With Spelman in my mind, I asked if the stables were not unhealthy; but the soldiers said they were the healthiest in the town.[45] The Glaciere of Vaise had proved, as has been seen, to be a mare's-nest; and yet, after all, it produced a foal; for while I was endeavouring to overcome the evening heat of Besancon in a _specialite_ for ice, I found that the owner of the establishment was also the owner of the two glacieres of Vaise; and in the course of the conversation which followed, he told me of the existence of a natural glaciere near the village of Arc-sous-Cicon, twenty kilometres from Pontarlier, which he had himself seen.

As I had arranged to meet my sisters at Neufchatel, in two days' time, for the purpose of visiting a glaciere in the Val de Travers, this piece of information came very opportunely, and I determined to attempt both glacieres with them.
Some of the trains from Besancon stop for an hour at Dole 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 Dole and its massive church-tower.

The sieges of Dole 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 Besancon possessed one of the two most authentic Holy Shrouds, Dole 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 Dole.[47] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 38: One of the rights of the sovereigns of Burgundy was known by this name.