The Life of the Moselle. Octavius Rooke
in; full of gay confidence, this friend imparts her knowledge to our stream.
She tells her of a city beautifully laid out with gardens of great trees, beneath whose shade gay dames and damsels walk, while music fills the air; hard by the numerous fountains play; and the old palace of King Stanislas, who enriched the town with many a stately building, is near. The shops and cafés, the theatre and walks, all render Nancy a cheerful and agreeable abode.
Within the old town is the curious palace of the ancient Dukes, containing a museum, where all sorts of relics are preserved.
Old towers stud the walls; and statues, groves, and churches ornament the town: in the ducal chapel are the tombs of the Dukes of Lorraine, who were powerful sovereign princes. This chapel is very beautiful.
Nancy appears to have been at the height of its lustre during the reign of Stanislas, who received the Duchy of Lorraine, in lieu of his own kingdom of Poland, from the French monarch; at his death the duchy finally reverted to France, and became extinct in 1766.
Stanislas and his queen, in 1699, took part in a very curious ceremony called “The Fête des Brandons,” annually practised in Nancy.
This fête was thus conducted: on a certain day all the newly-married couples, of whatever degree, were obliged, under pain of penalty, to go out of the city gate and fetch a fagot; these fagots were, to save them the trouble of going to the wood, sold to them outside the gates, where a sort of fair was held, in which they purchased ribands, pruning-knives of white wood, &c.; they returned, with their fagot bound with the ribands, and the husband with one of the pruning-knives hanging to his button, to the Halle des Cerfs in the ducal palace: from there they went in procession to the market-place, and formed a pile with the fagots; they then inscribed their names at the Hôtel de Ville, in a book kept for that purpose, and received certain privileges for the coming year.
Returning to the palace, they danced in the court, and the young men pelted peas under their feet; which “being,” says the chronicler, “very hard, occasioned the dancers many falls, which caused great hilarity among the spectators.”
At seven in the evening they had a grand supper at the Hôtel de Ville, and afterwards the bonfire was lit and fireworks sent up.
During the blazing of the bonfire the new-married had the right of proclaiming from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, “Les Valentins et les Valentines,” i.e. they called out the names of any of their unmarried friends with the following words, “Qui donne-t-on à M——?” “Mademoiselle——” was answered by another, and the crowd took up the names, expressing their approbation or otherwise.
In the course of the next week the Valentin was to send to his Valentine a bouquet, or other present; if she accepted it, she appeared, with the cadeau, at the toilette of the Duchess, on the following Sunday; if no present had been sent by the Valentin, his neighbours lit a fire of straw in front of his house, as a sign of their displeasure.
The ladies were to give a ball to their Valentins, and if they did not do so, a straw-fire was lit before their houses.
These fires were called “Brûler le Valentin,” or “Valentine,” and showed “the new-married” had made a mistake in their choice for the unmarried. The chronicle finishes by saying, “the people were so pleased at seeing Stanislas and his queen taking a part in their fête, that they did not pelt peas under their feet when dancing.”
Nancy is not a town of very ancient date like its neighbours, Metz and Toul; it dates only from the eleventh century, and even then it was merely “a castle with a few houses clustered round.”
Here Joan of Arc, born at Domremy, near Toul, was first presented by the Sire de Baudricourt to Duke Charles II., who gave her a horse and arms, and sent her to Chinon to the King, Charles VII. of France, to whom Joan made use of the following words:—“Je vous promets de par Dieu, premier qu’il soit un an, tous les Anglais hors de royaume je mettrai, et vous certifie que la puissance en moi est.”
After her barbarous murder the King ennobled all her family, males and females, in perpetuity; and they retained this privilege into the seventeenth century, when a parliamentary decree confined the honours to the males.
Many in Lorraine believed that Joan was not really burnt: this belief gave rise to several impostors, one of whom was so successful that she deceived even Joan’s brothers, and under her assumed name married a certain Seigneur des Armoises: another was for some time believed in, and fêted accordingly, but at last, being confronted with the King, he posed her by asking what was the secret between them.
In 1445 the Duke of Suffolk arrived at Nancy to demand the hand of Marguerite, René’s beautiful daughter, for Henry VI. of England; René willingly consented to this honour, and Marguerite went forth to pass her troubled life in camps and battles, until, after the murder of her husband and son, she returned to Lorraine, and died in 1482, near St. Mihiel. She was remarkable, says the historian, for her virtues, her talents, her courage, her misfortunes, and her beauty.
Charles the Bold besieged and took Nancy in 1475; contrary to his usual custom, he was most affable to the citizens, wishing to make Nancy the capital city of the new kingdom he proposed carving out for himself from the adjoining states; but his quarrel with the Swiss arrested the progress of these schemes, and in his absence René II. retook the city, the garrison capitulating: after the capitulation the governor sent René a pâté of horseflesh, and told him that for several days they had been reduced to such nourishment.
Immediately afterwards Charles re-appeared, and again besieged the city; René departed to procure assistance from the Swiss, the garrison promising to hold out for two months; and in keeping this promise it suffered great hardships—the walls were in ruin, a terrible disease appeared within the town, and no less than four hundred men were frozen to death on Christmas night only.
At length René and the Swiss arrived; then the celebrated battle was fought in which Charles was slain. It is said that before the fight commenced he feared for the result, as, in putting on his helmet, the crest fell to the ground. René re-entered his capital by torchlight the same night.
Under its Duke, Charles IV., Nancy suffered much from war, and endured several sieges; at length it was finally incorporated in the French Empire in 1766.
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