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diff --git a/18565.txt b/18565.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5da5e01 --- /dev/null +++ b/18565.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1974 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Swiss Sojourn, by W. D. Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Little Swiss Sojourn + +Author: W. D. Howells + +Release Date: June 12, 2006 [EBook #18565] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project) + + + + + + + + + + A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN + + BY W. D. HOWELLS + + ILLUSTRATED + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE + 1893 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +_Tourists at Montreux_ (frontispiece) + +_Sign of the White Cross Inn_ + +_Entrance to Villeneuve_ + +_Post-office, Villeneuve_ + +_The Castle of Chillon_ + +_A Railroad Servant_ + +_A Bit of Villeneuve_ + +_The Prisoner of Chillon_ + +_One of the Fountains_ + +_"They helped to make the hay in the marshes"_ + +_Cattle at the Fountains_ + +_Washing Clothes in the Lake_ + +_Flirtation at the Fountains_ + +_The Wine-press_ + +_Castle of Aigle_ + +_The Market at Vevay_ + +_The Market, Vevay--A Bargain before the Notary_ + +_Germans at Montreux_ + +_Church Terrace, Montreux_ + +_Tour up the Lake_ + + + + +A LITTLE SWISS SOJOURN + + + + +First Paper + +[Illustration: _Sign of the White Cross Inn_] + +I + + +Out of eighty or ninety days that we passed in Switzerland there must +have been at least ten that were fair, not counting the forenoons before +it began to rain, and the afternoons when it cleared up. They said that +it was an unusually rainy autumn, and we could well believe it; yet I +suspect that it rains a good deal in that little corner of the Canton +Vaud even when the autumn is only usually rainy. We arrived late in +September and came away early in December, and during that time we had +neither the fevers that raged in France nor the floods that raged in +Italy. We Vaudois were rather proud of that, but whether we had much +else to be proud of I am not so certain. Of course we had our Alpine +scenery, and when the day was fair the sun came loafing up over the +eastern mountains about ten o'clock in the morning, and lounged down +behind the western tops about half-past three, after dinner. But then he +left the eternal snows of the Dent-du-Midi all flushed with his light, +and in the mean time he had glittered for five hours on the "_bleu +impossible_" of the Lake of Geneva, and had shown in a hundred changing +lights and shadows the storied and sentimentalized towers of the Castle +of Chillon. Solemn groups and ranks of Swiss and Savoyard Alps hemmed +the lake in as far as the eye could reach, and the lateen-sailed craft +lent it their picturesqueness, while the steamboats constantly making +its circuit and stopping at all the little towns on the shores imparted +a pleasant modern interest to the whole effect, which the trains of the +railroad running under the lee of the castle agreeably heightened. + + +II + +The Swiss railroad was always an object of friendly amusement with the +children, who could not get used to having the trains started by a small +Christmas-horn. They had not entirely respected the English engine, with +the shrill falsetto of its whistle, after the burly roar of our +locomotives; and the boatswain's pipe of the French conductor had +considerably diminished the dignity of a sister republic in their minds; +but this Christmas-horn was too droll. That a grown man, much more +imposingly uniformed than an American general, should blow it to start a +real train of cars was the source of patriotic sarcasm whenever its +plaintive, reedy note was heard. We had come straight through from +London, taking the sleeping-car at Calais, and rolling and bounding over +the road towards Basle in a fashion that provoked scornful comparisons +with the Pullman that had carried us so smoothly from Boston to Buffalo. +It is well to be honest, even to our own adulation, and one must confess +that the sleeping-car of the European continent is but the nervous and +hysterical daughter of the American mother of sleeping-cars. Many +express trains are run without any sleeper, and the charges for berths +are ludicrously extravagant--five dollars apiece for a single night. It +is not strange that the native prefers to doze away the night +bolt-upright, or crouched into the corners of his repellently padded +carriage, rather than toss upon the expensive pallet of the +sleeping-car, which seems hung rather with a view to affording +involuntary exercise than promoting dear-bought slumber. One advantage +of it is that if you have to leave the car at five o'clock in the +morning, you are awake and eager to do so long before that time. At the +first Swiss station we quitted it to go to Berne, which was one of the +three points where I was told by the London railway people that my +baggage would be examined. I forget the second, but the third was Berne, +and now at Delemont I looked about for the customs officers with the +anxiety which the thought of them always awakens in the human heart, +whether one has meant to smuggle or not. Even the good conscience may +suffer from the upturning of a well-packed trunk. But nobody wanted to +examine our baggage at Delemont, or at the other now-forgotten station; +and at Berne, though I labored hard in several dialects with all the +railway officials, I could not get them to open one of our ten trunks or +five valises. I was so resolute in the matter that I had some difficulty +to keep from opening them myself and levying duty upon their contents. + + +III + +It was the first but not the last disappointment we suffered in +Switzerland. A friend in London had congratulated us upon going to the +Vaud in the grape season. "For thruppence," he said, "they will let you +go into the vineyards and eat all the grapes you can hold." Arrived upon +the ground, we learned that it was six francs fine to touch a grape in +the vineyards; that every field had a watch set in it, who popped up +between the vines from time to time, and interrogated the vicinity with +an eye of sleepless vigilance; and that small boys of suspicious +character, whose pleasure or business took them through a vineyard, were +obliged to hold up their hands as they passed, like the victims of a Far +Western road agency. As the laws and usages governing the grape culture +run back to the time of the Romans, who brought the vine into the Vaud, +I was obliged to refer my friend's legend of cheapness and freedom to an +earlier period, whose customs we could not profit by. In point of fact, +I could buy more grapes for thruppence in London than in the Vaud; and +the best grapes we had in Switzerland were some brought from Italy, and +sold at a franc a pound in Montreux to the poor foreigners who had come +to feast upon the wealth of the local vineyards. + +It was the rain that spoiled the grapes, they said at Montreux, and +wherever we complained; and indeed the vines were a dismal show of +sterility and blight, even to the spectator who did not venture near +enough to subject himself to a fine of six francs. The foreigners had +protected themselves in large numbers by not coming, and the natives who +prosper upon them suffered. The stout lady who kept a small shop of +ivory carvings at Montreux continually lamented their absence to me: +"Die Fremden kommen nicht, dieses regenes Wetter! Man muss Geduldt +haben! Die Fremden kommen nicht!" She was from Interlaken, and the +accents of her native dialect were flavored with the strong waters which +she seemed always to have been drinking, and she put her face close up +to that of the good, all-sympathizing Amerikaner who alone patronized +her shop, and talked her sorrows loudly into him, so that he should not +misunderstand. + +[Illustration: _Entrance to Villeneuve_] + + +IV + +But one must not be altogether unreasonable. When we first came in sight +of the lake the rain lifted, and the afternoon sun gushed out upon a +world of vineyards. In other words, the vines clothe all the little +levels and vast slopes of the mountain-sides as far up as the cold will +let the grapes grow. There is literally almost no other cultivation, and +it is a very pretty sight. On top of the mountains are the chalets with +their kine, and at a certain elevation the milk and the wine meet, while +below is the water of the lake, so good to mix with both. I do not know +that the Swiss use it for that purpose, but there are countries where +something of the sort would be done. + +When the train put us down at Villeneuve, among railway people as +indifferent as our own at country stations, and much crosser and more +snubbing, the demand for grapes began with the party who remained with +the baggage, while a party of the second part went off to find the +_pension_ where we were to pass the next three months. The grape-seekers +strolled up the stony, steaming streets of the little town, asking for +grapes right and left, at all the shops, in their imperfect French, and +returned to the station with a paper of gingerbread which they had +bought at a jeweller's. I do not know why this artist should have had it +for sale, but he must have had it a long time, for it was densely +inhabited. Afterwards we found two shops in Villeneuve where they had +the most delicious _petits gateaux_, fresh every day, and nothing but +the mania for unattainable grapes prevented the first explorers from +seeing them. + +In the mean time the party of the second part had found the pension--a +pretty stone villa overlooking the lake, under the boughs of tall +walnut-trees, on the level of a high terrace. Laurel and holly hemmed it +in on one side, and southward spread a pleasant garden full of roses and +imperfectly ripening fig-trees. In the rear the vineyards climbed the +mountains in irregular breadths to the belt of walnuts, beyond which +were only forests and pastures. I heard the roar of the torrent that +foamed down the steep; the fountain plashed under the group of laurels +at the kitchen door; the roses dripped all round the house; and the lake +lapped its shores below. Decidedly there was a sense of wet. + +The house, which had an Italian outside covered with jasmine and +wistarias, confessed the North within. There was a huge hall stove, not +yet heated, but on the hearth of the pleasant salon an acceptable fire +of little logs was purring. Beside it sat a lady reading, and at a table +her daughter was painting flowers. A little Italian, a very little +English, a good deal of French, helped me to understand that +mademoiselle the landlady was momentarily absent, that the season was +exceptionally bad, and that these ladies were glad of the sunshine which +we were apparently bringing with us. They spoke with those Suissesse +voices, which are the sweetest and most softly modulated voices in the +world, whether they come from the throat of peasant or of lady, and can +make a transaction in eggs and butter in the market-place as musical as +chanted verse. To the last these voices remained a delight, and the +memory of them made most Italian women's voices a pang when we heard +them afterwards. + + +V + +At first we were the only people in the house besides these Swiss ladies +and their son and brother, but later there came two ladies from +Strasburg, and with them our circle was complete at the table and around +the