Volume 5 — From Once a Week Lakes of Lorraine.

On certain sultry and thunderous days in the middle of July, 1866, was celebrated, with fêtes and fireworks, illuminations by night, and brilliant shows by day, the first centenary of the union of the province of Lorraine to France. The scene was the city of Nancy, and splendor was added to the festival by the presence of the Empress Eugénie and the imperial prince, who lodged in the former palace of King Stanislaus of Poland, the last duke of Lorraine, and witnessed from its balcony the defiling of a long allegorical procession, representing in order the historical personages of the province, conspicuous among whom was the Maid of Orleans, personated by a youth of the town bearing in his hand a facsimile of her consecrated banner. The romance of the mediaeval spectacle was a little marred by certain laughable incongruities which the critical eye might detect; for instance, the arquebusiers of the sixteenth century were armed with percussion muskets; and the portly nymphs representing France and Lorraine seemed in consequence of the heat to be in somewhat too melting a mood for perfect dignity. The spectacle as a whole was, however, very imposing, and went off with a success peculiarly French, the clean and handsome city being crowded with well-behaved strangers from all the neighborhood, in such vast numbers that, in spite of their good behavior and good temper, they were fain to fight for their places in the trains, and one party had to wait till two A.M. at the station, after being in time to get away by ten at night. In bearing patiently such inconveniences in the pursuit of pleasure, our neighbors of the other side of the channel most undeniably surpass us. It was pleasant as a contrast to pass without let or hinderance the same station a few days later, following the line which runs parallel to the course of the Moselle past Épinal to Remiremont, on a visit to the lakes which lie in the country between that town and the terminus of St. Dié, which ends another branch of the Paris and Strasburg railway. Between Nancy and Épinal the stream of the Moselle is met winding through fertile meadows in a broad valley with low elevations on each side; near Épinal the scenery becomes more picturesque; there are more trees near the river, and the long level reaches are broken by occasional rapids with rocks about them. When Épinal is passed, the valley becomes narrower and prettier, shut in between two spurs of the Vosges, until the basin is reached, where Remiremont itself lies, and the waters of the Mosellote join those of the Moselle, each branch of the river from this point to the source having the character of a considerable mountain brook. The town of Remiremont itself resembles Freiburg in the Breisgau, minus its magnificent cathedral, in its size and general character, and especially in the abundance of fountains and runnels permeating the streets, which in their main portions are fronted with arcades like those of Bern or Bologna, a pleasant protection against sun and shower, and duly appreciated in the tempestuous summer of 1866.

The busy little town derives its euphonious name from one Saint Romary. In the circle of mountains enclosing the town one of conical shape is remarked, called Mont Habend, from Castrum Habendi, a camp erected on its site by the Romans.

In the seventh century this holy mountain was the chosen retreat of two anchorites, Amé and Romary, who founded there two monasteries, one for women, another for men, and were canonized after their deaths. The monasteries were destroyed by the Huns in the tenth century, but the site of one was repeopled again by monks a century later, while the nuns, abandoning the mountain, fixed themselves in the valley. The convent of Remiremont was governed during its long existence by sixty-four abbesses, the last of whom, Louise Adélaide de Bourbon Condé, died in 1824. It was a foundation even more exclusive and aristocratic in its character than All Souls', Oxford. The abbesses were generally princesses, and royal honors were accorded them. When each abbess entered the town for the first time, a great holiday was kept, and the mayor, instead of presenting the keys of the city, offered her the wine of the spot in a cup of gold, which she just touched with her lips before she passed within the walls to be enthroned with great state in the palatial apartments prepared for her. One of the number of these religious princesses, Catherine de Lorraine, distinguished herself in 1637 beating off from the walls of Remiremont the great Turenne, who was endeavoring to take the town from the Duke of Lorraine.

The town is now famous chiefly for the production of some excellent cakes with the quaint name of "quiches" probably only a corruption of the German Küchlein.

To the guests at the baths of Plombières, the lake region which lies between Remiremont and St. Dié is better known than to the general world, as it lies out of the way of tourists' thoroughfares; but though it cannot quite compete in beauty with the English or Scotch lakes, or Killarney, it is well worth a visit to those who are not obliged to go a great distance to see it. Instead of going due east to the source of the Moselle and the pass over the main chain of the Vosges which leads to Wesserling, and thence by rail to Basel, the road to Gérardmer turns to the left along a valley parallel to the line of the mountains, and flanked by lower hills, well wooded, on its other side. The foregrounds have the usual broken and diversified character of a granitic country, and the height of the hills is sufficient to make the distant views in many parts highly pleasing. There is enough picturesque incident to beguile very pleasantly the eighteen miles or so which the diligence traverses to Gérardmer. The name, derived from Gérard, a duke of Lorraine, has been given to a fine oblong sheet of clear water, about two miles long, and half a mile broad, bounded for the greatest part of its circumstance by long slopes covered with meadows and white cottages at intervals, but on the east by a pine forest and rocks, which give a more savage aspect to its further banks. From the Swiss villas built on its banks, the numerous pleasure-boats, and the general lively aspect, it brings to mind the lake of Zurich in miniature. At its further end is an immensely long village, also called Gérardmer, the most distinguishing mark of which is an enormous wych elm of unknown antiquity, standing in the market place.

