Considered from all points of view it is a very attractive place to live
in, and possesses all the resources of the capital on a small scale; an
excellent theatre, free art schools, and an academy of arts, literary,
scientific and artistic societies, museums, picture galleries, lastly,
one of the finest public libraries in France, of which a word or two
more later on. First of all something must be said of the city itself,
which is especially interesting to the archaeologist and historian, and
is very little frequented by English tourists. Alternately Roman,
Burgundian, Arlesian, Anglo-French, and Spanish, Besancon has seen
extraordinary vicissitudes. In the twelfth century it was constituted a
free city or Commune, and was not incorporated into the French kingdom
till the reign of Louis XIV. Traces of these various occupations remain,
and as we enter in at one gate and pass out of another, we have each
successive chapter of its history suggested to us in the noble Porte
Noire or Roman triumphal arch; the ancient cathedral first forming a
Roman basilica; the superb semi-Italian, semi-Spanish Palais Granvelle,
the Hotel-de-Ville with its handsome sixteenth century facade; the
Renaissance council chamber in magnificently carved oak of the Palais de
Justice--all these stamp the city with the seal of different epochs, and
lend majesty to the modern, handsome town into which the Besancon of
former times has been transformed.
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