evening lamp in the drawing-room. I am bound to say for the circle, +outside of ourselves, that it was a cultivated and even intellectual +company, with traits that provoked unusual sympathy and interest. But +those friendly people are quite their own property, and I have no +intention of compelling them to an involuntary celebrity in these pages, +much as I should like to impart their quality to my narrative. In the +Strasbourgeoises we encountered again that pathos of an insulted and +down-trodden nationality which had cast its melancholy over our Venice +of Austrian days. German by name and by origin, these ladies were +intensely French in everything else. They felt themselves doomed to +exile in their own country, they abhorred their Prussian masters, and +they had no name for Bismarck that was bad enough. Our Swiss, indeed, +hated him almost as bitterly. Their sympathies had been wholly with the +French, and they could not repress a half-conscious dread of his +principle of race nationality, which would be fatal to Switzerland, one +neither in race nor religion, but hitherto indivisible in her ancient +freedom. While he lives this fear can never die in Swiss hearts, for +they know that if he will, he can, in a Europe where he is the only real +power. + +Mademoiselle sat at the chief place of the table, and led the talk, +imparting to it a flavor of humorous good sense very characteristic. The +villa had been her father's country-house, and it abounded in a +scholar's accumulations of old books in divers languages. She herself +knew literature widely in the better way that it was once read. The +memories of many years spent in Florence made common Italian ground for +us, and she spoke English perfectly. + +As I wish to give a complete notion of our household, so far as it may +be honestly set down, I will add that the domestics were three. Two of +them, the cook and the housemaid, were German Swiss, of middle class, +who had taken service to earn what money they could, but mainly to learn +French, after the custom of their country, where the young people of a +French or Italian canton would in like manner resort to a German +province. The third was Louis, a native, who spoke his own _patois_, and +found it sufficient for the expression of his ideas. He was chiefly +employed about the grounds; in-doors his use was mostly to mount the +peculiar clogs used for the purpose, and rub the waxed floors till they +shone. These floors were very handsome, of hard woods prettily inlaid; +and Louis produced an effect upon them that it seemed a pity to mar with +muddy shoes. + +I do not speak of Alexis, the farmer, who appeared in domestic +exigencies; but my picture would be incomplete without the portrait of +Poppi. Poppi was the large house-dog, who in early life had intended to +call himself Puppy, but he naturally pronounced it with a French accent. +He was now far from young, but he was still Poppi. I believe he was the +more strictly domestic in his habits because an infirmity of temper had +betrayed him into an attack upon a neighbor, or a neighbor's dog, and it +was no longer safe for him to live much out-of-doors. The confinement +had softened his temper, but it had rendered him effeminate and +self-indulgent. He had, in fact, been spoiled by the boarders, and he +now expected to be present at meals, and to be fed with choice morsels +from their plates. As the cold weather came on he developed rheumatism, +and demanded our sympathy as well as our hospitality. If Elise in +waiting on table brushed him with her skirts, he set up a lamentable +cry, and rushed up to the nearest guest, and put his chin on the table +for his greater convenience in being comforted. At a dance which we had +one evening Poppi insisted upon being present, and in his efforts to +keep out of the way and in the apprehensions he suffered he abandoned +himself to moans and howls that sometimes drowned the piano. + +Yet Poppi was an amiable invalid, and he was on terms of +perfect friendship with the cats, of which there were three +generations--Boulette, Boulette's mother, and Boulette's grandmother. +They were not readily distinguishable from one another, and I really +forget which it was that used to mount to the dining-room window +without, and paw the glass till we let her in; but we all felt that it +was a great accomplishment, and reflected credit upon us. + + +VI + +The vineyard began immediately behind the laurels that enclosed the +house, and at a little distance, where the mountain began to lift from +the narrow plateau, stood the farmer's stone cottage, with the stables +and the wine-vaults under the same roof. Mademoiselle gave us grapes +from her vines at dinner, and the walnut-trees seemed public property, +though I think one was not allowed to knock the nuts off, but was only +free of the windfalls. A little later they were all gathered, and on a +certain night the girls and the young men of the village have the custom +to meet and make a frolic of cracking them, as they used in husking corn +with us. Then the oil is pressed out, and the commune apportions each +family its share, according to the amount of nuts contributed. This nut +oil imparts a sentiment to salad which the olive cannot give, and +mushrooms pickled in it become the most delicious and indigestible of +all imaginable morsels. I have had dreams from those pickled mushrooms +which, if I could write them out, would make my fortune as a romantic +novelist. + +The Swiss breakfast was our old friend the Italian breakfast, with +butter and Gruyere cheese added to the milk and coffee. We dined at one +o'clock, and at six or seven we supped upon a meal that had left off +soup and added tea, in order to differ from the dinner. For all this, +with our rooms, we paid what we should have paid at a New Hampshire +farm-house; that is, a dollar a day each. + +But the air was such as we could not have got in New Hampshire for twice +the money. It restored one completely every twenty-four hours, and it +not only stimulated but supported one throughout the day. Our own air is +quite as exciting, but after stirring one up, it leaves him to take the +consequences, whereas that faithful Swiss air stood by and helped out +the enterprise. I rose fresh from my forenoon's writing and eager to +walk; I walked all afternoon, and came in perfectly fresh to supper. One +can't speak too well of the Swiss air, whatever one says of the Swiss +sun. + +[Illustration: _Post-office, Villeneuve_] + + +VII + +Whenever it came out, or rather whenever the rain stopped, we pursued +our explorations of the neighborhood. It had many interesting features, +among which was the large Hotel Byron, very attractive and almost empty, +which we passed every day on our way to the post-office in Villeneuve, +and noted two pretty American shes in eye-glasses playing croquet amid +the wet shrubbery, as resolutely cheerful and as young-manless as if +they had been in some mountain resort of our own. In the other direction +there were simple villas dropped along the little levels and ledges, and +vineyards that crept to the road's edge everywhere. There was also a +cement factory, busy and prosperous; and to make us quite at home, a +saw-mill. Above all, there was the Castle of Chillon; and one of the +first Sundays after our arrival we descended the stone staircased steps +of our gardened terrace, dripping with ivy and myrtle, and picked our +steps over the muddy road to the old prison-fortress, where, in the +ancient chapel of the Dukes of Savoy, we heard an excellent sermon from +the _pasteur_ of our parish. The castle was perhaps a bow-shot from our +pension: I did not test the distance, having left my trusty cross-bow +and cloth-yard shafts in Boston; but that is my confirmed guess. In +point of time it is much more remote, for, as the reader need not be +reminded, it was there, or some castle like it, almost from the +beginning, or at least from the day when men first began to fight for +the possession of the land. The lake-dwellers are imagined to have had +some sort of stronghold there; and it is reasonably supposed that +Romans, Franks, and Burgundians had each fortified the rock. Count Wala, +cousin of Charlemagne, and grandson of Charles Martel, was a prisoner in +its dungeon in 830 for uttering some words too true for an age +unaccustomed to the perpetual veracity of our newspapers. Count Wala, +who was also an abbot, had the misfortune to speak of Judith of Bavaria +as "the adulterous woman," and when her husband, Louis le Debonair, came +back to the throne after the conspiracy of his sons, the lady naturally +wanted Wala killed; but Louis compromised by throwing him into the rock +of Chillon. This is what Wala's friends say: others say that he was one +of the conspirators against Louis. At any rate, he was the first great +captive of Chillon, which was a political prison as long as political +prisoners were needed in Switzerland. That is now a good while ago. + +[Illustration: _The Castle of Chillon_] + +Chillon fell to the princes of the house of Savoy in 1033, and Count +Peter, whom they nicknamed Little Charlemagne for his prowess and his +conquests, built the present castle, after which the barons of the Pays +de Vaud and the Duke of Cophingen (whoever he may have been) besieged +Peter in it. Perhaps they might have taken him. But the wine was so +good, and the pretty girls of the country were so fond of dancing! They +forgot themselves in these delights. All at once Little Charlemagne was +upon them. He leaves his force at Chillon, and goes by night to spy out +the enemy at Villeneuve, returning at dawn to his people. He came back +very gayly; when they saw him so joyous, "What news?" they asked. "Fine +and good," he answers; "for, by God's help, if you will behave +yourselves well, the enemy is ours." To which they cried with one voice, +"Seigneur, you have but to command." They fell upon the barons and the +duke, and killed a gratifying number of their followers, carrying the +rest back to Chillon, where Peter "used them not as prisoners, but +feasted them honorably. Much was the spoil and great the booty." + +Afterwards Peter lost the castle, and in retaking it he launched fifty +thousand shafts and arrows against it. "The castle was not then an +isolated point of rock as we now see it, but formed part of a group of +defences." + + +VIII + +Two or three centuries later--how quickly all those stupid, cruel, weary +years pass under the pen!