My evenings are always
spent at one pleasant house or another, where music, tea, and
conversation lend wings to the cheerful hours. The custom of keeping the
_veillee_, familiar to readers of the gifted Franc-Comtois writer,
Charles Nodier, is common here among all classes, people quitting their
homes after their early supper--for, according to German habit, we dine
at noon and sup at seven here--to enjoy the society of their neighbours.
Delightful recollections did I carry away of many a _veillee_, and of
one in particular, where a dozen friends and their English guest
assembled in the summer-house of a suburban garden, there to discuss
art, music, literature, and politics, over ices and other good things
despatched from the town. We had looked forward to a superb moonlight
night with poetic effects of river, chateau, and bridges flooded in
silvery light--we had torrents of rain instead, being threatened with
what is a phenomenon of no rare occurrence here, namely, an inundation.
Situated on the confluence of two rivers, the Allaine and the Lusine,
Montbeliard is a quaint, and homely little Venice in miniature, sure to
be flooded once or twice a year, when people have to pay visits and
carry on their daily avocation in miniature gondolas.
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