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IN AND AROUND BESANCON. 61 
substantially Roman ; the arches are still visible, though additions 
have been put to both sides of them. The town still draws its 
water supply from the springs five miles distant, from which the 
Romans brought theirs. The Porte Taillée, or “Cut Gate,’’ 
still shows the spot where they had to cut through the spur of 
the citadel hill in order to open up a way for their aqueduct. 
The fine park of Chamars still points to the Roman Campus 
Martius or parade ground. Towards the downfall of the Roman 
Empire, the district was overrun by the Burgundians, whose name 
still lingers in the adjacent province of Burgundy. Then its 
sovereignty was disputed for centuries ; sometimes it belonged to 
the rising kingdom of France, more often, however, it was 
attached to the Emperor, and, being so far from Austria, it got 
a considerable share of self-government, which is still preserved 
in the name Franche-Comté. Then, through marriage, it passed 
to Charles V. of Spain; the Spanish occupation is still attested 
by the Moorish designs to be seen on some of the buildings of 
the sixteenth century. Neither Charles nor his son Philip II. 
has left such an impress on the town as did their servants of the 
house of Granvelle. Nicolas, keeper of the seals to Charles 
V., built the fine edifice, called to this day the Palace Gran- 
velle. Nicolas is not so well known as his son, the cardinal 
minister of Philip II., and the great opponent of William the 
Silent of Orange. The palace is now used as a meeting place for 
the learned societies of the town. Granvelle’s fine library now 
belongs to the town, and is housed in the municipal library, 
which contains 90,000 books, 2000 manuscripts, and 1000 books 
dating from the start of printing, some having been printed by 
Guttenberg. These together with 10,000 coins form a fair col- 
lection for a town of 60,000 inhabitants. 
The town was taken and then given up by Henry IV. of 
France, and then taken twice by Louis XIV., being finally ceded 
to France in 1679. 
In one of the squares stands a statue of Jouffroy, who was 
the first in France to apply steam to the propulsion of boats, as 
he had a model plying on the River Doubs as early as 1776; he 
invented a ship with paddles in 1783, but, not having floated it, 
the honour was carried off by Fulton, who put one on the Seine 
at Paris in 1803. 
Behind the Porte Noire, and occupying the site of a Roman 