--the spirit of liberty and protestantism began +to stir in the heads and hearts of the burghers of Berne and of Geneva. +A Savoyard, Francis de Bonivard, prior of St. Victor, sympathized with +them. He was noble, accomplished, high-placed, but he loved freedom of +thought and act. Yet when a deputation of reformers came to him for +advice, he said: "It is to be wished, without doubt, that the evil +should be cast out of our midst, provided that the good enters. You burn +to reform our Church; certainly it needs it; but how can you reform it, +deformed as you are? You complain that the monks and priests are +buffoons; and you are buffoons; that they are gamblers and drunkards, +and you are the same. Does the hate you bear them come from difference +or likeness? You intend to overthrow our clergy and replace them by +evangelical ministers. That would be a very good thing in itself, but a +very bad thing for you, because you have no happiness but in the +pleasures the priests allow you. The ministers wish to abolish vice, but +there is where you will suffer most, and after having hated the priests +because they are so much like you, you will hate their successors +because they are so little like you. You will not have had them two +years before you will put them down. Meanwhile, if you trust me, do one +of two things: if you wish to remain deformed, as you are, do not wonder +that others are like you; or, if you wish to reform them, begin by +showing them how." + +[Illustration: _A Railroad Servant_] + +This was very odd language to use to a deputation of reformers, but I +confess that it endears the memory of Bonivard to me. He was a +thoroughly charming person, and not at all wise in his actions. Through +mere folly he fell twice into the hands of his enemies, suffered two +years' imprisonment, and lost his priory. To get it back he laid siege +to it with six men and a captain. The siege was a failure. He trusted +his enemy, the duke, and was thrown into Chillon, where he remained a +sort of guest of the governor for two years. The duke visited the castle +at the end of that time. "Then the captain threw me into a vault lower +than the lake, where I remained four years. I do not know whether it was +by order of the duke or from his own motion, but I do know that I then +had so much leisure for walking that I wore in the rock which formed the +floor of the dungeon a _pathlet_ [_vionnet_], or little path, as if one +had beaten it out with a hammer." He was fastened by a chain four feet +in length to one of the beautiful Gothic pillars of the vault, and you +still see where this gentle scholar, this sweet humorist, this wise and +lenient philosopher, paced to and fro those weary years like a restless +beast--a captive wolf, or a bear in his pit. But his soul was never in +prison. As he trod that _vionnet_ out of the stone he meditated upon his +reading, his travels, the state of the Church and its reform, politics, +the origin of evil. "His reflections often lifted him above men and +their imperfect works; often, too, they were marked by that scepticism +which knowledge of the human heart inspires. 'When one considers things +well,' he said, 'one finds that it is easier to destroy the evil than to +construct the good. This world being fashioned like an ass's back, the +fardel that you would balance in the middle will not stay there, but +hangs over on the other side.'" + +Bonivard was set free by the united forces of Berne and Geneva, +preaching political and religious liberty by the cannon's mouth, as has +had so often to happen. That too must have seemed droll to Bonivard when +he came to think it over in his humorous way. "The epoch of the +Renaissance and the Reformation was that of strong individualities and +undaunted characters. But let no one imagine a resemblance between the +prior of St. Victor and the great rebels his contemporaries, Luther, +Zwinglius, and Calvin. Like them he was one of the learned men of his +time; like them he learned to read the Evangels, and saw their light +disengage itself from the trembling gleams of tradition; but beyond that +he has nothing in common with them. Bonivard is not a hero; he is not +made to obey or to command; he is an artist, a kind of poet, who treats +high matters of theology in a humorous spirit; prompt of repartee, +gifted with happy dash; his irony has lively point, and he likes to +season the counsels of wisdom with _sauce piquante_ and rustic +bonhomie.... He prepares the way for Calvin, while having nothing of the +Calvinist; he is gay, he is jovial; he has, even when he censures, I +know not what air of gentleness that wins your heart." + +[Illustration: _A Bit of Villeneuve_] + + +IX + +This and all the rest that I know of Bonivard I learn from a charming +historical and topographical study of Montreux and its neighborhood, by +MM. Rambert, Lebert, etc.; and I confess it at once, for fear some one +else shall find me out by simply buying the book there. It leaves you +little ground for classifying Bonivard with the great reformers, but it +leaves you still less for identifying him historically with Byron's +great melodramatic Prisoner of Chillon. If the Majority have somewhere +that personal consciousness without which they are the Nonentity, one +can fancy the liberal scholar, the humorous philosopher, meeting the +romantic poet, and protesting against the second earthly captivity that +he has delivered him over to. Nothing could be more alien to Bonivard +than the character of Byron's prisoner; and all that equipment of six +supposititious brothers, who perish one by one to intensify his +sufferings, is, it must be confessed, odious and ridiculous when you +think of the lonely yet cheerful sceptic pacing his _vionnet_, and +composing essays and verses as he walked. Prisoner for prisoner, even if +both were real, the un-Byronic Bonivard is much more to my mind. But the +poet had to make a Byronic Bonivard, being of the romantic time he was, +and we cannot blame him. The love of his sentimentality pervades the +region; they have named the nearest hotel after him, and there is a +_Sentier Byron_ leading up to it. But, on the other hand, they have +called one of the lake steamboats after Bonivard, which, upon the whole, +I should think would be more satisfactory to him than the poem. At any +rate, I should prefer it in his place. + + +X + +The fine Gothic chapel where we heard our pasteur preach was whitewashed +out of all memory of any mural decoration that its earlier religion may +have given it; but the gloss of the whitewash was subdued by the dim +light that stole in through the long slits of windows. We sat upon +narrow wooden seats so very hard that I hope the old dukes and their +court were protected by good stout armor against their obduracy, and +that they had not to wait a quarter of an hour for the holy father to +come walking up the railroad track, as we had for our pasteur. There +were but three men in the congregation that day, and all the rest were +Suissesses, with the hard, pure, plain faces their sex wear mostly in +that country. The choir sat in two rows of quaintly carved seats on each +side of the pulpit, and the school-master of the village led the +singing, tapping his foot to keep time. The pastor, delicate and wan of +face, and now no longer living, I came afterwards to know better, and to +respect greatly for his goodness and good sense. His health had been +broken by the hard work of a mountain parish, and he had vainly spent +two winters in Nice. Now he was here as the assistant of the +superannuated pastor of Villeneuve, who had a salary of $600 a year from +the Government; but how little our preacher had I dare not imagine, or +what the pastor of the Free Church was paid by his parishioners. M. +P---- was a man of culture far above that of the average New England +country minister of this day; probably he was more like a New England +minister of the past, but with more of the air of the world. He wore the +Genevan bands and gown, and represented in that tabernacle of the +ancient faith the triumph of "the Religion" with an effectiveness that +was heightened by the hectic brightness of his gentle, spiritual eyes; +and he preached a beautiful sermon from the beautiful text, "Suffer +little children," teaching us that they were the types, not the models, +of Christian perfection. There was first a prayer, which he read; then a +hymn, and one of the Psalms; then the sermon, very simply and decorously +delivered; then another hymn, and prayer. Here, and often again in +Switzerland, the New England that is past or passing was recalled to me; +these Swiss are like the people of our hill country in their faith, as +well as their hard, laborious lives; only they sang with sweeter voices +than our women. + +The wood-carving of the chapel, which must have been of the fourteenth +century or earlier, was delightfully grotesque, and all the queerer for +its contrast with the Protestant, the Calvinistic, whitewash which one +of our fellow-boarders found here in the chapel and elsewhere in the +castle _un peu vulgaire_--as if he were a Boston man. But the whole +place was very clean, and up the corner of one of the courts ran a strip +of Virginia-creeper, which the Swiss call the Canada vine, blood-red +with autumn. There was also a rose-tree sixty years old stretching its +arms abroad, over the ancient masonry, and feeling itself still young in +that sheltered place. + +We saw it when we came later to do the whole castle, and to revere the +dungeon where Bonivard wore his _vionnet_ in the rock. I will not +trouble the reader with much about the Hall of Justice and the Chamber +of Tortures opening out of it, with the pulley for the rack formerly +used in cross-questioning prisoners. These places were very interesting, +and so were the bedchambers of the duke and duchess, and the great Hall +of the Knights. The wells or pits, armed round with knife points, +against which the prisoner struck when hurled down through them into the +lake, have long had their wicked throats choked with sand; and the bed +hewn out of the rock, where the condemned slept the night before +execution, is no longer used for that purpose--possibly because the only +prisoners now in Chillon are soldiers punished for such social offences +as tipsiness. But the place was all charmingly mediaeval, and the more so +for a certain rudeness of decoration. The artistic merit was purely +architectural, and this made itself felt perhaps most distinctly in the +prison vaults, which Longfellow pronounced "the most delightful dungeon" +he had ever seen. A great rose-tree overhung the entrance, and within we +found them dry, wholesome, and picturesque. The beautiful Gothic pillars +rose like a living growth from the rock, out of which the vault was half +hewn; but the iron rings to which the prisoners were chained still hung +from them. The columns were scribbled full of names, and Byron's was +among the rest. The _vionnet_ of Bonivard was there, beside one of the +pillars, plain enough, worn two inches deep and three feet long in the +hard stone. Words cannot add to the pathos of it. + +[Illustration: _The Prisoner of Chillon_] + + +XI + +Nothing could be more nobly picturesque than the outside of Chillon. Its +base is beaten by the waves of the lake, to which it presents wide +masses of irregularly curving wall, pierced by narrow windows, and +surmounted by Mansard-roofs. Wild growths of vines and shrubs break the +broad surfaces of the wall, and out of the shoulders of one of the +towers springs a tall young fir-tree. The water at its base is intensely +blue and unfathomably deep. This is what nature has done; as for men, +they have hugely painted the lakeward wall of the castle with the arms +of the Canton Vaud, which are nearly as ugly as the arms of Ohio; and +they have wrought into the roof of the tallest tower with tiles of a +paler tint the word "Chillon," so that you cannot possibly mistake it +for any other castle. + +[Illustration: _One of the Fountains_] + + +XII + +First and last, we hung about Chillon a good deal, both by land and by +water. For the latter purpose we had to hire a boat; and deceived by the +fact that the owner spoke a Latin dialect, I attempted to beat him down +from his demand of a franc an hour. "It's too much," I cried. "It's the +price," he answered, laconically. Clearly I was to take it or leave it, +and I took it. We did not find our