Mignard the painter, Girardon,
sculptor, whose monument to Richelieu in the church of the Sorbonne will
not fail to be visited by English travellers, and of the famous painter
on glass, Linard Gonthier, who had engraved on his tomb that he awaited
the Last Day,
"Sans peur d'etre ecrase."
Among minor accomplishments of the Troyen of to-day, it may be mentioned
that nowhere throughout all France--land _par excellence_ of good
washing and clear-starching--is linen got up to such perfection as at
Troyes. The _Blanchisserie Troyenne_ is unhappily an art unknown in
England. It is curious that, much as cleanliness is thought of among
ourselves, we are content to wear linen washed and ironed so execrably
as we do. Clean linen in England means one thing, in France another; and
no French maid or waiter would put on the half-washed, half-ironed linen
we aristocratic insulars wear so complacently. Here indeed is a field
for female enterprize!
From Troyes to Belfort is a journey best made by night-mail express, as
there is little to see on the way; nor need Belfort--famous for its
heroic defence under Danfert, and its rescue from Prussian grasp by the
no less heroic pleadings of Thiers--detain the traveller.
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