A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2 / Described in a Series of Letters by a Lady
Date: 2014-08-25T00:00:00+00:00
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Title: A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2

Author: Augusta Macgregor Holmes

Release date: August 25, 2014 [eBook #46686]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Denis Pronovost, Ann Jury and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A RIDE ON HORSEBACK TO FLORENCE THROUGH FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND. VOL. 2 OF 2 ***

LONDON:

Printed by William Clowes and Sons,

Stamford Street.

A ride on horseback to Florence

CONTENTS

OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

Page 1

Ride to Chillon—Castle of La Tour du Peil—Chastellar—Chillon—Attentive gendarmes—Oubliettes—Destiny of their inhabitants—Salle de Justice—Torture room—Eating hall with its fleurs-de-lis—The dungeons—The beam—The interment in the lake—Bonnivard—His misfortunes—His prison—The first pillar having its own story—Sketches on the wall made by a captive—His escape—Drowned in the attempt two months before Bonnivard’s deliverance—Alexander Dumas’ name above that of Byron—The English amateur’s painting—The fat gendarme—A bad Bonnivard—Our determination to inhabit Chillon—Changed by thoughts of powder—Fanny our conductress—Ludlow’s house and tomb—Contrast between Protestant and Catholic cantons—Bulle—The bony hand holding a crucifix—The Counts of Gruyères—Fines paid for crimes perpetrated—The banner of Berne—Laws of the Simmenthal—The Bernese attacking Gruyères—Count Pierre’s danger—Plague described by Boccaccio—The Flagellans—The murdered Jews—Last of the Counts of Gruyères—Leaving Bulle—Fribourg—Battle of Morat—The lime tree—A monument of the young messenger—Berthhold, founder of Fribourg—Line drawn between plebeian and noble—Bridge—Organ

CHAPTER II.

29

Canton of Berne—Village where the Swiss troops obtained a victory over the French force in ’98—Berne—Bears in all forms—Their revenues diminished—Their new baptism—Foundation of Berne—Rodolph of Erlach—Laupen—Rodolph chosen guardian of orphans of the Count of Nidau—Murdered by his own son-in-law—Cathedral—Monument to Duke Berthhold—His wife’s execution—Charles Louis of Erlach massacred by his own soldiers during French invasion—Treatment of Berne by the French—Thun—Privileges—Castle of Thun—The brothers—The banquet—The murder—The “pension”—An acquaintance—The sketcher in haste—A Marseilles story—Spietz—The golden manor—Adrian of Bubenberg—His saving Morat—His embassy—His return as a minstrel—Unterseen—Unspunnen once the property of the Eschenbach family—Walter of Eschenbach—Confidant of the parricide Duke John—Murder of the Emperor Albert—Vengeance of Queen Agnes—Walter’s son spared—Walter a shepherd—Lauterbrunnen—The cascade—Grindelwald—A buried chapel in the glacier—The Harder—The grave of an only son—Return to Thun

CHAPTER III.

74

Leave Thun—Zweizemmen—The wrong road—Château d’Œx—Gruyères—The Préfet’s ball—Anniversary of the Virgin’s leaving school—Vevay—The patient Griselda’s obstinacy—The exploit—Villeneuve—The Valley of the Rhone—St. Maurice—The Theban legion—The Valais—The village buried—The Rhone overflowed—Former inundation—The old villager saved—St. Bernard—Story of its founder—Martigny—Riddes—Sion—The prelate’s murder—The family of the Rarons—The Mazza—Raron persecuted—Demands the aid of Duke Amedée—His castle burned—His wife driven forth—His revenge—The cretins of Sierre

CHAPTER IV.

106

Rhone overflowed—Baths of Louëche—Tourtemagne—Visp—Ravages of the Rhone—Madonnas placed to stop its further rise—Glys—Brieg—Ascent of Simplon—Ganther—Gallery of Schalbet—The toll-gate—Hospice—The Barons of Stockalper—Village of the Simplon—Broken road—Algaby—Gorge of Gondo—Fanny too near the edge—Gap in the road—Part of gallery carried away—Opportune aid—Arrival at Gondo—Broken road near Isella—Accident during the storm—Remnant of a carriage—The douanier’s aid—An auberge—The military post—My consolation—An amiable hostess—Good company in a quiet kitchen—A French gentleman expecting murder—An Italian vetturino—The Juge de paix and his interested verdict—Torrent or bedchamber—Our hostess’s supper—Departure—First difficulty—Road completely swept away—Impossibility of advancing—A lady and her guide killed—Way over the Trasquiera—Fanny aiding her conductor—A painful path—A draught of water—Top of the mountain—Inhabitants—Milk and apples—Fanny’s leap—Danger of Grizzle—Descent—Bridge gone—Torrent forded—Gallery of Crevola—The broken column—Arrival—Our friend’s welcome—Domo d’Ossola

CHAPTER V.

156

Vogogna—Country overflowed—The ferry—Isola Madre—Baveno—Innkeeper—Isola Bella—Ground made in 1670—Arona—Castle of St. Charles of Borromeo—Castle of Angera—Frescoes in its ruined halls—History of St. Charles of Borromeo—Early habits—Resides in his diocese at Milan—Strives to reform the church—Attempt to murder him—A miracle—His conduct during the plague—Life of St. Anthony—Who cured the young pig—St. Christopher, who was twelve feet high—The Ticino—Amusement on board the ferry—The commissary—Sesto Calende—A charge—Somma and Julius Cæsar’s cypress—Castle of the Visconti—Birthplace of Teobaldo—Elected Pope when in the Holy Land with Edward the First of England—Otho Visconti founder of his family’s grandeur—Gallerate—A threatened beating—The Lord’s Supper on the auberge wall—The robber’s seven towers—Battle between the Visconti—Unwarranted preference shown by a ghost—Murder in the castle at Milan—The murderer poisoned by his wife—Rhò—Milan

CHAPTER VI.

185

The Duomo—Our host’s advice—Joseph the Second—Tombs—That to the memory of Giovanni and Gabrielle de’ Medici, designed by Michael Angelo—Chapel of St. John—St. Bartholomew—Tomb of Otho, archbishop of Milan—Crucifix carried by St. Charles of Borromeo—Antique altar—Burial-place of St. Charles—La Scala—Opera ballet—The Brera, once monastery of the Umiliati—Paintings—The old castle—Arms of the Visconti—Prerogative preserved to himself by Giovanni—The parricide—Filippo Mario—His innocent wife executed—Carmagnuola Filippo’s general—Forced by his injustice to change of party—Suspicions of his new masters—His execution—Francis Sforza—His youth—His name’s origin—Jane of Naples—Imprisoned by her husband—Set free—King James a monk of St. Francis—Forte Braccio—Sforza’s death—Arena—Roman ruin

CHAPTER VII.

211

Leaving Milan—La Bicocca—Francis the First—Francis Sforza—Black Bands of Giovanni de’ Medici—Lautrec—An intrigue—Samblançay—The king prisoner—Samblançay falsely accused—Condemned to be hanged at Montfaucon—His death deferred till dark, in expectation of the king’s relenting—His last words resembling Wolsey’s—Lodi—The Austrians—Imprecations—The serenade—Doubts as to the road—Piacenza—A thirsty douanier—The cathedral—Alberoni—A bell-ringer—The Farnese—Pier Luigi’s murder—Statues on the piazza—Alessandro—His son Ranuccio—His danger in youth—His escape—His cruelty—His treatment of his son—Borgo St. Donnino—Maria Louisa—Castel Guelfo—Origin of names of Guelph and Gibelline—Parma—Madonna in the stable—A lamp serving two purposes—A procession seeking a criminal—Cambacérès—Ariosto—A robber’s love of poetry—Correggio—Modena—The countess Matilda—The Emperor Henry the Fourth—Canossa—Three days unsheltered in the court-yard—Rubiera—Modena

CHAPTER VIII.

243

Pic de la Mirandole—Castel Franco—Bologna—A bad inn left for La Pace—Its mistress—Statue of Pope Julius the Second—St. Petronio—Mistake of a learned man—Charles the Fifth—Here crowned King of Lombardy—King Enzio—His peasant-love—His twenty years’ captivity—The origin of a name—The towers—Accademmia—St. Cecilia—The cathedral—Temple dedicated to Isis—Papal troops—A capitulation—Cholera—An Italian hospital—French soldiers—The procession barefoot—The well-attested miracle—The Appennines—Lojano—The Pellegrino—Filigare—Pietra Mala—Strange properties of its fire and cold spring—Fruit—Montecarelli—St. Antonio’s grapes—Palazzo Borghese—Hôtel du Nord—Jerome Bonaparte’s cook—Piazza della Santa Trinità—Spot occupied by the Palazzo degl’ Uberti left vacant—Recording escutcheons—The Saviour, king of Florence—The Loggia—Galleria de’ Medici—Piazza del Duomo—The Baptistery—Work of Ghiberti at twenty years old—Chains of the gates of Pisa—A funeral

CHAPTER IX.

274

The Duomo—Its interior—Michael Angelo’s farewell—Vasari—Congress of artists convoked—A dome of pumice stone—Brunelleschi turned out as a madman—The egg—His colleague Ghiberti—His feigned illness—The difficulties divided—Height of the dome—Giotto—The Campanile—Pietro Farnese—His gilded mule—Dante—Condemned to be burned at the stake—Peter of Toledo-Conrad the traitor—The sacristy—The Pazzi—Julian murdered—Salviati hanged in his cardinal’s robes—Seventy executions—The artist nicknamed Andrea of the Hanged—The baptistery—The withered elm restored—The story of Joseph—John the Twenty-third from pirate become pope—Palazzo Riccardi—Gardens of Lorenzo—Michael Angelo—The Strada del Traditore—Lorenzino—The duke Alessandro—Made unpopular through his vices—The plot—Anecdote told by Benvenuto Cellini—The rendezvous—The murder—Lorenzino assassinated in turn—The Galleria—The Palazzo Pitti—Cosmo—His sons’ quarrel—The eldest killed by his brother—The father’s revenge—His wife poisoned—Duke Francesco and Bianca Capello—Her story and death

CHAPTER X.

311

Boboli Gardens—Buondelmonte—Ponte Vecchio—Santa Croce—Palazzo Borgo—Tombs—Michael Angelo’s monument—Died the year Galileo was born—Machiavelli—Alfieri—Galileo dying the year in which Newton was born—Chapel of the Pazzi—San Lorenzo—Monument of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ—Michael Angelo’s Day and Night—Contradictory employments—His reply to a verse addressed to his statue—Cappella dei Principi—Santa Maria Novella—Cimabue’s Virgin—Cappella de’ Spagnuoli—Portraits of Petrarch and Laura—Turned out by a friar—Pietre Dure—Our guide again—Sarcophagus of the Gran Duchessa—Shut up in a private oratory—Let out by a priest—Cascine—Palazzo Vecchio—Small tower-chamber prison of Cosmo—Savonarola—His prediction of Lorenzo’s death—The confession—The anathema—Trial by fire—The heavy rain—Savonarola executed—The Appennines—Birthplace of the Maréchale d’Ancre—Tre Maschere—Fog—Rain—Lojano—Crosses—Bologna—Grizzle’s attack on the kitchen—Miss Kemble—Modena—The ducal stable—The stuffed charger—Parma—The five saints canonized in May—Their claims to canonization

CHAPTER XI.

349

La Steccata—The Teatro Farnese—Its magnificence—Its ruins—Would contain 9000—St. Jeronimo—Sir Thomas Lawrence—Alti Relievi—The overflowed Po—The infant saved—Placentia again—Misery of Piedmontese—Voghera—Tortona—Plains of Marengo—The wrong road—The Tanaro overflowed—Asti—The Angelo and its reception—Moncaglieri—The vow, and the Virgin, who resembled a Duchess—The old Italian gentleman—Victor Amedée’s abdication—The old man’s arrest—His death at Moncaglieri—Susa—Its waterspouts—A chimney on fire—Mont Cenis—Fog and snow-storm—A postilion’s wonder—Danger of tourmente—Lanslebourg—A thick smoke and ill scent—Modane—Lesseillon—St. Michel

CHAPTER XII.

387

St. Jean de Maurienne—A tradition of two fingers—Story of a procession of bears at Henry the Second’s passage—Peculiar customs—Baptism—Funerals—Aiguebelle—La Carbonaria—Chambéry—Road by the Mont du Chat—A valley of the Rhone—Pierre Châtel once a monastery—Bellay—Murder committed by a notary—A peculiar race—Pont d’Ain—Cathedral of Brou—Its foundress and her motto—Bourg—Fair-time—An aubergiste—Montrevel—We are taken for part of Franconi’s troop—Tournus—Chalons—Arnay le Duc—Vermenton—Joigny—A poor traveller—The chapter of Sens—Montereau where Jean sans Peur was murdered—Melun—Paris—Fanny

CHAPTER I.

Ride to Chillon—Castle of La Tour du Peil—Chastellar—Chillon—Attentive gendarmes—Oubliettes—Destiny of their inhabitants—Salle de Justice—Torture room—Eating hall with its fleurs-de-lis—The dungeons—The beam—The interment in the lake—Bonnivard—His misfortunes—His prison—The first pillar having its own story—Sketches on the wall made by a captive—His escape—Drowned in the attempt two months before Bonnivard’s deliverance—Alexander Dumas’ name above that of Byron—The English amateur’s painting—The fat gendarme—A bad Bonnivard—Our determination to inhabit Chillon—Changed by thoughts of powder—Fanny our conductress—Ludlow’s house and tomb—Contrast between Protestant and Catholic cantons—Bulle—The bony hand holding a crucifix—The Counts of Gruyères—Fines paid for crimes perpetrated—The banner of Berne—Laws of the Simmenthal—The Bernese attacking Gruyères—Count Pierre’s danger—Plague described by Boccaccio—The Flagellans—The murdered Jews—Last of the Counts of Gruyères—Leaving Bulle—Fribourg—Battle of Morat—The lime tree—A monument of the young messenger—Berthhold, founder of Fribourg—Line drawn between plebeian and noble—Bridge—Organ.

16th.

We dined at one, in company of some gentlemanly Swiss and French officers, and started at three for Chillon, passing on our way the hamlet La Tour du Peil, and catching a glimpse as we rode by of its ruined ancient castle, pillaged and burned by order of Berne, in punishment for having allowed the passage of foreign soldiers to Lausanne, where lay the camp of their foe, Charles, duke of Burgundy. Vevay suffered for the like fault, being plundered also, and of the two towns five hundred men were massacred.

There is nothing lovelier than this road, winding along the flank of the mountains, here rich with wood. We passed Clarens, beautiful as Byron’s description, hiding among its own trees, and straggling up the hill side from the shore. The noble old castle of Chastellar on its solitary mound, and the peaked stone spire of Montreux seeming to lean against the forest, above which the Dent de Jaman stands, cold and barren,—all the way the lake shining below, with the stern rocks of Meillerie opposite, and the Alps closing the valley. The heat was excessive; and the small vineyard flies so tormented our horses that D——’s taste for the picturesque had well nigh vanished, when a bend in the road brought us beneath a high bank, covered with old walnut-trees, and opposite the rock on which Chillon stands, with its towers and tall keep, the most picturesque of feudal castles. We crossed the covered wooden bridge, where the gendarmes stand, smiling welcome; and the horses consigned, each to the care of two, and left in a dark stable to be dusted with walnut branches, we were sufficiently tranquil as to their comfort to follow our guide, who was the wife of the concierge. She led across two courts, and opened a heavy prison door; it was “out of the sun and into a grave.” I obeyed her injunction to hold fast her hand, when, having scrambled over rubbish, and through partial darkness, she drew me to the brink of a square hole, and pointed down a depth of eighty-six feet. It was one of the fearful oubliettes, whose existence here was unknown till about fifteen months since. Grown accustomed to the dim light, we could distinguish a coarse woollen rug, now laid on the brink, but which was found below serving as shroud to a skeleton. The victim died from the fall, or was left to perish. In the same court-yard is the entrance to another, which was, at pleasure, dungeon or place of execution. Its depth is sixty and some feet; and from the top of the square opening descend three steps, the commencement of a stair which goes no farther. The condemned was lowered to the bottom, and his food administered in like manner. If death was decided on, he was forgotten, as there was no other communication with the living world.

A few steps lead to the salle de justice. The dryness of the air and thickness of the walls has so preserved all within, that the curious wooden ceiling, supported in the centre by pillars, which retain traces of paint, remains; and the planks of the floor were only exchanged for pavement, when, on the threats of France, the caissons of the Canton de Vaud were assembled here. At one end of this hall is a small room with a door, on a now closed staircase, near the wide chimney. At the other is the salle de question. A pillar of wood, to which the prisoner was bound, still stands,—as does a beam above it, pierced with holes for pulleys, and a portion of the old ropes hanging from them. A second beam, which supported a wheel on which the wretch was tortured, (tied by the arms with weights to the feet,) crumbled down a few months ago. The pillar is seared with the red-hot irons employed in the torture; that by burning being continued during three-quarters of an hour, with intervals of five minutes; if it induced confession, the private stair from the small chamber conducted the condemned to the potence in the dungeon below. The door has been walled up, on account of the vicinity of the powder magazine. Our guide led to the eating-hall, which was the kitchen also. The capitals of its pillars were ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, she said, when a count of Savoy conducted hither his bride, a daughter of France, perhaps Bonne de Bourbon, who married the green count Amedée the Sixth, about 1355. The two carved oaken chests with their curious locks, at the bottom of the room, are of the same date. The view from these windows is beautiful beyond praise, and there is “the little isle—the only one in view,” lying in the lake like a floating basket of flowers. Our last visit was to the dungeons: the first is the most modern, and least sad, as its loopholes are longer and less narrow. On one of the sills they form in the thick wall sat a Swiss girl, the light falling on her picturesque dress, touching her smiling face and bare arms,—she animated the dim prison house. Between this first dungeon and that of Bonnivard, there is one smaller and darker, though light enough for its destination: for a few moments’ stay allows the eye to distinguish, crossing a space between its pillars, a heavy beam, whose upper part is, in several places, deeply worn by the ropes which, upholding heavy weights, were bound round it; and a few paces behind, the steps of the narrow stair which conducts to the fatal door of the justice hall. The opposite wall, against which the lake ripples or foams in its various moods, has a square cavity, now closed with stones; the bodies of those who died unheard and unseen were cast forth there, and beneath the waves which told no tales. A narrow portal opens on the dungeon where Bonnivard lay. I think I reminded you before that he was prior of the abbey of St. Victor, a man of pure life as well as courage, who exhorted the Genevese to reform, and censuring the vices of the catholic clergy generally, as well as their bishops in particular, was betrayed by false friends to the duke of Savoy, whose anger he had above all excited, by urging an alliance between Fribourg and Geneva. One of these friends received for reward his rich priory. He was two years in prison, and set free and reinstated in his benefice by Pierre de la Baume, bishop of Geneva. He by force took possession of the property of which he had been deprived in Savoy, which, notwithstanding his affection for Geneva, was his country. The duke besieged him in his château of Cartigny, which, unable to defend long, he was forced to fly from, and saw himself almost wholly deprived of his revenues. The town of Geneva granted him a pension, and sustained him in his adversity; and the irritated duke, desirous only of obtaining possession of his person, granted him a safe-conduct with a view to lure him on his territory. Bonnivard, expecting no treachery, profited by the circumstance to visit his mother, sick and old, at Seyssel; and intending to go thence to Lausanne, he was seized on the Jura, and dragged to Chillon. The first two years of his detention he passed in comparative liberty; but Charles the Third visiting the castle, he was cast, by his order, into the vault below the level of the lake, where are

“The seven pillars of Gothic mould.”

The first column has a story of its own, for a wall of separation, now thrown down, divided it and a space of twelve feet square from the prior’s prison, forming one which enclosed a young man, his companion. On the walls are a few figures, in the costume of the time, rude but spirited sketches, the work of his long leisure; they are fresh still. Attached to the pillar is the portion of the broken ring which held his chain, and an iron bar of his loophole was sawed through, to allow room for the passage of a human body. Long toil, and the use of some instrument left him inadvertently, severed the fetters and opened the path; but he reckoned on his powers of swimming, forgetting they were paralyzed by the space and air of a dungeon—he plunged into the lake, and rose no more alive. Bonnivard was delivered two months later; it was in March, 1536. Chillon remained the last possession of Savoy in the Pays de Vaud. Confiding in its strength, her garrison’s boats insulted all who were not subjects of Duke Charles, and haughtily rejected the truce proposed to the Bernese by the emperor’s ambassador. The Bernese army besieged it on the land side; the troops and artillery of Geneva armed barks on the lake; the garrison was forced to surrender, and Bonnivard set free. His pillar, retaining its iron ring, is the second in order; the floor of rock round, worn by the uneasy pacing of four years: on the column, among more perishing names, is that of Byron. I noticed that of Alexander Dumas, so high above, that to engrave its enormous letters he must have mounted a ladder. The space on either side the range of columns which support the roof’s groined arches, forms a sombre aisle, the inner wall left as nature made it, irregular masses of living rock; that towards the lake intersected with a few narrow loopholes high from the ground, which are rather slits in the stone, so small that in the morning it is a dark vault, and only when the beams shine low they come “creeping over the floor.” At sunset, however, “the imprisoned ray” is not “dull:” for, as if it acquired force from its concentration, it falls like a streak of fire on the pillars and blocks of stone. As we saw it, the effect was splendid, but partial, as at the extreme end an artist was sketching by the light of candles, being otherwise in perfect obscurity. It is to carry his materials that the young Swiss, whom we saw as we passed again, comes daily. Last summer, an amateur, an English gentleman, visited Chillon with the intention of painting not only the dungeon, but Bonnivard! for this purpose he chose a gendarme of spare habit, having a long beard and sallow face, chained him to the pillar, and commenced his work, saying, “vous bon Bonnivard.” He could not, as you may suppose from the specimen, explain himself in French; but Monsieur Chéri (a strange name for a captive prior) understood his signs made with money, and submitted with fortitude to lie robed and fettered on the rocky floor. One day, unfortunately, a feeling of pity came over his comrade in the court-yard above, and he descended to relieve him, thinking to divide the duty, and that one might do as well as the other, seeing both were gendarmes. The new comer was a healthy, very young man, stout and beardless, unlike the studious prior, who had eaten black bread in small quantities, and probably abstained from shaving six years. The pallid gendarme feeling, like him he represented, the blessing of freedom, sprang up in delight; and the amateur, in despair, when the fat man assumed the chain, could only hold his first prisoner fast, stamp his foot and shake his head at the other, and repeat all the French he knew, “Lui, bon Bonnivard, rester; vous aller, pas bon Bonnivard!” He grew at last so angry that my conductress, who had, she said, almost expired with laughter, interfered, and Chéri once more cast himself at the foot of his pillar. As we went out, she mentioned the circumstance of having two English ladies “en pension.”

D—— looked up in intense delight, the horses were in a good stable, the gendarmes would make admirable grooms. Our best fare might be fresh eggs, it was true, but what signified our dinner compared with the advantages of a view of the lake, with the “Isle’s tall trees;” of walking from the oubliettes to the torture chamber, and resting under the potence, and in Bonnivard’s dungeon, a lodging of three chambers, looking on the lake, which we should hear “ripple night and day.” We told her we would come in the spring, when we should have repassed the mountains, and she looked rather surprised and very much pleased at the sudden wandering of our senses.

Arrived at the stable, we were confirmed in our resolve, by seeing the gendarmes obeying orders; one holding a horse’s head, another shaking a bough, in the places where we had left them, like the warriors in the Belle au Bois dormant. As I mounted Fanny, the châtelaine asked permission to touch my hand, and unaccustomed, I suppose, to see ladies on horseback, said it would be “amusant” to have us there; so we rode away.

Arrived on the brow of the hill, we looked down on the romantic castle, and my eye lighted on the chapel roof. “Dear me,” said I, looking at D——, “the powder magazine!”

“Humph,” said D——, looking down in turn.

“Is there any danger?”

“There might be;” and thereupon we both commenced enumerating all our memories held of powder mishaps; till at last I began to think I might fear to order dinner, from dread of some mischance in the chimney, and to ride Fanny, lest her shoes should strike fire against the stones of the court-yard. We talked the pour and the contre the whole way, and arrived at the most perfect indecision.

We had a splendid view of a stormy sunset, of golden lake and blackening mountains, and when we reached Vevay, night had completely closed, and we, who had never seen the road till that afternoon, were puzzled. Fanny was not so; she assumed her wisest manner, wound through the crooked streets, and stopped at the stable of the Trois Couronnes.

17th.

Rain all day, detaining us within doors; we hope to leave the 20th for Berne and Fribourg.

We walked this evening up the steep road which leads to the church of St. Martin, as its terrace has a view no one should fail to see before quitting Vevay. The church is simple and pretty, of the thirteenth century. Ludlow’s monument, raised by his widow, is within it, built against the wall; Broughton’s tombstone forms part of the pavement near. The former’s memoirs, in which he so prides himself on his crime as regicide, were first published at Vevay, where he lived under the protection of the magistrates of Berne.

When William the Third ascended the throne, he returned to England, and to London, but finding it possible that he might still be held there in the light of an assassin, he thought it more prudent to return to Vevay. He was seventy-three when he died; his house is still shown, and the inscription he engraved above its doorway,

“Omne solum forti patria,”

was effaced but a short time since.

18th August.

We left Vevay late, taking the road which passes through Bulle to Fribourg, being counselled against that by Romont. Even this is far from a good one for horses, being for a considerable distance a painful succession of hills, paved and steep, but from which the views are beautiful, back to Vevay and the lake, and down the precipices to the valley, where the Vevayse flows between deep and wild banks.

Arrived at the Châtel St. Denis, with its old castle on the mound, we could observe the contrast between the Protestant and Catholic cantons, even between the habitations which lie on either side the frontier, scarce a stone’s throw apart. This is the first village of the canton Fribourg, and for the first time we saw heaps of manure piled before the cottage doors, with the tame pig rooting in them. As it was a holiday, the peasants who passed us were in their gayest costume, the men with their full coloured waistcoat sleeves, the young girls with their hair braided across their brows, and the black riband dividing it from the enormous mass behind, for they wear their own tresses plaited over a foundation of wool, which gives them an unnatural bulk; but as they are commonly fresh and good-looking, not absolutely unbecoming. A few ancient ladies, dressed after this fashion, looked far less well. With all this attention to toilette, the poverty and dirt of the dwellings whence they issued was melancholy. They have here a character more entirely Swiss, as the lodging of the family and the cow stable are under the same roof, and the warmth of the cattle being necessary to the poor, to whom it often supplies the place of fuel, only the richer proprietors run a partition between. It is seldom that even the first few feet from the ground are built in stone. Fire, when it occurs, is awfully destructive, their roofs, chimneys, and walls all wood, and that intended for fuel piled against the planks outside, probably for the sake of warmth, as the wind whistles through every cranny.

The plain which extends from the top of the long hill to Bulle is covered with rich pasture, stretching thence up the mountains, and dotted with chalets.

It is a most picturesque town; the old brick building, with its high tower, and small turrets with pointed roofs, is the castle of Bulle, now the prefet’s residence. The Cheval Blanc, where we stopped, is a good inn, and the view from the windows lovely, even in Switzerland. There was nearly opposite, a little to the left, the castle tower and its heavy walls, gilded by the sunset,—the road below, which wound on towards Gruyères; its cottages with their galleries and jutting roofs, and outside stair, advancing or retreating on either side, and between green trees, their background a mountain range, whose pine forests were blue in the distance; beyond a copse in the plain, (shining in the sun also,) the town and ancient castle of Gruyères crowned one hill to the right; a second rose abruptly behind it, wooded and in shadow; and stretching darkly and far away behind and beyond them, the mountains, which peak above peak shut in the valley of the Simmenthal.

While D—— was employed in superintending the evening comforts of Grizzle and Fanny, the good-natured fille d’auberge was my guide through the streets to the chapel of the Capucin convent, which has a strange altar, I think of gilt crockery, and a pulpit whose effect is peculiarly horrid, as out from it projects a solitary arm, in a Capucin sleeve, whose bony fingers hold a crucifix.

While our dinner was preparing, for nine o’clock to-night, (those who ride a journey keeping irregular hours,) D—— and myself strolled towards Gruyères, along the winding road as far as the wooden bridge which crosses the torrent of Trême, near the tower which bears the same name, and was an outpost of the lords of Gruyères. The castle is interesting from its age and extraordinary preservation.

The precise origin of the Comtes de Gruyères is unknown; but Müller says they were rich and powerful even in the eleventh century. The mountain which rises behind the castle is called La Tine, and the Saarine foams and roars among the dark pines of its defiles. Its early possessors depended for their revenues on agriculture only; their wars were with the wolves, and their proudest conquests the cultivation of a desert. The younger branches of their house owned as their inheritance the forest-castle of Mont Salvans, and a few mountain pastures: they lived in company of their knights among their herdsmen, and with a simplicity resembling theirs; and from the height on which their château of Œx still stands watched over and protected their vassals.

After the battle of Laupen, and when peace had ensued, the counts, impoverished by the wars, were constrained by their need to part with various rights and privileges. In 1341 Count Pierre mortgaged for ten years to the inhabitants of Gruyères the duties they were wont to pay on each head of cattle, those on forage, cheese, and butter, and also the receipt of the fines paid for crimes perpetrated in the forest. Three times at this period did Berne revive the feud with Gruyères.

The Count Pierre above-mentioned, deceased, left the administration in the hands of a namesake, whose connexions in the Simmenthal rendered him sufficiently powerful there to manifest the old hatred of his house to the seigneur of Weissenburg, citizen of Berne. The greater part of the Simmenthal was under the count’s protection; but many of its farms and châteaux belonged to the lords of Weissenburg and others, having been built by their ancestry. Count Pierre of Gruyères marched against Weissenburg; Banneret Peter Wendschaz commanded the Bernese against him. At that spot of the Simmenthal there are heights which narrow the passage, and the Bernese, who had strayed to plunder cattle, received a sore punishment for their lack of foresight. The banneret himself, fighting with the courage of despair, surrounded and overpowered, collected his failing strength for a last effort, hurled the banner of the republic above the heads of his assailants, and died consoled, because it was unprofaned by the touch of a conqueror: the Bernese mournfully bore it within their walls.

The peasants of the Simmenthal enacted laws for their own territory; that on fines showing a chivalrous spirit which did them honour. As it was presumed that the offended might defend himself against a blow, the offender was fined one livre only; the man who uttered abuse was fined four, and he who falsely gave the lie in a judge’s presence, ten livres, since it was considered most difficult to guard against slander and calumny.

Required by their allies of Fribourg to march with them against the sire of Grumingen, vassal of Gruyères, the Bernese gladly answered to the call, and seized on his castle, though he sued for peace. The count and his knightly companions were wont to pursue their chivalrous sports on the green meadows which stretch beneath the castle. The count’s attendants had dispersed themselves in a wood not far distant, and in the copses which surround the Tour de Trême, when the men of Berne and Fribourg, with a force superior to his own, surprised the count himself in the oak-tree meadow. Pierre fought with the heroism of his antique race, but the numbers had well nigh overpowered him, when two of his vassals, Clarembold and Ulric Bras de fer, resolved to save him at all hazards, flung themselves before his person, favoured his retreat, and guarding the narrow defile through which he had passed, kept his enemies at bay, till the count, who had hastily sounded his war-note and gathered his scattered troop, spurred back to the charge, put the assailants to the rout, and many of them to the sword. To Clarembold and Bras de fer, who covered with blood hailed his reappearance and joined in his attack, he accorded privileges and franchises, which he extended to their posterity. Their memories are still honoured in their village of Villars sous Monts.

Soon after this, in 1349, ushered in by fearful earthquakes, broke out the plague described by Boccaccio, which desolated Europe and Asia. According to the general belief, a third of the population of Switzerland died; the churchyards were filled to overflowing, and the victims buried in unconsecrated ground, and without religious rites, which priests were wanting to perform; whole regions were left desert, and lordships abandoned and unclaimed by friend or foe. Struck with terror, men strove to avert the scourge by the various and horrid means prompted by fear and fanaticism. It was then that numerous travelling societies, the Flagellans, wandered from canton to canton, inflicting blows and torment on themselves, for the sins of the world. Where they passed, the excited people devoted to death a number of Jews, innocent of all crime; it is well known that at Kybourg, the more enlightened Duke Albert was forced against his will to deliver three hundred to the flames; that at Bâle they were all driven into a wooden house, and burned with it; while at Constance and at Eslingen, in the synagogue, the despairing people inflicted death on themselves.

The vassals of Gruyères, unflinching in battle, attached and faithful to their lords, had obtained from them so many and important privileges, either as reward for their services, or in barter for the sums of money their necessities demanded, as to become almost as free as the most democratic states of Switzerland. But for their insatiable ambition, the counts of Gruyères might have been the happiest of mortals; but they looked from their tall towers on the height, less to rejoice in their possessions than to mourn that they saw their boundary. Not being kings themselves, they strove to find consolation in rendering themselves necessary to royalty; and they led their vassals from their flocks, and mountain pastures, and calm homes, to fight in foreign quarrels, and in climates so different from their own, that those sunk victims to the change who had been spared by the sword.

Count Michel of Gruyères, who died in 1570, was the last of his line. He was one of that brotherhood of La Cuiller, who quitted their own lands to ravage those of Geneva. He had commanded their army, forced many of his vassals to serve under their banner; and also sold yearly, and for several years, five hundred men to the French armies in Italy. They had rendered good service to the king of France, but Henry the Second, under various pretences, refused to pay the immense sums he owed to Gruyères; and Michel saw his country depopulated in vain, his debts accumulating, though he had received a large loan from his neighbours and sold his subjects a portion of his lordly privilege, till at last, persecuted by his creditors, and notwithstanding his carelessness of their welfare, mourned by his devoted vassals, he abandoned the inheritance of his fathers, which he saw before his eyes divided between the two cantons, and concealed his shame and sorrow in the castle of a relative in Burgundy, where he died poor and without an heir.

19th August.

So unwell this morning as to fear durance vile at the Cheval Blanc, but, being determined to go if possible, set off at three. I had hoped our road lay beneath Gruyères, but it led through the streets of the town, and thence for a considerable distance across rich meadows, their green pastures spotted with chalets; farther on they are divided by pine forests, the road skirting or passing through them, the sunshine reposing on their verdant glades, or playing among their old trunks, or excluded where these have been felled and supplied by multitudes of young stems crowded in nature’s extravagance. The hedges were gay with wild pinks and woodbine, and on the sides of the road were strips of green and rivulets for Fanny’s feet. We left on the right a gorge, through which the Saarine flows, commanded by a noble looking ruin. The peasantry here are almost German, and therefore perhaps a milder and more amiable race than the French or Genevese. They issued from their cottages and ran from their work in the fields to see us pass by, but always took off their hats and wished good evening. The clouds had threatened rain, but the wind, which whistled in the firs, blew it over us and left only a fine stormy sky above the mountains, partly hiding their white heads, while the sun was brilliant in the valley. As we passed the meadows where the cows were grazing, and the little cowherd lay almost hid in the clover, we thought of Lord Byron’s praise of the bells; their tones, differing and harmonizing, tinkled sweet music. Nearer Fribourg is a fair view into the gorge from the road, which hangs over it where a sweep of the Saarine makes almost an island of a tract of pine grove, and a suspension bridge has been flung from the peninsula to the shore. An avenue of fine trees leads into Fribourg, of which the first view with its dim mountains and most golden valley, is more striking than that of any town I have seen as yet, from the magnitude of the mighty chasm, over whose very edge the houses seem to hang giddily high above the torrent, and the feudal watch-towers, which guarded once, and are still ranged along the winding of its opposite shore. The far famed bridge was not visible, but we could see that now in progress, crossing the gorge of the Gotteron, which issues from the Saarine. In its present and unfinished state it hangs in an awful curve over the abyss, like a thread for a fairy rope-dancer.

The avenue passed, the road becomes precipitous, and scarcely, on a dark night, safe we crossed a bridge, and rode beneath an ancient gate to enter the old town. The houses which line the streets, narrow and ill-paved, are curious and of great age, as are the quaint fountains; at the summit of whose gilt and painted columns figure grotesque saints and Virgins. After various windings we reached this hotel, the Zahringerhof, which should be chosen for its situation and view, as it is close to the bridge and built on the very edge of the chasm.

20th August.

Stayed at Fribourg, a cold day broken by hail-storms, and passed it in walking over the town and along the narrow valley of the Gotteron. Not far from the hôtel on the Place, and opposite the town hall, which is built on the site of the palace of Duke Berthhold, is the venerable lime-tree, planted, according to tradition, the 22nd June, 1476, the day of the battle of Morat.

The young soldier who brought the tidings was a native of Fribourg; he had been wounded in the conflict, and feeling he grew weaker as he approached the town from fatigue and loss of blood, and that his shout of victory waxed too feeble to be heard, he gathered a bough as he passed, and waved it over his head in token of rejoicing. Arrived at this place, where the townsmen were assembled, he faltered forth his news and sunk down to die. They planted on the very spot his lime-tree branch, and it lived and grew his monument, and is now so old, that the decaying branches are rested on the four stone pillars and wooden trellis-work which surround it; there is an express order to tie no animal near, but it is dying of extreme age, and will hardly outlive another winter.

Berthhold, duke of Zahringen, was imperial governor of Zurich, landgrave of Burgundy, and lieutentant of Œchtland and Lausanne. By his command ancient villages were surrounded by walls and free towns built, behind whose fortifications the peasants of the empire, who united themselves to the inhabitants, might rest in peace and security. The love of change, the hope of gain, but above all of liberty, quiet, and order, aided in peopling these towns. The duke, as hereditary governor, and because the high roads and bridges were everywhere property of the feudal lord, taxed each house, and levied a duty on all merchandise; and also, when a subject died without heirs, inherited a third of his possessions. The citizens were tried by twelve or twenty-four of their own body, presided, over by an “avoyer” elected yearly, and sentence pronounced in accordance with the facts proved by a sufficient number of witnesses. Each townsman was, during his life, master of his own property, and it fell to his widow in case of his demise. The whole town took care of the orphans. The feudal lord could neither force a man to become a citizen, nor prevent an inhabitant of his town from departing if so pleased him; but freemen and serfs sought therefore the more willingly within it a safeguard from the dangers consequent on dispersion; and the serfs were considered free if during the first year their master failed to claim them and prove their servitude by the affirmation of seven relatives. When the lord of the city required their presence, they were bound only to journey to a distance whence they might return to sleep in their own homes.

In the year 1178, Berthhold the Fourth, whose father and uncle had set the example of encouraging these establishments, chose the village built along the precipices of the Saarine, and founded his town of Fribourg partly on a territory belonging to the abbey of Payerne, but mostly on his own land, and with the aid and counsel of various barons. It became inhabited; boasting freedom, but certainly not equality, for the nobles, as yet unused to citizenship, kept the line of demarcation so strongly marked as even to fix on a separate place of burial, and, in consequence of this, six hundred years passed without so confounding distinctions, as to give one language to the town on the shore, and that on the crags above it—German being the dialect most in use among the inhabitants of the former, while their fellow-citizens spoke French only. This is no longer the case, but in 1794, when Müller wrote, many who lived in the one spot were unintelligible to the other.

Taking one of the steep streets, which is paved in steps as a stair, we walked to the massy roofed wooden bridge, across which the diligence to Berne travelled before the new one was built, the descent and ascent occupying about an hour. From between its heavy wooden work you have a good view of the suspension bridge, 174 feet above the bed of the torrent, and which, though so much longer than the Menai, for its length is 905 feet, appears of so much lighter construction; from this spot the Zahringen hôtel seems a real castle in the air. We crossed the Saarine, and turned to the left, and under an old archway of Duke Berthhold’s time, which forms the entrance to the gorge of the Gotteron. It is a lonely and beautiful glen, sunk deep between wooded crags which barely allow room for a path way beside the stream, which bounds brightly on, flashing in the sun, while it turns the heavy wheels of rustic mills, as if glad of its own usefulness; and farther, where the valley is less narrow, winding through the small green meadow, and among the picturesque wooden cottages, as if seeking repose near those it has toiled for. In the spring, the quiet river becomes at times a destructive torrent, uprooting tree and dwelling. About Fribourg cretinism exists, and among the elder peasantry the goitre is common—we saw in the glen one poor idiot, who howled and gibbered as we went by.

Dined in company of a French family—the elder hope just issued from the Jesuits’ college, a disagreeable specimen of their training, with large black hands and unpleasant habits. In the evening went to the cathedral, which in itself is only gaudy, but whose organ and organ player are most wonderful. Listening to the higher tones, it was difficult to persuade myself that I did not hear a chorus of sweet voices, and its “storm” did not resemble an earthly instrument touched by a mortal hand; it was like “nothing but thunder,” and solemn and awful, as it rolled along the aisle’s dusk in the evening.

CHAPTER II.

Canton of Berne—Village where the Swiss troops obtained a victory over the French force in ’98—Berne—Bears in all forms—Their revenues diminished—Their new baptism—Foundation of Berne—Rodolph of Erlach—Laupen—Rodolph chosen guardian of orphans of the Count of Nidau—Murdered by his own son-in-law—Cathedral—Monument to Duke Berthhold—His wife’s execution—Charles Louis of Erlach massacred by his own soldiers during French invasion—Treatment of Berne by the French—Thun—Privileges—Castle of Thun—The brothers—The banquet—The murder—The “pension”—An acquaintance—The sketcher in haste—A Marseilles story—Spietz—The golden manor—Adrian of Bubenberg—His saving Morat—His embassy—His return as a minstrel—Unterseen—Unspunnen once the property of the Eschenbach family—Walter of Eschenbach—Confidant of the parricide Duke John—Murder of the Emperor Albert—Vengeance of Queen Agnes—Walter’s son spared—Walter a shepherd—Lauterbrunnen—The cascade—Grindelwald—A buried chapel in the glacier—The Harder—The grave of an only son—Return to Thun.

21st August.

Left Fribourg for Berne, and was disappointed in the road, which presents a long series of endless hills, and (as heavy clouds, which brought us several hail-storms, hid the white mountains) less interesting than those hitherto travelled.

At the limit of the cantons of Berne and Fribourg, where the river Sense separates them, the country is wooded and beautiful, but of a mild character and resembling England. The name of the village is Neunneck; and here, on the 5th of March, 1798, the same day on which Berne surrendered to another column of the French army, two thousand Swiss, commanded by Colonel de Grafenried, defeated the French, drove them across the Sense, killed or wounded fifteen hundred of their men, and took eighteen pieces of cannon. They made no prisoners, but marched up the mountain with fixed bayonets, and forced the enemy from all his positions. They lost themselves 173 soldiers, and great numbers were wounded.

We exchanged here the seeming poverty of the canton Fribourg for the air of happiness and riches peculiar to this. The peasantry appear a civil and kindly race. The females wear dark dresses and black velvet caps, whose broad wired lace worn far back from their sunburnt faces looks like the outspread wings of a hornet. The entrance to Berne is not on this side (that of the plain) striking. A long avenue leads to a handsome gate flanked by two modern bears; for the bear is omnipresent. Armed cap-a-pie on the column of one fountain, on another standing as esquire beside the figure of Duke Berthhold, forming a procession on the clock-tower, which in his time guarded the outer wall, marking in effigy the butler at the inn, and in propria persona inhabiting the town ditch outside the Aarberg gate, where four of the fraternity live on (alas!) diminished revenues, for the property bequeathed them towards the close of the last century by a bear-loving old lady, and which, it is said, had accumulated to 70 millions of francs, was seized by the French in ’98, and with the remainder of the town-treasure, and the bears themselves led away captives, were transported to Paris. In insult to the conquered, the animals received fresh names, and the new one of each was inscribed on his travelling caravan, being that of a magistrate of Berne!

It was in 1191, when the great barons of the Alps and the most powerful lords of Burgundy leagued their forces against Berthhold the Fifth, lieutenant of the empire, either, historians say, in hatred of his equitable administration, or in jealousy of his still increasing sway, that he inclosed as small towns various villages for his own and his vassals’ security; and seeking out another spot under the protection of the imperial franchise, equally distant from all his enemies, and unsuspected by his partizans, he chose a hamlet called Berne, built on a peninsula formed by the rapid Aar, when it rushes from the lake of Thun; and, about a month after he had defeated the leagued lords in one of the high valleys, surrounded it with a ditch and walls. Many knights and nobles took up their residence there; among the rest, Rodolph of Erlach, of an ancient Burgundian house, and whose descendants have seven times given chiefs to the republic, and twice saved Berne from ruin. The laws were similar to those of Fribourg.

In 1338, the year in which the emperor Louis of Bavaria convoked the diet of Frankfort to discuss the affair of his excommunication, 147 years after the foundation of Berne, when she had no protector and few allies, the counts and barons of Œchtland, Aargau, and Burgundy, urged on by the emperor, projected her destruction. The lords of the house of Neuchâtel, the counts of Kibourg, and Pierre of Gruyères and others, assembled in the castle of Nidau, whither, notwithstanding her alliance with Berne, came ambassadors from Fribourg, to say that the injuries they all suffered had a common origin, that Berne strove to level the nobles to the condition of the populace, and it being vain to essay by partial attacks to set bounds to her audacity, it would be well that united forces should raze her city to the ground.

Berne acted nobly and calmly—she besought no foreign protection, but said, in a conference which took place between her delegates and the feudal lords, that “to peace she would sacrifice all save justice.” She summoned Fribourg to a diet held at Blamatt, reckoning on the memory of their common founder and long friendship; but her deputies received no token of peace or amity, and Berne felt she was abandoned. During this time, 700 lords with the coronet on their casques, 1200 armed knights, 3000 horsemen, and more than 15,000 foot, were gathering against Berne.

Laupen, which is also on the Sense, four miles lower down than Neunneck, besieged by the allies, had demanded and obtained succour from Berne. The Bernese were themselves embarrassed in the choice of a general; of the brave knights and citizens who surrounded the avoyer of Bubenberg, none esteeming himself capable of a command on which depended the fate and liberty of their descendants; and while they still sate irresolute in council, Rodolph, knight and castellan of Erlach, son of Ulrich, under whose command many still living had conquered the leagued nobles at Donnerbuhel forty years before, rode armed into Berne.

He was at the same time guardian of the young count of Nidau and citizen of Berne. To conciliate his will with the fidelity he owed his suzerain, he represented to his ward, that to serve the cause of the nobles against his fellow-citizens would injure his interests beyond reparation; and the young count, as in reply he scornfully bade him join the ranks of his peers, said, “With two hundred coroneted casques, and a hundred and forty knights devoted to my banner, it is indifferent to me to lose a man.”

Erlach replied coldly, “You have called me a man, Sir Count; I will prove to you that I am one.”

When he had dismounted and appeared before the senate, the sight of him reviving the memory of Donnerbuhel and his father, he was named general by acclamation, and the avoyer placed the banner of the republic in his hand.

As he stood holding it, he addressed the citizens:

“I have fought with you,” he said, “in six battles, where our numbers were always inferior, and always victorious. Discipline is a sure means of conquest, and without it courage is of no avail. You, artisans, who are freemen, and obey unwillingly, you can remain free only by learning obedience to those to whom it is due; without absolute authority I will not be your general. I do not fear the foe; with God’s aid and yours we will drive him back, as when you were led by my father.”

The people of Underwald and of Soleure were the sole allies of Berne. Alms were distributed, solemn vows and processions made, during the brief time which intervened. One night, by the light of the moon, the general gave the troops the signal to depart. They were in all about six thousand. The women and children, who remained on the summit of the walls to watch and to pray, followed them with their eyes till they could distinguish them no longer, over the unequal ground and in the doubtful light. Descending thence they sought, the poor the churches, their superiors the private oratories of their mansions, and remained the livelong day in prayer; while the avoyer of Bubenberg, and others of the senate’s oldest members, remained sitting in council, to provide at all events for the city’s safety.

Rodolph of Erlach led on his troops in the most perfect order, taking up his position, about mid-day, at a short distance from Laupen on a height, and flanked by a forest. Several of the knights of the opposing army, which was encamped in sight, rode forth from the ranks to survey the Bernese, and kept up a conversation of mingled raillery and bravado.

The young count of Nidau augured differently of the result: “I shall lose land and life to-day,” he said, “but I will sell them dearly.” In the attack, the rear guard of the Bernese, composed of inexperienced troops, was seized with panic, and fled. Erlach, to whom the news came, said gaily, “Victory is ours, friends; we have lost the clog of cowards!” and dashing forward, heading the young men he had assembled round his own person, the flower of Berne, he broke through the masses of the enemy’s infantry. Thenceforth the fortune of the day was no longer doubtful. The young count of Nidau fell one of the first, and the Bernese army, returned from the pursuit, kneeled down to offer up thanksgiving on the field where it had conquered, and according to custom passed the night there; the following morning saw its triumphal return to Berne.

Diebold Baselwind, the priest who had harangued them before the battle, marched first; behind them were borne the banners and arms of the fallen, and Rodolph of Erlach, contented with reviving his father’s fame in his own, deposed his sovereign authority.

The count of Nidau had left two young children; and their relatives of the house of Neuchâtel, too feeble themselves to defend the lordship, feared with reason to confide it to a foreign prince. Their conduct speaks the highest praise of the knight of Erlach. They employed the mediation of the bishop of Basle to pray that he, “whose integrity was as well known as his valour, would receive as his charge the orphan boys and the lordship of Nidau.” He accepted the trust; a peace was concluded between Nidau and Berne, and the dead count’s sons, Rodolph and Jacques, enjoyed undisturbed the inheritance of their brave father.

Time had gone on, and the castellan of Erlach, grown an aged man, lived at Reichenbach, a solitary spot on the shores of the Aar, which had also been his father’s residence. He had two sons, and a daughter married to the esquire of Rudenz.

One day of the year 1360, when he had employed, as was his wont, his domestics in his fields and gardens, and sate in his halls with no company save his dogs couched on the floor, and his sword of the battle of Laupen suspended from the wall, his son-in-law came to seek him. He was a dissipated and reckless man, and as they conversed together, high words ensued on the subject of Margaret’s marriage portion. The knight was white-headed and feeble; and as he reprimanded Rudenz with dignity and gravity, his son-in-law started from his seat, seized the sword which hung near him, and plunged it into the old man’s heart.

The howling dogs pursued him to the forest, whither he fled, and when the news got wind, there was neither noble nor citizen who did not rise in arms to pursue the parricide. He died shortly, but in what manner is not known.

This is a long digression, but the ride through the sombre streets of the old town calls to mind the man who was named its irreproachable hero. The date of the most ancient mansions now standing is of 1405, as in that year the entire city then existing was destroyed by fire, saving, however, the three massive towers, that of Duke Berthhold, the prison, and Christopher’s tower, in the principal street of Berne.

The town has a gloomy aspect, with its low arcades resting on heavy masonry. The streets have a deep dangerous ruisseau flowing down their centre, bound by stone. I feared that my starting Fanny might break a leg, by slipping down. We rode to the Faucon, which has, I believe deservedly, the reputation of being one of the best inns in Switzerland; but we had left Fribourg late, and lingered on the way, and consequently found it full. The Couronne was a bad substitute; the house is three hundred years old, and has objections attendant on its worm-eaten wood and dirty old age, which I advise you to avoid; the more so as its master is the first Swiss I have seen who unites incivility with high charges. We paid the strangers’ homage to the citizen bears, who are comfortably lodged without the Aarberg gate. The largest received our visit in his bath, a stone bason, into which he waddled on our approach, and remained while we stayed, staring hungrily at us, up to his neck in water.

From the bears we walked to the cathedral, which stands on the terrace above the Aar, looking down on the range of aristocratic buildings which skirt it, their possessors’ coats of arms sculptured over their portals, and their gardens sloping to the water, and on the range of Bernese Alps, rising grandly in the distance, but half hidden to-day by the heavy clouds.

This shady platform is raised one hundred and eight feet above the Aar, yet into its wall was inserted a marble slab, recalling a singular accident on the 25th of July, 1654. A young student, amusing himself with his companions, vaulted on a horse which was quietly feeding under the trees, and being a spirited animal, started violently away, and, terrified by the shouts of Weinzapfli’s comrades, sprang with him over the low parapet. The horse was killed on the spot, but the student, who fell in soft garden ground, and only broke his arms and legs, recovered, and became a pastor.

The minster is a fine Gothic building, and was commenced, in 1420, by the son of the architect who built the famous tower of Strasburg.

The monument, surrounded by gaudy armorial bearings, was raised by the town to Duke Berthhold the Fifth, in 1600. He was the last of the line of Zæringen, for he had been left a widower early, with two young sons, and contracted a second marriage with a countess of Kibourg. Either to ensure the inheritance to her own future offspring, or won by the jealous nobles to be their accomplice, this fury in human shape poisoned the two children of her husband. Her guilt once proved to him, neither the tenderness he had once felt for her, nor the thought that by accusing one so nearly allied he tarnished the glory of his house, could arrest the outburst of his paternal agony. In the year 1217 she perished by the hands of the executioner; and Duke Berthhold, unwilling to form another alliance after one so fatal, felt it a consolation that in his person would close the misfortunes of his house.

Occupying a place in the aisle opposite that which contains Duke Berthhold’s monument, is a long catalogue of names inscribed on marble tablets; those of the brave men who fell in 1798, vainly resisting foreign invasion.

The saddest fate was that of Charles Louis of Erlach, a man who, like his ancestors, had deserved the esteem and love of his fellow-citizens. Before the revolution he had served France, and was named field-marshal at the moment of the French invasion in 1798. He had hurried to his native town, and, like his great predecessor, been named by acclamation general of the forces; but the then existing government was timid and irresolute. Accompanied by eighty of his officers, like himself members of the council, he presented himself before it the 24th of February, and, by his energy and arguments, revived its hopes and raised its courage. He was endowed with full powers to act as he should see fit as soon as the yet unconcluded truce should expire. He left the city to decide on the measures to be taken, but, even as the moment for their execution arrived, received the order to suspend hostilities. The government had abdicated its powers. Marshal Brune’s policy had sown division in the senate as well as among the troops. Berne yielded almost without resistance; and Erlach’s soldiers, blinded by suspicions artfully instilled, and maddened by despair, massacred him in the village of Wichdorff.

The treasure of the republic, accumulated through so many generations, was seized on by Marshal Brune without even the formality of an inventory taken. The Directory, informed of the omission, and in a case of this sort placing little confidence in its general, despatched a courier extraordinary with positive orders that it should be repaired.

A kind of list was in consequence hastily made by the marshal s command, and himself wrote to the Directory—

“Vous verrez par l’état, dont je vous envoie copie, que les sommes trouvées dans le trésor cadrent à peu près avec les régistres.”

The most moderate calculation, for into it private losses and depredations cannot enter, computes the losses of Berne (city and canton) at forty-two millions of francs. It was asserted that of this Brune had appropriated to himself the golden medals of the Hôtel de Ville, twenty-two carriages, and above three hundred thousand francs in specie!! This treatment of Berne followed close on assurances of support and amity, for while the marshal’s forces were yet unassembled, and before Schaumbourg’s reinforcement had arrived, France, through her commissary, declared that she desired her neighbour’s freedom and happiness only, and that, as soon as a government sufficiently democratic should be established, the independence of Berne would be respected, and the French army withdrawn.

23rd August, Thun.

Left the Couronne with its discomfort and dirty stables. A steep descent leads to the bridge, beyond which run at right angles the two roads, one leading hither, the other to Zurich, beneath noble avenues. We had a lovely day and ride through a happy looking country, wood, pasture and mountain, and passed through a village, where the laugh of all the lookers-on from the windows saluted me as I rode Fanny in and through a clear pond, far deeper than I thought, but out of which we got to our honour.

Approaching Thun, the country is romantic and most beautiful. It was a warm fine evening, and the old dark castle, now a prison, on the height, with its peaked roof and four towers flanking it, and the church by its side, stood out from a bright sky.

The Aar, which issues from the lake about a mile further, winds below, rapid and blue as the Rhone. We crossed it on a covered wooden bridge, and skirted the town, passing ancient gates and massive towers, and the once fortified wall, to arrive hither.

The Pension Baumgarten stands on higher ground than the Hôtel Bellevue, backed by wooded heights, to the foot of which its park extends; and the rooms opening on flower-gardens look on the Aar, winding through rich meadows, with scattered houses, and a grey feudal tower on the near shore; and the Stockhorn, with its strange sharp peak projecting above; and the massive pyramid of the Neisen beyond; the wreaths of vapour floating along the side of the first serving its forests for pedestal or canopy. On the right rose the castle; and to the left, far away in the opening, the Jungfrau and her attendants, looking with the blush of that sweet evening on them, I thought even lovelier than Mont Blanc.

The rights of “bourgeoisie” attached to Thun make poverty almost impossible, and its inhabitants are therefore less laborious than in other parts of Switzerland; each citizen possessing a right of pasture, building timber, and firewood, besides a yearly sum of money drawn from the surplus revenues of their flourishing and unexpensive country. By a strangely egotistical rule of the law-makers, these advantages attach exclusively to the males, so that a female orphan left unmarried, or a widow without a son, might find herself suddenly destitute, and dependent on strangers’ charity.

The service of the English church is performed every Sunday by an English clergyman in the Swiss church. No prospect can be more beautiful than that from the churchyard of Thun. The wall is built on the very edge of the precipitous hill it half circles; round and along it, from distance to distance, are what elsewhere I should call summer-houses, open stone edifices, on whose benches the inhabitants of Thun sit in the shade, enjoying the glorious and varied views over each side of the valley. A winding road, passing beneath an ancient gateway and a stair of irregular steps, leads up the height on which the church stands. The castle is but a few paces from it, on the platform of the same hill: among its annals is written a bloody tale of family feud.

