I Stopped At Beaune In Pursuit Of The Picturesque, But I Might Almost Have Seen The Little I Discovered Without Stop- Ping.

It is a drowsy little Burgundian town, very old and ripe, with crooked streets, vistas always ob- lique, and steep, moss-covered roofs.

The principal lion is the Hopital-Saint-Esprit, or the Hotel-Dieu, simply, as they call it there, founded in 1443 by Nicholas Rollin, Chancellor of Burgundy. It is ad- ministered by the sisterhood of the Holy Ghost, and is one of the most venerable and stately of hospitals. The face it presents to the street is simple, but strik- ing, - a plain, windowless wall, surmounted by a vast slate roof, of almost mountainous steepness. Astride this roof sits a tall, slate-covered spire, from which, as I arrived, the prettiest chimes I ever heard (worse luck to them, as I will presently explain) were ring- ing. Over the door is a high, quaint canopy, without supports, with its vault painted blue and covered with gilded stars. (This, and indeed the whole build- ing, have lately been restored, and its antiquity is quite of the spick-and-span order. But it is very delightful.) The treasure of the place is a precious picture, - a Last Judgment, attributed equally to John van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, - given to the hospital in the fifteenth century by Nicholas Rollin aforesaid.

I learned, however, to my dismay, from a sympa- thizing but inexorable concierge, that what remained to me of the time I had to spend at Beaune, between trains, - I had rashly wasted half an hour of it in breakfasting at the station, - was the one hour of the day (that of the dinner of the nuns; the picture is in their refectory) during which the treasure could not be shown.

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