In the summer, Gérardmer is full of visitors, who are well entertained at the Hôtel de la Poste and the Hôtel des Vosges at a moderate rate. The latter of these is conducted by an indefatigable little landlady, who is full of civilities, assisted by a good-natured, gigantic husband, who seems to superintend the kitchen department, and generally was seen during our visit lounging somewhere about the entrance, conspicuous in white trousers and a shirt of violet flannel, trimmed with scarlet. The wide road beyond Gérardmer branches to the right and left. The left branch leads into a valley choked with a primaeval pine forest, in the depths of which roars the torrent of the Vologne. The trees are of immense size, and completely clad with pendants of moss and lichen, telling of a considerable elevation of site, and of such weird and grand forms as to make one wish that the art of forest culture which fells the trees at a premature age had never been introduced. In one spot, not far from the so-called "Basse des Ours," or Bear Bottom, where the huge granite-blocks that have fallen from the crest of a mountain have been huddled together, a natural ice-house has been formed in the interstices, called "La glacière," and the fact of our finding no ice in it was accounted for by the summer not having been sufficiently hot to produce the necessary amount of evaporation. The road to the right passes over the torrent, by a bridge, and then divides again, its right branch leading over the mountains into the valley of Münster in Alsace, and its left to St. Dié. On the road to St. Dié two pines are seen which have grown together like Siamese twins.

Near the bridge is a cascade of singular beauty, which, from a peculiarity it possesses in changing its entire aspect as the spectator changes his ground, is called the Cascade des Fées. Not far from this cascade is a large slab of granite, and a fountain where Charlemagne is said to have dined when he passed out of Alsace over the Vosges into Lorraine, at a time when all the country was wild forest. A rough bridle road to the right leaves the main road to the Schlucht pass and the valley of Münster, and, making for a gap in the hill, soon discloses the beautiful piece of water called Longemer, or "The Long Lake," the Ullswater, as Gérardmer is the Windermere of Lorraine. It runs in a long trough between beautifully wooded steeps for about two miles, with a slightly serpentine direction, prettily broken by spits of grassy land with a few low trees upon them. At the upper end is seen, above woody heights, the bald summit of the Honeck, (Hoheneck, "The High Corner",) an eminence about four thousand feet high. At the lower end, shaded by lofty trees, is a little chapel on a tongue of land, dedicated to St. Bartholomew by an anchorite named Bilon, and near it a solitary villa belonging to a medical gentleman of the neighborhood, who spends his summer holidays in this Arcadian seclusion, boating and fishing in the lake and the clear stream that runs out of it. By a path to the right, following the sinuosities of the lake, a rocky barrier is reached, down whose face tumbles, among rocks and trees, a lovely waterfall; and when this is passed, another lake is disclosed, a round, low-lying basin, among dense woods and frowning escarpments, one of them called the Rock of the Devil, which bears the name of Retournemer, or "The Lake of Return." A solitary dwelling, backed by fine beeches and other trees, stands on the brink, the cottage of the forester, where the wanderer to this end of the world finds hospitable entertainment. But notwithstanding the impassable look of the scenery round, a zig-zag path through the trees climbs the height behind the house, and joins the road which leads to the Col de la Schlucht, where a beautiful view opens into Alsace, its most prominent objects being that long spur of the Vosges which terminates by Colmar, and on the other side a broken granite wall, crowned by a peculiarly imposing cap of rock, under which the road descends to the green slopes about Münster, which are variegated with acres of bleaching linen, the product of the weaving industry which pervades the whole country. On the Col itself is a spacious chalet or hotel, with excellent accommodation and abundant fare, to which appetites whetted by the bracing mountain air are inclined to do full justice. From this point, by walking up a long slope in a southerly direction, the top of the Honeck is reached, grazed over by herds of cattle tinkling with Alpine bells, and commanding a spacious view over the valley of the Rhine to the distant Black Forest, with tremendous precipices in the foreground on the side of Alsace. Instead of returning from this point direct to Gérardmer, I walked through a forest of apparently blasted horn-beam, as grisly as the trees in Gustave Doré's drawings, into a long valley, which led in course of time to a busy place called La Bresse, and thence, turning to the right, over a moderately high pass back to Gérardmer. Besides the three lakes already mentioned, there is Blanchemer, or the "White Lake," in the valley of the Mosellote; the Lac de Corbeaux, so-called from an overhanging cliff frequented by ravens; the Lac de Lispach, rich in fish, divided by a ridge from Longemer, and the Lac de Marchet, on the flank of a mountain not far from Bresse. The so-called White, Black, and Green lakes belonging to Alsace are situated further to the north on that side of the Vosges chain which looks toward the Rhine. On one of the mounds of the Honeck mountain there is an abundant and perennial spring, called La Fontaine de la Duchesse, which perhaps possesses a higher claim to be the source of the Moselle than the more trifling stream which descends by Bussang, though the latter pours its contribution in a more direct line. The sources of rivers, whether small or great, are generally controvertible. Some consider the Inn, which rises in the Grisons, as having more claim to be the real Danube than the river which rises at Donaueschingen, and, between the rival claims of the Victoria Nyanza of Speke and the Albert Nyanza of Baker, the real head of mighty Nilus himself still remains an open question for geographers.