When the last duke of Zæringen, who had refused to become an emperor, was interred in 1218 at St. Pierre in the Black Forest, his large possessions were divided. Ulric of Kibourg, his brother-in-law, inherited those situated in Burgundy; Berne and Zurich solicited and obtained from the Emperor Frederic the Second the title of free towns; and when the news, so long desired, reached Lausanne of the failing of the line of Zæringen, (the fall of the founder of Berne twenty-five years after its foundation,) the Bishop Berthhold of Neuchâtel convoked together the chapter, knights, and citizens in the court of the church of Notre Dame, and, solemnly cursing the memory of the deceased duke, who had once made war against him, he gave (solemnly also) the advowson of the bishopric into the hands of the Mother of God for ever!!

In the year 1332, Hartmann, count of Kibourg, possessed, with the lordship of Thun itself, that of various villages surrounding it, as well on the mountains as on the green plains through which flows the Aar. Among these were Berthoud, Landshut, and other property of allodial tenure. Thun and Berthoud, governed according to the sage customs of their territory, had extended their limits by reason of their increasing population. The avoyers of the count pronounced judgment in accordance with a municipal code which even himself respected. The richest and most ancient of the nobility thronged his court and were his brothers in arms. When Hartmann of Kibourg died, his widow, the countess Elizabeth, allowed an overweening influence to Senn of Münsigen, a nobleman whose domains lay in the neighbourhood, and who through her favour had become director of her councils. Her sons, Hartmann, heir of Kibourg, and Eberard, were youths, and the eldest, who hated his brother, used every means to conciliate Münsigen’s favour to himself, and to prejudice him against Eberard, at that period studying at Bologna, the cradle of all science then existing, at an expense of sixteen marks yearly. Owing to his brother’s influence, this remained undefrayed; and, having vainly besought its payment, Eberard returned to his paternal castle to claim the portion left him by his father.

His relatives treated his demands with derision, and himself as a young man who might indeed possess rights but who knew not how to uphold them. One night, after a hunting or hawking party, the brothers had arrived at the castle of Landshut, which is some leagues from Berthoud, and Eberard, fatigued with exertion, slept by Hartmann’s side too soundly to be at first aware of his treason. Hartmann bound him as he lay, and sent him, thus secured and half naked, under a strong guard, to Rochefort in Neuchâtel, Comte Rodolph of Neuchâtel being his wife’s father. Arrived at his destination, Eberard accepted, perforce, for arbitrator between their differences Duke Leopold of Austria. Leopold pronounced that Hartmann should remain sole lord of the entire patrimony; that Eberard should inhabit the castle of Thun, and of the two hundred marks he received from his benefices as canon of Strasburg and Cologne yield three parts to his brother to defray the debts of their house. To this sentence the prisoner was obliged to subscribe, and all the nobility of the lordship of Kibourg assembled by invitation in the castle of Thun to celebrate the reconciliation of the brothers. As the defrauded young man sate with them at the banquet, Count Hartmann and the favourite, Senn of Münsigen, applauded each other unconstrainedly on the success of their schemes: “Belike,” said the former, alluding to Eberard’s inexperience and easiness of belief, “my brother may need a tutor to teach him to sign our peace.”

Eberard had many friends among the guests, and this and other sarcasms, which reached their ears, raised their choler, long restrained,—and some started from the banquet and drew their swords. A fearful tumult arose instantly. The furious guests, dividing themselves into two parties, rushed madly at each other, and Hartmann was killed by chance and in the obscurity on the steps of the tower stair. It was unknown whether the instrument of this involuntary murder was Eberard in person; but at the moment when the citizens of Thun, who, attracted by the extraordinary noise, had armed in haste, rushed up the hill to the castle to know its cause, the body of Count Hartmann, flung by some violent hand from a window of the castle, made them an awful reply. The greater number at once turned and fled; the few who lingered were taken prisoners as a measure of precaution; and Eberard, giving orders to close the gates, sent ambassadors to Berne, offering to become, himself and those of his house, citizens of her city for ever, and to cede to her, with a portion of his remaining possessions, the fief of Thun. The Bernese marched thither without loss of time, took possession with little difficulty, and confirmed the count in the place of power occupied by his ancestors, on condition of his paying them a contribution of one mark yearly.

August.

We have of late borne with some days of Swiss rain, unintermitting from morning to night. A pension has one disadvantage: for its inmates depend not on their own resources, but on the forced companions of its breakfast, early dinner, and long evening. We are fortunate in an agreeable party, particularly so in the acquaintance of an English clergyman and his charming young wife, who, with her rosy children round her, forms the prettiest picture imaginable. The vie de pension consists in breakfasting, in irregular order, between eight and twelve; dining at three, which interferes sadly with excursions or occupations; drinking tea at eight; talking till ten; and going to bed to re-commence on the morrow. This is bearable during sunshine; but when we are shut up in bad weather, and deprived of our home occupations, with torrents falling all day, and the moon shining at night in the valley on so dense and white a fog that I at first took it for the lake, which is a mile off, as has been the case the last few days, we form in groups, and have recourse to a leetle scandal (as I once saw it written), which commences in the kitchen among the scourges thither imported by the victims, their masters, and steals by degrees among ourselves, where it sometimes finds somebody

“To point a moral or adorn a tale.”

And should we all be good naturedly-minded and charitable to our neighbours, we pounce upon the cookery, and wonder that Madame Rufenacht should be so niggardly an old personage, and how long will last her dynasties of hard ducks and bony pigeons. An addition to our circle, and an improving one, arrived to-day, in the persons of a gentleman and lady from Marseilles, and whose conversation induced us to let the poultry die and be served up in peace. I was amused by his account of their passage on board the steamer, from Geneva to Lausanne. Of the party was a lady speaking French imperfectly, and sketching with remarkable assiduity, as she went along, notwithstanding the velocity of the boat’s motion. Monsieur R——, though not professionally so, is really an artist; the lady was a sketcher,—like one who described to me that he never made more than two perpendicular and three horizontal lines for any view, filling up the vacuum after; or like another who, having sketched the falls of the Rhine, showed them to a lady, who exclaimed—“Oh! that is the beautiful field we just now walked through, and the stile we jumped over.”

This lady had united to a very faint idea of their geographical position a strong desire of bearing away in her album drawings of all the mountains in Switzerland; and the young French gentleman could not resist the opportunity for amusement: he had been her interpreter already. Mont Blanc, she heard all voices echo, and used her pencil in haste. The Buet, with its white round head, was in sight also, and the lady said in an interrogatory tone, “Mont Cenis, Monsieur?”

“Oui, Madame,” said her deceiver gravely, and she hurried to mark down the shape of the mountain, and write under it “Mont Cenis,”—extract the leaf from her book, and with due care lay it in her portfolio. She looked about again.

“Mont Pilatre, Monsieur?” said she, forgetting that Lucerne was not there; and pointing to the Voiron,—

“Bien loin, Madame; bien haut,” said the artist, and a cloud above the Voiron was again marked down, and inscribed Mont Pilatre. The steamer was passing Coppet, and Monsieur R—— pointed out the château, giving it its proper name.

“Ha!” said the lady, cutting her pencil, “Coppet château, Madame Staël.”

“Oui, Madame, voilà;” but alas! for the sketcher; below the château on the lake shore is a square house, with a chimney at each end of its ignoble roof, and three prosaic-looking windows. It was this she believed to be Corinne’s cradle. The drawing was completed in a minute: two upright lines for walls; two ears for chimneys; three blacker strokes for windows; and under all, Château Coppet. You should have heard him describe the complacency with which she drew a bit of the Salève for Monterosa, and the gratitude with which she parted from him who had shown her

“More things in heaven and earth,

Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

An anecdote Monsieur R—— repeated last evening, of a member of the national guard of Marseilles, was too amusing to avoid telling you in my turn:—

Just after the revolution of 1830, troops disembarked from Algiers, bringing with them a large treasure, destined for Paris; it was to leave Marseilles under an escort of the national guard, as the lower orders were still in a state of excitement, which might render its passage hazardous.

The person who commanded the escort had our acquaintance under his orders, and Monsieur R—— was rather surprised, on entering the suburbs, to hear himself and his comrades ordered to the rear, while the waggon with its load of specie went, pioneer fashion, first. He asked the reason:—

“You see,” said the commandant, (a stout peaceable man,) “that our charge being at some distance from us, in case of its being attacked we shall have notice of it before the offenders reach ourselves.”

“Therefore we had better ride to the front, and be ready to meet them.”

“Not at all; we should be deprived of discretionary power, being only six; by remaining behind, we can best judge whether the attacking force matches our own, or is too strong; and may, at our choice, advance or retreat for reinforcement.”

The escort staid in the rear and the convoy travelled in safety.

Monday.

Notwithstanding the assurances of the whole pension, that all cascades are alike,—that wood, water, and mountain may grow familiar to weariness; notwithstanding melancholy prognostics of misfortunes, which may happen to the horses,—and fine weather, which may not last for our journey to Italy, I have insisted on seeing the Staubbach; and to Interlaken, or rather towards Interlaken, we rode last Wednesday, for we were hardly a mile away when the mist closed around us, obscuring the view from the higher ground over the lake and towards Thun, which is so lovely in sunshine. D—— proposed turning back, but we were averse to seeing the whole contents of Baumgarten shake their heads at our discomfiture, as they had done when foretelling it ere we started. We took refuge instead under a pear tree in an old woman’s garden, an agreeable situation, in which we remained an hour, watching the torrents which concealed everything else a dozen paces from us: and as the bad weather did not set in as violently as it sometimes does in the mountains, took advantage of each clearer half hour to proceed, and of the shelter the road afforded when the rain returned.

In this manner we arrived, not very promptly, opposite Spietz, whose old castle is romantically placed on a promontory, near the road and on the lake shore. It belonged to the lords of Bubenberg, and went by the name of the Golden Manor. One of its most noted possessors was Adrian of Bubenberg. In the year 1470 he had been deputed to the court of Duke Charles of Burgundy, and received by him with esteem and affection. On his return he remained attached to the Burgundian party, inasmuch as he believed a continued peace with Burgundy beneficial to Berne. Hagenbach, however, had been seized and executed; and Charles’s fury venting itself not merely in menaces against Switzerland, he named his officer’s brother to fill his vacant place, with orders to cover the county of Ferrette (the part of Alsace which joins Switzerland) with flames and blood. This fresh violence restored to Nicholas Diesbach, the zealous partizan of France, the credit he had lost with his countrymen. He sought to renew the treaty of alliance with Louis the Eleventh; but aware that Adrian of Bubenberg’s influence would be exercised on the opposing side, found means to exclude him from the council, and taught the people rather to take umbrage at his pride of birth and dignity of bearing, than to remember the part he had acted.

Under various pretexts he was exiled to his Golden Manor of Spietz; but when, in 1476, Charles of Burgundy advanced, determined to commence the campaign by the conquest of Morat, at the head of sixty thousand men, the Bernese recollected their banished avoyer, and, recalling him to their councils, implored that he would take the command of the force destined to garrison Morat. The senator, who had ever sought to avoid a perilous war, did not hesitate to draw his sword in one become inevitable. He demanded only implicit obedience, and seeing that the greater portion of the inhabitants were ill disposed, he proclaimed that the first who showed fear or irresolution would be punished with death! He also adopted measures which had been already, on other occasions, successful, separating friends and relations; placing some within the town, and of others forming part of the force destined to repulse the besiegers. Wise, active, and courageous, calm amidst danger, Bubenberg’s conduct and skill saved Morat, to whose fate seemed bound that of all Switzerland, and to him chiefly did Louis the Eleventh of France attribute the victory. Twelve Swiss deputies, Adrian of Bubenberg at their head, were despatched to the French court, and received with royal magnificence. The following year the conqueror of Morat returned on a mission connected with the succession to the throne of Burgundy. The object of his embassy had altered gratitude to coldness—esteem to hatred; faithful to his own high character, firm and incorruptible, when Adrian of Bubenberg saw his colleagues won and wavering, he disguised himself as a minstrel, and returned alone to Berne; this was in 1478. He died there the following year.

The barony of Spietz afterwards belonged to the family of Erlach, which counts among its members Rodolph, conqueror of Laupen, murdered by his son-in-law, and Charles Louis, massacred by his misled soldiers when he came to defend Berne.

From Spietz the road lately made skirts the lake almost the whole way, and rather nervously, as there are neither barriers towards the water nor retreat towards the rock, which has been blasted to leave a passage, and round whose base it winds. As Fanny’s habit of starting rendered the meeting of cart or carriage perilous, we cantered along while the way was free, and to distract her attention from the rivulets and small cascades dashing down to her feet. Arrived at the extremity of the lake, the rain fell in earnest; despite our cloaks it threatened drowning: the mists were sufficiently opaque for Ossian to rest his heroes on; and the dim grey water which stretched below, melting into and confounded with them, looked mysterious and beautiful, as a single gleam of pale sunshine struggling through the vapour just touched the Neisen and descended to rest on the surface. Unterseen was ten minutes nearer than Interlaken, and, though we had heard the hôtel called a bad one, the dripping manes and drooping tails of our horses prayed movingly for the nearest shelter. We took the road along the bottom of the lake, and arrived among the dark wooden houses, some of which bear date of two hundred years ago. The accommodation at the inn was better than I had expected; but, considering we had come thither for pleasure, our object was not altogether accomplished, as we sat alone at supper, faintly lighted by two candles at the end of the large gloomy room, the storm beating against the windows and the wind whistling under the doors. Our bed-room looked on the church, backed as it is by the steep sides of the Harder, to which the clouds clung,—threatening an inauspicious close to our explorings; and the most musical of German watchmen woke us every hour during the night chanting them and an appropriate rhyme in his fine deep voice. Called as we desired, and the car ready, the state of the weather, as we breakfasted shivering in the same large room, looked by no means promising, and the barometer had continued sinking pertinaciously. Not choosing, however, to ride back to Thun, as we had ridden from it, in rain and fog, and our object unaccomplished, we preferred driving in their company to Lauterbrunnen; and leaving our horses with strict charges to the stable servants, we started rather silent and rather sad in that chill morning at seven, over the four picturesque bridges, which, crossing the Aar, divide Unterseen from Interlaken. From one of these there is visible between the nearer mountains a view of the Jungfrau, splendid in fine weather. She looked mournfully through the wreaths of heavy vapour like a captive through her prison bars: by degrees the mist rolled away, and we could admire Interlaken, where you know D—— was prevented passing part of his summer by the unfavourable description given by ——. I should prefer it even to Thun, for its green plain nestles more closely under the hills. The pensions are built on the same line, but apart; with a mountain back and mountain view, their gardens surrounding them, and a noble avenue of old walnut-trees extending the whole length they occupy. The road to Lauterbrunnen winds through shady lanes and crosses meadows of Swiss verdure, and then lies beneath wooded hills, on the summit of one of which rises Unspunnen, the castle of Byron’s Manfred; a square and a round tower, from the top of one of which spring two slight trees, being all remaining. The marriage of the baroness Ida of Unspunnen with Eschenbach of Wadischwyl bare to the latter’s house her father’s lands of Unspunnen, she being his only child, and Oberhofen her maternal inheritance.

An illustrious ancestor of this Eschenbach, but more as poet than warrior, though for his military exploits he was armed knight by Count Poppo of Henneberg, was Wolfram; the year of whose birth is not known with certainty, but who lived when the emperors of the house of Swabia had roused in Germany a love for poetry, which had grown to passion: and the verse of its votaries had a depth and brilliancy which in no way foretold the coming barbarism of the fourteenth century. His life passed in the wanderings of a troubadour from court to court, admired and honoured, as he retired to the home of his forefathers but a brief time ere he died. A zealous patron of letters and his friend was the Landgrave Hermann of Thuringe, at whose court of Wartbourg (the most romantic of mountain castles) congregated the wisest and wittiest of their time. In the year 1207 six noble minnesingers entered the poetical lists there; Hermann and his fair wife distributing the prizes, while Nicholas Klingsor, famed for his love ditties, as well as his knowledge of necromancy and astrology, presided as judge, summoned for that purpose from Hungary. The general voice hailed Wolfram conqueror; but Klingsor, whom he had unwittingly offended, in vengeance adjudged the palm to his friend Henry of Ofterdingen. His superiority was, however, fully acknowledged by the poets of Swabia, with all of whom he was on terms of intimacy, and who styled him sage and master. His genius was varied,—for he was called the Homer and the Ariosto of his day. Among the works his astonishing fertility left to found his fame on, is a species of drama, entitled the Combat of Wartbourg, containing the six pieces recited by himself and his five troubadour companions in 1207 at the court of Thuringe.

A hundred years later lived Walter of Eschenbach, comrade and confidant of the parricide Duke John of Swabia.

When the latter’s father, Duke Rodolph, died, leaving him a boy, the Emperor Albert sent for him to court, and held his patrimony in his own hands as the orphan’s guardian. The minor, become of age, demanded his birthright, which Albert, under various pretexts, refused; and the young man, exasperated by each succeeding subterfuge, urged on by the mockery of his partisans, who nicknamed him Duke sans duchy, and the fear that his uncle might intend his utter spoliation, employed as mediator the bishop of Strasburg.

He begged that the emperor would at least yield to his nephew some castles with their domains, belonging to his paternal inheritance; but Albert once more evaded a direct reply, speaking of giving Duke John a command in his meditated expedition against Bohemia, and of satisfaction when the wars were done.

The bishop returned from his embassy, the young man heard its issue in silence, breaking it only to observe, “the hand which grasps my birthright menaces my life.” Quitting his reverend adviser, he sought without further delay the companions of his pleasures, who in more serious moments were his counsellors also: these were Ulric of Palm, Rodolph of Wart, and Walter of Eschenbach.

The 1st of May, 1308, there was held an imperial banquet at Stein, at which Albert’s sons and Duke John sate. By the emperor’s command wreaths of flowers were brought, with which the children and disinherited prince were alike crowned. There was some allusion, some remark made, as to these diadems being sufficiently weighty for the brows which sustained them, to which John listened gloomily. The banquet concluded, the emperor mounted on horseback to proceed to Rhinsfeld, whither the empress had gone some days before. His suite was composed of the unpopular favourites, Landenberg and Waldsee, his cousin the count of Hohenberg, and others of his nobles and vassals. Pretexting a fear of overloading the boat, arrived at the river Reuss, John and his party found means to separate Albert from his followers.

He rode slowly and a little in advance across the broad ploughed lands which stretch beneath the hill and castle of Habsburg, the territory of his ancestors, conversing with the knight of Castelen.

Suddenly riding up to his side, Duke John exclaimed, “Receive the wages of fraud,” and plunged his lance into his throat; at the same moment Balm ran him through the body, and Walter of Eschenbach clove his skull in twain with a back stroke of his sword.

Rodolph of Wart stood motionless, and Castelen fled. Duke John and his friends, terrified as by some unexpected crime, gazed at each other for the last time, and rushed in various directions from the scene of their murder; Albert had fallen bathed in his blood, and insensible. His suite, congregated on the opposite shore of the river, witnessed the assassination, and fled in fear from their dying master. A poor young woman passing by saw and ran to raise him from the ground; he breathed the last sigh in her arms: twice he essayed to open his eyes, and at the third effort to do so, died.

Duke John took refuge in the solitudes of the Alps, and wandered some days in the forests which surround the abbey of Einsilden. Disguised as a monk, he travelled thence to Italy, where he threw himself at the pope’s feet, and as a favour obtained from him permission to hide beneath the cowl his remorse and friendlessness. The remainder of his days passed in obscurity as an unknown monk, it was believed in the convent of the Augustines at Pisa; and the blind man who sat begging in the market-place of Vienna, was, it is thought, as he asserted himself to be, son of John the parricide.

Rodolph of Wart, accomplice but not actor in this tragedy, had sought protection with a relative, the Comte de Blamont, who, for a sum of money, betrayed him to Albert’s survivors. He was married to a noble lady of the house of Balm, who was fondly attached to him. Having implored his pardon vainly on her knees, before the Empress Elizabeth and her daughter Queen Agnes, she determined on affording him the consolation of her presence when condemned to be broken on the wheel: his sentence was executed. His torments, ere they ended his existence, lasted three days and three nights, during which his unhappy wife remained kneeling near him in tears and prayer, taking neither food nor drink.

It was said by some that he had been wholly innocent, and even unaware of the meditated murder; he solemnly asserted it while his broken limbs were stretched on the wheel. When he had expired, his widow rose, travelled on foot to Bale, and died. Ere yet Rodolph was taken, Duke Leopold had entered his domains in arms, put all his domestics to the sword, and razed the castle of Wart to the level of the ground. Jaques of Wart, his innocent brother, reduced to beggary, lived the remainder of his days in a poor cabin of Neflenbach, a village founded by his ancestors.

Farwangen, the chief among the castles of the lords of Balm, capitulated; but Duke Leopold and his sister Agnes, queen of Hungary, widow of King Andrew, caused sixty-three nobles and many other warriors to be conducted to the forest, and beheaded there in her presence. It was then that Agnes, as their blood streamed round her, said, “I am bathing in the dews of a May morning.”

When the castle of the house of Eschenbach (whose name has induced me to linger so long on this story) was taken, and all the vassals of Walter had been massacred, the soldiers of Agnes, and herself also, were attracted by the faint cries of an infant in its cradle, whom the shouts and shrieks of the assailants and their victims had fearfully roused. The boy was so beautiful as to interest even Agnes, hard and cruel as she was, till she discovered he was Walter’s son, when she commanded that he should be put to death also; and her officers had much ado to shield this one life from the fury which had exterminated before all those who protected it. Yielding at last, she commanded that he should renounce the name of Eschenbach, and be called Schwartzenberg. It is probable that the child did not grow to manhood, for his father was last of his line.

Walter of Eschenbach sent to his wife the deeds of the property she had brought him as her marriage portion, became a shepherd, and lived as one, in the county of Würtemberg, thirty-five years. He made himself known only when at the point of death, and was interred with the pomp due to the dignity of the ancient family which in his person closed. On the spot where the emperor was murdered, the Empress Elizabeth and Queen Agnes founded the monastery of Kœnigsfelden the high altar being built on the very place where he expired.

No one crime was ever succeeded by so many in pretended expiation. All who bore the same name with any of the guilty; all who had ever had connexion with them; all found within the prescribed domains, were sacrificed without pity. The accomplices not taken were put to the ban of the empire, their marriage vows dissolved, their friends commanded to avoid their presence, their enemies permitted to free themselves of their lives, their lands adjudged to the empire.

Agnes having founded the convent, ever averse to communion with the world, hard, cold, and cruel, though only six-and-twenty, enclosed herself within its walls, distributing alms, practising fast and penance, and performing the most humble offices. It was in vain however that she strove to attract to Kœnigsfelden the old brother Berthold of Offtringen, who had been a knight and warrior, and lived as a hermit on the mountain: “Woman,” he said, “you serve God ill while shedding innocent blood, and founding monasteries with the fruit of your rapine; only on goodness and mercy doth he look with favouring eye.”

The road having passed Unspunnen, skirts a wild stream in an enchanting glen, the White Lutschine, which waters the valley of Lauterbrunnen. On entering the village of Zweylustchinenr the mountains open to leave a way to Grindelwald, and through the chasm rushes the sister torrent, the Black Lutschine, a picturesque bridge crossing the place where meet these troubled waters.

Our road lay straight before, made beautiful by the varied forms and tints of the bold rocks which are the belt of the White Lutschine, and the dark and vivid green of pines and beech, which rise among the crevices, or from the strangely shattered summits of these crags, stained brown and grey, like genius springing from and brightening poverty.

Somewhere hereabouts, where there is barely room left for the car between rock and river, one of the former, projecting over the path sombre and sternly, once shadowed a fratricide. Of the tradition I heard only that the murderer was a powerful noble, who after his crime left in remorse his castle to ruin, and his lands to the first invader, and died in his wanderings.

The valley continued to narrow till we had surmounted the ascent to the first houses of Lauterbrunnen. On the left was the rock of Hunenflue, having the form and regularity of a bastion. Before us we saw the Jungfrau, who had dropped her veil, demanding I suppose the sun’s homage on her maiden brow, which he yielded soon after, but not until we had seen the Staubbach,—alas! without its iris.

The fall is on the right hand, about a quarter of a mile from the Capricorn, where we left our conveyance. The new hotel, which bears its name, and is built closer to it, commands the best view, saving that from the mound beneath it, which, in its deceitful neighbourhood, appears a hillock, but whose steep side I climbed with difficulty, and was puzzled to descend with sober step. We offered due reverence to the cascade, arriving ancle deep in the rivulet, from the plank made slippery by its spray; receiving a bath on the before-named mound, where the voice of the water was so loud we could not hear our own; but certainly not aware that in its spring of eight hundred feet it sometimes brings down stones to break its admirers’ reveries. The late rains had increased its volume and grandeur, and therefore perhaps lessened its resemblance to the tail of a white horse in the wind. In the winter it forms a colonnade of ice.

Along the wall of cliff which bounds this side of the valley, are other falls of equal beauty, though less fame. The Jungfrau and Wetterhorn close its extremity, and up the mountains, on the stream’s opposite shore, the green pastures stretch nearly to the summit, dotted with chalets to receive cattle and herdsmen, some seeming too high for human foot to rest on. These and the poorer houses of the village, which is scattered over the valley, are built of whole pine trunks, rudely mortised at the corners, a hole left for door and window, and the heavy stones laid on their roofs of bark, that the wind may not whirl them away.

The more aristocratic dwellings have the sawn planks which form their walls carved and ornamented, the open balconies of elaborate workmanship, and below the jutting roof inscriptions graven to recall the name of the owner, and the year and day in which the work was done, and generally some blessing, in quaint rhyme, on building and builder.

We had not intended a visit to the glaciers of Grindelwald, but the day growing fine and the road thither tempting us as we approached the bridge, our resolution altered. The narrow road winds along precipices, high above the Black Lutschine, and till it brought us within sight of the glaciers, with the domes and spires of snow which shoot up above them, I thought less interesting than the way to Lauterbrunnen. The two glaciers are well seen from the inn windows and its garden. The Mettenberg separates them, the Wetterhorn forming the boundary of that nearest Lauterbrunnen.

The places occupied by these seas of ice were once, according to tradition, fertile valleys, for in one of them was discovered a buried chapel and a bell, bearing the date 1044. From the arch of an ice cavern in this upper glacier issues the Black Lutschine; green pastures, with wild flowers and strawberries growing at their edge, are here on a level with the masses of ice ever encroaching, like death advancing to grasp childhood.

In 1790, the innkeeper of Grindelwald, crossing the glacier while driving a few sheep home from the mountains, slipped down a crevice, and found himself laid, with a broken arm only, beneath a vault of ice, and beside the torrent. Guided by the dim light which crept through the fissures, he followed along its edge, and issued through the arch into the world; he was still living when Ebel wrote.

The clergyman who in 1821 explored the glacier between the Mettenberg and Eigher, met with a similar accident, but which ended fatally. He fell to a depth of seven hundred feet, and his body, recovered after twelve days of vain attempts, lies buried in the cemetery of Grindelwald.

We dined in company of a most hungry and silent young German, and returned to Unterseen; the drive back lovelier than you can conceive, for in the place of mist we had sun and shadow; the torrent sparkling, and the distant snow blending gold with rose colour.

The horses were found in safety, Grizzle demanding oats with the impatience and attitudes of a wild beast. It is mournful to shut oneself within a lonely room in a strange inn. I walked, while the light remained, up the flight of steps which, just opposite our hotel, lead to the church, whose grey tower has the Harder for background. In the churchyard was something sadder than solitude,—the tomb of an only son, who perished, aged twenty-two, in the precipices of the Harder; rose trees were cultivated on the turf, and a bench placed opposite, where sits his mother, who, for the last ten years, has every summer made a six weeks’ pilgrimage from her far home to his grave.

We drank tea at one table of the enormous room, while a noisy Parisian party from the Rue St. Martin, or thereabouts, supped at the other, a young man of the family throwing cakes in the air and catching them in his mouth after the manner, he said himself, of the bears of Berne; there are various modes of seeking instruction when travelling: and a lady, large and red-faced, informed her companions, for our benefit, “how the douaniers had complimented her on her black eyes, and how they said they were a rarity in Switzerland!”

Rising early, we left Unterseen by the old road, which passes through Interlaken and along the rocky bank of the river. In admiration of the lake all the way, and having enjoyed a lovely ride, and seen, without a cloud to shroud them, the whole range of snow peaks with romantic names which surround the Blummis Alp and Jungfrau, we reached Baumgarten early, and rejoiced in exchanging the solitude of the dark old inn for the society of Mr. ——, his pretty wife, and her gay children.

CHAPTER III.

Leave Thun—Zweizemmen—The wrong road—Château d’Œx—Gruyères—The Préfet’s ball—Anniversary of the Virgin’s leaving school—Vevay—The patient Griselda’s obstinacy—The exploit—Villeneuve—The Valley of the Rhone—St. Maurice—The Theban legion—The Valais—The village buried—The Rhone overflowed—Former inundation—The old villager saved—St. Bernard—Story of its founder—Martigny—Riddes—Sion—The prelate’s murder—The family of the Rarons—The Mazza—Raron persecuted—Demands the aid of Duke Amedée—His castle burned—His wife driven forth—His revenge—The cretins of Sierre.

Left Thun the 9th, at eleven, as we waited till the morning fogs, which have now grown dense and cold, rolled up from the valley. The last bad weather, which to us brought rain, laid a light covering of snow on the mountain summits, which the natives say is a favourable sign. Madame Rufenacht remains a desolate widow. Madame R. and Mrs. H—— left (wisely) some hours before us, as the mist no sooner rises than the heat becomes intense. The road was for some distance that we had ridden towards Interlaken; it turns off where the river Kander comes dashing along its stony defile, and beneath its covered wooden bridge, to the lake. Our route skirted its precipices, and is very lovely where, at the entrance of the valley of the Simmenthal, the wooded base of the Niesen and the Stockhorn’sr crags leave barely space for the road and the torrent, which a one arched bridge spans. We found at Erlenbachr Mr. ——, who was to be our companion on this day’s journey, and, to our regret, this day’s only; as he is light-hearted and light-footed, all annoyance, and most fatigue, finding him invulnerable. Near the village was an extensive horse and cattle fair, through which, without the assistance of his mountain pole and his hand on her rein, it would have been difficult to guide Fanny unharmed, particularly as, when they stood “betwixt the wind and her nobility,” she took a sly opportunity of biting two four-footed plebeians. Weissenburg is picturesquely situated beside the torrent. We crossed it a few steps further on a wooden bridge, where horses pay a toll of a batz each, which the receiver, in her fly cap, ran after us to levy. The path to the baths winds up the hill on the right hand.

Further on, the river forms a pretty cascade, boiling and bounding over its stones below the precipitous road. Stopped at Zweizemmen, twenty-seven miles from Thun, a village of wooden houses with a wooden inn, and nothing to eat. It was unfortunately too late to go further, as the horses were the only individuals passably lodged and in any degree fed. With the exception of a damp, limp loaf and a plate of nuts, our supper presented an uneatable variety, and I was obliged to confess that I had left comfort behind when I preferred the romantic route of the Simmenthal to that by Berne and Fribourg. A quantity of wearing apparel, very far from new, hung round my bed-room, which the servant, with German phlegm, said “could not derange me as I lay in bed,” and I had some trouble to get removed in consequence. These wooden mansions are like a sounding board, for, while I was dressing this morning, I heard distinctly, as if she had been in the room, a lady in the next admonishing her daughter, and D—— and Mr. —— conversing at breakfast below; forming a tower of Babel colloquy. We had such coffee as the French call eau trouble, its few grounds floating to the top; and dismissed the unborn chickens presented for eggs. Our acquaintance parted from us here, hiring a car as far as Château d’Œx, whence he was to take the footpath to Vevay across the Dent de Jaman. We started after him, and on the wrong road, no one belonging to the Wooden Crown attempting to set us right. Over blocks of stone, and by a way which grew steep and narrow as a mule-path, we toiled debating whether we had mistaken, or this was indeed what the natives called a passable bridle-road. I asked a peasant at a cottage window, “Is this the road to Saanen?” “Ya,” said the dame composedly, pointing her hand with the stocking dangling from it to the sharp ascent scattered over with lumps of crag large enough to break a horse’s leg.

Looking down in despair, we could distinguish another road far away on the other side of the torrent and the valley. “Is that the road to Saanen?” I shrieked to a man who was driving a goat.

“Ya, ya.”

“And this we are going?”

“Ya.” So seeing no further information likely, we led the horses down this stone ladder in search of the new road, returning to the village which it skirts without entering; leaving me a hope that its completion will in no way serve the abominable Wooden Crown of Zweizemmen. It is a grand work, a broad splendid causeway for a long distance cut along the face of the rock several hundred yards above the torrent, but without the semblance of a parapet, a circumstance of which Fanny’s starts often reminded me. It crosses the stream a dozen times over handsome bridges built of stone. One of the principal of these is yet in progress, and a young German at work on the road pointed to the steep sheep-track which dips suddenly down to the torrent’s edge, and a narrow path which followed its windings. Not much liking the itinerary, we asked whether horses might not pass over, but the German, who spoke a little English, saying, “Peoples, only peoples,” down obediently we went, passing under the bridge, and pausing in the loveliest ravine in the world, with its clear rushing water and mountain sides covered with pines, those near us brilliant in light and black in shadow; and the faint mist shedding a blue tinge over the further and higher forests; the bold arch flung over at a considerable elevation, still surrounded by its wooden framework, and all the workmen, variously and picturesquely attired, crowding to the edge to look down on the apparition of Fanny pawing in the water. Continuing to follow its banks, there being neither guide nor finger-post, we crossed a wooden bridge, without rails, broad enough for one horse at a time, and high enough to break our necks perfectly. The glen and the path grew narrower, till at last we came on a party of workmen, whose cart, laden with stones, completely blocked our passage, and the horses, which we tried to force into the water, refused to stir, inasmuch as they did not know its depth, and the crags it foamed over were visible.

The cart, from which the horses had been taken, was immoveable, despite the united efforts of the civil Germans—rather a fortunate circumstance, as, on asking the question, we found we were not likely to arrive that way at Saanen. One of the men left his work to conduct us back to the bridge without parapets, and up a narrow, slippery, and perpendicular road, ranging over the admired ravine, which happily brought us to a level with the new bridge, and beyond it on the way to Saanen, to which unpicturesque place we arrived by a short cut, for once successful.

At the next village, we left the Canton Berne for the Canton Vaud. Before entering the latter at Rougemont, from another stone bridge, we saw a lovely assemblage of torrent and mountain—one range all snow, the rest with a robe of green pastures and a crown of pine forests. Fed the horses at Château d’Œx, a commanding feudal situation when it belonged to the lords of Gruyères, perched on an eminence in the plain, backed by wild crag and mountain.

The road crosses the Saane and enters a narrow pass called Latine. Montbovon, the village which Lord Byron mentions, is here in the Canton Fribourg, and from it ascends the mule-path to the Dent de Jaman. Our own road was far from safe, and at present almost impassable for post-carriages, as for a considerable distance between the rock and precipice there would be no room to pass. We fortunately met only two carts, and had some trouble in leading our horses by, as there is no protection on the side of the precipice; the road rises and falls continually, cut through the rock and the pines, and high over the torrent. It continues thus for some miles, the stream and valley then widen, and grow calmer in their beauty. No one along these new roads, undivided by league-stones, has an idea of distance. We were told two leagues for the last fifteen miles, and we were weary and the sun low when we came in sight of Gruyères, and admired its old castle and town high on the hill, below which we wound. On the authority of the Baumgarten, having reckoned on twenty-five miles, we found we had ridden forty-two. As the last faint light was disappearing, we crossed the last stream with its border of pines, and near the watch-tower of Trême, built on a rock, with an arch by its side and dirty habitations round, and, to my extreme satisfaction, arrived at the Cheval Blanc; and little Fanny, recollecting her bed of a month ago, walked straight to the stable-door.

We had our old room opposite the castle, and the inn yclept hôtel de la Mort, a most ill-omened name.

Three of the castle windows were feebly lighted, and I heard, on inquiry, that the préfet gave a ball; but not choosing to pay the fine levied here, as well as at Geneva, on entertainments during undue hours, the six young ladies and fifteen gentlemen who formed the company were invited to dance from five to ten!

It was fête at Bulle, and everybody tipsy in honour of it. I heard it was the anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s quitting the convent in which she had been educated, to marry St. Joseph.

Wednesday, September 11.

Arrived at Vevay, the day having been as burning as that on which we left it a month ago. The horses gave a strange proof of memory, insisting on stopping at a fir wood, where we then rested them in the shade. Persecuted by the small vineyard flies and musquitoes, of which we were free in the mountains, wearied by the horses kicking the whole length of the steep paved hills, we were glad to reach the Trois Couronnes, where we found our Thun acquaintances and the letters we expected, but must wait for the baggage.

16th September.

We intended leaving Vevay last Friday in company with Mr. and Mrs. H——, but Griselda the patient having with great reluctance allowed the putting on of three shoes, so positively insisted on kicking the farrier and his assistant from the off hind leg, that having called her rosse and démon, and sworn considerably, they gave up the idea, leaving her with three new shoes and a hoof with none. This was an impediment to the journey quite unlooked for, and rather disturbed our equanimity. Saturday, D—— bribed the farriers back, and after breakfast and goûter they returned to look at her and to talk, and at four o’clock the business seemed still far from completion, when one bethought him of tweaking her nose. This operation, with the aid of two pushing her side, one holding her leg, and the fifth shoeing, proved successful. Little Fanny, seeing her comrade surrounded to be sacrificed, shrieked a melancholy neigh, as she was tied in the corner.

The gold was drunk merrily, and the exploit of the five has been so exaggerated by dint of telling it, that I should think the conquest of the grey horse would remain, for all future travellers’ advantage, inscribed among the “fastes” of Vevay.

The rain has fallen in torrents during three days; this morning was fine, and the road enchanting; we passed again old Blonay, and Chastellar on his hill, and Clarens with her foot in the water, and the peak of Jaman above the spire of Montreux, the mountains not like those of the Simmenthal, everywhere dark with evergreen pine, but their sides feathered with summer leaves, and the spiral fir-forests, only far above, pointing against the blue sky.

Arrived at the narrowed road, and the high grey crag opposite Chillon, Fanny walked to the drawbridge, and but for the mist in the valley of the Rhone rising gradually and threatening, we should have paid it one visit more. The view of the castle is far grander from the shore than lake, as its uniformity is broken by the three massive towers and the keep which surmounts them, and it wears the sober grey which should be the livery of a feudal castle. We suspect the wall towards the lake of having been lately whitewashed, and the republicans have daubed thereon an enormous device, inscribed Liberté and Patrie.

As we wound along the road towards Villeneuve, beneath the old walnut trees, we turned to see it and the prisoners’ isle, till D——, who accuses me of always admiring scenery backwards, cricked his neck. The tiny habitation has no business on the island; the mountain breeze should only blow over the three tall trees and the flowers of gentle hue.

Villeneuve is an abominable hole: its inns of the Croix Blanche and Lion d’Or looking equally uninviting. Bidding here good-bye to the lake, we enter the valley of the Rhone, wild and muddy, with his eighty-four tributary streams, already received in his passage through the mountains. L’Aigle is a charming village, hid in the hills. Bex is not, in my opinion, situated quite so prettily, but the inn has a prepossessing appearance.

A peasant pointed out the way to the Salines, which lie in the mountain behind, but of them you must ask descriptions elsewhere, for it just then began to rain heavily, and we put on our cloaks, bound for Martigny. St. Maurice stands, its castle on the crag, above the road from Geneva, where a fine bridge crosses the wild Rhone, its one arch flung from the Dent de Morcles on the further side, to the Dent du Midi on ours. Before us was a little fort, thrown up by the Swiss in 1832, to defend this already well closed pass. I thought it one of the most striking spots I had seen in Switzerland. You know the legend, that here in the year 302, the Theban legion was massacred by command of the Emperor Maximilian, and the place called St. Maurice, from the name of the chief of these martyrs, who refused to abjure Christianity. When we had crossed the bridge, the grandeur and the beauty merged in the muddy street of this most filthy town; the contrast between the Vaud we had left and the Valais we had just entered, marvellous, considering that the separation is a bridge seventy feet long. Manure heaps before the doors, and pigs revelling in them once more; and the hideous goitre, and more hideous cretin, telling at every step their tale of unwholesome filth and misery. One passed us with the usual vacant grin and dead eye, and uttered a yell which startled the horses; the wretched object wore a petticoat, and we could not tell whether it were male or female.

Leaving the Rhone to our right, and now again passing numerous crosses and chapels, and votive offerings, which deprecate its fury, we came at no great distance to a most desolate spot, where the road for a considerable way crosses a tract covered only with gravel and crags, in melancholy disorder. Among the rubbish is a roofless cottage, almost buried. We were told that the bursting of a glacier in 1835 caused this desolation; a torrent of mud descended from the Dent du Midi, floating on its surface the blocks of stone which ruined the valley, sacrificing no lives, as its progress was slow, but overwhelming fields, orchards, and houses. It skirts the road for the length of nine hundred feet, and is the saddest sight imaginable; we were glad to exchange it even for the low barberry bushes which, with their pendent fruit, like coral branches, cover a soil which seems to produce little beside.

Shortly before reaching the waterfall of the Sallenche, we found that the Rhone had broken his usual bounds, and overflowed the narrow valley, more muddy in his rapid course than ever. The rain had ceased falling, but the mists lingered and deepened, and the clouds lay ominously low on the dark bare mountains. The fall is the finest I have seen, from the volume of its foaming water, and the violence with which it leaps from crag to crag through the ravine it has hollowed till it makes its last bound of one hundred and twenty feet, and from the basin which receives it, the spray mounts like steam. As, excepting the elevated causeway on which we stood, the whole expanse was here inundated, the broad sheet of water under it, and blackness of the crags surrounding, with a rare tuft of green here and there, but mostly naked and shattered, added to the grand melancholy of the scene, the vale of the Rhone might form a fit picture of the valley of the shadow of death.

Farther on a covered bridge, we crossed the Trient, a narrow but wild torrent, descending from the Tête Noire, and issuing from the black mouth of the stony gorge which opens barely enough to vomit it forth.

The rain recommenced, and we saw through the mist the round tower of the castle of La Batie, once a stronghold of the bishops of Sion, built on the summit of a solitary rock, not far from Martigny; between it and the town we crossed the Dranse, where it flows to swell the Rhone.

Arrived at the hotel de la Poste we were kept waiting a long time for the worst of all meals, served up in a picturesque vaulted hall, where fire and candles only made darkness visible. We cut up the doubtful meat only in mercy to the next comers. I imagine this has been a convent, from the open pillared galleries which run round the old house, and the corridors and private stairs, and rooms like cells.

A black line drawn along the outer wall of several houses in Martigny recalls the height to which the waters rose in the inundation of 1818, when the masses fallen from the glaciers of Getroz into the valley first formed an obstacle, behind which the waters of the Dranse, stopped in their flow, accumulated to a lake, and at last yielding to the mighty pressure, gave passage to the scourge, which in an hour and a half had swept over the eight leagues which divided it from Martigny, having borne away all that stood in its path; the bridge of Mauvoisin, ninety feet above its ordinary course, three hundred habitations, and a forest.

It is wonderful that its column rushed, without touching, past the village of Bauvernier, emitting a vapour like the smoke of a conflagration. It went on to tear from their foundations eighty houses at Martigny; its surface covered with the bodies of drowned cattle, and human beings, despite their warning, taken unawares.

One wondrous instance of preservation occurred in the person of an old man, aged a hundred years: there was a high mound, formed of the wrecks cast there by the former inundation of 1595. He would have been too feeble to climb it for safety; he stood there by chance when the roaring destroyer rushed by, circling round, without wetting the sole of his foot, as if it respected the monument of its former power.

This morning, 17th of September, started early as we conveniently could, the innkeeper having told us, for our comfort, that the overflow of the Rhone has cut the road between Sion and Sierre, and stopped the diligence. The monks of St. Bernard have a convent here, and when the climate has undermined the health of their brothers on the mountain, they are relieved from hence.

The monastery of the Great St. Bernard is distant but a ten hours’ journey; we intended going thither, but feared to over-fatigue our horses, yet I wished it much, from admiration of these self-made martyrs, and also from the romantic story of the founder. The castle of Menthon, for I must tell you this story, is built on the height which overlooks the lake of Annecy, in Savoy. An heir was born to its noble possessors on the 15th of June, 923. From early boyhood his taste and studies were unsuited to close intercourse with the world; and grown to a man, he resisted gently but firmly, the will of his family, who had chosen for his wife the heiress of the house of Dwingt.

As he was the only hope of their line, the sole seedling of their falling tree, his parents entreated and pressed him earnestly, and the youth consented at last, unable to deny them longer. The marriage morning came, the fair young bride was adorned, and the guests assembled, for there was to be feasting at the castle of Menthon. As the hour for the ceremony drew nigh, it became matter of marvel that the bridegroom should so long remain absent. His chamber, where he had not slept, and the domains of Menthon, were searched vainly; Bernard had fled. The wedding guests, one by one and whispering, departed, and the maiden, ere yet she was a wife, was left a widow.

Years went by; the heiress was no longer at Menthon, she had probably formed a more auspicious alliance, and the desolate father and mother had no son seated beside them near the hearth of their hall. They had called up hope till despair came in its place, and believing him dead at last, they set forth on a pilgrimage, not to the shrine of a saint, but the feet of a living man, whose self abnegation and holy life had become the discourse of Christendom.

Travelling by slow journeys, they arrived through the snows at the summit of the mountain, where the solitary lived in the hospital he had founded, compassionating the dangers which awaited travellers from France and Germany to Italy. They found a man old before age, worn with fatigues and hardships, and knelt before him to ask his blessing, and to beg he would say masses for the peace of their son’s soul. The monk knew them, for their old age had altered less than his youth: and while he blessed them tremulously, they knew his voice, and started from his feet to fall on his neck and bless him also.

He had fled from the wedding feast to the city of Aosta, where he received holy orders and became archdeacon of the cathedral. He had preached at the peril of his life, in the heathen Alpine valleys, and rooted out idolatry; thrown down the statue of Jupiter still worshipped on the mount Jou, the little St. Bernard, and founded hospitals on each of the mountains which now bear his name, instituting for each one a congregation of monks. He told his past life and his vocation to the parents who had found him; they wept together, and then they parted, as was his will, they to return to their lone castle of Menthon, to pray for its exiled heir; he to bury himself once more in the tomb he had selected, and forget if he could that he had seen forms and re-awakened affections which drew him back to the world.

St. Bernard preached in the Alpine valleys forty-two years, and afterwards in Lombardy, whence he travelled to Rome; he died at Novara and was canonized.

It is not surprising that the country about Martigny should be unhealthy; the road from this to Riddes, two posts and a half, is raised along the centre of a marsh, now overflowed by the Rhone; the valley produces here only rushes and rank-grass, which feed the thin cattle scantily, and stunted birch trees, and unprofitable barberry bushes, and a kind of furze with a red berry. It seems a fitting habitation only for the frogs, which croaked and jumped by myriads from the wet bank to the muddy stream as we rode along. The unfortunate peasants scarce look like human beings. I did not see two with throats undeformed by enormous goitres. Cretins abound in the valley, and those not belonging to the idiot tribe have an expression of abjectness and misery not much higher in the scale. They are mostly of dwarfish stature, and the women wear the small straw hat with turned-up brim, ornamented with brilliant ribands of gold and silver tissue, which show off in all their ugliness their unwholesome complexions and ill-formed features. At Riddes the Indian corn is cultivated again, and near Riddes to the right is a fine view of chasm and torrent, a castle above and hamlet beside, breaking the sadness of the drear valley and barren mountains. Farther on are pretty villages, surrounded by fine old walnut-trees and pastures, green as those of the Simmenthal. In a field we rode by were hay-makers busy; a woman called to desire I would approach and show my strange figure. I answered, at a like pitch of voice, that I had not time, and we left merriment behind us.

It would be difficult to fancy a finer grouping of crag, river, and valley than approaching Sion. The Rhone to the right; the peaked mountains rising before two crowned with castles; to the left, highest and grandest, Tourbillon; on the right, Valerie. The first ruined, but nobly; turret and tower and battlement standing as in the fine old age which succeeds a strong manhood. Below, as we approached the fortified wall, which, flanked by its look-out towers, surrounds the city, we saw the third castle of Majorie, once the residence of the governors of the Valais. Behind the town, on another and almost inaccessible crag, is the ruin of the castle of Seyon, of which time, and siege, and fire have left small remains.

In the year 1375, Wischard of Tawell was bishop of Sion, and had governed the republic of the Upper Valais, under circumstances of difficulty, during thirty-three years. This prelate had so well merited the affection of the people, and the confidence of the neighbouring districts, that he was named the Count of Savoy’s lieutenant-general in the Lower Valais. He had attained extreme old age, when one day while celebrating mass in his castle of Seyon, arrived with his suite his nephew Baron Anthony of Thurn Gestelenbourg,—whom his high alliance and extensive domains rendered one of the most important of the nobles. He had some difference with his uncle respecting the hereditary fief of the mayoralty of Sion, purchased by the bishop, and to whose rights and revenues he put forth claims which the old man would not acknowledge. The dispute grew warm and loud: whether the baron of Thurn was, in his own person, guilty of what followed, is a fact disputed. Those who excuse him assert that his furious vassals, uninstigated by his example, laid violent hands upon the bishop: even while he held his breviary, despite his feeble resistance and prayers for mercy, he was thrust forth to the abyss from a window of his rock-founded castle. His subjects, who loved, rose to avenge him at the news of his murder.

Peter, baron of Raron, his brother and other nobles, either did not partake in the general opinion of Anthony’s guilt, or allowed party spirit to deafen them to the claims of country and the cry of nature. Brieg, Leuk, Sierre and Sion vowed to avenge their lost lord; and, first taking several castles, met the assembled nobles near the bridge of St. Leonard, and gained a signal victory. The baron of Thurn vainly sold to Savoy his domain of Gestelenbourg. The Valaisans became its masters. The baron of Brandis, a powerful noble of the Simmenthal, through his mother, who was a Weissembourg, marched his vassals to aid Anthony. His ill-placed friendship cost him his life, and his dispersed troops sped homeward by the mountain passes. It was then that the village of An der Leuk, in the upper Simmenthal, left without defence, as its men had marched to battle, was entered by a detachment of the Valaisans, who threatened pillage. The mountain women, bred to hardships and danger, having their children and their children’s property to guard, seized on what arms had been left behind, and with the energy of roused lionesses rushed forth and drove back the enemy.

Anthony of Thurn, forced to quit the country, lived the remainder of his days at the court of Savoy. About the year 1416, the Valaisans complained that no account had been rendered of his male fiefs, (he died without heirs in 1404), and expressed fears that these also would fall into the hands of the all-grasping Rarons. These barons of Raron, as the nobles of most ancient date and largest possessions, were the sole persons whose power counterbalanced that of the bishops of Sion, till the heir of the house was named to the bishopric at the time his father held a post of importance, and the opposition ceased to exist as soon as its cessation placed the whole authority in the hands of son and father.

The jealousy thus excited was increased by Raron’s character and the personal dislike it roused. By no means a hard or bad man, his chief offence towards his country seems to have been his contempt for their coarse habits and lack of culture, and a predilection for the house of Savoy. What these habits were may be inferred from a list of laws passed by the nobles, magistrates, and citizens in council, when his power was at its zenith. They commanded “that men should be stationed to enforce the cleansing of the sewers, to prevent their overflow; that no foul linen should thenceforth be washed in water destined for the town’s consumption, nor manure allowed to accumulate before the habitations, and that the high street should be swept at least once a week.”

The dislike to Raron increased from a report which spread, that, after the invasion and conquest of the valley of Ossola by the Swiss troops, the baron had been heard to say, that “had he been opposed to them there, not one would have returned.”

Offended by this speech, they dispatched to Berne, of which city he was burgess, the landamman of Unterwald, to demand full satisfaction for words which, as they affected their honour, could not be passed by unnoticed. Berne replied, that since she had vainly demanded the baron of Baron’s aid in an expedition to Oltingen, she had abandoned him to his own guidance.

The resentment of the Valais gave henceforth its own colouring to every action of the Raron family, and in particular to its alliance with Savoy. On a day when the inhabitants of Brieg had assembled, to give loose to their ever-increasing discontent, a few Savoyard soldiers arrived in the village from the Simplon pass. They seized their arms, maltreated and drove them forth, exclaiming that their presence would be no longer borne with in the Valais.

The authors of this outrage, for their own protection, raised the country by means of an expedient derived perhaps from some gone-by custom. Assembling friends and comrades, they bare at evening a large log to a place where grew a young birch tree which they rooted up. They carved the stump into the rude semblance of a human figure, and placed it in the centre of the branches, entangling them with thorns and brambles, to represent suffering justice encompassed by the trammels of tyranny; and in proof of their determination to free her, each drove a nail deep into the stem of the birch tree. They bound the figure, thus encircled, to a tree on the high road (it was called La Mazza), and lingered near the spot to mark what might follow. Those who came that way at dawn stopped also, and there soon gathered a multitude, as yet in expectant silence and passive. At last one advanced and unbound the “Mazza,” and placed himself at its side in the centre of the crowd. Several voices next apostrophized her, demanding what injuries brought her thither, and treating her silence as the effect of fear caused by an unjust power.

“If,” they said, “there be in this assembly one man who loves his country sufficiently to be the Mazza’s questioner, let him advance!”

An instigator of the scene stepped forth:—

“Mazza,” he said, “they are sworn to aid thee: whom dost thou dread? Is he of the race of Silinen; of the houses of Henn or Asperling?”

The figure, and the man who had stood beside her from the first, remained motionless; and the speaker continued to enumerate the noble names of the Valais with as little success as before.

“Is it,” he said at last, “the baron of Raron?”

The wooden figure was bent low to the ground in signal of assent.

“You mark her complaint,” rejoined the orator; “you who will succour her raise the right hand.”

A large majority obeyed; a near day was appointed; and the news was sent from village to village, “that the Mazza was about to visit the captain-general, the bishop, and all the partizans of the Raron.”

The plot succeeded throughout; neither the lustre of their ancient name, nor the favour of a foreign prince, nor the first dignities of the land united on their heads, prevented the various districts of the Valais from planting on the appointed day, and by unanimous consent, the ill-omened Mazza before all the unfortified castles of Raron and his partizans. The multitude forced a way, and pillaged from vault to battlement. Had Raron remained in the country, he too, doubtless, would have fallen sacrifice to the Mazza. He had gone to Berne, there to renew his treaty of co-citizenship, and obtained, on the conditions of resigning his place of captain-general, and leaving Bishop William to his own resources, a promise from the Valaisans to persecute him no farther.

He believed that (his foes appeased) time might restore to him the power he had exercised in days past; but there was nothing which those enemies so dreaded, and they worked on the passions of the already-excited people, till rising again they marched on and destroyed his castle at Sierre,—took a fortress, held by the bishop, at Leuk,—and besieged Beauregard, which, built on a rock, had long seen beneath its sway and protection the valley of Ennfisch, whose fertile meadows stretch to the very foot of the Alps of Aosta.

Raron returned to Berne; but Berne was occupied wholly with the affairs of Frederic of Austria, and feeling that to the bishop and himself hesitation might be fatal, he demanded for both the aid of Savoy. Amedée the Eighth, created duke by Sigismund, charmed to find a pretext for interference, commanded Amedée of Challant, then in Chablais, to leave it with sufficient force, and take under his own protection and out of the bishop’s hands, the castles of Majorie and Tourbillon. On his side the baron of Raron victualled his strong hold of Seyon, conducted within its walls his wife and children, the Bishop William, and all the aged and infant members of his house, charging with its defence his most tried and brave vassals. A numerous and staunch garrison held Beauregard, and the heat of that burning summer aided its efforts by paralyzing those of the besiegers, till at last conquered by famine and forced to open their gates, the soldiers as they marched forth saw lighted behind them the flames, which, consuming the castle, illuminated the entire valley. The insurrection became so serious, that Amedée of Challant, fearing for Chablais, concluded a truce, which peace soon followed; but although the baron of Raron had placed sole confidence in the duke of Savoy, the latter, when renewing his ancient treaties, made no stipulations in his favour, delivered to the bishop neither Tourbillon nor Majorie, ceding both for a sum of money to the chapter. The Valaisans pillaged and destroyed them: Seyon remained alone; the riches of the Rarons were plundered; their power had departed. His courage only remaining to support him, the baron again entered Berne, and appeared in its assembly with none of the splendour, but more than the dignity of past years: he was received as its citizen once more. Meanwhile the forces of the Valais besieged Sion, determined on the total ruin of Wischard of Raron. The negociations between Berne and the Valais grew stormy: the latter insisting on the surrender of the castle, but consenting to let all within it go free. The lady of Raron, profiting by the permission, came trembling forth,—slowly treading the steep way, followed by the Bishop William, her younger children, and a long train of menials. It was then that Seyon fell. The multitude thronged thither, bearing torches, and its noble halls were sacked and fired.

