These ateliers are well worth visiting.
Besides diamonds and precious stones, rock crystal, and various kinds of
imitations, and paste jewellery are here worked up; also jasper, agate,
malachite, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, jet, &c. The work is done by the
piece, and the whole family of the lapidary is generally employed.
A journey of political propaganda had just been accomplished in these
mountain regions, and the well-known writer Jean Mace, accompanied by
some leading Republicans, among these Victor Poupin, editor of the
useful little series of works called L'Instruction Republicaine and La
Bibliotheque Democratique. At St. Claude the occasion was turned into a
general fete; the place was decorated with tri-coloured flags, a banquet
was held, and the whole proceedings passed off to the satisfaction of
all but the cures. In one of the little mountain towns, the cure
preached in the pulpit against the sous-prefet and his wife, because,
upon one of these occasions, before taking part in the Republican fete,
they did not attend mass.
Travelling in the Jura will, doubtless, one day be made easy and
pleasant, and, perhaps, become the fashion. As it is, in spite of the
glorious weather, no tourist is seen here, and the diligence to Nantua
was almost empty.
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