No one who has Browning's charming lines by heart on the
thrush in an "English garden in Spring," will ever quietly sit down to
such a repast, and, whenever I could, I lectured the people on this
slaughter of singing birds for the dinner table, I fear to no purpose.
Leaving the gourmand--whose proclivities, by the way, are much
encouraged throughout every stage of his journey in the
Franche-Comte--let me advise the curious to study the beautiful interior
of the church of St. Anatole dominating the town, also the equestrian
statue of St. Maurice in the church of that name. The effect of this bit
of supreme realism is almost ludicrous. The good old saint looks like
some worthy countryman trotting off to market, and not at all like a
holy martyr of the church.
In the Museum is seen a medallion portrait of Courbet, to which my
cicerone pointed with an expression, of horror, as that of "the artist
who pulled down the Vendome column."
My next stage was Arbois, a little town travellers should see on account
of its charming situation in the winding valley, or "Cluse," of the
Cuisance. Nothing can be prettier, or give a greater idea of prosperity,
than these rich vine-yards sloping on all sides, the grapes purpling in
spite of much bad weather; orchards with their ripening fruit; fields of
maize, the seed now bursting the pod, and of buckwheat now in full
flower, the delicate pink and white blossom of which is so poetically
called by Michelet "la neige d'ete.
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