Burgundy: from one château to another

"He is no good who does not seek to become better"A good corporate precept! An adage to inspire management committees, galvanise sales forces and electrify team buildings! It comes from Saint Bernard, founder of the Cistercian order. In fact, it was by religiously applying this maxim that his monks became skilful winegrowers and creators of Grands Crus. To say that Burgundy owes them a debt of gratitude would be an understatement.

Burgundy's abbeys and châteaux bear witness to the region's glorious and turbulent past, a prosperous geopolitical entity forged in the Middle Ages. The duchy extended as far as Flanders and the Netherlands, becoming a powerful kingdom as well as a major centre of artistic creation and a centre of Christianity through the influence of the abbeys of Cluny and then Cîteaux. Founded in 1098 some twenty kilometres south of Dijon, Cîteaux is still active today. The abbey has 40 rooms available to individuals and groups for retreats lasting from two to seven days. The monastery shop sells its own products, including a highly successful fruity cheese.

Sadly, nothing remains of the abbey's original buildings, which were looted and destroyed during the Revolution. However, the community perpetuates the spirit of its abbot and inspirer: Bernard de Fontaine, known as Bernard de Clairvaux, a son of Burgundian nobility who was canonised in 1174.

The man whom Michelet dubbed "the abbot of abbots" was a reformer. In reaction to the lavish lifestyle of the Benedictines of the wealthy abbey of Cluny, he developed the Cistercian order. The master of thought denounced the deviation of the Cluniacs and eloquently advocated respect for the monastic requirements of humility, poverty and charity; asceticism and withdrawal from the world. These were eminently virtuous practices that would ensure the Order's success and prosperity. By the time Bernard died in 1153, there were more than three hundred abbeys in Europe under the spiritual authority of Cîteaux, whose influence had outstripped that of Cluny.

EXTREME CISTERCIAN RIGOUR

Cistercian asceticism can be seen in its architecture, a jewel of which remains near Montbard: Fontenay Abbey (1118), surprisingly well-preserved because it was disused during the French Revolution and converted into a paper mill. Although this new activity led to the construction of several industrial buildings within its walls, the original structure has been preserved and was listed as a historic monument in 1852. From the early 20th century onwards, it was carefully restored by the patron banker Édouard Aynard, one of the owners' descendants and... the grandfather of designer Andrée Putman. As a child, she spent her summers here. The chic minimalism that was her signature may well have come from this leisurely observance of Cistercian rigour, proscribing sculptures, paintings and all ornamentation".the effect of which is to divert the attention of the faithful towards them and to diminish recollection". Said Saint Bernard.

COCKTAILS AT FONTENAY

The abbey church is striking in its simplicity. All that remains is the organisation of the space: a cruciform floor plan, sparse openings, a dark nave lined with aisles, and the quality of light generated by the arrangement of the main bays on the arches and pillars of the arcades. The beauty of the place is captivating, instinctively eliciting murmurs and inviting contemplation. The same credo guided the design of the conventual buildings: the cloister, chapter house and monks' room. The purity of the whole resonates with Le Corbusier's definition of architecture eight centuries later: "the skilful, correct and magnificent interplay of volumes in the light". Today, Fontenay Abbey welcomes groups wishing to take advantage of private tours or organise cocktails in its cloister, or even lunch in its French-style garden surrounded by lush vegetation. The appetising Michèle Mercier filmed the legendary Angélique, Marquise des Anges here in 1964, and Gérard Depardieu the final scenes of Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano in 1990.

"Montbard is only an hour from Paris by TGV!"exclaims Hubert Aynard, the abbey's current owner. Even though the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, he fights tirelessly to finance its upkeep, including that of its two hectares of roofs. He's right to insist: you're out of this world here, with a complete change of scenery and a journey time faster than some RER lines.

The Cistercians of the high period, faithful to Benedictine doctrine, worked tirelessly to achieve autonomy and charity.

In Fontenay, they were blacksmiths. South of Dijon, winegrowers. Seeing work as another way of praying, they placed skill and rigour at the forefront of their values. In their quest for perfection, they tirelessly sought out the most appropriate methods for obtaining the best wine from their land, a gift from the lords. Study of the vine stock, pruning, cuttings, grafting, vinification methods: nothing is foreign to them. They also developed the lever press and the principle of "clos", i.e. the demarcation of plots of land by low stone walls to fix the boundaries between them, but also to capture the sun's heat and release it at night. These wine experts were at the origin of what has now become the "route des grands crus", 80 km of vineyards of excellence, the mere mention of which is a source of delight for wine lovers: Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, Vosne-Romanée... We can never thank the Cistercians of the Abbey of Cîteaux enough for their bequests, the vineyards of Meursault and those of Clos de Vougeot among many others.

