Chapter XI: Other Alpine Topics (6)

The wall seemed to thin out and become much lower toward our left, and we moved cautiously toward its lowest point. The edge upon which we walked was itself very narrow, and ran down at a steep angle to the top of a lower icefall which repeated the form of the upper. It almost thinned out at the point where the upper wall was lowest. Upon this inclined ledge, however, we fixt the foot of our ladder. The difficulty of doing so conveniently was increased by a transverse crevasse which here intersected the other system. The foot, however, was fixt and rendered tolerably safe by driving in firmly several of our alpenstocks and axes under the lowest step. Almer, then, amidst great excitement, went forward to mount it. Should we still find an impassable system of crevasses above us, or were we close to the top? A gentle breeze which had been playing along the last ledge gave me hope that we were really not far off. As Almer reached the top about twelve o'clock, a loud yodel gave notice to all the party that our prospects were good. I soon followed, and saw, to my great delight, a stretch of smooth, white snow, without a single crevasse, rising in a gentle curve from our feet to the top of the col.

The people who had been watching us from the Wengern Alp had been firing salutes all day, whenever the idea struck them, and whenever we surmounted a difficulty, such as the first great crevasse. We heard the faint sound of two or three guns as we reached the final plateau. We should, properly speaking, have been uproariously triumphant over our victory. To say the truth, our party of that summer was only too apt to break out into undignified explosions of animal spirits, bordering at times upon horseplay....

The top of the Jungfrau-Joch comes rather like a bathos in poetry. It rises so gently above the steep ice wall, and it is so difficult to determine the precise culminating point, that our enthusiasm oozed out gradually instead of producing a sudden explosion; and that instead of giving three cheers, singing "God Save the Queen," or observing any of the traditional ceremonial of a simpler generation of travelers, we calmly walked forward as tho' we had been crossing Westminster Bridge, and on catching sight of a small patch of rocks near the foot of the Mönch, rushed precipitately down to it and partook of our third breakfast. Which things, like most others, might easily be made into an allegory.

The great dramatic moments of life are very apt to fall singularly flat. We manage to discount all their interest beforehand; and are amazed to find that the day to which we have looked forward so long--the day, it may be, of our marriage, or ordination, or election to be Lord Mayor--finds us curiously unconscious of any sudden transformation and as strongly inclined to prosaic eating and drinking as usual. At a later period we may become conscious of its true significance, and perhaps the satisfactory conquest of this new pass has given us more pleasure in later years than it did at the moment.

However that may be, we got under way again after a meal and a chat, our friends Messrs. George and Moore descending the Aletsch glacier to the Aeggischhorn, whose summit was already in sight, and deceptively near in appearance. The remainder of the party soon turned off to the left, and ascended the snow slopes to the gap between the Mönch and Trugberg. As we passed these huge masses, rising in solitary grandeur from the center of one of the noblest snowy wastes of the Alps, Morgan reluctantly confest for the first time that he knew nothing exactly like it in Wales.

XI

OTHER ALPINE TOPICS

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD HOSPICE[59]

BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL KNOWLES

The Pass of the Great St. Bernard was a well-known one long before the hospice was built. Before the Christian era, the Romans used it as a highway across the Alps, constantly improving the road as travel over it increased. Many lives were lost, however, as no material safeguards could obviate the danger from the elements, and no one will ever know the number of souls who met their end in the blinding snows and chilling blasts of those Alpine heights.

To Bernard de Menthon is due the credit of the mountain hospice. He was the originator of the idea and the founder of the institution. He has since been canonized as a saint and he well deserved the honor, if it be a virtue to sacrifice oneself, as we believe, and to try and save the lives of one's fellows! It is no easy existence which St. Bernard chose for himself and followers. The very aspect of the pass is grand but gloomy. None of the softness of nature is seen. There is no verdure, no beauty of coloring, nothing but bleak, bare rock, great piles of stones, and occasional patches of fallen snow. It is thoroughly exposed, the winds always moaning mournfully around the buildings....

The trip begins at Martigny. First there is a level stretch, then a long, steady climb, after which begins the real road to the pass. The views are very lovely, and while quite different in some ways excel all passes except the famous Simplon. The scenery is very varied, the mountains are far enough off to give a good perspective, and the villages are most picturesque. The absence of snow peaks in any great number will be felt by some, but even a lover of such soon forgets the lack in the exceeding beauty and loveliness of the valleys.

