Peace was with the earth again; the dear-bought peace, that found
parents and children, wives and sisters, mourning for those the war
had snatched from their embrace.
Around the walls of Toul the harvest had been gathered; the last few
sheaves were loaded on the carts as the declining sun sank down;
the horses or oxen, gaily decked, moved slowly towards the city;
round the waggons the children danced, and thus the maidens sang as
in the olden time:--
THE HARVEST SONG.
Our labour all is done;
We've finished with the sun,
Who now, in the far west
Low sinking, goes to rest.
The golden grain is stored;
The Great God be adored,
Who sent the sun and rain
To swell the golden grain.
The stalwart oxen strong
Drag the great wain along;
The last ray from the sun
Shines on our work now done.
Twine, then, the garlands gay;
Let, then, the music play;
And gaily dance till morn,
And fill the flowing horn:
For now the grain is stored,
The Great God be adored,
Who sent the sun and rain
To swell the golden grain.
Adèle entered not into their joy, her heart was like her
lover--dead. As they go with the last waggon towards home suddenly
a shout is heard--a crowd comes on--she hears her name called--many
voices seem to say "Gustave!"--the crowd gives way.
Well-known eyes are looking into hers as she awakes to
consciousness--his arm is round her, and his heart is beating
against hers.
Alive, though grievously wounded, he had been taken care of by a
noble foe; and at the termination of the war, released, he had come
back; one empty sleeve was pinned against his breast, but there she
placed the cross,--he smiled fondly on her, but looking at it sighed,
thinking perchance glory may be bought too dear.
And now by the Moselle's banks Adèle nurses her invalid husband, and
peace for the moment reigns in France. But, alas and alas! many another
Adèle will mourn many another Gustave, before mankind have learnt to
fulfil the wish contained in Jeanette's song, and be content to
"Let those that make the quarrel be
The only ones to fight."
Toul contains little to detain us except its fine cathedral; it is
"dullest of the dull," no movement in its streets; a railroad hurries
past her gates, but few of the passengers enter them; her history
alone is interesting: built before history for this portion of the
globe began, she was, when visited by the Roman eagles, the capital
of the warlike Leuci.
Erected at a very early period into a bishopric, its Bishops were its
rulers; nominally subject to these Bishops and the Counts of Toul, the
burghers seem actually to have enjoyed all the rights of a free city,
and eventually the town was reckoned one of the free Imperial cities.
In a quarrel which arose between these burghers and their bishop,
Gilles de Sorcy, in the thirteenth century, three arbiters were named
to settle the dispute. It appeared, that formerly the townspeople
had been obliged to find food for the Bishop's table during the
month of April; this custom had fallen into disuse, but now Gilles
claimed arrears and its continuance: the burghers, in their turn,
claimed certain gifts from the Bishop on his entrance into the city.
It was agreed that the town should pay to the Bishop sixteen pounds,
money of Toul, each year; and he, on his part, was to distribute,
on his solemn entry into the city, forty measures of wine, eight
hundred pounds of bread, and an ox boiled (?) whole, with parsnips.
By this award it would appear that neither party had the upper hand,
but that the power was nearly equally divided.
At the death of Gilles dissensions broke out, and in A.D. 1300
the people placed themselves under the protection of the King of
France. Disputes now arose between the French monarchs and the German
emperors, as Toul was an Imperial free city; but the French were the
more active, and the city was considered under their protection.
Occasionally the citizens had to be recalled to a sense of their
allegiance by burning their suburbs or occupying their town. Finally,
in the sixteenth century, Toul was formally ceded to France, and
in A.D. 1700 Louis XIV. pulled down the old walls, and erected the
fortifications within which the town now stagnates.
The great canal connecting the Rhine and Marne runs parallel with
the Moselle to Frouard, near which place the Meurthe falls in: the
country is pleasant, diversified by hill and dale, and richly wooded.
Beyond Liverdun, railroad, road, canal, and river, run side by
side,--fire, earth, water, and air, all rendered thus subservient
to man.
And now the Meurthe runs in; full of gay confidence, this friend
imparts her knowledge to our stream.
She tells her of a city beautifully laid out with gardens of great
trees, beneath whose shade gay dames and damsels walk, while music
fills the air; hard by the numerous fountains play; and the old palace
of King Stanislas, who enriched the town with many a stately building,
is near. The shops and cafés, the theatre and walks, all render Nancy
a cheerful and agreeable abode.
Within the old town is the curious palace of the ancient Dukes,
containing a museum, where all sorts of relics are preserved.
Old towers stud the walls; and statues, groves, and churches ornament
the town: in the ducal chapel are the tombs of the Dukes of Lorraine,
who were powerful sovereign princes. This chapel is very beautiful.
Nancy appears to have been at the height of its lustre during the
reign of Stanislas, who received the Duchy of Lorraine, in lieu of
his own kingdom of Poland, from the French monarch; at his death the
duchy finally reverted to France, and became extinct in 1766.
