On the declivity of the mountain, at the spot where the view is the finest, is an inscription on the dilapidated walls of a house called the hermitage, which perhaps it was once in reality; it is almost effaced, but might well have been the motto of a hermit: Nasci, pati, mori. The abbé Delille, in his harmonious verses in imitation of Gray, Ah! si d'aucun ami vous n'honorez la cendre, etc. some of his writings (ex ilice scopettiana), was cut down about the same time by the proprietor of the ground, a scrupulous character, who was also incommoded by the curiosity of travellers, and the pilgrimages of the Polish sectaries of Socinius. The destruction of these trees planted by scepticism can scarcely affect any one; their shade must be oppressive, and the air one breathes there is a withering and dispiriting blast, which is truly that shadow of death has said of the inhabitants of the spoken of in Scripture. country: Naltre, souffrir, mourir est toute leur bisloire. CHAPTER XII. When on the Salève I did not forget First torrent.-Picturesque in individuals.-Guides the inspired verses of Lamartine: Te souviens-tu du jour où gravissant la cime and this mountain of Savoy was to and valets de place. In my journey through the corner of Switzerland and Savoy that I had planned to take in my road to Italy, I made use of Keller's map only, and found it truly excellent. This map accurately points out by signs the waterfalls, rocks, torrents, and most remarkable points of view your impression of each object remains free and spontaneous, and you escape, by the information the map affords, the diffuse descriptions, the bad style, the epithets, the dull enthusiasm, and oratorical display of the guide-book makers. I had previously been to see Bossey, the abode of Rousseau's infancy. It was there, he said, that he acquired "so passionate a taste for the country that it never left him," and which, indeed, is the better part of his talent. The situation of Bossey at the foot of Salève is solitary, the prospect rather fine, but not very remark able; and I think that the force of first impressions, the generally cheerful life I shall never forget the effect produced of a country minister, the company of on me, inexperienced traveller as I was, his cousin, the power of children to by the first torrent I saw in the Alps. amuse themselves almost everywhere, At first I could not tell what that apand the melancholy of the rue du Che-pearance of vapor was on the top of the velu, have given to Bossey half its merit. The parsonage of M. Lambercier, now pulled down, was situated in a hollow, and was abandoned by the present catholic curate on account of its insalubrity. The celebrated walnut-tree, the protégé of Rousseau, had been cut down, and Jay for sale in the middle of the road; it was felled in consequence of serious injury from a storm, towards the end of 1826. On seeing the two trees planted by Voltaire and Rousseau thus smitten by heaven, with an interval of only two years, the tradition of Rousseau's walnut-tree is, however somewhat doubtful) might not bigotry be tempted to find therein a presage? The holmtree of Socinius at Scopetto, near Sienne, from which I believe he has even dated See Chapter is, ante. mountain; my Parisian servant was not less surprised. Is it not, in truth, a striking image of a revolution? At first no one knows what to make of it, nor how it will finish; we must draw near to hear the noise and contemplate the ravages of the torrent. The picturesque, which nature preserves in such grand and terrible features, is gradually disappearing, more and more, and in different manners, among men. The Genevese postilion who drove me to Sallenche wore a fine black frockcoat, gloves, and a round hat, while the Savoyard who took us to Chamouny had a kind of blue livery, with gold edging and a scarlet collar. Thus was I accompanied in the bosom of the mountains by the neat simplicity of a free and commercial state, and the show and finery of monarchy and citadine servitude. On our parks and gardens, or the domestic erudition of the servants in our country mansions. The valet de place, or rather the valet out of place, as Alfieri has it, of the Italian towns, is not much better; and were it not for the assistance that his lavish use of the title of excellenza affords him, he would find great difficulty in keeping up the conversation and finishing his periods. The cicerone of Pompeii is interesting; but this man, who lives in some sort in the midst of the ancients, is still close to nature. the morrow I experienced another dis- CHAPTER XIII. Glaciers. Saint Francis de Sales at the glaciers. It would be an act of temerity to give a new description of places so often, so eternally described, and which have been observed by Saussure, and sung by Haller, Delille, Fontanes, and Byron. Besides, I will own that, save in the first moments of astonishment and curiosity, had too faithful a recollection of the ar ticles written by M. de Chateaubriand against mountains. This divertisement ended by seeming to me a fatigue, and after having passed a whole day in climbing Montanvers, descending to the Frozen Sea and the source of the Arveron, then re-ascending to the cross of Flaissière, whence the view of the Frozen Sea is much more complete, I found these places sad and desolate instead of sublime; nature there appeared to me shorn of part of her charms. The water of the fountains is sometimes too hard; the inevitable monotonous rhododendrum is an inodorous rose with a pale uneven leaf. Every thing undergoes a change on these heights; even the violet loses its modesty, and, instead of concealing itself humbly in the grass, becomes a large handsome flower overtopping it, and ostentatiously exhaling a faint perfume from its lofty stem. I recalled the admirable verses which