Mézières

“ Kelly may know,' she went on, 'that I speak with some authority concerning my Lord Oxford. It is not he whom I distrust. But he has lately married a young wife.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Law, and 'Oh!' cried Mr. Wogan, with a shrug of his shoulders. 'If a lady is to dabble her tender fingers in the pie--'
'And what of it, Mr. Wogan?' Madame de Mezières took him up coldly.
'Yes, Mr. Wogan, what of it?' repeated Olive Trant hotly, 'provided the lady be loyal.' In an instant Mr. Wogan had the whole nest swarming about his ears, with the exception of Fanny Oglethorpe. ”

“ The Saxe expedition never sailed, so Eugène de Mézières went to beat Hanoverians elsewhere, and was wounded at Fontenoy. Consequently he could not follow the Prince to Scotland. His mother, Eleanor, plunged into intrigue for the forward party (Prince Charlie's party) , distrusted by James at Rome. 'She is a mad woman,' said James. She and Carte, the historian, were working up an English rising to join the Prince's Scottish adventure, but were baffled by James's cautious, helpless advisers. ”

“ On the right bank of the Meuse is Mont Olympe, with the ruins of a fortress dismantled under Louis XIV. Charleville, which shares with Mézières the administrative institutions of the department of Ardennes, has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators and lycées and training colleges for both sexes. Its chief industries are metal-founding and the manufacture of nails, anvils, tools and other iron goods, and brush-making; leather-working and sugar-refining, and the making of bricks and clay pipes are also carried on. ”

“ Wogan,' cried Fanny Oglethorpe, and as Wogan held out his hand she clapped her hot spoon into it. 'M. de Bellegarde, you must know Mr. Wogan. He has the broadest back of any man that ever I was acquainted with. You must do more than know him. You must love him, as I do, for the broadness of his back.'
M. de Bellegarde looked not over-pleased with the civility of her greeting, and bowed to Wogan with an affectation of ceremony. Mr. Law came forward with an affable word. Olive Trant added another, and Madame de Mezières asked eagerly what brought him to Paris. ”

“ Successful in the defence of Mézières (1521) , and as commander of the Swiss troops in the Italian campaign of the same year, he was made marshal of France in 1522, accompanied Francis into Italy in 1524, and was taken prisoner at Pavia in 1525. Released soon afterwards, he was one of the negotiators of the treaty of Madrid, and in 1530 reconducted the king’s sons into France. On the renewal of the war by Charles V.’s invasion of France in 1536, Montmorency compelled the emperor to raise the siege of Marseilles ”

“ The first time that one sees the Meuse, and thinks of the disasters, the transformations, the thousand calamities, and innumerable victims of that capricious and terrible river, one examines it with a sort of anxious curiosity, as if it were some famous brigand, and one's eyes run along the dykes with a sentiment of grateful satisfaction, as when one beholds the famous bandit manacled and in the hands of the carabinieri. ”

“ The first view of Metz, after traversing an uninteresting country, is remarkably fine. It stands in a fine rich plain, near though beyond the reach of an eminence—for it does not deserve the name of a mountain—the sides of which are covered with woods, villages, and vineyards. There is something very grand in entering a fortified Town—the clattering of drawbridges, appearance of moats, guns, sentinels, and all the other etceteras of war. ”

“ Crossing the valley of the Meuse we come into a similar region of hills and woods, but this region is, on the whole, much wilder, the hills higher, and the forests more extensive and dense. The hills here, too, form a nearly continuous ridge, running north-north-west. The highlands east of the Meuse sink, as we go north, into the undulating country of Lorraine, but the ridge on the west side of the Meuse extends a good many miles farther. This ridge, with the Meuse flowing along the east side of it and the river Aire flowing along its west side, is the Argonne. ”

