SALINS, ARBOIS, AND THE WINE COUNTRY OF THE JURA.
Hardly has the traveller quitted Besançon in the direction of
Lons-le-Saunier ere he finds himself amid wholly different scenery; all
is now on a bolder, vaster scale, desolate sweeps of rocky plain,
shelving mountain sides, bits of scant herbage alternating with
vineyards, the golden foliage lending wondrous lustre to the otherwise
arid landscapes, the rocks rising higher and higher as we go--such are
the features that announce the Jura. We have left the gentler beauties
of the Doubs behind us, and are now in one of the most romantic and
picturesque regions of all France. Salins, perhaps the only cosmopolitan
town that the Jura can be said to possess, since hither English and
other tourists flock in the summer season, is superbly situated--a
veritable fairy princess guarded by monster dragons! Four tremendous
mountain peaks protect it on every side, towering above the little town
with imposing aspect; and it is no less strongly defended by art, each
of these mountain tops being crested with fortifications. Salins bears
indeed a formidable front to the enemy, and no wonder the Prussians
could not take it. Strategically, of course, its position is most
important, as a glance at the map will show. It is in itself a wonderful
little place from its "assiette," as the French say; and wherever you go
you find wild natural beauty, while the brisk mountain air is delightful
to breathe, and the transparent atmosphere lends an extra glow to every
feature of the scene.
At Salins too we find ourselves in a land of luxuries, _i.e._, clean
floors, chamber-maids, bells, sofas, washing basins and other items in
hygiene and civilization not worth mentioning. The Hôtel des Messageries
is very pleasant, and here, as in the more primitive regions before
described, you are received rather as a guest to be made much of than as
a foreigner to be imposed upon. This charming _bonhomie_, found among
all classes, is apt to take the form of gossip overmuch, which is
sometimes wearisome. The Franc-Comtois, I must believe, are the greatest
talkers in the world, and any chance listener to be caught by the button
is not easily let go. Yet a considerable amount of volubility is
pardoned when people are so amiable and obliging.
Mendicity is forbidden in the Jura as in the Department of the Doubs,
and there is little real pinching poverty to be found among the rural
population, though of course a laboriousness and economy unknown among
our own. In the most part, the vine-grower and fabricator of Gruyère
cheese, so called, is well-to-do and independent, and here indeed, the
soil is the property of the people.
The Salins season ends on the 15th of September, when the magnificent
hydropathic establishment is closed, and only a few stray visitors
remain. The Salins waters are said to be much more efficacious than
those of Kreuznach in Prussia, which they much resemble; and the nature
of the soil is shown by its deep crimson hue. If the tonic qualities of
these mountain springs are invaluable, it must be admitted that they are
done ample justice to, for never surely were so many public fountains to
be found in a town of the same size. A charming monograph might be
devoted to the public fountains of Franche-Comté, and those of Salins
are especially meritorious as works of art. How many there are, I cannot
say, but at least half-a-dozen are interesting as monuments, notably the
charming life-size bronze figure of a Vintager, by the gifted Salinois
sculptor, Max Claudel, ornamenting one, the fine torso surmounting
another, and of which the history is mysterious, the group of swans
adorning a third, and so on; at every turn the stranger coming upon some
street ornament of this kind, whilst the perpetual sound of running
water is delightful to the ear. I shall never recall the Jura without
this cool, pleasant, dripping noise, as much a part of it as its brisk
air and dazzling blue sky.
There is a good deal to see at Salins; the _salines_, or salt-works, the
old church of St. Anatole with its humorous wood-carvings, the exquisite
Bruges tapestries in the Museum, the ancient gateways of the city, the
quaint Renaissance statue of St. Maurice in the church of that
name--wooden figure of a soldier-peasant on horseback--and lastly the
forts and the superb panoramas to be obtained from them. This little
straggling town, of not more than six thousand and odd inhabitants,
possesses a public library of ten thousand volumes, a natural history
museum, and a theatre, and other resources. It is eminently Catholic,
but I was glad to find that the thin edge of the Protestant wedge is
being driven in there, a Protestant service being now held once a month,
and this will doubtless soon develop into some regular organization.
Protestantism means cleanliness, education, and domestic morality, and
Catholicism the reverse; so no wonder that the more enlightened mayors
and municipalities are inclined to look upon these quiet invasions with
favour. As I narrate my progress through the Jura, it will be seen that
I found Protestantism everywhere making head against the enemy.