fellow-republicans flatteringly +polite, but we found them firm, and, for all I know, honest. At least +they seemed as honest as we were, and that is saying a great deal. What +struck us from the beginning was the surliness of the men and the +industry of the women; and I am persuaded that the Swiss Government is +really carried on by the house-keeping sex. At any rate, the postmaster +of Villeneuve was a woman; her little girl brought the mail up from the +railway station in a hand-cart, and her old mother helped her to +understand my French. They were rather cross about it, and one day, with +the assistance of a child in arms, they defeated me in an attempt I made +to get a postal order. I dare say they thought it quite a triumph; but +it was not so very much to be proud of. At that period my French, always +spoken with the Venetian accent of the friend with whom I had studied it +many years before, was taking on strange and wilful characteristics, +which would have disabled me in the presence of a much less formidable +force. I think the only person really able to interpret me was the +amiable mistress of the Croix Blanche, to whose hostelry I went every +day for my after-dinner coffee. She knew what I wanted whenever I asked +for it, and I simplified my wants so as to meet her in the same spirit. +The inn stood midway of the village street that for hundreds of yards +followed the curve of the lake shore with its two lines of high stone +houses. At one end of it stood a tower springing out of an almost +fabulous past; then you came to the first of three plashing fountains, +where cattle were always drinking, and bareheaded girls washing +vegetables for the pot. Aloft swung the lamps that lighted the village, +on ropes stretching across the street. I believe some distinction was +ascribed to Villeneuve for the antiquity of this method of +street-lighting. There were numbers of useful shops along the street, +which wandered out into the country on the levels of the Rhone, where +the mountains presently shut in so close that there was scarcely room +for the railway to get through. What finally became of the highway I +don't know. One day I tried to run it down, but after a long chase I was +glad to get myself brought back in a diligence from the next village. + +[Illustration: _"They helped to make the hay in the marshes"_] + +The road became a street and ceased to be so with an abruptness that +admitted nothing of suburban hesitation or compromise, and Villeneuve, +as far as it went, was a solid wall of houses on either side. It was +called Villeneuve because it was so very, very old; and in the level +beyond it is placed the scene of the great Helvetian victory over the +Romans, when the Swiss made their invaders pass under the yoke. I do not +know that Villeneuve witnessed that incident, but it looks and smells +old enough to have done so. It is reasonably picturesque in a +semi-Italian, semi-French fashion, but it is to the nose that it makes +its chief appeal. Every house has a cherished manure heap in its back +yard, symmetrically shaped, with the projecting edges of the straw +neatly braided: it is a source of family pride as well as profit. But it +is chiefly the odor of world-old human occupation, otherwise +indescribable, that pervades the air of Villeneuve, and makes the +mildest of foreign sojourners long for the application of a little +dynamite to its ancient houses. Our towns are perhaps the ugliest in the +world, but how open to the sun and wind they are! how free, how pure, +how wholesome! + +On week-days a cart sometimes passed through Villeneuve with a most +disproportionate banging over the cobble-stones, but usually the walls +reverberated the soft tinkle of cow-bells as the kine wound through from +pasture to pasture and lingered at the fountains. On Sundays the street +was reasonably full of young men in the peg-top trousers which the Swiss +still cling to, making eyes at the girls in the upper windows. These +were the only times when I saw women of any age idle. Sometimes through +the open door I caught a glimpse of a group of them busy with their +work, while a little girl read to them. Once in a crowded cafe, where +half a hundred men were smoking and drinking and chattering, the girl +who served my coffee put down a volume of Victor Hugo's poems to bring +it. But mostly their literary employments did not go beyond driving the +cows to pasture and washing clothes in the lake, where they beat the +linen with far-echoing blows of their paddles. They helped to make the +hay on the marshes beyond the village, and they greatly outnumbered the +men in the labors of the vintage. They were seldom pretty either in face +or figure; they seemed all to have some stage of goitre; but their +manners were charming, and their voices, as I have said, angelically +sweet. Our pasteur's wife said that there was a great deal of pauperism +in Villeneuve, "because of the drunkenness of the men and the disorder +of the women;" but I saw only one man drunk in the streets there, and +what the disorders of the women were I don't know. Possibly their labors +in the field made them poor house-keepers, though this is mere +conjecture. Divorce is theoretically easy, but the couple seeking it +must go before a magistrate every four months for two years and insist +that they continue to desire it. This makes it rather uncommon. + +[Illustration: _Cattle at the Fountains_] + +If the women were not good-looking, if their lives of toil stunted and +coarsened them, the men, with greater apparent leisure, were no +handsomer. Among the young I noticed the frequency of what may be called +the republican face--thin and aquiline, whether dark or fair. The +Vaudois as I saw them were at no age a merry folk. In the fields they +toiled silently; in the cafes, where they were sufficiently noisy over +their new wine, they talked without laughter, and without the shrugs and +gestures that enliven conversation among other Latin peoples. They had a +hard-favored grimness and taciturnity that with their mountain scenery +reminded me of New England now and again, and gave me the bewildered +sense of having dropped down in some little anterior America. But there +was one thing that marked a great difference from our civilization, and +that was the prevalence of uniforms, for which the Swiss have the true +European fondness. This is natural in a people whose men all are or have +been soldiers; and the war footing on which the little republic is +obliged to keep a large force in that ridiculous army-ridden Europe must +largely account for the abandonment of the peaceful industries to women. +But the men are off at the mountain chalets too, and they are away in +all lands, keeping hotels, and amassing from the candle-ends of the +travelling public the fortune with which all Swiss hope to return home +to die. + +[Illustration: _Washing Clothes in the Lake_] + + +XIII + +Sometimes the country people I met greeted me, as sometimes they still +do in New Hampshire, but commonly they passed in silence. I think the +mountains must have had something to do with hushing the people: far and +near, on every hand, they rise such bulks of silence. The chief of their +stately company was always the Dent-du-Midi, which alone remains +perpetually snow-covered, and which, when not hooded in the rain-bearing +mists of that most rainy autumn, gave back the changing light of every +hour with new splendors, though of course it was most beautiful in the +early sunsets. Then its cold snows warmed and softened into something +supernally rosy, while all the other peaks were brown and purple, and +its vast silence was thrilled with a divine message that spoke to the +eye. Across the lake and on its farther shores the mountains were dimly +blue; but nearer, in the first days of our sojourn, they were green to +their tops. Away up there we could see the lofty steeps and slopes of +the summer pastures, and set low among them the chalets where the +herdsmen dwelt. None of the mountains seemed so bare and sterile as +Mount Washington, and though they were on a sensibly vaster scale than +the White Mountains generally, I remembered the grandeur of Chocorua and +Kearsarge in their presence. But my national--not to say my +hemispheric--pride suffered a terrible blow as the season advanced. I +had bragged all my life of the glories of our American autumnal foliage, +which I had, in common with the rest of my countrymen, complacently +denied to all the rest of the world. Yet here, before my very eyes, the +same beautiful miracle was wrought. Day after day the trees on the +mountain-sides changed, and kindled and softly smouldered in a thousand +delicate hues, till all their mighty flanks seemed draped in the +mingling dyes of Indian shawls. Shall I own that while this effect was +not the fiery gorgeousness of our autumn leaves, it was something +tenderer, richer, more tastefully lovely? Never! + +[Illustration: _Flirtation at the Fountains_] + +The clouds lowering, and as it were loafing along, among the tops and +crags, were a perpetual amusement, and when the first cold came it was +odd to see a cloud in a sky otherwise clear stoop upon some crest, and +after lingering there awhile drift off about its business, and leave the +mountain all white with snow. This grew more and more frequent, and at +last, after a long rain, we looked out on the mountains whitened all +round us far down their sides, while it was still summer green and +summer bloom in the valley. The moon rose and blackened the mountains +below the crags of snow, which shone out above like one of her own dead +landscapes. Slowly the winter descended, snow after snow, keeping a line +beautifully straight along the mountain-sides, till it reached the +valley and put out our garden roses at last. The hard-wood trees lost +their leaves, and stretched dim and brown along the lower ranges; the +pines straggled high up into the snows. The Jura, far across the lake; +was vaguely roseate, with an effect of perpetual sunset; the +Dent-du-Midi lost the distinction of its eternal drifts; and the cold +not only descended upon us, but from the frozen hills all round us +hemmed us in with a lateral pressure that pierced and chilled to the +marrow. The mud froze, and we walked to church dry-shod. It was quite +time to fire the vestibule stove, which, after fighting hard and smoking +rebelliously at first, sobered down to its winter work, and afforded +Poppi's rheumatism the comfort for which he had longed pined. + + + + +Second Paper + + + + +I + +The winter and the vintage come on together at Villeneuve, and when the +snows had well covered the mountains around, the grapes in the valley +were declared ripe by an act of the Commune. There had been so much rain +and so little sun that their ripeness was hardly attested otherwise. +Fully two-thirds of the crop had blackened with blight; the imperfect +clusters, where they did not hang sodden and mildewed on the vines, were +small and sour. It was sorrowful to see them; and when, about the middle +of October, the people assembled in the vineyards to gather them, the +spectacle had none of that gayety which the poets had taught me to +expect of it. Those poor clusters did not + + "reel to earth + Purple and gushing," + +but limply waited the short hooked knife with which the peasants cut +them from their stems; and the peasants, instead of advancing with +jocund steps and rustic song to the sound of the lute