To sum up the chateau architecture, and, to be comprehensive, all mediæval and Renaissance architecture in France, we may say that it stands as something distinctly national, something that has absorbed much of the best of other lands but which has been fused with the ingenious daring of the Gaul into a style which later went abroad to all nations of the globe as something distinctly French. It matters little whether proof of this be sought in Touraine, Burgundy or Poitou, for while each may possess their eccentricities of style, and excellencies as varied as their climates, all are to-day distinctly French, and must be so considered from their inception. Among these master works which go to give glory and renown to French architecture are not only the formidable castles and luxurious chateaux of kings and princes but also the great civic palaces and military works of contemporary epochs, for these, in many instances, combined the functions of a royal dwelling with their other condition. CHAPTER II IN THE VALLEY OF THE YONNE There is no more charming river valley in all France than that of the Yonne, which wanders from mid-Burgundy down to join the Seine just above Fontainebleau and the artists' haunts of Moret and Montigny. The present day Département of the Yonne was carved out of a part of the old Senonais and Auxerrois; the latter, a Burgundian fief, and the former, a tiny countship under the suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne. Manners and customs, and art and architecture, however, throughout the department favour Burgundy in the south rather than the northern influences which radiated from the Ile de France. This is true not only with respect to ecclesiastical, civic and military architecture, but doubly so with the domestic varieties ranging from the humble cottage to the more ambitious _manoirs_ and _gentilshommeries_, and finally, to the still more magnificent seigneurial chateaux. Within the confines of this area are some of the most splendid examples extant of Burgundian domestic architecture of the Renaissance period. The Yonne is singularly replete with feudal memories and monuments as well. One remarks this on all sides, whether one enters direct from Paris or from the east or west. From the Morvan and the Gatinais down through the Auxerrois, the Tonnerrois and the Époisses is a definite sequence of architectural monuments which in a very remarkable way suggest that they were the outgrowth of a distinctly Burgundian manner of building, something quite different from anything to be seen elsewhere.