“ We needed rest, certainly; and so made up our minds to endure with equanimity the necessity we were under of not fatiguing ourselves to death from a principle of economy. The inn was tolerable, and the table d'hôte sufficiently good; and, best praise, quietly served, Metz is a clean, pleasant town, a little dull or so; but from the gardens on the ramparts we commanded a view of the hill-surrounded plain in which it is built, with the Moselle flowing peaceably at our feet. We hired a boat, and loitered several hours delightfully on the river ”

“ Those who leave Paris by a train which starts in the evening, and can sleep through the dull night journey, will agreeably wake up on a fine summer’s morning on the Upper Moselle, in the neighbourhood of Metz. Here it is a softly-flowing river, with vineyards and white villages on the banks. ”

“ Metz is a noble city: finely situated, strongly fortified, and thickly inhabited. The Moselle encircles a portion of it in a very picturesque manner. The inn, called the Cheval Blanc, should rather be that of Cheval Noir--if it take its epithet from the colour of the interior--for a dirtier hotel can scarcely exist. It was a fine moonlight night when we left Metz, on a Sunday, resolving to sleep two stages on the road. ”

“ Thus the great hills that border the Moselle, the distant frontier, the vast plain which is (they say) to be a battlefield, and which lay five hundred feet sheer below me, the far guns when they were practising at Metz, the awful strength of columns on the march moved me. The sky also grew more wonderful, and I noticed living things. The Middle Ages, of which till then I had had but troubling visions, rose up and took flesh in the old town, on the rare winter evenings when I had purchased the leisure to leave quarters by some excessive toil. A man could feel France going by. ”

“ This town is built on the declivity of a mountain, at the foot of which runs the river Meuse. As we were about to land, there fell a torrent of rain, which, coming down the steep sides of the mountain, swelled the river instantly to such a degree that we had only time to leap out of the boat and run to the top, the flood reaching the very highest street, next to where I was to lodge. ”

“ Cathedral: Verdun
Original
For this summer end of 1910, the valley of the Meuse was to us all sufficient. Here, while dozing among these small towns and villages, bordering on the vine clad river's splash and sparkle, resting by night in quaint clean and generally well kept inns, the world beyond became a figment. Curious fortresses still were to be found among these old rocks; and on the plateau the antiquarian, the geologist, the botanist may find much food for wonder and study, if they searched. ”

“ This Meuse River highway is a lovely drive to take in the daytime, for it passes through a fertile and picturesque country. The little city of Dun-sur- Meuse stands out on a small cliff which juts into a bend of the river, making a most charming picture of what a medieval town should look like. ”

“ Where broad between its banks stretches the Meuse, mirroring the bloom in the west and the evening star, where the cornflowers look up with heaven's own blue and the poppies cover the fields like a crimson sea, where the skylark unseen is still soaring and singing, and the nightingale from the snowy hawthorn spray warbles divinely at even. French mothers who have lost all their sons in the war shall come with their tribute of blossoms to those vast cities of the dead. ”

“ The peasant women, in great straw hats or little close caps, work hard amidst the fields storing the hay crop; the oxen yoked together munch their fill of sweet fresh grass, that has grown in the well-watered meadows; round them the children play, piling the hay upon each other until, overcome by the heat, they hasten off to bathe in our cool stream.
Here, at a short distance above Remiremont, is the confluence of two branches of our river; and river the Moselle now becomes. ”

“ On the terrace are numerous trenches, in addition to shafts dug by the engineers to reach the underground passages which communicate with concrete shelters. One of these shelters may still be seen along the southern ramparts of the old château. All these military works are very interesting to visit.
There is a splendid panorama from this terrace: on one side (photo, pp. 100 and 101) the town of Pont-à-Mousson and the valley of the Moselle with, behind Pont-à-Mousson, Puvenelle Forest and Prêtre Wood; on the other side, the valley of the Seille, with Metz Cathedral in the distance. ”

“ The Meuse flows through the centre of the province, and its valley from Huy down to Herstal is one of the most productive mineral districts in Belgium. Much has been done of late years to develop the agricultural resources of the Condroz district south of the Meuse. ”