Sion had abjured all respect towards this illustrious family, and the unhappy lady, who, born in luxury, had long been the spouse of these countries’ most powerful lord, descending the heights of the Valais, and traversing the Pays de Vaud in the haste of fear with her melancholy train, repaired to Berne. Her husband, listening to his angry passions only, while the debate concerning his cause was still pending, sought the Oberland, and gathering round his banner all the brave youth of Frutigen, the Simmenthal, and Saanen, marched at nightfall from the latter village, and along a narrow valley, which bears the name of Gsteig. The dawn was hardly red on the mountains when they climbed the steep paths of the Sanetsch, near the great cataracts; and appearing before Sion at the dinner hour of its inhabitants, mastered their resistance easily. In the course of some hours Sion was reduced to a few streets, the remaining space it had occupied a mass of smoke and flame, and the troop, when it had ravaged the surrounding lands three days, returned by the way it came, having hardly lost a man.

The negociations between Berne and the Valais were succeeded by war; to put a stop to which, the neutral cantons interfered, and at last, through the mediation of the duke of Savoy, it was decided that Wischard of Raron should be reinstated in his lordships, and receive as indemnity for his losses the sum of 10,000 florins. Yet, notwithstanding this, Wischard of Raron died far from his own land; his opulence, his noble name, his chivalrous virtues availed nothing to one who had neglected to conciliate the affection of his countrymen, and their caprice cast down an authority which rose no more.

Entering the town, a dirty street leads to an inn of unprepossessing appearance. We passed on to the left, winding half round the base of the crag on which stands Tourbillon. We passed a picturesque monk in his robe of brown serge, with a fine face and shaven crown; and a squinting specimen of the same species, who, I think, chose the cowl that it might serve for veil at need, he drew it so closely over his face when I asked him a question.

As we slowly descended the road which skirts the Rhone, we could long look back on this romantic castle, dark on its shadowed crag, while the sun made a sheet of silver of the swollen river, which spread beyond its natural shores, forming islets and peninsulas innumerable, circling round the peaked mounds, which, varying in height from fifty to two hundred feet, their crags gay with vegetation, crowd the valley,—first created, Ebel says, by the violent Rhone cutting a deep passage among the rubbish and ruins cast in his bed by the earth—avalanches of the mountains; and increased by that driven along at each succeeding flood. They look as if a portion of chaos had been left when the rest was softened into a world.

Riding without shade under the craggy hill and over the river, we followed vineyards for some distance, and as the branches hang within reach, and we were hot and thirsty, I did not keep my hands from picking and stealing, and we went on, refreshed by roguery, till we had nearly met with merited retribution: for at a place whence the Rhone had just retired, his slime left on the road made such perilous footing for some hundred yards, that our horses had several times almost brought us down with themselves, which there would have been unpleasant, as we should infallibly have rolled into the river. At the entrance of Sierre we passed the ruin of its demolished castle, one of those belonging to the ill-fated Raron. Found the Soleil infinitely better than the Poste at Martigny, and cleaner than report describes the inn at Sion. The number of cretins at this place is fearful, and you must see them to feel their degradation, and ours, that beings, so below brutes, should indeed belong to our species—large heads and old faces on the frail bodies of children, and with the weak limbs of a cripple,—goitres, of an enormous size, swelling the throat and hanging over the strangely-formed chests, and sometimes all the faculties wanting—the ear deaf; the tongue dumb; the eye having no “speculation” in its glare; and the enjoyment to lie rolling in filth, or basking in the sun, like some unclean animal. As I stood at the inn window, three of these wretched creatures appeared in the place below; they were attracted by a part of my dress, and staid grinning at me, demanding it, after their manner, with signs and inarticulate sounds. I could have ascribed to their colourless and withered countenances neither sex nor age. The peasants treat and speak to them kindly; but I doubt their considering now, as in darker times, the presence of one of them in their families a blessing; and such as are free from the curse ascribe it to the extreme dirt, if not of the present, of past generations. The water of Sierre is unwholesome, and drunk cold produces instant hoarseness.

The diet of the Upper Valais is sitting here; the diet of the Lower Valais at Sion: it is curious that the two districts divide the possession of the latter town.

CHAPTER IV.

Rhone overflowed—Baths of Louëche—Tourtemagne—Visp—Ravages of the Rhone—Madonnas placed to stop its further rise—Glys—Brieg—Ascent of Simplon—Ganther—Gallery of Schalbet—The toll-gate—Hospice—The Barons of Stockalper—Village of the Simplon-Broken road—Algaby—Gorge of Gondo—Fanny too near the edge—Gap in the road—Part of gallery carried away—Opportune aid—Arrival at Gondo—Broken road near Isella—Accident during the storm—Remnant of a carriage—The douanier’s aid—An auberge—The military post—My consolation—An amiable hostess—Good company in a quiet kitchen—A French gentleman expecting murder—An Italian vetturino—The Juge de paix and his interested verdict—Torrent or bedchamber—Our hostess’s supper—Departure—First difficulty—Road completely swept away—Impossibility of advancing—A lady and her guide killed—Way over the Trasquiera—Fanny aiding her conductor—A painful path—A draught of water—Top of the mountain—Inhabitants—Milk and apples—Fanny’s leap—Danger of Grizzle—Descent—Bridge gone—Torrent forded—Gallery of Crevola—The broken column—Arrival—Our friend’s welcome—Domo d’Ossola.

18th September.

Left Sierre early, and found, when but a short distance on our way, that the damage done by the Rhone had not been exaggerated. We crossed it on a bridge, and beyond, in lieu of the road which had been there, found a broad and deep deposit of the river, which had broken and swept it away. Three hundred workmen are employed since the overflow, and, as none of our party could swim, we stopped to inquire at which part it might be fordable. One of the men came good-naturedly forward to lead Fanny, and in and to her shoulder in water we went, Grizzle following, and arrived safe at the opposite shore. Rode fast up the hill to dry ourselves, leaving our friend grinning at his fee, and shaking himself like a gay poodle. The route here turns through a pine forest, a wild and beautiful way, St. Bernard and the range of brother Alps behind. The Gemmi, to the left, topped with snow, and the Rhone at its foot, and, on our right, cliff above cliff,—not cold, white, or grey, but rich with tints warm and beautiful; and fir woods below them and around us, covering the peculiar and conical mounds. A tract of forest on one of these had been burned, probably by lightning or inadvertence, and the scathed and blackened trunks stood like the plague-stricken among their green fellows. The road skirted the river, still on our left, and we saw opposite, on the mountain, a romantic village with an old turreted castle, to which conduct a wooden bridge, sinking ominously in its centre, and a steep winding road. It commands the noble gorge in the grey rock, through which rushes the Dala river, and the Gemmi surmounts it in turn. This is the village of Louëche, and its famous baths are about nine miles higher in the mountain. I might give you an account of these hot springs, which flow at five thousand feet above the level of the sea, but that I think I might weary you. They must be of extraordinary efficacy, as the cold of morning and evening at Louëche does not impede the cure, though snow sometimes falls there in July; and crowds frequent them notwithstanding their inconvenient position and the total want of comfort, often of necessaries, in the dilapidated wooden dwellings which receive the sick. It is strange that the water which at its source will harden an egg and scald a fowl, and in which one cannot, from its extreme heat, plunge the hand, so soon loses this quality, that it may be received in a glass and immediately swallowed without annoyance.

Near Tourtemagnen, where there is a strange looking inn, but I hear comfortable notwithstanding, the beauty of the country wholly disappeared, for the road ran among pools and marshes—the melancholy cows standing to their knees in water to eat the high coarse grass which half grows, half floats, around—the few trees which have attained any size bent and blasted by the searching wind; the wretched stunted women, who would be prodigies of ugliness even without the goitre, were digging in the mud for the unwholesome potatoes which grew there.

The day had grown cold and foggy, and lighted sadly the late ravages of the Rhone—painfully visible; as its widened bed now dry once more swept over meadows and fields of Indian corn, and left, on its retreat, desolating heaps of stones and sand. We passed here and there a shattered mill and a ruined habitation—the owners mostly standing idly and hopelessly on the bank—a few striving to combat with misfortune, and reap the rotting harvest; or at least collect the logs flung to their feet on the shore—relics of bridges broken and scattered in the contempt of the waters they had spanned for a time. We compared it to a land visited by a curse;—the struggle seemed so unequal between earth’s frailest race and her heaviest disasters.

I think it is after passing a village of some miserable huts called St. Pierre, that it improves for a space—green pastures once more ascending to the pine forests, and neater wooden houses covered, for the first time, with trained vines. The peasants seemed miserable as ever, ragged, and famished, but a spice of coquetry remaining through it all, for the outwork of broad riband with a tinsel border eternally trimmed the low crown of the felt hat.

With the exception of this and one other portion of better land, the marshes stretch to Visp, and the thick air is impregnated with miasmas. Visp is built where the valley parts itself in two distinct branches. The one, down which rushes the torrent which gives its name to the village, leading to Monterosa; but it is the Haneck and not Monterosa whose white mass, seen from this spot, terminates the defile of the Moro. The Visp is here broad and rapid as the Rhone, yet this place, situated near their junction, is filthy as all villages in the catholic cantons,—their united streams cannot wash the blackamoor white.

After traversing the streets, our road wound grandly and perilously round the base of rocks blasted for its formation; but this portion passed, we were again amidst the marshes, and between Visp and Glys the overflow of the Rhone has done most damage, as it is hereabouts swollen by numberless tributary streams—most turbulent vassals. Our horses sank above the fetlock in soft mud, which covered the whole face of the valley: Indian corn and pumpkins floating on its surface. The ground floors of the deserted cabins were flooded, for through this desolate tract wound a stream whose deposits made pools deep and broad; and planted in the mud, or half drowned in the water, were several small wooden crucifixes and Madonnas, placed there to deprecate its further rise.

We passed through Glys, in whose church lie buried Georges of Flue and his twenty-three children. At the entrance-gate stands the Virgin Mary, the iron glory round her head resembling the snakes of Medusa; and over the portico is a painting of the heavenly Father, extending his mantle over multitudes of the faithful, who look like deformed children,—the native artist drew, alas! his inspiration from the goitre-afflicted and the cretin. The last bridge which we crossed over the Saltine leads directly to Brieg, and at the window of the hôtel de la Poste we saw the pretty face of Mrs. —— looking out to greet our coming. The pine log fire blazing in the wide hearth was agreeable this chill evening, and her voice and laugh aided to dispel the impressions left by the dull air of that desolate valley. There are rumours of the impossibility of crossing the Simplon, of roads injured and bridges broken by some recent storm—the postmaster’s son has been sent hence to verify their truth, and we wait his fiat.

September 19th.

It is decided that we are to go, the courier from Sierre having passed through Brieg at daybreak with news that the road is open.

September 21st., Domo d’Ossola.

After two days’ silence, I write again to give you a recital of adventures which have befallen us wayfarers. Our friends and ourselves, with the rest of the party assembled at Brieg, left after breakfast, and we hardly said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. H——, in whose company we were to dine at Domo d’Ossola. The morning was cloudy and cool, changing to the loveliest of days. Half a mile above Brieg we passed the covered bridge which crosses the Saltine, and is the first of the works of the mountain, for it is on the direct road, which begins from Glys, but is seldom taken, as there is no inn there. At this spot they join, and the ascent grows steeper, turning away from the Glytzhorn, which bounds the valley on the right, towards its comrade the Breithorn. Our horses, at a walk, soon left behind the posters and heavy carriages, and we passed beneath a hill, at whose summit is a Calvary, the stations conducting thither peeping whitely out among the thick dark firs. The valley of the Rhone looked beautiful below, Brieg in the plain, the tin globes which surmount her minaret-like steeples shining in the sun as if his rays had kindled so many stars; behind the town and the high bridge which spans the Saltine, dashing towards the Rhone, arose the mountains—parted by the deep and narrow cleft whence the river issues; and again above these were the glaciers, their forms half concealed by the vapours which, as we ascended, partially veiled the range of Bernese Alps also, but made our road the lovelier;—where, skirting the precipice from the depths of the gorge through which the Saltine foams, they rose curling thin and delicate as the smoke from a cottage chimney, or, lying at our feet for a few moments, impenetrable as a floor, slowly opened to show the torrent, glittering among its black crags, and the green forests, all dew and sunshine. At several of the windings of the road, now steep but always smooth and broad, and almost always protected, we again hung over what seemed a miniature of Brieg and the valley as far as Tourtemagnen, till arrived at a certain height, it runs nearly on a level along the edge of the ravine of the Ganther to the bold bridge at its extremity. Beneath its arch, from the rocks which back it, rushes the torrent, forming a cascade in its leap, where in winter roll the avalanches. Crossing this bridge, we returned on a parallel line with that we had already gone on the opposite side of the valley: we could distinguish the carriages some miles behind. The route ascends thence in steep zigzags to Berisol, a post-house and poor inn.

Fanny sometimes started at a pine trunk fallen on her path, or a cow feeding above us with its tinkling bell, or obstinately refused to pass some unfamiliar object, such as the poor priest who, book in hand, was summoning a dozen white goats from the pinnacles on which they were perched feeding, and who came bounding from crag to crag at his call. At such times, to distract her attention, we cantered along through the sunshine and sweet air, acknowledging its influence, for on the broad road there was little danger; it is certain the mind has less energy, and the body feels more fatigue, on the plain. Somewhere hereabouts we crossed a bridge of planks without parapets, not dangerous however. Here also a stream gushes from the rock, and passes under to foam and lose itself among the pine trees,—some standing to fringe its shores, others, broken by its force, lying at its feet to do it homage. It is one of the sweetest glimpses on the Valais side of Berisol. The last named place consists of two houses, connected by a roof which crosses the road; and here we passed more carriages, ourselves proud and rejoicing in the lesser weight which enabled us to desert them all. Continuing to mount higher, our way became more wild till we had passed the pine region, and the crags were clothed with rhododendron only, whose blossoms lent beautiful tints to the far mountain side. Here and there we saw a solitary tree broken by some avalanche, or raising boughs withered and whitened by the ungenial climate. But the sterility is almost total near the Gallery of Schalbet, the first which we traversed: it is hollowed through a rock which obstructed the passage of the road, here cut along the verge of the precipice and edge of the bare mountain, narrower and without barriers.

From the fifth refuge, which immediately follows this cavern of ninety-five feet long, to the summit, is the place of peril in the time of tourmentes and avalanches. I looked with some attention to the snow, which, lately fallen, had accumulated thick and far above our heads, and to the track of the avalanches, now marked by stream and torrent, which rush down the chasms uttering their ominous roar, repeated and prolonged by all the mocking echoes of the mountain. We were beneath the glaciers of the Kalt Wasser, and, to afford adequate protection to the road they threaten, two houses of refuge, three galleries, and an hospital, have been erected within a brief distance. The second of these galleries passes beneath one of the mighty falls, and our horses started to find themselves wet with its spray, as, carried over the roof, it dashes down before one of the apertures which light it.

The longest of these glacier galleries has been blasted through the living rock, within which it turns, and damp and cold it is as a dungeon—the water distilling through the fissures in its roof, forming in winter long needles of crystal, but now dropping mercilessly on our heads, changing the soil to a sea of mud; and the draught of air striking a chill so penetrating, that to save the horses from harm, we trotted them the one hundred and thirty feet which form the length of this gloomy cavern.

A little further, we passed the sixth refuge, which is the toll-gate also. The receiver, who came running out, found time to tell that he had served in the Hanoverian guard, and fought at Waterloo, and also to cheat us of two francs per horse, the toll amounting to four for the two. It was twelve o’clock, he said, so that we had ascended in three hours, for here is the cross which marks the highest point of the road. It continues bare and wild; but down in the meadow, which seems rather to produce a kind of moss than grass, there are scattered a few wretched cottages; heaven knows what the inhabitants exist on. The hospice founded by Napoleon, and at present occupied by a few Augustine monks, is a fine-looking building without, but desolate and unfinished within. We were saluted as we rode by two of the lonely brothers, who were wandering on the irregular hillocks which surround it, bare of bush or verdure, surmounted by the unchanging snows. In the broad valley below our road, shut in by rocks naked as itself, rises on a mound the square six-storied building, or rather tower, which served for hospice ere this was instituted. A few cows were standing before it, chewing the cud—“of sweet and bitter fancies” it must have been,—for there appeared nothing to swallow bodily. It is said that the old barons of Stockalper were in the habit of sending hither their children to preserve them from the baleful influence of the air of the plain: it still belongs to a proprietor of the same name.

From this place the road commences and continues to descend. We were among green and living things once more, and the milder temperature restored to activity that worst of all species of crawling fly which had already so persecuted our horses in the ascent, and, notwithstanding my long apprenticeship in fly murder, consequent on our ride, resisted all efforts to kill, being cased in armour, till I adopted suffocation, and therefore, for the benefit of future horse travellers, recommend that they be pressed between finger and thumb until death shall ensue.

Crossing a torrent on a bridge, at last, about two leagues from the summit, we entered the most dirty village of the Simplon, where we had decided to stop only to feed the horses, who were well able to end their day’s journey at Domo d’Ossola: it is built on a knoll above the rapid stream, commanding an unproductive valley. The houses, built in stone, take mellow and picturesque tints from the moss and lichens which clothe them, and winter lasting here during two-thirds of the year, the small garden, which each possesses, is cultivated almost in vain. The clearing of the snows and the transport of merchandise (for it has been calculated that at least two hundred horses pass weekly in the severe season) supply to its hardy inhabitants, the profit more easily won in other regions, preserving from the misery which would seem their doom. Traversing courageously heaps of manure and pools of abomination, D—— accompanied the horses to the stables, while I walked into the inn opposite, before which stood a collection of English and other carriages, and on the steps, in discussion or dispute, discomfited gentlemen and villanous-looking Italians. The house was crowded to overflow, a circumstance which appeared to improve neither its attendance nor the politeness of its landlady: for when I asked the last-mentioned fat personage for some refreshment, she handed me to her sharp-faced, thin daughter, who left me on the stairs, saying the salle was at the top, and disappeared, promising to ask the cook if he had anything to eat, which she said she believed he had not, owing to the immense influx of guests who had come thus far, unapprized of the road’s real state, and stayed from the impossibility of proceeding. As she did not come back, I found my way through corridors innumerable to the kitchen, and stood opposite the cook and his company of marmitons. Perhaps he felt mortified that the uninitiated should perceive the nakedness of the land, devoid of both food and fire; certainly he received me unamiably, proffering only a foot of raw beef sausage, and being sulky when I declined it; informing me that it had been five times the length, and all the remainder of the guests had been very glad to eat it raw. When I assured him, that although it might serve his house to spare fuel, it by no means suited me, he produced two shining slices of ham and a piece of bread, the last in the house; he said he had sent to Domo d’Ossola for more, and I returned in triumph to the eating-room, a little marmiton carrying the hot ham and dry crust behind me. I found there several disconsolate groups, and as companions in misfortune we were in five minutes acquainted: there were two American gentlemen, who from their accent I thought Irish, and from their kind politeness afterwards made me feel that Mrs. Trollope’s recital was not always fair; and an amiable English family, about to turn back, the extortion of the Italians who in the morning had asked 500f. for transporting their carriage, now raising it to 1000. The Americans had determined on going on, though every one assured them it was wholly impossible, and D—— said we might follow where they went: so, having given our horses proper repose, we mounted them again,—our new acquaintances having the start of us by about half an hour. For some distance the road was good and smooth, the first awkward-looking portion we approached being where it bends backward like the coil of a snake, beyond the village. The light carriage had passed; for close to the edge of the precipice were the marks left by its wheels, and as we led our horses over we agreed that the damage had been probably exaggerated, and we should want no guide. The gallery of Algaby, 115 feet long, conducted us from the more open space to the gorge of Gondo. In 1814 it was converted to a military post, and its entrance is half closed by a wall, pierced with loopholes to defend the pass. It is the most savage of stony glens: no sunshine in its recesses, for the cliffs rise to a height of more than 2200 feet; no vegetation, except you can call such the broken line of firs here and there seen on the tops of the bare black crags, so nearly met overhead, that

“The wanderer’s eye may barely view

The summer heaven’s delicious blue”—

their fragments lying in the stream, which frets against and over them with a roar so deafening, that we could not hear each other’s voices; as sometimes (I speak for myself), awed by the silence of all saving nature, we rode along a narrower road, guarded only by far severed granite posts, unconnected by pine trunks, advancing like a cornice on the edge of the rock and over the abyss,—proving, it is true, that the work of man has been mighty; but also showing, by the masses of crags scattered like chaff, and the rush of unnumbered waterfalls, which might bring destruction with them from the mountain top, how easily his skill may be baffled. Fanny’s sudden fright at one of these had very nearly closed my journal: while, in consequence of her starts, Grizzle placed outside as a bulwark, we were walking our horses, a sharp turn brought us suddenly on one of these cascades, bounding down a cleft in the rock and crossing the road, she swerved violently behind Grizzle and towards the edge, which of course she did not see, as her bright eye was fixed on the waterfall. The curb-stone was slippery with the spray, and we were within a foot of it; so close that I said, “We are going over;” but at the same time, from instinct, struck poor Fanny with all my force, and the pain made her bound forward, and pass the peril. D—— looked pale and frightened, it being one of the cases in which aid was impossible: I had not time to be afraid. The Ponte Alto, a superb bridge, which, with two enormous crags for support, spans the Doveria, conducts the road to its opposite shore. The still narrowing gorge is at every step more deep sunken and wild, almost resembling a cavern. We had passed a break on the road of small consequence, and had again commenced remarking on Italian exaggeration, when we arrived at a gap, some forty feet wide, cut by the rise of the Doveria. Hid in it were a few men, rather examining than repairing what would have required fifty. To our surprise we saw the marks of the carriage-wheels on the soft earth,—it had been dragged in and out again. We led our horses down the steep, the men significantly pointing to some holes through which we might have sunk too far,—and Fanny, whose rein I held, pulled me gallantly up on the other side. At the wooden bridge which, some steps farther, again traversed the torrent, we found our American acquaintances, tying up their pole which had broken there. We exchanged a few words: on their side promises of help, if help were needed, and thanks on ours, and a portion of undamaged road led us to the gallery of Gondo, 683 feet long, (according to guide-books), blasted through the rock, whose mass stood forth to bar the way: the two vast apertures, made towards the torrent, formerly lighted it but feebly, but this was not the case to-day,—for a part of its rocky roof and wall had been carried away also. Issuing at its mouth, we came, to my surprise, and not, considering my late adventure, to my pleasure, on the bridge, which immediately after crosses the superb waterfall of Frascinodi thundering down its immense volume from the high glacier, and along the hollow of the cliff below the arch with a spray which blinds and a roar which deafens, falling into the deep gulf, where, struggling among the crags, groans, as if in pain, the Doveria.

Having ridden down the abrupt descent which immediately follows, ere the bending of the road concealed this view, we turned to look at it once more. It is that of which we have so often seen drawings, the noblest in the Simplon: the graceful stone arch—the tall rocks and the chasm—the fall and the torrent,—and where the foam was not, the water in the basin it has hollowed in the crag, of that pale clear green seen in the crevices of a glacier.

Before reaching the village of Gondo we again passed the carriage, but were soon stopped ourselves by a ruined piece of road which, though dangerous to horses’ knees only, was exceedingly embarrassing, as D—— could not lead two; and I found that, even without the care of Fanny, I was fully employed in keeping my footing while scrambling up and down the mounds of crag and loose stones, and through the stream which, shrunk and quiet now, had done this damage. I tried my skill notwithstanding, and arrived at the top of the first heap, whence Fanny refused either to slide or jump into the water; and we were very much in the situation of statues on a pedestal, when our kind fellow-travellers arrived to my aid, altering Fanny’s determination, and in consequence Grizzle’s, who will not stir a step unless she leads the way.

The carriage was dragged over with a difficulty which several times made me fear that our acquaintances and those with them would have been forced along with it into the Doveria: for it required the united strength of all to preserve its equilibrium along the narrowed way, now barely the width of its wheels. It tottered several times on the slopes, and it made me dizzy to see the men on the verge opposing to its weight their own, where a false step would have cast them below to be mangled among the stones of the rapid torrent. Another and worse obstacle waited us at the entrance of Gondo: for here the stream, which descended from the mountains, was still three feet deep, and its violence made the crossing it a work of danger; though with the aid of our friends we accomplished it, scrambling over piles of smooth rock and rolling stones, and through the water. The carriage was taken off its wheels, as no vehicle made with human fingers could have passed here; and the poor post-horses, who, no care bestowed on them, had hitherto picked their own way, could go no farther. We therefore proceeded alone to Gondo, a melancholy village of a few cabins and a chapel, and a strange building of eight stories, with barred windows, which I certainly should rather have supposed a prison than an inn belonging to the family of Stockalper. Could we have imagined that it boasted common accommodation, as Artaria assures it does, we should have remained there to pass the night, being wet and weary; but deceived as to its destination, we applied at an inn some steps farther, and after screaming at the entrance of the dark corridor till we had roused every cur in the neighbourhood, a solitary woman appeared, to say that this was not, as we had fancied, Isella; that she had neither bed for ourselves, nor food for our horses, and we must go on, and should do well to make haste as the evening was closing and there was a “cattivo passo.” Fortunately for us (our friends being no longer within call) at the frontier of the Valais and Italy, where on the left to mark it there is a humble chapel on the crag, and on the right poised above the torrent a colossal fragment of fallen rock, we found some good-natured douaniers, who assured us of the impossibility of passing Isella, and the difficulty of even arriving there, and offered to accompany us, a proposal we gladly accepted as the evening was growing dusk, and my hand was almost useless in leading Fanny over such ground as we had been treading.

At this place, between the frontier and Isella, on the 15th, the day of the storm, a carriage was passing under the torrents of rain, and the postilion, who, fortunately, was of the mountains and on his guard, walking at the heads of his horses, saw above, symptoms of the coming earth avalanche. He had time to shout to the travellers to descend and to cut the traces, when it came rushing down, the carriage was swept into the Doveria with its luggage, and instantly shattered to atoms: for the largest remnant rescued, a portion of the coach-box, was placed as a memento on a rock by the road-side, and is hardly longer or broader than a man’s hand.

Our difficulties had now seriously begun. Isella was in sight, but between it and us a space of the road for about two hundred yards had been swept away, leaving in its room piled rocks and masses of stone, which had been its foundation; a torrent, not very deep but furious in its rapidity, was boiling down, crossing these, and had already hollowed a bed athwart the ruin. The douaniers came up to assist as we stopped in dismay and discouragement. How the horses got over, and without fall or stumble, is to me a matter of wonder; they scrambled over the rocks and jumped down descents, and struggled through the water, and up the high mound of loose stones, which yielded beneath their hoofs, doing honour to their blood and race.

I had been so completely wet before that, but that the force of the stream was well nigh enough to lift me off my feet, I should have preferred it to the plank thrown over by some Samaritan.

At Isella, however, we were, passing the custom-house, which I had hoped might be the inn, being a building of decent exterior, to arrive at the most miserable auberge ever owned by even Italian masters: a wretched shed on one side for stable, the sharp air blowing in on our wet horses, no groom to dry them, and filth for a bed; straw so rare, that it was sold by the pound, at an inconceivable price. A poste of “carabinieri reali” joined the inn on the other side, and this was my consolation, for while D—— was watching our poor four-footed companions eat such hay and oats as this place afforded, with apparent satisfaction, I made my entry, mounting a ladder-like stair which several Italians were descending, one of whom held his candle in my face, as I passed him on my way to the kitchen, where I found (a red handkerchief tied above an assassination-looking face) a most furious Italian woman, distributing spirits, by the light of one tallow candle, to a band of lawless looking personages, who were shouting and swearing.

As nobody made way for me, I asked mine hostess for a room, to which she said, “Patienza;” and having assuaged the thirst of all her dark-faced customers, she set herself to stirring a caldron full of some ill-scented mixture on her hearth.

On my applying for attention once more, she said, with a toss of her head and spoon, that I must wait, as she had not time to mind me; and as I was really afraid of offending her, I took a seat, which a douanier who was smoking by the fire offered me by his side, and sate close to him, placing my confidence in his presence, and the vicinity of the carabinieri.

The turbulent party round my landlady continued to drink and to smoke till I could hardly see them through the cloud. As my courage rose and the atmosphere grew stifling, besides that I was weary of the Swiss Italian of my companion, I got up to see if, till D—— should have left his horses, I had, by passing through the open door, a chance of more humanized society, or at least of none. To my extreme pleasure, on the balcony I found an old French gentleman, with his son and grandson, who had arrived some hours before ourselves. They hailed the addition which we and the Americans, who were on their way, would make to their party, for the old man said they had stopped only because they could get no further, as he in his own person had doubts of his hostess, and thought it would be as well that we each should know the other’s sleeping apartment, to afford help reciprocally, “dans le cas,” he added, “que nous soyons assassinés!”

His son was complaining bitterly of an Italian vetturino, who, when on starting he agreed for a certain sum to conduct his passengers to Milan, already knew the state of the road, as the 13th and 14th the storm had been raging on the Italian side, though its greatest fury was on the 15th. Under the Kaltwasser glaciers a sudden gust of wind had overturned his carriage, absolutely on the verge of the tremendous precipice. The poor pale boy had shown great courage, and even the horses and carriage received no injury.

Arrived at the first impediment beyond the Simplon inn, the voiturier very truly asserted he could go no farther, but also insisted on his fare as far as Milan. The point had been referred for arbitration to a juge de paix, whose interference the French gentleman demanded, and the Italian consented to abide by; but when the former arrived in his presence, he found him washing dishes! He was an aubergiste, and unusually busy from the influx of travellers, brought by untrue accounts of the road, given as far as Vevay by postilions and innkeepers; of course he gave his verdict in favour of the vetturino.

D—— and the American gentlemen arrived together, the carriage of the latter left till morning at the other side of the broken road, between it and Isella, where it had been benighted, so that its imperials and portmanteaus were carried over in the dark to undergo the inspection of the douane. The landlady signified to me that it was now her pleasure to conduct me to my chamber, therefore with due docility I followed through the kitchen, where the troop drinking at the long table had been increased by those who aided in the transport of Mr. C——’s carriage, and up another break-neck flight, at the top of which was a closet with two beds, over a part of the before-named kitchen, therefore reaping the full benefit of its merriment, and disputes, and tobaccoed air.

She first informed me, that one bed only could be placed at my disposal, as other travellers might arrive; and when I objected to this arrangement, named with great coolness the price she, as monarch of the mountain, had assigned to it, it being her best apartment, chosen per respetto per me. I said very politely, being in awe of her, that I thought her terms high, adding in the most amiable tone I could assume, that I had seen turn back all the travellers now at the Simplon, and it was likely the inns would be ruined along the road, as its reparation would not be commenced till spring.

In reply to this, she said she had no time to listen to my conversation, and I had better make my mind up; adding, I suppose by way of aiding me in the effort, “E là il torrento; si prende o si lascia,”—“Take it or leave it, there is the torrent;” and as this was very true, I resigned myself, for there indeed was the torrent, roaring below like a wild beast before his fatal bound, and not only the torrent, but no bridge, it had been swept away, and there was none, barring a plank, as an Irishman would say, which had been flung slopingly across from rock to rock, high above the Doveria, as a communication between the inn and custom-house and the few hovels on the opposite shore, which formed the rest of the village of Isella.

There were no stars, and the faint lights which glimmered in a few of these cottages were all I could distinguish through the darkness, and the sound of the angry stream almost covered the noise of the company below. I asked my amiable companion for some hot water, wishing to neutralize the effect of the cold baths I had undergone to the ancle in the course of my day’s travel, to which she said, “A chè serve?” and that she could not attend to whims; and when my patience, long on the wane, deserted me, sent me some by her squinting brother, in a broken coffee cup, so that seeing the remedy I had meditated was not attainable, I drank it.

Our next suffering was supper, and here again we excited our hostess’s ire by ordering eggs in the shell, as the only incorruptible kind of food, instead of sharing the greasy liquid and nameless ragouts which it pleased her to serve up before our companions. Her ill-favoured brother waited on us, the old French gentleman asserting he looked like a wretch quite ready to murder when his sister should have robbed; an opinion which must have flattered him if he understood French, but it was decided he did not, though I thought he grew a shade more hideous during the physiognomical study. After regretting that all travelled without arms, and determining to try any pass in the morning rather than stay there, we retired to our apartments. To obviate the bad effects produced by the stifling size and dirt of ours, I tried to admit the air, but the casement was merely fixed in its place, and had no hinges, so that having deranged its economy, I had some trouble in restoring it and keeping it fast by help of the broken chair. To speak the truth, I had intended to lie awake till day, a design which I thought the noise and the bad bed rendered easy to accomplish, but fatigue was stronger than the resolution, and after a few moments I forgot that the door would not shut, lost the impression of resting my feet on ground which gave way under them, which had pursued me like the motion of a ship after a voyage, and slept far more soundly than I should have done in my own bed and home. The Princess Bacciochi occupied this same chamber two days before me—I pitied her.

We were on our uncleaned horses at seven, our kind hostess, with “a laughing devil in her sneer,” asserting she should see us again, and one or two of the carabiniers smiling confirmation of her hope of plunder. It was a cold misty morning, and we started without breakfast, there being nothing at the inn. I believe the beauty of the scenery was almost lost on us, yet Isella is beautifully situated, and the uniformity of crag and pine forest is broken by the brighter green of fruit trees as well as by masses of beech, which here clothe the mountain. The gallery of Isella, a few paces below the village, is picturesque in form as in situation, for it is rather a deep archway, and the jutting rock it traverses is supported by a gigantic and naturally formed column. Looking back, we could see Isella and our place of durance through the frame the dark rock made. A bend in the road the next moment concealed both, exhibiting an obstacle at our feet which seemed fatal to further progress. It was evident the Americans had passed, but they had no horses with them, and one of the thousand streams in which the melted glacier had descended to swell the Doveria had here brought down an avalanche of stones, and piled them to form its banks. The broken road before Isella, though of greater extent, was far less difficult of passage. D—— with his grey got first over, and one of the men, roused to good nature, advanced to hold her while he returned for Fanny; but I had half slipped, half jumped the descent in search of the best mode of bringing her without danger, and the little creature sprang lightly down after me as if she had been on her native turf. Grizzle was far less intelligent, and difficult to lead through the foaming water, but neither even stumbled. I got my first footpath, increasing the sensation of shivering, perhaps produced by starting in a mountain fog with fast unbroken.

We proceeded perhaps a hundred yards without obstacle, followed by several cantonniers, telling us we went in vain, and a sudden turn we again made proved it was indeed hopeless, showing not now the remnant of a road, but the place it had occupied, for not a vestige remained—it was difficult to believe it had been there. The length of this gap was about half a mile. The Doveria had partly changed her course, and left some distance from her opposite bank dry; and dashing against this with doubled violence, had formed a wild bay inclosed, opposite us, by a far advancing promontory, round whose foot the road had circled, but which now rose perpendicularly from the water; on this side, by the same road, broken like a branch, and between both swept angrily over the ruins, unwilling its trophy should prove its barrier.

Our American friends, whose carriage waited here, about to be carried over piece-meal, came up to consult with D——, and leaving the horses in my charge, they set forth together to inspect what might be done; for the cantonnier en chef offered to take his men there, and construct a path three feet wide, along which horses might be led before night: it was now near nine o’clock, we had already lost two hours.

I watched D—— (having taken his first plunge from the high ground we stood on to the water) scramble through the foam and rocks, clinging to, or climbing over them, here ten to twelve feet high, and keeping near as possible to shore on account of the depth and strong current, crawl up the precipice to a cottage which had been left unharmed, when the earth cracked and fell from around and under it. This, my companion the cantonnier said, was easy to accomplish; the difficulties were beyond, and, the path having traversed the jutting point, they were henceforth invisible. I sate on my horse employed in fancying their nature, till I again saw D—— returning by his inconvenient footway, poising himself on the slippery rocks, and arriving to my surprise without limbs broken. Some of the men had already gone to cut this path, which was to be widened ere nightfall, but D—— said it would be impossible to travel; even supposing there should be a space of three feet between the upright wall of earth and the precipice, which goes down to the Doveria, inasmuch as there was a rapid descent, and where it ceased, a sharp turn, so that a horse hurried down could scarcely fail to be precipitated into the torrent.

One of the ruined spaces we had already traversed, a German gentleman with his lady, and a guide leading her mule, had attempted to pass on the 18th, a day before ourselves. The animal slipped on the verge, and the guide, in his effort to save the lady, was dragged over also. Her body, for she was killed on the spot, was recovered and carried to Isella, that of the unfortunate man was swept away. This was a warning; we proposed to ford the torrent, thus circling round the base of the mountain where it was shallow, but the men, whose aid we demanded, treated the idea as madness, and refused positively, we therefore paid the cantonnier en chef for his trouble, and turned our horses’ heads towards the Simplon inn; for, discouraging as it was to seek again obstacles once surmounted, to do so seemed the one thing possible. As we turned, disconsolately thinking of the wearisome valley of the Rhone, and the long detour we must make by Geneva, a young officer of carabinieri, with whom we had been in conversation before, and a priest, came up to accost us. There was a way, he said, which might be just passable, over the Trasquiera, he had gone it once in search of deserters; but a guide to lead Fanny was indispensable, and none was to be had. Chance served us well, for as we were looking about with but faint hope of seeing one, (all the cantonniers being gone to their work a mile away, and no one walking there for pleasure,) came up a young man, to whom the kind priest immediately applied, asking him for what recompense he would accompany us across the mountain, and to Domo d’Ossola: he said seven francs, but that he did not know the way; and our embarrassments would have recommenced, but that the Paroco summoned his young brother, a pretty slight boy of twelve, who knew all the paths and precipices within five miles round. The Trasquiera almost hangs over Isella, and the zigzag path up its side commences from the broken road we had crossed after leaving the village that morning. Over this our poor horses were led again, and bidding good bye to the priest and officer, we commenced our ascent, the boy leading the way, Fanny climbing like a goat and pulling up the guide, who, having never touched a horse’s rein before, rather hung by it than was of service; D—— supporting Grizzle, who was very frightened and awkward, and I bringing up the rear, and though they were obliged to pause every ten steps for breath, often at a distance; as the weight of my habit encumbered me, and this path is not even used by mules, and by the country people rarely to drive their cattle to the pastures, as there is a better on the other side the mountain. For the first five minutes we went on trusting it would improve; after the first quarter of hour, because to turn became almost impossible, the track being at no part more than two feet broad, and winding in zigzags along the extreme verge above a torrent, which, though neither so broad nor deep as the Doveria, would, as Mercutio said, “serve,” and besides formed like an irregular stair of steps of stone two and three feet high, small and pointed, broad and smooth. I often used hands as well as feet, catching at rocks and roots. Poor Grizzle went sorely against her will; only the boy and Fanny, who were far a-head, seemed to enjoy it.

As the road grew steeper and I found I must have both hands free, I took off the skirt of my habit and laid it over the latter’s saddle, thinking at the time I never saw a prettier object than her little thorough bred form in the guise of a packhorse, but stepping on with a demeanour as dignified as if she had been at a review in the Champ de Mars. The path now became absolutely vertical, and the more difficult from its being over smooth loose ground. As we had dined lightly the day before and not breakfasted this, even on a cup of water, I have perhaps an excuse for the giddiness and fear produced by exhaustion, which took momentary possession of me, and certainly brought with them my only real danger, for worn out by the scorching heat and harassing walk, I felt unable to climb higher, too giddy to look back, and unable to sit down, as the ground from its excessive slope afforded no support, and I was afraid of slipping in a minute from the height I had passed three hours in attaining. I believe I was going to scream, but I thought better of it, and seized a pine branch and arrived at the stones and safer ground before D——, who had therefore left Grizzle to her fate, could arrive to help me. Here was the first chalet, but it was locked, left by its owners, who were gone to the high pastures, and we were disappointed in our hoped for draught of water. There was a spring, the boy said, half an hour’s walk farther, so we rested a few minutes and then went on patiently, though it was twelve o’clock and we were parched with thirst, and mountain air, renovating as it is, will not supply the place of all things. We were now in a tract of pine forest, and at its steepest part found our way barred by half a-dozen Italian woodcutters, who were felling the trees, one of which lay across our path. D—— said afterwards he expected a worse adventure here, for we had a large sum in gold about us, and the odds were in their favour, besides that the ground was of such nature, that a push would have been sufficient to settle matters without trouble. The Italians were, however, better than their countenances; they opened their dark eyes wider in wonder at the apparition of English horses there, but dragged aside the pine; and when I, who had struck my foot against some roots and could get no farther, called to them to give me “la mano,” good naturedly pulled me up, each consigning me to the broad black hand of his comrade, so that I arrived at the summit of the mound with more ease than accompanied my climbings heretofore. After this followed a few steps of what the guide denominated plain. The direction of our road had changed, and now too high above the unseen Doveria to hear its roar, we looked through vistas of pines to those of the mountains on its opposite bank, seeming a continuation of these forests without a symptom of the abyss between. We toiled on some time longer, D—— casting back at me looks of pity, and I trying to smile, though I should have been puzzled to say for what. We found too juniper berries and hips and haws, and shared them after the manner of the babes in the wood, but the delight was the spring, at which we arrived at last, trickling from a rock. D—— bent the top of his hat into a hollow, and out of this cup we drank, I do not know how many draughts, but certainly the best in our lives; for my own part the relief it afforded seemed to dispel all fatigue, and we went on merrily, though our path lay across the bed of a torrent, which, though hardly flowing, had still sufficient water to make slippery its smooth shelving stones, polished like marble by its passage.

The ascent continued, but it was no longer rapid, and half an hour brought us on the mountain pastures at the summit, and among the chalets. We saw nobody; the priest’s brother said it was not the hour for finding milk, so there was nothing to be done but to lie down on the short fine grass, irrigated by a hundred rills, and let the horses drink from them, and drink ourselves out of the palm of our hands. The guide murmured for the fiftieth time “paese del Diavolo,” and the boy laughed at me. Though he had knocked at one of these habitations and found no one, he was fortunately wrong as to the absence of all, and the wondrous sight we indeed constituted there, attracted some of the half wild mountain women, good looking and picturesquely attired with bright kerchiefs on their heads, and cloth leggings instead of stockings on their feet, coarse brown jackets and blue cloth petticoats with a deep crimson border.

The first who issued from the dwelling seeing the perseverance with which I drank out of my hand from the mountain stream, came smiling to offer a long ladle, which was an admirable substitute. An old woman seeing, I suppose, that I looked pale and faint, plunged her hand into a long pocket and drew forth two apples. We accepted them with great gratitude, and asked if we could get some milk; it really was not the hour, but several of the good natured creatures set forth different ways in search, and our first benefactress, who had left us for a moment, returned, this time her apron quite full of the small sweet apples, and with her half a dozen companions came close to watch us eat them, and say “povero” and “poverina” every minute. They asked the guide and the boy fifty questions without obtaining satisfactory answers, for they spoke a patois, which neither clearly comprehended. For my own part, Giuseppe’s Swiss Italian was bad enough; the boy spoke purely, for he was from the shores of the Lago Maggiore, but of this not a word in ten was intelligible to me. I understood, however, that the horses were even more than ourselves the objects of their curiosity. Their admiration was unwearied; they walked round them and clapped their hands, and laughed to see them eat and drink, repeating some of the few Italian words they knew, “Oh la bella bestia, la bella bestia,” and that they had never seen a horse before. How far this is possible to people, who, though on a mountain, are but three hours removed from the most frequented road in Europe, I leave you to decide. The guide confirmed it; the women, he said, were employed all the summer on the pastures and in making cheese, which the men carried for sale below, and in the season when the snows fell, which at this height happens early, they spun their own wool and lived inclosed in their mountain village. Certainly the men were less primitive in their manners than the women, and also less prepossessing in appearance. Several, when the females gone in search of milk returned, came in their company inspecting us with less merriment but more attention. We began to think it would be unwise to be benighted on the mountain, and paying the good women for our breakfast in a way they thought splendid, I mounted Fanny for the five minutes during which the plain lasted, and was hardly on her back, when she thought proper to leap a stream, through which I should have preferred her walking quietly. Whether or no the mountain women had ever seen a horse before, I doubt they will ever see one leap that rivulet again. At the next we reached, for they are innumerable, Grizzle, whom D—— was still leading, following her comrade’s example, but as usual in the wrong place, jumped it with great energy, knocking her master down.

A bad path and steep ascent led hence to another meadow, where Grizzle was in jeopardy, for her saddle, valise, and all, turning, she was so frightened as to start away from D——, who had quitted her bridle to arrange them, and towards the bushes on the verge, where she would have rolled over, for the meadow was a mere platform, with precipices all round it. We saved her by an appeal to her greediness: she stopped short to eat the clover I gathered for the purpose. Met here an old man, who asked the guide whence we came, and said, in reply, “Non scenderanno mai,” which was encouraging. Continuing to ascend, we were on the summit in half an hour more, in presence of the miserable village and desert inn. No one is there save on fête days, the boy said. We sate under the shed which is its appurtenance, on the stone seat which surrounds the stone table. A few steps further, on the mountain’s very verge, is the small church, painted and ornamented, and here the priest’s brother left us, delighted with his fee, as the descent began at this spot, whence the mule-path winds to the valley. For a few minutes it appeared more promising, but for a few minutes only, for though cut in broader zigzags and its precipices less appalling, it was still but four feet wide, and its steep steps of loose stone made Grizzle groan with fear as she slipped down them, her head in the air, and her feet thrown forward most helplessly. It would have been impossible to lead her, but that Fanny was first, hurrying gaily forward, and picking her steps like a mule,—the guide said, “Va d’incanto.” The rain had commenced falling as we passed the church, a circumstance we were too busy to notice: it was at all events preferable to the overpowering sun, whose heat we had suffered. Arrived at the bottom, under the shelter of some noble chestnut trees, an improvement after brushwood and barrenness, there is a hamlet under the wall of rock, and before it and us, the Querasca, which joined the Doveria a stone’s throw further. Our guide had sought this spot for the sake of its wooden bridge, left unharmed when the storm swept away that of stone.

Arrived at the torrent’s edge, and looking about in vain, he asked a peasant girl to conduct him thither, but it had disappeared also, carried down the current the day after its comrade. Giuseppe never despaired—we had done so during this expedition twenty times over,—but all he said was “Adesso vedremo;” and now, the wooden bridge being wholly invisible, we went on to the high road opposite the ruin of the other and the avalanche of stones occupying the place of a farm which had been carried away, and stood under the pouring rain on the brink of the torrent, which this time had changed its course in its fury, leaving the one arch which remained standing an island. Giuseppe said the same thing. With the calm blue eye of a northern, he was in all things a contrast to the Italians we had met hitherto; for his courage was always quiet and ready, and he never tried to enhance his services, and in the most difficult moments looked round with an encouraging smile on his good-natured face. If ever I pass through Crevola again, I will look for Giuseppe Sala. On our side the gulf, and on the commencement of the vanished bridge, were standing about a dozen Italians, not at work, but in contemplation; and Giuseppe, brave fellow as he was, after looking a moment at the turbid water, intimated his intention of fording it. We desired him to employ one or two of these to assist him in crossing. The ill-looking idlers came crowding round in consequence, talking fast and loud; “they did increase the storm,” but insisted on it, that if one were hired all must be, and Giuseppe gently said, “Io solo,” and walked into the water with Fanny. The torrent was broad, and, though not more than four feet deep, fearfully rapid, and only by clinging to her he got safe over, though not without extremely alarming us, for in its very centre, where it rushed most furiously among the masses of stone, she stopped to drink, and we almost expected to see both swept away. As they turned the opposite point of land, we lost sight of them, but were soon reassured by Fanny’s violent screamings for her comrade, and the sight of Giuseppe, very wet and triumphant, running back to us along the pine trunk flung from the high ground to the shore. He had less trouble with Grizzle, for it had become impossible to hold her, and in her impatience to join her comrade, she rushed through rocks and water, dragging him along without any effort of his own. Our turn was now come, and we were to cross the pine trunk, which, considered an easy comfortable bridge in the mountains, made me giddy to look at. I believe we both would have preferred the water, but necessity makes the head steady, and shame prevented our hesitation, for an old woman crossed it before us, composedly, as if it had been a meadow, with a pile of faggots on her back for ballast, and her bare feet clinging to the asperities of the bark, wherein she had an advantage over us. I called to her from the other side to hold out her hand, but the poor soul returned the whole length and then walked it backwards, leading and nodding to me, with the stream flowing ten feet below, and when I wanted to pay her, ran away and over it once more. D—— arrived, marshalled by a boy, and we found the horses waiting: Fanny held by a youth, who complained of having lost in the water, which he had not entered, shoes never made for him. The rain had fallen during two hours without interruption, and now gave place to scorching sun once more. Ere we rode on, we looked up at the little church on the summit of the Trasquiera, in wonder that our horses had been there, but our hour of tranquillity was not yet come, and a very short distance brought us to an obstacle impassable as at Isella, and resembling it closely, for there was picturesque confusion in place of the road, of which no vestige remained, and a tongue of high land, round which foamed the Doveria. Here, however, Giuseppe knew his road, and led among vineyards, by ways we should have thought steep and bad at other times, to a picturesque village—it must have been Dovedro—and thence across the dry bed of a stream, and under long arcades of the trellised vine. Giuseppe gathered grapes for us, for which (in poetical justice) we paid a woman carrying a sickly child, to whom they did not belong.

Further on our way, for we made a round of a mile, Giuseppe and the horses fording another tributary torrent, and ourselves passing it partly on a plank, partly by wading through, we arrived at and kept the high road, crossing breaks innumerable—none so important as to force us aside, though elsewhere I would have ridden twenty miles to avoid one of them.

The last gallery was that of Crevola, cut for the length of one hundred and seventy feet, in a straight line, through the solid rock. The scenery had lost its naked horror, and grown beautiful as well as grand; trees fringing, far below the road, the banks of the deep torrent; and, as we ascended the hill, we passed on our right hand, prostrate on our way, and expressive in its silence, a broken column, once on its road to be a monument of Napoleon’s glory. From the summit of this hill we had a noble view of the high bridge of Crevola, over which we were to pass, and to which the road descends gradually; its two arches rest on a pillar one hundred feet high, and beneath them the Doveria utters its dying roar, and spends its last fury in its encounter with the Tosa.

Having crossed this bridge, we were out of the Val Doveria and in that of the Tosa, trellised vineyards covering the slopes to the right, the broad river flowing along its centre, and on the left, gentler mountains, with green woods dotted with villas, and the high white campanile rising each above its village. Still, after the descriptions I have read of this valley, its aspect disappointed me. It was a relief from contrast certainly, to ride along a level, and unaccompanied by the roar of the torrent, and our previous fatigue might perhaps indispose us to admire what beauty it really possesses, or it might be saddened by the mists of that dull evening. To me it had a look of desolation, for the Tosa, which had swollen and now shrunk again, had left a broad track of sand and stone through the ravaged meadows; and a short distance from Domo we found a sign and token of its power, for the fine stone bridge was carried away, and, for the convenience of foot-passengers, a plank, sloping considerably, had been laid from the high remnant, on the one side, to the ground, where there was no vestige, on the other. On the right of this ci-devant bridge, the ravaged space extended wide and far, the river still flowing in its centre. Giuseppe said, “Adesso vedremo,” and ran down to seek a fitting place for crossing with the horses, for it seemed, to the left of the bridge, so deep and broad as to give little hope of finding a ford. An Italian lady and gentleman had, however, driven from Crevola before us, I suppose to see the state of the route, and good-naturedly recalled our guide, saying, the only possible place was there. The sun had long been set, and the brief twilight was fading also, so that we had no time to lose. Giuseppe went in without hesitation, this time above the waist. I watched him in fear, for though there were now no rocks in his way, the strength of the current was such as, but for clinging to the horses, he could not have mastered. This was our last impediment, and we arrived at dark at Domo d’Ossola; it was well for our vanity that we made our entry then, D——’s hat, which had served, as I told you, for tea-cup, and my tattered boots and muddy habit, looking unlike the garb of conquerors such as we considered ourselves to be. Giuseppe took leave of us in the yard of la Posta. I had asked him to conduct us to the best hotel, to which he said, “Son tutti ladri, ma è questo un buon ladro.” He had not thought of increasing his demand, and looked surprised at receiving gold and a supper. The horses had a good stable and wondrous appetite, Fanny rolling ever and anon, and recommencing with fresh energy.

A knock at the door of our apartment announced our amiable American friends (whose carriage had been carried over), come to congratulate us on our safety. Our dinner was served about ten, and very acceptable as the first meal during the day. We shall remain a day or two, for the inn is comfortable and, as the hand-book observes, clean as Italian hotels usually are. I should prefer bright rubbed floors to the matting which covers these, and seems seldom or never swept, but the cabin at Isella is a good foil for all that may follow.

21st September.

Rain from dawn to sunset, and now a terrific thunder-storm, more disconsolate travellers arrived on foot or in chaises à porteurs; carriages left perforce at the Simplon.

22nd.

Prince William of Prussia, the king’s second son, just now driven into the yard with his princess, and in a cart; they slept last night at Isella. They have been in an amusing dilemma; for by some mistake he had no passport, and was in consequence about to be detained, as he is travelling incognito, when being a remarkable looking soldier-like man, he was recognized by one of the authorities. We were agreeably surprised by the apparition of our comrade of the Simmenthal, who has just been to Bex, hoping to find a battle there, and as the Valaisans are more talkative than terrible, and he heard the Simplon road was broken, came on to see its damages, and good naturedly to look for us here. Our friend Mr. H—— and his family are at the Simplon waiting till the road shall be so far repaired as to render the carrying over of their heavy carriages possible; we hope to meet them at Florence.

Mr. D—— went to visit Fanny, and after an hour’s stay, started to walk back to the inn on the Simplon.

CHAPTER V.

Vogogna—Country overflowed—The ferry—Isola Madre—Baveno—Innkeeper—Isola Bella—Ground made in 1670—Arona—Castle of St. Charles of Borromeo—Castle of Angera—Frescoes in its ruined halls—History of St. Charles of Borromeo—Early habits—Resides in his diocese at Milan—Strives to reform the church—Attempt to murder him—A miracle—His conduct during the plague—Life of St. Anthony—Who cured the young pig—St. Christopher, who was twelve feet high—The Ticino—Amusement on board the ferry—The commissary—Sesto Calende—A charge—Somma and Julius Cæsar’s cypress—Castle of the Visconti—Birthplace of Teobaldo—Elected Pope when in the Holy Land with Edward the First of England—Otho Visconti founder of his family’s grandeur—Gallerate—A threatened beating—The Lord’s Supper on the auberge wall—The robber’s seven towers—Battle between the Visconti—Unwarranted preference shown by a ghost—Murder in the castle at Milan—The murderer poisoned by his wife—Rhò—Milan.

Milan, 25th September.

Once more not “upon the waters” but on the road, though indeed I need not have changed the quotation, since at Vogogna there is no bridge. Leaving Domo, the road runs in a straight and even line along the valley and between the wooded mountains, the Simplon and its snow closing the glen behind us. The vine, so unsightly in France, here confers great beauty, rising from the road in terraces of shady arbours, or winding its flexible branches round cherry-tree and thorn, the long untrained tendrils waving gracefully, and the rich bunches hung heavily down. We passed, ere we reached Vogogna, which is six miles from Domo d’Ossola, several tracts of land ruined by the late overflow; meadows covered with mud, and Indian corn decaying on the stalk. “Ha tutto rovinato,” said a poor woman, who was mournfully gazing at her field of rotting corn. Arrived at Vogogna, the ferry-boat was on the opposite side, and on ours, waiting to be transported thither, were troops of horned cattle lying on the sand, and an English carriage. Seeing there was small chance of speedy removal, as we could distinguish on the other side a most obstinate cow, who was first to be deposited on ours, we dismounted to sit patiently on the crags scattered about us, left probably by the Anza, which joins the Tosa, here rushing down through the valley of Anzasca, whose opening lay behind us, and from its source in the glaciers of Monte Rosa. The stonework, whence sprung the bridge which once transported travellers to Vogogna, remains on each side the river, but the bridge carried away in 1834, Italian indolence leaves unreplaced; substituting the worst of ferry-boats, small and without barriers. The English gentleman, the inhabitant of the carriage, had got out with his daughter, and come near to admire Fanny and kindly yield his turn to us. Our horses started at their unusual conveyance when led on board, particularly mine, who we feared would spring into the water, but our good natured countryman insisting on lending his assistance, the difficulty seemed surmounted, till we found that the two boatmen, who had contentedly ferried across one cow, were now preparing to drive six oxen on board, an addition which, from the size of the boat, if it did not frighten, was likely to force our horses over. We fortunately comprehended that there was an alternative, and having before paid the fare, gave three times the sum for buona mano, and were allowed to cross without them.

This had been a long delay, and to redeem lost time we cantered along, leaving behind vines and wood and much of the road’s beauty, substituting marsh and bare mountain. Arrived at Fariolo we found compensation, for it is the first village on the lake border, and the lake, blue and glassy, soothing in its calm and silence, was beautiful beyond description. There is here an inn which appears a good one, and had been recommended to us by the master of that of Domo, but the stage would have been too short.

