In the Jura [pp. 765-776]

XI THE JURA.
Here is a magnificent view across dark mountains, valleys of
tenderest green, dimpling lakes, and villages of romantic aspect
which give a human interest to the scene. The church of Coldres itself, though important enough to be mentioned by Frederick Barbarossa in a charter drawn up at Arbois in I 1 57, is a very
unpretending edifice, paved with flag-stones like the houses of
the mountaineers, with a simple altar turned duly to the east.
Its chief pride is the flamboyant window of the chancel and an
ancient statue of St. Stephen, who is held in special veneration
all through this region. Here died St. D6sir6, Bishop of Besan(on, in one of his apostolic rounds, but his remains were taken
to his native place of Lons-le-Saunier. There they were reverently preserved for twelve hundred years in the crypt of the
church which now bears his name, but were for the most part
sacrilegiously burned by the revolutionists of 1793. His tomb,
however, is still venerated, and his festival annually celebrated
with great joy and devotion.
At Chevraux, in the canton of St. Amour, is another ancient
church on the top of a high mountain, once the centre of a vast
parish where the offices of the church were likewise announced
by signal-fires that cast their blaze afar.
St. Amour itself is a place of some religious interest, but is
chiefly known for giving its name to Guillaume de St. Amour,
one of the great schoolmen of the thirteenth century, and the
friend of St. Louis' chaplain, Richard de Sorbon, with whom he
was associated in founding the college of the Sorbonne at Paris.
He returned to the Jura, however, and died at St. Amour in
1272. The town is beautifully situated at the foot of a mountain
range, in the midst of luxuriant vineyards, and might well charm
the eye of the most solemn old schoolman. It was named for a
martyr of the famous Theban legion, whose body, with that of St.
Viatre, or Viateur, was brought here in 585 by Gontran, King of
Burgundy, and placed in a votive church he erected to receive
these sacred relics. He was on his way home from a pilgrimage
to St. Maurice of Agaune, and, his life being endangered by a
storm in crossing Lake Leman, he made a vow, should he escape,
to erect a church and monastery in the first town he should arrive at in his own dominions, and there deposit the remains of
the two martyrs. He finally came to land, and the road he took
in coming from Geneva may still be traced-an old Roman road
which is sometimes called the Chernin de Cdsar. The first town
he arrived at was Vincia, and he immediately proceeded to fulfil
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