Just a few kilometres from Cîteaux, the Château du Clos de Vougeot has stood the test of time, unlike the abbey from which it sprang. Like an old field marshal looking down on his theatre of operations, it is an imposing, heterogeneous structure set amidst the vines. The residential part that gives it the name of château is a 16th-century addition restored in the 19th century, but the buildings are original - the 12th-century winery facilities illustrate the wine-making expertise of the monks of the time. The vat room was designed around a central void to evacuate carbon dioxide, and the cellar was fitted with unusual insulation consisting of 65 cm of rubble to obtain the optimum temperature for conservation.

The Renaissance château, more akin to a manor house in scale, demonstrates a keen sense of commerce. Although not very Cistercian in its ornamentation, the building is justified by the role it was intended to play: to show visitors the status of a prosperous order and a prestigious wine; a source of significant income, but also of influence, as it was consumed by the powerful, including the popes of Avignon. Now occupied by the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, a joyous bachique association and inventive public relations office for Burgundy wines, the château has become a mecca for the international promotion of the region's wines and gastronomy. Convivial and pragmatic, the Confrérie, founded in 1934, regales and adores heads of state, crowned heads and personalities passing through the area, in return for which it has a host of top-class ambassadors all over the world. The entire site is available for private hire for epicurean conferences and seminars under its almost thousand-year-old roof structures. "Never in vain, always wine"The Confrérie's motto announces the programme!

BREATHTAKING HERITAGE

And then there's Beaune and its Hôtel-Dieu founded in 1443, the famous Hospices with its glazed tile roof; the hallmark of regional architecture since the Middle Ages and the setting for one of Bourvil and Louis de Funès' adventures in La Grande Vadrouille. Their flamboyant Gothic buildings are home to an exceptional heritage, including the polyptych of the Last Judgement by Rogier van der Weyden, a fascinating museum of the history of medicine, including "the room of the poor".

The way in which this luxurious hospital, once dedicated to the destitute, was financed has been perpetuated since 1795, with the sale by public auction of the Hospices' other breathtaking heritage: the wines from a series of vineyards that the establishment has owned through successive donations. Today, the estate represents some 60 hectares of Premier and Grand Crus in the area's prestigious appellations: Beaune, Corton, Meursault, Pommard, Puligny-Montrachet, Volnay... these jewels are auctioned each year at an international event organised by Christie's. The proceeds of the auction - just over €11 million for the 2015 sale - go to the Hospices' charities.

How many châteaux are there in Burgundy? Between ruins, fortresses, ducal palaces, Renaissance residences and wine estates, sometimes one per village! Most of them are available for private hire, so groups are spoilt for choice when it comes to organising cocktail parties, team-building events, seminars or gala dinners. To name but a few, Chateauneuf-en-Auxois, Commarin, Ancy-le-Franc, Bussy-Rabutin and La Rochepot make up a quintet representative of the diversity of château lives that have taken place here.

INMANQUABLE SENTINEL

Chateauneuf-en-Auxois is perhaps the best known, if only for its unmistakable silhouette from the A6 motorway. You reach it by taking a narrow, winding country road, skilfully undulating through the hedgerows to offer a glimpse here and there of the fortress and its keep, built in 1175, rough, powerful and scarred. The military edifice belonging to the lords of Chateauneuf is built on a limestone spur, with the structure covering the rock. Visually, the process increased the height of some of the walls by a good third, making it even more imposing during the Hundred Years' War, when the enclosure and five towers linked by a curtain wall were built. Its defensive role then faded somewhat. In the 15th century, Catherine, the last surviving member of the family line, was bored stiff. She succumbed to the charm of her steward and poisoned her odious husband by baking him a magnificent cake... Unmasked, the indelicate pastry chef was imprisoned and then burnt alive. Her sad fate is the talk of visitors to the café in the medieval village, who review her trial with a glass of kir, the quintessential Burgundian aperitif, close at hand. But Catherine has extenuating circumstances: the Black Death had previously taken the lives of her mother, her first husband and her only son...

The castle was put up for sale in 1456. At the end of the 15th century, the sentinel of Chateauneuf laid down its arms for good. The place then became an aristocratic residence until Count Georges de Vogüé, its last owner, bequeathed it to the State in 1936.

A few kilometres further on, at Château de Commarin (13th-18th centuries), it's another Count de Vogüé who welcomes visitors: Bertrand, the current owner of the estate where he lives with his family. "The château has been in the same family for 900 years, he says. It has never been looted, and its 18th-century flats are intact. This family character is what sets us apart: an authentic home where furniture, paintings, tapestries and objects are in the same place they have always been."Visits to the site, which is inhabited all year round, mainly involve the wing housing the magnificent 18th-century flats, where each room, left in its original state, has a history that intersects with that of Burgundy. Also open to the public are the chapel and the superb stables, built on the model of those in Chantilly. These and the English-style grounds are available for private functions. In La Billebaude, Henri Vincenot, who lived in Commarin, recounts how he used to come here to play with his childhood friend, the young Count Charles-Louis de Vogüé. Further into the village, the shutters of the writer's sturdy family home are closed. It is not open to visitors, but all the books by 'L'Henri', as he is known in the region, can be found at the head of the shelf in the château shop.