Stanislas and his queen, in 1699, took part in a very curious ceremony
called "The Fête des Brandons," annually practised in Nancy.
This fête was thus conducted: on a certain day all the newly-married
couples, of whatever degree, were obliged, under pain of penalty,
to go out of the city gate and fetch a fagot; these fagots were,
to save them the trouble of going to the wood, sold to them outside
the gates, where a sort of fair was held, in which they purchased
ribands, pruning-knives of white wood, &c.; they returned, with
their fagot bound with the ribands, and the husband with one of the
pruning-knives hanging to his button, to the Halle des Cerfs in the
ducal palace: from there they went in procession to the market-place,
and formed a pile with the fagots; they then inscribed their names
at the Hôtel de Ville, in a book kept for that purpose, and received
certain privileges for the coming year.
Returning to the palace, they danced in the court, and the young men
pelted peas under their feet; which "being," says the chronicler,
"very hard, occasioned the dancers many falls, which caused great
hilarity among the spectators."
At seven in the evening they had a grand supper at the Hôtel de Ville,
and afterwards the bonfire was lit and fireworks sent up.
During the blazing of the bonfire the new-married had the right of
proclaiming from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, "Les Valentins
et les Valentines," i.e. they called out the names of any of their
unmarried friends with the following words, "Qui donne-t-on à
M----?" "Mademoiselle ----" was answered by another, and the crowd
took up the names, expressing their approbation or otherwise.
In the course of the next week the Valentin was to send to his
Valentine a bouquet, or other present; if she accepted it, she
appeared, with the cadeau, at the toilette of the Duchess, on the
following Sunday; if no present had been sent by the Valentin, his
neighbours lit a fire of straw in front of his house, as a sign of
their displeasure.
The ladies were to give a ball to their Valentins, and if they did
not do so, a straw-fire was lit before their houses.
These fires were called "Brûler le Valentin," or "Valentine," and
showed "the new-married" had made a mistake in their choice for
the unmarried. The chronicle finishes by saying, "the people were so
pleased at seeing Stanislas and his queen taking a part in their fête,
that they did not pelt peas under their feet when dancing."
Nancy is not a town of very ancient date like its neighbours, Metz
and Toul; it dates only from the eleventh century, and even then it
was merely "a castle with a few houses clustered round."
Here Joan of Arc, born at Domremy, near Toul, was first presented by
the Sire de Baudricourt to Duke Charles II., who gave her a horse and
arms, and sent her to Chinon to the King, Charles VII. of France,
to whom Joan made use of the following words:--"Je vous promets de
par Dieu, premier qu'il soit un an, tous les Anglais hors de royaume
je mettrai, et vous certifie que la puissance en moi est."
After her barbarous murder the King ennobled all her family, males
and females, in perpetuity; and they retained this privilege into
the seventeenth century, when a parliamentary decree confined the
honours to the males.
Many in Lorraine believed that Joan was not really burnt: this belief
gave rise to several impostors, one of whom was so successful that she
deceived even Joan's brothers, and under her assumed name married a
certain Seigneur des Armoises: another was for some time believed in,
and fêted accordingly, but at last, being confronted with the King,
he posed her by asking what was the secret between them.
In 1445 the Duke of Suffolk arrived at Nancy to demand the hand of
Marguerite, René's beautiful daughter, for Henry VI. of England; René
willingly consented to this honour, and Marguerite went forth to pass
her troubled life in camps and battles, until, after the murder of
her husband and son, she returned to Lorraine, and died in 1482, near
St. Mihiel. She was remarkable, says the historian, for her virtues,
her talents, her courage, her misfortunes, and her beauty.
Charles the Bold besieged and took Nancy in 1475; contrary to his usual
custom, he was most affable to the citizens, wishing to make Nancy the
capital city of the new kingdom he proposed carving out for himself
from the adjoining states; but his quarrel with the Swiss arrested
the progress of these schemes, and in his absence René II. retook the
city, the garrison capitulating: after the capitulation the governor
sent René a pâté of horseflesh, and told him that for several days
they had been reduced to such nourishment.
Immediately afterwards Charles re-appeared, and again besieged
the city; René departed to procure assistance from the Swiss,
the garrison promising to hold out for two months; and in keeping
this promise it suffered great hardships,--the walls were in ruin,
a terrible disease appeared within the town, and no less than four
hundred men were frozen to death on Christmas night only.
At length René and the Swiss arrived; then the celebrated battle was
fought in which Charles was slain. It is said that before the fight
commenced he feared for the result, as, in putting on his helmet, the
crest fell to the ground. René re-entered his capital by torchlight
the same night.
Under its Duke, Charles IV., Nancy suffered much from war, and endured
several sieges; at length it was finally incorporated in the French
Empire in 1766.