Bollwiller (4 miles), in a wine district. Coach to SOULTZ (pop., 4,000, and a handsome spire church), and Guebwiller, another spinning place, which has (near some abbey ruins) a fine Norman church, with three spires. Here the ascent to the Ballon may be made (the view takes in part of Switzerland), descending to the interesting valley of St. Amarin, in which is a castle, a large factory for Indiennes, &c., and a way to Thann.

Wittelsheim (33 miles).

Basle, in SWITZERLAND (see Hand-book of Switzerland.)

(a) From Lutterbach, as above, a branch railway goes off through

Cernay (4 miles), a sweet spot (pop., 4,000), near the sterile tract of Ochsenfeld, to

Thann (3 miles), a town of 5,960 cotton printers, &c., on the Thur, at the entrance of St. Amarin's valley, under one of the Vosges hills, which has remains of Engelbourg castle on it. It contains

MULHOUSE, or Muhlhausen,

69 miles from Strasbourg, 304 from Paris (viâ the new route through Belfort, Troyes, &c. see Route 62). There is a buffet at the station.

HOTEL.-De Paris.

A town of 29,580 souls, and a great seat of manufactures, such as cotton prints, turkey red, woollens, worsteds, muslins, yarn, silk, steam engines, spinning machines, locomotives, &c. It was an imperial city from 1268 till 1515, when it became a Swiss republic, but was joined to France, 1798. It stands partly on an island of the Ill, and on the Rhine and Rhône canal, and is generally well-built, with some old houses. The new quarter was begun, 1828. There are Catholic and Reformed churches, a synagogue, Hôtel de Ville, the oldest of its public buildings, college, hospital, cabinets of natural history, &c., bibliothèque, various public walks, and a chamber of commerce, council of prud 'hommes (joint committee of masters and workmen) and many factories, one of the largest and oldest being that of Köchlin Brothers.

[OTTMARSHEIM (15 kil. east-north-east), on the Rhine, has one of the most remarkable churches in this part. It is eignt-sided, and is believed to be the remains of a Lombard basilica.] Rixheim (3 miles), which has large manufactures of paper hangings. Pop., 2,970.

Habsheim ( mile).

Sirentz (6) miles).

Bartenheim (1 miles).

dral-like church, with a sculptured doorway, and a steeple 328 feet high, built 1516. Vin de Rang is produced here.

ROUTE 55.

Epernay to Rheims, Mezieres, and Belgium. Distance by rail, 73 miles. Four trains daily; mail, 4 hours. This is one of the Ardennes Company's lines.

Epernay stat. on Paris and Strasbourg line, as in Route 54. Leaving this, the line crosses the Marne on a four-arched bridge, and is still further continued on two other bridges or archways (to save it from the inundations of the river) and on two skew bridges over the canal, to

Ai or Ay (2 miles), where the best mousseux wines are grown. Pcp. 3,300. Marcuil is the seat of the Marquis de Montebello. At

Avenay (2) miles), is the church of an ancient abbey, founded in the 7th cent. The line, after winding among forests and hills, passes a long tunnel of nearly 2 miles, to

Rilly-la-Montagne (7 miles) and its old church, at the foot of a hill. Then 7 miles further, is

RHEIMS, or Reims, 107 miles from Paris, Where the junction from Tergnier and Laon falls in (see Route 6).

HOTEL-Du Lion d'Or.

Rheims, though a sous-préfecture only (in department Marne), has a population of 45,750, is the seat of an archbishop, and one of the oldest cities in France, having been the chief town of Champagne. ACT OBJECTS OF NOTICE.-Cathedral-Old Walls

[On the Strasbourg and Basle railway, after St. Louis. To the right, near the Rhine, is HUNINGUE, which had, on a rock, one of Vauban's fortresses before 1815, when it was taken by the Austrians. It contains a good church, barracks, &c., and a monument to General Abatucci. Pop., 2,000.] At 2 miles further is

-Maison Rouge.

