the eighteenth century. It contains,
however, a large and rich museum--a museum really worthy of a capital.
The gem of this collection is the great banqueting hall of the old
palace, one of the few features of the place that has not been
essentially altered. Of great height, roofed with the old beams and
cornices, it exhibits,

[Illustration: DIJON--THE PARK.]

filling one end, a colossal gothic chimney-piece with a fireplace large
enough to roast, not an ox, but a herd of oxen. In the middle of this
striking hall, the walls of which are covered with objects more or less
precious, have been placed the tombs of Philippe-le-Hardi and
Jean-sans-Peur. These monuments, very splendid in their general effect,
have a limited interest. The limitation comes from the fact that we see
them to-day in a transplanted and mutilated condition. Placed originally
in a church which has disappeared from the face of the earth, demolished
and dispersed at the Revolution, they have been reconstructed and
restored out of fragments recovered and pieced together. The piecing has
been beautifully done; it is covered with gilt and with brilliant paint;
the whole result is most artistic. But the spell of the old mortuary
figures is broken, and it will never work again. Meanwhile the monuments
are immensely decorative.

I think the thing that pleased me best at Dijon was the little old Parc,
a charming public garden, about a mile from the town, to which I walked
by a long, straight autumnal avenue. It is a _jardin francais_ of the
last century--a dear old place, with little blue-green perspectives and
alleys and _rond-points_, in which everything balances. I went there
late in the afternoon, without meeting a creature, though I had hoped I
should meet the President de Brosses. At the end of it was a little
river that looked like a canal, and on the farther bank was an
old-fashioned villa, close to the water, with a little French garden of
its own. On the hither side was a bench, on which I seated myself,
lingering a good while; for this was just the sort of place I like. It
was the farthermost point of my little tour. I thought that over, as I
sat there, on the eve of taking the express to Paris; and as the light
faded in the Parc the vision of some of the things I had enjoyed became
more distinct.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. London & Edinburgh

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Tour in France, by Henry James

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