The first visible of the Borromean islands is the green and lovely Isola Madre, backed by bold mountains, opening and receding to admit the lake which stretches between them, completing its length of fifty-four miles, for the portion along which we were riding forms its west arm only; broken crags and wooded promontories, crowned by church, convent, and castle, bounded the shore opposite and parallel to our broad road carried under cliffs and green hills, their abrupt sides covered with graceful vineyards, and their summit shaded by luxuriant oak and sweet chestnut. We were disturbed in our admiration only by swarms of flies, which made our horses kick violently; I personally, by a half fear of the bright water, along whose edge this noble causeway has been made, sometimes rising many feet above its level, and here, as at the Simplon, the only obstacle between it and my starting little steed, low granite posts unconnected and far apart. We passed the quarries of pink granite which take so high a polish, and arrived at Baveno, but it was early still, and the innkeeper has at present a character for being both dear and insolent, while his house has one for dirt; it is a pity, for it is well situated, with only the road and some fine trees between it and the lake. This is the person, who, having fleeced unmercifully an English party we met at Vevay, said in reply to a remonstrance, “What the prices of Milan, or of any other place may be, I never inquire; these are mine!” so having walked our horses towards the inn whence this dignitary had issued at our approach with a self-satisfied air and two waiters, we cantered by, though the Monte Monterone rises behind the village, commanding from its summit a view of the Lago de Orta on one side, and of the Lago Maggiore on the other; we were yet too fresh from a mountain pass to desire a second. I more regretted wanting time to visit the Isola Bella, distant but a twenty-five minutes’ row from this spot, but it looks perhaps to more advantage seen from the shore, its ten amphitheatrical terraces rising green and glowing with its orange and citron forests from the bosom of the blue water; and the lake supporting it gently, and smiling to reflect it, as if it were proud of its presence, and bare its exotic carefully. On the northern side of the island, that nearest Baveno, the still unfinished palace rises abruptly from the lake, as do the inn and a few poor dwellings almost by its side. Beyond them is a grove of laurel and myrtle and the hardier shrubs, this exposition not being favourable to all, for the terraced gardens have a southerly aspect, and it is there that the aloes and camphor tree and cactus grow, with the Alps looking down on them, as if in their own tropical soil. This was a barren slate rock. Here, as well as on the other islands, naked crags also, was the now fruitful earth transported by human labour in 1670, by order of Count Vitaliano Borromeo, whose descendant still makes the palace his summer residence. Perhaps the hand of art is too visible, and the Isola Bella less striking from its individual beauty than its glorious position; but if not deserving the exaggerated praise of some, it still less merits the contempt of others. I prefer indeed the Isola Madre; for its forest of laurel, cypress and gigantic pine, though planted on a made soil also, grows in the wild beauty of nature, sheltering exotic birds, which live and multiply in freedom, and the plants of southern climes flourishing in the open air.

We could distinguish the Isolino, the smallest of these islands, nestling under the promontory of Pallanza. The Isola Pescatore lies near the Isola Bella, like the beggar at the rich man’s gate, covered with the dirty hovels of the fishermen, and without a green leaf to enliven it. We rode on, viewing them only from the shore, though on the Isola Bella is the bay-tree bearing the word Battaglia, carved by Napoleon’s knife shortly before the battle of Marengo. The road continued to skirt the lake, raised high above its waters, crossing a fine bridge over a torrent, and passing through Stresa, where boats may be hired to visit the islands, and Belgirate with its villas and terraces of flowers. The sun set as we rode through the last, and though the cool evening air was a relief, and the Swiss lakes sink into mediocrity beside the beauty of this, the loneliness of the road caused by the broken Simplon made me anxious to arrive ere nightfall; but the distance at which we saw Arona, built at the promontory’s foot, and the long curve of the road to arrive there, soon proved that this was impossible, though, at the first glimpse, the extreme clearness of the atmosphere deceives as to space. I was glad, as the sky darkened, to meet custom-house officers on the look out for smugglers. Pleasure-boats and fishing-smacks were silently moving along the water, wanting the neatness and gaiety of those of Geneva, but manned by most picturesque forms. My first impression of Italian beauty was a favourable one, for from Domo d’Ossola to Arona I hardly saw one peasant not handsome. Arona is picturesquely situated, the spire of its church towering high above the old houses which descend to the water’s edge, and the whitening remains of the ruined castle in which St. Charles of Borromeo was born covering the tall crag which commands the town. On the summit of the hill, ere arriving at Arona, we could distinguish St. Charles’s statue looking black against the glowing sky, but having little effect at that distance, though it is sixty-six feet in height, and its pedestal forty-four; neither did I think the attitude good; one hand holds a breviary, the other is extended to bless the place of his birth, but the arm seems cramped. It had become quite dark, and the road rather unsafe, for it is narrower and higher above the lake. The full moon was rising slowly from behind the hill of Angera opposite us, showing herself above the ruined castle which surmounts it, and resting on its towers like a glory. The castle and village once belonged to the dukes of Milan, and in the deserted halls are still some fresco paintings, commemorating events of the life of Archbishop Otho Visconti. There was just sufficient cloud in the sky to make its blue seem more bright and pure, and the reflection of the moon which crossed the lake to our feet danced so dazzlingly that the eye pained to watch it. We had some trouble in forcing the horses past a lime-kiln. The strong light flung across the road mingling with the moonbeam, and falling on the fine dark faces of the Italians who stood near; the ruin and that sky and water, made a picture for Vernet. I dare say we shall never forget the moon rising over the Lago Maggiore. We found our way to the inn with difficulty, through narrow streets of lofty houses, into which the moonlight could not penetrate; and as Arona boasts no lamps, would have been wholly dark but for the lights glimmering from the windows to make their crookedness visible.

La Posta is clean, its owners civil, and dinners good, but the nakedness of Italian rooms is melancholy. In France, even in an humble inn, you will find the mirror over the chimney, with the clock and vases of gaudy flowers to decorate it, and a comfortable chair, and curtains to bed and window; but here the iron bedstead has none, the chimney has no looking-glass, one or two upright straw chairs and a deal table only on the dirty brick floor; and looking from the furniture to the plastered walls, it is difficult not to fancy oneself either in the cell of a prison or the ward of an hospital. I must say in La Posta’s favour, that all the apartments to the lake, which are the best, were already occupied when we arrived, so that having dined and passed half an hour at the window of the corridor behind our rooms, looking out on its beauty, I proceeded to my deal table and the contemplation of the Life of San Carlo Borromeo. Pursuing my old habit of borrowing a book to summon sleep, I am likely to read through a strange library. The colossal statue is but half an hour’s walk from the inn: the head, hands, and feet only, are of bronze, the drapery composed of sheets of beaten copper, supported within by a species of stone pyramid, crossed by bars of iron, which defend it from the violence of the winds. It is possible to clamber up in the dark, making these serve for ladder, first entering by an aperture between the folds of the robe; but as the promenade would be impossible for a lady, and the temptation to sit in the saint’s nose was not strong enough to attract D——, we neither made a pilgrimage to his shrine, contenting ourselves with his history.

Know then that he was born in 1538, in that ruined castle on the crag, the mild child of pious parents, enthusiastic from his infancy, passing his hours of recreation in the castle chapel, alone and in prayer—when taken from a life of contemplation, which might have weakened his intellects, studying with none of the relaxations of his age at Pavia and Milan—at twelve years old provided with a rich abbey, whose possession was hereditary in his family; and soon after, the Cardinal De’ Medici, his uncle, becoming Pope Pius the Fourth, he ceded to him a second and a priory. His elder brother dying in 1562, and his family in consequence beseeching him to abandon the profession to which he was yet unbound, and marry for the sake of his ancient line, to extinguish at once their hopes of his doing so, he entered into holy orders and was ordained bishop. It is strange that, before this and his brother’s death, he wore the purple as cardinal at the age of three-and-twenty; occupied divers posts of importance; taking part in the temporal government of the pope’s states as well as in the affairs of the church, protecting letters, and establishing an academy at the Vatican. His biographer says he communicated to Pius the Fourth, infirm and feeble, the energy so needful to him; gave the impulse wanting to the deliberation of the Council of Trent, and prosecuted the reform of the catholic church, so necessary in his time. At the Roman court he had lived in splendour, but obtaining in 1565 the papal permission to reside in his diocese, he practised in his own house a reform and austerity unlikely to find imitators. He condemned himself to perpetual abstinence and long fasts; gave up his other benefices, and resigned his inheritance to his family; divided the revenues of his archbishopric into three portions—the first for the poor, the second for the wants of the church, the third for his own, and of the employment of this last rendered up a strict account in his provincial councils.

Having found the diocese of Milan in a most deplorable state from the negligence, ignorance, and scandalous conduct of the clergy, he so toiled to produce a better state of things that, despite his patience and charity, his enemies among the religious orders, which had shaken off all subordination, were virulent; and many and foremost of these, as it had hitherto been most shameless and irregular, was that of the “Umiliati.” One day, during mass, while the prelate prayed with his whole household in his archiepiscopal chapel, and at the moment that the anthem “Non turbetur cor,” &c., was commenced, a brother of the order, named Farina, who had taken his post, seemingly in prayer also, at the entrance of the chapel, but five or six paces distant from St. Charles, who was kneeling before the altar, fired his harquebuss at him. The chant ceased, the consternation was general, but the saint, notwithstanding that he believed himself mortally wounded, made a sign that the service should continue. Rising up when the prayer was done, the ball, which had deposited itself in his robe, fell at his feet!!! The assassin, and three monks, his accomplices, were punished with death, though against St. Charles’s will; and their order, which had existed from the eleventh century, was abolished by a bull of Pope Pius the Fifth, and the archbishop employed its confiscated revenues in founding colleges and hospitals. The event which best proves him worthy of his reputation was the breaking out of the plague at Milan. He had been on a visit to a distant part of his diocese, and on the receipt of the fatal news, notwithstanding the advice of his council, he hurried back, and during the six months through which it lasted, sought fearlessly contagion where it existed in greatest violence, administered the sacraments in person, kneeled by the bedside of the dying, weeping over their sufferings; and to provide at least for their temporal wants, parted with all the relics of his former splendour. He did not fall a victim, but his strength insensibly gave way, and when the scourge had passed by, and the archbishop had resumed his pastoral visits, a low fever, which undermined his worn-out constitution, obliged him to return to Milan, where he died, aged forty-six years. He had chosen for sepulchre a vault near the choir in the cathedral of Milan, and here his modern biographer observes that the numberless miracles performed by his remains forced Pope Paul the Fifth, in 1610, to verify his title to canonization, and authorize the prayers long before addressed to him by the faithful.

With the life of San Carlo our host had lent another volume from his stores, perhaps from our curiosity concerning his native saint, thinking us on the road to conversion, and that it was right to light our way by a few miracles more. The volume proved one of the renowned “Golden Legends of Saints,” compiled by the Dominican Voragine, archbishop of Genoa in the year 1298. Between asleep and awake, I read the lives of saints Anthony and Christopher, and found that St. Anthony, having been tempted on the seven mortal sins, and beaten by the demons angry at their failure, tamed a lion about to devour his monks, and obliged him to take service in the convent as lay brother! that he then went to the court of Barcelona, where a sow brought to him in her mouth one of her litter, born without feet or eyes, and, laying it down before the saint, pulled him by the robe imploringly,—as much as to say, “Pray bless it and cure it,” which St. Anthony did, and is therefore represented in company of a young pig, as this one for the remainder of his life never left him.

Saint Christopher had a hideous countenance, and was twelve feet high. Being strong and brave he was calculated to serve some great prince, and resolved on selecting for master the most powerful. He offered himself to a mighty king, fought and conquered for him; but Christopher had a bad habit of swearing, and he noticed that his majesty made at every oath the sign of the cross, and asked him why he did so. The monarch replied, he was afraid of the devil. “If that be the case,” thought Christopher, “the devil must be a more powerful master, therefore I will serve the devil.” Having formed this determination, he set forth to a desert, and there found a knightly company, one of whom, most terrible of aspect, asked him what he wanted. “I am looking,” said Christopher, “for my lord the devil.” “I am he,” answered the knight; and Christopher, very joyous, became his servant. But one day, passing before a cross, he observed that the devil trembled, and he asked him why. The devil confessed it was because the Saviour was more mighty than him.

Christopher, in consequence, left his service, but this time was embarrassed as to that he was henceforth to perform. He applied for advice to a hermit, who desired him to fast; but Christopher, being twelve feet high, did not approve of the counsel, and the hermit desired him to take up his abode on the shores of a very rapid river, and carry over for charity those who had business on the other side. This Christopher, now on the way to be a saint, performed for some time; and one day, sleeping in his hut, he was wakened by a child’s voice, which said, “Christopher, come forth and bear me over;” and going as he was called, he found a young child on the shore, who begged he would lift him on his shoulders. St. Christopher took his staff and entered the river, and the river rose by degrees more and more, and the weight of the child increased till it became insupportable, and yet Christopher, though about to drown, did not let go, and by dint of struggling arrived on the beach, and said, “Child, that art so weighty, who art thou?” and the child answered, “Do not marvel, for you have carried the whole world and him who created it.”

Christopher understood that he had borne the Lord on his shoulders, and became a great saint. At last, desiring martyrdom, he allowed himself to be bound and carried before a pagan monarch, and when the latter insulted him, he said he was bound because it was his will to be so, and that if he chose, he could ravage his city still. His majesty defying him to do so, he broke his bonds, destroyed all the pagan temples, then allowed himself to be bound once more, and his head cut off,—predicting that his blood would be a sovereign balm for all maladies, which it proved; for the king and executioners were struck with blindness, and bathing their eyes in his blood, saw and were well again.

September 26th.

Left Arona for Milan, a beautiful morning. We followed the lake, though no longer near its edge, but the road winding through a grove of fine chestnut-trees, and the blue water seen through the vistas made by their branches. Arrived at its extremity, at the turn of the road we quitted its shore, crossing the plain which here bounds it; with the view of its bright expanse, (Arona with its ruin, and Angera opposite,) now on our left, and behind us the splendid ridge of Monterosa. We rode along the flat till we entered a stunted oak wood, and issuing from it, were about to leave the Piedmontese frontier, and cross the Ticino (which at this spot issues from the lake), to Sesto Calende. The douaniers came to demand the passport, and retiring withal, spent half an hour in its examination, during which time we sate on our horses, looking at the lake, and the ferry, improperly called Pont Volant, approaching most leisurely—stared at ourselves by a dozen women, who pressed round us, some veiled by the elegant mantilla, and the poorer wearing the silver or pewter ornaments, ranged round the back of the head, which, being hollow and of the exact shape, look like a crown of spoons; all with the handsome faces and most undaunted dark eyes peculiar to their nation, and here I think also to their sex; for the men have an expression of effeminacy and the females of hardihood.

The passport returned and the flying bridge arrived, we led our horses on board, during which operation Fanny in gratitude pulled me off the plank into a foot and a half of water. The ferry-boat, unlike the last, was a barge, and had barriers; and during the crossing, which occupied three quarters of an hour, a stone-deaf man beat the flies off, and a blind one played the violin, and sang far from badly. They are friends, and find companionship convenient, each supplying to the other the sense wanting. They divided most amicably the money we gave them, and having paid our fare, and the buona mano, and then something more, under what pretext I forget, we landed through the water again, and now in Austria’s dominions. A soldier desired me to follow to the commissary, while D—— remained with the horses: so, obeying the mandate, I found him lodged at the end of a dirty street and top of a dark stair. He asked me fifty questions quite irrelevant, fidgeted exceedingly, because D——’s description was not down in the passport, and at last, Oh, Wisdom! desired me to dictate one, which he wrote down, and being “Middle height, grey eyes,” and otherwise as explicit, would suit four-fifths of her majesty’s subjects. He then made me a polite bow, said there was nothing to pay, and we went on again.

Sesto Calende and its environs enjoy a very indifferent reputation. I can say nothing of the honesty of its inhabitants, but a great deal of their incivility. Walking our horses through the town, the boys hooted us as usual, but arrived at the outskirts, they were joined and augmented by youths and men, till there were about thirty of these last following at a few paces behind us, and shouting with the whole force of their lungs. We bore it till it became insupportable, and at last turned the horses, who were excited by the noise, and fretting at being insulted, and I think perfectly understood they were to scatter the enemy, for they darted on them at full speed; Fanny, in particular, very warlike, with her small ears laid back, and her heels thrown up to make way. The road was clear in a second, and when our charge was executed and we quietly walked on, I suppose they returned to the town, as no one followed us farther. Between Sesto and Somma we crossed wild tracts of melancholy moor, and here and there a stunted copse. At Somma is the ancient and superb cypress tree, averred to have been a sapling in Julius Cæsar’s time, and certainly measuring twenty feet round its stem, and a hundred and twenty in height. For the sake of its green old age the road diverged from the straight line by Napoleon’s order. We passed on our right, and within the village, a castle belonging to the Visconti family, in which was born Teobaldo, who was archdeacon of Liege, and elected pope in 1271, when absent in the Holy Land in company of Edward the First of England, then Prince of Wales. When the news of his promotion reached him, he ascended the pulpit and pronounced a brilliant discourse, taking for text the two verses of the 137th Psalm:—

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! may my right hand forget her cunning.”

“If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Arrived in Italy, Teobaldo, become Gregory the Tenth, exerted himself to promote a crusade, and to accomplish his end commenced by striving to reconcile Guelphs with Ghibellines, and to pacify Italy. It was he who first made the law, after his death revoked, and then again put in force, inclosing the cardinals in conclave after the decease of a pope, till they should have elected his successor, to prevent the papal chair from again remaining vacant through their tardiness, as it had done before his accession, two years and nine months. The founder of his family’s grandeur was Otho Visconti, born in 1208, created archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban the Fourth, in opposition to the La Torre, then chief of the Republic; but after long wars and various fortune, presented with the perpetual lordship of the Milanese territory by the people, weary of the cruelty and exertions of his descendant Napoleon, and profiting by his defeat to free themselves from the yoke of his family, substituting in its place that of the Visconti, whose sovereignty (with one brief interval) was destined to flourish during nearly two hundred years.

At Somma and Gallerate, which is the next town on our way, have been found many Roman antiquities, inscriptions, and medals, and also arms: for near Somma was fought the first great battle between Hannibal and Scipio, in which the latter was defeated; and previously that of Marcellus against the Insubrians. Gallerate takes its name, say the antiquarians, from the legion Gallerata, encamped there under the command of the consuls Marcellus and Cornelius. Beyond these we were in the vine and corn country; for the first is trained to climb the trees, oak or elm, planted in avenues for the purpose, dropping from one to the other in deep festoons,—a mode of cultivation which seems wise as well as ornamental, as it leaves a much larger portion of ground free for other produce. The plain is here bounded by no mountains, and the country interesting only as the vintage had begun; and the peasantry, proceeding to or returning from it, reproducing at every step the beautiful picture in the Louvre by Robert, who died so early and unhappily: the oxen drawing slowly along the heavy car, with its barrel laden with grapes; the men with red handkerchiefs tied round their black hair, and male and female with legs bare and bronzed by the climate, but with heads of surpassing beauty. I particularly noticed one girl who had the fair hair and dark eyes, so seldom united, and the very perfection of Grecian form: that French artists should reap benefit in studying such features beneath such skies is not extraordinary. We found little or no shade, for the road was bordered only by low hedges of acacia, now in flower, and our horses missed the bright streams and stone reservoirs by the road-side in Switzerland, and impatiently sought muddy water in ditches not yet dried since the rains. Suffering from thirst ourselves, D—— hailed some of the vintagers, and they brought us a quantity of grapes, to which those of France bear no comparison. Fanny turned her head to ask and receive her share, and in gratitude walked on with unusual gentleness, though with the reins on her neck, as I feared to drop any part of my burden. We passed henceforth through a succession of villages, boasting most savage inhabitants, exciting the wrath of D——, lately accustomed to the more civilized Swiss of the German cantons. Before one auberge stood a half drunken crowd, one of whom, as we went slowly by, seized a long pole to rush on me withal, and was with difficulty held back by two of his comrades; the rest laughed; and I, who had no expectation of an attack, (not thinking a lady’s habit would wake such animosity,) as mine enemy struggled hard, and I did not know how the contest might end, thought proper not to wait to see, and we rode away. I dislike their country churches,—begun with overweening pomp and left unfinished when the funds have failed—their domes and pillared façades unsuited to their situation among trees and cabins, and far less picturesque than those of Switzerland built on their green or craggy mounds, with pointed windows and spires of grey stone. We passed crosses innumerable, many bearing, in lieu of the Saviour’s figure, the sponge, nails, and spear, carved in wood; and small cemeteries, the recesses of the low walls which inclose them, gaudily painted in fresco with saints and martyrs. On a wall of a miserable inn near Milan, the village artist has depicted a Lord’s supper! We rode through the Cascina delle corde; or, as it is called, the Cascina del buon Jesu! a little to the right of which is seen the town of Busto, whose church was designed by Bramante. Of the seven old towers, formerly the refuge of a famous robber-band, there remains but one standing. Near Legnarello, on the shore of the little river Olona, is Parabiago, celebrated as the site of a battle fought in February, 1339, by Luchino, third son of Maffeo Visconti, against his cousin Lodvisio and a rebel army. His horse had been killed under him, and his casque broken, and himself bound to an oak tree, the blood gushing from his wounds; till, the tide of fortune changing, he was delivered by a party of Savoyards, and Lodvisio in his place taken captive. A wondrous apparition startled, it was said, both armies, and put a stop to the carnage. Saint Ambrose, who in the fourth century was archbishop of Milan, suddenly arose between the rebels and allies. That he should have left his grave to protect Luchino, would at least prove he interested himself in an unworthy subject: for Luchino’s only merit seems to have been courage. He advised and directed the murder of his brother Marco (the bravest and perhaps the best of this stirring family), when Azzo, the nephew of both, as the son of their elder brother, was lord of Milan. Marco had distinguished himself in the service of the Ghibelline party, and choosing that no political consideration should interfere with its welfare, he saw indignantly that his brother Galeazzo negotiated with the pope, and denounced his proceedings to Louis of Bavaria. Galeazzo, his son Azzo, and his brother, were in consequence arrested; but Marco was no sooner aware of what his imprudence had caused, than he repented of it, solicited their liberty of the emperor, with an earnestness not to be silenced; himself aided in supplying their ransom, and, unable to furnish the entire sum, consented to remain hostage till its completion.

Galeazzo died, and Azzo was in no haste to deliver his uncle; but Marco, confided to a portion of the emperor’s army, so won the hearts of the soldiers placed to guard him, that they named him their general. Heading them, he surprised and took possession of Lucca, sold it to Spinola to satisfy his soldiers with its price, and returned to Milan in July, the citizens who had rejoiced in his triumphs—the soldiers whom he preceded in danger—the peasants whose fields he had guarded—flocking forth to meet him.

His nephew Azzo, and his brother Luchino, invited him to a festival in their castle of Milan, and when the feasting was over and the night far advanced, and Marco was about to retire, Azzo requested his private hearing of a few words, and led him to an apartment, whose windows looked on the public square. As the door closed on them, hired assassins rushed on and strangled Marco, flinging his dishonoured remains forth where the people, impotent to avenge, might see it and shudder as they passed at the dark end of their warrior. Azzo died in his bed; and Luchino, having inherited his authority, persecuted all who had held place or power during his reign. His severity causing a conspiracy to deprive him of his lordship, and elevate in his stead his nephews, sons of his brother Stefano, he discovered the plot. The conspirators died by the gibbet, by torture and famine; his nephews were banished; but from that time the sombre disposition of Luchino grew still more severe, and his pale and menacing brow never unbent thenceforward. He had married twice; his second wife was Isabella of Fiesco, a lady of rare beauty but shameless conduct, on whose account he had exiled his nephew Galeazzo. Reconciled to her husband, Isabella, under pretext of devotion, craved permission to make a pilgrimage to Venice. A splendid flotilla was got ready on the river Po, and the fairest dames of Milan accompanied their liege lady. Ugolino of Gonzagua, son of the lord of Mantua, now found favour in her eyes. He detained her some time in his father’s states, and accompanied her to Venice, whither she repaired for the festival of the Ascension. On her return to Milan the details of this journey became whispered abroad, and the mutual accusations of the ladies of the court at last brought the tale to Luchino’s ear. He listened in silence, for he meditated a fearful revenge, and Isabella, ere she heard she was betrayed, read his knowledge and her own fate in his dark features; and resolving to forestall him in crime, mixed poison in his drink, and he died in the castle wherein he had murdered Marco.

We passed through Rhò, a village of some importance; beyond are rice-grounds and extensive and unhealthy marshes. The entrance to Milan is fine: an avenue a mile in length of tulipiferas, now about to blossom, with a grove on either side, conducting to Napoleon’s memorial, the Arco del Sempione. Our passports examined, we crossed, as the sun set, the extensive exercising ground, and the courts of the building now serving for barracks, once the fortified castle of the dukes of Milan, but still retaining its ancient aspect; built of dark brick with heavy battlements and covered walls; that towards the town flanked by two massive round towers, on which cannon are now pointed, ready at need to awe the town.

We summoned an idler to be our guide, and without him should have failed in arriving ere midnight, for Milan boasts an incomprehensible collection of crooked streets, and an insolent population, who would have lent no aid in the labyrinth. Young and old crowded about us, almost preventing our horses from moving forward, and hooted manfully. Yet I am told the governor’s daughter and officer’s wives ride constantly in the Corso, but not daring to offer insult to the Austrian masters, who I heard with satisfaction make no difficulty of correcting with the blow of a cane or the flat of the sword, a word from a refractory vassal, they compensate for the privation when an opportunity offers, as now. We rode by the beautiful cathedral, and through more winding alleys, some so narrow that two carriages cannot pass, made dangerous for horses by the bands of flat pavement laid down to facilitate the roll of the wheels, and arrived at dusk at San Marco. I do not think it a good inn: its rooms are large, but dirty; its servants numerous, but inattentive; and its cookery greasy beyond description.

CHAPTER VI.

The Duomo—Our host’s advice—Joseph the Second—Tombs—That to the memory of Giovanni and Gabrielle de’ Medici, designed by Michael Angelo—Chapel of St. John—St. Bartholomew—Tomb of Otho, archbishop of Milan—Crucifix carried by St. Charles of Borromeo—Antique altar—Burial-place of St. Charles—La Scala—Opera ballet—The Brera, once monastery of the Umiliati—Paintings—The old castle—Arms of the Visconti—Prerogative preserved to himself by Giovanni—The parricide—Filippo Mario—His innocent wife executed—Carmagnuola Filippo’s general—Forced by his injustice to change of party—Suspicions of his new masters—His execution—Francis Sforza—His youth—His name’s origin—Jane of Naples—Imprisoned by her husband—Set free—King James a monk of St. Francis—Forte Braccio—Sforza’s death—Arena—Roman ruin.

27th.

Passed the morning in the ramblings which travellers are heir to, first proceeding to the Duomo. As I wished to see there the holy mummy of St. Charles, which lies in its crystal case and subterranean chapel, I asked our host for directions: “You must knock,” said he, “at the door of the sacristy, and there you will find a priest.” “A priest; a gentleman?” “Yes, you had better ask his charge beforehand, as he may be extravagant; and there are about a dozen steps to descend, and should his demand be exorbitant, you can give him two-thirds or the half, which will satisfy him.”

Passing the post-office and finding no letters, we arrived at the cathedral in five minutes. It occupies one extremity of a most irregular place, and if its façade wants taste, or at least consistency, having some doors and windows of Roman architecture, mingled with the Gothic, and its form is that of a heavy pyramid,—yet seen in the bright sunshine, its mass of white marble, with all its pinnacles surmounted by statues, standing shining forth from the purest of blue skies as if they were carved in snow, its effect is far more striking than the engravings would lead to expect, and the grandeur of its size and delicacy of its execution justify the exclamation of Joseph the Second: “It is a golden mountain, chiselled by fairies, and metamorphosed to marble.” The statues which adorn the edifice are in number about four thousand five hundred, of which two hundred and fifty decorate the façade. Each of the twelve needles supports a colossal figure; that of the Virgin having for base the tallest of all, of Moorish architecture. Her statue is in gilt copper, and from the pavement to the glory round her head the elevation is a hundred and eight metres, eighty-six centimetres. To describe these and the bassi relievi which encrust the façade of this noble church would be endless, and indeed the intense heat prevented my examining the half of them; but I particularly remarked for their beauty the two figures which represent the Old and New Testament at either end of the great balcony above the chief portal. The two interior columns of this central entrance, for there are five, are of enormous height and size, considering that each is carved of a single block of the pink granite of Baveno. Within, the cathedral is divided into five aisles (the nave being of double width), separated by fifty-two massive pillars of octagon form; four others of far heavier dimensions, raised in the centre of the church, support the cupola, and their strange capitals each exhibit eight statues. On the right near the entrance is the tomb of Eribert, archibishop of Milan, who died in 1035, and farther against the wall a monument, which is a Gothic gem, decorated with small statues, each in its niche; while on the top lies in marble effigy one Marco Carelli, who gave 35,000 golden ducats towards the expenses of the building. Of the chapels, that best worthy notice is beside the small door which opens on the stair, whose 512 steps conduct to the dome erected to the memory of Giovanni and Gabriello de’ Medici, by Pope Pius the Fourth their brother. The real name was Medechino though Giovanni, become one of the great captains of his day, took advantage of its similitude with that of the Florentine house, and adopted their armorial bearings. He had obtained distinction early. Presented when a young officer to Francis Sforza, who having married Blanche of Visconti, and lost his father-in-law, after their long dissensions, became, in the latter’s place, lord of Milan; he gained his entire confidence. Astorio Visconti might, it was feared, assert his right to the Milanese sovereignty, and Medechino, with another named Pozzino, were chosen for his assassins. Astorio dead, Sforza’s anxiety to rid himself of his accomplices, induced him to command the death of Pozzino, while Giovanni Giacomo received an order to repair to the castle of Muzzo, on the shores of the lake of Como, charged with a letter for the governor. On his way thither, though they had parted on the best terms, he suspected the intentions of Sforza, and opened his despatches. Finding there his doubts confirmed, he fabricated others, commanding the governor to yield him present possession of the fortress, and once installed therein, he held it against all the efforts of the duke of Milan. He afterwards took Chiavenna; and, lastly, offered himself to Charles the Fifth, the emperor, who created him duke of Marignano, and to whom his courage and conduct rendered signal service in the wars of Germany. Having incurred the emperor’s displeasure, by unnecessarily prolonging the siege of Sienna, at the head of the army which Charles placed at the disposal of the Grand Duke Cosmo to subdue the revolted inhabitants, and also by his pillage and cruelties exercised towards the peasantry of the country which surrounds the town during the eight months the siege lasted, he fell ill from grief at losing his master’s favour, and died at Milan,—where, four years after, his brother, elected pope, raised this mausoleum to his memory, designed by Michael Angelo. The six beautiful columns are in Roman marble, the remainder of marble of Carrara, excepting the statues which are of bronze; those of the brothers, of colossal size, occupying the centre, between two weeping figures of Peace and Heroism.

The large chapel, dedicated to San Giovanni Buono, which terminates the transept, is next in order: it contains some fine bassi relievi and statues; among the latter a group, near the altar, of a guardian angel, who carefully leads a child, while his foot holds down, without an effort, a prostrate demon. At the entrance of this chapel stand two colossal figures of saints, bad, and in plaster,—though not perhaps injurious to the effect of the whole, and to judge of it, this spot is the best which can be chosen. We gazed at all its details, the hollow of the high dome rich with countless statues; the chapel opposite, with its rich stained window, seen athwart a forest of columns; the light through the coloured glass crossing with a red ray pillar and floor, and touching the forms of bishop and cardinal in their niches; on the capitals the square grated aperture, before the steps of the choir, which gives light and air to the burial place of St. Charles; the semi-circular pulpits of carved and gilded bronze, supported by bronze figures, leaned each against its massive column; the sculptured stalls of the canons,—the altar with its curious temple and red canopy, and the tall painted windows seen behind it, and the golden star shining on the roof above, within which lies the relic of the St. Cloud which, with multifarious ceremonies, is once a year let down by pulleys to meet the eyes of the faithful, and with like pomp mounted to its place again:—the rich lamps suspended by gilded chains, and the priests officiating in their robes of black, green, and crimson,—and the view seen dimly through and along the pillared arches where they turn round choir and high altar. The white marble has no glare; it is stained with a succession of softer greys than mellow stone. Near the same chapel of San Giovanni, and the entrance to the subterranean passage which, imagined by Pellegrini, leads to the Archevêché, hangs, suspended from a pillar, a much-prized picture by Procaccini, effaced almost wholly.

As we passed on beside the choir, we looked through the gratings which, surmounted by most delicate sculpture, light the subterranean chapel beneath, also having marble columns, balustrades, and altars. Opposite is a fine monument in black, supporting a figure in white marble, which reclines upon it,—the head resting on the hand, executed by Augustin Busti, to the memory of the Cardinal Marini Caracciolo; and near it and the door, which opens into the southern sacristy, and which I beg you to notice for its lovely and elaborate carvings, hangs an effigy of Our Lady of Succour. Italian taste has glazed this picture, which is an ancient one, and represents the Virgin giving the breast to the Saviour, who stands on her knee,—and stuck, outside the glass, above the heads and across the throats, tin crowns and bead necklaces. Above, its pedestal jutting from the wall, is the statue of Pope Martin the Fifth, raised by the command of Filippo Mario Visconti, last duke of Milan of the name. The flayed St. Bartholomew, who carries his skin on his shoulders, is a fine specimen of anatomy, and a most disagreeable production of art. Past the three stained windows and the long lists of relics contained in the Duomo, is a strange tomb, which resembles a red marble chest, supported aloft by two columns, and containing the ashes of Otho, archbishop of Milan. The seated statue above is that of Pope Pius the Fourth; next comes the door of the northern sacristy, even more beauteous in its sculpture than its companion, and the tomb of the three brothers, Arcimboldi. We had arrived at the first chapel in the transept, dedicated to St. Thecla, who is there among the lions, all carved in white marble,—a red riband and silver heart hung round her neck by some devotee.

The large chapel, which corresponding to that of San Giovanni Buono, terminates this cross aisle, is dedicated to the Virgin; and beautiful, in spite of masses of artificial flowers in the hands and tinsel on the heads, is the group of the Virgin and Child. On either side of the entrance is a colossal plaster statue, even worse executed than those in San Giovanni’s chapel, and the floor in front is paved with the tombs of six cardinals. Farther on, descending the aisle, there is over an altar a wooden crucifix inclosed in a glass frame, interesting because the same which was carried by St. Charles Borromeo when he walked barefoot in the processions he instituted during the plague of 1576. There existed here formerly an antique altar, remarkable for its age only, surmounted by a figure of the Virgin in wood, rudely carved and heavily framed. When removed some time since, there were discovered behind it two inscriptions by one Alexio of Albania, an officer of Duke Francis Sforza, who, in gratitude to Our Lady for his successes, raised this altar in the year 1480. Near the entrance stands the baptismal font, (a large vase of porphyry, brought, it is believed, from the baths of Maximilian,) beneath a tabernacle, whose pillars are of antique marble, and their capitals of carved bronze.

The pavement, with its arabesque ornaments and various coloured marbles, is worn by the feet of curious or faithful, and from the dirty habits of the numbers who frequent the church, forces one to tread it with the same precaution as the streets themselves.

Having made the tour, we returned to rest ourselves on one of the benches opposite the choir, allowable, where people walk and talk unscrupulously during mass, for I noticed even priests doing so with the unconcern of two boys, who kneeled before San Giovanni Buono, praying a little and talking a little by turns. Opposite the doors of the two sacristies are steps conducting to the subterranean chapels, the roof of the first supported by eight massive marble columns. The sunbeams from above entered faintly, touching with their gold a part of the quaint carving, and leaving the rest in obscurity, hardly lessened by the light which burned feebly in the elegantly formed lamp before the marble balustrade of the altar. The guide leads the way to the inner chapel, which is St. Charles’s sepulchre. From the grated opening in the floor above, it receives but a pale and imperfect day; and as the torch which the priest bears flashes on the riches it contains, its precious metals and marble floor, to the worth of four millions, it resembles Aladdin’s cave rather than a burial place. The vault is of octagon form, the roof encrusted with silver bassi relievi, recalling the principal events of the saint’s life; the panels of cloth of gold divided by silver Caryatides, representing the Virtues, one at each angle; and the saint’s embalmed body attired in pontifical robes laid at its extremity in a shrine of rock crystal mounted in silver and ornamented with the arms of Philip the Fourth of Spain, (by whom it was presented to the cathedral,) wrought in massive gold; the dead face and hands are bare, the latter covered with jewels, which sparkle as in mockery.

Having spent the day in the Duomo, the curiosity next in order was La Scala. You know that it retains this name because erected on the site of a church founded by Beatrice of La Scala, wife of Bernabo Visconti. We went thither in the evening, the opera being Roberto Devereux, and the ballet the last Visconti and first Sforza. The house, which yields in size only to San Carlo of Naples, is freshly and brilliantly decorated; its six rows of boxes which each with its drapery are carried up the whole height, its pit seventy-five feet long and sixty-six broad, are capable of containing three thousand six hundred spectators. Its demerits are, that its fine lustre lights its immense space imperfectly; that the effect of the royal box which fronts the stage and is handsome, is injured by the crown above it, out of all proportion ponderous; that its singers are scarce above mediocrity, and its scenery below criticism. Whether from these causes or the season, there were not a dozen people in the boxes, and the parterre was but half filled. The governor’s box is within two of the stage, but he did not occupy it. La Scala once boasted a first-rate scene-painter, but dying, he failed to drop his mantle on his successor, and, saving a few of his faded scenes, you can fancy nothing so pitiable. The prima donna, who performs Queen Elizabeth of England and possesses a voice just passable, is unhappily plain, and Roberto Devereux, Earl of Essex, chanted a base most awful. The costumes were of any and no period, and yet the audience in the pit determined to be pleased, and compensating for its small numbers by applauding manfully, demanded the performers at the close of the first act, when Roberto and his beloved, who, fearing the queen’s ire, had just parted for ever, came forward to bow and curtsey hand in hand. Of the undelivered ring we heard nothing, but a great deal of a dirty blue scarf which belonged to the damsel, and by mistake was sent as a token to the queen. Quitting the opera at the end of the second act, an Italian custom which would destroy all illusion, if such existed, we summoned patience to see the ballet, more fatiguing to the eyes and incomprehensible to the understanding than anything I could have imagined, the heads, arms and hands of the actors moving in unison with every note of the music, and forming a ludicrous contrast to the expressive French pantomime and magical decorations of the grand Opera. The dancers were ungraceful, but all, even to the fat figurantes, were applauded noisily, and they have, I observe, the habit of concluding each pas seul with a grateful curtsey to the pit. The palace of Visconti was a chaos of tin, coloured paper and sheets of foil, and the ballet ended with a seafight, (rockets sent across the stage representing cannon,) and the entrance of a party of pasteboard deities who came in on wheels. We did not wait for the last act of the opera, preferring to stroll home by the light of a young moon.

28th.

Torrents of rain. We passed a part of the day at the Brera, which was, in times of yore, the monastery of the Umiliati; the order which produced St. Charles’s assassin, and on its suppression was yielded to that of the Jesuits, who have left in its noble courts and spacious halls the mark of their wealth and power. A double tier of pillared arcades surrounds the court, while opposite the entrance is the fine staircase, designed by the architect Piermarini; a monument to whose memory, with others sacred to native poets and painters, occupy places beneath these porticoes, for the Brera unites within its walls the picture gallery, the cabinet of medals, the observatory, and the schools of painting, sculpture, architecture and anatomy, besides a gymnasium and a botanical garden on the spot where the monks cultivated theirs. In the fine rooms which contain the paintings are some of the most splendid I have seen of Paul Veronese, particularly the Adoration of the Saviour by the Wise Men of the East, whose subject might puzzle a novice, for the wise men are dressed in the costume of Paul’s time, one of them accompanied by his dwarf, and the baby Christ wears a pearl diadem on his brow. I noticed also a superb Vandyck, St. Ambrose in Prayer to the Virgin, and a Last Supper by Rubens, whose composition it would be difficult not to prefer to that on the same subject by Paul Veronese. Guercino’s Abraham and Agar, which several students were employed in copying badly, is very beautiful; the weeping face of Agar about to go forth to the desert contrasts finely with the proud and half averted one of Sara. In one of the rooms are several heads of the famed fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, carefully raised from the walls of what was the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and is now a barrack-room. We had gone thither hoping to see its remains, but the convent, converted to military uses, is not now shown. We could enter the church only, which, an ill-formed mass of red brick without, is curious within, and has a side chapel filled with monuments, decorated with ultra Catholic care, but many of them ancient and interesting. The head of the Saviour, which is at the Brera, is mild and beautiful in expression, but its colouring wholly faded.

The library is rich in curious manuscripts, and occupies five spacious apartments; in the first are two bad portraits of the emperor and his consort. All the modern productions we saw, for there is a smaller chamber dedicated to them, were strangely wretched in their execution.

This part of Milan contains the widest streets and finest palazzi; the latter awoke my admiration, with their double gates and arcaded courts, surrounded by orange and pomegranate trees.

The most interesting spot in Milan, recalling as it does names famous in its story, is the old castle, which held in turn the Visconti and the Sforza. Originally built in 1358 by Galeazzo, lord of Milan, it was demolished at his death through the jealous fears of the citizens, but rebuilt by his son Giovanni Galeazzo. It stood unmolested till the decease of Filippo Mario, last duke of the Visconti family, when the Milanese, determined on adopting a republican form of government, razed it to the ground once more. Francis Sforza, married to Blanche, daughter of Filippo Mario, and become duke of Milan, raised it from its ruins with strength and extent greater than before. It is this, of the date of 1450, which exists even now, for only its fortifications were destroyed in 1801 by Napoleon’s order, substituting a vast open space and avenues, which form shady promenades. Towards the town are the two massive round towers, and entering on this side you cross five inner courts, in the last of which (that fronting the place d’armes and Arco del Sempione) are the ancient state apartments. On the capitals of the columns which support the vestibule of the grand staircase are carved the arms of Sforza and Visconti; the latter bare the serpent on their escutcheon on account of the exploit of an ancestor who, ere yet his family ruled Milan, marched to the first crusade with Godfrey of Bouillon, and there, in single combat, killed a Saracen general, and despoiled him of his arms and the shield on which was emblazoned a snake swallowing a child.

Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, born in 1347, whose daughter Valentine espoused the duke of Orleans, the murdered son of Charles the Fifth of France, purchased of the Emperor Wenceslas the rank of duke, which he bore first of his family. He was a believer in astrology, and when already attacked with plague, a comet becoming visible in the heavens, he made no doubt that it appeared to summon him.

His son Giovanni Mario commenced his reign by a parricide. The duchess, his mother, favoured the Guelph party. That of the Ghibellines, under the name and by the authority of the duke, then fifteen years of age, forced her to fly to Monza. Surprising her there, they dragged her back to the castle of Milan, and soon after murdered her within its walls. Giovanni Mario, by turns the instrument of Guelph and Ghibelline, lost his large possessions one by one, till only the town of Milan obeyed his sway, and even within the ducal city the sole prerogative he reserved to himself was the command of its executions.

From his childhood surrounded by crime, and inured to the sight of blood, he at last found pleasure only in witnessing a fellow creature’s agony as the sole excitement strong enough to rouse him. The slow forms of justice slurred over or put aside, the condemned were delivered to his power to be hunted to death by bull-dogs, whom his huntsman Gevanco had taught the taste of human flesh to accustom them to their fearful office. At last, when the measure of his crimes was overflowing, he was massacred by the Milanese nobles as he was about to enter the church of St. Gothard, the 16th of May, 1412, aged only twenty-two years. His brother Filippo Mario, on the news of his death, obliged the widow of Facino Cave, Giovanni’s trusted general, who had died of malady the same day as the duke by violence, to marry him ere she had laid her husband in his grave, and although she was twenty years his senior; she held at her disposal a brilliant army, the garrisons of various towns, and a fortune of four hundred thousand golden florins.

Taking instant possession of her riches, he purchased with their distribution the fidelity of Facino’s soldiers, and marched to Milan, of which they made him master. He undertook to reduce Lombardy to the obedience she had sworn to his father, but being cruel and crafty, and not brave, and seldom daring to leave the shelter of his fortified walls, he seemed little fitted to accomplish such an enterprise. It happened, however, on almost the only occasion in which Filippo Mario had been present in battle, that he distinguished among his soldiers one named Carmagnuola, who, born in the lowest grade of society, had been an officer’s servant, and now first enrolled himself in the ranks of the army. Apt to discern the military merit he could not imitate, he made Carmagnuola his officer, and the latter, rewarding his quicksightedness, and himself recompensed with the titles of count and the rank of general, reconquered all Lombardy. But Filippo Mario, in the caprice of tyranny, flung down the foundations of his fortune. Falsely accusing his wife Beatrice of being untrue to him, he sent her to perish on the scaffold; and suddenly taking umbrage at the power and distinction of Carmagnuola, he dismissed him from the command of his troops, denied him an interview, flung into prison his wife and daughters, and forced his general to fly for safety to Venice, whither he was followed by an assassin, who failed to accomplish his errand.

Treachery obliging Carmagnuola to treason against the state he had first served, he took the command of the armies of the two republics of Venice and Florence, and the duke of Milan found him a victorious enemy, though opposed to his son-in-law Francis Sforza. After a signal defeat of the Milanese the peace which ensued restored his wife and children to liberty, but Carmagnuola had roused Venetian suspicion by generously sending back all the prisoners he had made in battle, and when on the renewal of the war he met with unusual reverses, they called his ill fortune perfidy. The Council of Ten, in consequence, summoned him to Venice, there to advise the republic daring the negotiations for peace, received him with extraordinary pomp, the doge honouring him with a seat by his side, and expressing to him affection and gratitude as the voice of the republic; but hardly had his soldiers retired, leaving him unguarded in the senate, than Carmagnuola, destined to be the mark of ingratitude, was seized and heavily ironed, flung into a dungeon, and given to the torture. Twenty days after his arrest he was brought forth—gagged lest he should assert his innocence,—and beheaded. Of all his immense wealth which it confiscated, the republic only allowing a poor annuity to his daughters.

His death, in 1432, delivered Duke Filippo Mario from his most formidable foe, but ever pursuing the same wavering policy during his whole reign, he troubled and devastated Italy with an inconstancy of motive and action not to be comprehended. His natural daughter Blanche long promised and at last married to Francis Sforza, he by turns united his generals against his son-in-law, or sought his protection against them. He had once again had recourse to him, and peace between them was hardly ratified, when, as Francis and Blanche were on their way to join him at Milan, he was seized with fever, and died almost suddenly.

This Francis Sforza, who succeeded to the last Visconti, despite the right of the duke of Orleans, whose mother was Valentine of Milan, was the son of a brave man, himself the founder of his family. His name was Giaco Attendolo, and his father a labourer; and the young man, though, from feelings of duty to his family, he pursued the like toil, was often distracted from his occupation by a feeling which might be a presentiment of future fortunes, that his place of exertion was elsewhere. One day, while employed in cutting copsewood, he heard the sound of military music proceeding from a troop of soldiers advancing along the high road which bounded his father’s field, and his old longings and hesitation returned upon him. With something of the superstition of his time, he resolved that a presage should decide on his destiny, and turning his face towards an oak tree, which grew at no inconsiderable distance, and towered among the bushes old and mighty, he flung his hatchet against its trunk: “If it falls harmless,” he said, “my arm shall be that of a peasant still; if it pierces to the core, I am a soldier!” Hurled with his whole force, the axe cut through the bark, and sank deep into the tree, and Attendolo, casting one glance where it lay buried in the stem of the old oak, sprang from the place where he stood, and among the ranks of the soldiers: “My strength has decided my fate,” he exclaimed, “you may call me Sforza.”

Received as one of their band, his impetuosity and courage, which suffered no counsel, and was stopped by no resistance, soon confirmed a name which became that of his family. It was an epoch for military talent, and Sforza in a short time was of the chief of the condottieri who sold their service to those states whose gold was most plenty, and commanded a thousand horsemen.

In the year 1414, he conducted his army to Naples, and obtained honours and employment from Jane the Second, queen of Naples, but when James of Bourbon, comte de la Marche, her husband, less patient than she had expected, seized on her low-born lover Alopo, and condemned him to die in torments, Sforza was flung into a dungeon, where he remained a year, during which period the queen was captive also, and watched unceasingly by an old French knight, who was her gaoler.

A popular disturbance, occasioned by Neapolitan indignation, at length freed the sovereign. James, whose day of power was over, as he supported impatiently the influence of the queen’s new favourite Caraccioli, was arrested in turn, and though at the pope’s intercession he recovered his liberty, he thought fit to make his escape from the palace, and fly to Tarento, with the intent of stirring to insurrection the southern provinces. Besieged there, and losing all hopes of reigning at Naples, he returned to France and exchanged his kingly robes for the habit of St. Francis in the convent of Ste. Claire of Besançon, where he died.

Towns, fortresses, and fiefs of importance, rewarded Sforza’s fidelity; his soldiers were more devoted to him than ever before adventurers had been to a condottiere. He had summoned his relatives around him, men, like himself, reared in fatigues and hardships, and who made a ring of gallant and devoted followers about his person. His rival in the same career, one whose glory and genius equalled his own, was the condottiere Forte Braccio, and in almost every occasion in which their forces took different sides, Sforza’s had the disadvantage. When, after having long served Queen Jane, he was won over by Pope Martin the Fifth to quit her defence for that of Louis of Anjou, opposed to Braccio he lost almost the whole of his army. Throwing himself on his generosity, he rode to the camp with fifteen unarmed horsemen, and asked his interest with Queen Jane, whose soldier he was determined to be once more. Forgetting their long rivalry, the two captains repaired to her court, where Jane received Sforza and named him lord high constable. Soon after, she commanded him to oppose his forces to those of her adopted son, Alfonso of Arragon, to whose party Braccio had remained attached. Thus, though unwillingly, they became foes again; and Sforza, having forced Alfonso to abandon Naples, marched to deliver the town of Aquila, besieged by Braccio. The 4th of January, 1424, he arrived on the shores of the river Pescara. Braccio’s troops, which occupied the town of the same name, had defended its banks with palisades.

Determined to ford it, though at the very mouth, armed, and wearing his helmet, Sforza first spurred his horse into the water, traversed it at the head of four hundred men at arms, and dislodged the enemy; but the remainder of his forces having failed to follow, he swam his charger back to seek them.

Crossing for the third time, on his return to the attack, when about half way over, he saw one of his young pages, whom the strength of the current was about to bear away, and stooping suddenly over his horse to seize and save him, himself lost his balance, and sank; the weight of his armour preventing him from swimming, and even rendering it impossible to recover his drowned body. He was the ablest and most intrepid of Italian warriors. Of his posterity all lived and died obscurely, saving the illegitimate son, who was duke of Milan, Francis Sforza.

We have lingered perhaps too long for your patience in the Castello; and the Arena, which, entering Milan by the Arco del Sempione, or Della Pace, as it is now called, is on the left hand, is worth a visit. We walked there last evening: the principal entrance also gives access to the Pulvinare, a fine building, which contains a spacious hall and commodious chambers, arranged for the reception of the court on the occasion of a gala. A broad stair conducts to the former, whose columns of red granite face the amphitheatre to which descend its granite steps, the place assigned to the viceroy and dignitaries of Milan, and covered with cushions and draperies when so honoured. The seats which surround this amphitheatre, capable of containing thirty thousand persons, are covered with green turf, and rise, range above range, up the sloping sides to the level, which forms a pleasant walk under orange and taller trees. There is a rivulet which fills the space with water, when, instead of the races usually held here, the exhibition is to be nautical. A grand fête will take place in a few days with a show of fireworks, our host says unparalleled! but the rain, which to-day has fallen in torrents, seems disinclined to give place to them, and will prepare unpleasantly the green sofas of the audience. Notwithstanding the weather, we visited the sixteen Corinthian columns, which in this ancient city are the sole vestige of Roman grandeur; thirty-three Paris inches in diameter, they are ten diameters in height, and are believed to have stood in the exterior vestibule of baths dedicated to Hercules, and restored by the Emperor Maximilian. From their proximity to the church of San Lorenzo, they are called by its name; they stand majestic and isolated, and spite the care bestowed on their preservation, gradually crumbling to decay. The rain continues as I have seldom seen it fall elsewhere, and as it falls here sometimes for a fortnight uninterruptedly, so says our host in consolation; I did not expect to dine at Milan, and at two in the afternoon, by candlelight; yet this has happened to us twice, (when we chose that hour, hoping the fog would yield to a fine evening, which it did not,) in the large room, with its three high windows looking on the opposite wall, which resembles the deserted refectory of a convent. To-morrow, 1st of October, we hope to leave on our way to Lodi.

CHAPTER VII.

Leaving Milan—La Bicocca—Francis the First—Francis Sforza—Black Bands of Giovanni de’ Medici—Lautrec—An intrigue—Samblançay—The king prisoner—Samblançay falsely accused—Condemned to be hanged at Montfaucon—His death deferred till dark, in expectation of the king’s relenting—His last words resembling Wolsey’s—Lodi—The Austrians—Imprecations—The serenade—Doubts as to the road—Piacenza—A thirsty douanier—The cathedral—Alberoni—A bell-ringer—The Farnese—Pier Luigi’s murder—Statues on the piazza—Alessandro—His son Ranuccio—His danger in youth—His escape—His cruelty—His treatment of his son—Borgo St. Donnino—Maria Louisa—Castel Guelfo—Origin of names of Guelph and Gibelline—Parma—Madonna in the stable—A lamp serving two purposes—A procession seeking a criminal—Cambacérès—Ariosto—A robber’s love of poetry—Correggio—Modena—The countess Matilda—The Emperor Henry the Fourth—Canossa—Three days unsheltered in the court-yard—Rubiera—Modena.

1st October.

Having watched torrents falling till eleven they subsided to a mild rain, under which we started in weariness of San Marco; and about three leagues from Milan, passed the village of La Bicocca, in whose château Prospero Colonna had taken up his position when Lautrec, the French general, was obliged by his Swiss troops to give battle. Francis the First, who had lately lost Milan, had been obliged to negotiate with each canton separately,—to distribute bribes and promise pensions, and, to obtain their aid, to bear with their arrogance. Ten thousand Swiss passed, in consequence, the Mount St. Bernard in the year 1522, and with the French and Venetian troops encamped at about two miles from Milan. The city was ably defended, though Francis Sforza had yet been unable to re-enter his capital,—and by his chancellor’s order, an eloquent monk, to arouse the zeal of the Milanese, preached against the barbarians. The Milan army swelled its ranks with German mercenaries; that of France obtained an unexpected reinforcement in the person of Giovanni de’ Medici, who, rendered free by the death of Leo the Tenth, arrived to profit by the higher pay and greater advantages the service of France offered him, conducting three thousand foot and two hundred horse beneath the mourning banners, adopted in memory of the deceased Pope, giving them the name of Black Bands, which their prowess made so celebrated. Lautrec had attacked and been obliged to raise the siege of Pavia. The Swiss troops, in the belief that money, destined for their pay, was arrived at Arona, implored their general to allow them to force a passage thither; but Lautrec, aware that the distress of the imperial army surpassed his own, and having already received entire companies of deserters from the banner of Prospero Colonna, felt that delays would best dissipate his army; but the Swiss replied, through Albert de Stein: “To-morrow pay, or battle; or, after to-morrow, dismissal: choose between.”

Forced to allow their departure, wanting funds to satisfy them, Lautrec chose first to give battle. La Bicocca was surrounded by deep ditches, to the right and left were canals, and behind it a stone bridge. Defended by artillery and the Spanish harquebuss men, the position was almost impregnable; yet the eight thousand Swiss insisted on attacking it in front, while the Marshal of Foix turned the left flank, and Lautrec the right of the Imperial army. The Swiss, notwithstanding their bravery, forced back with great carnage, though protected in their attack by Giovanni de’ Medici and his black bands, made their retreat in good order. There were yet no uniforms worn, and the troops were distinguished by the red cross of the Imperials, and the white cross of France; and Lautrec, to penetrate more easily into Colonna’s camp, obliged his soldiers to change, for the Italian, their national colour. The Marshal of Foix, arrived at the bridge, defeated the Milanese of Francis Sforza, and, supported, might have gained the battle; but the impatient Swiss retreated in discomfiture ere yet he had time to arrive, and Prospero Colonna, informed of Lautrec’s stratagem, easily recognised the spurious red crosses from those of his own soldiers, who wore, by his order, each a green branch as plume to his helmet. The Swiss infantry, still unpaid, and having lost in this unfortunate affair three thousand men, retired across the frontier. Lautrec, anxious to justify himself in the eyes of Francis the First, to tell him, with his own mouth, that to hold the Milanese territory with men-at-arms left eighteen months without pay, and unsatisfied and mutinous Swiss, was impossible, yielded the command, for a time, to the Marshal of Foix, his brother, and hastened to the royal presence, accompanied by two domestics only. The king refused him an audience; but protected by the constable of Bourbon, he obtained one ere long, and to the demand of Francis—“How can you justify my losses and your conduct?” he made the simple reply: “Sire, by the lack of sums to pay your armies.” It became evident, that of the three hundred thousand crowns promised by the Surintendant des Finances, Samblançay, none had reached him.

The king, surprised, summoned his minister, who acknowledged that the sums, which were in truth destined for the troops in Italy, had been demanded by, and remitted to the king’s mother, Louisa, duchess of Angoulême. In his anger Francis reproached the duchess bitterly with the loss of Milan, but the princess replied, that the monies received from Samblançay were but a debt he owed her, as she had placed in his hands funds proceeding from her revenues, and the fruit of her economy. The Surintendant’s assurances to the contrary, his known character for probity, and his habits of life, which kept him apart from all court intrigues or passions, convinced the king, who was so attached to him as to have contracted the habit of calling him “Father.” He distinguished the innocent from the guilty; he said, “While we betray ourselves, Fortune favours us in vain.” Samblançay remained in place, but his fall was decided on by his enemy, the Chancellor Duprat, and the Duchess Louisa of Angoulême, whom either avarice or her known hatred to Lautrec, or these feelings united, had moved to such base conduct.