Perhaps the most beautiful excursion to be made from Salins is to the
little town of Nans, and the source of the River Lison, a two hours'
drive amid scenery of alternating loveliness and grandeur--vines
everywhere as we climb upwards, our road curling round the
mountain-sides, as a ribbon twisted round a sugar-loaf, and then having
wound in and out jagged peaks covered with light foliage and abrupt
slopes clad with vines, we come to the sombre pine-forests, passing from
one forest to another, the air blowing upon us with sudden keenness. No
sooner do we emerge from these gloomy precincts than we come upon the
pretty little village of Nans, smiling and glowing in a warm sunlit
valley, and most enticing to us after the sombreness and chilliness of
the mountain-tops.
Although anything but a _gourmand_ myself, I will mention for the
benefit of those who really care for good things, that we found a most
wonderful dinner awaiting us in the homely little _auberge_ at which we
alighted--hare, salmon, trout, prawns, and all kinds of local
confectionery, were here supplied at the modest price of ten francs and
a half, the cook of the establishment being the landlady herself, and
the entire staff consisting of two old women. One of these was drafted
off to guide me to the source, and off we set on our walk, at once
leaving the warm open valley for the mountain world. On and on we went,
the mountain closing upon us and shutting out more and more of the
glowing blue heavens, till we came to a stand. From these rocky
fastnesses, here forbidding further progress, the River Lison has its
source; above they show a silvery grey surface against the emerald of
the valleys and the sapphire of the sky, but below the huge clefts, from
which we are soon to see the river issue forth exultingly, they are
black as night.
A few steps onward and we were in sight of the source, and no words can
convey its imposingness, or the sense of contrast forced upon the
mind--the pitchy, ebon cavern from which flashes the river in silvery
whiteness, tumbling in a dozen cascades down glistening black rocks, and
across pebbly beds, and along gold-green pastures. We explored the inner
part of this strange rock-bed; the little River Lison, springing from
its dark cavernous home, leaping forth with wild exultation into the
light, pursuing its way under all kinds of difficulties, growing broader
and broader as it goes, till a wide, sunlit river, it flows onward and
onward, finally reaching the sea, reminded me, as I gazed, of a lovely
thought emerging from the thinker's brain, which, after obstacles and
hindrances innumerable, at last, refreshing all as it goes, reaches the
open light of universal truth.
Behind the source, and reached by a winding path cut in the rocks, is a
lofty chasm, from the summit of which another mountain stream falls with
beautiful effect; and no less impressive and curious are the so-called
_Grottes des Sarrazins_, a little further off, huge caverns shutting in
a little lake, and where the river rushes with a sound of thunder.
On the steep mountain path, leading to the chasm just mentioned, we
found hellebore growing in abundance, also the winter-cherry, its
vermillion-hued capsules glowing through the green. The brilliant red
berry of the white bream-tree also lends colour to the wayside hedge, as
well as the deep rose-coloured fruit of the barberry. Flowers also grow
in abundance; and in the town their cultivation seems a passion. Some
gardens contain sun-flowers, or little else, others are full of zinnias,
flowering mallow trees, and balsams. There is no gardening aimed at, in
our sense of the word, but simply abundance of colour; the flowers are
planted anyhow and grow anyhow, the result being ornamental in the
extreme.
There is a pottery, or _faiencerie_; of two hundred years standing at
Nans, and some of the wares are very pretty and artistic. The chief
characteristics of the Nans ware, or _cailloutage_, is its creamy,
highly-glazed surface, on which are painted, by hand, flowers, birds,
and arabesques in brilliant colours, and in more or less elaborate
styles. Attempts are also made to imitate the well-known Strasburg ware,
of which great quantities are found in these parts, chiefly at sales in
old houses. The Strasburg ware is known by its red flowers--chiefly
roses and tulips--on a creamy ground, also elaborate arabesques in deep
purple. If we take up a specimen, we find the ornamentation done at
random, and, in fact, the artist was compelled to this method of working
in order to conceal the imperfections of the porcelain. The Nans
ware--very like the _faiencerie_ of Salins--commends itself alike for
form and design, and the working potters employed there will be found
full of information, which they are very ready to impart. One of them,
with whom I fell into conversation, had just returned from the Paris
Exhibition, and expressed himself with enthusiasm concerning the English
ceramic galleries, of which, indeed, we may be proud.
