One fruit may puzzle strangers, it is the red berry of the
cultivated service berry tree, and makes excellent preserve. In spite,
however, of the low prices of garden and orchard produce, everyone
complains that the cost of living has greatly risen even here since the
war, and that many provisions are as dear as in Paris. Yet, as far as I
can judge, Montbeliard is still a place in which, if you cannot live on
nothing a year, you can live on next to nothing, and not uncomfortably
either.
And now, before turning "to fresh fields and pastures new," a word must
be said about the illustrious name that will ever be linked with
Montbeliard. Many a hasty traveller alights at the railway station for
the purpose of seeing the noble monument of David d'Angers, and the
antiquated humble dwelling bearing the proud inscription:
"Ici naquit George Cuvier."
The bronze statue of the great anatomist stands out in bold relief
before the Hotel-de-Ville, the profile being turned towards the house in
which he first saw the light, the full face fronting the large
Protestant Church built in 1602, a century and a half before his birth.
The proximity is a happy one, for was it not by virtue of Protestantism,
no matter how imperfectly manifested, that Cuvier was enabled to pursue
his inquiries with such magnificent results? Two centuries before, he
might, like Galileo, have had to choose between martyrdom or scientific
apostasy.
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