In fact, we were merely accepting a
neighbour's invitation to a friendly dinner out of doors, a few miles
from Besancon. This pic-nic is a fair sample of Franche-Comte
hospitality; not only friends were invited but their guests, babies,
servants, and "all that was in their house," the various parties being
collected by the host in a waggonette. It was Sunday, and though I am
here still in a strictly Protestant atmosphere, host and guests being
Protestants, it was pleasant to find none of the Puritanism
characterizing some sections of the Reformed Church in France. The
Protestant pastor, indeed, to whose eloquent discourse I had listened
that morning, was of the party; and it is quite a matter of course here
to spend Sunday afternoons thus sociably and healthfully. The
meeting-place was a rustic spot much resorted to by Bisontins on
holidays, and easily reached from the little station of Roche on the
railway line to Belfort. A winding path through a wood leads to the
so-called Acier Springs, which, since the Roman epoch, have continued to
supply Besancon with the delicious water we find here in such abundance.
We have just such bits of wood, waterfalls, and mountains in North
Wales, but seldom in September such unbroken sunshine to make a pic-nic
exactly what it should be.
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