and tabor and +other convenient instruments, met in obedience to public notice duly +posted about the Commune, and set to work, men, women, and children +alike silent and serious. So many of the grapes are harvested and +manufactured in common that it is necessary the vintage should begin on +a fixed day, and no one was allowed to anticipate or postpone. Some cut +the grapes, and dropped them into the flattish wooden barrels, which +others, after mashing the berries with a long wooden pestle, bore off +and emptied frothing and gurgling into big casks mounted on carts. These +were then driven into the village, where the mess was poured into the +presses, and the wine crushed out to the last bitter dregs. The +vineyards were a scene of activity, but not hilarity, though a little +way off they looked rather lively with the vintagers at work in them. We +climbed to one of them far up the mountain-side one day, where a family +were gathering the grapes on a slope almost as steep as a house roof, +father, mother, daughter, son-in-law, big boy, and big girl all silently +busy together. There were bees and wasps humming around the tubs of +crushed grapes in the pale afternoon sun; the view of the lake and the +mountains was inspiring; but there was nothing bacchanalian in the +affair, unless the thick calves of the girl, as she bent over to cut the +clusters, suggested a Maenad fury. These poor people were quite songless, +though I am bound to say that in another vineyard I did hear some of the +children singing. It had momentarily stopped raining; but it soon began +again, and the vintage went sorrowfully on in the mud. All Villeneuve +smelt of the harsh juice and pulp arriving from the fields in the +wagons, carts, tubs, and barrels which crowded the streets and +sidewalks, and in divers cavernous basements the presses were at work, +and there was a slop and drip of new wine everywhere. After dark the +people came in from the fields and gossiped about their doors, and the +red light of flitting lanterns blotched the steady rainpour. Outside of +the village rose the black mountains, white at the top with their snows. + +[Illustration: _The Wine-press_] + +In the cafes and other public places there were placards advertising +American wine-presses, but I saw none of them in use. At a farm-house +near us we looked on at the use of one of the old-fashioned Swiss +presses. Under it lay a mighty cake of grapes, stems, and skins, crushed +into a common mass, and bulging farther beyond the press with each turn +of the screw, while the juice ran in a little rivulet into a tub below. +When the press was lifted, the grapes were seen only half crushed. Two +peasants then mounted the cake, and trimmed it into shape with +long-handled spades, piling the trimmings on top, and then bringing the +press down again. They invited us with charming politeness to taste the +juice, but their heavy boots bore evidence of too recent a visit to the +cherished manure heap, and we thanked them with equal courtesy. + +This grape cake, when it had yielded up its last drop, would be broken +to pieces and scattered over the fields as a fertilizer. The juice would +meanwhile have been placed to ferment in the tuns, twelve and thirteen +feet deep, which lay in the adjoining cellar. + +For weeks after the vintage people were drinking the new wine, which +looked thick and whitish in the glasses, at all the cafes. It seemed to +be thought a dainty beverage, but our scruples against it remained, and +I cannot say what its effect upon the drinkers might be. Perhaps it had +properties as a "sweet, oblivious antidote" which rendered necessary the +placard we saw in the cafe of the little Hotel Chillon: + + "Die Rose blueht, + Der Dorn der sticht; + Wer gleich bezahlt + Vergisst es nicht." + +Or, in inadequate English: + + The roses bloom, + The thorns they stick; + No one forgets + Who settles quick. + +The relation of the ideas is not very apparent, but the lyric cry is +distinctly audible. + + +II + +One morning, a week before the vintage began, we were wakened by the +musical clash of cow-bells, and for days afterwards the herds came +streaming from the chalets on all the mountains round to feed upon the +lowland pastures for a brief season before the winter should house them. +There was something charming to ear and eye in this autumnal descent of +the kine, and we were sorry when it ended. They thronged the village in +their passage to the levels beside the Rhone, where afterwards they lent +their music and their picturesqueness to the meadows. With each herd +there were two or three goats, and these goats thought they were cows; +but, after all, the public interest of this descent of the cows was not +really comparable to that of the fall elections, now coming on with +handbills and newspaper appeals very like those of our own country at +like times. In the cafes, the steamboats, the railway stations, the +street corners, vivid posters warned the voters against the wiles of the +enemy, and the journals urged the people of the Canton Vaud to be up and +doing; they declared the issue before them a vital one, and the crisis a +crisis of the greatest moment. + +[Illustration: _Castle of Aigle_] + +In the mean time the people in our pension, who were so intelligent and +well informed about other things, bore witness to the real security of +the State, and the tranquillity of the Swiss mind generally concerning +politics, by their ignorance of the name of their existing President. +They believed he was a man of the name of Schultz; but it appeared that +his name was not at all Schultz, when we referred the matter to our +pasteur. It was from him, indeed, that I learned nearly all I knew of +Swiss politics, and it was from his teaching that I became a +conservative partisan in the question, then before the voters, of a +national free-school law. The radicals, who, the pasteur said, wished +Switzerland to attempt the role "_grande nation_," had brought forward +this measure in the Federal legislature, and it was now, according to +the sensible Swiss custom, to be submitted to a popular vote. It +provided for the establishment of a national bureau of education, and +the conservatives protested against it as the entering wedge of +centralization in government affairs. They contended that in a country +shared by three races and two religions education should be left as much +as possible to the several cantons, which in the Swiss constitution are +equivalent to our States. I am happy to say that the proposed law was +overwhelmingly defeated; I am happy because I liked the pasteur so much, +though when I remember the sympathetic bric-a-brac dealer at Vevay, who +was a radical, but who sold me some old pewters at a very low price, I +can't help feeling a little sorry too. However, the Swiss still keep +their old school law, under which each canton taxes itself for +education, as our States do, though all share in the advantages of the +universities, which are part of the public-school system. + +The parties in Switzerland are fortunately not divided by questions of +race or religion, but the pasteur owned that the Catholics were a +difficult element, and had to be carefully managed. They include the +whole population of the Italian cantons, and part of the French and +German. In Geneva and other large towns the labor question troublesomely +enters, and the radicals, like our Democrats, are sometimes the +retrograde party. + +The pasteur spoke with smiling slight of the Pere Hyacinthe and the +Doellinger movements, and he confessed that the Protestants were cut up +into too many sects to make progress among the Catholic populations. The +Catholics often keep their children out of the public schools, as they +do with us, but these have to undergo the State examinations, to which +all the children, whether taught at home or in private schools, must +submit. He deplored the want of moral instruction in the public schools, +but he laughed at the attempts in France to instil non-religious moral +principles: when I afterwards saw this done in the Florentine ragged +schools I could not feel that he was altogether right. He was a member +of the communal school committee, and he told me that this body was +appointed by the syndic and council of each commune, who are elected by +the people. To some degree religion influences local feeling, the +Protestant Church being divided into orthodox and liberal factions; +there is a large Unitarian party besides, and agnosticism is a +qualifying element of religious thought. + +Outside of our pension I had not many sources of information concerning +the political or social life at Villeneuve. I knew the village +shoemaker, a German, who had fixed his dwelling there because it was so +_bequem_, and who had some vague aspirations towards Chicago, whither a +citizen of Villeneuve had lately gone. But he was discouraged by my +representation, with his wax, his awl, and his hammer, successively +arranged as New York, Cleveland, and Chicago, on his shoe-bench, of the +extreme distance of the last from the seaboard. He liked his neighbors +and their political system; and so did the _portier_ at the Hotel Byron, +another German, with whom I sometimes talked of general topics in +transacting small affairs of carriage hire and the like, and who invited +me to notice how perfectly well these singular Swiss, in the midst of a +Europe elsewhere overrun with royalties, got on without a king, queen, +or anything of the kind. In his country, he said, those hills would be +covered with fortifications, but here they seemed not to be thought +necessary. + +[Illustration: _The Market at Vevey_] + +I made friends with the _instituteur_ of the Villeneuve public school, +who led the singing at church, and kept the village book-store; and he +too talked politics with me, and told me that all elections were held on +Sunday, when the people were at leisure, for otherwise they would not +take the time to vote. He was not so clear as to why they were always +held in church, but that is the fact; and sometimes the sacred character +of the place is not enough to suppress boisterous party feeling, though +it certainly helps to control it. + +After divine service on election Sunday I went to the Croix Blanche for +my coffee, to pass the time till the voting should begin. On the church +door was posted a printed summons to the electors, and on the cafe +billiard tables I found ballots of the different parties scattered. +Gendarmes had also distributed them about in the church pews; they were +enclosed in envelops, which were voted sealed. On a table before the +pulpit the ballot-box--a glass urn--was placed; and beside it sat the +judges of election, with lists of the registered voters. But in any +precinct of the canton an elector who could prove that he had not voted +at home might deposit his ballot in any other. The church bell rang for +the people to assemble, and the voting began and ended in perfect quiet. +But I could not witness an election of this ancient republic, where +Freedom was so many centuries old, without strong emotion; it had from +its nature and the place the consecration of a religious rite. + + +III + +The church itself was old--almost as old as Swiss freedom, and older +than the freedom of the Vaud. The Gothic interior, which had once, no +doubt, been idolatrously frescoed and furnished with statues, was now +naked and coldly Protestant; one window, partly stained, let