A legend is still preserved in the valleys of Joux and Les Rousses, to the following effect.

While the Franche Comte was still Spanish, in 1648, commissioners were appointed to fix the boundaries between Berne and Burgundy, on the other side of the range of hill we were now descending, and they decided that one of the boundary stones must be placed at the distance of a common league from the Lake of Les Rousses.

Unfortunately, no one could say what a common league was, beyond the vague definition of 'an hour's walk;' so two men were started from the shore of the lake, the one a Burgundian and the other a Swiss, with directions to walk for an hour down the Orbe towards Chenit, the stone to be placed half-way between the points they should respectively reach at the end of the hour.

It was for the interest of the Franche Comte that the stone should be as near the lake as possible, and accordingly the Swiss champion made such walking as had never been seen before, and gained for Berne a considerable amount of territory.

There was no such tragic result in this case as that which induced the Carthaginians to pay divine honours to the brothers whose speed, on a like occasion, had added an appreciable amount to the possessions of the republic.
At length we reached the point where the roads for Gimel and S.
Georges separate, and there, under a glorious sapin, we said our adieux, and wished our _au revoirs_, and settled those little matters which the best friends must settle, when one is of the nature of a monsieur, and the others are guides.