It is impossible to exaggerate the beauty of Salins, and its stately
environment of rock and vine-clad peak, especially seen on such a
September day as this I describe, when the sky is of warmest blue, and
the air so transparent, fresh, and exhilarating that merely to breathe
is a pleasure. Nor are the people less striking than their mountain
home. Dark hair, rich complexions, regular features, an animated
expression, are the portion of most, especially of the women, whilst all
wear a look of cheerfulness and health. No rags, no poverty, no squalor;
and the abundance of natural resources brings the good things of life
within reach of all. At the unpretending hotel, the cookery would not
discredit the Hôtel de Bristol itself, everything being of the best. I
was served with a little bird which I ate with great innocence, and no
little relish, supposing it to be a snipe, but, on asking what it was, I
found, to my horror, the wretches had served up a thrush! I am sorry to
say a tremendous slaughter of migratory birds goes on at this time of
the year; not only thrushes, but larks, linnets, and other sweet little
songsters supplying the general dinner table. The thrushes feed largely
on grapes, which lend them a delicious flavour when cooked, and for
which nefarious practice on their part they are said to be destroyed. I
was assured that a thrush will eat two bunches of grapes a day, and so
they are killed by the hundreds of thousands, and sold for three
half-pence each, or sometimes a franc per dozen. Thrushes, moreover, are
considered game, and occasionally the gendarmes succeed in catching a
poacher, but so mixed are one's feelings in dealing with this question
that it is impossible to know whether to sympathise with the unfortunate
wine-grower whom the thrush robs of his two bunches of grapes per day,
the poacher who is caught and heavily fined for catching it, or with the
bird itself. No one who has Browning's charming lines by heart on the
thrush in an "English garden in Spring," will ever quietly sit down to
such a repast, and, whenever I could, I lectured the people on this
slaughter of singing birds for the dinner table, I fear to no purpose.
Leaving the gourmand--whose proclivities, by the way, are much
encouraged throughout every stage of his journey in the
Franche-Comté--let me advise the curious to study the beautiful interior
of the church of St. Anatole dominating the town, also the equestrian
statue of St. Maurice in the church of that name. The effect of this bit
of supreme realism is almost ludicrous. The good old saint looks like
some worthy countryman trotting off to market, and not at all like a
holy martyr of the church.
In the Museum is seen a medallion portrait of Courbet, to which my
cicerone pointed with an expression, of horror, as that of "the artist
who pulled down the Vendôme column."
My next stage was Arbois, a little town travellers should see on account
of its charming situation in the winding valley, or "Cluse," of the
Cuisance. Nothing can be prettier, or give a greater idea of prosperity,
than these rich vine-yards sloping on all sides, the grapes purpling in
spite of much bad weather; orchards with their ripening fruit; fields of
maize, the seed now bursting the pod, and of buckwheat now in full
flower, the delicate pink and white blossom of which is so poetically
called by Michelet "la neige d'été." No serenity, no grandeur here, all
is verdure, dimples, smiles; abundance of rich foliage and pasture,
abundance also of clear limpid water, taking every form, springs,
cascades, rivulets, the little river Cuisance winding in and out amid
vineyards and pastures over its rocky bed. You must follow this charming
babbling river along the narrow valley to its twin sources in tangled
glen and rock; the road winding between woods, vine-yards, and fantastic
crags. The _cluse_, a narrow valley, is just paradisiacal, a bit of Eden
made up of smooth pastures, rippling water, hanging woods, and golden
glens, all this bright afternoon sparkling amid dew and sunshine. At one
of these river sources, you see the tufa in course of formation in the
river bed; in the other, the reverse process takes place, the tufa there
being dissolved. Both sites are poetic and lovely in the extreme. I was
sorry to hear of the devastation committed here by the _oïdium_, or vine
blight, and the dreaded _phylloxera_, which has already ruined
thousands, causing a loss of just half the amount of the German war
indemnity. This redoubtable foe is not many leagues off! Measures are
taken against the _phylloxera_, as against an invading army, but, at
present, no remedy has been discovered; and, meantime, many once rich
and happy wine-growers are reduced to beggary. It was heart-breaking to
gaze on the sickly appearance of the vines already attacked by the
_oïdium_, and to hear the harrowing accounts of the misery caused by an
enemy more redoubtable still. Arbois, though so charming to look at, is
far from being a little Eden. It is eminently a Catholic place; atheism
and immorality abound; bigotry among the women, scepticism among the
men, a looseness in domestic morality among all classes characterize the
population, whilst we need no information on the subject of dissipation
generally. The numbers of _cafés_ and _cabarets_ speak volumes. There
is, of course, in this townling, of not six thousand souls, a theatre,
which is greatly resorted to. One old church has been turned into a
theatre at Arbois, and another into the Halles, a third into the
Hôtel-de-Ville, a desecration we Protestants can but behold with
aversion. Protestantism is a young and tender plant as yet in Arbois,
the church and school, or so called _culte_, dating from ten years back
only. The congregation consists of about fifty persons, all belonging to
the poorer classes, and the position of a pastor there must be a sad
one. He is constantly importuned for help, which, out of his slender
income, he can ill afford to bestow, and he is surrounded by spies,
detractors, and adversaries on every side. That clericalism dominates
here, we need not be told. The booksellers' shops are filled with tracts
about the miracles of Lourdes, rosaries, and rubrics; the streets swarm
with nuns, Jesuits, and Frères Ignorantins. If you ask an intelligent
lad of twelve if he can read and write, he shakes his head and says no.
