This walk is
so easy that our little companion of four years old could make it
without fatigue, and there are many others equally delightful, and not
more fatiguing. We rested for awhile on the hill top eating grapes, then
slowly descended, stopping on our way to enter the chapel of the Jesuits
and school-buildings, both commanding a splendid site on the wooded
incline. There were of course women in the confessionals, and painted
images of saints and miracle-workers in abundance, before which people
were kneeling with tiny images hugged to their breasts, like the pagans
of old. Image worship, indeed, idolatry in the purest form, is carried
on to a tremendous extent here, witness the number of images exposed for
sale in the shop-windows.
But the excursion to be made from Lons-le-Saunier is that to the
wonderful rock-shut valley and old Abbey of Baume, Baume-les-Messieurs,
as it is called, to distinguish it from the town of Baume-les-Dames,
near Besancon. This is reached by a delightful drive of an hour and a
half, or easily on foot by good pedestrians, and is on no account to be
omitted. We, of course, take the former course, having two little
fellow-travellers, aged respectively four and two and a half years old,
who, perched on our knees, are as much delighted as ourselves with the
beauty of everything.
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