in a little +colored light to mix with the wintry day that struck through the others. +The pulpit was in the centre of the church, and the clerk's desk +diagonally across from it. The floor was boarded over, but a chill +struck through from the stones below, and the people seemed to shiver +through the service that preceded the election. When the pasteur mounted +the pulpit they listened faithfully, but when the clerk led the psalm +they vented their suffering in the most dreadful groaning that ever +passed for singing outside of one of our country churches. + +It was all very like home, and yet unlike it, for there is much more +government in Switzerland than with us, and much less play of +individuality. In small communes, for example, like Villeneuve, there +are features of practical socialism, which have existed apparently from +the earliest times. Certain things are held in common, as mountain +pasturage and the forests, from which each family has a provision of +fuel. These and other possessions of the commune are "confided to the +public faith," and trespass is punished with signal severity. The trees +are felled under government inspection, and the woods are never cut off +wholesale. When a tree is chopped down a tree is planted, and the floods +that ravage Italy from the mountains denuded of their forests are +unknown to the wiser Swiss. Throughout Switzerland the State insures +against fire, and inflicts penalties for neglect and carelessness from +which fires may result. Education is compulsory, and there is a rigid +military service, and a show of public force everywhere which is quite +unknown to our unneighbored, easy-going republic. I should say, upon the +whole, that the likeness was more in social than in political things, +strange as that may appear. There seemed to be much the same freedom +among young people, and democratic institutions had produced a kindred +type of manners in both countries. But I will not be very confident +about all this, for I might easily be mistaken. The Swiss make their +social distinctions as we do; and in Geneva and Lausanne I understood +that a more than American exclusivism prevailed in families that held +themselves to be peculiarly good, and believed themselves very old. + +Our excursions into society at Villeneuve were confined to a single tea +at the pasteur's, where we went with mademoiselle one evening. He lived +in a certain Villa Garibaldi, which had belonged to an Italian refugee, +now long repatriated, and which stood at the foot of the nearest +mountain. To reach the front door we passed through the vineyard to the +back of the house, where a huge dog leaped the length of his chain at +us, and a maid let us in. The pasteur, in a coat of unclerical cut, and +his wife, in black silk, received us in the parlor, which was heated by +a handsome porcelain stove, and simply furnished, much like such a room +at home. Madame P----, who was musical, played a tempestuously +representative composition called "L'Orage" on the upright piano, and +joined from time to time in her husband's talk about Swiss affairs, +which I have already allowed the reader to profit by. They offered us +tea, wine, grapes, and cake, and we came away at eleven, lighted home +through the vineyards by Louis, the farm boy, with his lantern. + +[Illustration: _The Market, Vevay--A Bargain before the Notary_] + +Another day mademoiselle did us the pleasure to take us to her sister, +married, and living at Aigle--a clean, many-hotelled, prosperous town, a +few miles off, which had also the merit of a very fine old castle. We +found our friends in an apartment of a former convent, behind which +stretched a pretty lawn, with flowers and a fountain, and then vineyards +to the foot of the mountains and far up their sides. We entered the +court by a great stone-paved carriage-way, as in Italy, and we found the +drawing-room furnished with Italian simplicity, and abounding in +souvenirs of the hostess's long Florentine sojourn; but it was fortified +against the Swiss winter by the tall Swiss stove. The whole family +received us, including the young lady daughter, the niece, the +well-mannered boys and their father openly proud of them, and the +pleasant young English girl who was living in the family, according to a +common custom, to perfect her French. This part of Switzerland is full +of English people, who come not always for the French, but often for the +cheapness which they find equally there. + +Mr. K---- was a business man, well-to-do, well educated, agreeable, and +interesting; his house and his table, where we sat down to the mid-day +dinner of the country, were witness to his prosperity. I hope it is no +harm, in the interest of statistics, to say that this good Swiss dinner +consisted of soup, cold ham put up like sausage, stuffed roast beef +which had first been boiled, cauliflower, salad, corn-starch pudding, +and apples stewed whole and stuck full of pine pips. There was abundance +of the several kinds of excellent wine made upon the estate, both white +and red, and it was freely given to the children. Mr. K---- seemed +surprised when we refused it for ours; and probably he could have given +us good reason for his custom. His boys were strong, robust, handsome +fellows; he had a charming pride in showing us the prizes they had taken +at school; and on the lawn they were equally proud to show the gymnastic +feats they had learned there. I believe we are coming to think now that +the American schools are better than the Swiss; but till we have +organized something like the Swiss school excursions, and have learned +to mix more open air with our instruction, I doubt if the Swiss would +agree with us. + +After dinner we went to the _vente_, or charitable fair, which the young +ladies of the town were holding in one of the public buildings. It was +bewilderingly like the church fair of an American country town, socially +and materially. The young ladies had made all sorts of pretty +knick-knacks, and were selling them at the little tables set about the +room; they also presided, more or less alluringly, at fruit, coffee, and +ice-cream stands; and--I will not be sure, but I _think_--some of them +seemed to be flirting with the youth of the other sex. There was an +auction going on, and the place was full of tobacco smoke, which the +women appeared not to mind. A booth for the sale of wine and beer was +set off, and there was a good deal of amiable drinking. This was not +like our fairs quite; and I am bound to say that the people of Aigle had +more polished manners, if not better, than our country-town average. + +To quit this scene for the castle of Aigle was to plunge from the +present into my favorite Middle Ages. We were directly in the times when +the Lords of Berne held the Vaud by the strong hand, and forced +Protestant convictions upon its people by the same vigorous methods. The +castle was far older than their occupation, but it is chiefly memorable +as the residence of their bailiffs before the independence of the Vaud +was established after the French Revolution. They were hard masters, but +they left political and religious freedom behind them, where perhaps +neither would have existed without them. The castle, though eminently +picturesque and delightfully Gothic, is very rudely finished and +decorated, and could never have been a luxurious seat for the bailiffs. +It is now used by the local courts of law; a solitary, pale, unshaven +old prisoner, who seemed very glad of our tribute-money, inhabited its +tower, and there was an old woman carding wool in the baronial kitchen. +Her little grandson lighted a candle and showed us the _oubliettes_, +which are subterranean dungeons, one above the other, and barred by +mighty doors of wood and iron. The outer one bore an inscription, which +I copied: + + "Doubles grilles a gros cloux, + Triples portes, fortes Verroux, + Aux ames vraiment mechantes + Vous representez l'Enfer; + Mais aux ames innocentes + Vous n'etes que du bois, de la pierre, & du fer!" + +[Illustration: _Germans at Montreux_] + +But these doors, thus branded as representing the gates of hell to +guilty souls, and to the innocent being merely wood, stone, and iron, +sufficed equally to shut the blameless in, and I doubt if the reflection +suggested was ever of any real comfort to them. For one thing, the +captives could not read the inscription; it seems to have been intended +rather for the edification of the public. + +We visited the castle a second time, to let the children sketch it; and +even I, who could not draw a line, became with them the centre of +popular interest. Half a dozen little people who had been playing +"snap-the-whip" left off and crowded round, and one of the boys profited +by the occasion to lock into the barn, near which we sat, a peasant who +had gone in to fodder his cattle. When he got out he criticised the +pictures, and insisted that one of the artists should put in a certain +window which he had left out of the tower. Upon the whole, we liked him +better as a prisoner. + +"What would you do," I asked the children, "if I gave you a piece of +twenty-five centimes?" + +They reflected, and then evidently determined to pose as good children. +"We would give it to our mamma." + +"Now don't you think," I pursued, "that it would be better to spend it +for little cakes?" + +This instantly corrupted them, and they cried with one voice, "Oh yes!" + +Out of respect to me the oldest girl made a small boy pull up his +stocking, which had got down round his ankle, and then they took the +money and all ran off. Later they returned to show me that they had got +it changed into copper and shared equally among them. They must have +spent an evening of great excitement talking us over. + +The October sun set early, chill, and disconsolate after a rain. A weary +peasant with a heavy load on his back, which he looked as if he had +brought from the dawn of time, approached the castle gate, and bowed to +us in passing. I was not his feudal lord, but his sad, work-worn aspect +gave me as keen a pang as if I had been. + + +IV + +The Pays de Vaud is also the land of castles, and the visitor to Vevay +should not fail to see Blonay Castle, the seat of the ancient family +which, with intervals of dispossession, has possessed it ever since the +Crusades. It is only a little way off, on the first rise of the hills, +from which it looks over the vineyards on inexpressible glories of lake +and distant mountains, and it is most nobly approached through steeps of +vine and grove. Apparently it is kept up in as much of the sentiment of +the past as possible, and one may hire its baronial splendor fully +furnished; for the keeper told it had been occupied by an English family +for the last three winters. The finish, like that of the castle of +Aigle, is rude, but the whole place is wonderfully picturesque and +impressive. The arched gateway is alone worth a good rent; the long +corridors from which the chambers open are suitable to ghosts fond of +walking exercise; the superb dining-room is round, and the floor is so +old that it would shake under the foot of the lightest spectre. The +_repertoire_ of family traditions is almost inexhaustible, and doubtless +one might have the use of them for a little additional money. One of the +latest is of the seventeenth century, when the daughter of the house was +"the beautiful Nicolaide de Blonay, before whom many adorers had bent +the knee in