In 1525, when Francis was about to quit France to reconquer his duchy of Milan, Samblançay was required and dared refuse to advance the sums needful, alleging that three hundred thousand crowns were already due to him. He gave in his accounts, proved the truth of his assertions, and lost place and favour. Francis departed; Louisa of Angoulême, once more regent of the kingdom, made use of her power to crush Samblançay. It was said that her receipt, signed by her hand, was abstracted by her agent from among his papers, while one of his own clerks was brought forward to accuse, of fraud and peculation, the most honest man of his time. The king, who in the interval had, in February, 1525, lost the battle of Pavia, and, conducted prisoner to Spain, been detained there prisoner till January, 1526, at the close of the latter year, with sorrow consented to his minister’s seclusion in the Bastille. His vindictive mother craved that he should be brought to trial, and the Chancellor Duprat presented, for the king’s signature, a list he held ready of judges, who, chosen from the various parliaments of the kingdom, were either placed by himself or devoted to him as having shared in the profits of confiscations pronounced according to his desire. The accused was interrogated, and Duprat, aware that by delay and chicanery he could best blind the multitude, under various pretexts, so lengthened the proceedings, that they filled four years. On the 9th of August, 1527, he was condemned to be hanged at Montfaucon, and on the 12th of the same month, conducted on foot from the Bastille thither, passing through the Rue St. Denis, where, in conformity to an ancient ceremony, criminals on their way to execution were made stop at a monastery, and swallow there a glass of wine and three crusts of bread, and kiss an old wooden crucifix preserved within it. Samblançay submitted to this odious custom without a murmur; but, arrived at the foot of the gibbet on which he was to die, he begged that the hour of his death might be deferred, still clinging to the belief that a pardon would arrive, and that the king, who had so loved him, could not allow his suffering ignominiously in his old age. Maillard, the lieutenant criminel, deferred the execution till darkness succeeded the long summer day, and, not till all hope of the king’s pity had departed, bade his prisoner make his last prayer. Samblançay was calm and courageous. “It seemed,” said his contemporary, Marot, “that himself was the judge and Maillard the condemned.” He exclaimed only as he ascended the fatal ladder, “Would I had served God as I have served the king!”

The road from Milan to Lodi would be melancholy even without the recollection, that to the defeat of La Bicocca is bound the fate of poor Samblançay,—the long straight road traversing a marshy flat with a wet ditch on either side, dignified by the Milanese with the name of rivers. Approaching Lodi, the face of the country is made gay by rich pastures, for the meadows which surround it produce all the cheese called Parmesan, only because the inhabitants of Parma first made a trade of its exportation. Our passport examined again, as carefully as on leaving Milan, we rode to La Posta through a town cleaner and prettier than usual: the old innkeeper, at first exorbitant in his demands, accepting the less startling prices we offered, but reminding me of Shylock as he left the room, repeating, “what was in the bond,”—dinner, tea, breakfast,—and adding, “Poco, poco, pochissimo,” till we lost the sound of his step and voice in the corridor. We were hardly installed, when there arrived an Austrian officer with an orderly to take possession of the stables for an early hour to-morrow morning, as a regiment will pass through, coming from Bresciano to join the camp.

I was amused by the expression of hatred to the Germans in the faces of their subjects, and the contrast between the fair, quiet, but determined-looking officer issuing his peremptory command, and the supple Italian, with his dark eyes and ferocious features, who received it, and the moment his back was turned, raised his clenched hand to invoke imprecations on the Tedeschi. “Accidenti in fiume, accidenti per viaggio, accidenti ad ogni cavallo che stia in questa scuderia,” till his master came out to soothe his ire by threatening to turn him away, and then he gave it vent by beating a poor white goat, the pet of the sick child.

As we had left behind rain and fog, we walked during the lovely evening to the Pont de Lodi over the Adda, here broad and rapid. The same wooden bridge exists which the Austrians (repulsed and driven back by Bonaparte) crossed to Lodi, whither the latter followed in haste to prevent its being broken by their pioneers.

Our guide mentioned with satisfaction the number of Tedeschi drowned in the Adda. It flows between flat shores, and derived beauty when we saw it only from a cloudless sunset, and the trees which fringe its banks, and were reflected in its clear water. At night, sleeping with windows open, as the heat was extreme, we were wakened by the first serenade which had greeted us in Italy; the performers had splendid voices, and sang in parts. The words of each stanza I could not distinguish, but the burthen of each was—

“Son venuti, son venuti, cavalcando, cavalcando;”

and, whether the compliment was in burlesque or earnest, I have never heard street music which so pleased me before. An hour or two after, the two Austrian officers, who had preceded their comrades, and occupied a room near ours, were serenaded also by a fine military band, so that our rest was disturbed by sweet sounds almost through the whole night, and we set off early to make room for the Tedeschi.

2nd October. Lodi to Piacenza.

A prettier and more shaded road through a country, almost entirely pasture-land, and resembling the mildest parts of England. The little wine they produce is much valued, but the chief supply comes from Piedmont. We passed at Casal Pusterlengo the route which turns off to Cremona, but, unfortunately, no one being in sight just then, we were uncertain as to whether our instincts led right or wrong, and the distance to the frontier seeming longer than it had been described, we began to fear the necessity of turning back, beneath a sun whose heat was intense to painfulness. A few carters passed us with their horses, but I have learned to ask questions with discrimination, for the brutal incivility of the common Italians I have never seen equalled. They shout their disapprobation of our mode of travelling, their energy seeming to expend itself in “sound and fury, signifying nothing;” drive on us their cart-horses or oxen, or at least act like a waggoner we came up with yesterday, and whom I requested to allow me room to pass on the side where Fanny, who, to his amusement, was starting violently, would be in no danger of arriving with me at the bottom of a twenty feet deep ditch. He told me to manage as well as I could, as he did not intend to move an inch. At last, fearing we might ride to Cremona, we stopped at a cabin door in one of the dirty villages on our way. My question was not very politely answered, and the whole family exclaimed in chorus that we were wrong, and must turn back; perhaps in ignorance, though I think in mischief, and, as I thought so then, we hesitated, and a post-boy coming up with his horses, (a person always civil to strangers, who may employ him,) desired us to ride on, as a few minutes would bring us to the frontier.

This proving true, our passport was examined at the Cà Rossa, and we were on the territory of the Archduchess Maria Louisa. The heat was intense, and they detained us some time under the sun; the oxen, dragging their waggon-loads of grapes, passed us by; and before the village doors the men with their soiled and sunburned feet were treading the wine-press as we had seen them doing in the fields also. At last, Piacenza was in sight; the dark red city rising on the broad plain beyond the broad Pô, with the one stone arch, the relic of a Roman bridge, standing in its centre, on the deposit of sand and stones; and the two bridges of boats which we were to cross, and which should be a relic also, being extremely unsafe, the boats small, and the decaying planks they sustain a succession of hill and dale, over which our horses feared to advance. The toll is five sous per steed, which, considering its state, is sufficient.

Having ridden in safety, but some dread, across this uneven and trembling bridge, we left our passport at the gate, and the douaniers came smilingly forward. “What is in this valise?” “Linen.” “And in this?” “Linen also; will you look at it?”

The douanier smiled, and shook his head, but made an almost imperceptible sign of thirst, and D—— gave a silver coin to satisfy it. There is a frankness about this conduct which is exceedingly agreeable. One is sure of giving in the right place, and without offence, and also of saving trouble at small cost, for it happened that the only change we possessed was an Austrian lira, which, translated, means seventeen sous, three centimes; and though we were almost ashamed to offer it, it seemed to content the custom-house officer perfectly.

The sombre streets of this saddest of towns led us to San Marco, an inn neither good nor bad, though certainly better than its Milan namesake, and having fine rooms and broad staircase, which common cleanliness would make objects of admiration. Our sleeping chamber with its dome is of such elegant form that I should like to transport it afar, but spoiled with gaudy frescoes on wall and ceiling, by dirty floor, and ragged furniture. The eating room, a noble hall, with a range of pillars down its centre, and hung round with paintings for sale—some few good, several curious; luxury and poverty, dirt and elegance, everywhere blended—even in the yard, which is an abomination, yet where a coved trellis-work forms a roof which a splendid vine covers with its thick leaves, making the loveliest of ceilings.

We walked to the cathedral—a dark red heavy building, built almost entirely of brick, with one high tower; an open gallery surmounting its façade, which exhibits, one above the other, three ranges of porticoes, the pillars of the lowest and central one springing from the loins of guardian lions. Within, above the principal entrance, is some curious carving. The church is large without being handsome; two thirds of the roof, glaring with fresh whitewash, contrast with the dark grey columns. The choir has its frescoes still; and there is a subterranean church which we admired—sombre and solemn, its arched roof sustained by numerous pillars, as light and elegant as those above are massive. We were driven from the cathedral by two or three guides, who, next to beggars, persecute strangers in Italy, following with a pertinacity which defies repulse, forcing on you a new version of history, and concluding each sentence by saying, with extended hand, “Le sue buone grazie.”

In the cathedral, the famous Cardinal Alberoni (born at the village of Firenzuola, which we shall pass through on our way, and a gardener’s son) was clerk and bell-ringer. An open piazza surrounds the square, which we left in search of the citadel, once the palace and stronghold of Pier Luigi Farnese, who, invested with the duchy in the year 1545, by his father Pope Paul the Third, built for his defence what proved his tomb. Notwithstanding Paul’s affection for him, he was a man stained with all vices, and capable of all crimes. The nobility of his new states, who under the ecclesiastical sway had enjoyed great independence, were bowed to the rank of vassals; and, making his laws retrospective in their severity, (while he deprived them of arms, limited their privileges, and forced them to reside within his city and power,) he commanded a strict investigation of their past conduct, and punished its derelictions with heavy fines or confiscation of property, exercising the same tyranny of which he had given proof when five years before he had been sent by the pope to subdue his revolted province of Perugino, the birthplace of Raphael’s master; for having reduced it to obedience, he devastated its territory, and put its chief citizens to the most cruel deaths. The nobles of Placentia, roused to desperation, at last conspired against him, demanding and obtaining the aid of Ferdinand of Gonzagua, who detested Farnese also. It is said that a man celebrated for divination of the future presented himself before Pier Luigi to warn him of his fate, desiring him to examine one of his own coins struck at Parma, as thereupon, and contained in the same word, he would find the initials of the conspirators’ names and the destined place of his assassination. The prophecy was little attended to at the time, but it was afterwards observed, that as Plac—— signified Placentia, it also contained the initials of Pallavicini, Landi, Anguissola, and Confalonieri. On the 10th of September, 1547, between thirty and forty conspirators, in peaceful garb, but with concealed arms, arrived at the palace as if to pay their court to Farnese, who, an old man before his time, lay in his sick chamber, incapable of defence or exertion. While they guarded the approaches, and prevented succour, Anguissola sought it and stabbed him. Apprized of his death by the firing of two cannon, agreed on as a signal, Ferdinand of Gonzagua despatched to Placentia a reinforcement of troops, and followed himself to take possession in the emperor’s name.

It is said that they flung the corpse from the balcony into the piazza, and guide-books aver the balcony is still shown; but of the windows of the still unfinished exterior, which bears the ciphers of Pier Luigi and his successor, and look on the square, not one opens on a balcony. The inner courts are invisible to strangers, the citadel being converted to a barrack, and the other side of the edifice looks on gardens. A washerwoman, whose door stood open, allowed me to obtain a view of it by entering her dirty territory, after we had made a long and vain tour, for the purpose, among hot stone walls and ill-scented alleys.

The old municipal palace, built in the thirteenth century, with its quaint architecture, dark and imposing, forms one side of the place which contains the two equestrian statues in bronze, and of colossal size, of Alessandro and Ranuccio Farnese.

Opposite is the Palazzo del Governo, where, forming part of an effaced inscription, I could distinguish the word Napoleone. Beneath the arcades of the first fortress-looking palace, and around the pedestals of the duke’s statues, were grouped the market-women, with their heaps of fruit and baskets of flowers, as if they were offerings to propitiate the stern warriors who frown above on their battle-steeds. Engraved on each pedestal is an inscription, equally flattering, though deserved differently.

Alessandro, brought up at the court of Philip the Second of Spain, soon distinguished by his brilliant courage and military talent, became, after the decease of Duke John of Austria, governor of the Netherlands, and profiting by the religious dissensions there, won over to Spain almost all the resident catholics. The United Provinces had called to defend them the Duke of Anjou, brother of Henry the Third of France. Alessandro, whose triumphs had continued almost uninterruptedly, receiving news of the loss of his father Octavio, and become by this event Duke of Parma and Placentia, solicited of the Spanish court permission to return and take possession of his sovereignty. Philip refusing the leave he asked, he prosecuted, with unabated success, the war in Flanders, till that in France came to create a diversion. At the sieges of Paris and Rouen the prince of Parma was opposed to Henry the Fourth, and returning from the latter, he was wounded in the arm before Caudebec, and died at Arras of the consequences of this neglected injury, having never seen again the province of which he had become master.

His son Ranuccio was his lieutenant in Flanders when he expired: though he had shown courage in battle, he inherited none of his father’s heroic qualities. In his early youth in Rome his life had been in danger of closing violently. Pope Sixtus the Fifth, informed, that, despite his severe order against concealed arms, young Ranuccio secretly carried pistols, commanded his arrest, and it took place as he entered the halls of the pontifical palace to seek an audience. The Cardinal Farnese, his uncle, craved his liberation on the instant, but in vain. Returning at nightfall to the presence of his holiness, he renewed his solicitations even more earnestly. At ten o’clock the inflexible pope sent to the castle of St. Angelo his mandate for the young man’s execution. Unacquainted with the subject of the message, the cardinal continued to implore, and at eleven obtained from the hand of Sixtus a second order,—bearing that, on its receipt, Ranuccio Farnese should be set free. Provided with this last, the cardinal arrived breathless at the castle of St. Angelo, where, to his astonishment and terror, he found his young relative kneeling before his confessor, and heard that the execution had been deferred only on his instant prayer for more time to reconcile himself with God. Whether the pope had intended merely to terrify his prisoner to future obedience, or whether he thought, in the hour which had elapsed, his first command must have been fulfilled, the cardinal did not wait to inquire, and the governor yielding up Ranuccio in the belief that Sixtus had been softened, he forced him to depart from the papal states without delay. Reigning as duke in Parma, Ranuccio strove to inspire his subjects with fear of him, and aroused, instead, their hatred. When apprised of the discontent of the nobles, he feigned belief in a wide-spreading conspiracy, seized on the representatives of the first families of his duchy, and rid himself of their future opposition by secret trials and the block, while he dragged to the gibbet their adherents and vassals.

An even darker trait in Ranuccio’s life is his capricious cruelty towards an illegitimate son, named Octavio, whose noble and brilliant qualities had won for him the love of all ranks in his father’s duchy. The duke of Parma had espoused the niece of Pope Clement the Eighth, Margaret Aldobrandini. His unfounded hatred to a wife who, on her side, could not love one whose severe and sombre exterior fitly accompanied a distrustful and avaricious disposition, long kept them separated, and Ranuccio during this time named Octavio his heir. As the youth grew up, he became daily and deservedly more popular, changing his father’s favour to fear and hatred, till, having heirs by his wife Margaret, he pretended a fear that the disappointed prince might interfere to put his brothers aside; seized on his person, and commanded that he should be immured in the fearful prison of La Rochetta at Parma, where he dragged through a few wretched years, and died mysteriously. His father, unjust and ferocious as he was, yet came to a peaceful end, leaving the dukedom to the second of Margaret’s sons, as the eldest proved deaf and dumb.

On our return from the Palazzo Pubblico, we passed the church of San Pietro, with its monastery attached to itself, and its convent on the opposite side of the street; the blank wall of the first facing the latter’s windows, barred, grated, and wired, like a prison or a mad-house, with precaution which seems excessive where the entrance is voluntary. On the whole, though we made the tour of all the other churches we found open, and wandered till we were weary among the desolate streets, the day we passed at Placentia seemed a long one. When night closed in, the silent town awoke, and parties walked up and down, singing with most enchanting voices: it is a pleasure peculiar to Italy.

4th October.

Left Placentia for Borgo San Donnino, issuing by the old gate and ruined fortifications. Piacenza received her name, in days of yore, from her pleasant environs,—now so changed that she requires new baptism: for the country, rich and flat, through which our broad, straight road passes, is interesting only where the vintagers are employed, and would be bare of trees but for those planted to receive the vines. Here and there we found shade from the sun under a pollarded oak, growing by the road-side, with the fruit and the festoons of light green hanging among its dark branches; far away we could distinguish the Apennines, but too distant to give boldness or beauty. At the entrance of Borgo St. Donnino is its quaint old church, guarded without by a strange assemblage of saints, beasts, and nondescript figures; and before arriving at the Angelo, which is at the extremity of the little town, we passed two fine establishments for mendicity, male and female, once a jesuits’ monastery. The Angelo is the cleanest inn, and kept by the most honest people we have had the fortune to find since crossing the frontier, the good woman, who lost her husband a year since, and the head waiter, who has lost an eye, vying with each other in civility, and proud of their beds and cookery: still as it rained pitilessly from our coming till night, we were reminded that travelling is a melancholy pleasure as we looked round the large desert rooms, examined over and over their vile frescoes, and were glad to talk to the waiter, and to hear his comments on Maria Louisa, and how with the higher classes of her subjects she is no longer popular since the movement which followed 1830, rousing their desire to be French rather than Austrians; but adored by the poor, to whom she is the kindest of sovereigns, and who feel her charity. The hospitals, good roads, and fine bridges of her small states, give proof of her care, and, saving three months spent yearly at Vienna, her whole time is passed in her duchy.

The violence of the rain prevented our visiting the ancient church and its curious tomb of the town’s patron, Saint Donnino, who was an officer of the Emperor Maximilian, and, having offended his lord by becoming Christian, fled hither, and was here beheaded in the year 304.

Alberoni’s first step to fortune was the place of chaplain to the bishop of St. Donnino.

The rain ceased, and we left the quiet inn, taking the long, straight, muddy road to Parma, passing, ere reaching the latter, the fine old castle of Guelfo, a part of which is a complete ruin, and the remainder with its ivied walls and square battlemented towers half concealed among old trees, though close to the road, forms a fine residence for the grand chambellan of Maria Louisa, whose family resides there throughout the year. You know that it was built by the Guelfo faction, in opposition to Castel Gibello, which lies between Parma and Placentia, though not on the road we have travelled. These fatal rallying words were first employed in 1140, at the battle of Winsburg, between Conrad the Third, the emperor, and Guelph the Sixth of Bavaria. A castle, which had been the nursery of the dukes of Swabia, was called Gibellin, and the Christian name of Guelph had long been one of predilection in the house of Bavaria. The latter sought the pope’s alliance. Even when the political animosity between them had died away, old affections and old hatreds continued to spring up in gratitude or in vengeance for benefits and injuries received by either’s ancestors. From Guelph the First, of Bavaria, sprang the house which gave monarchs to England.

Beyond Castel Guelfo, we crossed the fine bridge, which seems of endless length, commenced by Napoleon, and finished by Maria Louisa, across the desolate and desolating Taro, which, now shrunken and still, winds through its winter-bed, like a rivulet in a desert, and, shortly after, arrived at Parma, built on the river of the same name, which we traversed two or three times as we rode to the Paone, whither we had been recommended, and which, though a bad inn, we bear with patiently, as its owners are civil, and stabling excellent: for, under present circumstances, our own lodging is not that held first in importance. A portrait of the Santa Madonna hangs against the wall at the lower end of the stable,—the lamp, which burns before it, serving the double purpose of doing her honour and lighting the mangers.

The rain returned in torrents, not to be braved; and the windows of our dirty rooms command a view of only a small portion of the square. As I leaned out, looking at a dirty café just opposite, and in our own alley, and a yawning Italian woman, with her dark neck bare, as usual, enjoying, with her two elbows on a cushion, the “dolce far niente,” which so chafed ourselves, there passed beneath a long procession, headed by a few priests, and composed of men, who wore, over their usual dress, a species of friar’s cloak and cape of oilskin, with a silver badge, resembling a coffin plate, hung to the left side. They went silently along under the pouring rain, a bareheaded Capucin walking beside the last, and a crowd following. I asked a servant who they might be. They belonged, he said, some being clerical, some laymen, to the brotherhood of La Buona Morte, and were on their way to visit a criminal condemned the next morning to die. He was guilty, the waiter said, of a “brutto delitto,” and the story was, indeed, one exhibiting the unrestrained passions which are the heritage and curse of Italy.

He was a peasant thirty years of age, married to a wife of five and twenty, to whom he had been long attached, and father of an infant but a few weeks old. In the course of this summer he unhappily became acquainted with another and a depraved woman, but whom he determined to marry, and his resolution irrevocably formed, he returned home and from her presence one evening, deliberately sawed his wife’s head from her body with a pruning-knife; took measures for her burial which he believed would prevent discovery, and went from her corpse to her old father to mourn with him for her early death.

We shall leave at daybreak, and probably make no stay at Modena, as we return by the same road, when I will satisfy my own curiosity, and any you may feel likewise.

You know the anecdote of Cambacérès, told by Montgaillard. “On the 11th of April, 1814, he put down his liveries and imperial representation, and in a spirit of legitimacy, justice and humility, which cannot be sufficiently praised, signed a deed of renunciation to the title of Prince of Parma in presence of a notary! and remitted this deed to the Austrian cabinet, so that the Empress Maria Louisa and the court of Vienna will, on this head, have nothing to fear!!”

At the village of St. Ilario, at which we arrived after crossing a long narrow bridge over the Enza, is the frontier. We were detained some time, but the duke’s doganieri are the first and only who have a touch of modesty about them, for they do not stretch forth the hand for coin. Fed our horses at dirty Reggio, Ariosto’s birthplace; the poor noble, the unsuccessful lawyer; the great but ill-recompensed poet, to whose Orlando Furioso the Cardinal Ippolito d’Este said, “Master Louis, whence gathered you together such fooleries?” but better appreciated by the wild robber chief Pacchione, when Ariosto (sent by Duke Alfonso to purge the mountainous district of Garfagnana of the lawless bands who infested it, and having so legislated as to succeed, and in a brief space of time to bow or soothe the turbulent to submission) was passing on horseback, and with six or seven domestics only, along a narrow pass, when at a sudden turn, and grouped in the shadow, he perceived a number of men of suspicious appearance, and hurried by, knowing his party’s inability to cope with theirs. The chief of the band, however, who watched him go past, arrested his last follower by the bridle, and inquired the name of the nobleman. The domestic replying “Ariosto,” armed as he was, he joined the charger at a bound, and the poet checked him suddenly, uncertain as to the motive of his haste and the action which might follow.

The robber doffed his cap and bowed respectfully, asking pardon for having failed to salute him on his passage as being then unacquainted with the person of one whose fame was familiar to him, and having made him the most polite offers, took his leave.

It was Ariosto, who, endowed with genius, not with fortune, engraved over his small house the inscription:—

SMALL DWELLING SUITED TO ME, OBNOXIOUS TO NONE, IN

NO RESPECT MEAN, RAISED AT MINE OWN COST.

and who replied to the question, why he who, in his Orlando, could so well describe splendid palaces with porticoed courts and marble halls, had built a dwelling so humble? “It is easier to gather together words than stones.”

On our left hand (the road conducting thither following the course of the torrent Crossolo, which washes one side of the town) is the village of Correggio, the birthplace and the home of Allegri, to whom it has given a name which is not to die—the man who it is said had no master: who studied nature in her grandeur and her grace; of whom a modern writer has observed that his love of childhood, his study of its anger, its joys and tears, so exact that he was wont to stop to sketch in his walks the groups he met at play, gave him in its representation such purity of conception, such brilliancy and delicacy of touch, that he seemed to paint with the breath, while over his female forms there is diffused a divinity, a celestial grace, belonging to beings of a higher order, as if he had painted in prophecy. Never rich, ill paid for his mighty works, having received but about £20 and his food during the six months his labour lasted for the chef d’œuvre of his life, the St. Jeronimo, he proceeded one day of 1534 to Parma to solicit that the remainder of a sum due for the frescoes of the cupola of the cathedral might be paid him, and received there £8 in copper money. Impatient to bear it to his family at Correggio, he started on foot to carry it thither, arrived heated and exhausted by the enormous weight, was seized with acute fever and died at forty.

The appearance of the little city of Modena is most prepossessing, regularly built and clean, with wide streets and handsome buildings, a pleasant impression increased by the magnificent rooms and extreme civility of our inn San Marco.

With Modena is connected much historical interest. The famous Countess Matilda, the church’s most pious benefactress, and the pope’s most attached adherent, was its sovereign in 1054, and in her strong castle of Canossa near Reggio, she received Pope Gregory the Seventh, yielding to him her powerful protection on the news that Henry the Fourth of Germany, the excommunicated emperor, was on his way to seek a personal interview with the pontiff, preferring so to do to awaiting the decision of his holiness the following year at the diet-general of the empire to be invoked at Augsburg for the purpose of his ban or absolution. There exists a village of the same name, where the impregnable fortress of Matilda arose at that time. The princes of the empire had obliged the unfortunate Henry to consent to abjure the marks of his rank as well as its power; to enter into no church, which, as a man condemned by the church, his presence might sully; and to travel without suite or dignity till such time as his fate should be decided.

Feeling that in the assembly of Augsburg that decision would be fatal, notwithstanding the danger of traversing the Alps at that season (Christmas), Henry the Fourth departed for Italy, accompanied by his empress, and by Prince Conrad, then a boy, and who, in after days, was to raise the standard of revolt against the father, whom Henry, his second and best beloved son, was also, when most trusted, to betray, usurp his empire, and imprison his person, and finally refuse to it the rites of burial. The emperor arrived at Canossa, and presented himself at the first gate, for the fortress was surrounded by a triple wall, and the ground then covered with snow. He was allowed to wait a long time and alone; the few who attended him being forbidden to approach; and the gate being at last opened to him, he was wholly at the mercy of his enemies, a consideration which did not subdue his courage or change his purpose, for it is said of him, that in the sixty-six battles he had fought, he had always, save when betrayed, come off victorious. Admitted within the second court-yard of Canossa, he was bidden to put off his shoes and the royal robes which he wore, assuming in their stead a plain woollen tunic; and the monarch having obeyed, he was allowed to remain in this court three days, though in the month of January and in the Appennines, exposed to the severity of the weather, and receiving food only late at night, as if forgotten by the proud pontiff. The fourth morning Matilda interceded, and Gregory the Seventh allowed himself to be softened, admitted the emperor to kiss his holy foot, and gave him absolution on such humiliating terms, that they were shortly after broken through, and Henry excommunicated once more.

Nicholas of Este, duke of Modena and Ferrara about 1400, was the injured husband who beheaded Parisina; and Alfonso of Este, whose reign commenced in 1505, was married to Lucretia Borgia, of infamous memory. It was his brother the Cardinal Ippolito who was Ariosto’s unworthy patron. Rival in a love-affair of his natural brother Don Giulio, Ippolito heard its object, who was a lady of Ferrara, praise the beauty of Don Giulio’s eyes, having preferred him for her lover. As his brother returned from a hunting party, he was surrounded by assassins guided to meet him by this unnatural relative, and the eyes, whose lustre the fair lady of Ferrara had praised, torn from their sockets in his presence.

Before arriving at Modena, and on the river Secchia, we rode through the wretched town, and beneath the strong stern towers of the fortress of Rubiera, within whose walls died Ottobon Terzi, who, from a condottiere, striving to rise to be an independent sovereign, seized successively on Parma, Reggio, and Modena, pillaged Placentia, beheaded sixty-five citizens of Parma, but at last, desirous of peace, as the Marquis of Este opposed to him the brave Attendolo Sforza, consented to a conference at Rubiera. The chief and the noble arrived, each followed by a few chosen knights, and among those of the latter was Attendolo. Excited by sudden passion, or perhaps obeying a command unworthy of him, in the midst of the peaceful discourse Sforza sprang forward and stabbed Ottobon Terzi. Those who accompanied him fled, and the corpse (transported thither and mutilated by the people’s fury) was dragged through the streets of Modena.

So much for the striking traits of her history, we shall know her features better on our return; for here, as at Parma, it has rained the livelong day, and we leave early to-morrow. It is the first time since I arrived on Italian ground, that the comfort of an inn has made me wish to stop for repose.

CHAPTER VIII.

Pic de la Mirandole—Castel Franco—Bologna—A bad inn left for La Pace—Its mistress—Statue of Pope Julius the Second—St. Petronio—Mistake of a learned man—Charles the Fifth—Here crowned King of Lombardy—King Enzio—His peasant-love—His twenty years’ captivity—The origin of a name—The towers—Accademmia—St. Cecilia—The cathedral—Temple dedicated to Isis—Papal troops—A capitulation—Cholera—An Italian hospital—French soldiers—The procession barefoot—The well-attested miracle—The Appennines—Lojano—The Pellegrino—Filigare—Pietra Mala—Strange properties of its fire and cold spring—Fruit—Montecarelli—St. Antonio’s grapes—Palazzo Borghese—Hôtel du Nord—Jerome Bonaparte’s cook—Piazza della Santa Trinità—Spot occupied by the Palazzo degl’ Uberti left vacant—Recording escutcheons—The Saviour, king of Florence—The Loggia—Galleria de’ Medici—Piazza del Duomo—The Baptistery—Work of Ghiberti at twenty years old—Chains of the gates of Pisa—A funeral.

6th October.

Mirandola is not on our road although at no great distance, on the Secchia, and forming part of the duchy of Modena; near it are two other villages, called Concordia and Quarantola. It is said that Euridice, grand-daughter of the Emperor Constantine, and wife of Mainfroy the Saxon baron, in the first of the three became mother at a birth of three noble boys, from which strange fact it was named Miranda. Growing up in perfect harmony, the place which they inhabited was called Concordia; and years after, when their descendants, increased in number, in a neighbouring town mustered forty knights, it took from them the name of Quarantola. This legend you may doubt or believe in; but the family of Pio and Pic, sprung from Euridice, produced in 1463 the phœnix, Pic de la Mirandole, who, at ten years of age, held the first place among the poets and orators of his day; and in 1486, at Rome, published a list of nine hundred propositions on “all that is or can be known,” offering to argue their truth with any such learned personages as could be induced to meet him there, proposing to defray the expenses of their journey and their sojourn. The envy of these denouncing him as dangerous and a heretic, he endured persecution for a time and fled to France, but justifying himself, returned to Florence and died there the day that Charles the Eighth made his entry, and having known him in France, sent his physicians, who strove vainly to save his life. He left large legacies to his domestics, and the remainder of his possessions to the poor, and was not thirty-two when he died.

This is the fête of the Virgin. Before leaving Modena, the landlady took some trouble to convince me that the barber opposite, occupied in shaving several black faces, was a Jew, as a good catholic would on no account so labour to-day. Outside the town, we met numbers of peasants carrying the tall cierges intended as offerings at her altars, ornamented with flowers and ribands. The toilette of the women, who wore their best clothes, had an elegance about it, the lace or embroidered handkerchief covering, in guise of mantilla, the head and shoulders, and the clear worked muslin apron tied on over the bright petticoat. On the chapter of beauty, however, their “glory has departed.” Since leaving Milan, we have seen but few females not plain to ugliness, and but seldom among the men one of those dark faces so peculiarly handsome, notwithstanding its doubtful expression. The dirt of the lower classes is so excessive and indescribable, that, as they make their toilette before their cabin doors, the entire breadth of the road seemed scarce sufficient to save from contamination.

Having passed through St. Ambrogio, and over a fine bridge which crosses the Tanaro, we entered on the papal territory. At the barrier we paid two pauls per horse, the same at each of the two bridges, but on carriages the tax falls heavily; and at Castel Franco are the pope’s custom-house and passport office. Truly the subjects of his holiness lack conscience. One touched our baggage; “What have you here?” and to the usual reply, “Linen; will you see it?” rejoined, “On no account, but we will drink your health.” Then came up another to whisper “they were not insieme,” and that the first was a narrow-minded man, who shared nothing with a comrade; and thirdly, a soldier bringing the passport murmured as he delivered it, “Le sue buone grazie.”

Arrived at Bologna as the sun set, passing on the right hand the long brick arcade, which, three miles in length, is carried up the hill to the church containing the Virgin’s most precious picture, painted by St. Luke; and riding beneath an archway which bears an inscription in Napoleon’s honour, whitewashed for the sake of effacing it, but restored by the late heavy rains. We went, as recommended, to the Pellegrino, but it was full and has no stables, and to the Aquila, which had accommodation for our horses, but none for ourselves, a circumstance it did not think proper to communicate till the latter were on the road to their quarters.

A voice in the crowd said “La Pace,” but it was overruled by another answering, “San Marco;” and as the latter was nearest, we went thither, and found it full also. The inn opposite, a branch of this, as belonging to the same master, and called the Tre Mori, had still a disposable room, so said the innkeeper, and, weary of wandering, we agreed to take it if possible. He retreated with a bow within his own premises, and we were consigned to the care of his direttore, the great man’s great man at the Tre Mori. The room, which was small and stifling, and exactly opposite a hall in which domestics were noisily dining, had been occupied, I think, by servants also, and left unarranged at their departure. The only answer to the bell was “Patienza,” a virtue I should have summoned to mine aid till morning, despite the inn’s dirt and incivility, but that D—— came in dismay to say that our poor comrades were lodged in a crowded stable, without space to lie down, and next kicking horses, one of whom had lamed his neighbour the night before. To run the risk of a like accident to ours was not to be thought of—the warlike Fanny, with open mouth and ears laid back, and Grizzle, with her heels, were prepared to resent any insult from the tall carriage horses, or even to take the initiative if necessary; and Italy being a place where even bribes are vain to induce an attendant to practise care, D—— remained standing beside the surly groom, while I sallied forth on a voyage of discovery, having changed my dress, and summoned to conduct me a poor facchino, who had carried our baggage into the inn—a dwarfish wretched being we noticed for his civility, and who had since remained leaning against the wall in the hope of further employment. I desired him to be my guide to La Pace, and we threaded the winding and porticoed streets at a rapid step, as I feared it might grow dark ere our return, and San Marco being at one end of the town, La Pace is at the other, in a broader street, and better air, near the gate we shall pass through going to Florence. Arrived at the hotel, I found with satisfaction that its mistress was a Frenchwoman; and seeing that not only our horses could have a private stable, but that the house in accommodation, as well as in civility, wholly differed from the Tre Mori, we hurried back; the little guide telling his history, and how he had been left an orphan, and with three sisters, he “povero ragazzo” (for the ragazzo is, like the Irish boy, named for life) and they had struggled, and nearly starved for a time, and then established a good character, and got on in the world, till now (in his Sunday attire) he was another man.

We asked for our bill of an hour, and, though explaining the motive of our departure, endured insolence in return, paying with Christian meekness the moor’s exactions, which, for our horses and ourselves, charged such items as might have been fair the next morning. As we walked out, we passed an English gentleman, who stood on the inn steps holding a bill of interminable length, the innkeeper of San Marco and the direttore of the Tre Mori, one on each side, like Scylla and Charybdis, and the Englishman, foaming with the powerless fury of the sea in like situation, for the worthies were uncivil and positive. Escaped from their fangs, our horses led by the ragazzo, we arrived at La Pace at dusk, crossing on our way the fine Piazza Maggiore, most striking in that imperfect light, with the Palazzo Pubblico, and the Palazzo del Podestà, and the unfinished façade of San Petronio, occupying three of its sides, and the giant’s fountain, with its statue of Neptune by John of Bologna, built, not in the centre of the square, but in its angle, or rather on a “place” of its own, a kind of supplement to the Piazza Maggiore, facing the buildings of the Palazzo Pubblico, where they extend beyond it.

I have heard Bologna criticized for its unending arcades, which give it in my opinion a claim to admiration; a studious and solemn character, making it resemble some mighty cathedral and its cloisters. La Pace retains the name it bore when a resting-place for pilgrims on their way to Rome; the large vaulted kitchen was then the refectory, and the upper stories of the building have still the same distribution as in those days. Our hostess has known some of life’s vicissitudes. Her father had a place in, I think, the financial department, whose revenues sufficed for the comforts of his family, but, wishing to retire, he exerted what interest he possessed to get a friend, who promised compensation, named in his stead. Having succeeded, this man not only refused to fulfill his part of the agreement, but having borrowed and given no security for all the ready money the old man possessed, he finally turned into the streets, from the shelter which had been their own, the father and young daughter. The latter wandered over Paris during the day, vainly seeking employment, which, owing to her youth and disbelief in her story, was everywhere refused her. At last, night coming on, and those who passed examining the forlorn girl with curiosity or contempt, in despair, and ashamed to beg, as she crossed the Pont Royal on her way back to the spot where she had left her father, she suddenly resolved on suicide, and was about to throw herself into the river, when her arm was caught by an old officer, who forcibly held her back, gravely remonstrated with her, and passed on. Softened, and her purpose changed, she knocked meekly at several doors, and at last found shelter with a poor portress, who received herself and her father for charity. She next took service with a lady resident in the hotel, and accompanied her to Italy. There, after some years, she married the head-waiter of the inn of San Marco, and they embarked their savings in La Pace. Her father followed when she quitted France, but he had grown childish from misfortune, and died shortly after the change in his daughter’s prospects. He used to wander miles away from the inn, saying he would go back to France. The fat black terrier, who sits so petted and caressed on a chair in the kitchen, was his follower and guardian. One day, after a vain search for the old man, he was found sleeping on a mattress in a peasant’s cabin, with the dog sitting at his head: he had walked farther, thinking to pass the frontier, and fatigued, and unable to speak the language, he sank down at last before the cottage which gave him its hospitality. I think she said it was his last excursion.

The Neptune of John of Bologna holds a place once occupied by a statue, by Raphael, of Pope Julius the Second, and raised by his command shortly after his first conquest of Bologna, in 1406, but the pope was represented with so haughty an aspect, and in so menacing an attitude, that the original of the statue had hardly quitted them, when the indignant Bolognese struck it down. The church of St. Petronio, though unfinished, and likely to remain so, has an imposing aspect, and is of ancient date, as commenced in 1590. It possesses its patron saint’s entire body, the head, which only was wanting, having been bestowed by Pope Benoit the Fourteenth. The presence of this relic caused a strange mistake on the part of the learned German Meibomius, who, believing all the works of the satirical writer Petronius preserved at Bologna, made a long journey thither to behold his manuscripts, and was greatly disappointed when led to the shrine.

In this church was Charles the Fifth, the emperor, crowned king of Lombardy by Clement the Seventh;—kissing the same papal foot he had before held captive, and creating, after the ceremony, two hundred knights, in the list of whom are included the names of several noble families still existing in Bologna.

The palace of King Enzio opposite still bears the same name as when the prison of the unfortunate young man, illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederic the Second, and dethroned king of Sardinia. The Bolognese took him captive, and would never restore his freedom more, for he pined within these walls twenty years, and died in the year 1262. There is a legend which would make the family of Bentivoglio of royal origin: it recites that there was a fair young peasant enamoured of Enzio, and who, by bribes or stratagem, found means to see him in his confinement. She loved, and was faithful to him, and brought forth a son, who, by favour likewise was sometimes allowed to be carried to his father’s arms. The sad prisoner was wont to hold him on his knee, and murmur to the boy while he caressed him, “Ben ti voglio, O ben ti voglio.”

When he died, he left him all his disposable property, and the youth adopted as a family name the words he had so often heard repeated by his father.

The towers of Asinelli and Garisenda, which serve us for landmarks in our perambulations, are at the gate of Ravignana, and at no great distance from the Piazza Maggiore. They are remarkable for their bending position: the first, towards the west, is but five feet out of the perpendicular; it was built in 1109, and is three hundred and seven feet high. The last is in height but one hundred and forty-four feet from the ground, but its inclination towards the east is far more considerable. It was built about a hundred years later, and its threatening and most awful position has remained unchanged since the sinking of the foundation first caused it.

We went to San Ignace, which was formerly the convent of the Jesuits’ Noviciate, now the Accademmia delle Belli Arti, and I saw in its handsome salles many fine pictures, the most celebrated being Raphael’s St. Cecilia, and in which, though beautiful, I was disappointed. I believe it suffered repair when it came to Paris, then was repainted the sky, which now starts from the canvass, before the heads of which it is the back ground. You would have smiled to see the man who came when we rang for admittance, these halls being open to the public except on festivals. We asked if entrance were possible to view the St. Cecilia. “Possibile, si!” he answered; “ma sa ella che questa sia festa?” and held the door close, fearing we should pass him without agreement made; but I said, “Capisco.” And he then threw it wide, and when he came out again, stood bowing with hands outspread.

We had been employed in making a few purchases: for, notwithstanding that in every town, Milan included, I have visited and questioned the speditori, of our baggage we have heard nothing since the day it quitted Vevay to precede us in Italy. Whether it has crossed the Simplon, or is domiciliated in its torrents, remains unknown to me, and the linen contained in our valises at present constitutes our wardrobe.

We made the tour of most of the churches, the cathedral among the rest, which is modern and glaring, but owns the last fresco of Louis Carracci. The church of the Dominicans contains the tomb of King Enzio, or Hensius; and the old church of San Stefano, the only antiquity whose existence is certain in Bologna, and thought to have been a temple dedicated to Isis. Though this is the 7th of October, the heat continues excessive, and the arcades, which exclude the sun by day, also prevent the free circulation of air at night. The stifling and ill-scented streets make bad promenades; and the dirt of the population of Bologna passes description. We walked into San Petronio this evening: it was decorated for the festival, and the altar, a blaze of wax-lights, contrasted with the gloom of the spacious aisles. The priests, in their rich robes, moving before, and the multitude kneeling on the pavement, had a fine and solemn effect; but the infected atmosphere made it impossible to stay more than a few moments within the curtain which falls before the entrance. On our return to La Pace, and as I walked along the broad and dimly-lighted corridor on which the apartments open, I saw it was occupied by a party, and forth from it issued our poor dwarf facchinoo in the best coat of which he had spoken, and a new capacity: for he said this was his own band, and its music, he being one of the performers, was certainly delightful.

We expected letters to-day, but were disappointed, and the kind-hearted landlady, fancying my anxiety proceeded from some mistake in the forwarding of our funds, begged very earnestly that her bill might remain unpaid till our return from Florence. She regrets her own country, though she has stayed here long enough to lose its accent. Her Italian rivals strive to ruin her, a laudable purpose in which they generally succeed, against the French interloper who comes within their circle with civility and better accommodation.

They are a strange compound of ferocity and cowardice, these papal vassals. They bring to my mind an anecdote told me of their brethren at Ancona, by our friend Capt. de V——l, whose conduct at Lyons I mentioned to you, and I write it here, as a story of the pope’s troops will not be misplaced at Bologna. I give it you in almost his own words, as he was present there at the time:—

The Conte P——i commanded a battalion of infantry quartered in the lazzeretto of Ancona, which is a building of considerable size, and easy to defend, as the sea surrounds it. When the 66th took during the night possession of the town, the lazzeretto, the pontifical battalion, and the quiet commandant, were all three forgotten. In the morning, enraged at the neglect, he angrily inquired whether the French general was aware of the presence of a battalion in the lazzeretto. “Very probably,” was the reply. “Allora,” said the Conte P——, “si vuole una capitulazione; perchè nella circostanza è cosa necessaria e militare! Sono comandante; la capitulazione la voglio, vado dunque a visitare il general Francese e la capitulazione si farà.”

Such being the Conte P——’s warlike views, he was escorted to the presence of Colonel Combes, who then commanded the 66th, and laughing heartily, willingly satisfied the military scruple of the gallant officer.

An anecdote of a different time, but of the papal troops also, animated by the same spirit, I must mention here:—After the revolution of —22 or —23, the Neapolitans, failing to prove their allegiance to their new government, yielded difficult passes it would have been easy to defend, retreating before the Austrian army, and continually defeated till their king was replaced on his throne. Asked why they had allowed themselves to be so easily conquered, they replied that their cannon had been taken. “Più non abbiamo canoni; e senza canoni che si può fare?”

It was shortly after the arrival of the French at Ancona, and in November, 1836, that the cholera broke out there, and believing it infectious as well as epidemic, the Italians had the barbarity to wall up the doors of the houses in which the first sufferers lay, introducing through the windows, and at the extremity of a pole, the food or medicine thought necessary. Our friend’s lodgings looked on the hospital, wherein, when the panic had in some measure subsided, the sick were admitted—to die—either from the virulence of the malady, or the measures adopted for its cure: for abstinence was so strictly practised, that many perished from starvation. Monsieur de V——l certifies, what would otherwise seem incredible, that of all carried within its walls one only issued forth alive. This was a strong, powerful man, who attacked with cholera, but to a slight degree, was borne to the hospital, and, laid in one of the beds, fell asleep,—and waking in the morning, refreshed and hungry, asked for food.

“Come!” said the Italian nurse; “quì non si mangià; sarebbe darsi la morte!”

Feeling the weakness of convalescence, the patient, though he insisted, lay quiet and soon slept again, and through almost the entire day and night which followed; but the second morning his hunger was no longer to be borne with. He implored food, and received the former answer: “No food is given in the hospital.”

Watching his time, therefore, the unfortunate man slipped from his bed, seized the first garments within his reach, rushed through doors happily for him unfastened, and into the street and Grande Place, where he saw a friend standing, and flung himself into his arms, demanding bread, as he was starving. He was fed and cured,—a solitary exception; yet the cruel and ignorant populace incurred more danger by an hour of fanaticism than they could have done in a month of charity. The French soldiers had soon constituted themselves nurses, performing frictions and other offices the Italians feared, and saving many. So great was the cowardice, that a consecrated wafer was presented to a dying man by his priest at the extremity of a pair of pincers. The only active means they adopted was the ordering a procession in honour of Our Lady of Ancona, attired for the occasion in a white robe, spangled with golden stars. Capt. de V——l and his company formed part of the procession, it always happening, he assured me, that he was on duty as the Madonna’s guard whenever she came forth. This Madonna is the same of whom Napoleon, when playing his part on this stage, asked an interview, and who, after a conference of some length, was observed to drop a tear!! Though it was the month of November, and the operation a dangerous one in times of cholera, by the clerical command all constituting the procession, saving our friend and his men, marched barefoot. Arrived at the Grande Place, on a kind of scaffolding raised there, appeared a priest to address the multitude; who vociferated with the whole power of his lungs, commanding that they should prostrate themselves on the cold pavement, and telling them that this scourge had come upon them because they observed fasts less strictly, and because their faith and confidence in their clergy had declined.

“Each of you,” he exclaimed in conclusion, “ask pardon of heaven with meekness and penitence; say frankly, I am a sinner, a thief, an assassin; therefore pardon me.” It would seem he knew his congregation. Of the poor wretches who assembled that day, swarms had perished ere the close of the next; but there is, not far from Ancona, a small town or village, whose name I forget, which escaped the pestilence by reason of a miracle performed by its patron saint, the details of which Capt. de V——l saw on a printed affiche. When disposed to avert evil from his native place, the saint pushes up the lid of his heavy tomb, and agitates above it his hands streaming with blood. The adjutant of the 66th, talking with a man of this town, asked if any one really believed it had happened.

“Giacchè,” answered the Italian, “le dico che ho veduto, veduto cogli occhi miei.”

We are to start to-morrow, and I sent on a bandbox, and a man who came the length of the street to fetch it, grumbling when I had paid him well, I took from the table, which was in a corner of the half-lighted room, what I thought a few more baiocchi, and among them bestowed, most unworthily, a Napoleon.

9th October.

Left Bologna a little after sunrise, our good-natured hostess having got up early to prepare our coffee, à la Française, with her own hands; the horses pleased as ourselves to escape from their hot captivity. We rode for some distance still over the plain along the brink of the torrent Savena, but from Pianoro, the first post, the route ascends undulating in a succession of steep rises and falls, far more wearisome to horses than the broad way which, sweeping across the Alps, forced aside or pierced through every obstacle. The hills, some bare as those of Burgundy, clothed with chestnut, as we advanced, not having the bold character of the Alps’ mighty and lonely masses, but swelling like wave beyond wave, and in their details losing grandeur. On the whole, though admiring and enjoying the pure mountain air, and passing some spots of romantic beauty, (particularly one where the road was carried under a wall formed by the high cliff, while before us, on a tall crag, stood a lone church, and on the right hand far below, lay the valley, with its green hills close crowded and dotted with pleasant habitations,) our first day’s journey over the Appennine almost disappointed me in its tranquil beauty, as compared with the wild and grand Swiss passes. The heavy oxen toiling on their way, as they preceded the post-horses of travelling carriages, or the mules of waggons, added to the picturesque aspect of the country. Its breed of cattle is peculiarly beautiful, having the dun hide and black legs of the deer. We were to sleep at Lojano, a village under a hill with a fine gorge stretching below. I recommend the Pellegrino, the new inn on the Bologna side, clean and comfortable and having civil masters, and not the Posta, known to me only as bearing a bad character, and being immured in the dirty town. Our horses had a separate and good stable, enjoying the thick bed of fern, here substituted for that of Indian corn leaves, which made so bad a one at Bologna.

10th.

A lovely morning, and beauteous ride from Lojano through chestnut woods, which cover these hills, laden with the fruit now ripe and dropping, which, as it forms the chief food of the poor, the pretty peasant girls were busily employed collecting in their baskets. Those we saw were mostly fair and light-haired, and if they wanted the bold dark eyes of the Bolognese dames, their more delicate features would have served the sculptor for model. The heat became excessive as we approached Scaricalasino; the view thence is superb, we could distinguish the chain of the Alps and the plains of Lombardy, but not, as I hear is sometimes possible, the Adriatic. Past the town the road grew wilder and the ascents more rapid, and we shortly arrived at Filigare, the frontier, where the grand duke has built a new and handsome edifice for police station and custom-house. Pietra Mala is at no great distance, with its dirty town and church on a crag, and inn to which is linked a robber story. About half a mile to the right, a peasant pointed out the place occupied by the flame, which is so brilliant at night, as to light the neighbouring mountain. It covers a space of fourteen feet square, on a stony but fertile soil, as the vegetation almost touches the fire, which emits blue and red flames, and the earth beneath has neither crack nor hollow; it is believed by some naturalists to be the forerunner of a fearful volcano. At a short distance from Pietra Mala there is also a cold spring called by the natives “Acqua Buja,” which takes fire when approached by a lighted torch.

The day was oppressively warm, but we came up with a poor man driving his mule laden with pears and figs, the most delicious, and dismounted to rest under the shade of some of the bare crags which hereabouts rise, divested of plant or tree, broken into seeming pinnacles and towers, till we found we excited attention, and thought it unwise to do so any longer, as the Appennines have been of late in their loneliest parts scarcely safe for travellers. Hereabouts there is an inn, good apparently, but which I should hardly choose from its utter solitude, and we soon arrived at the summit of this mountain, the highest on our route; formerly dangerous, as the wind, which rushes down the gorge in sudden gusts, often swept off carriages. It is now, at the places of peril, protected by high walls, of the necessity of which we were aware, even to-day, as it blew freshly there, though the temperature below was burning and breathless. A long winding descent, commanding lovely views into wooded defiles, succeeded, and we passed the spot where the old road crosses ours; it was abandoned because impossible to protect it in the snow season.

Arrived at Montecarelli, a lone inn in a pretty situation; the village itself is some hundred yards farther. I cannot say that we dined or rested well, though the beds were clean and the people civil, and certainly honest, for neither here nor at Lojano could door or window be fastened or even closed. We were kept waking by carts and roulage waggons arriving late and starting early, aided by the poor patient oxen, labouring on with their meek heads bound to the yoke, and the lantern tied between them. As they took their short snatches of rest in the stable which held our travellers, and accidents were not impossible, and the pump beneath our bedroom was all night in motion, we gladly went on at dawn to escape the heat, at least in part. Our last day’s journey was the most interesting. Montecarelli left behind, we wound through groves of old oak up and down abrupt hills, catching glimpses through the trees into valleys on either side; to the west the sky was blue and pure, but eastward, as the sun rose, it shone on the surface of the mist which lay like a broad lake in the hollow, the green tops of the hills surmounting it like its islands. The clouds are more agreeable as well as picturesque far than near; for, riding through them, the country was completely veiled, and the chill unpleasant and penetrating. About four miles from Montecarelli, we passed Le Maschere, which appears a good inn; and near it the charming villa of some Florentine, its garden walls covered with roses, adjoining a ruined arch and grey tower, whence, following the slope of the hill, descends a noble cypress avenue. The views, as we issued from fog and into a burning atmosphere, grew at each step more Italian in their character, with villas on the wooded eminences, and here and there the umbrella pine rising above its fellow trees. Having left behind Cafaggiolo, where on the right hand there is a turreted castle, which belongs to the duke and resembles a fortress, our road descended to a valley, skirting a bright and narrow river, enclosed between hills where we journeyed beneath a sun it was difficult to believe that of October.

Here again by the road-side we found vineyards and their refreshment, and figures or pictures of saint and Virgin perched on poles among the vines to protect them from blight or storm; those I ate had been under the care of St. Antonio, and he had proved a good husbandman. Our horses suffered again from the small fly, and we were glad to ascend the mountain and exchange their presence and the extreme heat for its fresher air. Climbing slowly, as the way was steep, suddenly from behind a cabin at the angle issued forth to meet us an ill-dressed suspicious looking party; the eight or ten foremost carrying guns, the stragglers who followed, thick sticks; and as one must needs be imaginative in the Appennines, we began to think that robbers we had heard of were indeed abroad, and (having no arms) to speculate on the speed of our horses, and the necessity of galloping through the group, as we had no intention of riding back again. Having mustered courage to run away, we were prevented making any undue exertion by the banditti turning peaceably down a bye-path; we asked a little girl, who stood at the lone cabin door, who they were, and she said Cacciatori, sportsmen.

At last the steep succession of sunny hills ascended, refreshed by no shade, and riding under heat such as I never yet felt, we saw Florence below with her domes and towers rising out of the mist the heat made, backed by mountain above mountain, broken and numerous as the billows of a troubled ocean. On either side, as we rode down this last hill, the country was covered with vine and olive, sounding prettier in description than they look in reality; and the terraced gardens of the villas we passed were gay with a profusion of summer flowers, and the laurier-rose with its double and beautiful blossom, growing in the open ground and shooting up against the blue sky. In compensation, the heat was scarcely to be borne; the horses devoured with flies, ourselves blinded with sunshine, and (having left two miles from the city the Campo Santo with its cluster of sombre pines on the right hand, and entered, one after the other, several villages) persecuted by beggars and by a succession of vile odours, which all the winds of the Appennines cannot waft away.

On the left hand, before entering Florence, to which it is the nearest villa of importance, the avenue, whose grass grown road is lined with broken statues, leads to the deserted Palazzo Borghese. Riding beneath the triumphal arch, raised in 1739 (in honour of the Emperor Francis the First when he came hither, yet only grand duke of Tuscany, and in imitation of the Arch of Constantine), we passed through the ancient Porta San Gallo, whose date is 1284, and into the city. A boy guided us over the flat and dangerous pavement to the Palazzo Bertolini, now the hôtel du Nord, and opened about a week since by the ci-devant cook of Jerome Bonaparte, having moderate terms and fine apartments, only too comfortable, as this weather we would gladly dispense with their thick carpets. Our dresses changed and dinner ended, and the horses, for which there was no room here, lodged at Huband’s livery stables, I was too impatient to remain enclosed in the hôtel till morning, and, notwithstanding fatigue and the unusual heat which keeps Italians within doors, went out to receive my first impression of Florence; and though to me, as it does to many, it brought disappointment, with its streets crooked and narrow, its quays so inferior to those of Paris, and its Arno now shrunk in its bed to little better than a ditch, its ancient buildings and irregular squares have historical interest and picturesque combination, which make full atonement.

The Piazza della Santa Trinità, on which our inn is situated, is near the Palazzo Vecchio and far famed Duomo. On our way to the last, we crossed the Place, at an angle of which the former stands, not in the centre, as a decree ordained that the spot once covered by the razed palace of the Uberti should remain vacant for ever, in memory of the traitor’s infamy. Built in the year 1298, it frowns unshaken by time, a square fortress with embattled walls of jutting stones, surmounted by one high tower, and the nine escutcheons which bear the coats of arms of the city’s various possessors ranged below the battlement. Crouching on the steps is the lion of Florence, holding its place in the city’s armorial bearings, from as early a period as the lily which blooms on the two first of these recording escutcheons. The arms of Napoleon and the grand dukes are last in order, and among those which mark the factions of Guelph and Gibelline, those of Charles of Anjou and King Robert of Naples; of the wool-carders and the Medici, the merchant monarchs. There is one bearing the monogram of the Saviour, for Nicholas Capponi, in the year 1527, and at a period of excitement when no temporal sovereign seemed strong enough to sway the disobedient Florentines, proclaimed Jesus Christ their king, in a grand council composed of a thousand voters, of whom twenty, opposing the election, formed a minority!! The colossal statues which guard the entrance, the fine fountain with its Neptune and marine horses, beside its steps to the left, and beyond on the Place the royal statue of Cosmo mounted on his war-horse, to the right, as we stood opposite the citadel, the Loggia d’Orgagna with its three arches, light and yet solid, which once served for tribune to the orators of the republic, and now shelters the beautiful Sabine group of John of Bologna—the Judith beheading Holophernes, and the proud Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, with the stern palace and the ancient prison tower, which rises above the roofs of the irregular houses opposite—and the two parallel lines of colonnaded buildings, which extend from the Palazzo and the Loggia to the quay, and contain in their attics the Galleria de’ Medici, make this the most striking portion of Florence. We saw it to advantage beneath the bluest of skies, and a sun which shone red and intense on the burning pavement, as if it had been August, calling up, alas! the succession of ill scents which betray an Italian town.

