Something must be said about the famous Arbois wine, of which Henry the Fourth of France wrote to his friend the Duke of Mayenne upon their reconciliation:--"I have some Arbois wine in my cellar, of which I send you two bottles, for I am sure you will not dislike it." These wines, both red and yellow, find their way to connoisseurs in Paris, but are chiefly grown for home-consumption. There are several kinds, and the stranger in these regions must taste both the red and the yellow of various ages and qualities to judge of their merits. I drank some of the latter thirty years old, and certainly even to one to whom the pleasures of the palate are indifferent, it tasted much as nectar might be supposed to do on Mount Olympus. The grapes are dried on straw before making this yellow wine, and the process is a very delicate and elaborate one.
How wonderful it seems to find friends and welcomes in these unfrequented regions! Up till the moment of my departure from Arbois, a little town few English travellers have even heard of, I had been engaged in earnest friendly talk with a Protestant pastor, and also with a schoolmaster and Scripture reader from the heart of the Jura; and no sooner did I arrive at Lons-le-Saunier than I found myself as much at home in two charming family circles as if I had known them all my life. Amid the first of these I was compelled to accept hospitality, and at once took my place at the hospitable family board opposite two little curly heads, boy and girl; while, an hour or two after my arrival, I was sitting in the old-fashioned artistically furnished drawing-room of a Franche-Comté Catholic family, father, mother, son and young married daughter, all welcoming me as an old friend. This was not in the cheerful little town of Lons-le-Saunier itself, but in a neighbouring village to which I drove at once, for I knew that I had been expected several days before. Fruits, liqueurs, preserves, cakes, I know not what other good things were brought out to me, and after an hour or two delightfully spent in music and conversation, I left, promising to spend a long day with my kind friends before continuing my journey. It is impossible to give any idea of Franche-Comté hospitality; you are expected to taste of everything, and your pockets are crammed with the good things you cannot eat.