vain. Among them, a certain Tavel de Villars, vanquished the +proud beauty by his constancy. But the marriage was delayed. Officer in +the service of France, Tavel was detained by his military duties. In the +mean time Jean-Francois de Blonay, of another branch of the family, the +Savoyard branch, fell in love with his cousin, and twice demanded her in +marriage. Twice he was refused. Then, listening only to his passion, he +assembled some of his friends, and hid himself with them near the +castle. They watched the comings and goings of the baron, and suddenly +profiting by his absence, they entered his dwelling and carried off the +fair Nicolaide, who, transported to Savoy, rewarded the boldness of her +captor by becoming his wife. This history, which resembles that of the +beautiful Helen, and is not less authentic, kindled the fiercest +hostilities between the Tavel and Blonay families; the French and +Italian ambassadors intervened; and it all ended in a sentence +pronounced at Berne against the Blonays--a sentence as useless as it was +severe--for the principal offenders had built a nest for their loves in +domains which they possessed in Savoy. The old baron alone felt its +effects. He was severely reprimanded for having so ill fulfilled his +paternal duties." + +The good burghers of Berne--the Lords as they called themselves--were in +fact very hard with all their Vaudois subjects. "Equally merciless to +the vanities and the vices, they confounded luxury and drunkenness in +their rules, pleasures and bad manners. They were no less the enemies of +innovations. Coffee at its introduction was stigmatized as a devilish +invention; tea was no better; as to tobacco, whether snuffed or smoked, +it was worse yet. Low-necked dresses and low-quartered shoes were +rigorously forbidden. Games and all dances, 'except three modest dances +on wedding-days,' were unlawful.... The Sabbath was strictly observed; +silence reigned in the villages, even those remotest from the church, +until the divine service of the afternoon was closed; no cart might pass +in the street, and no child play there.... In short, all their +ordinances and regulations witness a firm design on the part of their +Excellencies 'to revive among all those under their domination a life +and manners truly Christian.' The Pays de Vaud under this regime +acquired its moral and religious education. A more serious spirit +gradually prevailed. The Bible became the book _par excellence_, the +book of the fireside, and on Sunday the exercises of devotion took the +place of the public amusements." + +[Illustration: _Church Terrace, Montreux_] + +When the regicides fled from England after the Restoration they could +not have sought a more congenial refuge than such a land as this. One of +them, as is known, died in Vevay by the shot of an assassin sent to +murder him by Charles II.; with another he is interred in the old Church +of St. Martin there; and I went there to revere the tombs of Ludlow and +Broughton. While I was looking about for them a familiar name on a +tablet caught my eye, and I read that "William Walter Phelps, of New +Jersey, and Charles A. Phelps, of Massachusetts, his descendants beyond +the seas," had set it there in memory of the brave John Phelps, who was +so anxious to be known as clerk of the court which tried Charles Stuart +that he set his name to every page of its record. + +That tablet was the most interesting thing in the old church; but I +found Vevay quaint and attractive in every way. It is, as all the world +knows, the paradise of pensions and hotels and boarding-schools, and one +may live well and study deeply there for a very little money. It was +part of our mission to lunch at the most gorgeous of the hotels, and to +look upon such of our fellow-countrymen as we might see there, after our +long seclusion at Villeneuve; and we easily found all the splendor and +compatriotism we wanted. The hotel we chose stood close upon the lake, +with a superb view of the mountains, and its evergreens in tubs stood +about the gravelled spaces in a manner that consoled us with a sense of +being once more in the current of polite travel. The waiter wanted none +of our humble French, but replied to our timorous advances in that +tongue in a correct and finally expensive English. Under the stimulus of +this experience we went to a bric-a-brac shop and bought a lot of +fascinating old pewter platters and flagons, and then we went recklessly +shopping about in all directions. We even visited an exhibition of Swiss +paintings, which, from an ethical and political point of view, were +admirable; and we strolled delightedly about through the market, where +the peasant women sat and knitted before their baskets of butter, fruit, +cheese, flowers, and grapes, and warbled their gossip and their bargains +in their angelic Suissesse voices, while their husbands priced the +cattle and examined the horses. It was all very picturesque, and +prophesied of the greater picturesqueness of Italy, which we were soon +to see. + + +V + +In fact, there was a great deal to make one think of Italy in that +region; but the resemblance ended mostly with the Southern architecture +and vegetation. Our lake coast had its own features, one of the most +striking of which was its apparent abandonment to the use and pleasure +of strangers. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the water was +everywhere bordered by hotels and pensions. Such large places as Vevay +and Lausanne had their proper life, of course, but of smaller ones, like +Montreux, the tourist seemed to be in exclusive possession. In our walks +thither we met her--when the tourist was of that sex--young, gay, +gathering the red leaves of the Virginia-creeper from the lakeward +terraces of the highway; we met him, old, sick, pale, munching the sour +grapes, and trying somehow to kill the time. Large listless groups of +them met every steamboat from which we landed, and parties of them +encountered us on every road. "A hash of foreigners," the Swiss call +Montreux, and they scarcely contribute a native flavor to the dish. The +Englishman no longer characterizes sojourn there, I should say; the +Americans, who pay and speak little or no French, and the Russians, who +speak beautiful French but do not pay, are there in about equal +abundance; there are some French people; but if it came to my laying my +hand upon my heart, I should say there seemed more Germans than any +other nationality at Montreux. They are not pretty to look at, and +apparently not pleasant; and it is said that the Swiss, who digest them +along with the rest of us, do not like them. In fact, the Germans seem +everywhere to take their new national consequence ungraciously. + +Besides the foreigners, there is not much to see at Montreux, though one +must not miss the ancient church which looks out from its lofty place +over the lake, and offers the visitor many seats on its terrace for the +enjoyment of the same view. The day we went he had pretty well covered +the gravel with grape-skins; but he had left the prospect undisturbed. + +What struck me principally in Montreux was its extreme suitability to +the purposes of the international novelist. It was full of sites for +mild incidents, for tacit tragedies, for subdued flirtations, and +arrested improprieties. I can especially recommend the Kursaal at +Montreux to my brother and sister fictionists looking about for a pretty +_entourage_. Its terrace is beaten by the billows of the restless lake, +and in soft weather people sit at little tables there; otherwise they +take their ices inside the cafe, and all the same look out on the +Dent-du-Midi, and feel so bored with everybody that they are just in the +humor to be interested in anybody. There is a very pretty theatre in the +Kursaal, where they seldom give entertainments, but where, if you ever +go, you see numbers of pretty girls, and in a box a pale, +delicate-looking middle-aged Englishman in a brown velvet coat, with his +two daughters. The concert will be very good, and a young man of +cultivated sympathies and disdainful tastes could have a very pleasant +time there. For the rest, Montreux offers to the novelist's hand perhaps +the crude American of the station who says it is the cheapest place he +has struck, and he is going to stick it out there awhile; perhaps the +group of chattering American school-girls; perhaps the little Jewish +water-color painter who tells of his narrow escape from the mad dog, +which having broken his chain at Bouveret, had bitten six persons on the +way to Clarens, and been killed by the gendarmes near Vevay; perhaps two +Englishwomen who talk for half an hour about their rooms at the hotel, +and are presently joined by their husbands, who pursue the subject. +These are the true features of modern travel, and for a bit of pensive +philosophy, or to have a high-bred, refined widow with a fading sorrow +encountered by a sensitive nature of the other sex, there is no better +place than the sad little English church-yard at Montreux. It is full of +the graves of people who have died in the search for health far from +home, and it has a pathos therefore which cannot be expressed. The +stones grow stained and old under the laurels and hollies, and the +rain-beaten ivy creeps and drips all over the grassy mounds. Yes, that +is a beautiful, lonely, heart-breaking place. Now and again I saw +black-craped figures silently standing there, and paid their grief the +tribute of a stranger's pang as I passed, happy with my children by my +side. + + +VI + +I did not find Aigle and Blonay enough to satisfy my appetite for +castles, and once, after several times passing a certain _chateau meuble +a louer_ in the levels of the Rhone Valley, I made bold to go in and ask +to look at it. I loved it for the certain Louis XV. grandiosity there +was about it; for the great clock in the stable wall; for the balcony +frescos on the front of the garden-house, and for the arched driveway to +the court. It seemed to me a wonderfully good thing of its kind, and I +liked Napoleon's having lodged in it when his troops occupied +Villeneuve. It had, of course, once belonged to a rich family, but it +had long passed out of their hands into those of the sort of farmer-folk +who now own it, and let it when they can. It had stood several years +empty, for the situation is not thought wholesome, and the last tenant +had been an English clergyman, who kept a school in it for baddish boys +whom no one else could manage, and who were supposed to be out of harm's +way there. + +I followed a young man whom I saw going into the gateway, and asked him +if I could see the house. He said "Yes," and summoned his mother, a +fierce-looking little dame, in a black Vaudois cap, who came out of a +farm-house near with jingling keys, and made him throw open the whole +house, while she walked me through the sad, forgotten garden, past its +silent fountain, and through its grove of pine to the top of an orchard +wall, where the Dent-du-Midi showed all its snow-capped mass. Within, +the chateau was very clean and dry; the dining-room was handsomely +panelled, and equipped with a huge porcelain stove; the shelves of the +library were stocked with soberly bound books, and it was tastefully +frescoed; the pretty chambers were in the rococo taste of the fine old +rococo time, with successive scenes of the same history painted over the +fireplaces throughout the suite; the drawing-room