Marne River

“ Marmora, the largest island, has marble and alabaster quarries.
Marne (435) and Haute-Marne (244) , contiguous departments in the N.E. of France, in the upper basin of the Marne River; in both cereals, potatoes, and wine are the chief products, the best champagne coming from the N. In the former, capital Châlons-sur-Marne, building stone is quarried; there are metal works and tanneries; in the latter, capital Chaumont, are valuable iron mines and manufactures of cutlery and gloves.
Marochetti, Baron, Italian sculptor, born in Turin ”

“ Indeed, I was told that the wine vaults of Epernay were as well worth inspection, as the catacombs of Paris.
I should observe to you that the river Marne, one of the second- rate rivers, of France, accompanies you pretty closely all the way from Chateau Thierry to Chalons--designated as Chalons-sur-Marne. From Epernay to Chalons you pass through nothing but corn fields. It is a wide and vast ocean of corn--with hardly a tree, excepting those occasionally along the road, within a boundary of ten miles. Chalons is a large and populous town; but the churches bear sad traces of revolutionary fury. ”

“ Between the Aisne and the Meuse is the Ardennes Canal, and the Aisne and the Marne are united by a canal which passes Reims. The Marne has similar communication with the Meuse and the Rhine, the Yonne with the Saône (by the Burgundy Canal) and with the Loire by the Loing Canal dividing at Montargis into two branches—those of Orleans and Briare. ”

“ The long rows of poplars, through which the river Marne winds its way, and a few thinly-scattered villages, are almost the only objects that vary the monotonous aspect of the greater part of this region. ”

“ On the other side of the Marne the undulating hill, with its wide stretch of fields, is dotted with little villages that peep out of the trees or are silhouetted against the sky-line,—Vignely, Trilbardou, Penchard, Monthyon, Neufmortier, Chauconin, and in the foreground to the north, in the valley, just halfway between me and Meaux, lies Mareuil-on-the-Marne, with its red roofs, gray walls, and church spire. ”

“ Once arrived in the Bois de Boulogne, the visitor has not to travel far in order to see the Marne, that most capricious of French rivers. There is scarcely a Parisian who has not taken an exploring stroll along the banks of this stream, which conducts the oarsman to the very point whence he started. Artists and dreamers in search of leafy shade, of trees overhanging a limpid stream, of mills beating the clear water with their black wheels, know the Marne well. On summer days many a peal of laughter may be heard to proceed from behind some shrubbery. ”

“ The area in which the British Army operated in the Battle of the Marne may be described as the country enclosed between the tributaries of the Marne, the Ourcq on the north and the Grand Morin on the south, between which boundaries it is intersected by the Marne itself, and a third tributary, the Petit Morin.
This area forms the western portion of the Plateau de la Brie, which rises to a height of 400 to 500 feet above the plain of Champagne. The general slope of the ground is from east to west. ”

“ The landscape has the grace and freshness which is characteristic of the whole valley of the Marne: a horizon of tiny hills, humble and smiling, a fertile and regularly cultivated plain, an old mill lost among the willows, a line of great poplars, a sluggish, grassy rivulet, resigned to continual detours, and finally, spread over all these things, a somewhat humid light which imparts to them a delicate charm—a lovable spectacle of which the eye cannot tire, since its subtle seductiveness lies wholly in the changes of the height and the flight of the clouds. ”

“ Our usual walk is down the hill to the north, toward the shady route that leads by the edge of the canal to Meaux. We go along the fields, down the long hill until we strike into a footpath which leads through the woods to the road called "Paves du Roi" and on to the canal, from which a walk of five minutes takes us to the Marne. After we cross the road at the foot of the hill there is not a house, and the country is so pretty—undulating ground, in every tint of green and yellow. ”

“ Imagine, if you please, an immense undulating plain, its surface broken by occasional low hills and ridges, none of them much over six hundred feet in height, and wandering in and out between these ridges the narrow stream which is the Marne. ”

