But I am digressing. We must follow to the musée our guide, whose manner could not be more gentle, were we patients and not visitors,--reminded on the way, by the sight of polished floors and shining pots, that the cleanliness of this building moved a certain worthy Canon Papillon, in the 17th century, to remark, "Ineptiarum stultus est labor," which, freely rendered, means: "They are fools who waste soap." The best thing in the musée--in fact, the only thing that one really goes there to see--is the Last Judgment of Roger Van der Weyden, which, in spite of the 19th century restoration, remains a splendid example of Flemish art, still very Gothic in treatment, and full of the sadness of decline. The work is executed with all the microscopic accuracy of detail characteristic of the school. There is fine realism, and individual treatment; but no breakaway from tradition: all the figures are consciously attitudinizing, and one feels that the painter is making a last desperate effort to enforce belief in an outworn dogma. The welter of human beings, bursting out from their graves, dragging one another, and being dragged, by hair and limbs, pell-mell down into hell; this biting of fingers, and pulling of ears till they bleed, does not convince. Such a subject was well suited to the primitives of the Romanesque and early Gothic periods, but seems hopelessly archaic for a painter born within hail of the Renaissance. Nevertheless, though, in spite of its horrors, and its unhappy colouring, the picture, as you linger before it, grows on you, it is with a sigh of relief that you turn to its more successful part, the portraits of the donors, magnificent in their energy and expression. Here you have an opportunity to judge concerning the probability of Louis XI.'s alleged slander upon Nicholas Rolin. Did he, or did he not, grind the faces of the poor? My wife says unhesitatingly, "He did"; and, looking at the significant scarlet angel above his head--suggestive of a red aura--I decline to contradict a lady. His is, indeed, a disinheriting countenance. But Guigonne, his seule étoile, is of a different stamp. Piety exudes from her. As the guide somewhat bluntly put it, "She was as good as she was ugly"--a speech which no lady, living or dead, would ever forgive. [Illustration: End of chapter XVI; Star Ornament] FOOTNOTES: [180] This verandah or hood has disappeared. It is shown on a model of the hospital to be seen in the musée. [Illustration: Heading chapter XVII; Saint Martin and Saint Margaret] CHAPTER XVII SAINT MARTIN'S WELL AND THE LEGEND OF SAINT MARGUERITE Leaving my wife to run the gauntlet of the gamins of Beaune, while she sketched the starry hood and the porch of Notre Dame, we fared forth on our bicycles, towards the ancient village of Bouilland, fifteen kilometres away, to which I received my first call when I happened upon the legend of its Abbey.