The Golden Lion of Granpere | Page 2

that the chance traveller, as long as he tarries at
Granpere, will insensibly and perhaps unconsciously become an
advocate of the former doctrine; he will be struck by the comfort which
he sees around him, and for a while will dispense with wealth, luxury,
scholarships, and fashion. Whether the inhabitants of these hills and

valleys will advance to farther progress now that they are again to
become German, is another question, which the writer will not attempt
to answer here.
Granpere in itself is a very pleasing village. Though the amount of
population and number of houses do not suffice to make it more than a
village, it covers so large a space of ground as almost to give it a claim
to town honours. It is perhaps a full mile in length; and though it has
but one street, there are buildings standing here and there, back from
the line, which make it seem to stretch beyond the narrow confines of a
single thoroughfare. In most French villages some of the houses are
high and spacious, but here they seem almost all to be so. And many of
them have been constructed after that independent fashion which
always gives to a house in a street a character and importance of its
own. They do not stand in a simple line, each supported by the strength
of its neighbour, but occupy their own ground, facing this way or that
as each may please, presenting here a corner to the main street, and
there an end. There are little gardens, and big stables, and commodious
barns; and periodical paint with annual whitewash is not wanting. The
unstinted slates shine copiously under the sun, and over almost every
other door there is a large lettered board which indicates that the
resident within is a dealer in the linen which is produced throughout the
country. All these things together give to Granpere an air of prosperity
and comfort which is not at all checked by the fact that there is in the
place no mansion which we Englishmen would call the gentleman's
house, nothing approaching to the ascendancy of a parish squire, no
baron's castle, no manorial hall,--not even a chateau to overshadow the
modest roofs of the dealers in the linen of the Vosges.
And the scenery round Granpere is very pleasant, though the
neighbouring hills never rise to the magnificence of mountains or
produce that grandeur which tourists desire when they travel in search
of the beauties of Nature. It is a spot to love if you know it well, rather
than to visit with hopes raised high, and to leave with vivid impressions.
There is water in abundance; a pretty lake lying at the feet of sloping
hills, rivulets running down from the high upper lands and turning
many a modest wheel in their course, a waterfall or two here and there,

and a so-called mountain summit within an easy distance, from whence
the sun may be seen to rise among the Swiss mountains;--and distant
perhaps three miles from the village the main river which runs down
the valley makes for itself a wild ravine, just where the bridge on the
new road to Munster crosses the water, and helps to excuse the people
of Granpere for claiming for themselves a great object of natural
attraction. The bridge and the river and the ravine are very pretty, and
perhaps justify all that the villagers say of them when they sing to
travellers the praises of their country.
Whether it be the sale of linen that has produced the large inn at
Granpere, or the delicious air of the place, or the ravine and the bridge,
matters little to our story; but the fact of the inn matters very much.
There it is,--a roomy, commodious building, not easily intelligible to a
stranger, with its widely distributed parts, standing like an inverted V,
with its open side towards the main road. On the ground-floor on one
side are the large stables and coach-house, with a billiard-room and
cafe over them, and a long balcony which runs round the building; and
on the other side there are kitchens and drinking-rooms, and over these
the chamber for meals and the bedrooms. All large, airy, and clean,
though, perhaps, not excellently well finished in their construction, and
furnished with but little pretence to French luxury. And behind the inn
there are gardens, by no means trim, and a dusty summer-house, which
serves, however, for the smoking of a cigar; and there is generally
space and plenty and goodwill. Either the linen, or the air, or the ravine,
or, as is more probable, the three combined, have produced a business,
so that the landlord of the Lion d'Or at Granpere is a thriving man.
The reader shall at