and in a plentiful and cheap country.
From Auxerre to Ioigni is five leagues. The Petit bel Vue on the banks of the river is very pleasantly situated, but a dreadful one within side, in every respect, being a mixture of dirt, ignorance, and imposition; but it is the only inn for travellers, and therefore travellers should avoid it. In order to put my old hostess in good humour, I called early for a bottle of Champaigne; and in order to put me into a bad humour, she charged me the next day for two; but I charged her with Mons. ”

“ One notices along its course a greater proportion than elsewhere of still untouched old seignorial residences, larger or smaller. The range of old gibbous towns along its banks, expanding their gay quays upon the water-side, have a common character—Joigny, Villeneuve, Julien-du-Sault—yet tempt us to tarry at each and examine its relics, old glass and the like, of the Renaissance or the Middle Age, for the acquisition of real though minor lessons on the various arts which have left themselves a central monument at Auxerre.—Auxerre! ”

“ You know also what oaths you took, as well at Auxerre as at Paris.
'It has, nevertheless, come to the knowledge of our lord the king, that, contrary to the terms of the peace concluded between our said lord and yourself, and sworn to at Auxerre, you have raised, and continue to raise, bodies of men at arms, with the design, as it is said, of coming to us; and, as a pretence for the levying these men at arms, you have published letters as from us, desiring that you would come to our aid with a large force, which thing we have neither done nor thought of doing. ”

“ It is we, in the person of the Scholastics who built Paris Cathedral, and Laon, the intellectual,—churches disciplined, sober and strong. It is we the multitudinous scholars of the Middle Ages who built Chartres, the wise mystic, and opalescent Auxerre, and Châlons on the Marne of Victory. ”

“ If cities are to be estimated by their appearance of neatness and opulence, Chalons deserves to be marked on the map in more capital letters than the imposing names of Sens or Auxerre. To no town indeed does it bear a greater resemblance than to Tours, both from the modern air of its houses, and from its noble river, adapted for every purpose of internal commerce. The Hôtel des Trois Faisans is also an excellent inn, and, like that at Auxerre, sufficiently well frequented to find no account in these little beggarly impositions which are practised at inferior places. ”

“ Fifteen hundred citizens of all ages, despatched from the principal district towns, assembled together, not to study in all their ramifications the different branches of human knowledge, but in order to learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters.
Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt, excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that Auxerre appeared insensible to the honour of being represented at Paris by the most illustrious of her children. ”

“ It was at Auxerre that the art and craft of building noble edifices developed so highly among churchmen. The builders of the twelfth century were not only often monks but churchmen of rank as well. They occupied themselves not only with ecclesiastical architecture, but with painting and sculpture. ”

“ When Bishop Guillaume de Seignelay was transferred to the see of Paris, in 1220, he worked on the west façade of Notre Dame of the capital, and his successor at Auxerre, Henri de Villeneuve, completed the choir of St. Étienne in 1234. Two lancets in the sanctuary are his gifts. The cathedral of Auxerre was building at both ends, while between lay the ancient Romanesque nave. The easternmost bay of the nave is XIII century, but the next five bays were erected only during the XIV century, at which time most of the statues of the western portals were done. ”

“ C H A P. IX
——NOW this is the most puzzled skein of all——for in this last chapter, as far at least as it has help’d me through Auxerre, I have been getting forwards in two different journies together, and with the same dash of the pen—for I have got entirely out of Auxerre in this journey which I am writing now, and I am got half way out of Auxerre in that which I shall write hereafter——There is but a certain degree of perfection in every thing; and by pushing at something beyond that, I have brought myself into such a situation, as no traveller ever stood before me ”

“ GERMANUS (Fr. St. Germain l'Auxerrois) , a saint of the Roman Catholic church, born in Auxerre, central Gaul, about 380, died in Ravenna, July 31, 448 or 449. He was of a senatorial family, studied literature and jurisprudence, and distinguished himself for eloquence. He was made by the emperor Honorius military governor of his native district, and in 418 was elected bishop of Auxerre, although a married man. He separated from his wife, gave his property to the poor, and built a monastery on the river Yonne. ”

“ I comprehended his generous silence, and in a quarter of an hour I had lost sight of Auxerre; and from my retreat I wrote to Annette, to inform her of this fresh catastrophe. But to remove suspicion, I recommended her to stay for a fortnight at the 'Pheasant,' and to tell everybody that I was at Rouen, making purchases, and on the expiration of the time she was to rejoin me at Paris, where she arrived at the day appointed. ”

“ Auvergne′, an ancient province of France, united to the crown under Louis XIII. in 1610, embracing the deps. of Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal, and part of Haute-Loire, the highlands of which separate the basin of the Loire from that of the Garonne, and contain a hardy and industrious race of people descended from the original inhabitants of Gaul; they speak a strange dialect, and supply all the water-carriers and street-sweepers of Paris.
Auxerre′ (15) , an ancient city, capital of the dep. of Yonne, 90 m. SE. of Paris; has a fine cathedral in the Flamboyant style; drives a large trade in wine. ”

