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[Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF MONTBÉLIARD]
[Illustration: ORNANS—VALLEY OF THE LOUE (The Country of the Painter
Courbet.)]
"Travelling in France without hotels, or guide-books," might, with verylittle exaggeration, be chosen as a title to this volume, which is,indeed, the record of one visit after another among charming Frenchpeople, and in delightful places, out of the ordinary track of thetourist. Alike in the valley of the Marne—amongst French Protestants atMontbéliard—at Besançon amid the beautiful scenery of the Doubs—atLons-le-Saunier, from whence so many interesting excursions were madeinto the Jura—in the very heart of the Jura highlands—at Champagnole,Morez, and St. Claude, it was my good fortune to see everything underunique and most favourable auspices, to be no tourist indeed, but aguest, welcomed at every stage, and pioneered from place to place byeducated ladies and gentlemen delighted to do the honours of theirnative place. Thus it came about that I saw, not only places, butpeople, and not only one class, but all, peasant and proprietor,Protestant and Catholic, the bourgeoisie of the towns, themountaineers of the highlands, the schoolmaster, the pastor, the curé.Wherever I went, moreover, I felt that I was breaking new ground, themost interesting country I visited being wholly unfamiliar to thegeneral run of tourists, for instance, the charming pastoral scenery ofSeine and Marne, the picturesque valleys of the Doubs and the Loue, andthe environs of Montbéliard and Besançon, the grand mountain fastnesses,close-shut valleys, or combes, the solitary lakes, cascades, andtorrent rivers of the Jura.
Many of the most striking spots described in these pages are not evenmentioned in Murray, whilst the difficulty of communication renders themcomparatively unknown to the French themselves, only a few artistshaving as yet found them out. Ornans—Courbet's birth and favouriteabiding place, in the valley of the Loue—is one of these. St.Hippolyte, near Montbéliard, is another, and a dozen more might be namedequally beautiful, and, as yet, equally unknown. New lines of railway,however, are to be opened within the next few years in severaldirections, and thus the delightful scenery of Franche-Comté will, erelong, be rendered accessible to all. For the benefit of those travellerswho are undaunted by difficulties, and prefer to go off the beaten trackeven at the risk of encountering discomforts, I have reprinted, withmany additions, the following notes of visits and travel in the mostinteresting part of Eastern France, which, in part, originally appearedin "Frazer's Magazine," 1878.
In a former work, "Western France," I treated of a part of France whichwas ultra-Catholic; in this one I was chiefly among the more Protestantdistricts of the whole country, and it may be interesting to many tocompare the two.