Passing the post-office, and turning down the Via de’ Calzajoli, we arrived shortly on the Piazza del Duomo. The cathedral and its elegant bell-tower, beside it, but detached, and St. John the Baptistery, opposite the unfinished façade of the cathedral, which has been painted in fresco, now washed away by rain, occupy the centre of a fine open space, which shows to advantage their beauties or peculiarities. Is it sacrilege to think that its monstrous dome seems to weigh down the remainder of the building; that its mass of black and white marble wants relief, or what the French call mouvement, to give it light and shadow; that the octagon temple, with its pointed roof, once pagan, cased in marble, and become that of St. John, is heavy and ungraceful? St. John possesses the bronze doors, so beautiful in their workmanship: that facing St. Maria del Fiore executed, when but twenty years old, by Ghiberti, whose model was preferred to those of Donatelli and Brunelleschi, and of which Michael Angelo said, that it was worthy to be the portal of paradise. On either side of this door hang, as a trophy, chains once belonging to the gates of Pisa, and suspended here in memorial of the victory gained over Pisa by the Florentines in the year 1362.

Entering this square from the Piazza del Gran Duca, there is on the left hand a small church, its exterior not distinguished from the houses which adjoin it. It was growing dusk, and at the door stood attendants with torches, I fancied for some festival within, but, while we lingered, there issued thence a funereal procession, the most solemn I have seen; the mourners in their long sable robes, and hoods forming masks, with openings for the eyes only, two and two, bearing torches in their hands, following the priests, carrying banners, and the coffin, with its velvet draperies, and followed in turn by the clerical attendants, in white robes and crimson capes, slowly sweeping round the Duomo on their way to the Campo Santo; all burials being performed at night and without the town.

CHAPTER IX.

The Duomo—Its interior—Michael Angelo’s farewell—Vasari—Congress of artists convoked—A dome of pumice stone—Brunelleschi turned out as a madman—The egg—His colleague Ghiberti—His feigned illness—The difficulties divided—Height of the dome—Giotto—The Campanile—Pietro Farnese—His gilded mule—Dante—Condemned to be burned at the stake—Peter of Toledo—Conrad the traitor—The sacristy—The Pazzi—Julian murdered—Salviati hanged in his cardinal’s robes—Seventy executions—The artist nicknamed Andrea of the Hanged—The Baptistery—The withered elm restored—The story of Joseph—John the Twenty-third from pirate become pope—Palazzo Riccardi—Gardens of Lorenzo—Michael Angelo—The Strada del Traditore—Lorenzino—The Duke Alessandro—Made unpopular through his vices—The plot—Anecdote told by Benvenuto Cellini—The rendezvous—The murder—Lorenzino assassinated in turn—The Galleria—The Palazzo Pitti—Cosmo—His sons’ quarrel—The eldest killed by his brother—The father’s revenge—His wife poisoned—Duke Francesco and Bianca Capello—Her story and death.

October 13th.

Went to the Duomo to hear the celebration of high mass, which was not performed at the principal altar, now under repair, but in one of the side chapels. The effect of the cathedral is grand from its immensity. Divided into three aisles, the octagon choir, surrounded by its marble balustrade, is placed beneath the dome, with which it corresponds, and the spaces, octagon also, on either side, form the cross, each containing, as well as that behind the choir, five chapels. Though richly ornamented with paintings and stained glass, and the marble statues of prophet and apostle; though the unfinished figure of Pity, behind the high altar, is the work of Michael Angelo; the pavement round the choir laid after his designs; the frescoes of its cupola by Vasari; it yet disappointed me, seen after the Duomo of Milan. The construction of this church, named Santa Maria del Fiore from the lily, the arms of Florence, occupied a space of one hundred and sixty-nine years; it had been commenced in 1298, and the year 1417 arrived before any of its successive architects had raised a stone of that cupola, to which Michael Angelo said, when, before quitting Florence to build that of St. Peter’s at Rome, he paid it a farewell visit: “Adieu, I am going to build your likeness, not your equal!”

In Vasari’s Life of Filippo Brunelleschi, he gives interesting details of the struggles to persuade, and the success when permitted to act, of this extraordinary man. He was a Florentine, but residing in Rome, and appreciated there at the time of which I speak; and the members of the “Opera del Duomo,” weary of their architect’s indecision, agreed to summon him; and the syndics of the woollen trade, who supplied the funds, offered to his consideration all the difficulties of execution which had been presented to themselves. Brunelleschi answered vaguely: he said, “That as the temple was dedicated to God and to the Virgin, there was little doubt of their conferring on him who was destined to conclude this great work the science and invention necessary;” and added, he doubted not if himself were concerned, that he might find resources and master obstacles. He advised that they should convoke at Florence a congress of the most skilful artists of Italy, France, and Germany, and confide the direction to the ablest when all should have given counsel. He forbore, however, to bestow his own, evaded making the models demanded of him, and returned to Rome, where he passed the next three years in the most arduous studies, all tending to the solving of this problem. In 1420 there met, as he had advised, a company of foreign and Tuscan artists at Florence, and Brunelleschi left Rome to join them. The meeting was held in the church, the members of the “Opera,” the syndics of the woollen trade, and the principal citizens being present; and it was amusing to hear the strange propositions made. Some spoke of constructing the dome of pumice-stone, for the sake of its lightness; a number adopted the idea of supporting its centre by a pillar like the pole of a tent. Several advised the first raising within the church a mountain of earth, mingled with coins of small value, so that when the dome should be built over it, the multitude would gladly free the church of its presence on account of that of the money. Brunelleschi alone condemned all plans proposed, asserting the necessity of a double roof; and following up his own idea, without explaining the manner of its execution, entering into minute details, and not comprehended by the assembly; till at last, after having been several times prayed to retire, and refusing to depart, the consul’s pages laid hands on him, and pushed him forth as a madman. Still undiscouraged, he resolved on persuading separately the consul, and some of the members and more enlightened citizens, and persevering till he succeeded, it was decided that the choice to be made should lie between himself and the foreign architects; and another meeting was convoked for the purpose of hearing their arguments for the last time.

It was then that took place the famous dispute, which had an egg for subject. The rivals of Brunelleschi desired that he, as they had done, should exhibit plans and models. The Florentine refused, but he dared them to stand an egg upright on the marble table, saying, that he who should succeed in so doing could certainly raise the cupola also. Each attempted the feat vainly, and Brunelleschi, his turn come, quietly striking one end of the egg against the table, it stood erect on its cracked shell. Those present exclaimed, “We could all have done as much;” and Brunelleschi answered, “Very true, and you could raise the dome if you had my model!”

The syndics were henceforth decided, but the annoyance of the artist was not yet over. It was agreed that his work should proceed to a certain height, with a promise only of continuing if it so far satisfied. When this first condition was fulfilled, Lorenzo Ghiberti, who had attained celebrity by the bronze doors of the Baptistery, was named his colleague—having powerful protectors in Florence; and Brunelleschi, in vexation and fury, had almost abandoned an enterprise whose difficulties were thus to remain, while its glory would vanish. Determined on ridding himself of his coadjutor, he, after a time, pretended illness, and, instead of arriving to superintend as usual, remained in his bed, complaining of pains in his side—submitting to frictions and remedies. The master workmen applied for directions to Ghiberti, who answered that they must wait his colleague’s recovery, as he could issue no order singly, and evaded confessing that he neither knew Brunelleschi’s plans, nor had seen his model.

The latter’s malady proving obstinate, the workmen repaired to his bedside, but obtained neither orders nor satisfaction; for he turned to the wall, saying, “Have you not Ghiberti, and can he not work a little in turn?” As it was vain to urge him farther, they departed, as he desired, to seek his fellow architect, but as time went on, and a stop was decidedly put to the building, the workmen began, as he had hoped, to murmur, and to doubt Ghiberti’s capacity, and at last resolved on going in a body to Brunelleschi’s lodgings, to make known to him the cessation of the work, the disorder ensuing on Ghiberti’s ignorance, and the unhappy consequences to them who were poor, and dependent on their exertions for the support of themselves and their families.

“Wherefore is Ghiberti idle?” asked the mock patient; “have you not him to issue all needful directions?”

“He can do nought without you,” said the workmen.

“Ah,” rejoined Brunelleschi, “without his co-operation I could proceed very well.”

At last, weary of idleness, urged by his friends, who had whispered abroad the cause of his malady, and represented that he would more easily free himself of Ghiberti by recommencing his labours, and proving his colleague’s ignorance of architecture, he returned to his post of director, but seeing that his patron’s support retained Ghiberti in office, notwithstanding what had past, he resolved on forcing his retreat through his humiliation. “I might have died in my late illness,” he said, “and had I done so, you have still Ghiberti, whom heaven preserve to you; but as our salary is shared equally, may it please you that our labours be divided also, in order that each of us may prove his anxiety for the republic’s glory. There are now two difficulties to overcome—the construction of scaffoldings, solid and convenient, and adapted for the labours to be prosecuted within and without the dome, and the establishing the chain of masonry which is to bind together the eight sides of the cupola; let him choose one of these, leaving the other to me.”

Not daring to refuse, Ghiberti decided on the latter as most easy of performance, and relying on the cupola of St. John as a pattern, and the master masons for advisers. The scaffoldings of Brunelleschi, entirely different from any used before, were so happily invented, and ably executed, that their models were preserved in the cathedral stores. Ghiberti had established the stonework on one of the eight sides; but his colleague, visiting it in company of the members of the Opera del Duomo, on his return analyzed its construction,—pointed out its defects,—proved its want of solidity,—and said, in conclusion, that Ghiberti’s building and salary should be alike put a stop to.

The latter was, however, not discontinued; but Brunelleschi, thenceforward, was sole director of the works. Observing that the higher they rose, the more time his masons lost, he imagined the constructing of small houses of refreshment on the dome itself, and thus prevented their long absences. The height of the dome, from the cathedral floor to the ball, is three hundred and twenty-seven feet, and the whole was terminated twenty years after Brunelleschi’s death, and in conformity with his designs.

I saw with regret that some of the best statues, those of Florentine saints which ornament the lateral aisles, are in carta pesta; the San Giovanni Gualberto, who holds a cross, and whose expression and execution are alike beautiful, is crumbling away.

On the right hand, entering the church, is the portrait in marble of Brunelleschi, sculptured by his scholar; and near it that of Giotto, the painter and sculptor, the architect of the Campanile, and the labourer’s son, whose genius was first guessed by the artist Cimabue, when crossing the fields on foot he found him, then a shepherd boy, occupied in tracing on a stone the figure of one of his lambs. He took him to Florence, where he became his pupil, soon leaving far behind both his master and all the artists who had, till then, enjoyed celebrity,—studying nature, which they had neglected, and grace, which they had misunderstood. He was celebrated in the verse of his contemporary and friend Dante, whose tomb he afterwards decorated when the poet died in exile. The Campanile was commenced in 1334, and the bas reliefs and the statues which ornament the interior of the edifice are in greater part the work of Giotto’s own chisel, and the remainder executed after his designs.

Beyond his and Brunelleschi’s portrait, and the mausoleum of a Florentine bishop, there is placed, above a side portal of the edifice, a monument in honour of Pietro Farnese, captain of the Florentines, which has, at first sight, a ludicrous effect, the equestrian statue being highly gilded; but the animal, which the warrior bestrides, meek-faced and long-eared. Chosen by the Florentines for their general against the forces of Pisa, the 11th of May, 1363, he led an army against theirs; and his horse killed under him, the sole charger found disposable was an ignoble mule, mounted on which he gained the victory, took prisoner the Pisan general, and the greater part of his army. The 19th of June following, seized by plague, which then desolated Tuscany, he died the same night, deeply regretted by the Florentines.

Near the transept, but on the left hand, is the portrait of Dante by Orcagna, with a sketch of his triple kingdom, and a view of Florence: it is curious as painted in 1430, at the suggestion of a Franciscan monk, who in the church gave lectures on the Divina Commedia. This strange old painting recalls an eventful story; his fame predicted at his birth, in 1265, by the astrologer Brunetto Latini; his love awakened at nine years of age for the Beatrice, who was his dream through life; his bravery as a soldier and ability as an ambassador, and his banishment,—for Charles of Anjou, entering Florence, finding Dante of the Bianchi party, (which he had espoused, says his biographer, principally because the wife, whom he had married and parted from, belonged to that of the Neri,) he issued against him two sentences, which still exist,—the first condemning to spoliation and exile, the last to be burned at the stake with his friends and adherents; a wanderer over a world whose admiration could not compensate for absence from his country; in 1304, in company of his fellow exiles, striving and failing to force a way thither; everywhere received kindly, but wearying his hosts by the proud temper which misfortune soured, or by the very fact of being unfortunate,—for in the company of women he was gay and gentle, though bitterness of retort has been reproached to him by those who provoked it: misunderstood through life, his history is concluded in the verse of Byron:—

“Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar.”

Above a side door of this lateral aisle is the monument of Peter of Toledo, vice-king of Naples, and father of Eleonora of Toledo, the broken-hearted or the murdered wife of the first duke Cosmo; and nearer the principal entrance, still on the left hand as we face the altar, there is a marble mausoleum, distinguished by a cross, from whose extremities spring lilies, and placed between two eagles. It is believed to contain the ashes of Conrad, the traitor-son of that Emperor Henry the Fourth, who at Canossa was the penitent and victim of Pope Gregory the Seventh, and the Countess Matilda; urged to treason against his father by Urban the Second, Gregory’s successor, and after eight years of civil war, dying despised for the revolt which the court of Rome had instigated, and for the calumnies which he had promulgated against his father as excuse for his unnatural rebellion.

In the octagon space, to the left of the choir, is the Sagrestia de’ Canonici, that which once sheltered Lorenzo de’ Medici from the fury of his foemen, the Pazzi. They had determined on crushing a power which the Pitti had attempted, but vainly, to extinguish in the person of his father Pietro.

Sixtus the Fourth was personally his enemy, and with his assent was obtained the co-operation of the archbishop of Florence, Francesco Salviati. Two fêtes were given by the conspirators: the first at Fiesole, the second at Florence,—to which the Medici were invited; but Julian each time failed to come. The day and place at last appointed were the 26th of April, 1478, in the cathedral; and the moment that of the elevation of the host, as the brothers never failed to attend high mass on Sundays, and it was difficult to be certain of their presence together, and off their guard, elsewhere. The condottiere Montesicco was charged with the murder of Lorenzo; Bandini and Francesco Pazzi with that of young Julian, and no circumstance of the plot having transpired, its success seemed certain. When, however, the mercenary soldier had been informed of the time chosen, in horror excited by the sacrilege, not the murder, he refused the part assigned him, and yielded its performance to two priests less scrupulous. Francesco Salviati was to remain near the old palace, to take instant possession on receiving news of the brothers’ death. Giacopo Pazzi, drawn into the conspiracy against his will, was commissioned to call the citizens to arms, and proclaim their freedom. Mass had begun, and Lorenzo was present; but Julian had not appeared, and Francis Pazzi and Bandini went to seek him, and accompanied him to the cathedral, conversing with him gaily as they went along, and, arrived there, Francis Pazzi embraced the young man with seeming amity, but to assure himself that he wore beneath his peaceful attire no cuirass which would interrupt the passage of steel. The moment arrived, Bandini, who stood ready, plunged his dagger into young Julian’s breast, who staggered a few steps and fell; but Francis Pazzi, rushing upon him also, inflicted so deep a wound on his own thigh, as incapacitated him for further effort. The priests attacked Lorenzo, but Maffei only succeeded in slightly wounding him in the throat; and drawing his sword and defending himself gallantly, he fought retreating, till succour came, and the assassins fled, and took refuge with his friends in the sagrestia, where Bandini, who, having murdered Francis Neri, as well as Julian, advanced to try his firmer hand against Lorenzo’s life, could not reach him. Meanwhile the Archbishop Salviati, proceeding to take possession of the palace with his thirty followers, and Giacopo Pazzi, arriving on the public square with a hundred men-at-arms, found the Medici party too strong, were taken or fled. The former, in his cardinal’s robes, with Francis Poggio, the historian’s son, was hanged from the windows of the palace; and Francis, who had dragged himself home, and striven to mount his horse, but, weak from pain and loss of blood, had sunk down on his bed, was brought thither, half clothed as he was, and suspended by the archbishop’s side. His doom inflicted with haste and carelessness, death did not immediately follow, and in his prolonged agonies he gnawed the breast of his neighbour.

Torn in pieces by the infuriated populace, or flung from the castle-battlement; or by the hand of the executioner, there perished seventy persons. Giacopo Pazzi, who had escaped, was taken in the mountains, brought back to Florence, and hanged also. Only the pope’s nephew, the Cardinal Riario, who, too young to be made privy to the plot, had been conducted to the city and the cathedral to lure the Medici more surely thither, was spared to appease the pontiff, having first suffered insult and injury; but Paul the Fourth, nevertheless, placed Florence under interdict for the violent death of her archbishop, Salviati. Vasari mentions that the artist, Andrea del Castagno was selected to fulfill the decree issued,—bearing, that all who had taken part in the conspiracy should be represented, with the ignominy they merited, on the façade of the old palace. Andrea, being under obligation to the Medici, executed this painting with so much energy and truth, representing all the personages hanged by the feet, but in varied and admirable attitudes, that his work awakened the curiosity of the town and the enthusiasm of connoisseurs, while it bestowed on him the nickname of “Andrew of the Hanged.”

From the Duomo we went to the Baptistery, entering by the northern door, which, as well as that facing the cathedral, is the work of Ghiberti, and opposite which is the little pillar of St. Zanobi, recalling a miracle his ashes performed when they were transported to Santa Maria del Fiore:—The bier touched by accident a withered elm, which then occupied the place since yielded to the column, and its dead branches were instantly covered with leaves!! Above these celebrated doors are bronze statues of remarkable workmanship. It was in the year 1293 that the edifice was encrusted with marble, at the expense of the shopkeepers of Florence, who were its patrons; and young Arnolfo di Lapo, entrusted with the restoration, also agreed to preserve and employ all ornaments and sacred fragments he should find at his disposal: and this may account for the irregularities within, for the mingling of Composite with Corinthian architecture, and the difference existing in the sixteen granite columns which, ranged within the circle, support the terrace carried round the temple. Between these pillars are the figures of the twelve apostles, and two statues representing Natural and Revealed Religion, the former very beautiful, in carta pesta. The mosaics of the dome were chiefly executed by Giotto’s pupils, and are admired for their execution. I think I never saw anything more horrid than the Last Judgment, a representation of which fills a large circle in the part of the dome immediately above the high altar, and its fine group in white marble of St. John supported by angels, and ascending to heaven. The Saviour (so the artist has named an ignoble figure of gigantic size) is placed between the elect and the damned, which last a devil of extraordinary shape is employed in thrusting down his large throat whole, with an eagerness which threatens indigestion.

The story of Joseph occupies another compartment; the creation of the world and the deluge, and the life of John the Baptist, fill the remainder, making sad burlesque of serious things. The tomb, which, entering at the northern door, is on the right hand (its statue of gilded bronze representing the buried pontiff, and the basso relievo bearing the three Cardinal Virtues), is that of John the Twenty-third; his name was Balthazar Cossa, a Neapolitan of noble family, but scanty fortune, and in his youth a pirate. Abandoning the sea, and the trade it offered him, ambitious, clever, and bold, he became an ecclesiastic, found means to introduce himself to Boniface the Ninth, and, obtaining his favour, was by him made cardinal and his legate at Bologna.

His conduct was scandalous and tyrannical, and discontented the successor of Boniface; yet the imperious legate resisted, and with success, the papal power; and Alexander the Fifth, to whom, when opposed to Ladislas, king of Naples, he rendered great services, received him into favour and intimacy. The ci-devant corsair was nevertheless suspected of poisoning his benefactor in his impatience to take his seat. He was crowned at Bologna, as John the Twenty-third, in 1410; but Ladislas first menaced Rome, next, in perfidy, recognised John as pope; but when the latter, believing in his sincerity, had allowed his best troops to depart thence, made his entry during the night; and John, laying aside his sacred character, found barely time left him to mount his horse and escape towards Florence.

Though Ladislas was shortly after poisoned by his mistress, the tiara remained ill secured on the brow of the pope. A council-general was assembled at Constance; a list of important accusations presented against him; and finally, having fled in disguise from Constance, been delivered up by the duke of Austria, (forced to the act by the Emperor Sigismund,) he found himself obliged to ratify the sentence which declared him to have caused scandal to the church, and deposed him from his dignity, forbidding the faithful to obey him.

Martin the Fifth being elected in his place, John sought him at Florence, and, on his knees, both implored pardon and fully ratified the act of abdication. Martin received him kindly, and created him dean of the Sacred College. The short time which intervened between this circumstance and his death, he spent in retirement and literary pursuits, for he wrote verses of some elegance, referring to his gone-by greatness and solitary close. He died in 1419, about six months after, and from his friend Cosmo de’ Medici received a splendid burial.

Continuing our walk, we passed before the Palazzo Riccardi, now the Public Library, built, in 1430, on the designs of Michelozzo, by Cosmo, father of his country, and sold to the Riccardi family by the Grand Duke Ferdinand the Second. Nearly opposite the Baptistery, on the northern side, in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, its gardens were filled with the fine antiques which have since formed the Florentine Gallery, and then drew within the sphere of the owner’s liberality the young sculptors of Florence. The most famous among these was Michael Angelo, whose noble name, for he was a descendant of the family of Canossa, is well nigh forgotten in that his genius ennobled more. Born in 1474, in the territory of Arezzo, his father, Buonarotti Simoni, opposed his taste for the arts, till he recognized that the natural bent of his son’s mind was too decided to be thwarted, and Michael Angelo, who, fearing his father’s severity, had worked assiduously, but in secret, was placed as a pupil with the Ghirlandai, the most celebrated painters of the time.

In the year 1489, Michael Angelo, then about fifteen, wandering over Florence with his friend Granacci, was by him introduced into the gardens of the Medici. To study the rich antiques it contained, he abandoned the workshop of Ghirlandaio, and it was here that, at that early age, he executed, from a mutilated antique, the head of the Fawn, now admired in the galleria, supplying in his copy, which surpassed the original, the parts wanting, and adding details whose truth belonged to himself only.

It was this juvenile work which awakened Lorenzo’s wonder. He said jestingly to the boy, “You have made your fawn old, and yet his teeth are perfect; do you not know, that to old people some are always wanting?”

The duke had hardly departed, when he broke away a tooth with his chisel, and hollowed the gum so that it appeared to have dropped from age.

On Lorenzo’s return, noticing the alteration, and admiring the youth’s intelligence, he assigned him apartments in his palace, treated him as his own son, and continued to protect him till he died. During this time, four years, he had profited by the society of learned men and artists, who frequented the Medici palace, and by the instructions of Angelo Poliziano, then entrusted with the education of Lorenzo’s son, Pietro, who, profiting by them less than his young comrade, was the puerile successor of a great father.

Michael Angelo was eighteen years of age when his friend died. Feeling his loss deeply, he quitted the Medici palace, and returned to his own home, where he shut himself up, alone and inactive, during several days, and then, finding by chance a block of marble, which had long lain exposed to wind and rain, he produced from it a Hercules. During the severe winter which ensued, he yielded to the childish wish of Pietro, and lost his time by making statues of snow, not through the complaisance of a flatterer, but such feeling of love to the dead as excuses the failings of the living representative. He was again lodged in the Palazzo, now Riccardi; but the Medici family, in consequence of Pietro’s conduct, was driven from Florence, and the artist thought it wise for a time to depart also, and did not again inhabit the palace, which had been the home of his boyhood.

In the year 1715, Francisco Riccardi enlarged the palace considerably, without altering its architecture—enclosing within its walls the Strada del Traditore, so named from Lorenzino de’ Medici, the murderer of Duke Alessandro. On the site his house had occupied were constructed the stables. The close of Alessandro’s life forms one of the darkest portions of Florentine history.

An instrument in the hands of Charles the Fifth, the emperor; by him chosen to rule Florence, to prepare its possession by Austria; a bastard of the Medici, as being son of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, and an African woman, whom it is said he poisoned that she might no longer witness to his base birth; he was one-and-twenty when, accompanied by the emperor’s delegate and the imperial decree, which named him chief of the state, he entered Florence.

Gay and clever, popular for a time with the people on account of these qualities, and losing their favour through a depravity of conduct which did not even respect the barrier of their convent walls, he excited the indignation of the republican party, as well by his vices as by his tyranny and system of espionage, which in their houses, as well as in the streets, made it dangerous for the citizens to hold communication by word or sign.

Louisa Strozzi, the young daughter of Filippo, chief of this powerful family, had not escaped insult from Alessandro’s companions: he himself, it was thought, had singled out, as another victim, this noble lady, who shortly after died poisoned. It was in the father’s palace that the discontented assembled nightly.

Lorenzo, named, from his slight figure and delicate features, Lorenzino, belonged to the legitimate branch of the Medici and the republican party of Florence. He was a poet, and had written works which ranked among the best of his time,—but still more a politician; and devoted to the study of antiquity, his admiration centered on those who had freed their country from a tyrant; and resolved to imitate them he confided his intentions to none, resting on the strength of his single arm.

To become more surely the intimate and friend of Alessandro, he plunged into all kinds of dissipation with more ardour than himself. The young student, with his pale features and melancholy habits, became the minister of the duke’s pleasures, and day and night his companion; till Alessandro, the most suspicious of princes, placed in the traitor who dogged his steps a confidence so boundless, that he replied to one who, noticing the strange change in his flatterer’s character, bade him beware: “If I were obliged to leave Florence, I would confide the care of mine interests to Lorenzino.”

Near the houses of the duke and his confidant, lived a fair lady, the wife of Leonardo Ginori, who as yet had evaded stratagems and resisted bribes. Alessandro confided his love to Lorenzino, and said that his last hope rested on him; and Lorenzino promised to serve him, and assured him of success.

Some time before, Benvenuto Cellini, who himself tells the circumstance, had asked an audience of the duke, to show the coin on which, by his order, he had engraved his portrait, and ask leave to finish his work in Rome.

The reverse of the medal was yet undesigned, and the duke, unwilling his artist should depart, desired Lorenzino (present as usual) would advise him to stay. The young man obeyed; and Benvenuto, having argued for the necessity of his repairing to Rome, where his workshop was, suddenly turning to the favourite, added, “And you, my lord, who are both learned and witty, will you not supply a reverse for this coin?”

“I was at that moment,” said Lorenzino gravely, “thinking of such a one as might be worthy of his excellency.”

The duke said, smiling, “Give it him, Lorenzo, and he will remain.”

“I will,” replied the favourite, with a sarcastic expression of countenance; “as soon as to do so lies in my power, and I hope it will astonish the world.”

Alessandro laughed, and Benvenuto departed.

The 6th of January, 1537, Lorenzino informed the duke, that Caterina Ginori had promised to meet him that night, but not at the palace. She had chosen for greater secresy the favourite’s house, to which a private passage, constructed by Alessandro’s command, led from the ducal residence. Masked, and holding his sword in his hand, but not having beneath his cloak the cuirass which he constantly wore by day to protect him from his suspected Florentines, the duke arrived at the place of rendezvous; and Lorenzino quitting him to seek the lady, he stretched himself on a couch to await his return—his weapon laid on his pillow, but the sword knot so twisted by Lorenzino’s hand, that to draw it forth was impossible. The assassin lingered some time: he had placed as watch on the duke a man in whom he could confide, named Scoroucoucolo; and he staid to prepare him for a murder without revealing who was to be the victim. Returning softly to the chamber, they saw that the duke slept, and Lorenzino, profiting by the opportunity, plunged his sword in his body. The duke sprang up notwithstanding, and, seizing a footstool for shield against his enemy, rushed towards the door, but Scoroucoucolo struck him with his knife on the cheek, and Alessandro, dropping the footstool, sprang furiously not on him, but on Lorenzino. “Traitor,” he shouted, and these were the sole words he spoke, “traitor, I did not expect this from thee.” Lorenzino, weak of body, inferior in strength to his antagonist, even though wounded, by a violent effort forced him back upon the couch, and held his hand on his mouth to stifle his cries, but he felt the impossibility of ending his fearful work alone; and while Alessandro in his struggles bit his thumb so violently as almost to sever it from his hand, he called to Scoroucoucolo for aid, and the bravo cut the duke’s throat, while Lorenzino exerted his last strength in holding him down; but, recognising him when the deed was done, he had well nigh fallen from fear. He followed Lorenzino, who fled first to Bologna, and then to Venice, to join Filippo Strozzi: forgetting his interest in the republic in his private fears; proving himself throughout a coward; and having wandered long, evading the snares laid for him, died at last the death he merited by the swords of two Florentine soldiers of Alessandro’s guard, assassins also.

To-day and every day we have visited the Galleria with its collection of statues and paintings, which would alone make a pilgrimage to Florence an enjoyment not to be forgotten; but though even the enthusiasm of guide-books could not here succeed in cooling mine, though we offered, like the rest, our quota of homage to the “Venus of the tribune,” acknowledging that no copy conveyed an idea of her perfection, and no praise could exaggerate it; though we have lingered before the marks of the immortality of those who have long been dust, and brought away recollections which summon back as the loadstone iron, you will not expect a description of all which has been so often criticised before both ill and well, and in either case can convey no definite ideas on the subject. On the splendid collection of the Palazzo> Pitti the same reasons make me silent also, for one must write either a mere catalogue of names or a volume, and both would weary; though it contains the battles of Salvator Rosa and his conspiracy of Catiline, and Guido’s Cleopatra and the Madonna della Seggiola of Raphael, and the Fates of Michael Angelo with their purity of outline and coldness of colouring, perhaps resembling the painter’s disposition and life, and the productions of Titian and Vandyck and Paul Veronese and others, not unworthy of being companions of these, forming a mass of precious things, among which there is not one counterfeit. I found the fine suites of rooms occupied by them, always full of students, to whom the grand duke’s liberal feelings afford every facility for improvement in their art. Yesterday afternoon we passed in the Boboli gardens, which fine old trees and irregularity of ground render, if less majestic, far more beautiful than those of Versailles, which took them for model. It was in the year 1418, that Luca Pitti purchased for about £230 sterling of that time, the ground on which the palace was constructed; destined, at the ruin of that rich and proud family, to be sold to the Medici, but to retain its original name, rather in token of the downfall of the first possessors than of the modesty of the last. Its purchaser was Cosmo de’ Medici, son of John of the black bands, elected duke after the murder of Alexander, and husband of the unfortunate Eleonora of Toledo, who died of grief for the loss of her slaughtered sons, or, as some records assert, by the duke’s hand also. Cosmo united in his person qualities the most opposite, patient as a botanist in the Boboli gardens which himself had planted; a laborious chemist, methodical even to minutiæ in the sciences which were his amusement; calm as persevering, yet a man of terrible and uncontrolled passions, who assassinated a nobleman in his own halls and with his own hand, and, in the four first years of his reign, condemned to death by default four hundred and thirty emigrants, placing a price on the heads of five and thirty. In 1562, during the hunting season, he had gone to enjoy this amusement, which, notwithstanding his severe and sombre disposition, he preferred, to the castle of Rosignano in the Maremma, an unhealthy part of the state of Sienna. While there, the two youths, one aged nineteen, the other but fifteen years, died suddenly, and their mother a day or two after. An attempt was made to persuade the Florentines that the pestilential air of the country, marshy and unwholesome, had produced the short and fatal illness which carried off three persons in so brief a time, but it became known that, on their return from a hunting party, a dispute had arisen between the brothers, at the close of which the eldest, Cardinal John, had received a mortal blow from the boy Don Garcia. The enraged duke sprang upon his second son and laid him dead at his feet; their mother was a spectator of this scene; she might well have died of sorrow as was averred, but many whispered that a witness of his conduct so nearly interested, was not to be borne by Duke Cosmo.

On the death of Eleonora of Toledo, Cosmo had attached himself to a fair young lady of the house of Albizzi, named Eleonora also, and with a love so excessive, that it was feared he might marry. A person of his household thought it well to communicate these fears to his son, and Francesco had the temerity to speak on the subject to his father. The old duke’s violent temper roused, his heir had almost fallen its sacrifice; the presence of the informer only saved him, for Cosmo, like a wild animal baffled in his first spring, rushed on this easier prey and plunged his sword into his bosom. It was Cosmo, who having been crowned grand duke in St. Peter’s at Rome, returned to his Palazzo Pitti, to marry there the poor and beautiful Camilla Martelli, who replaced in his affections the second Eleonora, and Francis, in whose favour he had abdicated, dared make no further observation, since he himself, though husband of the austere and pious arch-duchess Jane, was the lover of Bianca Capello. Well known as is the latter’s romantic story, its place is here recalled by the walls in which she was the light love and the regal mistress; and the palace court where was held the joust in her honour, in which Duke Francis broke a lance.

Two years before his marriage with Jane of Austria, a fugitive pair arrived in Florence; Bianca, daughter of the noble house of Capello, and Pietro Bonaventuri, clerk in the bank of Salviati at Venice. Proximity of residence caused their meeting frequently, and they loved “not wisely, but too well,” both too young to feel difference of fortunes an obstacle. Their affection was favoured by a menial of Bianca’s, who procured a false key for a private entrance of the palazzo: and while its inmates slept, the young girl nightly left the protection of her father’s roof to visit her lover, and returned before dawn. There occurred at last some mistake on the part of the attendant: the door had been barred or the key left within, or an uninterested passenger passing along had shut it in precaution, and Bianca, who could not enter unobserved, or remain to confess her fault, since she knew what vengeance must follow, tottered back to Bonaventuri’s presence, and they fled together.

Apprised of their flight and of their marriage, her infuriated father obtained from the Council of Ten its sentence, condemning Bonaventuri; and casting his uncle Baptista, innocent of any fault, into an unwholesome prison, where the old man was seized with fever and died. At Florence, Bianca implored the duke’s protection. Made curious by the fame of her beauty, he sought an interview; she first refused, then consented to one,—to several,—then looked for his coming,—then changed by degrees. Her husband was named to a place in the household, which he accepted; and when the marriage of Francis was concluded, for till then the intrigue was kept secret through policy, the most pleasant apartment of his palace was assigned to Bianca, and in their gratified ambition and flattered vanity, the husband and the wife were content to forget their early love with its fondness and its sacrifices. The arch-duchess was amiable but grave and proud, and while her beauty was unnoticed by Francis, of whose life hers was a continued criticism, passed as it was in exercises of piety, Bianca’s favour increased daily. Her wit and gaiety became more necessary to unbend the sombre temper and warm the sterile imagination of Francis, and as a relaxation from his fatigues and calculations, as banker, trader, diamond merchant and sovereign. On the first coming of Bonaventuri, when the Venetian senate had offered two thousand ducats for his life, and the family of Capello dispatched assassins on his track, Francis protected him for love of Bianca; but he had grown insolent in his dishonour, and become the admirer of a young widow of high rank, he boasted of it so openly, that her relations in turn complained to the duke both of his conduct and its publicity. Francis desired Bianca to send for and remonstrate with him; and anxious to hear their private conversation, placed himself where, unseen, he might witness the interview. It fell not out as he expected: for when the two were once more in presence, each betraying and betrayed, and Bianca faltered forth her message, Pietro, whose love was not wholly extinguished, yielding to a sudden burst of jealousy, loaded her with invective, threatened her with death; and while Francis, hid and observing silently, decided that the life of the violent man he had supplanted henceforth might endanger his own, Bianca softened, in sorrow not in anger, wept her reply to his words of contempt and passion; and when he had flung from her, sought the duke to plead her husband’s cause.

As Bonaventuri left the Palazzo Pitti, he met one of those relations of the fair widow whose remonstrances had caused his late interview with Bianca. He held a pistol to his throat, and said, “I know not wherefore I do not kill thee,” cast him from his path, and passed on. The insulted nobleman asked an audience of the duke that very day. They took several turns in the presence-chamber together, in view but not in hearing of the court, as they conversed in a very low tone. That evening Francis left Florence for his villa, and remained absent but two days. On their return, Bianca was told that, waylaid by ten persons of the widow’s family, Bonaventuri had been murdered. If she gave a few tears to his memory, it was the only tribute offered it: for no search was made for the assassins, and no punishment awarded. This was in 1572, and in —74 Cosmo died; and the first act of Francis, having taken the title of Grand Duke, was to enclose in a cloister, where she ended her days, his father’s widow, Camilla Martelli. The new grand duke, of inexorable temper, though needing himself indulgence, by the rigour of his laws and the scandal of his life, by trading on his own account, ruining the state while he tripled his private revenues, drew on him his subjects’ hatred. His archduchess, Jane, died 1578, her pride and affection alike trampled on, the last stroke she received being the reception, like a triumph, which greeted Bianca’s brother. Weary of hearing her praises, he quitted Florence and Bianca for a time. Even before the murder of the latter’s husband, he had made her a promise of marriage, and, fearing the power of absence, she wrote eloquent letters, in some reminding him of his word passed to her, in others apparently resigned, but saying, that to reconcile herself to his loss she was determined to die. The softened duke returned and repeated his promise. A priest, employed by the Venetian, commanded him to marry her on pain of the church’s anger; and on the 5th of June, “not two months” after the death of the archduchess Jane, so that “the funeral baked meats might have furnished forth the marriage table,” he espoused Bianca, their nuptials being solemnized in the palazzo, but so secretly as to remain unknown even to the grand duke’s family. The Cardinal Ferdinand, his attached brother, who, having saved him from a conspiracy got up against him some time before, in grief at his conduct had quitted Florence, now returned, hoping it had changed. The grand duke was indisposed, and tending him at his bedside sate Bianca. The former was constrained to confess their marriage,—a piece of news which the cardinal received in silence, and soon quitted the apartment. As he departed, which he did immediately, he was observed to brush away a tear. The term of mourning for the archduchess passed, and the approbation of Philip the Second obtained, the duke made public his ties with Bianca, and celebrated them with tournament and festival at the Palazzo Pitti. The Venetian senate proclaimed her “Daughter of the Republic;” the cannon thundered, and the bells of St. Mark rang; the palaces were illuminated; and the father and brother of the dame, who, more pure but less fortunate, had quitted their city beneath their ban as the fugitive love of the low-born Bonaventuri, were created knights, and styled “most illustrious,” and took precedence of the nobles of Venice, whose names were more ancient as well as brighter. Bianca was crowned Grand Duchess in the cathedral of Florence,—embassies from her native town, and from others of Italy, arriving to do her honour. The Cardinal Ferdinand was a solitary contrast to the vile flatterers who crowded thither. He remained at Rome; but his sister-in-law had resolved that their family differences should at least be no longer apparent to the world.

Since the rupture of their friendship, Francis, with little delicacy, had refused to pay the revenues due to his brother, who, being generous and prodigal, was necessarily in extreme embarrassment. Of this Bianca was aware, and using all her influence with Francis, she determined him to pay not only the sums due yearly to Ferdinand, but likewise the accumulated arrears.

Her seeming generosity won over the cardinal, and he returned to Florence; where, as he was a man of honour and probity, the reconciliation was on his part sincere. The duke, whose love had suffered no change, earnestly desired a son by Bianca, who expressed hopes of maternity, but so as to awaken the suspicion of Ferdinand, who, as heir presumptive, kept close watch on his sister-in-law’s conduct. It is told of him, that the hour being arrived, and he waiting in her ante-chamber, there entered from without an attendant, bearing a lute with apparent care, who passed towards the grand duchess’s apartment. The cardinal seized her arm, took from her hands the case, and opening it, found within a new-born infant. Thenceforward sworn, though secret foes, they yet met as before, and Ferdinand was invited to accompany his brother and the duchess to Poggio, their villa at Caiano. There was served at the repast which awaited them, a favourite dish of the cardinal, but of which Bianca pressed him to taste so earnestly and strangely, that he pleaded indisposition, and ate nothing. The grand duke, on the contrary, ignorant of the plot, and tempted by the meat so praised, insisted on eating of it, notwithstanding her entreaties. In despair she did likewise, and both died of the poison. The cardinal, for whom it had been prepared, returned unharmed to preside at their funerals; the bodies were carried for interment to San Lorenzo, but with his command that Bianca’s corpse should be so disposed of, that no trace might remain; while, in the meantime, by his order also, the insignia of power, worn by her, were trodden under foot, and annihilated.

CHAPTER X.

Boboli Gardens—Buondelmonte—Ponte Vecchio—Santa Croce—Palazzo Borgo—Tombs—Michael Angelo’s monument—Died the year Galileo was born—Machiavelli—Alfieri—Galileo dying the year in which Newton was born—Chapel of the Pazzi—San Lorenzo—Monument of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ—Michael Angelo’s Day and Night—Contradictory employments—His reply to a verse addressed to his statue—Cappella de’ Principi—Santa Maria Novella—Cimabue’s Virgin—Cappella de’ Spagnuoli—Portraits of Petrarch and Laura—Turned out by a friar—Pietre Dure—Our guide again—Sarcophagus of the Gran Duchessa—Shut up in a private oratory—Let out by a priest—Cascine—Palazzo Vecchio—Small tower-chamber prison of Cosmo—Savonarola—His prediction of Lorenzo’s death—The confession—The anathema—Trial by fire—The heavy rain—Savonarola executed—The Appennines—Birthplace of the Maréchale d’Ancre—Tre Maschere—Fog—Rain—Lojano—Crosses—Bologna—Grizzle’s attack on the kitchen—Miss Kemble—Modena—The ducal stable—The stuffed charger—Parma—The five saints canonized in May—Their claims to canonization.

Spent the afternoon again in the delightful Boboli garden: its surface is extremely irregular, and its eminences command fine views; the hill, on which is built the Casino, looks down on Florence, bounded by her Appennines, and seen hence with her domes and old towers to best advantage. We sat a long time admiring on the stone steps which lead to the garden below; burning and cloudless, the day and the sky were Italian, and being a festival, the bells of the numerous churches were in motion, and their music came mellowed up the height, note below note, most enchantingly, bringing with it a feeling of calm and soothing more than belongs to silence.

On our way to the hotel, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, still covered with the old shops, in one of which worked Benvenuto Cellini. To this bridge attaches a romantic story:—In the year 1215, the dispute between pope and emperor (each finding partizans among the Florentine nobility) had scattered a powder-train, which waited but a spark to ignite and desolate the city. The adventure I am about to tell served as torch to spring the mine. The heir of the noble house of Buondelmonte had affianced himself to a daughter of the Amidei, noble also. He was young and very handsome. Riding through the streets some days after his promise made, he passed under the windows of the Donati mansion, at one of which stood its lady with her youthful heiress by her side, who was surpassingly lovely. The mother spoke to Buondelmonte reproachfully: “You have made an unworthy election,” she said; “the hand of this maiden was destined for you.” Whether his first choice had been merely one of interest, or proceeded from an attachment rather fancied than felt, I cannot say; but this Juliet driving forth the memory of the Rosalind, falling in love at first sight, Buondelmonte breathed the most passionate vows, and, disclaiming all other ties, swore that she only should be his bride. As this was an offence not to be pardoned, the Amidei family held council as to its punishment; other nobles, friendly to them, and indignant at their injury, being present also. “Shall we merely dishonour him by a blow, or shall we wound him?” was the question; but Mosca of Lamberti said, gloomily, “Neither, for he must die!”

The morning of Easter-day, Lamberto degli Amidei, this Mosca de’ Lamberti and others, informed that Buondelmonte was to make an excursion on the opposite shore of the Arno, waited his passage at the head of the Ponte Vecchio, where at that time stood a statue of Mars. The young man soon appeared, attired in white robes, and mounted on a superb courser caparisoned with white also. As he arrived near the statue’s pedestal, they rushed upon him, and dragged him from his horse. Mosca Lamberti and Amidei forced him down into the dust and slaughtered him. This was the rallying word: for the murder was hardly perpetrated, when the whole city rose in arms, and divided in two factions: those of Buondelmonte’s party bearing the Guelph banner; those of the Uberti and Amidei fighting beneath the Ghibelline.

Thus the first demonstration of their differences of opinion rose from a private quarrel, as through their bloody feuds in after times, private interests and private vengeance found a mask under the names of pope and emperor.

To Santa Croce this morning. The unfinished façade of the church, destined to be cased in marble, (a work which was begun and abandoned,) closes at its extremity the Piazza where in republican days were spectacles given and rejoicings made. On the right of this melancholy square is the Palazzo Borgo, with its exterior still exhibiting the faded frescoes, which, executed by the best artists of the time, among the rest Giovanni di San Giovanni, were completed in twenty-seven days. The good drawing may be distinguished still; the colours will soon have wholly disappeared. The church is remarkable as containing, besides some fine paintings, the tombs or cenotaphs of some of the greatest of Florence. On the right hand entering, (opposite the inscription on the column to the memory of Francesco Neri, murdered in the cathedral the day young Julian perished,) is the monument to Michael Angelo, whose remains the citizens of Rome, where he died, were anxious to keep possession of after his death, as they had been proud of his presence during his life; but which Florence, loth to yield, seized by stratagem, for the corpse of her glorious child was transported to his birthplace in a case destined for merchandise. He died in 1564, the year in which Galileo was born; the sarcophagus raised over his ashes is surmounted by his bust, and round it weep the figures of Sculpture, Painting and Architecture. The monument which follows this is by Ricci, and dedicated to Dante’s memory, though not raised above his corpse, which Ravenna refused to the ungrateful city. It is a stiff assemblage of colossal figures, the best being that of Poetry, leaning her head on the arm which rests on the cenotaph and dropping the wreath from her hand. Italy stands bolt upright folded in a blanket, and with a tower on her head, one arm stretched upward, the other holding a sceptre, resembling the pole of a French bed. Dante’s figure surmounts the monument heavily and ungracefully, and seated in an arm-chair, looking down on the personages who weep for his loss. A contrast to this is the noble tomb of Victor Alfieri, the work of Canova. The medallion containing his likeness is placed on the sarcophagus, and over it stoops and weeps Italy with the grace of a goddess, and the sorrow of his love; it was erected at the expense of the Countess of Albany. Opposite is the white marble pulpit, whose compartments exhibit the sculptured story of St. Francis, by Benedetto da Maiano; the small figures below are those of Faith, Hope, Charity, Force and Justice, and it is difficult to see anything more beautiful. The next mausoleum is that to the memory of Nicholas Machiavelli, with its fine and perhaps unmerited epitaph, “Tantonomini nullum par eulogium, Machiavelli”—the extraordinary man of whom it remains undecided, whether he wrote to corrupt or warn; who poor, and having a family to provide for, retired in an insignificant village, passed his mornings in superintending his labourers, in taking birds by the net, or in the study of Petrarch and Dante, and his evenings in the composition of the works which remain to his shame or his honour. Near the entrance door on the left hand is the tomb of Galileo, his bust surmounting the funereal urn, the figures of Geometry and Astronomy standing at either side: all honour paid to the memory of the man whose life was calumniated, and whose person persecuted; who, destined when young to the study of medicine, followed alone, and despite his father’s will, that of mathematics, till arrived at the sixth book of Euclid, transported with the utility of his beloved science, he sought his parent, confessed his progress, and implored him to oppose it no farther; whose success conducted him before the tribunal of the Inquisition to abjure there, and on his knees, when aged seventy, the “error of his doctrine, which affirmed the motion of the earth, and the heresy of which he had been guilty;” who murmured, as he arose from a position more humiliating to his ignorant judges than to himself, “E pur si muove;” and who died blind eight years after, in 1642, the year in which Newton was born.

A door beside the church, and on the Place, opens on a corridor, paved and lined with tombstones, forming one side of the cloister, to which, at the extremity of this open funereal gallery, a flight of steps leads down under the monument elevated against the wall, the ancient marble sarcophagus, on which lies the figure of a bishop in his robes, while on the side is carved the Resurrection: it is the tomb of Gaston della Torre, head of the Guelph faction, son of Conrad lord of Milan. The elegant chapel with its cupola and Corinthian columns was raised by command of the Pazzi family, on the design of Brunelleschi. Crossing this cloister, with its well and cabbage garden in the centre, I pushed open the door of a second like itself, similar even to the cabbage crop, but consecrated to the sole use of the friars; for above another door, which shuts in a staircase leading within the convent, was inscribed in large letters, “Silenzium;” so that fearing to disturb the invisible brethren, we went away, and to the church of San Lorenzo, less remarkable for its own beauty than the tombs of its sagrestia by Michael Angelo, and its Cappella de’ Principi separated from it by an iron grating only; a rich homage offered to corruption. We had already gone thither at an undue hour, and to-day also mass was being performed, and the crowd of Florentine poor, whose pious filthiness one fears to approach, kneeling over the floor. We determined on waiting patiently, and stood, fearing to disturb the service, quietly examining the pavement stone, which between the high altar and the Chapel of the Princes is the monument of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ: it bears a simple inscription, indicating that he was so named by a public decree, lived 75 years, and lies below.

A good natured priest, who just then crossed the church with some Italian ladies, seeing we were strangers, made us a sign to follow, which we obeyed; and notwithstanding the just commenced ceremonial, he took the office of cicerone, and led the way into the new sacristy, so is called that built during Clement the Seventh’s pontificate, and after Michael Angelo’s designs. On the right hand on entering is the tomb of Julian of Medicis, duke of Nemours, the warrior above seated in a niche, the celebrated figures of Day and Night couched on the monument. Opposite is the mausoleum of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, himself in his niche likewise; a similar tomb below bearing the figures of Twilight and Aurora. The face of Twilight is unfinished. They were the nightly task of the sculptor, when employed by day on the fortifications of San Miniato; by a strange contradiction in the character of an honourable man, the first destined to retard the success of the Medici, the last to establish their fame. It was he who, in reply to a verse addressed to his statue of Night, wrote the four lines of melancholy beauty, which prove his feeling for his country:—

Grateful to me, to sleep, to be of stone.

Ever while sorrow and while shame shall last,

The lack of sight and sense is happiness,

Therefore awake me not! I pray speak low.

The Madonna and Child are also the work of Michael Angelo. In this sacristy were laid the mortal remains of the Medicean family—in 1791 transported hence to the subterranean church. Our new friend, the old priest, led the way to the Cappella, which is built above, of octagon shape, with walls and pilasters of precious marbles, ornamented with the arms of the chief cities of the state, executed in “Pietre Dure,” and with the perfection which belongs to the Florentine art; lapis lazuli, verd antique, porphyry, and mother of pearl, and oriental alabaster, with the jaspers of Cyprus and Sicily, for materials. Of the six sarcophagi, constructed in Egyptian granite and green jasper of Corsica, some bear pillows of red jasper, which the weight of the jewelled crowns they carry seems to have pressed down; while in the niches over others are the gilded bronze statues of those who lie below; that of Cosmo by John of Bologna. The painting of the dome is now in progress, and seems rather gaudy than good. The priest led us thence to the old sacristy, built before the church itself; its architect was Brunelleschi, and in its centre is a mausoleum, by Donatello, to the memory of two Medici.

We took leave of our kind guide here, going, as he had advised, to Santa Maria Novella—famous, as its architecture was so prized by Michael Angelo. Hollowed in the wall, which joins its façade, are niches, which the Italians call sepulchres, and which served for pillories to expose the condemned prisoners of the Inquisition, when the members of its tribunal were Dominican friars. The church is divided into three aisles, whose arches diminish as they recede, giving it an appearance of extent it does not possess in reality. In one of its chapels is an ancient picture of the Virgin and Child, surrounded with Angels, by Cimabue, so prized at the period of its execution, that, having been exhibited like a treasure to Charles of Anjou, it was borne in procession to the place it now occupies.

Having examined the monuments and pictures, some deserving of far more attention than is yielded in a flying visit like ours, we passed out from the church by a door of the left hand aisle, into a cloister once a cemetery; for round the walls, still covered with faded frescoes, and under our feet, were old inscriptions and gravestones, and in the centre, among cabbages and high grass, which partly conceal it, an ancient tomb. The windows of the fine chapel, which, in 1566, received the name of Cappella degli Spagnuoli, look beneath the arches of the cloister on this desolate view. It was ceded to the Spaniards, then filling places at court, and occupied in commerce. The workmen, employed in placing ornaments for some festival, good-naturedly desired we would enter to view the frescoes of its walls. Some are by Memmi, who was the friend of Petrarch, and among the figures of his composition has placed him beside a knight of Rhodes; and his fair Laura, conversing with some seated females, and representing “The Will”—(la Volontà)—is distinguished by a small flame which burns on her breast, and a green vest scattered over with violets.

Near the portal, by which we had issued from the church, there is an arched corridor, leading to another cloister, now encumbered with rubbish. Following down it a few steps, we passed before several low portals, apparently of underground prisons, and a curious little chapel, hollowed in the wall, and going to ruin; for on this side, lumber, and accumulated filth, and a company of oxen, who were tied to the pillars, eating hay, stopped our further progress; and my curiosity being yet unsatisfied, and in search of the second cloister described by guide-books, we returned to and quitted the church once more, and from its entrance on the Place passed into a court, where a comfortable looking friar in white was watching the arrival of some casks. As his occupation was sufficiently worldly, I thought his presence no hindrance, and was about to penetrate on forbidden ground, when he called me back with “Non è permesso, signora,” not uttered, however, with the due horror of a Dominican, but laughing with all his heart.

We had still some time for sight seeing, and therefore proceeded towards the manufacture of “Pietre Dure” at the Belli Arti, having carried away from the Cappella an admiration of their beauty, which made us desire to see the work in progress. As we walked along the street in which it stands, a gentleman accosted us, and, looking up, we saw the good-natured old priest again. “In all the years he had lived in Florence,” he said, “he had never visited the manufactory, and as our questions concerning it had excited his curiosity, he was going thither now;” and he offered us his aid and company, which we gladly accepted, and found him even more efficient as a guide than before, and more agreeable as a companion also, for this second meeting placed us on the footing of old acquaintances.

A workman conducted us to the laboratories, the stores of precious stones and marbles, and through the various rooms containing specimens of the art, proving its progress and present perfection; for the wreaths of fruit and flowers imitate the cunning hand of nature so well, with their brilliant tints and delicate shadows, as to outdo painting. The composition and grouping are due to the best artists of Florence, and the stones so chosen as to simulate lights and shadows. There are some fine productions of the manufactory at the Palazzo Pitti, but none to be compared to a table I saw here, whose execution occupied, to the best of my recollection, seven years. A very small one, which I should have wished to possess, was to be sold for five thousand crowns—its wreath of fruit and flowers inserted in a slab of porphyry. The grapes were each one an amethyst; the currants cornelian; the corn flowers lapis lazuli. The workmen employed in filing the stones to the necessary size and form looked pale and weary over their work. At sixty years old they retire pensioned. The work which, though not the most beautiful, our friend the abbé considered most curious from its difficulty of execution, is the sarcophagus in porphyry, (destined for the Cappella dei Principi, and to be placed over the remains of the Gran Duchessa,) inasmuch as the hard substance has been wrought to as extraordinary perfection as if it were soft alabaster. Thirty men worked at this twelve hours a-day during five years. We parted with regret from the abbé: as we are to leave Florence so soon, to attempt to cultivate his acquaintance now would be useless. I think I told you D—— has found here letters which recall us to Paris with as little delay as possible. We mentioned this to the priest, and also our intention of returning next winter; and he desired us to seek him then at San Lorenzo, which he inhabited, and where we should easily find him out by asking for Padre Francesco. We had still several hours to dispose of, and we set forward to our daily haunt, the Galleria, but passed on our way the old prison, and turned into its picturesque court, with its walls covered with carved blazonries, and its heavy, uncovered stair leading to the upper stories. Fronting the street, and from the dark wall of this gloomy building, hangs the ponderous gallows chain.

Unfortunately for our visit to the museum, there stands, on a Place near, a large church and convent, comparatively of modern date, as it appears to have been built in Louis the Fourteenth’s time. Possessed with the passion of sight-seeing, though there seemed to be nothing curious about this, I proposed going in for five minutes, and doing so by the central door, we found our way to an oratory, wherein we had certainly no right to enter. It was clean and modern, and having walked round it and discovered that to do so had been time lost, I turned to leave it by the same door, to the discontent of D——, who was tired and had seated himself on a bench, but, arrived at it, I found that we were destined to a repose longer than might be desirable, for we were certainly in the private chapel of the monastery, and the monks (unconscious of company) had barred and double locked, silently, but securely, all manner of egress—this and the half dozen other doors which we tried in vain; succeeding only so far as to arrive in a closed corridor, and at a grating through whose bars we could contemplate a little desolate yard of the convent, into which nobody came. The churches of Florence are usually closed from one to three, but how long our imprisonment here was to last was uncertain, and when an hour had passed we began to think it would prove an unpleasant sleeping chamber. Luckily for us, however, a young pale priest came gently in from the convent, and kneeled down to pray before the altar, so absorbed in his devotion as not to observe our presence during his prayer, and very nearly to escape us when it was ended; for as he was gliding away with downcast eyes, I had barely time to accost him, and say, like the starling, “I can’t get out,” whereupon he delivered us by unlocking door after door with his master-key, and stood watching our retreat, in wonder as to how we got in.

