III St. Vincent de Macon
The Mastieo of the Romans was not the Macon of to-day, though, by evolution, or corruption, or whatever the process may have been, the name has come down to us as referring to the same place. The former city did not border the river, but was seated on a height overlooking the Saône, which flows by the doors of the present city of Macon.
Its site is endowed with most of the attributes included in the definition of “commanding,” and, though not grandly situated, is, from any riverside view-point, attractive and pleasing.
When it comes to the polygonal towers of its olden cathedral, this charming and pleasing view changes to that of one which is curious and interesting. The cathedral of St. Vincent is a battered old ruin, and no amount of restoration and rebuilding will ever endow it with any more deserving qualities.
The Revolution was responsible for its having withered away, as it was also for the abolishment of the see of Macon.
The towers stand to-day—lowered somewhat from their former proportions—gaunt and grim, and the rich Burgundian narthen, which lay between, has been converted—not restored, mark you—into an inferior sort of chapel.
The destruction that fell upon various parts of this old church might as well have been more sweeping and razed it to the ground entirely. The effect could not have been more disheartening.
Macon formerly had twelve churches. Now it has three—if we include this poor fragment of its one-time cathedral. Between the Revolution and the coronation of Napoleon I. the city was possessed of no place of worship.
Macon became an episcopal see, with Placide as its first bishop, in the sixth century. It was suppressed in 1790.
The bridge which crosses the river to the suburb of St. Laurent is credited as being the finest work of its kind crossing the Saône. Hamerton has said that “its massive arches and piers, wedge-shaped to meet the wind, are pleasant to contemplate after numerous festoons of wire carrying a roadway of planks.” This bridge was formerly surmounted, at either end, with a castellated gateway, but, like many of these accessories elsewhere, they have disappeared.
The famous bridge at Cahors (shown elsewhere in this book) is the best example of such a bridge still existing in France.
As a “cathedral city,” Macon will not take a high rank. The “great man” of Macon was Lamartine. His birthplace is shown to visitors, but its present appearance does not suggest the splendid appointments of its description in that worthy’s memoirs.
Macon is the entrepôt of the abundant and excellent vin du Bourgogne, and the strictly popular repute of the city rests entirely on this fact.