So the train puffs up to the col, then rattles down into the quaint village of Lusigny. The road to Cussy climbs the opposite hill for two kilometres or so, before switchbacking through the village of Montceau to this lovely spot that the Romans, or Gallo-Romans, have so chosen to honour. Not a human being could we discover in all Cussy. Some destroying angel, I thought, must have passed over, leaving only chickens alive, and, by oversight, one old woman, of whose close-fitting, white cap we caught a glimpse through an open window. But my wife would not accept that solution. "No; there has been no destroying angel here. There has just been a most wicked old witch, who, in revenge for some insult, has changed all the villagers into ducks and hens. Let's speak to them. I'm sure they'll answer." She addressed a lanky, yellow hen, that had left scratching, to watch us. Poised on one leg it stood, with its head bent inquiringly. "Please, Mrs. Hen; can you tell me the way to the colonne?"--only, of course, it being a French hen--if it was really a hen at all--she spoke to it in French. The hen moved its head to the other side. "La colonne, Madame, est là bas, dans la prairie." My wife danced for joy. It _was_ a talking hen. The people were really bewitched! "How lovely!" But I knew all the time that she was wrong. The hen had not spoken--not a word. No such luck. It was that dark girl, who had been watching us from the shed by the house. So we just thanked her, for politeness sake, and walked sadly down the hill towards the Colonne. I looked round. The hen was scratching again. We found the Colonne at last--a fine one, of the composite Corinthian style, its shaft beautifully ornamented with the favourite Roman leaf pattern. Round the base are eight statues in relief. Every antiquary in the kingdom has puzzled his brains over the motif of this column; and, except Courtepée, who says that "selon toute apparence c'est un monument sépulcral,"[187] and Lempereur and Montfauçon, who respectively believed it to be a Gaulish tomb, and a religious monument, all agree that it is in memory of a great victory. But what victory? One has said that it commemorates the triumph of Cæsar over the Helvetii B.C. 58; another that it was raised by the Emperor Claude, conqueror of the Goths; others believe it to have been erected by the Aedui to Maximian Hercules, after his victory over the Bagaudes in 286 A.D.; finally the Burgundian, Girault, maintains that the monument remembers the victory of Silius over Sacrovir in 22 A.D.[188] Beyond expressing a doubt whether the column is of later date than 100 A.D., and my conviction that it is triumphal not monumental, I venture no opinion upon any of these interesting theories. The antiquarians must settle that among themselves.