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Show IQriANTSE fl t HDWTJDIE Bridge Over River in Montjoie. style, are chiefly noticeable for the brass and ironwork of their external decorations, in railings, door kuockers, lanterns, and heraldic insignia. Shields, men In armour, gonfalons, and weapons figure In brass or copper to distinguish and to give a name to separate mansions. It is said that the Impetus given to metal work whs due to French Protestant immigrants, who fled to Montjoie. At any rate, there is something quite French in the atmosphere atmos-phere of the place, and there will be no sharp wrench in the people casting aside the German dress they were compelled com-pelled to wear agaipst their will for a century. WHATEVER material advantages advan-tages may accrue by-and-by to Belgium from the restitution restitu-tion of her old possessions In the Elfel, there can be no dispute that the most picturesque townlet in all those border regions of the former duchies of Limburg, Juliers, and Berg has passed at once into her hands in the ancient and little-known, because secluded, human habitation on the Roer which bears the picturesque name of Montjoie, writes Demetrius C. Boulger in the London Graphic. In the days of the Franks, before milestones came into vogue, it was the practice to mark the stages along the main routes by erecting a pile of stones, and sometimes it happened that the spot selected was on a field of battle. These heaps or piles were termed "Montjoie" from the Latin words Mons Jovis, and when the name Montjoie was incorporated in the battle-cry of France it signified no more than Forward St. Denis. The Burgun-dlan Burgun-dlan battle-cry, "Montjoie St. Andre," of the same period, was only Forward St. Andrew. Baedeker's plausible suggestion that the Romans built a fortress here and gave it a high-sounding name may be relegated to the order or-der of fairy tales. Montjoie then was nothing more than a stage or resting point on the : high road of the Franks across Aus-: Aus-: trasia to the Rhine. Situated in a; gorge of the upper Roer, it gave the ; easiest access from the south to the! centers of Frank, not Teuton, culture in the Aix, Juliers and Stollberg region. re-gion. In Picturesque Setting. Unlike Malmedy, Montjoie aspires to no political role. It rests its claims to fame in the picturesqueness of Its situation, and the charm of its medieval buildings bordering its narrow nar-row streets. The Roer, here only a shallow stream for three parts of the year, rippling over a stony botrtom, flows through the town, and in some places even under the houses! It is swollen in the early spring by the melting snows of the Eifel, but it has scooped out for Itself so deep a channel chan-nel that floods are rare, as it sweeps along with increased volume past Duren and Juliers to join the Meuse in Holland. . Surrounded by the most beautiful; forests of the Hertogenwald or Hohe Venn, which completely screen the little lit-tle town from view, the valley Is so narrow that a cricket ball might be thrown from the height on which are the ruins of the old castle to the oppo- site cliff on which is the Haller or: watch tower. This was placed where it is because it allowed of a better view up and down the valley in the days when the robber counts of Reich-enstein Reich-enstein levied toll on travelers evea if they did not completely plunder them. The scenery is finest in the direction direc-tion of Kalterherberg, where the Per-lenbach Per-lenbach may be traced like a silver thread as it flows through the wood to join the Roer. This stream is called the Pearl brook because the dukes of Juliers used to derive from it the pearls for which their treasury was famous. It is true that mussels are still found, but no one has claimed for many a long day to have discovered discov-ered a pearl. Quaint Buildings, Narrow Streets. The little town is worthy of its setting. set-ting. Against the rocky and precipitous pre-cipitous sides of the mountains, through which the river has cut a way, nided. perhaps, by volcanic action, the Inhabitants have run up lofty and many-storied buildings, which seem to aspire to reach the summits that confine them in so small and crumped a space. Houses of five and six stories are quite common, and even loftier ones may be found. The consequence is that the main street, which at some places is not broad enough to allow of two carts passing each other, is at all times of the day in the shade, and that early in the evening it is buried in gloom. This is the more noticeable because up to a short time before the war only oil lamps were used in the public ways. Locomotion after dark was attended with no small inconven-j inconven-j ience, and even peril, for a false turn down one of the numerous passages under the houses might easily lead to a ducking in the river. The houses, mostly In the rococo |