Toward the top of the pass there is quite a transformation. Both the road and the scenery change, the first becoming more and more steep and stony, the latter showing more and more of savage grandeur, as the green, smiling valleys are no longer seen, but in their place appear barren and rugged rocks and slopes, with the marks of the ravages wrought by storm, landslide and avalanche. The wind has fuller play and seems to moan in a mournful, dirge-like manner, accentuating the characteristics of bleakness and desolation which obtain at the top of the pass, all the more noticeable if the traveler arrives at dusk, just as the sun has disappeared behind the mountains.

In this dreary place stands the hospice. The present buildings are not very old, the hospice only dating from the sixteenth century and the church from the seventeenth century, while the other structures, which have been built for the accommodation of strangers are comparatively new. Twelve monks of the Augustinian Order are regularly in residence here. They come when about twenty years of age; but so severe is the climate, so hard the life and so stern the rule that, after a service of about fifteen years, they generally have to seek a lower altitude, often ruined in health, with their powers completely sapped by the rigors and privations which they have endured. Altho the hospice and the adjoining hostelry for the travelers are cheerless in the extreme, there is always a warm welcome from the monks. No one, however poor, is refused bed and board for the night, and there is no "distinction of persons." The hospitality is extended to all, free of charge, this being the invariable rule of the institution, but it is expected, and rightly so, that those who can do so will deposit a liberal offering in the box provided for the purpose. The small receipts, however, show what a great abuse there is of this hospitality, for a large number of those who come in the summer could well afford to give and to give largely.

We hear much of the courage and perseverance of Hannibal and Cæsar in leading their armies over the Alps! We see pictures of Napoleon and his soldiers as they toiled up the pass, dragging along their frozen guns, and perhaps falling into a fatal sleep about their dying camp fires at night! And we rightly admire such bravery, and thrill with admiration at the tale. Yet those armies which crossed the Alps failed to equal the heroic self-sacrifice of those soldiers of the cross, the Monks of the Grand St. Bernard, who remain for years at their post, unknown and unsung by the wide, wide world, simply to save and shelter the humble travelers who come to grief in their winter journey across the pass, in search of work.

AVALANCHES[60]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

Beside this dazzling, magnificent snow, covering the chain of lofty peaks like an immaculate altar cloth, what a gloomy, dull look there is in the snow of the plains! One might think it was made of sugar or confectionery, that it was false like all the rest.

To know what snow really is--to get quit of this feeling of artificial snow that we have when we see the stunted shrubs in our Parisian gardens wrapt, as it were, in silk paper like bits of Christmas trees--it must be seen here in these far-off, high valleys of the Engandine, that lie for eight months dead under their shroud of snow, and often, even in the height of summer, have to shiver anew under some wintry flakes.

It is here that snow is truly beautiful! It shines in the sun with a dazzling whiteness; it sparkles with a thousand fires like diamond dust; it shows gleams like the plumage of a white dove, and it is as firm under the foot as a marble pavement. It is so fine-grained, so compact, that it clings like dust to every crevice and bend, to every projecting edge and point, and follows every outline of the mountain, the form of which it leaves as clearly defined as if it were a covering of thin gauze. It sports in the most charming decorations, carves alabaster facings and cornices on the cliffs, wreathes them in delicate lace, covers them with vast canopies of white satin spangled with stars and fringed with silver.

And yet this dry, hard snow is extremely susceptible to the slightest shock, and may be set in motion by a very trifling disturbance of the air. The flight of a bird, the cracking of a whip, the tinkling of bells, even the conversation of persons going along sometimes suffices to shake and loosen it from the vertical face of the cliffs to which it is clinging; and it runs down like grains of sand, growing as it falls, by drawing down with it other beds of snow. It is like a torrent, a snowy waterfall, bursting out suddenly from the side of the mountain; it rushes down with a terrible noise, swollen with the snows that it carries down in its furious course; it breaks against the rocks, divides and joins again like an overflowing stream, and with a wild tempest blast resumes its desolating course, filling the echoes with the deafening thunder of battle.

You think for a moment that a storm has begun, but looking at the sky you see it serenely blue, smiling, cloudless. The rush becomes more and more violent; it comes nearer, the ground trembles, the trees bend and break with a sharp crack; enormous stones and blocks of ice are carried away like gravel; and the mighty avalanche, with a crash like a train running off the rails over a precipice, drops to the foot of the mountain, destroying, crushing down everything before it, and covering the ground with a bed of snow from thirty to fifty feet deep.

When a stream of water wears a passage for itself under this compact mass, it is sometimes hollowed out into an arched way, and the snow becomes so solid that carriages and horses can go through without danger, even in the middle of summer. But often the water does not find a course by which to flow away; and then, when the snow begins to melt, the water seeps into the fissures, loosens the mass that chokes up the valley, and carries it down, rending its banks as it goes, carrying away bridges, mills, and trees, and overthrowing houses. The avalanche has become an inundation.