“ On the left bank, the hills fall sheer and are a natural defence: on the right, the hills are not so high but are strengthened by a line of forts. Likewise, by seeing them glistening in the distance, a better idea is gained of the many streams which encompass or pass through Metz: the Seille and the stream of Saint-Pierre, the stream of Noisseville, the stream of Châtel-Saint-Germain—the Moselle which the canal doubles and which is itself divided, forming in front of Metz the large island Saint-Symphorien, then, near the dam called Wadrineau, the smaller island of Saulcy. ”

“ The churches are splendid, and there is an appearance of opulence in the shops. The inhabitants, from its being a frontier town, are of course much alarmed at the approaching contest, for they will probably suffer from both parties. We heard at the inn and in the shops which we visited the same complaints against the Prussians. The country in the environs of this place is exceedingly diversified, and it presents the first mountain scenery we have yet met with. The banks of the Meuse hereabouts present either an abrupt precipice or coteaux covered with vines gently sloping to the water's edge. ”

“ HUMAN REMAINS IN LOESS NEAR MAESTRICHT.
The banks of the Meuse at Maestricht, like those of the Rhine at Bonn and Cologne, are slightly elevated above the level of the alluvial plain. On the right bank of the Meuse, opposite Maestricht, the difference of level is so marked that a bridge with many arches has been constructed to keep up, during the flood season, a communication between the higher parts of the alluvial plain and the hills or bluffs which bound it. ”

“ The Mississippi, which below its junction with the Missouri, is a troubled stream, meandering through low grounds, and margined by muddy banks, is here a clear and rapid river, flowing over beds of rock and gravel, and bordered by the most lovely shores. Nothing of the kind can be more attractive, than the scenery at the upper rapids. ”

“ We dashed along without anxiety; for the hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream a long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone into the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'made down' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. The Mississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's farm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man's neighbor. ”

“ The village of Mesuril, from its vicinity to the Government-house, and the security which the fort was supposed to afford, has been the favourite spot for building among the settlers, and many good houses are erected there, which, however, must necessarily be unhealthy, from being situated in the midst of a cocoa-nut wood, where nature is suffered to lavish her bounty in all the wild luxuriance of primitive vegetation. ”

“ The day was extraordinarily hot and cloudless; the sun, being now just overhead, blazed with equal light on the ruined town, the lofty castle, on counterscarp, glacis, and half-moon, on the trenches, the defences of wattled sticks lined with sandbags, on the distant spreading encampment of the allies, on the still more distant sparkle of the Meuse, which glittered across the great plain and on the walls of the Abbey of Salsines. ”

“ Meuse is a fortress. It has a citadel or at least such fragments of a citadel as the bombardment had left, and the quaint old town is surrounded with bastions which are linked by curtains and flanked by lunettes, the whole being girdled by a ditch, beyond the counterscarp of which spreads a sloping glacis which makes a very pleasant promenade. The defensive strength of the place is reduced to zero in these days of far-reaching rifled siege artillery, for it lies in a cup and is surrounded on all sides by hills the summits of which easily command the fortifications. ”

“ In this view, how noble an object is the Mississippi!
In extent, fertility, variety of scenery, and diversity of climate, its valley surpasses any other in the world. It is the great aorta of the continent, and receives a score of tributary rivers, the least of which is larger than the vaunted streams of mighty empires. It might furnish natural boundaries to all Europe, and yet leave, for every country, a river greater than the Seine. ”

“ One hundred million people are annually regaled and exasperated by the irresistible powers that nature wields in this great central basin.
Men have dammed the little rivulets of a thousand gullies and valleys in the Appalachians to turn the wheels of grist-mills, so that corn can be ground for pone and sprouts ground for moonshine. They have stretched their masonry across the Great Falls of the Missouri to smelt copper and silver. Myriads of horse-power are beginning to serve the nation by hauling railroad-trains over the long divides. They have bridled the upper Mississippi at Keokuk. ”