In the Heart of the Vosges
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Matilda Betham Edwards >> In the Heart of the Vosges
There are free libraries for all, and a very handsome museum has been
opened within the last few years, containing some fine modern French
pictures, all gifts of the Dollfrees, Engels, and Köchlins, to their
native town. The museum, like everything else at Mulhouse, is as French
as French can be, no German element visible anywhere. Conspicuous among
the pictures are portraits of Thiers and Gambetta, and a fine subject of
De Neuville, representing one of those desperate battle-scenes of 1870-71
that still have such a painful hold on the minds of French people. It was
withheld for some time, and had only been recently exhibited. The
bombardment of Strasburg is also a popular subject in Mulhouse.
I have mentioned the flower-gardens of the city, but the real
pleasure-ground of both rich and poor lies outside the suburbs, and a
charming one it is, and full of animation on Sundays. This is the
Tannenwald, a fine bit of forest on high ground above the vineyards and
suburban gardens of the richer citizens. A garden is a necessity of
existence here, and all who are without one in the town hire or purchase
a plot of suburban ground. Here is also the beautiful subscription garden
I have before alluded to, with fine views over the Rhine valley and the
Black Forest.
Nor is Mulhouse without its excursions. Colmar and the romantic site of
Notre Dame des Trois Épis may be visited in a day. Then there is Thann,
with its perfect Gothic church, a veritable cathedral in miniature, and
the charming, prosperous valley of Wesserling. From Thann the ascent of
the Ballon d'Alsace may be made, but the place itself must on no account
be missed. No more exquisite church in the region, and most beautifully
is it placed amid sloping green hills! It may be said to consist of nave
and apse only. There are but two lateral, chapels, evidently of a later
period than the rest of the building. The interior is of great beauty,
and no less so the façade and side porch, both very richly decorated.
One's first feeling is of amazement to find such a church in such a
place; but this dingy, sleepy little town was once of some importance
and still does a good deal of trade. There is a very large Jewish
community here, as in many other towns of Alsace. Whether they deserve
their unpopularity is a painful question not lightly to be taken up.
[Illustration: COLMAR]
Leisurely travellers bound homeward from Mulhouse will do well to diverge
from the direct Paris line and join it at Dijon, by way of Belfort--the
heroic city of Belfort, with its colossal lion, hewn out of the solid
rock--the little Protestant town of Montbéliard, and Besançon. Belfort is
well worth seeing, and the "Territoire de Belfort" is to all intents and
purposes a new department, formed from that remnant of the Haut Rhin
saved to France after the war of 1870-71. The "Territoire de Belfort"
comprises upwards of sixty thousand hectares, and a population, chiefly
industrial, of nearly seventy thousand inhabitants, spread over many
communes and hamlets. There is a picturesque and romantic bit of country
between Montbéliard and Besançon, well worth seeing, if only from the
railway windows. But the tourist who wants to make no friendly calls on
the way, whose chief aim is to get over the ground quickly, must avoid
the _détour_ by all means, as the trains are slow and the stoppages
many.
[Illustration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, AETAT EIGHT YEARS]
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THE 'MARVELLOUS BOY' OF ALSACE
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It is especially at Strasburg that travellers are reminded of another
"marvellous boy," who, if he did not "perish in his pride," certainly
shortened his days by overreaching ambition and the brooding bitterness
waiting upon shattered hopes.
Gustave Doré was born and reared under the shadow of Strasburg
Cathedral. The majestic spire, a world in itself, became indeed a world
to this imaginative prodigy. He may be said to have learned the minster
of minsters by heart, as before him Victor Hugo had familiarized himself
with Notre Dame. The unbreeched artist of four summers never tired of
scrutinizing the statues, monsters, gargoyles and other outer
ornamentations, while the story of the pious architect Erwin and of his
inspirer, Sabine, was equally dear. Never did genius more clearly
exhibit the influence of early environment. True child of Alsace, he
revelled in local folklore and legend. The eerie and the fantastic had
the same fascination for him as sacred story, and the lives of the
saints, gnomes, elves, werewolves and sorcerers bewitched no less than
martyrs, miracle-workers and angels.
His play-hours would be spent within the precincts of the cathedral,
whilst the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and
fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little
listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than
mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant
fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined
figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable
precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he
celebrated his first school prize with an illustrated letter, two
portraits and a mannikin surmounting the text.
[Footnote: See his life by Blanch Roosevelt, Sampson Low & Co. 1885;
also the French translation of the same, 1886.]
His groups of peasants and portraits, made three or four years later,
possess almost a Rembrandt strength, unfortunately passion for the
grotesque and the fanciful often lending a touch of caricature.
Downright ugliness must have had an especial charm for the future
illustrator of the _Inferno_, his unconscious models sketched by the
way being uncomely as the immortal Pickwick and his fellows of Phiz. A
devotee of Gothic art, he reproduced the mediæval monstrosities adorning
cornice and pinnacle in human types. Equally devoted to nature out of
doors, the same taste predominated. What he loved and sought was ever
the savage, the legend-haunted, the ghoulish, seats and ambuscades of
kelpie, hobgoblin, brownie and their kind.
[Illustration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, ÆTAT EIGHT YEARS]
From the nursery upwards, if the term can be applied to French children,
his life was a succession of artistic abnormalities and _tours de
force_. The bantling in petticoats who could astound his elders with
wonderfully accurate silhouettes, continued to surprise them in other
ways. His memory was no less amazing than his draughtsmanship. When
seven years of age, he was taken to the opera and witnessed _Robert le
Diable_. On returning home he accurately narrated every scene.
At eight he broke his right arm, but became as if by magic ambidextrous,
whilst confined to bed, cheerily drawing all day long with the left
hand. At ten he witnessed a grand public ceremony. In 1840 Strasburg