|
Matilda Betham-Edwards - Holidays in Eastern France
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 a 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 cafes 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
cafes, 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 Presbytere 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-Comte. In some cases
it is necessary for the prefets to send gendarmes, and have the law carried out by force; the village
mayors being generally uneducated men, mere tools of the cures.
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
|
