Burgundian Pilgrimage

Beggars can’t be choosers, and when it was evident that the French strikes would make transport indefinitely doubtful, we decided to renounce the tidy shape of our original plans and let chance offers on the road take us where they might. Perhaps even in the limited time at our disposal—three days only—we should see something of St Bernard’s country and the places where he had been. So we set out, the two of us, hopefully.The first offer, taking us beyond Auxerre, came after no more than five minutes walking and we were soon moving through the forest of Fontainebleau in the morning sunshine. The rain which had broken the oppressive heat of the previous two days had left the leaves clean and shining, and beyond the wood the blue sky opened that was above us all the way; a route through Moret with its narrow gates and an old house in a world of moving waters, past Sens, and gradually into downland till you are on a ridge of hills. The trees along the road change from poplar to unclipped chestnut and then to generous plane and, now in the Côte d’Or, the Yonne lies below on the right, a broad and pleasant river in a singularly favoured land. To have read in one’s history books of the power of the medieval Dukes of Burgundy is to have learned the hard way. Here one has only to look to understand. A country of such resources, so royally self-sufficient and assured, could scarcely be less than a kingdom. The light has a quality all its own, the very air moving among the leaves in the orchards seems blended according to secret ingredients. And white and honey-coloured in this light, bathed in this air, on the crown of a steep hill stands the abbey of Vézelay.