length and height,
with its extraordinary multitude of supports. The gardens aforesaid,
accessible through tall iron gates, are the promenade--the Tuileries--of
the town, and, very pretty in themselves, are immensely set off by the
overhanging church. It was warm and sunny; the benches were empty; I sat
there a long time in that pleasant state of mind which visits the
traveller in foreign towns, when he is not too hurried, while he
wonders where he had better go next. The straight, unbroken line of the
roof of the cathedral was very noble; but I could see from this point
how much finer the effect would have been if the towers, which had
dropped almost out of sight, might have been carried still higher. The
archiepiscopal gardens look down at one end over a sort of esplanade or
suburban avenue lying on a lower level on which they open, and where
several detachments of soldiers (Bourges is full of soldiers) had just
been drawn up. The civil population was also collecting, and I saw that
something was going to happen. I learned that a private of the Chasseurs
was to be "broken" for stealing, and every one was eager to behold the
ceremony. Sundry other detachments arrived on the ground, besides many
of the military who had come as a matter of taste. One of them described
to me the process of degradation from the ranks, and I felt for a moment
a hideous curiosity to see it, under the influence of which I lingered a
little. But only a little; the hateful nature of the spectacle hurried
me away at the same that others were hurrying forward. As I turned my
back upon it I reflected that human beings are cruel brutes, though I
could not flatter myself that the ferocity of the thing was exclusively
French. In another country the concourse would have been equally great,
and the moral of it all seemed to be that military penalties are as
terrible as military honours are gratifying.

[Illustration]

Chapter xii

[Bourges: Jacques Coeur]

The cathedral is not the only lion of Bourges; the house of Jacques
Coeur awaits you in posture scarcely less leonine. This remarkable man
had a very strange history, and he too was "broken" like the wretched
soldier whom I did not stay to see. He has been rehabilitated, however,
by an age which does not fear the imputation of paradox, and a marble
statue of him ornaments the street in front of his house. To interpret
him according to this image--a womanish figure in a long robe and a
t