The Tone Of The Place At That
Hour Was Not At All Lunar; It Was Cold And Bright, But
With
The chill of an autumn morning; yet this, even
with the fact of the unexpected remoteness of the
church from
The Jura added to it, did not prevent me
from feeling that I looked at a monument in the pro-
duction of which - or at least in the effect of which
on the tourist mind of to-day - Matthew Arnold had
been much concerned. By a pardonable license he
has placed it a few miles nearer to the forests of the
Jura than it stands at present. It is very true that,
though the mountains in the sixteenth century can
hardly have been in a different position, the plain
which separates the church from them may have been
bedecked with woods. The visitor to-day cannot help
wondering why the beautiful building, with its splendid
works of art, is dropped down in that particular spot,
which looks so accidental and arbitrary. But there
are reasons for most things, and there were reasons
why the church of Brou should be at Brou, which is
a vague little suburb of a vague little town.
The responsibility rests, at any rate, upon the
Duchess Margaret, - Margaret of Austria, daughter of
the Emperor Maximilian and his wife Mary of Bur-
gundy, daughter of Charles the Bold. This lady has
a high name in history, having been regent of the
Netherlands in behalf of her nephew, the Emperor
Charles V., of whose early education she had had the
care.
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