The mountaineers make a distinction between summer and winter avalanches. The former are solid avalanches, formed of old snow that has almost acquired the consistency of ice. The warm breath of spring softens it, loosens it from the rocks on which it hangs, and it slides down into the valleys. These are called "melting avalanches." They regularly follow certain tracks, and these are embanked, like the course of a river, with wood or bundles of branches. It is in order to protect the alpine roads from these avalanches that those long open galleries have been built on the face of the precipice.

The most dreaded and most terrible avalanches, those of dry, powdery snow, occur only in winter, when sudden squalls and hurricanes of snow throw the whole atmosphere into chaos. They come down in sudden whirlwinds, with the violence of a waterspout, and in a few minutes whole villages are buried....

Here, in the Grisons, the whole village of Selva was buried under an avalanche. Nothing remained visible but the top of the church steeple, looking like a pole planted in the snow. Baron Munchausen might have tied his horse there without inventing any lie about it. The Val Verzasca was covered for several months by an avalanche of nearly 1,000 feet in length and 50 in depth. All communication through the valley was stopt; it was impossible to organize help; and the alarm-bell was incessantly sounding over the immense white desolation like a knell for the dead.

In the narrow defile in which we now are, there are many remains of avalanches that neither the water of the torrent nor the heat of the sun has had power to melt. The bed of the river is strewn with displaced and broken rocks, and great stones bound together by the snow as if with cement; the surges dash against these rocky obstacles, foaming angrily, with the blind fury of a wild beast. And the moan of the powerless water flows on into the depth of the valley, and is lost far off in a hollow murmur.

HUNTING THE CHAMOIS[61]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

Schmidt swept with his cap the snow which covered the stones on which we were to seat ourselves for breakfast, then unpacked the provisions; slices of veal and ham, hard-boiled eggs, wine of the Valtelline. His knapsack, covered with a napkin, served for our table. While we sat, we devoured the landscape, the twelve glaciers spreading around us their carpet of swansdown and ermine, sinking into crevasses of a magical transparency, and raising their blocks, shaped into needles, or into Gothic steeples with pierced arches. The architecture of the glacier is marvelous. Its decorations are the decorations of fairyland. Quite near us marks of animals in the snow attracted our attention. Schmidt said to us:

"Chamois have been here this morning; the traces are quite fresh. They must have seen us and made off; the chamois are as distrustful, you see, as the marmots, and as wary. At this season they keep on the glaciers by preference. They live on so little! A few herbs, a few mosses, such as grow on isolated rocks like this. I assure you it is very amusing to see a herd of twenty or thirty chamois cross at a headlong pace a vast field of snow, or glacier, where they bound over the crevasses in play.

"One would say they were reindeers in a Lapland scene. It is only at night that they come down into the valleys. In the moonlight they come out of the moraines, and go to pasture on the grassy slopes or in the forest adjoining the glaciers. During the day they go up again into the snow, for which they have an extraordinary love, and in which they skip and play, amusing themselves like a band of scholars in play hours. They tease one another, butt with their horns in fun, run off, return, pretend new attacks and new flights with charming agility and frolicsomeness.

"While the young ones give themselves up to their sports, an old female, posted as sentinel at some yards distance, watches the valley and scents the air. At the slightest indication of danger, she utters a sharp cry; the games cease instantly, and the whole anxious troop assembles round the guardian, then the whole herd sets off at a gallop and disappears in the twinkling of an eye....

"Hunting on the névés and the glaciers is very dangerous. When the snow is fresh it is with difficulty one can advance. The hunters use wooden snowshoes, like those of the Esquimaux.

"One of my comrades, in hunting on the Roseg, disappeared in the bottom of a crevasse. It was over thirty feet deep. Imagine two perfectly smooth sides; two walls of crystal. To reascend was impossible. It was certain death, either from cold or hunger; for it was known that when he went chamois-hunting he was often absent for several days. He could not therefore count on help being sent; he must resign himself to death.

"One thing, however, astonished him; it was to find so little water in the bottom of the crevasse. Could there be then an opening at the bottom of the funnel into which he had fallen? He stooped, examined this grave in which he had been buried alive, discovered that the heat of the sun had caused the base of the glacier to melt. A canal drainage had been formed. Laying himself flat, he slid into this dark passage, and after a thousand efforts he arrived at the end of the glacier in the moraine, safe and sound."