was elegant with silk +hangings and carved mirrors; and the noble staircase, whose landing was +honored with the bust of the French king of the chateau's period, looked +as if that prince had just mounted it. All these splendors, with the +modern comfort of hot and cold water wherever needed, you may have, if +you like, for $500 a year; and none of the castles I saw compared with +this chateau in richness of finish or furnishing. I am rather particular +to advertise it because a question, painfully debating itself in my mind +throughout my visit, as to the sum I ought to offer the woman was +awkwardly settled by her refusing to take anything, and I feel a +lingering obligation. But, really, I do not see how the reader, if he +likes solitary state, or has "daughters to educate," or baddish boys to +keep out of mischief, or is wearing out a heavy disappointment, or is +suffering under one of those little stains or uneasy consciences such as +people can manage so much better in Europe--I say I do not see how he +could suit himself more perfectly or more cheaply than in that pensively +superb old chateau, with its aristocratic seclusion, and possibly +malarious, lovely old garden. + +[Illustration: _Tour up the Lake_] + + +VII + +Early in October, before the vintage began, we seized the first fine +day, which the Dent-du-Midi lifted its cap of mists the night before to +promise, and made an early start for the tour of the lake. Mademoiselle +and her cousins came with us, and we all stood together at the steamer's +prow to watch the morning sunshine break through the silvery haze that +hung over Villeneuve, dimly pierced by the ghostly poplars wandering up +the road beside the Rhone. As we started, the clouds drifted in +ineffable beauty over the mountain-sides; one slowly dropped upon the +lake, and when we had sailed through it we had come in sight of the +first town on the French border, which the gendarmes of the two nations +seemed to share equally between them. All these lake-side villages are +wonderfully picturesque, but this first one had a fancy in chimney-tops +which I think none of the rest equalled--some were twisted, some shaped +like little chalets; and there were groups of old wood-colored roofs and +gables which were luxuries of color. A half-built railroad was +struggling along the shore; at times it seemed to stop hopelessly; then +it began again, and then left off, to reappear beyond some point of hill +which had not yet been bored through or blown quite away. I have never +seen a railroad laboring under so many difficulties. The landscape was +now grand and beautiful, like New England, now pretty and soft, like Old +England, till we came to Evains-les-Bains, which looked like nothing but +the French watering-place it was. It looked like a watering-place that +would be very gay in the season; there were lots of pretty boats; there +was a most official-looking gendarme in a cocked hat, and two jolly +young priests joking together; and there were green, frivolous French +fishes swimming about in the water, and apparently left behind when the +rest of the brilliant world had flown. + +Here the little English artist who had been so sociable all the way from +Villeneuve was reinforced by other Englishmen, whom we found on the much +more crowded boat to which we had to change. Our company began to +diversify itself: there were French and German parties as well as +English. We changed boats four times in the tour of the lake, and each +boat brought us a fresh accession of passengers. By-and-by there came +aboard a brave Italian, with birds in cages and gold-fish in vases, with +a gay Southern face, a coral neck button, a brown mustache and imperial, +and a black-tasselled red fez that consoled. He was the vividest bit of +color in our composition, though we were not wanting in life without +him. There began to be some Americans besides ourselves, and a pretty +girl of our nation, who occupied a public station at the boat's prow, +seemed to know that she was pretty, but probably did not. She will +recognize herself in this sketch; but who was that other pretty maiden, +with brown eyes wide apart, and upper lip projecting a little, as if +pulled out by the piquant-nose? I must have taken her portrait so +carefully because I thought she would work somewhere into fiction; but +the reader is welcome to her as she is. He may also have the +_spirituelle_ English girl who ordered tea, and added, "I want some +kaetzchens with my tea." "Kaetzchens! Kaetzchen is a little cat." "Yes; +it's a word of my own invention." These are the brilliant little +passages of foreign travel that make a voyage to Europe worth while. I +add to this international gallery the German girl in blue calico, who +had so strong a belief that she was elegantly dressed that she came up +on deck with her coffee, and drank it where we might all admire her. I +intersperse also the comment that it is the Germans who seem to prevail +now in any given international group, and that they have the air of +coming forward to take the front seats as by right; while the English, +once so confident of their superiority, seem to yield the places to +them. But I dare say this is all my fancy. + +I am sure, however, of the ever-varying grandeur and beauty of the Alps +all round us. Those of the Savoyard shore had a softer loveliness than +the Swiss, as if the South had touched and mellowed them, as it had the +light-colored trousers which in Geneva recalled the joyous pantaloons of +Italy. These mountains moulded themselves one upon another, and deepened +behind their transparent shadows with a thousand dimmer and tenderer +dyes in the autumnal foliage. From time to time a village, gray-walled, +brown-roofed, broke the low helving shore of the lake, where the poplars +rose and the vineyards spread with a monotony that somehow pleased; and +at Nyon a twelfth-century castle, as noble as Chillon, offered the +delight of its changing lines as the boat approached and passed. + +At Geneva we had barely time to think Rousseau, to think Calvin, to +think Voltaire, to drive swiftly through the town and back again to the +boat, fuming and fretting to be off. There is an old town, gravely +picturesque and austerely fine in its fine old burgherly, Calvinistic, +exclusive way; and outside the walls there is a new town, very clean, +very cold, very quiet, with horse-cars like Boston, and a new +Renaissance theatre like Paris. The impression remains that Geneva is +outwardly a small moralized Bostonian Paris; and I suppose the reader +knows that it has had its political rings and bosses like New York. It +also has an exact reproduction of the Veronese tombs of the Scaligeri, +which the eccentric Duke of Brunswick, who died in Geneva, willed it the +money to build; like most fac-similes, they are easily distinguishable +from the original, and you must still go to Verona to see the tombs of +the Scaligeri. But they have the real Mont Blanc at Geneva, bleak to the +eye with enduring snow, and the Blue Rhone, rushing smooth and swift +under the overhanging balconies of quaint old houses. With its neat +quays, azure lake, symmetrical hotel fronts, and white steamboats, +Geneva was like an admirable illustration printed in colors, for a +holiday number, to imitate a water-color sketch. + +When we started we were detained a moment by conjugal affection. A lady, +who had already kept the boat waiting, stopped midway up the gang-plank +to kiss her husband in parting, in spite of the captain's loud cries of +"Allez! Allez!" and the angry derision of the passengers. We were in +fact all furious, and it was as much as a mule team with bells, drawing +a wagon loaded with bags of flower, and a tree growing out of a tower +beside the lake, could do to put me in good-humor. Yet I was not really +in a hurry to have the voyage end; I was enjoying every moment of it, +only, when your boat starts, you do not want to stop for a woman to kiss +her husband. + +Again we were passing the wild Savoyard shore, where the yellow tops of +the poplars jutted up like spires from the road-sides, and on the +hill-sides tracts of dark evergreens blotted their space out of the +vaster expanses of autumn foliage; back of all rose gray cliffs and +crags. Now and then we met a boat of our line; otherwise the blue +stretch of the water was broken only by the lateen-sails of the +black-hulked lake craft. At that season the delicate flame of the +Virginia-creeper was a prominent tint on the walls all round the lake. + +Lausanne, which made us think Gibbon, of course, was a stately stretch +of architecture along her terraces; Vevay showed us her quaint market +square, and her old church on its heights; then came Montreux with its +many-hotelled slopes and levels, and chalets peeping from the brows of +the mountains that crowd it upon the lake. All these places keep +multitudes of swans, whose snow reddened in the sunset that stained the +water more and more darkly crimson till we landed at Villeneuve. + + +VIII + +When December came, and the vintage and elections were over, and the +winter had come down into the valley to stay, Italy called to us more +and more appealingly. + +Yet it was not so easy to pull up and go. I liked the row-boat on the +lake, though it was getting too cold and rough for that; I liked the way +the railway guards called out "Verney-Montreux!" and "Territey-Chillon!" +as they ran alongside the carriages at these stations; I liked the +pastel portraits of mademoiselle's grandmothers on the gray walls of our +pretty chamber that overlooked the lake, and overheard the lightest lisp +of that sometimes bellowing body of water; I liked the notion of the +wild-ducks among the reeds by the Rhone, though I had no wish to kill +them; I liked our little corner fireplace, where I covered a log of the +_grand bois_ every night in the coals, and found it a perfect line of +bristling embers in the morning; I liked Poppi and the three generations +of Boulettes; and, yes, I liked mademoiselle and all her boarders; and I +hated to leave these friends. Mademoiselle made a grand Thanksgiving +supper in honor of the American nation, for which we did our best to +figure both at the table, where smoked a turkey driven over the Alps +from his Italian home for that fete (there are no Swiss turkeys), and in +the dance, for which he had wellnigh disabled us. Poppi was in uncommon +tune that night, and the voice of this pensive rheumatic lent a unique +interest to every change of the Virginia reel. + +But these pleasures had to end; it grew colder and colder; we had long +since consumed all the old grape-roots which constituted our _petit +bois_, and we were ravaging our way through an expensive pile of _grand +bois_ without much effect upon the climate. One morning the most +enterprising spirit of our party kindled such a mighty blaze on our +chamber hearth that she set the chimney on fire, thus threatening the +Swiss republic with the loss of the insurance, and involving +mademoiselle in I know not what penalties for having a chimney that +could be set on fire. By the blessing of Heaven, the vigor of +mademoiselle, and the activity of Louis and Alexis the farmer, the +flames were subdued and the house saved. Mademoiselle forgave us, but we +knew it was time to go, and the next Sunday we were in Florence. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Swiss Sojourn, by W. D. 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