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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
Improved accommodation, increased accessibility, cheapened travel and additional attractions, have
changed matters. The season opening in May, and lasting till the end of October, is now patronised by
hundreds of visitors from all parts of eastern France. These health resorts are much more sociable than
our own. Folks drop alike social, political, and religious differences for the time being, and cultivate the
art of being agreeable as only French people can. Excursions, picnics, and pleasure parties are arranged;
in the evening the young folks dance whilst their elders play a rubber of whist, chat, look on, or make
marriages. Many a wedding is arranged during the Saison des Bains, nor can such unions be
called mariages de convenance, as in holiday-time intercourse is comparatively unrestricted.
Grown-up or growing-up sons and daughters then meet as those on English or American soil.
Lons-le-Saulnier possesses little of interest except its Museum, rich in modern sculpture, and its quaint
arcades, recalling the period of Spanish rule in Franche Comte. The excursions lying within easy reach
are numerous and delightful. Foremost of these is a visit to the marvellous rock-shut valley of
Baume-les-Messieurs, so called to distinguish it from Baume-les-Dames near Besancon. The descent is
made on foot, and at first sight appears not only perilous but impracticable, the zigzag path being cut in
almost perpendicular shelves of rock. This mountain staircase, or the "Echelle des Baumes," is not to be
recommended to those afflicted with giddiness. Little sunshine reaches the heart of the gorge, yet below
the turf is brilliant, a veritable islet of green threaded by a tiny river. The natural walls shutting us in have
a majestic aspect, but playful and musical is the Seille as it ripples at our feet. Travellers of an
adventuresome turn can explore the stalactite caverns and other marvels around; not the least of these is a
tiny lake, the depth of which has never been sounded. For half-a-mile the valley winds towards the
straggling village of Baume, and there the marvels abruptly end.
Nothing finer in the way of scenery is to be found throughout eastern France. In the ancient Abbey
Church are two masterpieces, a retable in carved wood and a tomb ornamented with exquisite statuettes.
CHAPTER XIX. NANCY.
It is a pleasant six hours' journey from Dijon via Chalindrey to Nancy. We pass the little village of
Gemeaux, in which amongst French friends I have spent so many happy days.
From the railway we catch sight of the monticule crowned by an obelisk; surmounting the vine-clad
slopes, we also obtain a glimpse of its "Ormes de Sully," or group of magnificent elms, one of many in
France supposed to have been planted by the great Sully. Since my first acquaintance with this
neighbourhood, more than twenty years ago, the aspect of the country hereabouts has in no small degree
changed. Hop gardens in many spots have replaced vineyards, owing to the devastation of the phylloxera.
It was in the last years of the third Empire that the inhabitants of Roquemaure on the Rhone found their
vines mysteriously withering.
A little later the left bank was attacked, and about the same time the famous brandy producing region of
Cognac in the Charente showed similar symptoms. The cause of the mischief, the terrible Phylloxera
devastatrix, was brought to light in 1868. This tiny insect is hardly visible to the naked eye, yet so formed
by Nature as to be a wholesale engine of destruction, its phenomenal productiveness being no less fatal
than its equally phenomenal powers of locomotion. One of these tiny parasites alone propagates at the
rate of millions of eggs in a season, a thousand alone sufficing to destroy two acres and a half of
vineyard. As formidable as this terrible fertility is the speed of the insect's wings or rather sails according
extraordinary ease of movement. A gust of wind, a mere breath of air, and like a grain of dust or a tuft of
thistledown, this germ of destruction is borne whither chance directs, to the certain ruin of any vineyard
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