Châtelaine, the ruins of which lie a mile or two from Arbois. On the
occasion of a severe famine in Burgundy, she collected a band of her
mendicant friends in a stable, and burned them all, saying that '_par
pitié elle hauoit faict cela, considerant les peines que ces pauvres
debuoient endurer en temps de si grande et tant estrange famine_.'

There is a Val d'Amour near Arbois, but the more beautiful valley of
that name lies between Dôle and Besançon, and, as we passed its
neighbourhood, my friend with the Macintosh informed me that as it was
clear from my questions that I was drawing up a history of the Franche
Comté, he must beg me to insert a legend respecting the origin of this
name, Val d'Amour, which, he believed, had never appeared in print. I
disclaimed the history, but accepted the legend, and here it is:--The
Seigneur of Chissey was to marry the heiress of a neighbouring
seigneurie, and, it is needless to add, she was very lovely, and he was
handsome and brave. A lake separated the two châteaux, and the young man
not unfrequently returned by water rather late in the evening; and so it
fell out that one night he was drowned. The lady naturally grieved
sorely for her loss, and put in train all possible means for recovering
her lover's body. Time, however, passed on, and no success attended her
efforts, till at length she caused the hills which dammed up the waters
to be pierced, and then De Chissey was found. A village sprang up near
the outlet thus made, and took thence its name Percée, or, as men now
spell it, Parcey; and the rich vegetation which speedily covered the
valley, where once the lake had been, gave it such an air of happiness
and beauty, that the people remembered its origin, and called it the
Valley of Love. It is a fact that Parcy was not always so spelled, for
Noble Constantin Thiehault, Sieur de Perrecey, was a witness to the
treaty for the transference of a miraculous host from Faverney to Dôle
in 1608, and old maps and books give it as Perrecey and Parrecey