Eure

“ IN THE VALLEY OF THE EURE
THE busy little villages which lie in the course of the Eure from Pont de l’Arche to Louviers are unheard of in the school geographies and conventional guide-books. They have little appealing interest for the general traveller. Arthur Young, a hundred or more years ago, knew them when he journeyed from Rouen to Louviers, and they have not greatly changed since that day.
By no means are they mere hamlets, though St. Pierre du Vauvray, St. Etienne du Vauvray, and one or two others are straggling enough in their way. With an important local railway junction at St. ”

“ The itinerary of the Seine occupied the whole of one long, bright summer, and when one adds to this the numerous excursions out of the Seine valley proper into those of its watershed,—up the Eure to Anet, the Ept to Gisors, or the Andelle to Lyons-le-Forêt or beyond,—one rounds off a considerable number of miles or kilometres to one’s credit, besides accomplishing much more than could possibly be achieved were the journey attempted by boat. ”

“ The Eure also comes to its confluence with the Seine at the same point, and the Risle, which rises near La Perche, after 140 kilometres, finally reaches the sea through the Seine at Quillebeuf.
An Inn by the Seine
The populous and charmingly situated towns of the Seine valley, its wooded banks and forests, and the delightful roads along its banks, with here and there a château half-hidden by trees, to say nothing of the bosom of the stream itself, which forms a greatly travelled highway of another sort, all combine to present a continually changing scene, which is not excelled in all France. ”

“ In Eure-et-Loire, "nearly every village has its church and minister; the temples are open in the towns and are well attended."—In Seine-et-Oise, "the Roman Catholic cult prevails in all the communes of the department."—In Oise, "worship is carried on in all the communes of the department."-In Loiret, "the churches are attended by the multitude almost as regularly as before 1788. ”

“ The next day by Murg to Bourges, four leagues, where we spent the day. This is the capital of Berry, an University much frequented by the Dutch, situated on the river Eure. It stands high, is strong, and well placed for defense; is environed with meadows and vines, and the living here is very cheap. In the suburbs of St. Privé, there is a fountain of sharp water which they report wholesome against the stone. They showed us a vast tree which they say stands in the center of France. ”

“ The figures of population in France are ever full of surprises when regarded in comparison with those of another day. Many a French department has remained stationary as to its population for a hundred years, while occasionally one has decreased, as, for instance, the Department of the Eure, lying just west of the Seine, which has lost within the past decade something over five thousand of its children. ”

“ The land half is thus roughly triangular, having Paris at its extreme south-eastern corner, Calais at its extreme north-eastern, the neighbourhood of Avranches with St Malo Bay at its south-western corner. It includes part of the provinces of Normandy, the Ile de France, Picardy and Artois, and part, or all, of the modern departments of the Manche, Orne, Calvados, Eure, Seine-et-Oise, Seine, Seine-Inférieure, Oise, Somme, and Pas-de-Calais. ”

“ The chief industries are the spinning of cotton and wool, and the weaving, dyeing and printing of fabrics of different kinds. Brewing, flour-milling, distilling, turnery, cotton-bleaching, cider-making, metal-founding, tanning, and the manufacture of glass, paper, iron ware, nails, pins, wind-instruments, bricks and sugar are also carried on. Coal and raw materials for its industries are the chief imports of Eure; its exports include cattle, poultry, eggs, butter, grain and manufactured goods. The department is served chiefly by the Western railway; the Seine, Eure and Risle provide 87 m. ”

“ Eastward lies the province of Caux, of the ancient peoples known as the Calétes, while westward, and onward through the valley of the Eure, the chief tributary of the Seine on the left bank below Paris, is the real Normandy, whose junction with the Isle of France—the ancient domain of the third race of kings—and the fertile plain of La Beauce is marked by the village of Houdan. ”

“ Not every traveller in France knows the little river Andelle which rises in the district of Bray and flows southwesterly fifty kilometres or more until it mingles with the Seine at Pitres, near Pont de l’Arche, and almost exactly opposite the mouth of the Eure. ”

“ At the revolution of 1848 Dupont de l’Eure was made president of the provisional assembly as being its oldest member. In the following year, having failed to secure his re-election to the chamber, he retired into private life. ”

“ There was, and this, with other things, excited in the masses the idea that their champion was the victim of a Royalist conspiracy, which all the influence of Armand Carrel and Dulong's uncle, Dupont de l'Eure was hardly sufficient to suppress. But Dupont immediately resigned his seat in the Chamber. He would sit no longer in a body one man of which he deemed the murderer of a beloved nephew. The obsequies were grand. Armand Carrel pronounced the eulogy, and two hundred and thirty-four deputies wet the grave with their tears. ”

“ Seine-Inférieure (839) , a maritime department of North-West France, in Normandy, facing the English Channel; is for the most part a fertile plain, watered by the Seine and smaller streams, and diversified by fine woods and the hills of Caux; is a fruit and cider producing district; has flourishing manufactures. Rouen is the capital, and Havre and Dieppe are important trading centres. ”

“ On the 3rd of August, at the head of the municipality of Paris, Pétion demanded the dethronement of the king. He was elected to the Convention for Eure-et-Loir and became its first president. L. P. Manuel had the folly to propose that the president of the Assembly should have the same authority as the president of the United States, his proposition was at once rejected, but Pétion got the nickname of “Roi Pétion,” which contributed to his fall. His jealousy of Robespierre allied him to the Girondin party, with which he voted for the king’s death and for the appeal to the people. ”