To the south of Beaune, at the bend in the road that climbs steeply through the hedgerows dotted with hornbeam trees, you'll find La Rochepot. This ruined château, acquired in 1893 by the wife of President Sadi Carnot for her son, tells the story of this enthusiast who, for thirty years, set about rebuilding the building as it was in the fifteenth century, when it was inhabited by Philippe Pot, godson and ambassador of the Duke of Burgundy Philippe le Bon. Organising excavations and spending lavishly, Sadi Carnot fils called on Charles Suisse to carry out a total restoration of the vanished building. The chief architect of historic monuments in Dijon undertook a total restoration, a documented reinvention that, in the words of Viollet-le-Duc, the master of the genre, "restores a state that may never have existed". With its drawbridge, barbican, sentry walk and impressive weapons room, this glazed-tile building is reminiscent of a fairytale castle, including its lush gardens and romantic eagle's nest setting.

SUDDENLY, ITALY, THE RENAISSANCE...

Further north, there is a change of scenery at Ancy-le-Franc (1542-1550), a Renaissance château or rather palace given its size. It was commissioned by Antoine III de Clermont, Lieutenant General of the Dauphiné, from the Italian architect Sébastiano Serlio, who worked at the court of François 1er. The building, comprising four main sections arranged around a vast square courtyard, exudes prestige and majesty. Delicately punctuated by bays, arcades and niches, the façades bear witness to a quest for subtle balance. The interior, with its generous, light-filled galleries featuring one of the finest collections of 16th and 17th century wall paintings, is in perfect harmony. It's the perfect venue for exceptional events. Louis XIV is said to have stopped off here.

Less luxurious, but also superb, is the château of Bussy-Rabutin, dating from the 17th century, which charms by the fantasy of its occupant, Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy (1618-1693), general of the royal armies. This man of letters and member of the Académie Française was disgraced by Louis XIV for his licentious writings. The impertinent libertine distracted himself by writing the Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, depicting the antics of court figures, including the young king and his mother Anne of Austria. The pamphlet amused those close to him, but it was unfortunately copied and published: the author was imprisoned and sentenced to exile. Placed under house arrest in his castle, the maestro of gossip commissioned some 300 portraits of soldiers, politicians and courtiers to decorate his gilded cage. These paintings, to which he added comments and maxims of his own, give the whole a unique value by composing a spiritual chronicle of the period. "The delights and terrors of mankind"he notes beneath the portrait of Louis XIV. "Catherine d'Angennes, Countess of Olonne, the most beautiful woman of her time, less famous for her beauty than for the use she made of it"we read elsewhere. The acerbic Bussy-Rabutin has talent. Purchased by the State in 1929, this château and its 34-hectare park orchestrate surprises, spawning passageways embellished with ponds and a yew maze, making it a piquant stop-off on a Burgundian holiday.

AND EVEN CAESAR AND VERCINGETORIX

Obviously, and even if it's a little outside the scope of the "abbeys and châteaux" theme, a visit to the region is not complete without a diversion to Alise- Sainte-Reine, the site of the famous battle of Alesia which pitted Vercingetorix against Caesar and put Burgundy on the map of French history with a capital H. Alesia, 52 BC! A date forever engraved in the memories of generations of schoolchildren, in the heyday of grey-coated teachers. It was here that the Gallic troops surrendered after a two-month siege. Caesar describes his encirclement strategy in The Gallic War with a double line of defence complete with guard towers and a series of formidable traps. These major works are detailed at the MuseoParc Alésia, which offers groups an auditorium and several meeting rooms. Opened in 2012, the museum immerses visitors in the battle by offering a life-size reconstruction of the key elements of the Roman fortifications. In the cylindrical building designed by architect Bernard Tschumi, the Interpretation Centre provides a lively explanation of the context of the siege, the characteristics of the forces involved and their equipment.

The statue of Vercingetorix stands proudly on the nearby Mont Auxois, exactly where the city of Alesia once stood. You can get lost in the village before reaching the work of art created by Aimé Millet in the 19th century: mo-nu-men-ta-le! Standing 6.60 metres high, it embodies Napoleon III's desire to elevate the Gaulish leader to the rank of first national hero and to establish Gaul as the historic homeland. At a time when France was being invaded by Prussia, the stakes were high, and the artist pulled out all the stops. The patriot, depicted full-length, is deliciously romantic with his bushy moustache and long, windswept hair. Both hands resting on his sword, he casts a shadowy glance at visitors. The sculpture looks at itself with its head turned skywards. A founding myth of French history that invites worship.