We had finished breakfast. We wanted something warm, a little coffee. Schmidt set up our spirit-lamp behind two great stones that protected it from the wind. And while we waited for the water to boil, he related to us the story of Colani, the legendary hunter of the upper Engandine.

"Colani, in forty years, killed two thousand seven hundred chamois. This strange man had carved out for himself a little kingdom in the mountain. He claimed to reign there alone, to be absolute master. When a stranger penetrated into his residence, within the domain of 'his reserved hunting-ground,' as he called the regions of the Bernina, he treated him as a poacher, and chased him with a gun....

"Colani was feared and dreaded as a diabolical and supernatural being; and indeed he took no pains to undeceive the public, for the superstitious terrors inspired by his person served to keep away all the chamois-hunters from his chamois, which he cared for and managed as a great lord cares for the deer in his forests. Round the little house which he had built for himself on the Col de Bernina, and where he passed the summer and autumn, two hundred chamois, almost tame, might be seen wandering about and browsing. Every year he killed about fifty old males."

THE CELEBRITIES OF GENEVA[62]

BY FRANCIS H. GRIBBLE

It has been remarked as curious that the Age of Revolution at Geneva was also the Golden Age--if not of Genevan literature, which has never really had any Golden Age, at least of Genevan science, which was of world-wide renown.

The period is one in which notable names meet us at every turn. There were exiled Genevans, like de Lolme, holding their own in foreign political and intellectual circles; there were emigrant Genevan pastors holding aloft the lamps of culture and piety in many cities of England, France, Russia, Germany, and Denmark; there were Genevans, like François Lefort, holding the highest offices in the service of foreign rulers; and there were numbers of Genevans at Geneva of whom the cultivated grand tourist wrote in the tone of a disciple writing of his master. One can not glance at the history of the period without lighting upon names of note in almost all departments of endeavor. The period is that of de Saussure, Bourrit, the de Lucs, the two Hubers, great authorities respectively on bees and birds; Le Sage, who was one of Gibbon's rivals for the heart of Mademoiselle Suzanne Curchod; Senebier, the librarian who wrote the first literary history of Geneva; St. Ours and Arlaud, the painters; Charles Bonnet, the entomologist; Bérenger and Picot, the historians; Tronchin, the physician; Trembley and Jallabert, the mathematicians; Dentan, minister and Alpine explorer; Pictet, the editor of the "Bibliothèque Universelle," still the leading Swiss literary review; and Odier, who taught Geneva the virtue of vaccination.

It is obviously impossible to dwell at length upon the careers of all these eminent men. As well might one attempt, in a survey on the same scale of English literature, to discuss in detail the careers of all the celebrities of the age of Anne. One can do little more than remark that the list is marvelously strong for a town of some 30,000 inhabitants, and that many of the names included in it are not only eminent, but interesting. Jean André de Luc, for example, has a double claim upon our attention as the inventor of the hygrometer and as the pioneer of the snow-peaks. He climbed the Buet as early as 1770, and wrote an account of his adventures on its summit and its slopes which has the true charm of Arcadian simplicity. He came to England, was appointed reader to Queen Charlotte, and lived in the enjoyment of that office, and in the gratifying knowledge that Her Majesty kept his presentation hygrometer in her private apartments, to the venerable age of ninety.

Bourrit is another interesting character--being, in fact, the spiritual ancestor of the modern Alpine Clubman. By profession he was Precentor of the Cathedral; but his heart was in the mountains. In the summer he climbed them, and in the winter he wrote books about them. One of his books was translated into English; and the list of subscribers, published with the translation, shows that the public which Bourrit addrest included Edmund Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Bartolozzi, Fanny Burney, Angelica Kauffman, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Augustus Selwyn, Jonas Hanway and Dr. Johnson. His writings earned him the honorable title of Historian (or Historiographer) of the Alps. Men of science wrote him letters; princes engaged upon the grand tour called to see him; princesses sent him presents as tokens of their admiration and regard for the man who had taught them how the contemplation of mountain scenery might exalt the sentiments of the human mind.

Tronchin, too, is interesting; he was the first physician who recognized the therapeutic use of fresh air and exercise, hygienic boots, and open windows. So is Charle Bonnet, who was not afraid to stand up for orthodoxy against Voltaire; so is Mallet, who traveled as far as Lapland; and so is that man of whom his contemporaries always spoke, with the reverence of hero-worshipers, as "the illustrious de Saussure."...

