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Matilda Betham-Edwards - Holidays in Eastern France
the "Doctorate-in-Law." There is no other school here for primary instruction of both sexes but the
Communal School, Protestant and Catholic, whither all the children, rich and poor, patrician and
proletaire, go as a matter of course. The politeness of the French working-classes may be partly
accounted for in the association of all ranks in early life. Convent, or other schools, for young ladies, do
not exist at Montbeliard, and those who study for the first and second diploma are generally prepared at
Belfort and Besancon, where the examinations are held.
There is also here an Ecole Normale, training school for teachers; also a Protestant training school, noted
for its excellence. On the whole, for a town of eight thousand inhabitants, Montbeliard must be
considered rich in educational and intellectual resources.
Much of the farming in these parts is tenant-farming on a fair scale, i.e., fifty to two or three hundred
acres. In the case of small peasant properties, which, of course, exist also, the land is usually not divided
on the death of the father, the eldest son purchasing the shares of his brothers and sisters. More on the
subject of agriculture will be said further on, there being nothing particularly striking about the two
tenant-farms I visited with friends in the immediate proximity of the town. The first, though not a model
farm, is considered a good specimen of farming on a large scale, the size being two hundred and fifty
acres, hired at a rental of fifty francs per hectare, or about a pound per acre. The premises are large and
handsome, and cleanly, according to a French agricultural standard, and, as usual, with a large heap of
manure drying up in the sun. Here we found thirty-five splendid Normandy and other cows, entirely kept
for milking, the milk being all sent to Montbeliard, with a small number of bullocks, horses and pigs. The
land looks poor, and gives no evidence of scientific farming, though very few improvements are made,
new agricultural methods and implements introduced, and thus the resources of the land developed. The
farmer's wife and daughters were all hard at work, and the farmer busy with his men in the fields. Close
to the farm-house, which we found spacious and comfortable, is the handsome villa of the owner, who
has thus an opportunity of seeing for himself how things go. If tenant-farming does not pay in England, it
certainly can only do so in France by means of a laboriousness and economy of which we have hardly an
idea. Work, indeed, means one thing with us, and quite another with our French neighbour.
It is on market-day that the country folks and their wares are to be seen to the best advantage; and
housekeepers supply themselves with butter, fruit, vegetables and haberdashery, all being very cheap;
peaches sixpence a pound, melons two or three sous each, and so on in proportion. One fruit may puzzle
strangers, it is the red berry of the cultivated service berry tree, and makes excellent preserve. In spite,
however, of the low prices of garden and orchard produce, everyone complains that the cost of living has
greatly risen even here since the war, and that many provisions are as dear as in Paris. Yet, as far as I can
judge, Montbeliard is still a place in which, if you cannot live on nothing a year, you can live on next to
nothing, and not uncomfortably either.
And now, before turning "to fresh fields and pastures new," a word must be said about the illustrious
name that will ever be linked with Montbeliard. Many a hasty traveller alights at the railway station for
the purpose of seeing the noble monument of David d'Angers, and the antiquated humble dwelling
bearing the proud inscription:
"Ici naquit George Cuvier."
The bronze statue of the great anatomist stands out in bold relief before the Hotel-de-Ville, the profile
being turned towards the house in which he first saw the light, the full face fronting the large Protestant
Church built in 1602, a century and a half before his birth. The proximity is a happy one, for was it not
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