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Updated: May 20, 2025
Looking east we behold the sombre Morvan and Nevers rising above the Loire, whilst westward, beyond the plain and the Loire, may be descried the cathedral of Bourges.
Unfortunately there is still a strong survival of the old caste prejudice against work, as being beneath a gentleman. I was talking about this with a rich old French gentleman about ten days ago, and he deeply deplored it; he said he felt more respect for common workmen than for the idle young men in his own class. "You appear to think that the Morvan language is a Celtic tongue.
Le Morvan Forests Climate Patriarchs and Damosels Peasants of the plain and the mountaineer Jovial Curés Their love of Burgundy The Doctor and the Curé.
A custom which exists still in several cantons of the Basque country, and even at the centre of France in Morvan, a mountainous district of the department of the Nievre, would that the maiden should appear only at the end of the banquet, and holding in her hand a filled wine-cup, and that the guest to whom she should present it should become the husband of her choice.
Germain that you were to soften with your tales of forest life 'Mademoiselles, you were to commence, 'when I was in Le Morvan, we had famous wolf and boar-hunting, and on one occasion'".... "No! no!" groaned the Parisian, "I shall commence thus: On one occasion, nay, ladies, on all occasions, I much prefer being in your delightful society to that of the boars of Le Morvan."
If the Burgundian curates dwelling in the richest parts of the province are fat, sleek, and jovial members of the Establishment, if in their cellars are to be found the best and most generous wines, and on their tables the most exquisite dishes, the curés of that portion of Le Morvan which is immediately adjacent to Burgundy enjoy the same abundance, and appreciate the advantages of good living equally with them.
Another attraction was the good views from all the windows; that of the Beuvray, with the plain leading to it; the amphitheatre of Autun, with the intervening wood of noble trees, and beyond it the temple of Janus; the range of the Morvan hills, the fields of golden wheat and waving corn, and the pastures which looked like mysterious lakes in the moonlight when the white mist rose from the marshes and spread all over their surface endlessly as it seemed.
There is then no more doubt; resistance is now impossible; the widow, the family, and the servants of Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis the Debonnair, accept all the conditions imposed upon them, and the Franks withdraw with the boast that Brittany is henceforth their tributary. On arriving at Angers, Louis found the Empress Hermengarde dying; and two days afterwards she was dead.
My sketch, therefore, applies only to those curés, who reside in a remote rural district like that of Le Morvan; I advance nothing that I have not seen myself, and if I should ever have the pleasure of meeting any of my English friends in Le Morvan, I could introduce them to ten curés one and all similar in every respect to the ecclesiastic I am about to pourtray.
To these blind blasphemers, who thus deny its power, I would respectfully say, Come to Le Morvan, and observe the woodcock, and then dare to say that love is an untruth. Why, love is the great magician of the universe, the sun of our minds, a path of fragrant violets, a perfect copse of millefleurs, before which we all bend our hearts, aye, and, with vastly few exceptions, our heads too.
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