A franc
a day is what is paid in these parts by lodgers, chiefly officers, and
no more would be asked of the wealthiest or unwariest. You find the same
spirit animating all classes, tradesmen, hotel-keepers, and others, and
doubtless this is to be traced to several causes. In the first place,
Montbeliard is one of the most enlightened, best educated, and most
Protestant _departements_ of all France. Le Doubs, part of the ancient
Franche-Comte, is so Protestant, indeed, that in some towns and villages
the Catholics are considerably in the minority, as is even the case
still at Montbeliard.
So late as the French Revolution, the Comte of this name belonged to
Wuertemberg, having passed over to that house by marriage in the
fourteenth century. In 1792, however, it became amalgamated with the
French Kingdom, and fortunately escaped annexation in the last
Franco-German War. Protestantism early took root here, the Anabaptist
Doctrine especially, and in the present day Montbeliard numbers several
Protestant and only one Catholic church; the former belonging severally
to the Reformed Church, the Lutheran, Anabaptists, also two or three
so-called _Oratoires_, or Chapels of Ease, built and supported by
private individuals.
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