Morteau is a commune, in the Doubs department in the Franche-Comté region in eastern France.
This little city is situated in a widening of the Doubs river valley.
The proximity of Switzerland (11 km to Le Locle, 21 km to La Chaux-de-Fonds) gives jobs to trans-border workers, as well as providing a clientele for the businesses of the Morteau valley.
The Roman expansion (200 BCE, 100 CE) began the decline of the Celts. At the Battle of Alesia, at the side of Arvernes, there were an equal number of Mandubiens, the people of Doubs. They were the best riders of Vercingetorix.
At the end of the Roman Empire, the Alamanni invaded the region, followed by the Burgundians.
The region was influenced by the Normans, the Hungarian descendants of the Huns, the Sarrasins. These Arabs stopped by Charles Martel in 732, had followed the valley of the river Saône. Locally, their name was given to the tiny village of Sarrazins above Montlebon.
In 1105 the name of Morteau appeared for the first time officially. The name of Franche-Comté, however, did not appear until 1366.
Mademoiselle remembers too well
How once she was belle of the ball
Now the past she sadly recalls.
Mademoiselle lived in grand hotels
Ordered clothes by Chanel and Dior
Millionaires queued at her door.
Oh, she pleased them and teased them
She hooked them and squeezed them
Until like their empires they'd fall
She very soon learned
That the more love she spurned
The more power she yearned
Until she was belle of the ball.
Oh, Mademoiselle, such a soft machiavel
Would play bagatelle with the hearts of young men as
they fell
Mademoiselle would hide in her shell
Could then turn cast a spell on any girl
That got in her way.
She would crave all attention
Men would flock to her side
Woe betide any man who ignored
For she'd feign such affection
Then break down their pretension
When she'd won she would turn away.
Turn away, thoroughly bored.
Mademoiselle, long ago said farewell
To any love left to sell, for the sake of being belle
of the ball
Mademoiselle knows there's no way to quell
Her own private hell, just a shell,
With no heart left at all.
Poor old Mademoiselle.