endeavouring to overcome the evening heat of Besançon in a
_spécialité_ for ice, I found that the owner of the establishment was
also the owner of the two glacières of Vaise; and in the course of the
conversation which followed, he told me of the existence of a natural
glacière near the village of Arc-sous-Cicon, twenty kilomètres from
Pontarlier, which he had himself seen. As I had arranged to meet my
sisters at Neufchâtel, in two days' time, for the purpose of visiting
a glacière in the Val de Travers, this piece of information came very
opportunely, and I determined to attempt both glacières with them.

Some of the trains from Besançon stop for an hour at Dôle in passing
towards Switzerland by way of Pontarlier, and anyone who is interested
in the Burgundian and Spanish wars of France should take this
opportunity of seeing what may be seen of the town of Dôle and its
massive church-tower. The sieges of Dôle made it very famous in the
later middle ages, more especially the long siege under Charles
d'Amboise, at the crisis of which that general recommended his soldiers
to leave a few of the people for seed,[46] and the old sobriquet _la
Joyeuse_ was punningly changed to _la Dolente_. It has had other claims
upon fame; for if Besançon possessed one of the two most authentic Holy
Shrouds, Dôle was the resting-place of one of the undoubted miraculous
Hosts, which had withstood the flames in the Abbey of Faverney. It was
for the reception of this Host that the advocates of the Brotherhood of
Monseigneur Saint Yves built the Sainte Chapelle at Dôle.[47]


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: One of the rights of the sovereigns of Burgundy was known
by this name. The sovereign had the power of sending one soldier