“ Fresh in his mind was a delicious July day at Rheims with his tutor, and the memory of every detail noted on the way, along the green windings of the Marne, by Meaux, Montmirail and Epernay. Now, traversing the same towns, he seemed to be looking into murdered faces, vacant and stony. ”

“ The battlefield—a rough quadrilateral, extending from the Dammartin road eastward to the deep ditch occupied by the Ourcq and its canal, and bounded on the north by the Nanteuil–Betz highway, on the south by the looping course of the Marne—consists of open, rolling beet- and corn-fields where some part of the crops were still standing. ”

“ The tide was well up, half the Marsh had already vanished, and the little creek where he had moored his skiff was now an empty shining river. The water was everywhere—fringing the tussocks of salt grass with concentric curves of spume and drift, or tumultuously tossing its white-capped waves over the spreading expanse of the lower bay. The low thunder of breakers in the farther estuary broke monotonously on the ear. ”

“ In structure, this is a broken triangular plateau, cut by westward-flowing streams (the Marne, Petit Morin, and Grand Morin) , bounded on the south by the Seine and Aube, and rising eastward to the Montagne de Reims and the Falaises de Champagne, where it falls abruptly. Coulommiers, Château-Thierry, and Provins are substantial market-towns, and La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, Montmirail, and Sézanne smaller centres of rural life. This wide plateau of Brie, the Allied left-centre, was the starting-point of the British recoil, and the field contested by d’Espérey’s Army against Von Bülow. ”

“ Between Epernay and Château-Thierry, the Marne flows through an exquisite valley, whose gay hills are rich in orchards and vine plantations, and crowned with verdure like woodland goddesses, and abundantly adorned with those plants which have made France a country without price, beautiful and noble. ”

“ On the 9th, the Marne was crossed on a pontoon bridge built by British engineers, under fire, whose heroic tenacity triumphed after seventeen fruitless attempts.
The Germans, attacked besides on the heights where the tourist now stands, were obliged to retire rapidly from the hollow by the Soissons Road, under fire from the French batteries.
On the crest of the hill a track crosses the ascending one, near two isolated walnut-trees. On the right this road goes to Étrépilly; it constituted the German line of defence which is the subject of panorama B (pp. 90-91) . ”

“ The banks are steep, and "tall poplar trees" cast long shadows across grass-edged footpaths, above which the high bridge is swung. There is no bridge here across the Marne; the nearest in one direction is at the Iles-lès-Villenoy, and in the other at Meaux. So, as the Germans could not have crossed the Marne here, the canal bridge was not destroyed, though it was mined. The barricades of loose stones which the English built three weeks ago, both at the bridgehead and at a bend in the road just before it is reached, where the road to Mareuil sur Marne turns off, were still there. ”

“ The Germans traversed this road in both directions within six days. They advanced in all the excitement of a victorious pursuit: they returned in the gloomy disappointment of defeat.
The journey to Châlons (106 km.) presents no difficulties, it being merely necessary to follow N. 33, which passes through Chaintrix and Thibie. We enter Châlons by the Avenue de Paris, then take the Rue du Faubourg-de-la-Marne on the left. Cross the railway, then the Marne, and continue straight along the Rue de la Marne. Here cross the canal, leaving the cathedral on the right. ”

“ To the westward of this arm, or bay of the lake, there is another deep bay that receives the waters of a river which communicates with Great Marten Lake where the North-West Company had once a post established. The eastern shores of the Great Slave Lake are very imperfectly known: none of the traders have visited them and the Indians give such loose and unsatisfactory accounts that no estimation can be formed of its extent in that direction. These men say there is a communication from its eastern extremity by a chain of lakes with a shallow river which discharges its waters into the sea. ”

“ We had scarcely advanced three paces, when we stuck fast on the sand, because the crew wanted to let themselves be drifted at their ease. We therefore row out of the lake-like bay to N.N.E. Men and women stand smoking on the shore, and offer their pipes and other effects, but all their signs and calling are in vain, and the fear is general that the river may be too shallow. The stream issues broadly from the left side behind an island, to which a smaller one joins itself. ”

