Release date : August 26, [eBook ] Most recently updated: October 24, Fully illustrated with eight water-colour and 86 line drawings by Miss Marjorie Nash. I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Mm. Martin," and "L'Abbaye de St e. Gabriel Hanotaux, of the French Academy, and of his publishers, Messrs. Hachette, of Paris, in permitting the reproduction of a portrait of Philippe le Bon p.
My thanks are due, too, to M. Perrault-Dabot, who kindly allows me to make use of the engraving of Cluny p. If the support given to this volume on South Burgundy justifies me in doing so, I hope, before very long, to follow it by a second, dealing with the northern part of the duchy.
Although the history of Burgundy is intimately connected with that of England—the policy of the Valois Dukes, for example, affected profoundly our national destinies during the hundred years' war—the average English reader's knowledge of the subject is contained within the four corners of a wine list. He knows Beaune—knows the name well, as that of a drinkable brand, may have blessed it in his heart, when a ray from the shaded lamp shot through its ruby depths.
If by any chance he loves Meredith, he may, even, under its kindly influence, have whispered to his fair partner, Dr. Middleton's phrase: "Burgundy has great genius; Burgundy sings the inspired ode. Not another town of Burgundy could he name. Dijon he knows, and remembers; because there he scalded his throat with hot coffee, gulped down, at three in the morning, on the way home from the Riviera; or, bound for Switzerland, he may have passed through the town. But he does not know Dijon as a Burgundian Capital, nor as a proud city of royal palaces and unrivalled sculpture.
At most, when he hears the duchy named, there floats through his mind a shadowy memory of Henry V. Yet Burgundy was the scene of events vital in the making of Europe. It was one of the strongholds of Roman civilization.