The name of which the Genevans are proudest is probably that of Rousseau, who has sometimes been spoken of as "the austere citizen of Geneva." But "austere" is a strange epithet to apply to the philosopher who endowed the Foundling Hospital with five illegitimate children; and Geneva can not claim a great share in a citizen who ran away from the town of his boyhood to avoid being thrashed for stealing apples. It was, indeed, at Geneva that Jean Jacques received from his aunt the disciplinary chastisement of which he gives such an exciting account in his "Confessions"; and he once returned to the city and received the Holy Communion there in later life. But that is all. Jean Jacques was not educated at Geneva, but in Savoy--at Annecy, at Turin, and at Chambéry; his books were not printed at Geneva, tho' one of them was publicly burned there, but in Paris and Amsterdam; it is not to Genevan but to French literature that he belongs.

We must visit Voltaire at Ferney, and Madame de Staël at Coppet. Let the patriarch come first. Voltaire was sixty years of age when he settled on the shores of the lake, where he was to remain for another four-and-twenty years; and he did not go there for his pleasure. He would have preferred to live in Paris, but was afraid of being locked up in the Bastille. As the great majority of the men of letters of the reign of Louis XV. were, at one time or another, locked up in the Bastille, his fears were probably well founded.

Moreover, notes of warning had reached his ears. "I dare not ask you to dine," a relative said to him, "because you are in bad odor at Court." So he betook himself to Geneva, as so many Frenchmen, illustrious and otherwise, had done before, and acquired various properties--at Prangins, at Lausanne, at Saint-Jean (near Geneva), at Ferney, at Tournay, and elsewhere.

He was welcomed cordially. Dr. Tronchin, the eminent physician, cooperated in the legal fictions necessary to enable him to become a landowner in the republic. Cramer, the publisher, made a proposal for the issue of a complete and authorized edition of his works. All the best people called. "It is very pleasant," he was able to write, "to live in a country where rulers borrow your carriage to come to dinner with you."

Voltaire corresponded regularly with at least four reigning sovereigns, to say nothing of men of letters, Cardinals, and Marshals of France; and he kept open house for travelers of mark from every country in the world. Those of the travelers who wrote books never failed to devote a chapter to an account of a visit to Ferney; and from the mass of such descriptions we may select for quotation that written, in the stately style of the period, by Dr. John Moore, author of "Zeluco," then making the grand tour as tutor to the Duke of Hamilton.

"The most piercing eyes I ever beheld," the doctor writes, "are those of Voltaire, now in his eightieth year. His whole countenance is expressive of genius, observation, and extreme sensibility. In the morning he has a look of anxiety and discontent; but this gradually wears off, and after dinner he seems cheerful; yet an air of irony never entirely forsakes his face, but may always be observed lurking in his features whether he frowns or smiles. Composition is his principal amusement. No author who writes for daily bread, no young poet ardent for distinction, is more assiduous with his pen, or more anxious for fresh fame, than the wealthy and applauded Seigneur of Ferney. He lives in a very hospitable manner, and takes care always to have a good cook. He generally has two or three visitors from Paris, who stay with him a month or six weeks at a time. When they go, their places are soon supplied, so that there is a constant rotation of society at Ferney. These, with Voltaire's own family and his visitors from Geneva, compose a company of twelve or fourteen people, who dine daily at his table, whether he appears or not. All who bring recommendations from his friends may depend upon being received, if he be not really indisposed. He often presents himself to the strangers who assemble every afternoon in his ante-chamber, altho they bring no particular recommendation."

It might have been added that when an interesting stranger who carried no introduction was passing through the town, Voltaire sometimes sent for him; but this experiment was not always a success, and failed most ludicrously in the case of Claude Gay, the Philadelphian Quaker, author of some theological works now forgotten, but then of note. The meeting was only arranged with difficulty on the philosopher's undertaking to put a bridle on his tongue, and say nothing flippant about holy things. He tried to keep his promise, but the temptation was too strong for him. After a while he entangled his guest in a controversy concerning the proceedings of the patriarchs and the evidences of Christianity, and lost his temper on finding that his sarcasms failed to make their usual impression. The member of the Society of Friends, however, was not disconcerted. He rose from his place at the dinner-table, and replied: "Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayst come to understand these matters rightly; in the meantime, finding I can do thee no good, I leave thee, and so fare thee well."

And so saying, he walked out and walked back to Geneva, while Voltaire retired in dudgeon to his room, and the company sat expecting something terrible to happen.

A word, in conclusion, about Coppet!

Necker[63] bought the property from his old banking partner, Thelusson, for 500,000 livres in French money, and retired to live there when the French Revolution drove him out of politics. His daughter, Madame de Staël, inherited it from him, and made it famous.