“ Tote la ville sune à glas.’
The sortie was well timed, for just at that moment the helmets and bucklers of the advancing Burgundians and Franks were seen glittering in the distance. The besieged fell with resistless enthusiasm upon the astonished enemy. The enemy, dazed by the glory of the precious relics, caught between the sallying citizens and the relieving force, retreated to the Hill of Lèves and there entrenched themselves. So terrible had been the slaughter that the bodies of the slain (says Paul the monk) heaped in the Eure for a while completely choked the stream. ”

“ The most important districts designated by the word are (1) the Bocage of Normandy, which comprises portions of the departments of Calvados, Manche and Orne; (2) the Bocage of Vendée, situated in the departments of Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, Maine-et-Loire, and Loire-Inférieure. ”

“ It is the law of us all, Jacqueline, the law of the Three Kingdoms: the battle is to the strong and the race to the swift. The Old Thirteen are stable; let them rest! Together they make a great country, and they will be greater yet But here is the Ohio—la belle Rivière, the Frenchmen call it. And beyond and below the Ohio, through all the gigantic valley of a river so great that it seems a fable, south to New Orleans, and westward to the undiscovered lies the country that is to be! ”

“ Historic France is there! Auvergne is Auvergne, Languedoc is only Languedoc; but Touraine is France; the most national river for Frenchmen is the Loire, which waters Touraine. For this reason we ought not to be surprised at the great number of historically noble buildings possessed by those departments which have taken the name, or derivations of the name, of the Loire. At every step we take in this land of enchantment we discover a new picture, bordered, it may be, by a river, or a tranquil lake reflecting in its liquid depths a castle with towers, and woods and sparkling waterfalls. ”

“ Much, very much has been written of "the beautiful Ohio;" the pens of an hundred tourists have sketched its quiet waters and its venerable groves; but there is in its noble scenery an ever salient freshness, which no description, however varied, can exhaust; new beauties leap forth to the eye of the man of sensibility, and even an humble pen may not fail to array them in the drapery of their own loveliness. ”

“ But when I came to live at Auxerre, I saw that he spoke the truth. It is a large district, or bishopric, and the mountains, hills, and plains are covered with vines. There they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; but they send their wine by river to Paris, where they sell it nobly; and live and clothe themselves from the proceeds. Three times I went all about the district with one or another of the brothers: once with one who was preaching and affixing crosses for the Crusade of the French king (St. Louis) ”

“ Benefactions were sent from England, by this benevolent lady to aid in the erection of Chapels in the destitute villages of Ohio.
Lady, thy name is with the green-rob'd West,
Where bold Ohio drinks his tribute-streams,
Where unshorn forests rear the cloud-wrapt crest,
And the New World like her of Eden seems
To muse of Heaven, with sweet majestic air;
Lady! thy name is there. ”

“ Of all streams the majestic Ohio, alone, moves on much as of old; and, though many islands have passed from sight, there is hardly a mile in all her course which does not recall, in name, the days when that river was the great highway through the hunting-ground of the Iroquois and of the race of "men who wore hats" who came upon its tide to found the empires which today exist along its sweeping shores. And yet the Ohio is soon to undergo great changes which will materially alter its aspect. ”

“ Auvergne′, an ancient province of France, united to the crown under Louis XIII. in 1610, embracing the deps. of Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal, and part of Haute-Loire, the highlands of which separate the basin of the Loire from that of the Garonne, and contain a hardy and industrious race of people descended from the original inhabitants of Gaul; they speak a strange dialect, and supply all the water-carriers and street-sweepers of Paris.
Auxerre′ (15) , an ancient city, capital of the dep. of Yonne, 90 m. SE. of Paris; has a fine cathedral in the Flamboyant style; drives a large trade in wine. ”

“ The writer of the following sheets, duing a residence in the western country for many years, has had occasion to visit several parts, to travel over a large portion of the State of Ohio, in different directions, and to descend the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, as far as New Orleans. In these excursions, opportunities continually occurred for observing, and collecting information respecting, those objects which are interesting to adventurers into a new country, and which may be gratifying to the curiosity of others. ”

“ At that time there was no busy city, no mark or hand of THE WINNING OF THE OREGON COUNTRY. 377 man, other than here and there a rude cabin, telling the wary savage or the lonely settler that within its walls the dreams of empire filled the brain of the pioneer. Here in these early days, upon the pathless prairies, and through these untrodden forests, our ancestors made their habita- tions, and in the vigor of youth began the conquest for this great Commonwealth. Uncover our heads, to those who remain! Not much longer will they bid the stranger welcome within their doors. ”

“ Throughout its whole course the Ohio is fringed with wooded bluffs; now towering in sublime majesty hundreds of feet from the bed of the rolling stream, and anon sweeping inland for miles, and rearing up those eminences so singularly beautiful, appropriately termed "Ohio hills," while their broad alluvial plains in the interval betray, by their enormous vegetation, a fertility exhaustless and unrivalled. ”

“ The stream which the Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or Beautiful River, waters one of the most magnificent valleys which have ever been made the abode of man. Undulating lands extend upon both shores of the Ohio, whose soil affords inexhaustible treasures to the labourer. On either bank the air is wholesome and the climate mild; and each of those banks forms the extreme frontier of a vast State: that which follows the numerous windings of the Ohio on the left is Kentucky [in ascending the river it was on our right] ”

“ The country on the south side of the Ohio, including the northerly parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee, together with the whole of Kentucky, abounds in hills elevated, in the vicinity of the Ohio, from four to eight hundred or a thousand feet above the water-table of the river, and rising many hundred feet higher in the neighbourhood of the Alleghany mountains. This section is watered by many streams of considerable magnitude tributary to the Ohio, the most important of which are the Monongahela, Kenhawa, Great Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Salt, Green, Cumberland, and Tennessee. ”