Chapter 39 - Page 2

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. The purpose of the musical chimes to
which I had so artlessly listened was to usher in this
fruitless interval. The regulation was absolute, and
my disappointment relative, as I have been happy to
reflect since I "looked up" the picture. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle assign it without hesitation to Roger van
der Weyden, and give a weak little drawing of it in
their "Flemish Painters." I learn from them also -
what I was ignorant of - that Nicholas Ronin, Chan-
cellor of Burgundy and founder of the establishment
at Beaune, was the original of the worthy kneeling
before the Virgin, in the magnificent John van Eyck
of the Salon Carre. All I could see was the court of
the hospital and two or three rooms. The court, with
its tall roofs, its pointed gables and spires, its wooden
galleries, its ancient well, with an elaborate superstruc-
ture of wrought iron, is one of those places into which
a sketcher ought to be let loose. It looked Flemish
or English rather than French, and a splendid tidiness
pervaded it. The porter took me into two rooms on
the ground-floor, into which the sketcher should also
be allowed to penetrate; for they made irresistible
pictures. One of them, of great proportions, painted
in elaborate "subjects," like a ball-room of the seven-
teenth century, was filled with the beds of patients,
all draped in curtains of dark red cloth, the tradi-
tional uniform of these, eleemosynary couches. Among
them the sisters moved about, in their robes of white
flannel, with big white linen hoods. The other room
was a strange, immense apartment, lately restored
with much splendor. It was of great length and
height, had a painted and gilded barrel-roof, and one
end of it - the one I was introduced to - appeared
to serve as a chapel, as two white-robed sisters were
on their knees before an altar. This was divided by
red curtains from the larger part; but the porter lifted
one of the curtains, and showed me that the rest
of it, a long, imposing vista, served as a ward, lined
with little red-draped beds. "C'est l'heure de la
lecture," remarked my guide; and a group of conva-
lescents - all the