Not that she loved Switzerland; it would be more true to say that she detested Switzerland. Swiss scenery meant nothing to her. When she was taken for an excursion to the glaciers, she asked what the crime was that she had to expiate by such a punishment; and she could look out on the blue waters of Lake Leman, and sigh for "the gutter of the Rue du Bac." Even to this day, the Swiss have hardly forgiven her for that, or for speaking of the Canton of Vaud as the country in which she had been "so intensely bored for such a number of years."

What she wanted was to live in Paris, to be a leader--or, rather, to be "the" leader--of Parisian society, to sit in a salon, the admired of all admirers, and to pull the wires of politics to the advantage of her friends. For a while she succeeded in doing this. It was she who persuaded Barras to give Talleyrand his political start in life. But whereas Barras was willing to act on her advice, Napoleon was by no means equally amenable to her influence. Almost from the first he regarded her as a mischief-maker; and when a spy brought him an intercepted letter in which Madame de Staël exprest her hope that none of the old aristocracy of France would condescend to accept appointments in the household of "the bourgeois of Corsica," he became her personal enemy, and, refusing her permission to live either in the capital or near it, practically compelled her to take refuge in her country seat. Her pleasance in that way became her gilded cage.

Perhaps she was not quite so unhappy there as she sometimes represented. If she could not go to Paris, many distinguished and brilliant Parisians came to Coppet, and met there many brilliant and distinguished Germans, Genevans, Italians, and Danes. The Parisian salon, reconstituted, flourished on Swiss soil. There visited there, at one time or another, Madame Récamier and Madame Krüdner; Benjamin Constant, who was so long Madame de Staël's lover; Bonstetten, the Voltairean philosopher; Frederika Brun, the Danish artist; Sismondi, the historian; Werner, the German poet; Karl Ritter, the German geographer; Baron de Voght; Monti, the Italian poet: Madame Vigée Le Brun; Cuvier; and Oelenschlaeger. From almost every one of them we have some pen-and-ink sketch of the life there. This, for instance, is the scene as it appeared to Madame Le Brun, who came to paint the hostess's portrait:

"I paint her in antique costume. She is not beautiful, but the animation of her visage takes the place of beauty. To aid the expression I wished to give her, I entreated her to recite tragic verses while I painted. She declaimed passages from Corneille and Racine. I find many persons established at Coppet: the beautiful Madame Récamier, the Comte de Sabran, a young English woman, Benjamin Constant, etc. Its society is continually renewed. They come to visit the illustrious exile who is pursued by the rancor of the Emperor. Her two sons are now with her, under the instruction of the German scholar Schlegel; her daughter is very beautiful, and has a passionate love of study; she leaves her company free all the morning, but they unite in the evening. It is only after dinner that they can converse with her. She then walks in her salon, holding in her hand a little green branch; and her words have an ardor quite peculiar to her; it is impossible to interrupt her. At these times she produces on one the effect of an improvisation."

And here is a still more graphic description, taken from a letter written to Madame Récamier by Baron de Voght:

"It is to you that I owe my most amiable reception at Coppet. It is no doubt to the favorable expectations aroused by your friendship that I owe my intimate acquaintance with this remarkable woman. I might have met her without your assistance--some casual acquaintance would no doubt have introduced me--but I should never have penetrated to the intimacy of this sublime and beautiful soul, and should never have known how much better she is than her reputation. She is an angel sent from heaven to reveal the divine goodness upon earth. To make her irresistible, a pure ray of celestial light embellishes her spirit and makes her amiable from every point of view.

"At once profound and light, whether she is discovering a mysterious secret of the soul or grasping the lightest shadow of a sentiment, her genius shines without dazzling, and when the orb of light has disappeared, it leaves a pleasant twilight to follow it.... No doubt a few faults, a few weaknesses, occasionally veil this celestial apparition; even the initiated must sometimes be troubled by these eclipses, which the Genevan astronomers in vain endeavor to predict.

"My travels so far have been limited to journeys to Lausanne and Coppet, where I often stay three or four days. The life there suits me perfectly; the company is even more to my taste. I like Constant's wit, Schlegel's learning, Sabran's amiability, Sismondi's talent and character, the simple truthful disposition and just intellectual perceptions of Auguste,[64] the wit and sweetness of Albertine[65]--I was forgetting Bonstetten, an excellent fellow, full of knowledge of all sorts, ready in wit, adaptable in character--in every way inspiring one's respect and confidence.

"Your sublime friend looks and gives life to everything. She imparts intelligence to those around her. In every corner of the house some one is engaged in composing a great work.... Corinne is writing her delightful letters about Germany, which will, no doubt, prove to be the best thing she has ever done.