“ That Congress did not act arbitrarily in determining that 'for the purposes of navigation of said waters and the waters connected therewith,' the whole flow of the stream should be devoted exclusively to that end, is most evident when we consider the character of this stream and its relation to the whole problem of lake navigation. The river St. Marys is the only outlet for the waters of Lake Superior. The stretch of water called the falls and rapids of the river is about 3,000 feet long, and from bank to bank has a width of about 4,000 feet. ”

“ I am thus able to fancy myself strolling upon a real strand down there, inscrutably drawing my foot along the perilous edge of the salt flood. There is no lack of surgings, even if there is of surges, nor of the clamour of gulls, nor of that kind of space-annihilating monotony which lulls one into a sort of narcotic absentmindedness. The level cataracts are rushing and roaring all around, and halfway to the ferryman’s house—the voice of a waterfall joins the chorus—from over yonder where the canal, debouching at a slant, pours itself into a river. ”

“ Each torrent which rent these rocky barriers brought down with it an immense quantity of stones and pebbles, that encumbered the river-bed with shoals and banks, and pent up the waters in foaming rapids. M. Garnier was bound for Lin-ngan, but these numerous obstacles greatly impeded his progress. But by degrees the river-bed broadened, the heights receded on either hand, and the stream flowed with a full and tranquil current through a gently undulating country, well cultivated, and studded with populous villages. ”

“ The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most delightful easily to be imagined. In a spreading dale, contiguous to the margin of a clear and lively stream, surrounded by meadows and gardens, and backed by lofty hills, undulating and richly wooded, the traveller on the opposite heights of the dale would often stop to admire the merry prospect, that recalled to him the traditional epithet of his country. ”

“ This river rises on the Black Mountain, is a charming tributary of the French Broad, from five to twenty yards in width, cold and clear, very rapid, and throughout its entire length is overshaded by a most luxuriant growth of graceful and sweet-scented trees and vines. The plantations on this stream are highly cultivated, the surrounding scenery is mountainous, graceful, and picturesque, and among the small but numerous waterfalls which make the first half of its course exceedingly romantic, may be enjoyed the finest of trout fishing. ”

“ Darkness hid the wilderness, out on the face of the lake a fish leaped with a slap, and a nightbird called shrilly off to the south. With aching throat the trapper turned softly back into the woods. When he came later along the shore, with heavier step than was his wont, the fagot and the forked stake were gone, there was no black crucifix, and Maren waited by the fire, water brought from the lake in Dupre's small pail, the little sticks ready for the roasting. ”

“ On the bank of the small stream which, flowing through a slight hollow in the meadow, proceeded towards the Marne, was seen a party of some thirty or forty horsemen, the greater part of them well armed, making a gallant but ineffectual stand against a body of reiters nearly double their number, which charged them on every side, and seemed likely to overpower them in a few minutes. ”

“ Water fixes here animal life, and human population may spread far away from the main stream, generally on the White River, which may be considered as shoreless. We go round a sand-head of the right shore from N.E. to E., and at a quarter before one o’clock to S. On the right an island, and on the shore a village; on the left several people. With a short bend we have come to the N.; go, at half-past one o’clock, to E., and immediately left to N.E. At two o’clock E., and at half-past two N. A sand-bank here protrudes itself half into the river from the left shore. ”

“ When morning broke over the Gaspereau hills, and men looked out of their windows, every vestige of the dike that had inclosed the New Marsh was gone. The site of the Marsh was much eaten away, and a bank of sand was piled at the other side of the creek, near the mouth, in such a way as to divert the channel many feet from its old course.
Thereafter the tides foamed in and out with daily and nightly clamor across the spot where the "Star on the Marsh" had gleamed; and men made no new effort to reclaim the ruined acres. ”

“ He has to watch the huge dikes which keep the ocean from overwhelming him, and the river-banks, which may break, and let the floods of the Rhine swallow him up. The danger from within is not less than from without. Yet so fond is he of his one enemy, that, when he can afford it, he builds him a fantastic summer-house over a stagnant pool or a slimy canal, in one corner of his garden, and there sits to enjoy the aquatic beauties of nature ”