282 The Unknown River, 



But the mediaeval city has disappeared almost as com- 

 pletely as the Roman. The classic amphitheatre is 

 razed to the ground ; of the mediaeval cathedral (a great 

 edifice of the purest Gothic) there remains one arch in a 

 garden. The present cathedral is a church which stood 

 under the shadow of the old one. A few fragments of 

 the mediaeval city remain here and there, — the house of 

 Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy, now a carpenter's shop, 

 a tower of the old Donjon, and here and there a few 

 houses of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Still 

 Autun is a picturesque and quaint place, full of endless 

 subjects for an etcher. 



If there is any thing in the history of the past that 

 can move or interest the present, the past of this strange 

 city cannot leave us cold. Who could float here on the 

 Arroux, close to the Roman wall, without thinking of all 

 that has happened here, by the shore of this now peace- 

 ful river ? A simple catalogue of the vicissitudes of this 

 city, unparalleled in the succession of her misfortunes*, 

 reads like some marvellous poem. The story of all her 

 sieges has a Homeric grandeur. 



First she was ravaged by Tetricus. After a resistance 

 of seven months she was punished by the conqueror of 

 Tetricus, Aurelian. Ruined by German hordes in the 

 third century, she was sacked again under Diocletian. 

 For twenty-five years she lay prostrate in her ashes, and 

 the lands about her were untilled. She was punished 

 again by Constantius after the defeat of Magnentius. 

 She was besieged by Chonodomarus and Vestralphus ; 

 and after that by the Vandals ; and after that by the Bur- 