Virgil puts in the mouth of a friend deceived by his mis The rivalry and local jealousies which exist in both great and little towns, of which vanity is nearly always the foundation, is met with even in the bosom of savage nature: the guide of the Frozen Sea speaks derogatorily and with disdain of the diminutiveness of the glacier of Bossons; and the guide to the latter, in vasnting its resplendent whiteness, the transparency of its alabaster pyramids and the crystal of its springs, is almost grammatic on the discoloured hue of the Frozen Sea. I have since remarked the same pretensions between the cicerons of Vesuvius and the Solfatare. The one treats the Solfatare as a tiny volcano long since extinct; the other, more justly, Las the curious effects, the utility, and salutary properties of his ancient toirano, and jeers at the eternal smoke of Vesuvius. These mountain guides are full of candour, simplicity and intelgence: placed close to the wonders of nature, they speak of them without affectation, and are far removed from the patic descriptions of the keepers of And I saw in them a true picture of * See Chap 11v. post. tress: Tu procul a patria (nec sit mihi credere tantum) Me sine sola vides tab, te ne frigora lædant! The finest, but no the largest, of the glaciers. 14. the glaciers. What modern poet would have failed to indulge in a reverie on this lover in the midst of rocks and snows? but being obliged to follow attentively the steps of my guide among these precipices, my feet suffering from the flints, I found such musings absolutely impossible. " The discovery of the valley of Chamouny is constantly, but erroneously, ascribed to Pococke and Windham, two English travellers. More than a century before, it had been visited by Iraucis de Sales, and charity had preceded curiosity in this secluded retreat of savage nature. Notwithstanding the incompetency of the historian, it is impossible to read without emotion the details of this visit to the glaciers, so different in its nature from those which fashion has since rendered customary. 'It having been reported that Francis was at the abbey of Six, people came from all quarters to greet him. He there received, among others, the deputies and inhabitants of a valley situated at three leagues' distance, who informed him of the disaster that As the had recently befallen them. province is full of very high mountains, the summits of two of them became loosened, and in falling crushed several villages, a number of inhabitants, and a great quantity of cattle, which are the sole riches of the country. They further informed him, that being reduced by this accident to utter poverty, so as to be unable to pay their taxes, they applied to the duke of Savoy's chambre des comptes to have them remitted; but they had done so in vain:-that they had reason to believe the authorities were not persuaded that the evil was so great as represented, or that they were thought to be less poverty-stricken than they really were. They therefore entreated him to send and have every thing verified on the spot, so that on the report which should be made to him, he might write in their favour. "Francis, who had a most feeling heart for the misfortunes of others, was deeply affected by the calamities of these poor people, and offered to set off that very hour to go and comfort them, and render them whatever services lay in his power. This they opposed, representing that the country was impracticable and so rough that a horse could not go thither. The holy prelate asked them if they had not come from thence, and they answered that they were poor people used to such fatigues. And I, my children,' replied Francis, am your father, obliged to provide for your consolation and your necessities. Accordingly, whatever entreaties they could make, he set off with them on foot, and he was a whole day in going the three leagues from the abbey of Six to the valley. The mischief proved to be greater than they had represented. The inhabitants were reduced to extreme want and had scarcely the appearance of men: they were destitute of every thing, clothes, houses, and food. Francis mingled his tears with theirs, gave them all the money he had with him, and promised to write in their favour to the duke himself. He did so, and obtained for them all that he asked." At Montanvers they show the Englishmen's stone, that is, the place where Messrs. Windham and Pococke seated themselves: how different would be the feelings of the traveller, could he contemplate and follow the traces of Francis de Sales, and the path trod by him in the midst of these rocks! CHAPTER XIV. Col de Balme. On the door of the church at Argentière, a very small village in a vale at the foot of a glacier, is the following touching inscription, full of piety and truth: Populum pauperem salvum facies. I passed the Col de Balme, the view from which, extending on one side over the valley of Chamouny, Mount Blanc, and the lofty pyramids surrounding it, and on the other over the province of the Valais and the chain of the Alps from Mount Saint Gothard to the Fork, is truly magnificent and immense; which is not every where the case in the midst of the peaks of the Alps, as some of them are overtopped by others. The descent from the Col de Balme is through a superb forest of larch, which, from the strength, size, and disorder of its vegetation, resembles rather a virgin forest of North America than a thoroughfare frequented every year by artists and people Life of Saint Francis de Sales, by Marsollier, book v. CHAPTER XVI. Bex.-Aigle.-Haller.-Villeneuve.