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Matilda Betham-Edwards - Holidays in Eastern France
spectacles, an aquilline-nosed another, a nez retrousse a third; and accordingly we find that
spectacles nicely adjusted to such peculiarities are fabricated, one kind supplying the American, a second
the Spanish, a third the English market, and so on. So wonderfully quick is the process that a pair of
spectacles can be made for three-halfpence! The clocks made by machinery at Morez are chiefly of the
cheap kind, but wear well, and are to be found in almost every cottage in France. The prices vary from
ten to twenty francs, and are thus within reach of the poorest. A more expensive kind are found in
churches, public offices, schools, railway-stations, and manufactories, not only in France, but in remote
quarters of the world. Spain largely imports these elegant inexpensive clocks fabricated in the heart of
the Jura, and they find their way to China! Each separate part has its separate workshop, and the whole is
a marvellous exhibition of dexterity, quickness, and apt division of labour.
A large manufactory of electrotype plate, modelled on those of England, notably the Elkington ware, has
been founded here within recent years, and is very flourishing, exporting on a vast scale to remote
countries. There is a manufactory of electric clocks, also of recent date. All day long, therefore, the
solemn silence of these mountains is broken by the noise of mill-wheels and rushing waters, and if it is
the manufactories that feed the people, it is the rivers that feed the manufactories. The Jura, indeed, may
be said to depend on its running streams and rivers for its wealth, each and all a Pactolus in its way,
flowing over sands of gold. Nowhere has water power been turned to better account than at Morez,
where a very Ariel, it is forced by that all-omnipotent Prospero man, the machine-maker, to do his
behests, here turning a wheel, there flowing into the channels prepared for it, and on every side
dispensing riches and civilization.
Delightful and refreshing it is to get beyond reach of these never-resting mill-wheels, and follow the
mountain-torrent and the rushing streams to their home, where they are at liberty and untamed.
Innumerable delicious haunts are to be found in the neighbourhood of Morez, also exhilarating
panoramas of the Jura and Switzerland from the mountain-tops. There is nothing to be called agriculture,
for in our gradual ascent we have alternately left behind us the vine, corn, maize, walnuts and other fruit
trees, reaching the zone of the gentian, the box-tree, the larch, and the pine. These apparently arid
limestone slopes and summits, however, have velvety patches here and there, and such scattered pastures
are a source of almost incredible wealth. The famous Jura cheese, Gruyere so called, is made in the
isolated chalets perched on the crest of a ravine, and nestled in the heart of a valley, which for the seven
winter months are abandoned, and throughout the other five swarm like bee-hives with industrious
workers. As soon as the snow melts, the peasants return to the mountains, but in winter all is silent,
solitary, and enveloped in an impenetrable veil of snow. The very high-roads are imperceptible then, and
the village sacristan rings the church bells in order to guide the belated traveller to his home.
My friend, the schoolmaster's wife, found me agreeable travelling companions for the three hours' drive
to St. Claude, which we made in a private carriage, in order to see the country. Very nice people they
were, Catholics belonging to the petite bourgeoisie, and much useful information they gave me
about things and people in their native province. The weather is perfect, with a warm south wind, a bright
blue sky, and feathery clouds subduing the dazzling heavens. We get a good notion of the Jura in its
sterner and more arid aspect during this zig-zag drive, first mounting, then descending. Far away, the
brown bare mountain ridges rise against the clear heavens, whilst just below we see steep wooded crags
dipping into a gorge where the little river Bienne curls on its impetuous way. There are no less than three
parallel roads at different levels from Morez to St. Claude, and curious it was from our airy height - we
had chosen the highest - to survey the others, the one cut along the mountain flank midway, the other
winding deep down close to the river-side. These splendid roads are kept in order by the Communes,
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