This evening to the Cascine—the promenade to which the Florentines are constant as the Parisians to the Bois de Boulogne. It has long alleys of finer trees, and better ground for riding than the latter, and a prospect of the hills which rise round Florence.

We crossed the light suspended bridge to return by the opposite shore. The view back to the city is, saving that from the Boboli gardens, the best of Florence; and that down the river the most picturesque of the Arno.

As we passed Huband’s stables on our road to the hôtel, I paid a visit to Fanny. The horses are well taken care of, but the stables confined and crowded. Fanny, who had been left alone longer than she approved of, had gnawed her cord asunder, and eaten up all the oats destined for the day’s provender of both.

Our table d’hôte party is an agreeable one. Among the rest, I found the first day a lady and her family whom I met at the Simplon Inn, and who told me there a story, not at all encouraging to lonely travellers like ourselves, of a journey which a few years back she had made hither with her father, and during which their carriage had been stopped by robbers who rifled it, held loaded muskets to their breasts, and tore from her neck the gold chain she wore. To-day, by a strange chance, there was seated next me a lady who, some years ago, before we either were married, I had often met in Paris ball-rooms, and now the widow of an officer who was taken prisoner and absolutely torn in pieces at Algiers. She is here alone with a pale child, whose extreme cleverness and delicacy would make me tremble, as it does her. His soul seems too near the surface, and his hollow cough predicts that his mother will not change her mourning.

One more tale of Florentine history ere we depart from Florence, and I tell it without remorse, having spared you the tourist’s usual criticism of her statues and paintings, and description of churches. I have even passed over that of the Palazzo Vecchio, and our wanderings therein one day, when in search of a guide, and bidden to go whither we pleased by the sentinel below, we mounted stair after stair, and roamed through long suites of apartments till chance brought us to a corridor whose tribunes look down on the noble council chamber, ornamented by Cosmo the First’s order when, in 1540, he came to inhabit the palace, and painted in oils and fresco by Vasari and other artists. It is a pity that this fine hall should be crooked, which it is so excessively as to injure its effect to the most careless eyes. Round it are fine groups and statues by John of Bologna and Bandinelli; among the former that by Michael Angelo, destined for the mausoleum of Pope Julius the Second, and left unfinished when the artist died; and among the last the statue of John of the Black Bands, the invincible father of Duke Cosmo, the same whose pedestal still remains in an angle of the place of San Lorenzo, which it was destined to occupy. I spare you a lengthened account of this and of the saloons of Cosmo the Ancient—of Lorenzo the Magnificent—of John the Invincible—of the Pontiffs Leo the Tenth and Clement the Seventh, on whose walls are painted by Vasari the principal events of the reigns or lives of each. I even pass over the small chamber in the Torre della Vacca, which was the prison of Cosmo, Pater Patriæ, when Rinaldo of Albizzi, his rival, conspired against him, but could not obtain his condemnation, and whence he departed to pass a year in exile at Venice—a short reverse, forerunner of a constant prosperity, lasting even as it was deserved, till he died, aged seventy-five years.

The extraordinary man whose story I would recall to you is Savonarola, who was born at Ferrara in 1452, and who Nicolo ended his life on the gibbet in the old piazza at Florence. When very young he was remarkable for his austere habits and singular character. The theological works of St. Thomas of Acquin were his habitual study, and one which he seldom quitted, save for poetical composition, a pastime of which he was passionately fond. A vision seen or fancied by him decided his vocation when two and twenty, though he had before refused to take orders, not choosing, he said, to clothe himself with ecclesiastical dignities, and belong to the world when he had affected to quit it. He took the habit of Dominican and repaired to Bologna, where his talents were soon recognised.

By the advice of Pic de la Mirandole he was recalled to Florence by Lorenzo de’ Medici, and arrived there he preached publicly against the scandalous conduct of layman and ecclesiastic, for Alexander the Sixth at this time occupied the papal chair, and his example had been but too accurately followed. A republican in principles, inflexible in his proud independence, he gave a proof of it in 1490, when he was named prior of San Marco. It was the custom that one so promoted should present himself before Lorenzo, recognizing him as chief of the republic, and asking favour and protection. Though the Dominicans implored, and Lorenzo demanded, Savonarola refused this mark of condescension; he said that God, not Lorenzo, had elected him prior. At another period Lorenzo requested him, through the medium of some Florentine citizens, to forbear the announcement of coming misfortune to Florence, where such prediction ever created troubles and aroused the disaffected; but Savonarola, far from obeying, foretold on the contrary, that Lorenzo himself would shortly die. This prophecy was verified the 9th of April, 1492; and it is said that Lorenzo, feeling himself dying, chose the prior for confessor, notwithstanding the slight respect he had shown him hitherto, and Savonarola, having heard his penitent, on three conditions promised him absolution: first, that he should make oath that he was a true believer, which Lorenzo did; secondly, that he should restitute all which he might have acquired unfairly; he answered he would consider of it; and lastly, that he should restore to Florence her liberty, and to the Florentine government its popular form; and to this third condition Lorenzo the Magnificent made no reply, but turned in his bed with his back to Savonarola.

After the death of Lorenzo and the exile of Pietro his son, the prior, more and more violent in his attacks on the church, and particularly on its chief, the infamous Borgia, drew down on himself the latter’s excommunication, which however his nuncio, fearful of entering the town, posted without the walls at San Miniato. Savonarola despised his censure, declared its non-validity, and published his famous work entitled the “Triumph of Faith,” which conduct, acting on the inflammable city, divided it into two factions, the one for democracy and Savonarola, the other devoted to the house and policy of the Medici.

Of the two monks who defended his opinions, and who perished beside him, the most ardent was Domenico of Pescia, who at one period took his place as preacher during the days which preceded the carnival, and those which ushered in Lent. Though less eloquent than his master, he yet, by his energetic preaching, persuaded his hearers to seek and sacrifice among their possessions such as to these ascetics seemed too worldly, and calculated to withdraw them from a severe and religious life. Domenico formed into regiments the little boys of the several districts, ordering that they should march from house to house to make a collection for the poor, at the same time with that for the Anathema, so he styled the objects of luxury, or works of art, which, according to him, lay under the curse of God. During three days the young boys gathered their harvest of faded gala dresses and female ornaments, of cards, dice and musical instruments, and on the first day of the carnival, formed of them a pile in the shape of a pyramid before the Palazzo Vecchio. This ceremony completed, there being among the devoted objects many precious manuscripts and the works of Boccaccio, the children were conducted to the cathedral where they heard mass, and after their meal, being attired in white garments and crowned with olive, and bearing small red crosses in their hands, they sought the church once more, deposed there the money collected for the poor, and again forming in procession, arrived on the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, lisping Italian hymns; and when the chant was ended, the four children who headed the four troops advanced with lighted torches and solemnly fired the pyramid, whose flame ascended to the sound of trumpets. The next year (1498) Savonarola in person headed the procession, and this time the pile was composed of objects so valuable, marble statues and precious paintings, and illuminated manuscripts, among the latter one of Petrarch, that a military guard was posted round to keep off robbers. These unusual ceremonies exasperated the Florentine clergy; a Franciscan at Santa Croce preached to prove the prior’s excommunication valid; Domenico from his pulpit loudly contradicted him, asserting the necessity of reform in the church, and offering himself (by submitting to trial by fire) to prove the truth against their adversary.

The Franciscan accepted the challenge: the 7th of April, 1498, was the day appointed, and the burning pile was raised opposite the old palace. Domenico arrived wearing priestly robes and ornaments and carrying the cross, preceded and followed by long files of Dominicans chanting psalms as they advanced, Savonarola marching before them. The Franciscans, on the contrary, approached without pomp and in silence, headed by the lay brother, whom Domenico’s adversary, losing courage when the day of judgment came, had substituted to go (in his place) through the trial of fire. The parties in presence, a dispute arose; the Franciscans not choosing that Domenico should enter the flames wearing his priestly habit, or carrying the holy sacrament, as was the will of Savonarola. The contest growing angry, an hour passed without ending it, and evening closing there fell a heavy rain, which put to flight the two champions and disappointed the multitude assembled there to be amused by their torture. The next day, however, Savonarola’s enemies, who felt themselves protected by the Florentine government, took up arms and attacked the convent of San Marco, in which Savonarola and his two disciples were. The monks defended themselves stoutly, for the attack commenced during vespers, and not till dark did the assailants get possession of their persons and drag them to the public prisons. The government now took the affair into its own hands; and Savonarola, accused of uttering prophecies not inspired, but founded on private opinions and interpretations of the Scriptures, and with a view to force the convocation of a council general, which should reform the church, was tortured and tried by delegates of the monster Pope Alexander, and condemned with the two brethren to be hanged on the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio, now del Gran Duca, their bodies burned and their ashes scattered. The gibbet was planted opposite the palace, in the precise place where some months before they had held their strange carnival. Brought thither, their firmness did not for a moment forsake them; they looked on, while the preparations were made, in silence; when their bodies were consumed, their remains were collected in a cart and flung into the Arno.

Montecarelli.

Left Florence this morning to come hither. The weather has been cold since our passage, and last night the snow fell heavily. The air is a contrast to that of the city, whose burning sun and biting musquitoes I am however glad to turn my back on. The Appennines appear to less advantage beneath the grey sky than when we crossed them in sunshine, and the Villa Borghese more sad in its desolate grandeur, and saddest of all looked the public cemetery, where the grave-diggers were occupied in opening the deep fosses to which each night brings inmates: it is a large open space, without tomb or tree, saving the few cypress, which outside the wall shade the priests’ melancholy dwelling.

We paused to take a last look of Florence and also of Fiesole, which on our right, as we ascended, crowns its hill, more ancient than Florence, and most interesting as the birthplace of the parvenue Leonora Galigai Maréchale d’Ancre, whose fate and fortunes have been celebrated by the first writer of France, the radiance of whose fancy has shone over history without falsifying its colours.

We saw and passed the Tre Maschere, having received unfavourable accounts of its hosts, and returned here to our former inn with the evergoing pump beneath our bedroom, and the stable with fern for litter, and horned cattle for inmates. Notwithstanding bribes, which, like other instigators to action, fail in Italy, our horses were neglected so long, that in my quality of interpreter, I proceeded to scold the inattentive groom, and so found favour in the eyes of the master, the two personages being comprehended in one, and his attachment to his own, which inhabited another stable, having made him postpone the care of ours. Among his favourites he showed me a horse from whose long white tail one lock had been severed, the Italian said in malice, by some person who had thus chosen to annoy him, and whom, could he have discovered, he would have punished with his knife. I assure you his look and gesture were sufficiently expressive to guard the hair of his horse’s head henceforward. Having looked in on ours in their uneasy sleeping chamber, in and out of which the oxen seemed to be all night driven, and from whose roof swung, above the dry fern, the lamp at which all the carters our fellow travellers came to light their pipes, proving their reliance on the care of Providence, as they take none themselves, the safety of these places being a miracle, I passed an hour walking up and down before the door, under a moon which sailed in skies whose blue certainly does not belong to our climates, lighting the lone inn and chestnut trees surrounding it, till she predicted bad weather by taking to herself a halo.

Up at candlelight and off by daybreak, with the cold tramontana for companion, growing so violent by degrees, that I did not feel quite tranquil at its increase as we approached the duke’s guardian wall, and the dense fog came sweeping by and over us. Fanny dislikes wind, and sometimes hesitated to advance, and we went on silent and shivering, with hardly energy to look back on the view, from this place so beautiful, of hills and plains behind, over which rain and mist were disputing empire. As we advanced, the mist thickened and the rain fell, and the waterproofs did not deserve the name they bore, and we passed Pietra Mala, hardly knowing it again in its changed aspect, and seeing nothing but the peaks of the crags rising coldly out of the fog, and ragged herdsmen, with their drenched cattle, and a few of the large birds of prey with grey backs and black wings, peculiar to this region.

As I was riding a few yards before D——, a woman, who saw me pass, came rushing out of a decent cottage, having first caught from its cradle her baby. Not seeing the manœuvre as D—— did, I gave her some silver, thinking her a poor traveller with a crying infant. They are the most clever of all beggars.

At last we arrived at Filigare, and paid four pauls for the horses, and to the satellites of custom-house and passport office buone mani innumerable. The smallest donations are, however, thankfully received; they pocket half pauls. Till within a short distance of Lojano the rain continued to fall mercilessly. The rude wooden crosses, which we had before noticed here and there, hid in wild nooks or on the brow of the precipice, and which, with the sun shining on them, looked like emblems of Quiet and Consolation, seemed now only memorials and warnings. “Pray do those denote the death of any one on the spot where they stand?” I asked an Italian, thinking, as I did so, his face and appearance perfectly suited to a bandit. “Sicuro,” said the man. “And did they die violently? were they murdered?” “Possibile,” said my friend with perfect indifference, as he walked away. The weather cleared just so long, ere we reached our resting-place, as left time for our horses to dry. Drenched ourselves, we gladly took refuge in the clean quiet apartment of the Pellegrino, under which there is, thank heaven! no pump. I had remained up and writing a letter to Paris, when I was roused by a crack and loud exclamation from D——, who had gone to rest, but whose place of repose had sunk suddenly under him, there being not a single screw in the bedstead. While he once more rose and dressed himself, I set forth along corridors, and up one steep stair and down two: for as the new house has been tacked on to the old, the way is sufficiently intricate. At last, guided by a noise like the witches’ sabbath, I arrived at the kitchen door, and, opening it, found myself in a place and company which called to memory the cave in Gil Blas, there being about thirty present,—drinking, screaming, singing, half hid in the fumes of tobacco, with their wild-looking, handsome figures, grouped round the dirty tables or blazing hearth. As I opened the door, the shouts and songs ceased, and, with Italian civility, all got up and closed round to know what I wanted; so, having desired the padrone to follow, I made my retreat as soon as possible, followed by our host, who was, it seemed, aware that his bedstead lacked all apparatus to hold it together, but had imagined it might last till morning.

Oct. 20th.

Left Lojano in a fog, dense and yellow, which concealed all objects ten yards off,—hearing, not seeing, the approach of travellers and waggons, and D—— hailing them for our safety and theirs. Fanny was frightened and vicious; the road melancholy, as oxen and pedestrians, and now and then an English carriage, issued from the mist close at our side, and were swallowed in it the next moment. It was not till we had descended some miles that the fog diminished, and then, after exciting many delusive hopes, showing through it the sun like a paler moon, yielding between its discoloured waves, peeps into the valley, and again floating like smoke before our faces, we fairly left it behind, issuing into blue sky and sunshine, knowing their value from privation of them. The horses knew the pilgrims’ house, but Grizzle made a violent effort to enter the kitchen instead of the stable. Our amiable hostess had chosen her most pleasant apartment, and exerted all her French talent in cookery in the dishes she had noticed to please us before.

A moonlight night at Bologna, such as this, is impressive in its beauty, with the light streaming down its monastic streets, and the deep shadow of its pillared arcades. Miss Adelaide Kemble, who is also lodged at La Pace with her father, sang in her apartments till a crowd, collected beneath her windows, silenced her with its bravas. The Italians will not believe her to be English, and her appearance justifies their opinion, as she has the dark eyes of their country, with features in the style of those of Mrs. Siddons.

21st.

To Modena: a burning day. Arrived there and my dress changed, I requested the landlady’s pretty daughter to be my guide, as it was advisable to strive to obtain some news of our baggage, so long missing, that we begin to be resigned to its loss and to travelling with little beside the linen our horses carry. Having discovered, with some difficulty, the spedizioniere, who is the correspondent of our Commissionnaire de Roulage, I found that our trunks, having followed ourselves across the broken Simplon on mules’ backs, have now been stopped by torrents likely to impede our passage also. Modena is a miniature of a fine city, with a handsome ducal palace and pretty gardens, an Accademmia delle Belle Arti, and other public buildings. The palace is large and handsome; the favourite apartments of the duchess, who is very pious, communicating with the convent, and opening on a private corridor, by which she can reach the adjacent church unobserved. The tribune she occupies is so arranged as almost to conceal her presence, glazed and heavily barred like a convent grate. The duke’s theatre (for he is extremely fond of theatricals) joins another part of the Palazzo, and his splendid stables are opposite and on the garden side. My guide said it was one of the sights of Modena, and as she insisted on entering, and the sentinel made room to let us pass, in we went. It is a fine building, with arched and groined roof, the horses ranged down either side, all of the duke’s own breed, and some of them superb animals. The roan charger of the last duke stands stuffed and under a glass case at the extremity. There stood near us a personage, a head groom I imagine, who, I am sure, will preserve for a day or two a high opinion of my sagacity.

“I suppose you have a hundred horses here,” I said to him. To which he replied, “Cent uno!” with a look of admiring wonder which would better have suited the word Miracolo!

The cathedral is near the inn; we could see from our windows part of its curious façade and its high old tower. The former somewhat resembles that of the cathedral at Placentia, having portico on portico, and strange beasts for supporters. Its interior is more striking: flights of steps lead up to the elevated choir, others conduct to the half subterranean church below, where, among numberless light pillars with strange capitals, is the tomb of St. Geminiano, the patron saint of Modena. The monument of the last duke is on the left hand of the choir, and handsome; and in the body of the church are various altar-pieces of carved wood and marble, covered with saints and madonnas, deserving more attention than I had time to pay.

22nd.

To Parma; oppressively warm. Bought some grapes of a boy, who, when we had paid him what he asked, four times their value, demanded buona mano. Suffered much from the heat, though we started early: for, having given orders that our horses should not, according to custom, be driven to drink in the cold yard at daybreak, the hostler disobeyed, and Fanny informed us of their delinquency by screaming her shrill neigh till she woke us, and D—— proceeded to restore her to her stall, and I to prepare for our journey. Passed again the dark old fortress of Rubiera, and fed our horses before reaching Reggio. We would gladly have found refreshment for ourselves, but it was out of the question, the stable being the cleanest part of the premises. Bad as was La Paone at Parma, we returned there on account of our horses; but Parma being intricate in its wanderings, we were puzzled to find it. Fanny’s sagacity did not fail even here; she led the way to the alley in which it stands, and walked straight into the inn yard.

We went out this beautiful evening to buy whips at the shop of the most civil of all saddlers, nearly opposite the Posta, now the best inn. As I passed a bookseller’s shop, I saw in the window a pamphlet, containing the lives of the five saints canonized in the month of May of this year, 1839, and the ceremonies which took place at Rome. As they were often the subject of conversation during our stay at Florence, I stopped and bought it, and spent an hour in its study, in this most desolate of all uncurtained chambers.

The five saints were named—

Sant’ Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori,

Francesco di Gironimo Giovanni,

Giuseppe della Croce,

Pacifico da San Severino, and

Veronica Giuliani Cappucina.

Alfonso Maria was born in 1696, presented by his mother to San Francesco di Girolamo, who predicted that her son deserved more than common care, being destined to become a bishop, to perform for the good of the church great and marvellous things, and to live to the age of ninety years. It seems he was a wondrous child; and when he grew to man’s estate, considering studies and fatigues, and maladies, to which he was subject, insufficient to mortify the flesh, he added thereto flagellation, wounds, chains, and hunger: “So that,” the pamphlet says, “the Lord God, being pleased with this self-devoted victim, who offered himself up an incessant sacrifice to divine glory, chose to render him illustrious by gratuitous gifts of prophecy, of insight into the human heart, of being present in two places at a time, and of the working of frequent miracles.”

Francesco di Gironimo was born in 1642, and of him and his impressive preaching his chronicler says, “To all this greater credit was given, on account of the appearance of St. Francis, bodily, in divers places at the same time; of the power he had of curing the sick; of his multiplying victuals miraculously, and (last and greatest) on account of the speech of an infamous woman, whose soul having been, suddenly and still impenitent, borne to the divine presence, was interrogated by the saint, who said ‘Where art thou?’ to which she replied, ‘I am in hell!’”

San Giovanni Giuseppe was, like the other two, of noble blood, born in 1654. It is said, that eminent in the practice of all virtues, but most particularly of that of humility, during sixty-four years he wore on his bare skin a single tunic, so joined and pieced, that from it he received the nickname of Father Hundred Patches, Padre Cento Pezze. He wore beneath it an iron cross, garnished with sharp nails. At last, having suffered from a stroke of apoplexy, he passed five days in quiet contemplation before he died, at the close of which, fixing his eyes on the image so dear to him of the holy Virgin, and remembering, to his great comfort, how that very Mary had many times spoken to him, and, on one anniversary of the Saviour’s birthday, had placed him in his arms that he might caress him, he died; commencing his triumph in paradise in the year 1734.

Santo Pacifico da San Severino, when but four years old, was accustomed to mix ashes with the bread of his breakfast, and to say, with a taste of paradise (gusto di Paradiso), that it was good. Grown up, he passed, safe and sound and dry-footed, over the swollen river Menacchia. The brute creatures were submissive to him as to Adam, yet innocent; and the gift of working miracles was accorded to him. He died 1790.

Veronica Cappucina was born in 1660. When a baby at the breast, though habitually requiring much nourishment, three days of the week she refrained from swallowing more than a few mouthsfull of milk. When hardly six months old, one Trinity Sunday, she sprang from her mother’s arms to the ground, on which she walked with a firm step; but very little older, she admonished with grave words a man in the market-place, being herself in her nurse’s arms, and prevented an injustice of which he was about to be guilty; and at this time she enjoyed the familiarity of the child Jesus and of the Virgin, and several times it happened that the Holy Child visited to console her when she wept, and days there were in which the sainted mother consigned the blessed Jesus to her innocent arms, predicting her spiritual union with him. When she grew up, she was now inclosed in prison, now suffered under accusation of practising magic arts; but the only sorrow which cast her down was the feeling abandoned by her celestial Spouse when he failed to comfort her, as was his wont, and this tormented her more bitterly than the worst adversity, and forced her to utter loving complaints. She died 1727. The pamphlet is entitled, “Descrizione del Ceremoniale e Cenni sulla Vita de cinque Beati canonizzati dal Sommo Pontefice Gregorio XVI, l’anno 1839;” and I have literally translated the above passages, though belief in them would seem impossible in our time.

CHAPTER XI.

La Steccata—The Teatro Farnese—Its magnificence—Its ruin—Would contain 9000—St. Jeronimo—Sir Thomas Lawrence—Alti Relievi—The overflowed Po—The infant saved—Placentia again—Misery of Piedmontese—Voghera—Tortona—Plains of Marengo—The wrong road—The Tanaro overflowed—Asti—The Angelo and its reception—Moncaglieri—The vow, and the Virgin, who resembled a Duchess—The old Italian gentleman—Victor Amedée’s abdication—The old man’s arrest—His death at Moncaglieri—Susa—Its waterspouts—A chimney on fire—Mont Cenis—Fog and snow-storm—A postilion’s wonder—Danger of tourmente—Lanslebourg—A thick smoke and ill scent—Modane—Lesseillon—St. Michel.

Oct. 23rd.

Our morning perambulations commenced inauspiciously, for the spedizioniere, to whom here also it was necessary to apply, to order back our luggage, was in bed, and we went thence to La Steccata. Its choir is now under repair. Curtained from curious eyes, there are here paintings from the hand of Correggio and Carracci; the frescoes of the fine dome so faded as to renew a regret for the wasting of genius on an art so perishable. I noticed two vessels for holy water, remarkable for their execution; in the centre of each stands a small and beautiful figure, like the Bénitier itself, in white marble; one being that of the Redeemer, the other, I think, of John the Baptist.

A priest conducted us to the subterranean chapel below, which contains the tombs of the Farnese. He raised his torch to show that on the most ancient of these (I think that of Alessandro) lay, harmless and rusting, the sword which had been grasped by the mouldering hand below.

We went thence to visit the ancient Teatro Farnese, which joins the Accademmia delle Belli Arti, and entered it, having ascended two flights of the wide stair. In the time of Alessandro Farnese, it was an armoury, and by him, or by Ranuccio, his son, on the occasion of a daughter’s marriage, transformed into a theatre, of which it is the very beau idéal. The centre, lined with lead, which the French, when they came hither, took up for shot, was changed at will to a lake, the pit, which in amphitheatre surrounds it, and the boxes above, would contain nine thousand spectators: the stage, to which steps ascend, being far smaller in its opening than the width of the building, the whole audience could see perfectly. On either side of the proscenium, placed high on their chargers, are the statues of the two Farnese, originally only plaster, covering a wooden framework, and now crumbling away. The front of each box being a high open arch, shut in by a gilded chain only, the effect must have been brilliant when they were crowded with gorgeously dressed courtiers and ladies. Some of these chains are still suspended from arch to arch, dark and rusty. The ceiling was painted wood, representing historical subjects, and of this but a portion remains here and there, hanging ominously over the heads of the curious. Napoleon, when at Parma, unfortunately did not see this theatre, (so said our guide,) and it was left to decay during eighteen years—a fault which, as it was built wholly of wood, could not afterwards be repaired.

There are doors on either side of that opening into this theatre; on the right conducting to the ducal library, on the left to the picture gallery, which was a theatre likewise, and transformed to a museum by the Arch-duchess Maria Louisa, whose splendid bust by Canova occupies the further end, which a visitor, with but an hour to spare, should seek at once; for there, on the right hand, is the St. Jeronimo, Correggio’s masterpiece, of which Sir Thomas Lawrence said, it might be studied, never copied. Three times, during the day he spent at Parma, he returned to the contemplation of this picture; and truly painting never produced its superior, scarcely its rival. The Holy Child sits in his mother’s lap, with an angel beside him, who smiles as he exhibits to the Magdalen the page on which her sins were inscribed, now white as snow, and the Magdalen kisses the Saviour’s foot, and looks still repentant but consoled. St. Jeronimo occupies the foreground, a noble old figure, the limbs in such relief that he seems to stand forth from the canvass, yet still with the softness of flesh, and the “modesty of nature.”

The picture opposite this, of the Madonna alla Scodella, is a beautiful, though less perfect, picture, by Correggio also, as is the Descent from the Cross by its side, which was painted when he was but nineteen. The face of the Saviour appears small, and wants expression, as the attitude lacks dignity; but the Virgin, fainting from her excess of agony, is perfect. There are other good paintings by various masters, though all inferior to the St. Jeronimo. You will notice also two alti relievi of the thirteenth century, found in a convent some miles off. They are in pure white marble, the small figures exquisitely carved. The subject of the last and most remarkable is the Birth of Christ. He sits below on his mother’s knee, surrounded by figures in adoration, their heads off, alas! for the French were lodged one night in the convent. Above this group, and supposed to be between earth and heaven, is a cluster of flying angels, who mark the middle region. In heaven sits the Almighty, receiving from a kneeling female the infant she offers; and up to him are riding by a zigzag road, which commences at the bottom of the composition, the happy souls of the elect, on horseback, and in the costume of the thirteenth century!

We rode on, the short stage to Borgo, where the hostess and one-eyed waiter came running to meet us, wondering at the prompt return, which we so little expected when we passed. They tell us the Po has done awful damage, having swept away during the night the crazy bridge of boats, over which, as I told you, we rode doubtfully, sweeping from the meadows it rushed over, cottages, men, and cattle, of whom it is unknown how many perished. The bodies of a young soldier and old priest were picked up not far from the city; and floating on the surface of the wild water was discovered, the morning after the disaster, one of the wooden cradles of the country, and, being taken up by a boatman, there was found within an infant of a month old, asleep. Where might be its parents—or what was its name—there was none to tell; it was conjectured that it belonged to one of those wretched dwellings, or rather inhabited recesses serving for such, which we noticed when we passed the bridge, and that the same torrent which burst its father’s door, and stifled its mother’s cry, floated it forth in its tiny ark unharmed. They tell me the rain has fallen ever since we quitted Borgo, and it falls now with a violence which I trust may cease ere morning.

24th.

Left Borgo early. The rain had become mist, and the mist cleared by degrees, and we have sun and flies, though the air is not stifling as heretofore. The passport receiver at the gate remembered our riding through before, and asked many questions as to our movements, in a fit of curiosity which I gratified; and he wished me good-bye, saying, “A rivederla, signora, fra qualche anno.” Again at St. Marco.

25th.

Started late from Piacenza, taking our host’s word for the stage’s being a short one. We crossed, at no great distance from the city, Maria Louisa’s splendid bridge of twenty-two arches over the Trebbia, which at this moment is a narrow stream in the midst of a wide stony desert. The receiver of the twenty-four centesimi said we had but thirty miles to ride, but this is little consolation in a country where to teach the meaning of distance seems impossible; each person we met giving a different account thereof, and after the first hour increasing instead of diminishing the number.

At a most dirty country inn we stopped to feed the horses. No oats were to be had, and we paid for bran as if it had been some scarce known rarity. We gave the hostler the sum demanded, desiring him to pay his master the fair price, and take the remainder for buona mano; an order to which he grinned assent, and I had the satisfaction to see the dispute commenced as we rode away. A large building at which we arrived soon after, was the Sardinian douane, and the frontier passed, the country grows interesting, and is backed by wooded hills, an improvement on Maria Louisa’s treeless plains; but the roads and broken pavement of the wretched villages through which we passed are a disgrace to his majesty. The latter, with their mud cabins, and casements not glazed but papered, and their inhabitants squalid and half clothed, reminded us of their prototypes in Ireland. Though the morning had been cold and foggy, the sunshine, which succeeded, was painfully burning, as in August. We had lingered on the way, believing the distance inconsiderable, but the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, predicting bad weather for to-morrow, and the twilight yielded to darkness, so total, and unrelieved even by a star, that D—— dismounted and led his horse before Fanny, as the road was bad beyond description, and we were glad to keep to the path by its side. I do not like riding in the dark in Italy. The character of the country is, in the first place, hardly so good as to render it desirable, and its waggoners all travel without light, and straggling from one side to the other of roads which have a ditch on each. With all our precautions we had nearly made unpleasant blunders, for not far from our destination, a new portion of road, lately made to improve the approach to the town, but not yet completed, is closed by a high bank of loose stones on which we had almost ridden. Saved from this mistake, we failed to see the Po till arrived on the very edge of the high bank which hangs over its water; and the horses, rather than our eyesight, guided us to the long, narrow and crooked bridge which crosses it, and on which we fortunately met neither cart nor traveller. This passed, Fanny quickened her step, for we saw the lights of Voghera through the trees, and soon arrived at its entrance, but rode the whole length of the nasty town to arrive at the Moro. The horses found a quiet stable after their forty mile journey, for the mile of Piedmont reckons as two of Italy. We ourselves were weary, and glad to see our dinner served in the enormous hall, which, but for the frescoes daubed on its walls, resembled a barn in dirt and desolation, and to lie down in the sleeping chamber which was, they said, the only one remaining unoccupied, and in which the iron bedsteads, a deal table, and wicker chair, were the sole articles of furniture.

26th.

Pouring rain all this day—one of the longest I have passed, for we staid at the Moro to rest the horses.

27th.

Left early. The morning cold as December, but the sun, when it appeared at last, burning once more. To the left and behind us, the broad plains were bounded by the distant Appennines; and away on the right, beyond nearer and picturesque hills, we could distinguish a snow mountain once more. A peasant said it was Mont Cenis; it was at least one of the range, and we were glad to see it on our horizon.

The road skirts Tortona, having passed a half dried river, a shrunken stream creeping along the centre of its wide winter bed. A high crag commands the town, having on its summit the ruins of the fortress constructed by Amedée the Third, and which the French blew up in 1796—the eminence, like the plain it stands on, bare of wood, and devoid of beauty. An idler, as we rode by, told us we might, without much increasing the distance, traverse the “città,” and seemed surprised that we should choose to avoid its broken pavement and bad air. Arrived on the plain of St. Giuliano, the village of Marengo was on our right, interesting from its situation as well as its history, for, excepting the two or three houses built by the road side, the habitations straggle back over the rich meadows where they stand picturesquely grouped with green trees and a grey tower, between and above which rises a wooded hill, with a white church shining on it. To the left stretched the plain; before us were a few fine sycomores and a bridge, traversing a brighter and narrower river which winds between fringed shores. From one of these houses is hung for sign a cannon-ball, reminding us of Desaix, the gallant young general who returned hither from Egypt to die, having first, with his four thousand infantry, altered the fate of the battle almost lost by Lannes and Victor, and after his fall destined to become desperate once more, and be wondrously won by Kellerman’s charge with five hundred horse; for this handful of men was during an entire hour master of the field of battle, the infantry of both armies being scattered and flying, and the French not rallied till the expiration of that time. Alessandria is close to Marengo, its trees and fortifications looking to advantage as they rise from the perfect flat of the plain. Went to the Albergo d’Italia, a really good inn, with a most civil master.

28th October.

Up by candlelight to start with dawn, which shines not till seven: for, though the mornings have become painfully cold, the mid-day sun is scarcely bearable. Leaving the hotel and asking the way of several people, who all said “Straight on,” we proceeded straight, as desired, and issued from the town on a high road, which we found in the dreadful state of all which traverse Piedmont; but having proceeded some way, we thought proper (the direction being wholly different from that we have lately followed) to ask whither it led, and were answered “Savona;” so turned back, the equanimity of our tempers disturbed. Perhaps from this cause I thought more brutal than he was in reality, a driver of calves, who was before me with his charge on the side of the road which I had chosen as least heavy for Fanny, the mud in the centre being three feet thick, and who desired me to proceed thither and get out of his way, swearing in no gentle guise. Approving of the order neither in matter nor manner, we passed by, scattering his herd, and left him uttering still direr oaths, and floundering about in the deep pools to collect the stragglers. Travelling back over bad pavement and through the town, we had lost an hour ere we arrived at the fine citadel, round which the road winds, crossing an ancient covered bridge, through whose open arches the wind blew almost strongly enough to lift me from my saddle. A company of convicts, chained together, were busy sweeping; they looked hardened and wretched. An hour after we met a fresh detachment, tied with cords in carts, and strongly guarded. We had a cold fog for comrade, and the Tanaro has overflowed the country, saddening its whole face, ruining crops and meadows. Near Asti it improves, as it swells in hillocks and sinks in dells: the former covered by the vine which produces the famed Asti wine, but not trained, as in Lombardy, over tall trees; and wearing a wintry aspect ere winter has come, from the custom of plucking its leaves to feed the cattle. Met Capt. K—— with his family; the pretty white Arab led behind the carriage. They crossed the mountain a few days since in beautiful weather, and this good news hurried us onward. The people of the Albergo Reale had treated them ill; yet outside it makes fairer show than the Leon d’Oro, whither, at their recommendation, we went. Here, as at Alessandria, the doors and windows of our apartments open on the cold gallery which runs round the inner court: bad dinner and bad attendance, and an unpleasant landlord. This morning, when we wished to leave early, the stableman had lost Grizzle’s bridle, and two hours were wasted in its search, the fairest of the day: for, when we had ridden down the avenue just outside the town, the drizzling mist changed to torrents, which continued to fall without cessation till we arrived. We were to stop at the Angelo, but had forgotten the name of the bourg he protected, twelve Piedmontese miles (about four-and-twenty English) from Asti; and the questions we made remained almost always unanswered, the Piedmontese dialect solely being spoken by the peasantry. At last, in the pouring rain, up came a waggoner, and told us Poirino and the Angelo were about three miles farther. We would willingly have hastened our horses, but it was impossible: for the roads are either two feet deep in mud or newly repaired with beds of loose stones, into which they sank to the fetlock. Here and there the path by their side was in better order, and we adopted it; and D—— justly observed, that but for his Sardinian majesty’s footpaths, horse-travelling in his dominions would be impossible. When it seemed the three weary miles must have been long passed over, and still nothing was to be seen in the most desolate plain, save the broad wet road stretching before, and behind us, a few trees and a spire, we again accosted a peasant and inquired for Poirino. “It is a good bit farther,” said the man, “and the inn is not in the town, which you must traverse, and turn first to the right and next to the left, and then ride straight on, as it stands in the country.” I presume this intelligence, which at the time made us despair, was given in a mischievous spirit, though the weather and our plight should have excited compassion: for we shortly arrived at Poirino, and inquiring for the Angelo, some replying “Straight on,” and some not at all, we made our way through the filthy town to the filthier yard. Our poor horses under cover, D——, who followed them into the warm stable, was better off than I. I made my way to the kitchen door, which I found full of vetturini, this being their dinner hour, and the place where they dine. Received with more curiosity than civility, I called to mine hostess, who was busy cooking, and desired she would conduct me to a room. Without turning her head, she begged me to walk up stairs, which I did, and found myself in the before-mentioned open gallery, and, from the voices which proceeded from the various chambers, knew they were all occupied. Having stood there some minutes, dripping and shivering, looking down into the yard at the rain plashing on the stones and the half-dozen vetturini carriages, of whose departure there seemed to be no chance, my gift of patience was not so strong as to lead to further contemplation, and I descended once more, not this time to the door, but to the kitchen fire, where I disturbed the lady’s culinary pursuits, by telling her I was going to the inn I had noticed next to hers, as I found my presence was an inconvenience. This appeal softened her heart: for she put down her fryingpan and took up a key and marched before me to open what was, in reality, her only room unoccupied. It had a broken window and no fireplace; but she brought me a half cold chauffrette, and begged I would be patient, as I should be benissimo when the carriages went on, which they would do in a quarter of an hour; so that on my side I called up the patience required, changed my wet clothes, and sat (not the quarter) but a whole hour in such shivering misery as makes one expect an inflammation of the chest next morning. The vetturini were then in motion, and I made my way to a fireplace just as D—— appeared from the stables where he had seen our poor companions provided for.

After all we were served less ill than I expected, and the dinner and beds were good. Our hostess demanded prices which lacked justice and modesty; but, remonstrance made, grew reasonable. All night the rain poured, but they told us it had done so for a month, so that to wait might serve us nothing—the road little better than hitherto, and the country uninteresting till near Moncaglieri, to which place rain accompanied us less heavily than yesterday, but without pause.

The high hill on which it is built formed a commanding object long before we reached it; the route sweeps round its foot between it and the broad Po, whose shores are here wooded and beautiful. A person of whom we asked the way to Turin sent us through Moncaglieri up the paved hill and across the town, doubling the fatigue to our horses. We were recompensed by passing before the old castle where Victor Amedée, the abdicated king, was arrested, and where he died; and also by the fine view we obtained as we rode down the avenue and steep hill on the other side of the valley and the river. Heavy clouds hid the Alps, and the snow, lying on the hills close to us, looked an ominous presage of what was to succeed on the mountain.

Notwithstanding the unfavourable atmosphere through which we saw it, I prefer Turin as a town to any I have seen in Italy. Its situation is finer than the vaunted one of Florence, with a broader river and more beautiful valley, and hills more wooded surrounding it. One of these the Superga crowns, built in consequence of the vow made by Victor Amedée the Second (when the troops of Louis the Fourteenth besieged his capital) to consecrate a temple to Our Lady, should her aid enable him to force their troops to raise the siege. It was whispered that the duchess of Burgundy, whose influence was all-powerful at the French court, had used it for her father’s protection, and to lengthen the operations of the French General, Duc de la Feuillade. Prince Eugene having had time to come up, and Turin being relieved on the day of the nativity of the Virgin, the king accomplished his vow. The principal basso relievo of the high altar represents the deliverance of Turin by the intercession of the Virgin; it was observed of this Madonna that she bare a strange resemblance to the duchess of Burgundy. A fine bridge led us across the river to the Piazza del Pò. The arcaded streets are broad, and the houses handsome, but mostly unfinished, to that degree that the holes made in their walls, for the placing of scaffoldings, remain unfilled.

We went to the hotel Fœder, kept, like all good inns in Italy, by French masters. Its cleanliness and comfort were to us, for some time unused to them, a very luxury.

Though it continued to rain, as I had purchases to make and a letter to put in the post for Paris, I changed my dress and we went out for the purpose, crossing in our wanderings the Piazza, on whose centre stands the old palace, built by Amedée the Eighth in 1416, flanked by its four massive towers, but in my opinion injured by the addition of an ornamented façade of 1720. Its interior was decorated, and its splendid staircase built, by command of Christina, daughter of France and duchess of Savoy. Before her time it was said of this palace that it was a house without a staircase, as now that it is a staircase without a house, the former being far too grand for the apartments to which it leads.

The stables for our horses are less delightful than the inn for ourselves, being dark, ill-kept, and crowded. D—— bribed away a horse of kicking reputation, whose vice Fanny the more excited by running at him open-mouthed, there seeming to be in her small body no room for fear. In his visits to see them fed he nearly stumbled over a poor fellow who lay in one of the stalls. His wife now and then brought him drink; he was very ill of fever his fellow hostlers said unconcernedly, and to lie with clothes on and with damp litter for bed seemed a strange remedy.

Next me at the table d’hôte sat an old man with long white hair, who I found on inquiry to be the Conte F——. We entered into conversation: he was just arrived from Chambéry, and had crossed Mont Cenis in snow and mist, and exclaimed when I told my intention of doing so on horseback to-morrow. The kind old gentleman offered me his carriage, and when I pertinaciously refused, implored me to accept additional cloaks; and was affectionate and anxious as if he had been my father.

We certainly start in the morning: for that snows, having once fallen, will diminish this season, there is little chance. The journey to Susa would be too long a one, and we are told we may be decently lodged at Sant’Ambrogio.

Though it be a long story, yet from the interest it casts on Turin, I will, for your sake, insert here that of the abdication of Victor Amedée the Second; the same king who erected the Superga, and lies buried within its walls. About a month previous to his renunciation of his crown, he espoused secretly the widow of the count of St. Sebastian, the object of his early love, then fifty years of age. Victor declared to his son his intention of abdicating; and as he had proposed to himself for model the Emperor Charles the Fifth, he chose that a like ceremonial should be observed, and his court and ministers were summoned to the castle of Rivoli, which lies on the road to Susa and near Turin: of the cause which assembled them none were informed except the prince of Piedmont and the Marquis del Borgo. In the presence of all, the latter read the act of abdication, the king preserving throughout the proud and solemn demeanour which was natural to him. He led, when it was ended, the countess of St. Sebastian to the princess, become queen. “My daughter,” he said, “I present to you a lady who is about to sacrifice herself for me; I pray you show respect to her and her family.”

Reserving to himself no more than a nobleman’s fortune, with the countess, now marchioness of Spino, he retired to Chambéry. For a time indeed, but of brief duration, the new monarch asked his father’s counsel in all affairs of moment, and sent his ministers to seek it across the mountains; but he grew weary of divided power, as did Victor Amedée of the idleness he had chosen, and the marchioness of Spino urged him to resume the reins he had dropped unadvisedly. He arrived at Rivoli suddenly; but Charles Emmanuel, who had been absent also, informed of his movements, at the same time re-entered the capital, and the old king heard with extreme annoyance the cannon which pealed to welcome him. The two monarchs had an interview, embarrassed on both sides. The father spoke of the air of Savoy as injurious to his health, and the son commanded that the castle of Moncaglieri should be prepared for his reception, whither (also by his command) the court went, apparently to do him homage; but in reality to watch and report his actions. It was noticed that the manners of the marchioness had altered; that when she visited the queen she occupied an arm-chair, similar to hers; and at last, the moment for action come, Victor Amedée demanded of the Marquis del Borgo the act of his abdication, desiring him to make known his intention of wearing again the crown he had laid aside. The minister hesitated to reply; the old king insisted on his obedience within twelve hours, and this, fearing to excite Victor’s fury, he promised and departed. The king remained in agitation of mind, half repenting his confidence in del Borgo; till, when the clocks had tolled midnight, taking a sudden resolution, he mounted his horse and followed but by one servant, sought the citadel and summoned the governor to open the gates to him. He was refused, and returned in disappointment to Moncaglieri. Meanwhile the council assembled on the information of the minister, and the arrest of the father was signed by the son, whose hand, it is said, shook so violently, that the secretary of state was obliged to support it. The marquis of Ormea, preceded by a company of grenadiers, arrived at Moncaglieri, whose walls other troops had already surrounded, conducted thither without knowing whither they were going or wherefore. The king slept profoundly in the chamber with the marchioness, and the noise made as they ascended the grand staircase, seizing on the person of an attendant, who lay in the ante-chamber, and bursting open the doors, did not wake him. The marchioness, startled from her slumbers, sprang from her bed and towards a private door, hoping to escape. She was arrested and placed in a carriage, which, escorted by fifty dragoons, took at a gallop the road to the fortress of Ceva in Piedmont. Not even her cries, as she was forced away, could wake the king, who was of apoplectic habit, and whose sleep was like a lethargy. One seized his sword which lay on the table, and the Comte de la Perouse, drawing his curtains back, at last roused him, and showed the order of which he was “bearer from the king.” “What mean you by the king?” exclaimed Victor; “dare you to recognise another than me, who am your sovereign and your master?”

“You were so, sire,” replied La Perouse, “till yourself commanded that our obedience should be transferred to King Charles; we, therefore, pray you to give us the example of obedience now.”

The old man, furious, refused to rise, and gave a blow to the chevalier of Salace, who approached too near his bed. He was lifted perforce from it, and, partly dressed and enveloped in blankets, carried rather than led to the carriage, which waited in the court. As he crossed the ante-chamber he seemed surprised to see there his grenadiers; and the men and their officers, astonished in turn, murmured, “It is the king; why should he be a prisoner? what has our old master done?”

The Count of La Perouse, fearing mutiny, exclaimed, “In the king’s name and on pain of death, silence!” and hurried the old monarch on.

In the court-yard stood ranged a regiment of dragoons, which had distinguished itself under his own eye, and which he had always favoured. Their presence affected him, and he stepped forward to speak; but a sign was made to the drummers, who covered his voice, and those who stood round forced him to enter the carriage. On leaving Moncaglieri he had made three demands—for his wife, his papers, and his snuff-box; but only the last was granted. The day after his arrival at Rivoli, iron bars and double frames were placed to the windows of his apartments.

“What are you doing?” he asked the glazier.

“I am putting up double window-frames,” said the man, “lest you should be cold this winter.”

“Why, how now, fellow,” said the king, “do you think I shall be here this winter?”

“Ay, indeed,” rejoined the glazier; “this one and many more.”

After this he was, however, transferred to the castle of La Venerie, three leagues from Turin. The fits of fury to which he had at first yielded, and in which it was feared he might commit suicide, had gradually subsided into sadness. He was, at his own demand, reconducted to Moncaglieri, whither the marchioness was allowed to come. He was permitted to have books; but neither newspapers nor anything which might satisfy his curiosity as to events passing in the world. He never saw his son more. He died in 1732, and his widow sought a retreat for life in a convent at Carignano.

31st October.

We were up at light this morning, for the weather had a more favourable aspect; crossed the Piazza with its old palace, and issued from the town on the noble avenue which makes so fine an approach to Turin. From the plain it crosses, the view of the Alps, covered with snow, appearing and disappearing through masses of clouds, was beautiful beyond most prospects. For some time favoured with sunshine and blue sky, we might have reached San Ambrogio free of rain, but that Grizzle broke a fore-shoe, and we were obliged to get another put on at the Tre Ré at Rivoli, looking on in almost as much fear as when Fanny dropped one at Montecarelli, on her way to Florence. The palace which received Victor Amedée is on the height commanding the town. Grizzle being shod, we thought it better to feed both, and thus lost time; for we were not long suffered to enjoy the country, which grows very beautiful after Rivoli, as rain and hail, which we had hoped were left behind, came down in full fury on horse and rider. The Dora, whose course we followed, had overflowed its banks, and desolation was here also.

The valley has the character of that of Domo d’Ossola, but it is more confined, and has less grandeur. The rain ceased as we drew near St. Ambrogio, and the vapours were floating up the high cliff which hangs over it, and on whose very pinnacle stands a ruined church, or castle, or both, a high slight tower, which formed a most striking object as the mist floated upwards, hiding and revealing it by turns. As we approached the Tre Corone, its broken windows and yard choked with manure looked so hopelessly wretched, that, being wet through, we preferred riding on in the expectation of getting dry, as the weather favoured us once more. Crossing a bridge, the straight road follows the other bank of the river now on the left, and through a defile of surpassing beauty. On a hill of its own, of which it seems to be the monarch, rising from the flat before the mountains, and beside the river, stands a remarkable ruin. We had passed many proud remains of baronial castles, but this the noblest, with its turreted walls and hollow watch-towers standing and defying. The rain returned more violently than ever, almost hiding Susa, which is beautifully situated, and I fain would have seen in sunshine, and have paid a visit to its antiquities. Woe unto its waterspouts; they advanced over our heads from either side of the narrow street, irregular in their lengths, so that to strive to avoid their contents was vain; and drowned like mountain torrents washing what little the rain had spared. We crossed the bridge over the wild river, and found the Posta on the Place. I can say little in praise of its comfort; there remained but three rooms vacant, certainly, but I suspect those already occupied were no better than our own. The window shut badly, and the door, on the open corridor, not at all, admitting the rush of the wind and the roar of the torrent; so that the fire scorched our faces, while the back of our heads grew rheumatic. The waiter was determined to do his best, for he piled the logs till they set the chimney on fire. He was gone when I discovered it, and looked for a bell, but as none was there, and I was little inclined to receive another shower by issuing forth on the open gallery in search of him, I watched it till it burned itself out, which it did very safely before D—— had come up from our travellers.

Nov. 1st.

Up at light. A sweet mild morning, and no rain, and our horses fresh as after a ride in the Bois de Boulogne; and we decided on going the whole way to Lanslebourg, abandoning our first intention of sleeping on the mountain, as the inn is ill provided, and to get straw impossible.

The Roman arch raised in honour of Tiberius is still to be seen in the governor’s garden, built of white marble, and the Corinthian order, and rising among broken remnants of columns and capitals, which probably belonged to edifices by which it was once surrounded. In the days of Charlemagne, the famous Roland, from whom the first Marquises of Susa boast their descent, defended the town, signalizing himself by most marvellous exploits; in proof whereof there was shown some years ago a rock, which a stroke of his sword cleft in twain!

The early part of our journey was delightful, for the day was balmy though not bright, and the mist shrouded the snows of the summits before us without approaching ourselves; and the vine, cultivated at the foot of the mountain, stretched up its sides to the roots of the chestnut trees, on whose green leaves there rested but just so much snow as bowed their branches slightly and gracefully. As the road wound upwards we looked back to the Piedmontese valleys, bounded by the mountains, with their dark blue base and white coronets; and this beauty increased as we ascended higher and could distinguish the hill with its ruins, and the high crag far away above St. Ambrogio. So far the thaw had been rapid, for no snow lay in the road here, nor till we had passed the little inn of Mont Cenis. At Molaret, where the church bells were tinkling sweetly in the quiet air, the route, turning suddenly, no longer hangs over Piedmont, but looks on a home view, which has its charm likewise, and the village built in the glen directly below, among the trees of the rich meadow. The first refuge is a little further, and by the time we had arrived there the half-melted snow began to ball in our horses’ feet so as to impede our progress; and D—— having several times dismounted to pick them, with the loss of a quarter of an hour at each operation, we ascertained that in this manner we should not arrive ere dark, and began to think haste might be necessary, as the mists, which had hitherto held aloof, seemed thickening gradually. To prevent an accumulation of snow, our only resource was to trot our horses, and the mountain being henceforth steep, it was an unkind antidote; but Fanny shook her head, and breasted the hill gallantly, and the grey followed wheresoever she led.

We had pursued this plan about half an hour, when the snow suddenly fell, and its friend the fog so closed round us that we could see nothing but the road, and I feared that would be invisible ere long, as I strained my eyes to discover the precipices which might be there, and the track which the last travellers had left, and which the flakes effaced as they fell. From this spot the aspect of Mont Cenis is unknown to me, almost as if I had not traversed it; only as we crossed the Plain of St. Nicholas, over which, but for the hooftrack of a horse which immediately preceded us we should have failed to find the way, appeared for a moment the palisades of the ascending route, seeming built on the cloud, and a waterfall which sprang forth from the mist to be swallowed in it again a few yards lower. From the cliffs which skirt the road (here rising abruptly from the level) hung icicles from fifty to a hundred feet long, which the mist just opened to show. I almost thought we might be left on the mountain as a reinforcement, for I certainly never before knew the entire meaning of the word cold.

We went on, however, patiently, and rapidly as we could with mercy to the poor horses, who seemed anxious to advance as ourselves. The wind had risen, and the broad flakes of snow in this higher region changed to small particles of ice which drifted in our faces cold and cutting. We passed the barrier of Piedmont, whereon was written that a toll was to be paid there; but we, having called and nobody answered, went on till we reached the Grande Croix, before whose humble inn stood several waggons, and one waggoner who lifted his hands in amazement, and said, “Povera, poverina,” with an accent of pity not at that moment misplaced, for the ice adhered to our hats and cloaks, making them look like an old wall from which hangs half detached plaster; even D——’s weather whisker was an iceberg, as were the horses’ manes and tails. Grizzle had rubbed hers last night, and the icicled hairs stuck forth ludicrously like “quills from the fretful porcupine.”

To stop to complain would certainly have been to be frozen to death, and we rode fast over the plain of Mont Cenis, stopping to breathe our comrades before each refuge, as places where we could find aid, should aid become necessary. The lake was invisible through the mist, and we could distinguish only the mountain rivulet which for some way accompanied us, flowing along like a black line through the dull white of the snow. As we approached the Hospice, opposite which is Napoleon’s fortification, the dark lake became visible through the sleet, but only like a heavier cloud lying on the edge of the plain and recognized by its more defined outline. Half the Hospice is occupied by monks, whose voices reached us through the roar of the wind, singing psalms, the other half by the rcarabinieri, one of whom opened the door just sufficiently to take the passport, while a second peeped at us through a closed and barred window. I thought, considering their situation and ours, they kept it a merciless time, during which we walked our horses backwards and forwards, receiving the blast on all sides. From this level, the road ascends again, its highest point, being I believe at the refuge No. 20. The cantonnier, who was at work there spade in hand, desired us to be careful and proceed at a foot’s pace, as we had a bad portion of road before us; and we found he was right, our horses floundering about in deep snow a moment after. Met here a carriage (the first); the postilion expressed his astonishment by an oath loud and deep. The snow-drift passed, the ground became worse still, for it changed to smooth ice, the wind, which every moment increased, sweeping the loose snow from its surface. Grizzle, who could not keep her footing, slipped and groaned, which meant, “Get off and lead me!” a prayer which D—— granted, but Fanny fortunately did not make to me, as, having felt the pain produced by cold, the numbness now stiffened me to my saddle, and had I been lifted from it, I should certainly have found walking impossible. At No. 17 is the Savoy barrier, which having passed we were called back. The good-natured Savoyard detained us as short a time as possible, called me “pauvre femme!” not thinking we were travelling for pleasure; and having written down as Heaven pleased the English names we told him, bade us speed on our way, which we did slowly and painfully.

The wind increased and threatened tourmente. The cantonnier had said that, notwithstanding the quantity of snow lately fallen, there was too little to occasion a dread of avalanches which sometimes fall between the refuges Nos. 23 and 24. A man walking down the mountain four days since was frozen to death at this spot; and at the sharp turns of the zigzags, the blasts sweeping down the gorge and crossing the road were so strong, that Grizzle swayed to them, and Fanny planted her fore-feet firmly and put down her head to resist.

Though we forbore to say so, we neither were quite tranquil, as these gusts of wind roared down the hollow, threatening to carry us over the road side on the snow-drifts below, certainly deep enough to swallow far larger masses than ourselves and our quadrupeds.

At last came a happy change from snow to rain and from ice to mud, and we saw Lanslebourg among fir-trees beneath, with its pretty bridge flung over the Arc, and the inn on the opposite side, built by Napoleon for his staff. It was three o’clock when we arrived, and we had left Susa at eight, and Fanny, not waiting for orders, trotted into the stable-yard. With some trouble from the numbness which paralyzed me, I arrived in the kitchen, where the landlady, intent on household affairs and also on scolding a child, having given me a seat, and desired her servant to make me a fire above, departed to her labours, and this was a signal for persecution, for the spirit of curiosity was stronger than the spirit of obedience, and she touched my hat, and felt my habit, and walked round me, asking questions till I was weary, and told her that if she would first light a fire and allow me to change my wet clothes, I would be at her service the rest of the day.

It required a great deal of smoke to drive me from the hearth, but when she had kindled the wood and departed, the wind which rushed down the chimney drove the very fire into the centre of the floor; and my eyes so streamed from the columns which filled the room, that I had some difficulty in finding the way out to summon her back. She only remarked, that it was always the case with that chimney when it rained; and we proceeded to another chamber on the opposite side of the corridor, the Abigail with her flaming pine-logs first. When installed therein, I found the air abominable: she said, “it was always so when it blew,” so that I have passed the afternoon burning vinegar.

The snow, hail and wind have as yet known no intermission; the bad air arrives under the door and the icy wind in at the window. On account of the horses, whom eight posts like those we have travelled to-day must necessarily have fatigued, we shall remain to-morrow. Were the weather fair the situation of the inn would be lovely; but when the torrents of rain dash as now against windows which will not close, and the wind waves the thin muslin to and fro, and the cold of these lantern-like rooms resists even such fires as I have made, the inn at Lanslebourg is the very perfection of wretchedness.

2nd November.

Still rain and wind, but with glimpses of pale sunshine which predict finer weather. The bad air prevented sleep, and the blast which sung round my head, whirling away the flimsy curtains, bestowed a cold on my chest, which shall not however detain me. The horses have passed the day in the luxury of rolling, and enjoyment of the mountain hay, of which the pastures near this produce the sweetest in the world.

3rd November.