-Chillon. Set Maurice at the bottom of its ravine and Martigny in the plain, present Ires of the Roman domination and of the French during the Empire; but these traces of the two most powerful societies the grand merit of utility, as there are The salt-springs of Bex have doubtless at have ever existed, appear weak the might and majesty of na-annually to the government of Vaud, to no other in Switzerland; and they yield which surrounds and overwhelms which they belong, from fifteen to twenty them; and the ruins of walls and towers, Reman military posts, with the rethousand quintals of salt, after having pairs done to the bridge by our engineers the toilsome visit to these subterraneous formerly produced fifty thousand; but the time of our prefect, sink into ine before the rocks, grottoes, skilled in science or political economy. caverns is less interesting to persons unand caverns that you have contemplated. Nature loses much on being viewed by Algoarter of a league from Saint Mais the field in which the Theban lamp-light; she requires the sun and les with Maurice, its chief, was masthe stars to light up her wonders. The sed; these martyred warriors had for- rock, the drains, the well, the reservoir vaulted galleries hollowed out in the en their idols and were decimated for and boilers of Bex, produce moreover a ublime insubordination of their sad contrast, when one has just come from contemplating the brilliant effects of the rainbow formed over the greensward by the dazzling cascade of Pissevache, well-deserving a more decent apfar from this place, half way up pellation, and the enchanting sites of the untain, among the rocks, is the valley of the Rhone. These works gebaton of a blind hermit. Notwith- nerally occupy from thirty to forty workhis seventy years, the elevated men, a species of water Cyclops, at two punction of his dwelling, and the narrow-francs a day. But if I did not sufficiently of the path that leads to it, the old appreciate this kind of industry, I did ca find his way very well without not by any means regret the excursion, Contrary to the ordinary practice for the road to the springs is altogether bernats in poems and romances, this wild and romantic. was not very resigned; he had never wake them the grandeurs and ficklefortune; he was a poor peasant, he had lost his sight at the age of nine ad, to live rent-free, had retired Testy years ago to this rock, which was da guerre. Ils souffrent nos bourreaus, 3d as combat, its meurent en agneaux.' ucle-The fact of the massacre of 6,600 of September in the year 302, is well ed and proved by a learned Valatsian of the mary, Fierre Josepb de Rivaz, still in repute ematician, in a work of merit which The barren melancholy valley of Aigle is besprinkled with the huts of wandering shepherds, driven from place to place by the avalanche and torrent. The chateau of the village of Roche derives its celebrity from its having been Rousseau has eulogised. His Éclaircissements sur le martyre de la légion Thébéenne et sur l'époque de la persécution des Gaules sous Diociétien et Maxi. mien, published after his death, at Paris, in 1779. are a real masterpiece of sa red crudition and hitorical criticism. six years the residence of the great Hal- | situated near an almost dried up torrent ler, then bailiff of Aigle and director of the salt-springs of Roche. Villeneuve is admirably situated; it dates from the time of the Romans, who were defeated in its neighbourhood by the Helvetii. The rock, the white walls, and the gothic turrets of the castle of Chillon, which rises solitarily above the lake, are extremely picturesque. It was formerly the residence of the bailiffs of Vevey, and was built by Peter, duke of Savoy, surnamed the Little Charlemagne ; it is now used as a depot for arms and powder, and is occupied by a few gendarmes. The captivity of Bonnivard, the death of Julie, the poem of Byron, seem to confer glory on this military storehouse. Lord Byron avows that he did not know the history of Bonnivard when he wrote his Prisoner of Chillon, though it is in a manner imprinted in the vaults of the castle, where the dungeon in which he was imprisoned some three centuries ago is shown, with the iron ring to which he was fastened and the mark of his chain near a pillar on which Byron himself has since engraved his name, and also the pretended traces of his steps. Byron's poem, although very fine, is but an imitation of the imprisonment of Ugolin and his sons in the walled tower of Pisa. The sufferings of Bonnivard were not less dreadful; they well deserved to be sung on their own account, and it is to be regretted that the poet has only honoured them with a tardy sonnet and a brief note. On the front of the Donjon, towards the lake, may be seen in great letters the words liberté, patrie; a noble device when properly understood, but which I like better treasured in the heart's core than scrawled on walls. CHAPTER XVII. Clarens.-Topography of the Nouvelle Héloise. As I approached Clarens, I called to mind the burning pages of Julie; but what was my astonishment at coming upon a little naked unsightly port, badly Pronounced Montron. In Paul et Virginie we also meet with names of places by no means bigb-sounding or harmonious, such as the mountain and the river of the Trois Mamelies, the mountains Longue and Piterboth; in full of pebbles! The baron d'Etange A The inhabitants of Clarens have given to the least filthy corner of their village the name of Bosquet; it is a heap of large stones covered with ivy and briars. crafty dairy woman, in order to sell her milk, butter, and eggs, had contrived to furnish, according to the Nouvelle Heloïse, certain chambers of the Chatelard, which she showed to sentimental travellers as Julia's dressing-room, and the apartments of the baron d'Etange. But the speculation not succeeding, the establishment was broken up. Lord Byron devotes several stanzas of Childe Harold to celebrate Clarens. He says: "Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,- the description of a tempest, the air resounds with |