It
is a monument alike worthy of the artist and his subject, another
instance of that dignified realism for which David d'Angers was so
remarkable. There is, however, some doubt as to Bichat's birth-place;
Lons-le-Saunier, as I have before mentioned, contesting the honour with
Bourg. On the principle that two monuments to a great man are better
than none at all, each place claims the honour.
The night mail-express from Geneva whirled me in about ten hours to
Paris, and the next morning I found myself in what, after the matchless
atmosphere of the Jura, seemed murkiness, although the day was fine and
the sky cloudless. I had thus, with hardly an important deviation from
the plan originally laid down, accomplished my journey in Eastern
France, but with a success, in one respect, impossible to anticipate.
Accustomed as I am to French amiability and hospitality, I was yet
unprepared for such a reception as that accorded to me throughout every
stage of my travels. All hearts were open to me; everyone wanted to do
the honours of his beloved "patrie"--using the word in its local rather
than national sense--to be serviceable, kind, accommodating. Thus it
happened that my holiday rambles in Franche-Comte were so far novel,
that they may be said to have been accomplished without hotels or
guidebooks; for the most part, my time being spent in friends' houses,
and my itineraries being the best possible, namely, the oral information
of interested natives of every place I passed through.
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