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They began at Porrentruy, they ended at the watershed of the Adriatic, in the high passes of the Alps; but in that little space of four days I made acquaintance with their influence, and I owe them a perpetual gratitude for their architecture and their tales. I had come from France, which is full of an active memory of Rome.
In all of them you find music. They are those Germans whose countries I had seen a long way off, from the Ballon d'Alsace, and whose language and traditions I now first touched in the town that stood before me. LECTOR. But in Porrentruy they talk French! AUCTOR. They are welcome; it is an excellent tongue. Nevertheless, they are Germans. Who but Germans would so preserve would so rebuild the past?
The new bishop remained at Porrentruy, and the chapter removed to Freiburg. The moment of departure had now come for Erasmus. His position at Basle in 1529 somewhat resembled, but in a reversed sense, the one at Louvain in 1521. Then the Catholics wanted to avail themselves of his services against Luther, now the Evangelicals would fain have kept him at Basle. For his name was still as a banner.
It was impossible to follow that line exactly, but one could average it closely enough by following the high road down the mountain through Belfort to a Swiss town called Porrentruy or Portrut so far one was a little to the west of the direct line.
I was told later that some part of that great bastion was Roman, and I can believe it. The Germans hate to destroy. It overwhelmed me as visions overwhelm, and I felt in its presence as boys feel when they first see the mountains. Had I not been a Christian, I would have worshipped and propitiated this obsession, this everlasting thing. As it was I entered Porrentruy soberly.
AUCTOR. Neither am I. It is but the backwash of a wave... Well, then, I went up the open way, and came in a few miles of that hot afternoon to the second ridge of the Jura, which they call 'the Terrible Hill', or 'the Mount Terrible' and, in truth, it is very jagged. A steep, long crest of very many miles lies here between the vale of Porrentruy and the deep gorge of the Doubs.
The German spirit is a marvel. There lay Porrentruy. An odd door with Gothic turrets marked the entry to the town. To the right of this gateway a tower, more enormous than anything I remembered to have seen, even in dreams, flanked the approach to the city. How vast it was, how protected, how high, how eaved, how enduring!
Bacchus is everywhere, but if he has special sites to be ringed in and kept sacred, I say let these be Brule, and the silent vineyard that lies under the square wood by Tournus, the hollow underplace of Heltz le Maurupt, and this town of Porrentruy.
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