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Updated: May 20, 2025
Le Morvan, abounding in forests, was a district most congenial to the gloomy spirit of the religion of the ancient Druids; and therefore, in the earliest days of the history of France, they consecrated its groves of splendid oaks to the performance of their terrible rites. Remains of many of their massive monuments still exist, in the fields, in the deep valleys, and on the tops of the hills.
This is one of the most ancient towns in the Vosges. Like some of the villages in the Morvan and in the department of La Nievre, La Bresse remained till the Revolution an independent commune, a republic in miniature.
The favourite trap employed in Le Morvan is the Traquenard. This is the most dangerous, and the strongest that is made, requiring two men to set it; it has springs of great power, which once touched, the jaws of the trap close with tremendous force.
Le Morvan is a country that would delight an Englishman, for it is full of game; here the sportsman may vary his pleasures as fancy dictates. The forest abounds with deer; the plain with rabbits and the timid hare; and in the vineyards, during the merry season of the vintage, the fat red-stockinged and gray-clad partridges are bagged by bushels.
But there are more modern edifices in Le Morvan, with far more agreeable episodes attached to them: take, for example, the Hôtel de Bazarne, a celebrated hostel, built among the green lanes on the borders of a wood of acacias a beautiful flowery wood, which, when the merry month of May has heralded the perfumed pleasures of spring, dispenses them on every breeze over the adjacent country.
We had our provisions with us, and both lunched and dined on the grass under the fine chestnuts or oaks, so numerous in the Morvan, by the side of a clear stream or rivulet; for running water had a sort of magic influence upon Gilbert, and instinctively, when unwell from nervous exhaustion, he sought its soothing influence.
No; there scarcely breathes the human being who could be so insensible to the charms of scenery like that of Le Morvan as to do so without a pang. 'Tis a chalice of gold, brimful of real pleasures for those who love the joys of the open air; 'tis alive with fish and game, and has its vineyards and its cornfields too.
This strange production caused a great ferment in the departments of the Allier, the Nievre, and the Cher, proud to possess a poet capable of rivalry with the glories of Paris. Paquita la Sevillane, by Jan Diaz, was published in the Echo du Morvan, a review which for eighteen months maintained its existence in spite of provincial indifference.
But while delighting to describe the virtues of these denizens of the forests, these amiable fauns and jolly satyrs, I must not forget those jovial trencher-men, the curés of Le Morvan. Every sportsman possesses, or should possess, the digestion of an ostrich; for his appetite is generally prodigious, and the viands that fall in his way are not always the most savoury.
What a field for Father Mathew; but never, I am certain, has the worthy Apostle of Temperance ever dreamed of offering the pledge to the wolves of Le Morvan the rub would be to hang the medal round the necks of these Bacchanals of the forest.
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