"The 'Shunamitish Widow,' an Oriental melodrama which she has just finished, will be played in October; it is charming. Coppet will be flooded with tears. Constant and Auguste are both composing tragedies; Sabran is writing a comic opera, and Sismondi a history; Schlegel is translating something; Bonstetten is busy with philosophy, and I am busy with my letter to Juliette."

Then, a month later:

"Since my last letter, Madame de Staël has read us several chapters of her work. Everywhere it bears the marks of her talent. I wish I could persuade her to cut out everything in it connected with politics, and all the metaphors which interfere with its clarity, simplicity, and accuracy. What she needs to demonstrate is not her republicanism, but her wisdom. Mlle. Jenner played in one of Werner's tragedies which was given, last Friday, before an audience of twenty. She, Werner, and Schlegel played perfectly....

"The arrival in Switzerland of M. Cuvier has been a happy distraction for Madame de Staël; they spent two days together at Geneva, and were well pleased with each other. On her return to Coppet she found Middleton there, and in receiving his confidences forgot her troubles. Yesterday she resumed her work.

"The poet whose mystical and somber genius has caused us such profound emotions starts, in a few days' time, for Italy.

"I accompanied Corinne to Massot's. To alleviate the tedium of the sitting, a Mlle. Romilly played pleasantly on the harp, and the studio was a veritable temple of the Muses....

"Bonstetten gave us two readings of a Memoir on the Northern Alps. It began very well, but afterward it bored us. Madame de Staël resumed her reading, and there was no longer any question of being bored. It is marvelous how much she must have read and thought over to be able to find the opportunity of saying so many good things. One may differ from her, but one can not help delighting in her talent....

"And now here we are at Geneva, trying to reproduce Coppet at the Hôtel des Balances. I am delightfully situated with a wide view over the Valley of Savoy, between the Alps and the Jura.

"Yesterday evening the illusion of Coppet was complete. I had been with Madame de Staël to call on Madame Rilliet, who is so charming at her own fireside. On my return I played chess with Sismondi. Madame de Staël, Mlle. Randall, and Mlle. Jenner sat on the sofa chatting with Bonstetten and young Barante. We were as we had always been--as we were in the days that I shall never cease regretting."

Other descriptions exist in great abundance, but these suffice to serve our purpose. They show us the Coppet salon as it was pleasant, brilliant, unconventional; something like Holland House, but more Bohemian; something like Harley Street, but more select; something like Gad's Hill--which it resembled in the fact that the members of the house-parties were expected to spend their mornings at their desks--but on a higher social plane; a center at once of high thinking and frivolous behavior; of hard work and desperate love-making, which sometimes paved the way to trouble.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 1: From "Hungary." Published by the Macmillan Co.]

[Footnote 2: From "Hungary." Published by the Macmillan Co.]

[Footnote 3: From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice." Published by the Macmillan Co.]

[Footnote 4: The modern Marseilles.]

[Footnote 5: An ancient Italian town on the Adriatic, founded by Syracusans about 300 B.C. and still an important seaport.]

[Footnote 6: The city in Provence where have survived a beautiful Roman arch and a stupendous Roman theater in which classical plays are still given each year by actors from the Theatre Français.]

[Footnote 7: Diocletian.]

[Footnote 8: A reference to the exquisite Maison Carrée of Nîmes.]

[Footnote 9: That is, of Venice.]

[Footnote 10: The famous general of the Emperor Justinian, reputed to have become blind and been neglected in his old age.]

[Footnote 11: From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice." Published by the Macmillan Co.]

[Footnote 12: From "Through Savage Europe." Published by J.B. Lippincott Co.]

[Footnote 13: From "Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice." Published by the Macmillan Co.]

[Footnote 14: That is, lands where the Greek Church prevails.]

[Footnote 15: John Mason Neale, author of "An Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church."]

[Footnote 16: Montenegro.]

[Footnote 17: From "A Girl in the Karpathians." After publishing this book. Miss Dowie became the wife of Henry Norman, the author and traveler.]

[Footnote 18: One of Poland's greatest poets.]

[Footnote 19: From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.]

[Footnote 20: The population now (1914) is 24,000.]

[Footnote 21: From "Six Months in Italy." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

[Footnote 22: From "A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour," published in 1821.]

[Footnote 23: From "Letters of a Traveller." The Tyrol and the Dolomites being mainly Austrian territory, are here included under "Other Austrian Scenes." Resorts in the Swiss Alps, including Chamouni (which, however, is in France), will be found further on in this volume.]

