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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
absence. Among the toys paid for in diamonds was an automatic bird that warbled and flapped its wings.
This was intended for the amusement of visitors.
The carnival proved of short duration. It was on the 1st of February, 1783, that the diamond necklace was
handed over to Madame de la Motte, Rohan receiving in return the forged signature of "Marie-Antoinette
de France." On August of the same year, in the midst of a banquet given at Bar-sur-Aube, a visitor
arrived with startling news. "The Prince Cardinal de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, was on the
Festival of Assumption, arrested in pontifical robes, charged with having purchased a diamond necklace
in the name of the Queen."
The charm of these little French towns and rustic spots lies in their remoteness, the feeling they give us
of being so entirely aloof from familiar surroundings. In many a small Breton or Norman town we hear
little else but English speech, and in the one general shop of tiny villages see The New York
Herald on sale. But from the time of leaving Nemours to that of reaching the farthest point
mentioned in these sketches we encounter no English or American tourists. This essentially foreign
atmosphere is not less agreeable than conducive to instruction. We are thus thrown into direct contact
with the country people and are enabled to realise French modes of life and thought.
CHAPTER XVIII. ST. JEAN DE LOSNE.
Within the last twenty-five years so many new lines of railway have been opened in France that there is
no longer any inducement - I am inclined to say excuse - for keeping to the main road. Yet, strangely
enough, English tourists mostly ignore such opportunities. For one fellow-countryman we meet on the
route described here, hundreds are encountered on the time-honoured roads running straight from Paris to
Switzerland. Quit Dijon by any other way and the English-speaking world is lost sight of, perhaps more
completely than anywhere else on the civilised globe. Again and again it has happened to myself to be
regarded in rural France as a kind of curiosity, the first subject of Queen Victoria ever met with; again
and again I have spent days, nay weeks, on French soil, the sole reminder of my native land being the
daily paper posted in London. It is now many years since I first visited St. Jean de Losne, in company of
a French acquaintance, a notary, both of us being bound to a country-house on the Saone. At that time the
railway did not connect it with Dijon, and in brilliant September weather we jogged along by diligence, a
pleasant five hours' journey enough. My companion, a native of the Cote d'Or, seemed to know everyone
we passed on the way, whenever we stopped to change horses getting out for a gossip with this friend
and that he had taken the precaution to provide himself with a huge loaf of bread, from which he hacked
off morsels for us both from time to time. As we had started at seven o'clock in the morning, and got no
dejeuner till past noon, the doles were acceptable. The fellow-traveller of that first journey - alas! With
how many friends of the wine country! - has long since gone to his rest. The second time I set forth
alone, taking my seat in the slow - the very slow - train running alongside the Canal de Bourgogne. On
the central platforms of the Dijon railway station, crowds of English and American tourists were hurrying
to their trains, bound respectively for Paris and Geneva. No sooner was I fairly off, my fellow travellers
being two or three country-folks, than the conventionalities of travel had vanished. Surroundings as well
as scenery became entirely French.
The Burgundian character is very affable, and although people may wonder what can be your errand in
remote regions, they never show their curiosity after disagreeable fashion. They are delighted to discover
that interest in France - artistic, economic, or industrial - has led you thither, and will afford any
assistance or information in their power. They seem to regard the wayfaring Britisher as whimsical, that
is all.
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