The Hospice de Beaune is for all considerations a remarkable edifice; its functions have been many and various and its glories have been great. Formerly the Hospice stood for hospitality; to-day it is either a hospital, or a matter-of-fact business proposition; you may think of it as you like, according to your mood, and how it strikes you. The Benedictine Abbey de Fécamp, like Dauphiny's Grande Chartreuse, is but a business enterprise whose stocks and bonds in their inflated values take rank with Calumet and Hecla, Monte Carlo's Casino, or other speculative projects. The same is true of the wine exploitation of the monks of Citeaux at Clos Vougeot, and of the famous wine cellars of the Hospice de Beaune. We may like to think of the old romantic glamour that hangs over these shrines, but in truth it is but a pale reflected light. This is true from a certain point of view at any rate. Beaune's Hospice, with its queer mélange of churchly and heraldic symbols ranged along with its Hispano-Gothic details, is "more a _chateau-de-luxe_ than a poor-house," said a sixteenth century vagabond traveller who was entertained therein. And, taking our clue from this, we will so consider it. "It is worth being poor all one's life to finally come to such a refuge as this in which to end one's days," said Louis XI. The foundation of the Hospice dates from 1443, as the date on its carven portal shows. It was started on its philanthropic and useful career by Nicholas Rollin and his wife Guignonne de Salins. It was then accounted, as it is to-day, "a superb foundation endowed with great wealth." The desire of the founders was that the occupants should be surrounded with as much of comfort and luxury as a thousand of _livres_ of income for each (a considerable sum for that far-away epoch) should allow. This fifteenth century Hospice de Beaune is one of the most celebrated examples of the wood-workers' manner of building of its time. The role that it plays among similar contemporary structures wherever found is supreme. It is only in Flanders that any considerable number of similar architectural details of construction are found. The general view of the edifice from without hardly does justice to the many architectural excellencies which it possesses. The _heurtoir_, or door-knocker, in forged iron, still hanging before the portal, is the same that was first hung there in the fifteenth century, and which has responded to countless appeals of wayfarers. The iron work of the interior court is of the same period. With the inner courtyard the aspect changes. On one side is the Flemish-Gothic, or Hispano-Gothic, structure of old, one of the most ornate and satisfying combinations of wooden gables and _pignons_ and covered galleries one can find above ground to-day. Frankly it is an importation from alien soil, a transplantation from the Low Countries, where the style was first developed during the Spanish occupation in Flanders.