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Updated: September 11, 2025
It is said that although the mills on the Doubs are sometimes stopped from want of water, those which derive their motive power from this strange and impressive cavern have never known the supply to fail.
Perhaps no Department in France is richer in rivers than Le Doubs, every landscape has its bit of river, rivulet or canal. To get an idea of the commanding position of Besancon, we must climb one of these lofty green heights, that of Notre Dame des Buis, for instance, an hour's drive from the town.
Caesar thought that he ought to take the greatest precautions lest this should happen, for there was in that town a most ample supply of everything which was serviceable for war; and so fortified was it by the nature of the ground as to afford a great facility for protracting the war, inasmuch as the river Doubs almost surrounds the whole town, as though it were traced round it with a pair of compasses.
Young folk also carry lighted torches about the streets or the fields, and when they pass an orchard they cry out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to recent years at Laviron, in the department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top.
A serene expression of joy spread over Roland's brow: he squeezed my hand, and we traced on a map of France the limits of this empire of Liberty, which extended from the Doubs, the Ain, and the Rhone to La Dordogne, and from the inaccessible mountains of Auvergne to Durance and the sea. I wrote, by dictation of Roland, to request from Marseilles a battalion and two pieces of cannon.
By a decree of the Convention, these exiles were accorded succour, after which the Committee declared watchmaking in the Department of the Doubs to be a national institution. Many hundred thousand watches are made here annually, and it has been computed that, out of every hundred watches in the French market, eighty-six come from Besancon.
Fortunately, some time later, a friend directed us to quite another region, that of the Autunois, to see a very similar house, offering about the same advantages. There were a few points of difference; for instance, the little river encircling the garden was only a trout-stream, instead of the broad and placid Doubs; the building was also of more modest appearance.
They left their wagon at Omans, among the Germans, and escaped out of it at night on foot; so as to gain the heights which border the River Doubs; the next day they entered Besancon, where there were plenty of chassepots.
This is indeed the way I saw the beautiful valley of the Doubs, and not only the country round about Besancon, but the border-land of Switzerland and Savoy. The weather we are in the first days of September is perfect.
The College of Montbeliard, called after its greatest citizen, was founded a few years ago, and is one of the first objects seen on quitting the railway station of the Rue Cuvier. English tourists do not often turn aside from the Swiss route to visit the quieter beauties of the Department of the Doubs, and residents here regret the absence of travellers, which, of course, tells upon the hotels.
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