Holidays in Eastern France by Matilda Betham-Edwards (best free ebook reader TXT) 📖

called Mont d'Orient--of which he is the owner--rising above. On a glorious day like this, we, of course, all set off for the mountain-top, and a wonderfully beautiful climb it was, amid vineyards, pastures, and groves of walnut trees. The grapes here are, alas! attacked in many places by the blight oidium, and this year the season has been so wet and cold, that as they must be gathered after the first white frost, they have no chance of ripening. As a natural result, the year's wine will be sour, and sold at a considerable loss to the growers. We stopped on our way to taste the grapes here and there, but as yet none are ripe, though we are in the last days of September. After steadily climbing for an hour, we reached the mountain-top, and sat down to enjoy the view, having in sight on one side the immense plain stretching from the Jura to the hills of the Cote d'Or, on the other, in very clear weather, the Jura range and the top of Mont Blanc. Never shall I forget this charming walk with my host, his son, and daughter, all three able to give me any information I was in need of concerning their beloved Franche-Comte. As we returned home by another way through lovely little woods, dells, and glades, we encountered more than one sportsman in blue blouse, who got into the covert of the wood as fast as he could, in quest of thrushes. "A poacher," my host said, shrugging his shoulders. "Mais que voulez-vous; il y en a tant." Poaching is carried on so largely that very little game is to be had; the severe penalties inflicted by the law having little deterrent effect.

My host told me much of interest concerning the peasants and their ways. The land here belongs to the people, but the rural population is not wealthy, as in Seine et Marne and other regions. The bad vine seasons often ruin the farmer, and much improvidence prevails. In many places the proprietor of a vineyard hires small patches of land to cultivate, but that avidity in making purchases found elsewhere does not exist here. Land is cheap, but labour very dear, and the peasant therefore mistrusts such investments of capital, if he possesses any; and the liability to the failure in the vine crops necessarily checks enterprise in that direction.

On our return, we found an excellent gouter, as these afternoon collations are called, substitutes, in fact, for our four o'clock tea. We drank each other's health after the old fashion with the celebrated Arbois wine, called le vin de Paille, from the process the grape goes through, being dried in straw before fermentation. This vin de Paille has an exquisite flavour and is very costly and rare, even in these parts, being chiefly grown by amateurs for themselves. It is clear as crystal, and yellow as gold. Sorry indeed was I to quit these kind and charming friends with whom I would gladly have spent many a day. They had so much to show me--antique furniture, a collection of old French faience, sketches in oils, the work of my host himself, books on the history of Franche-Comte, collections, geological and archaeological, bearing on the history of the country; last, but not least, my hostess--admirable type of the well-bred Catholic chatelaine of former days--was an accomplished musician, ready to delight her guest with selections from Chopin and Schubert, and other favorite composers. But, however reluctantly on both sides, our adieux had to be made, a promise being exacted from me to visit Franche-Comte ere long again.

I shall carry away no more agreeable recollection of Eastern France than this pleasant country home and its occupants in the Jura, father, mother, young son and daughter, all vying with each other in making my visit pleasant and profitable. It is touching to be so welcomed, so taken leave of in the midst of a remote foreign place, all the more so when there was no Protestantism and Republicanism, only natural liking and a community of tastes, to bring us together! French Protestants welcome us English folks--presumably Protestants too--as their kindred, but let it not be supposed that even in the heart of Catholic regions like this, we are now generally regarded with abhorrence as aliens from the true faith--culture, high tastes, and tolerance naturally go hand in hand.

In order to get a good idea of the scenery here the plain must be visited as well as the mountains, and very beautiful it is as seen from such eminences as those occupied by the Chateaux de l'Etoile and Arlay; both excursions to be accomplished in a long afternoon, even with a halt for gouter at the former place, its owners being friends of my host and hostess. This modern chateau occupies the site of the old, and commands wide views on every side, in the far distance the valley of the Saone and the mountains of the Cote d'Or, with the varied, richly wooded plain at our feet. The Bresse, as this is called, is not healthy for the most part, and the population suffer from marsh fever, but it is well cultivated and very productive; vines grow sparsely in the plain, the chief crops consisting of corn, maize, beetroot, hemp, &c. A curious feature of farming in the Bresse is the number of artificial ponds which are seen in different directions. These ponds are allowed to remain for four years, and are then filled up, producing very rich crops. In the meantime a good deal of fish is thus procured. The land is parcelled out into small farms, the property of small peasant proprietors, as in the vineyard regions of the Jura. After having admired one prospect after another, hill and valley, wood and pine forest, far off mountain ranges and wide purple plain, we were of course not permitted to go away without tasting the famous wine for which the Etoile is celebrated, and other good things. Useless it is to protest upon these occasions, not only once, but twice and even thrice you are compelled, in spite of remonstrances, to partake, and glasses are touched after the old fashion. We then quitted our kind host and hostess of this airy perch, and continued our journey, still in the Plains, to Arlay, a village. dominated by the majestic ruins of an old feudal castle, standing in the midst of fine old trees worthy of an English park.