It stands on the Vesle, at the bottom of gently sloping chalk hills, covered with vineyards, though the neighbourhood is dull. It was the capital of the Remi in Belgian Gaul, and called Durocortorum by the Romans, whose consul here, Jovinus, became a Christian, 366. Clovis and his Franks were baptized here, 496. It was taken by Charles Martel, 719, and by

Parts of the Gothic walls with their turrets still remain; the streets are wide, and most of the houses one story high. Of fourteen open places, the largest is Place Royale, built 1756, which has Cartellier's bronze copy of Pigalle's Louis XV., (who greatly improved this old city), and the ancient Hôtel des Fermes. Place Godinot takes its name from a canon of the last century, who built a château d'eau for supplying water, now furnished by a new reservoir (by Cordier, 1843), in Place de la Tour-du-Puits. An old fountain, by Coustou, the sculptor, stands in Place St. Nicaise, where a very old church stood, till destroyed at the Revolution. One gate, called the Porte de Vesle, an iron arch, leads out to the Grand Cours, a well planted walk by the river, as far as Porte de Laon. Close to the latter (built in the wall), is the Porte de Mars, a genuine Roman relic. It was a triumphal arch, built by Agrippa, in honour of Cæsar Augustus, with three openings in it, and eight Corinthian columns, all much worn. An amphitheatre may be traced at the Mont d'Arènes near it. But its finest ornament is the noble Gothic

Cathedral, covered with a multitude of figures and ornaments, and built, for the most part, 1212-42, by Robert de Coucy, on the site of one founded as early as 360-400. The transept (164 feet long) was rebuilt after a fire in 1491. Length, 467 feet; breadth, 98 feet; height, 118 feet. The richly beautiful front has a triple portal (the middle one being 39 feet wide), a large stained rose window, bas-reliefs of the Passion, the Judgment, Crowning of the Virgin, David and Goliah, Baptism of Clovis, and from 530 to 550 statues of various sizes, in rows, besides a row of 35 niched prelates near the top; above which rise the two towers, made of open pillars and windows, and ending in a heap of little turrets, instead of the spires which they were designed to carry. One tower (the south), a little shorter than the other, was not finished till 1480, and has the bells of a clock as old as 1570, with moving figures, &c. Going in, you see about 90 niched statues inside the doors; the windows are richly stained with figures of apostles, kings, &c. In the nave (which had a painted ceiling of lilies, on a blue ground, when Charles X. was crowned,) is the very curious marble tomb of Jovinus, the Roman consul, carved over with a lion hunt, and brought

The church of St. Remi, or Remigius, was built 1041-60, as part of Archbishop Turpin's Benedictine abbey, being older than the cathedral, and the place where the early kings were consecrated. It is a mixture of Norman and pointed Gothic in the style, and 361 feet long, with a plain front, having five portals and a rose window, between two slender towers with slated spires. It contains a modern copy of the tomb of St. Remi, ornamented by marble life-size statues of the twelve premier peers of France (the Count of Champagne and the archbishop are two), saved from an older tomb. The pavement is done with mosaic figures from the Bible; and 10 pieces of tapestry (the life of St. Remi) line the walls. Several kings and bishops were buried in this church, which has lately been restored. Here the procession of the herring used to take place on Holy Wednesday. Each canon trailed a herring after him, and it was his business to tread on the one belonging to the man before him, while he did his best to prevent his own being trodden on by the next following.

The Gothic churches of St. Andrew and St. Thomas are both modern.

The Hôtel de Ville (which a new street joins to Place Impériale), begun 1627, and enlarged 1825, consists of a centre and wings (one new), 200 feet long, ornamented with 68 pilasters, and bas-reliefs (at the middle) of Louis XIII. Here are placed the cartulaire, or collection of archives; the bibliothèque or library of 32,000 vols., besides 1,500 MSS. and autographs; and a museum of pictures. At the archbishop's palace is a collection of portraits of kings and prelates. A new Doric Palais de Justice was built, 1845, on the site of the Hôtel Dieu; a new covered market, 1840; and an abattoir, or slaughter-house, 1838. Rheims has a college, priests' seminary, theatre, public baths, botanic garden, chamber of commerce, &c.

A few old buildings are left, as, the Hôtel des Comtes de Champagne, in Rue du Tambour, Hôtel de Joyeuse, near the Hôtel de Ville, Hôtel de Chev reuse, in Rue des Gueux, and the Maison Rouge Inn (near the cathedral), on which you read, "In the year 1429, at the coronation of Charles VII., in this inn, then called the Zebra, the father and mother of Jeanne d'Arc were lodged at the cost of the city authorities." At the English college for priests here, the Rheims version of the New Testament was pub lished, 1582. In the old house of Long Vétre, in Rue

de Cères, Colbert, the statesman, was born, 1619, the son of a wine merchant. When he wanted, afterwards, to make one of his sons Grand Bailly of the Order of Malta, for which four descents of nobility were required, he proceeded in this way. He fabricated an epitaph for a pretended ancestor, Richard Colbertby, a Scotchman. To get this placed in the Cordeliers' church, where several of his family lay buried, he bribed the guardian with the promise of a bishopric (which he never got), and here the epitaph was to be seen till the Revolution. In Rue du Marc, Pluche, who wrote the Spectacle de la Nature, was born. Gobelin, who gives name to the tapestry, and Marshal Drouet d'Erlon (to whom there is a statue), were also natives. Trade in Champagne wines, corn, &c., and woollens, which are spun here. It is the "original seat" of pain d'épice, or gingerbread.

