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Matilda Betham-Edwards - Holidays in Eastern France
hand-clasps, and affectionate farewells of a dozen kind friends. Two hours' railway journey, through a
beautiful country, brought me to Besancon, where, as at Montbeliard, I received the warmest welcome,
and felt at home at once.
CHAPTER VI. BESANCON AND ITS ENVIRONS.
The hotels at Besancon have the reputation of being the worst in all France, but my kind friends would
not let me try them. I found myself, therefore, all at once in the midst of all kinds of home comforts,
domesticities, and distractions, with delightful cicerones in host and hostess, and charming little
companions in their two children. This is the poetry of travel; thus to journey from one place to another,
provided with introductory letters which open hearts and doors at every stage, and make each one the
inauguration of a new friendship. I wish I could subjoin an illustration of "How I travelled through
Franche-Comte," for my exploration of these regions was a succession of pic-nics - host, hostess, their
English guest, Swiss nurse-maid, and two little fair-haired boys, being cosily packed in an open carriage;
on the seat beside the driver, a huge basket, suggesting creature comforts, the neck of a wine bottle, and
the spout of a tea-pot being conspicuous above the other contents. This is indeed the way I saw the
beautiful valley of the Doubs, and not only the country round about Besancon, but the border-land of
Switzerland and Savoy. The weather - we are in the first days of September - is perfect. The children,
aged respectively eighteen months and three years and odd, are the best little travellers in the world,
always going to sleep when convenient to their elders, and at other times quietly enjoying the shifting
landscape; in fact, there is nothing to mar our enjoyment of regions as lovely as any it has ever been my
good fortune to witness.
In consequence of the bad character of the Besancon hotels, even French tourists seldom break their
journey here; but, on the opening of the new railway line into Switzerland, joining Besancon, Ornans,
and Morteau, new and better hotels are sure to spring up. At present, wherever we go, we never, by any
chance, meet the ubiquitous English traveller with his Murray, and my friends here say that, during a
several years' residence in Besancon, they have never even yet seen such an apparition! Yet
Franche-Comte, at present a terra incognita of tourists, abounds in all kinds of beauty; the
sublime, the gracious, the grandiose, and the pastoral, rock, vast panoramas, mountain and valley, all are
here; and all as free from the trace of the English and American tourist as the garden of Eden before
Eve's trespass!
Besides these quieter beauties are some rare natural phenomena, such as the Glaciere de la Grace
Dieu, near Baume-les-Dames, and the famous Osselle grottoes, both of which may be reached by
railway. We preferred, however, the open carriages the basket and the tea-pot, and accordingly set off for
the latter one superb morning in the highest spirits, which nothing occurred to mar. Quitting this splendid
environment of Besancon, we drive for three hours amid the lovely valley of the Doubs, delighted at
every bend of the road with some new feature in the landscape; then choosing a sheltered slope,
unpacked our basket, lunched al fresco, with the merriest spirits, and the heartiest appetite. Never
surely did the renowned Besancon pates taste better, never did the wine of its warm hill-sides
prove of a pleasanter flavour! The children sported on the turf like little Loves, the air was sweet with the
perfume of new-made hay. The birds sang overhead, and beyond our immediate pavilion of greenery, lay
the curling blue river and smiling green hills. Leaving the children to sleep under the trees, and the horse
to feed at a neighbouring mill - there is no kind of wayside inn here, so we have to beg a little hay from
the miller or a farmer - we follow a little lad, provided with matches and candles to the entrance of the
famous grottoes. Outside the sugar-loaf hill, so marvellously channelled and cased with stalactite
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