The town itself, which might be so attractive if a little attention were
paid to hygienic and sanitary matters, is neglected and dirty. The
people are talkative and amiable, and are richly endowed by nature,
especially in the mathematical faculty. It is said that every peasant in
these parts is a born mathematician, and curiously enough the
distinguished names of Arbois are those of military engineers and
lawyers, notably Generals David, Delort, and Baudrand, and the
celebrated jurisconsult Courvoisier. Here, as in other towns of
Franche-Comté, traces of the Spanish occupation remain in the street
architecture, the arcades and picture-galleries lending character.
Arbois, after Salins, is like an April glimpse of sunshine following a
black thunder-cloud, so contrasted is the grace of the one with the
severity of the other. Tourists never come here, and in these wayside
inns the master acts as waiter and porter, the mistress as cook; they
give you plenty of good food, for which they hardly like to receive
anything at all, talk to you as if you were an old friend during your
stay, and, at your departure, are ready to embrace you out of pure
cordiality.
Something must be said about the famous Arbois wine, of which Henry the
Fourth of France wrote to his friend the Duke of Mayenne upon their
reconciliation:--"I have some Arbois wine in my cellar, of which I send
you two bottles, for I am sure you will not dislike it." These wines,
both red and yellow, find their way to connoisseurs in Paris, but are
chiefly grown for home-consumption. There are several kinds, and the
stranger in these regions must taste both the red and the yellow of
various ages and qualities to judge of their merits. I drank some of the
latter thirty years old, and certainly even to one to whom the pleasures
of the palate are indifferent, it tasted much as nectar might be
supposed to do on Mount Olympus. The grapes are dried on straw before
making this yellow wine, and the process is a very delicate and
elaborate one.
How wonderful it seems to find friends and welcomes in these
unfrequented regions! Up till the moment of my departure from Arbois, a
little town few English travellers have even heard of, I had been
engaged in earnest friendly talk with a Protestant pastor, and also with
a schoolmaster and Scripture reader from the heart of the Jura; and no
sooner did I arrive at Lons-le-Saunier than I found myself as much at
home in two charming family circles as if I had known them all my life.
Amid the first of these I was compelled to accept hospitality, and at
once took my place at the hospitable family board opposite two little
curly heads, boy and girl; while, an hour or two after my arrival, I was
sitting in the old-fashioned artistically furnished drawing-room of a
Franche-Comté Catholic family, father, mother, son and young married
daughter, all welcoming me as an old friend. This was not in the
cheerful little town of Lons-le-Saunier itself, but in a neighbouring
village to which I drove at once, for I knew that I had been expected
several days before. Fruits, liqueurs, preserves, cakes, I know not what
other good things were brought out to me, and after an hour or two
delightfully spent in music and conversation, I left, promising to spend
a long day with my kind friends before continuing my journey. It is
impossible to give any idea of Franche-Comté hospitality; you are
expected to taste of everything, and your pockets are crammed with the
good things you cannot eat.
I had fortunately no experience of hotels here, but a glance I got at
the first in the place, when calling there for letters, was far from
inspiring confidence. A detachment of troops was passing through the
town, and large numbers of officers were lodged in the hotel, turning it
into a scene of indescribable confusion. The food is said to be first
rate, but the rooms looked dirty and uninviting, and the noise was
enough to drive anyone out of his wits. How refreshing to find myself in
this quiet Presbytère on the outskirts of the town, no noise except the
occasional pattering of little feet and happy sound of children's
voices, almost absolute quiet indeed from morning to night! My window
looks upon a charming hill clothed with vineyards, and, immediately
underneath, the large straggling garden of the Presbytère. The little
church adjoins the house, and the school is also under the same roof,
while the schoolmaster takes his place as a guest at the family table of
the pastor. All is harmony, quiet enjoyment, and peaceful domestic life.
Ah! what a different thing is the existence of a Catholic priest from
that of a Protestant pastor! On the one side, we find selfishness,
sensuality, and enforced isolation from the purifying influences of home
and the domestic affections; a life out of harmony with the holiest
instincts of human nature, and by the force of circumstances,
detrimental not only to the individual himself, but to society at
large--on the other, a high standard of social and domestic virtue, a
career of persistent self-denial, simplicity, and dignified obedience to
the natural laws and exigencies of society, a life indeed edifying to
all, and, by virtue of its unselfishness, uplifting to the individual.
No one who knows French life intimately can fail to be struck by the
comparison between the two, and painful it is to think how the one is
the rule, and the other the exception, in this favoured land of France!