Left early, for the clouds, though they threatened, dropped no rain, and took the road to Modane, the descent as far as Formignone being rapid, skirting the Arc and its pine-forests, the cold head of Mont Cenis towering behind. The weather grew milder and the scenery more lovely; larch and other trees not evergreen appearing beneath the masses of dark fir, and red and yellow with the tints of autumn, have a richness in their hues I never saw equalled elsewhere.

Verney, where Walpole’s dog perished, is a beautifully situated village. The pine-forests, which the wolves inhabited of yore, have retreated since that time, and now clothe only the mountain on the left, before which the little church whose bell was tolling for mass, and whither the country people were hastening in their holiday clothes, stands on its green mound alone.

Ere arriving at Modane, we passed the superb fort of Lesseillon, which tier above tier crowns crag above crag, with its batteries ready to sweep road and valley. The range of cliffs to the right among which it rises are wild and bare. In the depths of the gorge under it, the Arc, narrowed to a streamlet, cuts its passage between walls of rock; the stone arch of the Pont du Diable spanning the chasm, and nearer the fort a frailer wooden bridge flung with yet more hardihood. The mountain to the left, at whose base was our road, hanging over the savage defile, was clothed with a forest, and dashing down, or trickling to our feet, cascade and torrent wound among the roots of fir and larch, or bounded over their branches. The only neighbour of the fortress is a wretched village; it must be a melancholy garrison: for some time it made a fine object in the background with the snows of Mont Cenis and his companions.

As we continued to descend, the clear green stream of the Arc, sometimes wild and angry, foams and roars among her masses of black stone, sometimes flows mildly and brightly, retreating from the road in coquettish curves, half hiding itself in a fringe of birch and larch and fir, and issuing again to smile at her admirers and receive their homage. Nothing can surpass in loveliness the valley of the Maurienne. Modane is a wretched hole, beautifully placed, a blot in Paradise; the noble road takes alternately both sides of the narrow valley. At a spot which most claimed admiration, we met a post carriage, its inmate this warm day ensconced in great coat and cap, fast asleep. We have once more the hardy peasantry, a contrast to that of Italy, the women with their fresh faces and thick ankles, ascending the mountain paths followed by their cows and goats tinkling their gay bells; and we have also the pretty country churches with their spires of grey stone peeping over rocks and through pines instead of the staring dome and unfinished Roman front of those of Italian hamlets, which wanted money as well as modesty. Avalanches of earth have hereabouts injured the road, not yet wholly repaired, and farther on the valley narrowed and became bare and less beautiful, and the rain fell heavily. At the next turn, however, we saw St. Michel close by, beneath and upon his noble crag, and galloped towards the shelter the horses, who went lightly on as if they had not been ridden three and thirty miles.

The landlord, who is an approved rogue, asked prices which made us threaten him with going to the other inn. He excused himself by saying all his provisions were brought over the mountain from Turin, so, as you may be curious to hear what St. Michel imports from Italy, our dinner consisted of two weary-looking larks, a chicken who seemed pinched with the cold of the snow-storm, a hard hearted old cauliflower, one fish and three apples.

CHAPTER XII.

St. Jean de Maurienne—A tradition of two fingers—Story of a procession of bears at Henry the Second’s passage—Peculiar customs—Baptism—Funerals—Aiguebelle—La Carbonaria—Chambéry—-Road by the Mont du Chat—A valley of the Rhone—Pierre Châtel once a monastery—Bellay—Murder committed by a notary—A peculiar race—Pont d’Ain—Cathedral of Brou—Its foundress and her motto—Bourg—Fair-time—An aubergiste—Montrevel—We are taken for part of Franconi’s troop—Tournus—Chalons—Arnay le Duc—Vermenton—Joigny—A poor traveller—The chapter of Sens—Montereau where Jean sans Peur was murdered—Melun—Paris—Fanny.

4th November.

Left St. Michel early as possible, (the mountains before us, along whose edge a passage from the road has been blasted, seeming to shut in the valley,) skirting the bright river, which widens and winds, forming birch and fir islets, its small waves all golden, not from the sun, which does not look down on them so early, but the reflection of the autumnal foliage on the hill side. St. Jean de Maurienne, two posts farther, has a good inn; looking back to it from the turn of the road, the view was smiling and lovely. In the vestibule of the cathedral are the tomb of Humbert of the white hands, and others of the first counts of La Maurienne, and in its treasury are preserved the two fingers of John the Baptist, with which it is said he baptized Jesus Christ. According to the traditions of the country, a young girl born in the environs went to Egypt, whence she brought them back in a golden box. Gontran, king of Burgundy and Orleans, built, in the year 561, the church which was destined to contain these precious relics, and the town, tendering to them the respect due, added two fingers to its arms!!

The country surrounding St. Jean produces bears, and the Maréchal de Vielleville tells an amusing anecdote relating to the passage of Henry the Second of France in 1548:—

“He was prayed by the bishop and the inhabitants to honour them by making his entry into their town with some pomp, promising him some new diversion which would gratify and was unknown to him. The king consequently presented himself at the gates of Maurienne, accompanied by a train suited to royalty, but having entered and moved forward about two hundred paces, he was suddenly met by a company of men in bearskins, but their heads, hands and feet as well as their bodies so masked and accoutred, that they might be taken for real bears, and issuing from a street to the beat of drum, banners earned before them, and each bearing a pole on his shoulder, placed themselves between the king and his Swiss guards, marching four and four, to the wonder of the court, and the people conducted the king, who was marvellously delighted at seeing bears so well counterfeited, to the portal of the church, where, according to custom, Henry dismounted, and where the bishop and clergy waited his coming, forming a station with cross and relics, in their ornaments and richest attire, and with sacred music to welcome him.”

“The service over, the above named bears brought the king back to his lodging, and executed before it a thousand bearish gambols, such as wrestling and climbing along the houses and up the pillars of the market, and, admirable to relate, they imitated with such truth to nature, the howling of bears, that one might have fancied oneself in the mountains; and seeing that his majesty from his apartments took great pleasure in watching them, the whole hundred assembled beneath and howled simultaneously a manner of salvo, so fearful, that a great number of horses, mounted by valets and lackeys, and in waiting before the king’s lodging, broke violently girths and reins, flung their riders, and dashed in their terror over the bodies of all who stood on their passage. The king confessed he had never been so gratified by rural device and drollery, and bestowed two thousand crowns.”

St. Jean de Maurienne retains peculiar customs and ceremonies on the occasion of baptism, marriage and funeral. The cradle of a male child, in honour of its sex, is carried on the right shoulder, and the bells are rung to welcome its birth; they are silent for a female, and the left shoulder is the less dignified place on which rests her cradle.

The young man who aspires to the hand of a maiden seeks her cottage at night, accompanied by one comrade. If she places upright in the chimney one of the logs burning in the hearth, it is a token of his being rejected. Should this fatal sign remain unmade, preliminaries are entered upon, and the future bridegroom invites his father-in-law to the public-house, where all is arranged, and the young man, reconducted to the cottage, gives earnest-money to his intended wife. They are then affianced without ceremony. The night before the marriage the relations of both are invited to the maiden’s house, who hides herself, and is sought by her lover and his comrades, and welcomed when found with rustic music. The wedding morning, the friends and guests, covered with cockades and laurel branches, conduct the couple to church. The mother-in-law of the maiden waits her return and receives her with various and symbolical ceremonies. A broom is laid on her path; if she forgets to take it up it is a mournful omen, and a sign that she will prove a bad housewife. Her mother-in-law throws a handful of corn at her head in token of the plenty which is to form the happiness of her household.

She next finds placed before her a loaf, which she is to cut and distribute to the poor, and a kettle of broth wherewith to serve the guests, in token of charity and hospitality. Then follows the meal: a cake is brought in, ornamented with laurel branches, and a child carries round the table a plate, on which each person lays his offering, which is presented to the bride, and by her given to the poor.

When a man dies in these countries, two of his neighbours dig his grave, others carry him thither, and the ceremony ends by a repast, during which the guests drink to the memory of the departed, and the health of those who have “made the ground.” There are parishes in which it is the custom to lay every Sunday, during a year, a loaf and a pint of wine on the dead man’s grave. If the decease takes place on a Friday, it is a sign of new misfortune to his family. The new-born child and the person carrying it, who meet a funeral, are destined to follow within a year.

We passed La Grande Maison, a low inn by the road-side, and a little further, arrived at one of those sweet spots which make landmarks in one’s memory—the entrance of a village, beyond which the mountains meet again; where a one-arched bridge spans the river before a mass of black rock, and the remains of one which former storms swept away, and is now scarce visible through the vegetation which covers it; and cottages on the shore, with trellised vines and gay flower gardens sloping to the water.

We had lingered on the way, and it was late and the fog rising, when we entered the marshy valley in which stands Aiguebelle, at whose entrance among the trees which cover its summit may still be traced the ruins of Carbonaria, or, as the Savoyards call it, the Castle of La Charbonnière, which was the birthplace and the residence of the first counts of Savoy, but, taken by Henry the Fourth, was razed to the ground. At no great distance from Aiguebelle, is, or rather was, the village of Randans, on which a mass of rock, detached from that of Combes, slipped suddenly down in June, 1750. The soil is now on a level with the steeple of the church, through whose windows it is possible to enter the buried edifice. The inn of Aiguebelle (la Posta) good and comfortable.

5th November.

A morning of clouds and vapour floating over the hills, and hardly favourable to the cold on my chest, which causes me some suffering; a road all rises and falls, mud and stones, but looking down on a fair valley, whose wooded hillocks are again crowned with ruined castles. Maltaverne, or Chateauneuf, as it is called, may possess a good inn, but it looks unpromising; I should be more inclined to try the Balance at St. Ambrose, a little farther. At last, from this narrow road which winds between green hedges, descending abruptly, we come on the rock of Montmeillan, (of whose importance you can only on this side be aware,) the high cliff commanding it, and the broad bed of the Isère below. From the bridge which crosses the latter Mont Blanc was not to-day visible, hid in clouds called up by the north-easter. The road skirts the dirty town, and is carried across the lower portion of the rock, (D—— said a surly No! to the innkeeper who summoned us to his bad inn,) and we rode on to Chambéry, through scenery changed and saddened in the four months which have elapsed since we left it, amongst leafless walnut-trees and fading yellow poplars. Found on the muddy road the white-haired and half blind beggar, who was our pensioner. He thanked me for my return gift, with “Merci, mon garçon,” and entering by the Faubourg Montmeillan, Fanny made no mistake, but passing scornfully the Europe and Petit Paris, entered her own inn-yard.

11th November.

Though really ill when I arrived, the comfortable bed I found ready, and the care of these kind people, who made tisanes innumerable, has already worked a cure. So having found no letters, and having three days borne with the anxiety the want of them occasioned, I decided on leaving for Geneva, where I had also desired they might be sent on. As we were about to start this morning, an employé of the post-office appeared bearer of three, whose arrival took place before our own, and my mind being at ease, we are to take the road over the Mont du Chat, eleven posts shorter than that by Geneva.

To Bourget, the first post, we crossed the plain, commencing only to ascend when we had passed its village and ruined castle on the lake shore. To us who expected a quiet promenade on a hill-side, the Mont du Chat was a surprise; its bold zigzags, often without parapets, leading to the very summit, the eye looking perpendicularly down to the blue water, and the autumnal foliage of the chestnut trees which cover a portion of its base, and among which hides Hautecombe.

Beyond the abbey the foot of the Mont du Chat is barren and wild, a mass of grey rock descending to the lake without relief or verdure. Aix, and the range of mountains at its back, the Mont d’Azi, and the Dent de Nivolet, lie on the opposite shore, Chambéry and his snowy mountains behind, faintly outlined to-day through mists called up by the hottest sun which ever shone in November. Each bend of the zigzags of this splendid road is supported by a rounded wall from beneath, resembling towers, and the first of which deceived me, then on the look out for a Roman ruin, and so determined on its discovery, as to believe that this might be a part of the temple raised to Mercury, whose foundations may really be traced still on the little plain at the summit of the pass. Not far beyond this level of a few yards we rode by a ruin of another date, being the remnant of a Gothic portal. Descending once more, though the view had lost its chief charm with the bright glory of the lake of Bourget, it yet possessed boldness and grandeur, looking over broken hills topped by towns, strangely grouped, and barren, and terminated by the mountain of Tarare, recalling Scott’s descriptions of border country. On our path, beneath the jagged line of white cliff on the left, were green pastures, hiding in nooks, belted with rocks and patches of woodland through which peeped cottage chimneys, and streams fringed with trees, the trunks of prostrate elms serving for bridge over them, and fair fresh children watching the cattle which browsed on the strips of turf along their banks. Arrived at the foot of the Mont du Chat, we soon after reached Yenne, a prettily-situated but most ill-favoured town, beyond which the road continued level till it suddenly crossed the bed of a torrent, one of the Rhone’s tributaries. This being the diligence route, they talk of building a bridge, but the width of the winter bed would render it a work of difficulty, though to-day the stream was but about forty feet wide, and barely reached our horses’ knees. A few steps further brought us to the brink of the Rhone, and within a most stern and solitary glen, a valley of stone. On our left, where its wall rose, its cold grey only varied by stains the weather has made, bare of leaf or living thing; on the right, and the river’s opposite shore, greenly feathered to the summit, and a mere line of crag, showing white among the brushwood, like an embattled wall. A sudden bend of the river parts it from the road, which, scarcely broad enough for one carriage, winds under and among tall crags, scattered over turf like velvet, till it enters a gallery formed by two of these, which might serve for portal to Dante’s Inferno. The sides are so high, and the aperture they leave so narrow, that no sunshine penetrates to dissipate its chill or darkness; and down the face of its upper portion, and through the more opaque mass which projects below, a winter torrent, which now only trickles, has worn itself a deep groove and circular passage.

Emerging from the few yards of obscurity, we were again on the bank of the rapid Rhone, the frontier fortress of Pierre Châtel crowning the high grand cliff opposite, and before us the light suspension bridge gracefully crossing the river, uniting Savoy to France. Half way up the cliff side and imbedded in it, a picturesque object among trees and briars which spring round, is a loopholed wall flanked by two low towers, the private entrance to the fort, to which conducts a stair cut in the living rock. Arrived at the bridge, two stupid Savoy douaniers detained us twenty minutes ere they could understand our non-possession of receipts for horse-duty, taken from us when the money was returned. On the French shore, the men said, that being a festival, they could not tell whether Monsieur would or would not descend from his pavilion to give the acquit à caution. We observed that, if that were the case, he would do well to build an inn. The old gentleman appeared on his terrace shrugging his shoulders in sign of impatience, but at last thought proper to come down, and the horses being measured and the fifty-five francs paid, we were allowed to ride on, having lost an hour.

Pierre Châtel, now a fortress, was once a fortified monastery, raised by Amedée the Sixth, in the fourteenth century, who founded the order of the collar of Savoy, now named of the Annonciade, the Chartreuse of Pierre Châtel serving as chapel and place of assembly for the knights of the order. It was only when Bresse and Bugey had been ceded by Charles Emmanuel to Henry the Fourth of France, that the meetings of the knights of the order were transferred to Montmeillan, and not very long since the armorial bearings of those received during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were still hung in one of the vast halls.

The road passing from the bridge beneath the crag on which the fortress stands, though quitting the Rhone here, continues very beautiful as far as Bellay, bold in the distance and wooded near,—but the hills are frequent and fatiguing, and the last the worst, as the town is perched on a pinnacle. The miserable inn is on the Place, and the window of our bedroom looked on the closed office of the notary Peytel. You may remember that the 31st of October twelvemonth, driving home in his cabriolet from Bourg, to obtain sole command of her fortune, he murdered his young wife, having first shot the servant, (a man of irreproachable character,) as on him was to lie the weight of the crime. The story Peytel told was at first believed, but his forgetfulness had left his servant’s still loaded pistols on his person, and his guilt came strangely to light. His fellow notaries, not liking the stain of an execution on their brotherhood, drew up a petition in his favour. It appears that notwithstanding his double murder, he excited sympathy, and himself believed in the possibility of pardon; and bearing out the assertion “that all the world is a stage and the men merely players,” to obtain a last dramatic effect he embraced the gaoler’s wife ere he went to execution, and bade her mark that his countenance had undergone no change. The servant, while lighting my fire, said his sister had gone to Paris to petition the king, but had done so in vain, because it was said that Peytel was not a brave homme, as this was not his première fois. So that, according to Fanchette’s code of morality, a man may be a brave homme who commits murder only a première fois. Bad dinner and bad beds.

The hostler asked D—— if I did not belong to a peculiar race called Amazons, always attired thus.

Pont d’Ain, 12th November.

Rose early to leave Bellay ditto, and were detained by seeing the rain pouring down on the melancholy Place, and the red umbrellas of people who crossed it in sabots, and the dripping diligence just arrived, wrinkling the widened gutter where half a dozen ducks were dipping their heads in the water and seemed triumphing in their superior powers of enjoyment. As the inn was not tempting, we left it as soon as the shower in some degree subsided, and a short distance and gentle ascent brought us to the identical bridge, the scene of the murder. It crosses a sluggish stream which creeps on either side of it and of the road over low and marshy meadows. The spot has a melancholy aspect, partly perhaps from its associations and the weather on which we saw it. A few fine oaks grow here and there, near one of which the man was murdered, and within hearing are several cottages, one so close that its inhabitants might almost, had the moon been bright (for it was eleven o’clock), have seen what was passing. The marsh, to which she fled in her terror, was on the right hand as we approached the bridge, and having pursued and shot her there, he feared she was not quite dead, and ere he feigned to seek assistance, laid her, face downwards, in the water, and preserving his coolness when he returned, placed her corpse in the cabriolet and drove beside his victim into Bellay.

Our road entered a desolate glen, where the deposits formed by the heavy rains have made small lakes or rather large pools under the bare hills. This melancholy valley is succeeded by one of surpassing beauty, for there are crags still grey and shattered but peeping above wooded hills on which stand the proud ruins of convent and castle, or with vineyards growing up their sides, the clear water of the rapid stream at their foot flashing as it turns watermills, and in the hollow where it flows so busily, oak and chestnut, and walnut, and ash-trees, forming groves rich and varied, interspersed with clumps of dark box and portions of fallen rock bright with the delicate greens of the mosses which cover them.

We passed St. Rambert, beautifully placed on the river’s edge, with its ancient fortress above and the ruin of another stronghold like itself on an eminence which rises from the flat surface of the valley. Two leagues before arriving at Pont d’Ain, we bade a final adieu to this lovely country, and issued on the plains of France. As it was growing dusk, we less regretted the change, and Fanny, finding a strip of turf by the road-side, shook her small head and cantered on merrily. There is a fine bridge at Pont d’Ain, and the inn is good, though dear.

13th November.

A lovely morning; Bourg is prettily placed, for the plain has undulations and patches of copse wood, and you look back to the mountains of Savoy. Left the cathedral of Brou on the right hand just before entering the town, a large building of not perhaps the purest Gothic, but picturesque notwithstanding, and within of remarkable beauty. Early in the year 1120, there stood on this spot a monastery, whither Ulric, Lord of Bresse, returned from the Holy Land to end his days. The Duchess of Savoy, wife of Philip the Second, made a vow to build here a splendid church and convent should her husband escape the consequences of a dangerous fall. Commenced by the latter, they were left unfinished, for he died in 1497. His son Philibert succeeded him; he had espoused Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian and of Mary of Burgundy. Twice affianced, to Charles the Eighth of France, and John, heir to the Spanish throne, she married Philibert, surnamed the Handsome in 1501, and in 1504 was left a widow and childless. She had Bresse for dowry, and the government of Burgundy from her father, so that seeing herself rich and uncontrolled, she undertook to accomplish her mother-in-law’s vow, and raised the cathedral as it now stands between the years 1511 and 1530. The tombs of the old duchess, its first founder, and that of Philip, are there, as are those of Philibert the Handsome and Margaret herself. On her monument is inscribed the singular motto—

Fortune, Infortune, fors une.

Unluckily for our progress it was fair time at Bourg, and the crowd of peasants in their short boddices and flat hats, which, surmounted by a black lace turret and ornamented by black lace streamers, are placed at the top of their ugly heads, literally stopped the way. One pretty girl (the only one) looked well under it. The boddice and short sleeves are ornamented with fringe, black lace, and rags innumerable, and the arms are bare, saving in those who, exhibiting great luxury, have worsted gloves confined above the elbow by elastic garters. Passing towards the centre of the fair, where the thickest crowd stood gaping round the tent which contained Franconi’s troop, a fat man came rushing forth from a café, and with one hand on my rein and the other on my arm, inquired whether I would take any thing, and whether the horses had been fed, so affectionately, that I had great trouble in getting rid of him.

My heart sank when I saw Montrevel, where the landlady of Pont d’Ain had said we should be “pas mal,” and the poor woman, with fear in her face, told me she had never lodged travellers before. However, when I had groped after her up the dark ladder-staircase, and passed the room in which slept the whole family, three dogs included, we found one better than I expected, as it was large as a barn, and clean, though damp, as never used save for festivals, wedding, or christening. We made a good fire on the one lonely dog, and got supper, whose best dish was one of roasted chestnuts, and dry sheets over hard, moist mattresses, the beds being there for ornament. To the stable, while D—— stood there to see the horses fed, came a peasant in blue frock and striped night-cap, who watched, in respect and some awe, Fanny’s demeanour, never of the quietest when she is curried, and at last said, “Those animals have far more sense than we have.” D—— thought from his face that might easily be, and said, “Very true;” but with another look of admiration he returned to the charge, and said, “Vous venez de travailler à Bourg,” which D——, not quite comprehending, explanations followed; and it came out that he thought we belonged to Franconi’s troop (as did I suppose the fat man at the café) and were all four performers.

Left Montrevel for Tournus, the greater part of the way a desolate flat, beneath the cold fog, broken by a few hills, long as uninteresting. The peasants of La Bresse are a quiet though uncouth set of people; their miserable habitations cleaner than those of the more northern provinces of France. Met no one save a group of gipsies, on whom we came as I walked to warm myself down one of these quasi mountains, Fanny following like a spaniel. They were gathered beneath an ancient oak, the older people cooking, a handsome youth touching a guitar, and a girl, with the dark fine features of her race, gazing at him as did the large dog, whose head rested on her knee. Outside the bridge of Tournus, found at a café the stout old gentleman, Madame Lalouet’s pensionnaire, who, on our former visit, provided us with a château and private theatre. We shook hands, and he told us we should be welcome at the inn, as indeed we found on our arrival, for it is one of the very best on the road.

14th November.

Left Tournus for Chalons the 14th November, in cold fog and drizzling rain; the view of the town and its towers, and the windings of the Saône, which I thought pretty when we rode here on a sunny morning, having lost its charm now, seen through the mist which lay heavily on the few leafless trees, and the waves of mud of the straight road before us. Before reaching Chalons we came again on the broken, bad pavé; the sides of the road impassable, as our horses slipped or sunk into the heavy ground almost to the knee. Arrived at the Hôtel du Parc; uncomfortable as before.

15th November.

A lovely morning, though the fog overtook us, and the last of our rides which possessed any interest; for, after Chagny’s plain and pavé, we entered the valley, and passed the ruins of La Rochepot; they had less beauty in the gleam of November sunshine, and clouds and mist hid the plains of Bresse, and the line of snowy mountains which terminated the view. The moor beyond, soaked by autumnal rains, was too heavy to canter over; and the oak wood, beyond Givry, exhibits now but a few brown leaves, clinging mournfully to twigs almost bare. Recognized by postilions who met us on the road in April, and arrived at Arnay le Duc by moonlight.

16th November.

As it rains now every other day, it rained this morning, and our hostess as we left her shrugged her shoulders at our insanity. We hoped to pass Rouvray and reach Avallon, but when two leagues and a half from Roche en Breuil, Grizzy dropped a hind shoe, and we were retarded by the necessity of leading her thither, for in the two wretched villages we rode through, there was no farrier. Entering Rouvray, Fanny dropped one of hers put on at Florence, and we went to and were well received at the Ancienne Poste, our old quarters.

17th November.

Wished to get on to Auxerre, for the day was warm and lovely, but to do so took unwisely our host’s advice, and a short cut by an abandoned route, where we sank into mud, and scrambled over stones and rode through a deep stream, till at the first village we reached we were very happy to inquire the way to join the high road again, and thus doubling instead of saving distance, and climbing the long hills of Burgundy, it was already dark when we reached St. Bris. We reckoned on the moon, but she was hid in heavy clouds till we reached Vermenton, where, her light no longer needed, she shone forth splendidly.

The inn is the last house in the dirty town, and though frequented by rouliers only, whose waggons, with their dogs guarding them, were ranged before the door in the moonlight, we found there, with a good humoured fat landlady, good dinner, beds and fire, and our horses a private stable, but the waggoners sing at supper and get up at two to prepare for starting at four, so that our rest was of the shortest. Beyond Vermenton there is another long hill, steeper than any we have travelled since those of the Appennines. The heavy fog froze on our cloaks, hiding the view of the bare hills beyond our marl road, the only good one between Paris and Bourg, till we drew near Auxerre, where we fed our horses, and the weather changed during our short stay, as the sun shone out with oppressive splendour. For some miles ere we reached Joigny, the badness of the road retarded us, and the sun had set when we stopped at the hôtel de Bourgogne, one of the good inns on our passage.

19th November.

When half a league out of Joigny, D—— discovered that he had left the small valise in the manger, and commissioned to return for it a young man who for some time, walking lightly along, had kept pace with our horses, and had just laughed heartily at an old marketwoman, who, riding her donkey in masculine guise, treated with some contempt me and my saddle. He said it was a happy chance for him, as he was on his way from Bordeaux to Paris, and had spent his last halfpenny, having paid four sous for his night’s lodging, and eaten neither supper nor breakfast. He ran to Joigny and back, and when he came up with us once more, we noticed that his shoe was cut, and praised his diligence. He said he had been a far better walker before the beam of a house, which was taking down, had fallen on his foot and crushed it. As he took from D—— the money which was to convey him the remainder of his way, he drew his left hand a moment from his waistcoat pocket, and I saw it was crippled. So here was a poor fellow, with no breakfast, and no money, and no hope of either, walking to Paris miles away, with a useless hand and injured foot, neither desponding nor trying to excite compassion, nor asking charity, nor servile when it was bestowed—proving again what I have observed so often, that the French bear privation and misfortune better than any people in the world. He said he should be well provided for as soon as he arrived in Paris, as he wrote a fair hand, and his brother established there had a place of clerk awaiting him. At the first village we came to, he stopped for his morning meal, and we saw no more of him.

At Villeneuve le Roy we fed and rested our horses, and again lingered too long. Passed through Sens, the prettiest of French towns, and before its cathedral, without stopping. The chapter of Sens is unfortunately poor, and has lately sold ancient tapestries and curious relics to pay the expenses of its repairs. A part of this money has been expended in raising statues outside the building, and the sculptor has so executed his mission, that several are most remarkable as being very crooked; and one, in particular, whose arms are folded, leans to one side, perilously for those below, as he is ninety feet from the ground. Night closed in as we reached Pont-sur-Yonne, for we had again counted on a faithless moon; and as the trees, which bordered the bad road, had been lately felled and lay across it, we proceeded slowly and all rather wearily, till the moon shone out from behind a cloud, and Fanny knew her way and trotted on first and stopped at the inn gate. The landlady received us gratefully, as since our passage she has lodged several families who went to her on my recommendation, and we have enjoyed the best supper by the blazing fire in her best room, hung round with Don Quixote’s adventures.

20th November.

Left Villeneuve le Guiard for Melun in threatening weather, following the Fontainebleau road as far as Fossard, but the skies compensated for their yesterday’s kindness, and the cold north-easter blew in our faces the coldest of all possible rains. The horses hung their heads, and so did we: for there was neither bank nor bush to shelter us. Where the road turns off at Fossard, there appears to be a good inn, which we passed crest-fallen, crossing the bridge of Montereau, where Jean sans Peur, duke of Burgundy, was murdered.

Not stopping to see his sword, which hangs in the church, we travelled with more discontent than curiosity up the long hill which rises from the dirty Yonne. My hat, lately purchased in a country town, proving only felt, and softened by rain till it clung to my throat like a black silk handkerchief: rain almost the whole weary day, and the road crossing a wood, thin, stunted and leafless, so affording no shelter. Ere entering Melun, the shoe of Grizzle’s obstinate hind foot, and the two fore shoes of Fanny, were discovered to be loose, and must be put on ere we leave to-morrow. This inn, the Hôtel de France, is a contrast and a foil to its Fontainebleau namesake, being as bad as its masters are uncivil. Poisoned at dinner by some chicorée, dressed in a dirty copper saucepan.

Paris, 21st November.

Very unwell all night, but up with dawn, as the shoeing of our horses by a country farrier is an operation long and perilous. If I had seen yesterday before dinner the aides de cuisine I watched this morning preparing vegetables in the yard, the sight of them would have cured hunger and spared illness. The rain held off till we got on horseback, and then came down and continued in torrents till we reached Charenton, accompanied by wind and fog; so that the deluge joined to the extreme fatigue which I felt at last, and the sick faintness consequent on eating verdigrease, I suffered more than any day of our journey, and, being last, it seemed the longest. At Charenton the rain abating, the horses dried, and we cheered up, and as it grew dark arrived at the Place de la Bastille. When we reached the quays, Fanny, though far from home, still knew her way, pricked her ears and hurried her pace, and, when on the Place Louis Quinze, took unbidden the way to the Champs Elysées, and cantered up them towards her old habitation.

There are always moments of anxiety preceding the meeting with friends after months of absence, and the heart beats painfully as one stops before the door, uncertain of the well-being of those within. My father’s voice from the window reassured me, and we entered, hopeless looking figures, wet to the skin, and muddy to the knee. “Sure such a pair were never seen!”

It was luxury to close round the fire, talking all at once; to feel we did not care whether it snowed or shone on the morrow, as our long march was at an end at last, and our comrades consigned to the care of their old attendant, whom they recognized and caressed, after their manner, and who walked triumphantly away with his travelled Fanny.

We have travelled many a mile.
And your courage mine inspired;
Your playfulness awoke our smile,
Your eager step seemed never tired;
Suspended o’er the torrent’s wrath,
When you trod the zigzag path,
Where your small foot scarce found place;
With the spirit of your race,
Climbed the steps of slippery stone
Where horse’s hoof had never gone,
While the Alpine women wondered;
Where the wild stream foamed and thundered,
Firm and fearless stemmed the ford,
And calmly drank where worst it roared,
And seemed as in contempt to tread
O’er the easier Appennine,
Till you toss’d your tiny head,
Disdainful of the Florentine.

When the summer day we bore
Air which burned and earth which glowed,
On the broad lake’s glorious shore;
Droopingly your comrade trode;
Where from the oak-boughs o’er us flung,
The clasping vine’s rich clusters hung,
And the dark Italian laughed
While the full grape’s juice we quaffed,
The gladness he had given to see;
Save you, we came so wearily;
Still your portion you received,
And thanked me for your thirst relieved
By treading yet more cheerily.

Riding o’er a land unknown,
When day had died in twilight’s bed,
And darkness on the world sank down.
And it was long since you had fed,
And yet we had not reached the town;
The village inn you lingered nigh,
And turned to me your asking eye:
It said, “The long day’s night is near,
Mistress, may I rest me here?”
Needed but to raise the rein,
Merrily you trode again.
All strange places made your home,
You ne’er demeaned you as a stranger,
Wont in confidence to come,
Pawing joy to rack and manger.
Plebeian horses shrank aloof
From my small steed’s indignant hoof.
Where’er we went, affection grew
In the coldest hearts, for you.
They knew you by your hurried tread;
They watched you from afar—they said,
O’er hill, o’er hold your small form shoot,
Like a meteor of the sky,
Fanny of the flying foot,
Fanny of the shining eye!

Bright Italia woo’d in vain,
Fields of France we sought again;
While to the Arno’s narrow valley
The summer would not say adieu,
The autumn’s forces failed to rally
Upon the mountain too;
Lay in the hollow of the hill
The sealike mist, inert and still;
And warring sunbeams shone between,
Where taller trees made islets green;
And on the higher peaks enthroned,
The wind’s contending currents moaned,
Disputing mastery o’er each other,
For the north called the snow, his brother;
And the south, scattering clouds afar,
Made vistas for the evening star.
And it was beautiful to view
The unveiled moon smile all her love
Unto a sky so purely blue:
And by her trembling light you knew
The humble inn and chestnut grove,
Which scarce had shelter suiting you.
Beside, upon the couch of fern,
The tired ox lay down in turn;
The poster’s bells chimed thro’ the night,
The mountain wind sang through the cranny,
And yet of all who rose with light,
The promptest was my joyous Fanny.

The plains of Piedmont we passed o’er,
The swollen river’s ravaged shore;
And Savoy’s sentinel was nigh,
With his white forehead in the sky.
And from the road the conqueror made,
We looked back o’er the land he swayed;
Land deemed an empire’s dearest gem,
Till sank into her wearer’s soul
The iron of her diadem;
Once could she heroes’ names unroll,
And now she yields all saving them!
Seeming near tho’ far away,
Stretched at our feet Italia lay,
As we the fathom line might throw,
Where the coiled river gleamed below;
Where shattered peak and abbey hoar
Darkly rose in heaven as based
On the white vapour which embraced,
And tremblingly one sunbeam found,
A path unto the nearer mound
Nobly tho’ ruinously crowned,
By some old ruler of the Dore.
Hollow tower and crumbling wall,
Sole historians to recall,
Power and pride, and force, and fall.
Rising in that fragrant air,
Breathing life and joy and rest,
(Such as should blow o’er the blest,)
Gently the matin chime it bare,
As if the voice of praise and prayer
Its holy pinion wafted best.
The vine crept up the mountain side,
Paying homage to its pride;
The monarch forest o’er us reared
Arms unshorn and crown unseared;
On its branches, poised or hid
By the green leaves’ pyramid,
Snow-flakes, delicate and faint,
Lay like blossoms pure and pale,
Such as would perish in the taint
Of the hot breezes of the vale.
Gaily went my lively steed,
Cast no lingering glance below,
Browzing on the mountain weed,
Slaking thirst on mountain snow.
Suddenly when change arose,
Unseen winds brought unfelt foes
Heaven to hide and earth to bound,
While the thickening fog closed round,
Impalpable but mighty wall;
Where sprang a moment from the gloom,
Engulphed again as in a tomb,
In mid air hung the waterfall.
And on the border of its shroud,
The lake but seemed a denser cloud.
We knew that shelter must be won
Ere setting of that shadowed sun,
Or we might find at evening’s close
Too cold a couch, too still repose.
The Guardian screen’d him from the blast,
In each closed refuge we rode past.
The strings of pearl the frost had strung
To your dark mane’s tresses clung,
Against the tempest and the hill,
Strained gallantly my palfrey still.
When all things shook in Nature’s spasm,
And the wind roared down the cleft
Where barriers former storms have left,
Bend like rushes o’er the chasm,
Firmly placed to meet its course,
Fearlessly you faced its force;
When its rude hand rending wide
The curtain of the mountain side,
Showed the village at its foot,
Where the pine first strikes its root,
On the loud Arc’s savage shore;
Well you guessed your labour o’er,
And rightly chose the stable door;
With eye undimm’d, and limbs unworn,
You rolled your weariness away.
Your hunger scarce appeased at morn,
For still you struck your foot to say,
What sweetness has the lowland corn,
What fragrance has the mountain hay!
Sun and summer left behind,
Pelting rain and biting wind
Marshalled back our joyless way,
Thro’ the brief and wintry day;
By the long untrodden road,
Straight you sought your old abode;
Neighing welcome at the door,
To the menial yours before.
Strong until the goal was won,
Failing when your task was done,
We watched you prostrate in the stall,
Your head upon the old man’s knee,
And your dim eye turned to me;
Anxiously your state he scanned;
You, untameable with all,
Faintly licked his iron hand;
Now sorrow o’er and sickness cured,
Prized for every pang endured,
Your playful toil what sweetens rest,
Your task to bear me forth at morn,
Lighter step and loftier crest,
Seem proud of hardships braved and borne.
And when age shall come at length,
And the swift foot learns to tire,
And the dark glance lacks its fire,
None to urge your failing strength,
Service harsh nor duties vile,
Peasant hand shall ne’er defile;
The green fields of your native isle
Home of your sinking years shall be;
Ranging far and dying free.
Flowers shall shine and laurels nod
O’er the gay, the bold, the canny;
Larks upsoaring from the sod,
Swell their songs in praise of Fanny.

APPENDIX.

The crime of Cinq Mars consisted in his treating all means as allowable, provided they had for end the favourite’s downfall; his treason to Louis; his appeal to Spain. The fault of De Thou lay in his preference to an individual over his country, in private affections too strong for public virtues. An extract from Montresor’s Memoirs, detailing the last days of their lives, must find a place here. By translating closely, I have tried as much as possible to preserve the manner of the quaint original—“Journal of all which took place in Lyons during the Proceedings instituted for the Trial of Messrs. de Cinq Mars and de Thou.”

‘Monsieur de Cinq Mars arrived at Lyons the 4th of September of the present year 1642, about two hours after noon, in a coach drawn by four horses, in which were four gardes du corps carrying their muskets, and surrounded by foot guards, belonging to the Cardinal Duke’s household, to the number of one hundred. Before the carriage marched two hundred horsemen, for the most part Catalonians, and three hundred more well mounted followed. Monsieur le Grand[1] was attired in musk coloured cloth of Holland covered over with gold embroidery, having a scarlet cloak with large silver buttons. Being arrived on the bridge which crosses the Rhone before entering the town, he asked Monsieur de Ceton,[2] lieutenant of the Scotch guards, if he permitted that the coach should be closed. This was refused him, and he was conducted to the bridge of St. Jean, thence to the Exchange and by the Rue de Flandres to the foot of the castle of Pierre Encise. As he passed along the streets, continually showing himself at the carriage door, he saluted the crowd with a smiling countenance, leaning half out of the coach, and even recognized many to whom he bowed, calling them by name. Arrived beneath Pierre Encise, he was surprised when told he must descend, and mount on horseback to arrive at the castle by a road which skirted the town: “This then,” he said, “will be the last time.” He had imagined that orders were given to conduct him to Vincennes, and had several times asked the guards if would be permitted hunting when arrived there.

‘His prison was situated at the foot of the great tower, having for only view that from the two narrow windows which looked on a small garden, beneath which were stationed guards, as well as in his chamber, where Monsieur Ceton with four soldiers lay, in that adjoining and without all the doors.

‘The next day, fifth of the month, the Cardinal Bichy went to visit him, and asked if it were his pleasure to see some one in his prison with whom he might converse. He said he should be glad of such favour, but that he did not deserve that for him any should be troubled.

‘Whereupon the Cardinal of Lyons summoned the Jesuit Malavette, desiring that, since such was Monsieur de Cinq Mars’ will, he should go thither; and he went on the 6th at five in the morning, remaining until eight. He found him laid in a bed of scarlet damask, incommoded by a stomach disorder which had annoyed him throughout his journey and of which he was not rid till his death, and therefore very feeble and pale. The priest’s converse so solaced him, that again that night he prayed his company, and afterwards during the days his imprisonment lasted continued to see him eve and morning. When all was over, the above named father rendered an account to the Cardinal Duke (Richelieu), and the Cardinal of Lyons, and the chancellor, of all which he had said to him, and remained a long while in conference with his Ducal Eminence, although at that time he allowed himself to be seen by no one.

‘The 7th day of the month, the chancellor visited Monsieur de Cinq Mars, and treated him courteously, saying he had no reasons for fear, but all for hope; that he knew he had an upright judge, mindful of favours received from his benefactor, since through his goodness, and his power only, the king had not dispossessed him from his office, and this great kindness deserved not only an eternal remembrance, but to be repaid with infinite gratitude. The pretended occasion of this compliment was that Monsieur le Grand had once heretofore appeased the king’s anger greatly excited against the chancellor, but the true reason of his civility was a fear of being refused by him for judge and also of his appealing to the parliament of Paris, and being delivered by the people, by whom he was loved passionately. Monsieur le Grand replied, that he thanked him for a courtesy whose excess confused him, but “nevertheless,” he said, “I note well from the mode in which this affair proceeds that my life is the mark aimed at. Sir, my fate is sealed, the king forsakes me; I look on myself henceforth but as a victim about to be sacrificed to mine enemies’ passion and the king’s easy temper.” To this the chancellor answered, “that such opinions were erroneous, and by nothing warranted, and that his own experience brought with it a contrary conviction.” “Heaven grant it,” replied Monsieur le Grand; “but I believe it not.” The 8th day of the month, the chancellor went to hear him, accompanied by six maîtres de requêtes, two presidents, and six counsellors from Grenoble; but, having interrogated him from seven in the morning till two hours after noon, they could extract no replies.

‘The 10th, they departed altogether for Vivey, a mansion belonging to the Abbé of Aisnay, Monsieur de Villeroy’s brother, two leagues distant from Lyons, whither Monsieur, the king’s brother, repaired from Villefranche, and where all proofs and papers were compared and examined.

‘The 12th, all the judges sitting in Lyons, Monsieur le Grand was brought thither in a coach from the castle at about eight o’clock in the forenoon, conducted by the “chevalier du guet,” and his company, and being introduced and placed in the accused’s seat, he answered and confessed all which he had already made known to the chancellor in that conference which, on the 7th of the month, they had held together, and with gentleness and tranquillity of mind so great withal, that his judges gazed one at the other in wonder and admiration, constrained to acknowledge that never before had they seen or heard of constancy so unshaken, or a mind so strong and clear. After this he was bid retire to a chamber, whither, soon as the chancellor had collected the votes, and his condemnation was written, they entered to read to him his sentence; and also that before its execution, the question, both ordinary and extraordinary, should be administered, in order to obtain from him more fully, the declaration of who were his accomplices.

‘During the performance of this mournful office, which drew tears from the eyes of his judges and his guards, he neither changed colour nor countenance, losing nothing of his accustomed cheerfulness and that air of majesty which accompanied all his actions; but towards its close, at the mention of torture, he said to his judges, though with unaltered mildness, “Sirs, this seems harsh to me; a person of my age and my condition should scarce be subjected to these formalities. I know what the forms of justice demand, but I know mine own rank also. I have told, and will again tell all; I receive death with willingness and unflinchingly, and therefore is the torture needless. I confess my weakness, and that this prospect hath power to disturb me.”

‘He continued his speech yet some time farther, with so much grace and gentleness, that his judges’ compassion prevented their reply, in contradiction, or refusal of that indulgence he hoped to obtain from them.

‘Father Malavette at this time arriving inquired of him what might be the subject of his demand, saying that these were gentlemen well nurtured, and that from them he might expect as much favour as from the king.

‘“It is of small moment, father,” he replied; “I do but confess a weakness and that it paineth me to submit to the torture; disturbing my spirit not from apprehension of pain, for I shall go unto death with joy and firmness, but because, having told all I know, it were vain to use torture.”

‘The father, embracing him, answered, “Sir, be not uneasy; you have no concern with merciless judges, since already they give your ill fortune tears;” and taking aside two of the “maîtres de requêtes,” the priest told them that they mistook this master spirit; that he saw well the extreme constraint he imposed upon himself, and that they did ill so to shake his fortitude as to risk the casting it down. The while he spoke came thither two judges more, who said in secret to the priest, that the question would not be administered to Monsieur le Grand, but that, for the sake of justice and in obedience to its forms, they must conduct him to the torture chamber. Whereupon the reverend father accosted Cinq Mars, and drawing him aside from his guards, he said, “Are you capable of keeping an important secret?” He said, “Father, I pray you to believe I have been wanting in faith to none save God.” “Well then,” he returned, “you will not suffer, nor will you be presented to the torture; you come only to the chamber, whither I will accompany you in guarantee of the word I pledge you.”

‘They went together, and Monsieur le Grand merely saw the cords and other fearful instruments of torture. Meanwhile about ten o’clock, Monsieur de Thou was conducted from the castle of Pierre Encise to the palace, and presented to the judges to be interrogated there; and after the usual demands, the chancellor asked whether Monsieur d’Effiat (de Cinq Mars) had not revealed to him the conspiracy? To which he made answer: “Gentlemen, I might deny, and absolutely, that I knew aught of this, nor could you convict me of falsehood, for by Monsieur de Cinq Mars only you can be apprised of my knowledge, since to no man breathing have I spoken or written on the subject. An accused man cannot validly accuse another, and a man cannot be condemned to death save by the testimony of two irreproachable witnesses. Thus you see that my life, my death, my condemnation or absolution rest on mine own tongue; nevertheless, gentlemen, I confess that I knew of this matter. I avow it frankly for two reasons. First, because the three months of my imprisonment I have so passed in contemplation of life and death, as to know undoubtingly, that however long the life I may enjoy, it can only be unhappy. And that death is an advantage to me, seeing I hold it as the most certain proof of my election; such as renders me ready to die, for which I can never be better disposed than now. Wherefore I would not let pass this opportunity of salvation. My second reason is, that, notwithstanding this my crime be punishable with death, nevertheless, gentlemen, you observe that it is neither extraordinary, nor of great magnitude, nor of deep dye. I do confess I knew the plot; I did all that in me lay to dissuade him from its accomplishment. He believed me his only and devoted friend, and I would not betray him; therefore I deserve death and I condemn myself by the law, Quisquis....”

‘This speech, which he spoke with a wondrous spirit and vivacity, so favourably impressed his judges, that with difficulty they roused themselves from the feelings it excited, nor was there one there present who felt not a passionate inclination to save him and preserve to France the brightest hope of her court, for so was he called even by his foes.

He was thereupon sentenced to death, as well as Monsieur le Grand; and as he quitted the hall he met there the reverend father Mambrun the Jesuit, who in Pierre Encise had confessed him, and he exclaimed in a religious transport, “Come, on my father, let us go to death and to heaven; let us forward to true glory. What through life have I done for my God to obtain from him this favour he now grants me, to die ignominiously that I may sooner arrive at true life?” and expressing the same thought unceasingly, he was conducted to the chamber where was Monsieur de Cinq Mars. Soon as the latter perceived him, he ran towards him exclaiming, “Oh! friend, friend, how I mourn thy doom!” but Monsieur de Thou embracing him, said, “Ah how happy we are to die thus!” The one asked pardon of the other; they embraced five or six times successively with claspings of a most unmatched love; bidding their very guards burst into tears, for this was such a spectacle as might soften rocks.

‘While these embracings lasted, three or four of their judges came; which obliged them to retire to the extremity of the chamber, where they conversed yet half an hour with most entire affection, of which they gave proof by exclamation and gesture, the while the Father Malavette prayed the judges who were there to promise him that they should not be bound, neither see the executioner till arrived on the scaffold, which was granted after some slight difficulty. And still while this lasted, Monsieur le Grand embraced Monsieur de Thou, ending his discourse thus: “Dear friend, let us go to think on God, and employ the remainder of our lives in working out our salvation.”

‘“It is well said,” replied Monsieur de Thou, and taking his confessor by the hand, he led him to a corner of the chamber and made his confession there. Monsieur de Cinq Mars begged of the guards that they would give him another chamber, which they refused, saying that one was spacious enough, and that if so pleased him to go to the other corner, he might confess himself with all convenience. But still urging his request with grace and mildness, he at last obtained that he asked for. Being entered into another chamber, he made a general confession of his whole life, which lasted a long hour; then wrote three letters, the one to his mother the Maréchale d’Effiat, wherein he prayed her to make payment to two creditors, to whom he wrote two other letters. After which he said to the priest that he could bear up no longer, having swallowed nothing during twenty-four hours.

‘The father prayed his comrade to go in search of wine and eggs, and the guards having brought both, he begged them to place all on the table. When they had gone forth, the said father offered him wine, but he rinsed his mouth only and swallowed nothing. Meanwhile Monsieur de Thou had confessed himself, and with marvellous promptitude indited two letters, and this done, paced the chamber reciting aloud the psalm, “Miserere mei, Deus,” with enthusiasm of mind so shown in the movements of his body, that it seemed he were about to take flight from earth. He repeated the same verses ofttimes, exclaiming aloud and with ejaculations, mingling in his oration passages from St. Paul and the Holy Scripture, then taking up the “Miserere” once more, and reciting nine times after it, “Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.”

‘During these devotions came several gentlemen to pay their respects to him, but he waved them aside, “My thoughts are with God, I pray you disturb me not, I am no longer of this world.” Notwithstanding this ecstacy, there approached him one gentleman sent by his sister the Présidente Pontac, who had come to Lyons to intercede for her brother. He asked him from her if he wanted aught, and he replied, “I need nothing, sir, saving her prayers and yours; nothing but death to conduct me to life and glory.” And as he commenced reciting the psalm, “Credidi propter quod locutus sum,” the guardian of the convent des Observantins of Tarascon, who had confessed him in prison there, came near and inquired what inscription he chose on the chapel founded by himself in their convent. He replied, “What you will, my father;” but the latter urging his request, he asked for a pen, and with such wondrous promptitude as showed more than human facility and presence of mind, he wrote, “Christo liberatori votum in carcere pro libertate conceptum Franciscus Augustus Thuanus è carcere vita jam liberandus, merito solvit.”

‘Having laid down the pen, he recommenced his prayers, reciting the psalm “Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo,” yielding to such enthusiasm as at times almost overcame him. The guards looked on trembling themselves with respect and awe. One of their judges arrived in the meantime, demanding what they waited for, and where was Monsieur le Grand. One knocked at his chamber door where he still was with his confessor, and Monsieur de Cinq Mars replied with his admirable gentleness, that it would be finished soon, and once more drawing the priest aside, he spake to him of his conscience with such feeling of his own offences, and of the goodness of God, that the priest perforce embraced him, adoring in his person the might of God’s grace and that of the mind of man; and then they prepared themselves to go forth. Monsieur le Grand and Monsieur de Thou being met on the steps, and having exchanged salutes, they encouraged one another with zeal and joy, such as proved that the Holy Spirit of a truth had filled their souls and bodies. At the foot of the steps they found their judges, and each made to them a fair speech with thanks for the mild treatment granted them.

‘Being on the steps without the hall, they gazed attentively at the great crowd assembled before the palace, and bowed on all sides low and gracefully. Monsieur de Thou, seeing how they were to be conducted in a coach to the place of execution, said aloud to the people, “Gentlemen, this is indeed goodness to carry thus two criminals to their death, we who merit to be drawn thither in a cart and dragged on hurdles—the Son of God, the symbol of innocence, having been for us so done to death with shame and scandal.”

‘After this they entered the coach which had been prepared for them. Messieurs de Cinq Mars and de Thou placed themselves in the back seat, the two priests’ companions opposite the confessors themselves, one at either door, the guards who accompanied them being about a hundred, belonging to the chevalier du guet, with three hundred cuirassiers, the officers of justice and the provost marshal. They began this sad journey reciting the litanies of the Holy Virgin, after which Monsieur de Thou embraced Monsieur de Cinq Mars four separate times with the ardour of an angel, saying, “Dear friend, what during our lives have we done so pleasing to God as to induce him to do us the favour to die together? with a little infamy to wipe away our crimes, by a slight shame to conquer heaven and its glory? Alas! is it not true that we have not deserved it? let us mortify our hearts and spend our strength in thankfulness, and receive death with all the affection of our souls.”

‘To this Monsieur le Grand replied by such words of virtue, faith, charity and resignation, as exalted their confessors above themselves. The people so thronged in the streets that the coach could hardly move forward, and the despair was such as for like cause has seldom been seen depicted on human countenances. Arrived at the slope of the bridge of the Saône, Monsieur de Thou said to Monsieur de Cinq Mars, “Well, dear friend, who shall first die?” “Your choice shall decide,” he answered. Father Malavette, now speaking, said to Monsieur de Thou, “You are the oldest.” “True,” replied Monsieur de Thou; but turning to Cinq Mars, “You are the most generous, you will show me the road to heaven and glory.” “Alas,” said Cinq Mars, “I opened before you the path to the precipice, but let us fling ourselves there bravely, and we shall rise to the brightness and happiness of God.”

‘During the remainder of the way, Monsieur de Cinq Mars, continuing his acts of piety, recommended himself to the people’s prayers, putting his head forth from the carriage windows. A group of young girls moved withal uttered a great cry, and Father Malavette, affected by their sorrow, could not restrain his own and wept: but Monsieur le Grand, observing him, said, “How, father, are you more interested for me than I for myself? I pray you shed no tears, we need your firmness to fortify our own.”

‘As to the Jesuit Mambrun, he was so affected by the sorrow of the people, the guards and judges, that neither in the palace nor on the way could he utter a word, his speech stifled by his sobs.

‘Monsieur de Thou continued his journey, repeating an hundred times, “Credidi propter quod locutus sum,” making the priest promise that he should be allowed to recite the whole on the scaffold ere he died.

‘Arrived on the Place des Terreaux, Father Malavette first descended, taking Monsieur le Grand and Monsieur de Thou by the hand, and saying these words, “Go, sir; a moment will part us now, but soon shall we be united before God and to all eternity. Do not regret that which you lose; you have been great on earth, you will be greater in heaven, and your grandeur will have no fall.” And having embraced once again with last tokens of friendship, Monsieur le Grand descended from the coach, and some insolent soldiers attempting to tear his cloak from him, he turned to the provost marshal and asked to whom it should be given. He bade him dispose of it as he chose, and he gave it to the priest’s companion, desiring that its price might be bestowed on the poor. Another soldier having taken his hat, he asked him for it civilly, and it was returned, and he ascended the scaffold, having his head covered, with graceful agility and gaiety kissing his hand ere he gave it to Malavette to assist him to reach the summit. He took a turn on the scaffold, still wearing his hat, and bowing round to the crowd with his fine and majestic countenance. Then he flung his hat from him, and knelt down, raising his eyes to heaven in adoration. Next approaching the block, he made trial of it, asking how he should place himself and whether he did well. He took the crucifix from the priest’s hand himself on his knees, and kissed it with a tenderness inconceivable. And as he repeated the action a thousand times, the father called aloud to the people to pray for him; and Monsieur le Grand, stretching forth his arms and then clasping the hands which still held the crucifix, repeated a like prayer.

‘The executioner now approached, but the father bade him retire, and turning Cinq Mars from him, his companion aided to undo the doublet, and then Monsieur le Grand embraced them both, and kneeling they recited together “Ave Maria, stella,” and at its close he received absolution, and casting himself in the priest’s arms remained there while one might say a Miserere.

‘The executioner again advancing to cut the hair, Monsieur de Cinq Mars asked for scissors. The father took them from his hand and gave them to Monsieur le Grand, who called the priest’s companion, desiring he would cut it, and this he did, and he laid his head on the block to try it again, and the father gave a medal into his hand and he received indulgence and kissed the cross. He then kneeled down with wondrous tranquillity, begging of the priest’s companion that he would continue to hold the crucifix before his eyes which he refused to have bound, in order that he might see it till he died. Embracing the block, he placed himself thereon and received the mortal blow from a large butcher’s knife, made after the fashion of the antique axes or rather like those of England, and the one blow ended him, though the head still held to the trunk by the skin of the throat not quite severed. The executioner was an old needy wretch. Unnerved by the necessity of cutting through this skin which remained, and letting the head roll on the scaffold, it fell unto the ground.

‘The people, densely crowded on the square, at the windows and on the towers, broke through the breathless silence which had lasted throughout, and when the axe was raised, uttered a wild cry. The sobs and groans recommenced with a noise and tumult altogether startling.

‘After this, Monsieur de Thou, who had remained within the coach which had been closed, came forth from it boldly, and ascended the scaffold with such alertness that one might have thought he flew, and arrived at its summit he took two turns hat in hand, bowing to the multitude; then flung in a corner his hat and the cloak, and the executioner approaching embraced him and called him brother, and stripped his doublet without a moment’s delay.

‘Father Mambrun who accompanied him was so profoundly affected as to be unable to utter a word. He begged Father Malavette, who had descended while the assistants stripped the body of Cinq Mars, to return and he did so. They recited the psalm “Credidi” together and aloud, and after ejaculations uttered in a firm and loud voice, in a transport and fervour like that of a seraphim, and gestures which seemed as if his body yielded to his soul flying to heaven, he received absolution and gained the indulgence.

‘And having performed all Christian duties, he adored the cross ere yet he lay his head on the block, then kissed the blood of Cinq Mars which stained it, and bound his eyes himself with his kerchief. Having taken his post, he received a blow on the bones of the skull which grazed it only and he passed his hand on the wound falling backwards. The executioner repeated the blow, grazing the skull once more, this time above the ear, casting his victim down who kicked violently in his agony. The executioner dealt yet a third blow on the throat which finished him, and he received yet two more ere he could cut the head completely off—so embarrassed was this wretched executioner. His body was then stripped instantly, and the two bodies being placed in a coach were borne to the church of the Feuillans.

‘The next morning the corpse of Monsieur de Thou was embalmed by order of his sister and carried thence; and that of Monsieur le Grand was interred under the balustrade of the said church, through the goodness and authority of Monsieur de Gay, treasurer of France.

‘Thus died these two great men, expiating by religion and constancy the enormity of their crime.’

[1]

He was so styled, being grand écuyer.

[2]

I suppose Seyton.

THE END.

London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.

Transcriber’s notes

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and inconsistencies; retained non-standard spelling.

2. Correctly accented some French words for improved software readability.

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Table of Contents

- A ride on horseback to Florence

- CHAPTER I.

- CHAPTER II.

- CHAPTER III.

- CHAPTER IV.

- CHAPTER V.

- CHAPTER VI.

- CHAPTER VII.

- CHAPTER VIII.

- CHAPTER IX.

- CHAPTER X.

- CHAPTER XI.

- CHAPTER XII.

- APPENDIX.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE