mistaken order that a Prussian detachment was attacked near the town.
The consequences were appalling. The station was burned to the ground,
enormous contributions in money and material were exacted from the town,
some of the authorities were made to travel on the railways with the
invaders, and others were carried off to remote fortresses of
Brandenburg and there kept as prisoners for nine months.

The account of all these incidents, written by a victim, may be
consulted in a volume of the town library.

If people frequently attain the age of a hundred in Nemours, as I was
assured, it is rather due to placid temperament than to intellectual
torpor. The town possesses learned societies, and a member of its
archaeological association has published a book of great local interest
and value, viz:--"Nemours, Temps Geologiques, Temps Prehistoriques,
Temps Historiques, par E. Doigneau, Membre de la Societe Archeologique
de Seine-et-Marne, Ancien Vice President de la section de Fontainebleau,
Paris."

Strange to say, although this neighbourhood has offered a rich field for
prehistoric research, Nemours as yet possesses no museum, I do verily
believe the first French town of any size I have ever found in France
without one at least in embryo. For the cyclist the run from Bourron to
Nemours is delightful, on the hottest day in the year spinning along
broad well-wooded roads, with lovely perspectives from time to time.




CHAPTER IX.