“ From Joigny to Auxerre, twenty-one miles. We arrived too late to visit the interior of the cathedral, which was not mentioned to us as containing any thing remarkable. Its exterior, however, is fine and venerable, and affords a beautiful evening study, viewed from the opposite bank of the Yonne, about half a mile on the Vermanton road. The rest of the town, seen from this point, is broken into fine masses [16] of conventual and other old buildings; and the river and bridge complete a landscape very well worthy of an accurate sketch. ”

“ In the diocese of Auxerre, during the summer of 1789, the Bernardines of Rigny "stripped themselves of all they possessed in favor of the inhabitants of neighboring villages: bread, grain, money and other supplies, have all been lavished on about twelve hundred persons who, for more than six weeks, never failed to present themselves at their door daily. ”

“ Many bishops arrived, with King Lewis the Saint himself accompanied by his mother, to assist at the search for and disinterment of the sacred relics. In their presence, the Bishop of Auxerre, with vestments of deep red in honour of the relics, blessed the new shrine, according to the office De benedictione capsarum pro reliquiis. The pavement of the choir, removed amid a surging sea of lugubrious chants, all persons fasting, discovered as if it had been a battlefield of mouldering human remains. ”

“ The Gothic Art of Burgundy [267]
Be strong in humility and humble in authority:
Be austere in tenderness and tender in austerity:
Be amiable in sorrow and grave in prosperity.
—St. Columbanus’ Antitheses.
URGUNDY, “a country placed on Europe’s highways,” was a land of monasteries. They dotted the fertile province. There were “prodigious Cluny,” and Vézelay “the superb,” scenes of historic gatherings; at Auxerre was St. Germain’s monastery; at Dijon, the abbey of St. Bénigne, pioneer in the Romanesque renaissance of the region. ”

“ You employ all your time in heaping up riches to leave to your children; yet take no care to cultivate their souls with virtue, as if an estate were more precious than themselves.”295
SAINT GERMANUS, BISHOP OF AUXERRE, C.
He was born at Auxerre about the year 380, of noble parents. Having laid the foundation of sound literature at home, he studied eloquence and the civil law at Rome, and pleaded with great reputation in the court of the Præfectus-prætorio. ”

“ The ruling idea of the feast is the inversion of status, and the performance, inevitably burlesque, by the inferior clergy of functions properly belonging to their betters. The fools jangle the bells (Paris, Amiens, Auxerre) , they take the higher stalls (Paris) , sing dissonantly (Sens) , repeat meaningless words (Châlons, Antibes) , say the messe liesse (Laon) or the missa fatuorum (Autun) , preach the sermones fatui (Auxerre) , cense praepostere (St. Omer) with pudding and sausage (Beauvais) or with old shoes (Paris theologians) . ”

“ In the ninth century, when the feudality first began to recognize its full administrative powers, the local counts of the valley of the Yonne were deputies merely who put into motion the machinery designed by the nobler powers, the royal vassals of the powerful fiefs of Auxerre, Sens, Tonnerre and Avallon. ”

“ The octagonal tower over its altar, forming internally a lantern, is of the XII century, as are the piers and their arches. A pause came between the making of the nave’s lower and upper parts, for the church did not follow the usual custom of advancing bay by bay, but was constructed story by story. The west front is full Gothic, and the ambulatory of the XIII century. The original choir was in large part replaced by the present well-built Flamboyant Gothic one, finished by 1530. What used to be the episcopal palace of Auxerre is to-day the Prefecture. ”

“ Germain is famous for its antiquity, and also because it contains, besides the tombs of 107 sainted bishops, those of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, father of Hugues Capet of France, as well as of other dukes of Burgundy, and counts of Auxerre; (for the county of Auxerre belonged by turns to France and her turbulent province.) It was united to the crown in Charles the Fifth’s reign, ceded to the duchy by Charles the Sixth, and became finally French when Charles the Téméraire, last sovereign of Burgundy, was killed before Nancy. ”

“ The church of St Eusèbe belongs to the 12th, 13th and 16th centuries. Of the abbey church of St Germain, built in the 13th and 14th centuries, most of the nave has disappeared, so that its imposing Romanesque tower stands apart from it; crypts of the 9th century contain the tombs of bishops of Auxerre. The abbey was once fortified and a high wall and cylindrical tower remain. The buildings (18th century) are partly occupied by a hospital and a training college. ”

“ The superior clergy were there almost to a man; the nobility had lost too many in front of Poitiers to be abundant at Paris, but there were counted at the assembly four hundred deputies from the good towns, amongst whom special mention is made, in the documents, of those from Amiens, Tournay, Lille, Arras, Troyes, Auxerre, and Sens. ”

“ Menestrier, an avocat, and mayor of Auxerre during the reign of terror. Ce brave homme (I like the old sacristan's term of brave homme, as it is one of the few untranslateable French words) flew to the cathedral at the moment that a horde of brigands had entered it to commence the work of mutilation; and, seconded by nothing but his known character for resolution, and an athletic person, fairly intimidated and turned them out for the time. Losing not a moment, he removed to a place of safety the Dauphin's monument, the avowed object of their vengeance, before a second visit took place ”