The trade in Champagne at Rheims reaches 30 million francs yearly; and 600,000 bottles are usually stored away in the chalk cellars of Madame Cliquot and other proprietors. It sells from 2 to 4 fr. a bottle on the spot, according to quality; but the inferior sorts drunk here is as low as 14d. a bottle; the local consumption being reckoned at 84 bottles a head. Of the four million bottles of sparkling Champagne exported from the whole department, upwards of half-a-million finds its way to England, and threequarters-of-a-million to the rest of France, Flowers are greatly cultivated at Rheims, by amateurs and others, among whom may be mentioned M. Souillé, for roses; M. Joltras, for dahlias; M. Rénart, for tulips.

Sillery is on the road to Chalons. The rail hence to Laon, &c. (see Route 6), was, as well as that which we follow, constructed by the Ardennes Company. Vitry-les-Reims (54 miles) is near Isle, on the

Snippe.

Bazancourt (5 miles). La Chatelet (7 miles).

Cross the Aisnes, and the Canal des Ardennes, to Rethel (7 miles), a sous-préfecture of 7,900 souls, in department Ardennes, on a hill, by the Aisne, was an old Roman castrum rectectum, and the head of a duchy, once held by the Duc de Meilleraye, who married Cardinal Mazarin's niece. It was besieged, 1660, by the Spaniards, who defeated Turenne close by, then fighting for the Fronde. Condé took it four years after, but gave it up to Turenne, who was now on the court side, after changing his religion. An old tower remains. Linens and nails are made.

[At 8 kil. west-north-west, is CHÂTEAU-PORCIEN, down the Aisne, under an old castle on a rock, which belonged to the Counts of Champagne, &c.-At 16 miles east-south-east, up the Aisne, is ATTIGNY, which has traces of a palace of the early kings from Clovis, who built it 647. A council was held here 765; and here Witikind the Saxon was baptized, 786. Charles the Simple built St. Walburg's church here. It was aftewards a Country-seat of the Rheims archbishops, but suffered so much from the English and the Frondeurs, &c., that it is now a small village of only 1,600 souls.

VOUZIERS (12 kil. south-east of this), up the Aisne, a small but thriving sous-préfecture of 2,800 pop., near which the Prince de Ligne was killed, 1792. It was about here that, in the Revolutionary war, a sudden panic took possession of the French under Doumouriez, when, to the number of 10,000, they fled 40 leagues before 1,200 Prussian hussars, and for a moment threw all France into alarm.

BUZANCY (22 kil. east-north-east of this) has near it the Château de la Cour, which belonged to the Rheims prelates, and a building like a mosque, called Mahomet, and built, they say, by a crusader. At 21 kil. further is Stenay (see Route 5).] Launois (15 miles), on the Vence.

[At 10 kil. west-north-west is SIGNY L'ABBAYE so called from remains of a Benedictine abbey, founded 1134, by St. Bernard, and endowed by a seigneur of Châtillon, to whom the saint gave a written contract, kindly promising him as many acres in heaven as he had made a donation of on earth. The original document was to be seen here till the last century.]

At 14 miles further is

MEZIERES, 162 miles, from Paris. HOTELS.-Du Palais Royal;

Des Postes.

Population, 4,900.

This small, dull, capital of department Ardennes, is a military post of the second class, close to the Belgian frontier, on a bend of the Meuse, in a pleasant hilly spot, surrounded by Vauban's lines and a citadel, It is as old as 847, when a castle was built here, which the counts of Rethel took possession of. Among the few buildings worth notice are, the old Gothic church, built 1412-1506, which has a good portal, a high vault,

with 2,000 men defended the town against a force of 40,000 Austrians, in 1521, when bombshells were used for the first time; this flag is carried in procession every 27th September. It also stood a seven weeks' siege in 1815, after Waterloo. The Hôtel Dieu was built 1746. About 4,000 vols. are in the public library. Leather, serge, &c., are made. Conveyances to Sedan, Givet, Verdun, Metz, &c. From Sedan (see Route 58), it is about 7 miles to Bouillon, in Belgium.

From Mézières, on the road to Namur, you pass CHARLEVILLE, by a short road, only mile long, leading over a suspension bridge on the Meuse. It was built by, and called after, Charles, Duke of Nevers and Mantua, 1606, and has a pretty walk at Petit Bois, a college or school, hospital, theatre, and bibliothèque of 24,000 vols., with a museum of natural history. A castle stood on Mont Olympe between 1639 and 1689. Pop. 9,400, who make nails, fire-arms, iron goods, and a trade in slate, coal, marble, grain, &c. Coach to Couvin, on the Sambre and Meuse line, for Charleroi and Brussels. The rail between Charleville and Sedan was opened in December, 1838. Two bridges cross the Meuse. From Sedan it is to be continued to Thionville (Route 58), and from Charleville to Givet; thus completing the north-east frontier line.

RIMOQUE (15 kil.)

ROCROY (11 kil.), or Rocroi, a fortress of the fourth class, with a frontier custom-house or douane, on a plain 1,190 feet above the sea, where the great Condé, when Duke of Enghien, and only twenty-two years old, gained his famous victory over the Spaniards, &c., 19th May, 1643. The town stands among the forests of Ardennes, and was founded by Francis I. Pop. 8,600. Coach to Couvin, as above.

Hilaire and Nôtre Dame, a library of 5,000 vols., and chamber of manufactures. Pop. 5,900. Pottery, pipes, and iron goods are made. In the neighbourhood is the old château of Mont d'Hano (near Vireux Wallerand), and up the river, the high slate cliffs, called the Dames de la Main. Boats ascend it to Mézières. Hotel.-Du Mont d'Or.

Coach to Vireux, on the Sambre and Meuse line. Further down the river are Dinant, and Namur (in BELGIUM), from which the rail can be taken to Waterloo and Brussels. A rail is making to unita Dinant and Namur. The dark slaty cliffs of the river are high and imposing.

ROUTE 56.

Blesme to Chaumont.

Distance by rail, 55 miles, or 90 kil. Four trains a day.

Blesme, as on the Strasbourg line, Route 54 Then over a wide plain to

St. Dizier (7 miles), a sous-préfecture, in Hauté Marne (pop. 7,200) on the Marne, among wood. It was besieged by Charles V. in 1544, and mostly burnt by accident 1775. It has part of an old castle, near the Gothic church, and a modern Hôtel de Ville.

Hotels.-Du Soleil d'Or (Golden Sun); L'Arbre d'Or (Golden Tree). Wood is cut and iron forged here. One of the forges, Marnaval, owes its origin, says tradition, to the following story. Henry IV. having visited St. Dizier, the échevin or sheriff, Beaudesson, came to pay his respects. He was so like the

FUMAY (16 kil.), on the Meuse, is noted for its ardoisères or slate works, in the mountains here, through which the river has made a deep cutting. An old castle stands upon it. Merinoes, flannels, steam engines, glass, &c. are made. Pop. 3,400. It was the centre of a little neutral spot, when joined to France, 1770.

GIVET (22 kil.), a fortified town on the Meuse, close to the Belgian frontier, in a hilly and rather picturesque spot, is composed of Petit Givet, at the end of the stone bridge, and Grand Givet, with Charlemont fort at the other end, the latter being on a high rock. It was used as a aepôt for English prisoners in the war, when the Rev. R. Wolfe voluntarily laboured among twelve hundred of them, preaching the gospel, forming schools, &c., as related in his work, "English Prisoners in France." It has the churches of St.

trumpets, to the astonishment of Henry, who, putting his head out of window, asked if there were two kings there. Beaudesson entered, and the king, surprised at the likeness, inquired i his mother had ever been at Béarn (where Henry came from). "No, Sire," answered the sheriff, "but my father has travelled a good deal." The king was so tickled with the répartée, that he told Beaudesson to ask whatever he liked. He asked to build a forge on the Marne; and this was the origin of Marnaval. [VASSY or Wassy (15 kil. south from St. Dizier), and another sous-préfecture, is on the site, some say, of Vadieases, which was burnt by Caracalla in 211. Roman coins have been found. An inscription near the hospital marks where a massacre of the Protestants took place, 1562, by the Duc de Guise. Large forests and iron forges surround it. Pop. 2,583.]