A fine Gothic portal leads to the inner court of this magnificent edifice, which was erected by two abbés, Jean de Bourbon and Jacques d'Amboise. Each had built a separate dwelling on either side of the great portal. That of the Cardinal de Bourbon is unlovely enough, as such edifices go, but has an air of a certain sumptuousness notwithstanding. That of Jacques d'Amboise is a highly ornate work of the Renaissance, and now serves as the Hôtel de Ville, whilst the other houses a local museum and library. A garden of the formal order surrounds the two edifices and covers a goodly bit of the ground formerly occupied by the other buildings attached to the abbey. Entrance to this garden, and its Palais Abbatial, as the ensemble is officially known, is through a double Romanesque portal, as much a militant note as the rest is religious. Cluny's Hôtel Dieu is another remarkable souvenir of old. Within are various monuments and statues of churchmen and nobles which give it at once a lien on one's regard. There is a luxurious monument to one of the Abbés of Cluny; another, that the Cardinal de Bouillon erected to his father, Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne, Duc Souverain de Bouillon, Prince Souverain de Sedan. Here and there about the town an old feudal tower or house-front juts out in close communion with some banal modern façade, but the whole aspect of the city of some four thousand inhabitants to-day is, when viewed from a distant approach, as of a feudal city with no modernities whatever. Near acquaintance disabuses one of this idea, but, regardless of this, the aspect of Cluny, the monastery and the city, is one of imposing and harmonious grandeur, hardly to be likened to any similar ensemble in France or beyond the frontiers. Near Cluny, in the heart of the "Black Valley," is the Chateau de Cormatin, belonging to a M. Gunsbourg, and containing an important collection of pictures and furniture, all of them antique, which are cordially submitted to the gaze of the curious upon a diplomatic request. Rising from the plain, on the road to Tournus, is the Chateau de Brançion, a feudal relic and not much more, but proclaiming its former military glory as if its history had been epoch-making, which it probably was not, as there is but scant reference to it in local annals. As one approaches Mâcon by road from the north or west, great villas and "_chateaux de commerce_" line every kilometre of the way. Some are ancient and historic, though in no really great sense; others are modern and banally, painfully, well-kept and whitewashed--only the _badigeon_ is pink or blue or green, painted one can readily believe by the artist (_sic_) descendants of the Italians who once inhabited the region in large numbers. There are overhanging balconies on all sides; balustrades, terraces and loggias relieve the monotony of most of the façades, and indeed, it is as if a corner of Italy had been transported to mid-France.