Loudun sous la Croix. BY IDA H. LAYARD. OUDUN, le souvrin chambre do Re" was the verdict on this isolated town in the days of its prosperity.1 But Rabelais, who knew well the character of its inhabitants in the 16th and 17th centuries, writes "that the Devil, when showing the Son of God all the kingdoms of the world, reserved Châtellerault, Chinon, Domfront and, above all, Loudun for his own domain." As the Kings of that epoch had a good deal of the devil in them, both proverbs may hold good. In September, under a turquoise blue sky, flecked only at evening with rosy fleeting wind clouds-with vines and geraniums brilliant as if a due amount of rain had fallen, instead of there having been months of drought-Loudun conveys to one the very opposite idea of evil and hatred and war. Its streets are clean; many of its houses, even in the tortuous alleys, bear the stamp of former wealth: the little inner courts and the gardens in front are a mass of gorgeous flowers. Poverty most certainly must exist; dirt and disgrace hide still in its corners; but the general air of the town is a bright pleasantness, a graceful cordiality, with, it must be confessed, a great deal of local gossip and concern in other people's affairs. The little city stands on a hill not of any great altitude, sufficient however to make it a conspicuous object from the undulating plain around. Loudun, a town of 4500 inhabitants, in the department of Vienne, province of Poitou, on the high road from Paris to La Rochelle, and nearly in the middle of a triangle, with Saumur, Tours and Poitiers at the salient angles. VOL. V.-NO. III. A The salient points-its "Square Tower" (Tour Carrée) and the spire of the parish Church, rise up solitary from a clipped row of trees planted on the site of the old Castle, which stood on the steep western ridge. Originally the Castle constituted the entire city and was called "the white town," or the "Château blanc des longs guérets"-" guérets" signifying cultivated fields running up to the foot of the ramparts. The town sprang up on the eastern side of the Castle which watched over it and kept it in order-in turn terrifying and protecting the inhabitants. It formed an irregular semi-circle round the fortress, ending in a long narrow tail westward with the Porte du Martray at the end. The Castle was surrounded with high and strong walls, and twenty round towers of which only three remain, and these are ruined. There were two gates and a postern. It had its own Church and keep and great Tower, and a royal palace of such beauty that it gave rise to that proverb "the King's royal chamber." Catherine de' Medici considered it so remarkable that she had copies made of the fireplaces and windows, to carry away a remeinbrance of them and have them reproduced. The Church was called St. Peter's; and there was also a Chapel to "Our Lady" with a priory attached. Everything must have been closely built together, or on a small scale, for the summit of the hill on which all these buildings were situated is not of very great extent. Later, in the 13th century, the city was surrounded with its own ring of walls pierced with four gates, Porte St. Nicholas to the north; Porte de Chinon, east; Porte Mirebeau, south; Porte du Martray, west; and there seem to have been two lesser entrances, that of the "Portail chaussé" and "Pasquin," the former on the road to Saumur and the latter on the Thouars highway. These fortifications took in on the western side the long tail-like piece of land, which formed the great cemetery. With this conspicuous situation, as a regular watch-tower over the surrounding country, strong within and without, surrounded by moats both wide and deep, and with an impregnable fort as a kernel within its walls, we can understand why the protestants were so anxious to retain this military post which was for them a place of safety; and also why, on the other hand, the court, disturbed and suspicious, determined (in 1630) to entirely destroy such a fortress." Cardinal Richelieu thoroughly accomplished his work. The Castle precincts contain nought but the great square Tower which is shorn of its crenelated parapet, and remains as an empty shell. Great stone walls, enclosing vineyards, cut the ground up into a sort of maze of lanes, and on the steep side is a plantation of elms enclosing a bandstand and a bicycle course. Loudun seems to have been well known in the time of Julius Cæsar, and is supposed to have been named after him "Juliodunum." Its history began in the religious wars, and through the 16th and 17th centuries it was alternately the centre of the power and influence of the Huguenots and the scene of bitter persecution and retaliation. When the kingdom of Peace is preached by the sword, and Truth at the dagger's point, neither party comes out innocent. Yet it appears that there cannot have been many instances of personal cruelty on the part of the Huguenots, or the Archives would not have failed to make much of the matter. The only instances recorded are the murder of six monks—“ cordeliers and that of a priest by a man named "Richard." This man tied the priest to his horse's tail, and dragging him across the town, threw him into a dirty ditch near the postern "du Pasquin," "where," naively concludes the chronicler, "we imagine he perished." The Huguenots also burnt down the fine church of Sainte Croix on the market place (1568) a romanesque building with nave and transepts. But modern catholics are not much in advance of them, for they have rebuilt their church and turned it into the city Market, and leave it in the dirtiest condition. Haberdashery of a mean sort, and vegetables and melons, strew the pavement on the very spot where day by day the Feast of Remembrance was celebrated. In the same year of trouble 1568, the Huguenots put fire to the Carmelite Convent as is recorded on an inscription cut in the first pillar in the nave of the Église des Carmes, erroneously called S. Pierre du Martray. LE. XX. IOVR. dE. NOVEBRE. 2 MILLE. V SOIXANTE HVICT FVT. CE COVET MIS. EN. CEDRES PAR LES HVGVENOTZ deStRVICTS. |