[Footnote 24: An Italian poet (1749-1838), who, banished from Venice, settled in New York and became Professor of Italian at Columbia College.]

[Footnote 25: From "Adventures in the Alps." Published by George W. Jacobs & Co.]

[Footnote 26: In the village of Cadore--hence the name, Titian da Cadore.]

[Footnote 27: From "Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys: A Midsummer Ramble in the Dolomites." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.]

[Footnote 28: Reaumur.--Author's note.]

[Footnote 29: From "My Alpine Jubilee." Published In 1908.]

[Footnote 30: From "Adventures in the Alps." Published by George W. Jacobs Company, Philadelphia.]

[Footnote 31: Since the above was written, the railway has been extended up the Jungfrau itself.]

[Footnote 32: From "Teutonic Switzerland." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L.C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1894.]

[Footnote 33: From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co.]

[Footnote 34: From "Teutonic Switzerland." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L.C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1894.]

[Footnote 35: The population in 1902 had risen to 152,000.]

[Footnote 36: From "Teutonic Switzerland." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, L.C. Page & Co. Copyright, 1894.]

[Footnote 37: From "The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley." Politically, Chamouni is in France, but the aim here has been to bring into one volume all the more popular Alpine resorts. Articles on the Tyrol and the Dolomites will also be found in this volume--under "Other Austrian Scenes."]

[Footnote 38: From "Adventures in the Alps." Published by George W. Jacobs & Co.]

[Footnote 39: For Mr. Whymper's own account of this famous ascent, see page 127 of this volume.]

[Footnote 40: From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co.]

[Footnote 41: From "Geneva."]

[Footnote 42: From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."]

[Footnote 43: Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had been published about a year when this remark was made to her.]

[Footnote 44: From "Adventures in the Alps." Published by George W. Jacobs & Co.]

[Footnote 45: From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co.]

[Footnote 46: From "Scrambles Amongst the Alps." Mr. Whymper's later achievements in the Alps are now integral parts of the written history of notable mountain climbing feats the world over.]

[Footnote 47: From "Scrambles Amongst the Alps." Mr. Whymper's ascent of the Matterhorn was made in 1865. It was the first ascent ever made so far as known. Whymper died at Chamouni in 1911.]

[Footnote 48: From "Scrambles Amongst the Alps." The loss of Douglas and three other men, as here described, occurred during the descent of the Matterhorn following the ascent described by Mr. Whymper in the preceding article.]

[Footnote 49: That is, down in the village of Zermatt. Seiler was a well-known innkeeper of that time. Other Seilers still keep inns at Zermatt.]

[Footnote 50: The body of Douglas has never been recovered. It is believed to lie buried deep in some crevasse in one of the great glaciers that emerge from the base of the Matterhorn.]

[Footnote 51: From "The Glaciers of the Alps." Prof. Tyndall made this ascent in 1858. Monte Rosa stands quite near the Matterhorn. Each is reached from Zermatt by the Gorner-Grat.]

[Footnote 52: Another name for the Matterhorn.]

[Footnote 53: My staff was always the handle of an ax an inch or two longer than an ordinary walking-stick.--Author's note.]

[Footnote 54: From "The Glaciers of the Alps."]

[Footnote 55: That is, after having ascended the mountain to a point some distance beyond the Mer de Glace, to which the party had ascended from Chamouni, Huxley and Tyndall were both engaged in a study of the causes of the movement of glaciers, but Tyndall gave it most attention. One of Tyndall's feats in the Alps was to make the first recorded ascent of the Weisshorn. It is said that "traces of his influence remain in Switzerland to this day."]

[Footnote 56: A hotel overlooking the Mer de Glace and a headquarters for mountaineers now as then.]

[Footnote 57: Those acquainted with the mountain will at once recognize the grave error here committed. In fact, on starting from the Grands Mulets we had crossed the glacier too far, and throughout were much too close to the Dôme du Goûté.--Author's note.]

[Footnote 58: From "The Playground of Europe." Published by Longmans, Green & Co.]

[Footnote 59: From "Adventures in the Alps." Published by the George W. Jacob Co.]

[Footnote 60: From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co.]

[Footnote 61: From "Unknown Switzerland." Published by James Pott & Co.]

[Footnote 62: From "Geneva."]

[Footnote 63: The French financier and minister of Louis XVI., father of Madame de Staël.]

[Footnote 64: Madame de Staël's son, who afterward edited the works of Madame de Staël and Madame Necker.--Author's note.]

[Footnote 65: Madame de Staël's daughter, afterward Duchesse de Broglie.]