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 with much force on to the weir at a point below the wood-work.  Here two planks are placed, forming a seat and a support for the back, and a little lower still another plank for the feet to rest upon, without which the bather would have a good chance of being washed away.  The water boils noisily and violently on all sides and in all directions, coming down upon the subject’s shoulders with a heavy thud, which calls to mind the tender years when something softer than a cane was used, and sends him forth like a fresh-boiled lobster.  All this, with towels, is not dear at fourpence.