Arlay was built in the ninth century by Gerard de Boussillon, and now belongs to the Prince d'Aremberg whose handsome modern chateau lies at its foot. The Prince of Aremberg is one of the largest landowners in France, and we were told had not visited this splendid possession for ten years.

Many other no less interesting excursions are to be made from Lons-le-Saunier, but I am a belated traveller, overtaken by autumn rains and chills, and must hasten on my way. September and October are often glorious months in the Jura, but it is safest to come sooner, and then picnics innumerable can be made, and fine weather relied upon from day to day. The town itself is cheerful, but offers little of interest to the tourist, beyond the salines, or salt-works, which, however, are on a much smaller scale than at Salins, and one or two other objects of interest. A curious feature in its architecture are the arcades in the streets, similar to those at Arbois, and some other old towns in Franche-Comte, relics of the Spanish occupation. There is also an unmistakeable Spanish element to be found in the population, witness the black eyes, and hair, and dark rich complexions of a type common enough here, yet quite distinct from that of the true French stock. The people as a rule are well-made, stalwart, and good-looking, polite to strangers, and very voluble in conversation.

If the antiquities of Lons-le-Saunier are insignificant, no one can fail, however, to be struck with the handsome public buildings, chiefly modern, which are on a scale quite magnificent for a town of only eleven thousand inhabitants. The hospital, the caserne, or barracks, the lycee, the ecole normale, the bank, all these are large enough and magnificent enough, one would suppose, for any but the largest provincial towns; the streets are spacious, and the so-called Grande Place, in the centre of the town, is adorned by a fine statue of General Lecourbe, where formerly stood a statue of Pichegru; this was presented by Charles X. to the municipality in 1826, and broken by the townspeople in 1830. The gardens of the hospital are adorned by a bust of the great anatomist, Bichat, whose birth-place, like that of Homer, is disputed. Bourg-en-Bresse disputes the honour with Lons-le-Saunier, and Bourg possesses the splendid monument to Bichat's memory by David d'Angers. The museum is worth visiting, less for the sake of its archaeological collection than its sculptural gallery, chiefly consisting of works by a contemporary native artist, Perrault.

One of the prettiest strolls in the neighbourhood of this most "spazierlich" town, as the Germans say, i.e., a town to be enjoyed by pedestrians, is the old little village of Montaigu, which is reached after half an hour's climb among the vineyards. As we mount, we get a magnificent panorama to our right, the plain of La Bresse, to-day blue and dim as a summer sea; to our left, the Jura range, dark purple shadows here and there flecking the green mountain sides; the pretty little town of Lons-le-Saunier at our feet. On this bright September day everything is glowing and beautiful; the air is fresh and invigorating, and the sun still hot enough to ripen the grapes which we see on every side.

Montaigu, however, is not visited for the sake of these lovely prospects so much as its celebrity as a birth-place. This little hamlet and former fortress, perched on a mountain top, is, perhaps, little changed in outward appearance since a soldier-poet, destined to revolutionise France with a song, was born there a hundred years ago. The immortal, inimitable Marseillaise, which electrified every French man, woman, or child then, and stirs the calmest with profound emotion now, is, indeed, the Revolution incorporated into poetry, and the words and music of the young soldier, Rouget de Lisle, have played a more important part in history than any other in any age or nation. Alas! the Marseillaise has been sadly misappropriated since, and cannot be heard by those who know French history without pain; yet it has played a glorious part, and, doubtless, contributed to many a victory when France saw itself beset with enemies on every side in its first and greatest struggle for liberty. It is not to be expected in a country so priest-ridden as this, that a statue to Rouget de Lisle should be erected in his native town; but surely an inscription, merely stating the fact, might be placed on the house wherein he first saw the light. There is nothing to distinguish it from any other, except a solid iron gateway through which we looked into a little court-yard, and upon a modest yet well-to-do bourgeois dwelling of the olden time.

The entire village street has an antiquated look, and the red roof tops, with corner pieces for letting off the snow, which falls abundantly here, are picturesque, if not suggestive of comfort. On our way back to the town, we found all the beauty and fashion of Lons-le-Saunier collected on the promenade of La Chevalerie to hear the military band, which, as usual in French towns, plays on Sunday afternoons. This same promenade is famous in history, for here it was, on the 31st May, 1815, that Marshal Ney, having decided upon going over to the army of the Emperor Napoleon, summoned his troops, and issued the famous proclamation beginning with