/2 feet of water, watching a large bung hopelessly unmoved on the
surface, is a thing reserved for a Frenchman indulging in a weekly
intoxication of Sabbatical sport, under the delirious form of the
_chasse aux goujons_.

Clean as the town within the circuit of the river is, the houses which
overhang the water on the other side are picturesque and dirty in the
extreme, story rising above story, and balcony above balcony. It does
not increase their beauty, and to a fastidious nose it must militate
against their eligibility as places of residence, that there is
apparently but one drain, an external one, which follows the course of
the pillars supporting the various balconies: nevertheless, from the
opposite side of the river, and when the wind sets the other way, they
are sufficiently attractive. In this quarter is found the finest church,
the Madeleine, with a very effective piece of sculpture at the east end.
The sculpture is arranged on the bottom and farther side of a sort of
cage, which is hung outside the church, but is visible from the inside
through a corresponding opening in the east wall. The subject of the
sculpture is 'The Sepulchre,' and the ends of the cage or box are
composed of rich yellow glass, through which the external light streams
into the cave of the Sepulchre; and when the church itself is becoming
dark, the effect produced by the light from the evening sky, passing
through the deep-toned glass, and softly illuminating the Sepulchre, is
indescribably solemn.

[Illustration: BATH IN THE DOUBS, AT BESANCON.]

When Besancon was supplied by the aqueduct with the waters of Arcier,
there was a great abundance of baths, as the remains discovered in
digging new foundations show; but in the present state of the town such
things are not easily met with. The floating baths on the river are
appropriated to the other sex, and the only thing approaching to a male
bath was of a nature entirely new to me, being constructed as
follows:--There is a water-mill in the town, with a low weir stretching
across the river, down which the water rushes with no very great
violence. At the foot of this weir a row of sentry-boxes is placed,
approached by planks, and in these boxes the adventurer finds his
bath.[41] A stout piece of wood-work is fixed horizontally along the
face of the weir, and has the effect of throwing the downward water out
of its natural direction, and causing it to describe an arch, so that it
descends