Each story is decorated at equal intervals by a superimposed series of columns. The first is Doric, the second Ionic and the third Corinthian, and each divides its particular story into five _travées_. The entrance portal is particularly to be remarked for its elegance. It is flanked on either side by a Corinthian column and is surmounted by a pair of angel heads in bronze. Drawing closer and closer to the frontier, the face of everything growing more and more warlike the while, one comes to Montbéliard, practically a militant outpost of modern France, though actually its importance in this respect is overshadowed by neighbouring Belfort. At Belfort Bartholdi's famous lion--a better stone lion by the way than Thorwaldsen's at Luzerne--crouches in his carven cradle in the hillside ready to spring at the first rumours of war. If France is ever invaded again it will not be by way of the gateway which is defended by Belfort and Montbéliard, that is certain! [Illustration] Montbéliard is a little fragment of Germany that has become French. Rudely grouped around the walls of the old chateau of the Wurtemburgs, the town remains to-day an anomaly in France, more so than the greater Strassbourg and Metz are to Germany, because they have become thoroughly Germanized since "la guerre" and the "annexation," which are the half whispered words in which the natives still discuss the late unpleasantness. How did this little German stronghold become French? One may learn the story from "Le Maréchal de Luxembourg et Le Prince d'Orange," by Pierre de Ségur, better even than he may from the history books. The tale is too long to retell here but it is undeniably thrilling and good reading. The town, the chateau and the local duke were, it seems, all captured at one fell swoop. There was no defence, so it was not a very glorious victory, but it came to pass as a heroic episode and a Wurtemburg castle thus came to be a French chateau. The Chateau de Montbéliard has all the marks of a heavy German castle. It has little indeed of the suggestion of the French manner of building in these parts or elsewhere. To-day it serves as a barracks for French soldiers, but its alien origin is manifest by its cut and trim. The history of Montbéliard has been most curious. Its name was derived from the Latin Mons Peligardi (in German Munpelgard) and the principality, as it once was, had a council of nine _maîtres-bourgeois_, as the city councilmen were called. The principality comprised the seigneuries of Héricourt, Blamont, Chatelet and Clémont. For a time it was a part of the Duchy of Lorraine, then it passed to the house of Montfaucon, and then to the Wurtemburgs, who built the castle. The Treaties of Luneville and Paris made it possible for the tricolor to fly above the castle walls, otherwise it might have remained a German town with a burgomaster instead of a French _ville_ with a _maire_.