The South of France—East Half

by C. B. Black

PARIS
MARSEILLES 150 380 [POUGUES LES EAUX], pop. 1400. Hotels: Near the station, the H. du Châlet. At the entrance into the avenue, the H. de l’Etablissement, and opposite the “Etablissement,” the Hôtel Thermal. Pougues, being a quiet place, can be recommended only to those in search of repose, whose stomach or other internal organs have become weak or deranged. The establishment, which has every kind of apparatus for administering the water, is situated in a park extending to the Loire, where fair rod-fishing may be had. The water, principally used internally, is cold, has a pungent taste, and contains a large amount of carbonic acid gas, both free and in combination with lime, soda, potash, magnesia, and iron, and is serviceable in the cure of dyspepsia, enlargement of the liver, gall-stones, and diseases of the kidneys. Douche baths of carbonic acid gas are employed.

PARIS
MARSEILLES 154 376 [FOURCHAMBAULT], pop. 6500. Inns: H. Bourges at station; in town, H. Berry. A town on the Loire full of large ironworks, employing above 5000 workmen. The Colonne de Juillet and the Pont du Carrousel were cast here. Omnibus at station.

Nevers.

PARIS
MARSEILLES 158 372 [NEVERS], pop. 20,400. Hotels: at the station, H. de la Paix; H. du Chemin de Fer. In the town the France, Europe, and Nièvre. A short distance N.W. from the station, or from the N.W. corner of the Park, is the nunnery of St. Giddard, containing the tomb of Bernadette Soubirous, to which establishment she was entrusted after her reported interviews with the “immaculately conceived one,” and where she died, after a lingering illness, caused, it is said, by the knowledge that the present pope had not the same implicit faith in her story as his predecessor Pio IX. entertained (see under Lourdes, in Black’s South France, West Half). In the garden of the convent, in a small chapel, is her grave, covered by a marble slab bearing the following inscription:— “Ici repose, dans la paix du Seigneur, Bernadette Soubirous, honorée à Lourdes en 1858 de plusieurs apparitions de la Très Sainte Vierge. En religion Sœur Marie Bernard, décédée à Nevers, à la Maison-Mère des Sœurs de la Charité, le 16 Avril 1879 dans le 35^e année de son age et la 12^me de sa profession religieuse. C’est ici le lieu. Psalm 131, v. 15.”

Julius Cæsar kept his military stores in Nevers; but after his defeat at [Gergovia] (p. 372) the inhabitants plundered his camp and massacred the soldiers. Of the old fortifications there remain the tower of the Loire, of which the lower part is of the 11th cent.; the tower of St. Eloi, 16th cent.; the tower Goguin, 12th cent.; and the Porte du Croux, a square tower of the 12th cent., but rebuilt in 1393, now containing an antiquarian museum. At the entrance into the town by the Paris road is a triumphal arch, erected in 1746 to commemorate the victory of Fontenoy, 12th May 1745, when the French defeated the Anglo-German and Dutch forces under the Duke of Cumberland. Nevers stands on the slope of a hill rising from the Loire in the midst of a flat country abounding with iron, giving employment to important ironworks. In the most elevated part is the Grande Place, with the Palais de Justice, formerly the Palais Ducal, a stately edifice built in 1475 by Jean de Clamecy, Comte de Nevers, but altered and enlarged during the 16th cent. by his successors, belonging to the families of Clèves and Gonzaga. It is in the form of a parallelogram, flanked with four towers, each containing

a staircase. In the centre turret is the “Escalier d’honneur,” ornamented with sculpture representing scenes connected with the history of the house of Clèves. The market-place occupies the site of the old Palais de Justice, built in 1400 by Philippe de Bourgogne. Opposite the Palais de Justice is a fountain by Lequesne. [ Nevers: Faïence.] In the Hôtel de Ville are the Library, the Picture Gallery, and an interesting collection of faïence, which has been manufactured at Nevers for eight centuries. Faïence is the French term for all descriptions of glazed earthenware, and corresponds nearly to the English word “crockery.” The manufacture of majolica or enamelled pottery was introduced into France by Catherine de Médicis and her kinsman Louis Gonzaga, who, by marriage with Henrietta of Clèves in 1565, became Duke of Nevers. There are still important pottery works in the town.

Nevers: Cassini.

Opposite the Palais de Justice is the Cathedral of St. Cyr, reconstructed in the 13th cent., with parts belonging to other epochs. The nave was rebuilt in 1188, the N. portal in 1240, the choir in the 14th cent., and the S. portal, which is flamboyant in style, adorned with complicated mouldings, in the 15th cent. In the interior we find a western and eastern apse; the former, 16th cent., covers a crypt of the 11 th cent. Statuettes like Caryatides sustain the columns of the triforium. On the floor of the western end is the meridian traced by the astronomer [Cassini] while engaged in the triangulation of France.

The church of St. Etienne, 1097, is in the Romanesque style. St. Père was built in 1512, St. Genest, now in ruins, in the 12th cent., and the chapel of the Visitandines in 1639.

32½ m. E. by rail is Cercy la Tour, where a coach awaits passengers for the comfortable bathing establishment of St. Honoré. The water is hot, and in chemical composition resembles very much the springs in the Pyrenees. Hotel at the establishment. (See [map, p. 1].)