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 lycée, the école 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 the words: "La cause des Bourbons est à jamais perdue." Ney deceived himself, as well as the Royalists, and was shot soon after the final overthrow at Waterloo. There is no lack of pleasant walks inside the town as well as in the environs, whilst, perhaps, no other of its size possesses so many cafés and cabarets. In fact, Lons-le-Saunier is a place where amusement is the order of the day, and, of course, possesses its theatre, museum, and public library; the first, perhaps, being much more popular than the two latter. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die," is the maxim of the light-hearted, we must even say frivolous population. While the men amuse themselves in the cafés, the women go to the confessional, and no matter at what hour you enter a church, you are sure to find them thus occupied. The Jesuits have established a large training-school here, une maison de noviciat, so called; and conventual institutions abound, as at Arbois. Just beyond the pleasant garden of the Presbytère is a large building of cloistered nuns, wretched women, belonging to the upper ranks of society, who have shut themselves up to mortify the flesh and practise all kinds of puerilities for the glory of the church. All the handsome municipal institutions, large hospitals, orphanages, asylums for the aged, &c., are in the hands of the nuns and priests, and woe betide the unfortunate Protestant who is driven to seek such shelter!
The same battle occurs here over Protestant interments as in other parts of Franche-Comté. In some cases it is necessary for the préfets to send gendarmes, and have the law carried out by force; the village mayors being generally uneducated men, mere tools of the curés.
After the idyllic pictures I have drawn of other parts of France, I am reluctantly obliged to draw a very different picture of society here. The army and the celibate clergy, the soldier and the priest—such are the demoralizing elements that undermine domestic morality and family life in garrison, priest-ridden towns like this. Drink and debauchery fill the prisons, and the taint of immorality is not limited to one class alone. How can it be otherwise? seeing that while the heads of families openly profess unbelief, and deride their priests, they permit their wives and daughters to go to confession, and confide their children to the spiritual teachers they profess to abhor? This point was clearly brought out by the Père Hyacinthe in one of his recent discourses in Paris, and his words struck home. Next to the celibate priesthood, it is the army that brings about such a state of things. Householders in Lons-le-Saunier will tell you that, no matter whether their female servants be young, middle-aged, or old, they have to bar and bolt their doors at night as if against marauding Arabs in remote settlements of Algeria. Even when these precautions are taken, the sound of whistling outside the kitchen door at nightfall will often indicate the presence of loafers on their evil quest. In the rural districts domestic morality is at a very low ebb also, and on the whole there is much to be done here by both reformer and educationalist.
I left Lons-le-Saunier early on a bright September morning, the children being lifted, still drowsy, out of their little beds to bid their English friend good-bye. Several diligences start simultaneously from the Bureau des Messageries here for different places in the heart of the Jura, so that tourists cannot do better than make this a starting place. No matter what direction they take, they will find themselves landed in the midst of glorious mountain scenery, and romantic little towns and valleys, unknown to the majority of the travelling world. This is the charm of travelling in these parts. The tourist is breaking virgin soil wherever he goes, and if he has to rough it at every stage, at least he receives substantial reward. My route, marked out for me beforehand by experienced Jurassiens, lay by way of Champagnole and Morez to St. Claude, the ancient little bishopric in the heart of the Jura highlands, thence to Nantua, thus zig-zagging right through the country.
CHAPTER X.
CHAMPAGNOLE AND MOREZ.
On quitting Lons-le-Saunier for Champagnole, our way led through rich tracts of vineyard; but no sooner were we fairly among the mountains than the vine disappeared altogether, and scant culture and pastures took its place. We also soon perceive the peculiar characteristics of the Jura range, which so essentially distinguish it from the Alps. These mountains do not take abrupt shapes of cones and sugar-loaves, but stretch out in vast sweeps with broad summits and lateral ridges, features readily seized, and lending to the landscape its most salient characteristics. Not only are we entering the region of lofty mountains and deep valleys, but of numerous industrial centres, also the land of mediaeval warfare and legend, whence arose the popular saying: