BROU
is an uninteresting suburban village outside Bourg-en-Bresse, 32km east
of Mâcon, which happens to have an early sixteenth-century church
(daily; €2.44). If you're heading east to Geneva or the Alps, take a
look, but don't lose a lift or miss a train for it. Aldous Huxley found
it "a horrible little architectural nightmare", its monuments
"positively and piercingly vulgar". Certainly, it was a very rich
woman's expensive folly, crammed with virtuoso craftsmanship from the
dying moments of the Gothic style; it was undertaken by Margaret of
Austria after the death of her husband, Philibert, Duke of Savoy, as a
mausoleum for the two of them and Philibert's mother. It's interesting
to see, but soulless, without a trace of vision or inspiration - it's
no longer a place of worship.
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