Although I acknowledge I feel small interest in Rousseau, yet hearing that the walk to the Charmettes was one of the prettiest within our reach, we went thither this afternoon, passing on our way Buisson, the residence of the late General de Boigne, which is beautifully situated, and at the very gates of Chambéry, its park filled with fine trees, and ornamented by a picturesque tower. A steep path leads up the hill to a lane shaded by old chestnut trees, which cover the banks on each side and completely exclude the mountain view, or indeed any but of themselves and the little brawling rivulet. In this an old woman was washing, and we asked her where stood Les Charmettes: “Oh,” said she, “you are going to Jean Jacques’ house, there it is,” and she pointed out an unpicturesque mansion built on the high ground to our right. Continuing to climb over rough paths and through a wood, we fancied we were conquering a mountain, but found, when arrived breathless, that we were merely at the top of the low hill, which scarcely seems one looking at it from Chambéry. From the little plain all over wild flowers, we had a view of the glittering city (for the tin, of which they make so liberal use on roofs and church-spires, never rusts in this climate), and a lovely prospect of the country round and beyond it to the Mont du Chat and the lake of Bourget. While we were admiring it, the rain commenced; we fortunately found an ancient tree, whose charitable old age had provided a hollow trunk, which served for mansion during two wearisome hours while the shower fell pitilessly, and the fog hid every object within twenty feet of us; at last however it ceased, and as, during our imprisonment, we had listened to the Chambéry clocks, and were aware the dinner hour was nigh at hand, I advised making a short cut instead of returning by the way we came. We went on rapidly, and the road looked auspiciously for a time till it grew steep, and we had some difficulty in clambering among trees and clinging to them, and when the point and the contemplated short cut seemed attained, we took one step more and arrived in the bed of one of the million streams which spring everywhere: very clear and very bright, but considerably above our ankles.
June 4th.
Our mode of travelling throws us very much for resource on the agreeability of such companions as chance procures, and we sometimes make amusing and cordial acquaintances.
Among these are an old officer of the empire and a young abbé from Montelimart. The day on which the latter arrived was a fast, and there were at table two English gentlemen, who (either wilfully in bad taste, or not wilfully in bad French) made remarks and asked questions which embarrassed the poor priest, who is a well-informed, mild-mannered man. By attempting to soften them down or explain them away, we became acquainted, and you would have smiled to see our intimacy this evening, sitting in the yard in the starlight, as the stifling heat renders the house insupportable. The abbé has a leave of four months, which he employs in travelling, and enjoys like a boy, after the mournful duties of his profession. The old officer speaks with contempt of the fanfaronnades of la jeune France; and the priest with horror of the increasing immorality of French literature, and its spreading influence. “If you heard what I hear,” he said, alluding to confession, “you would tremble—la France est malade, bien malade.”
This morning, when I was wakened as usual by the parrot screaming in the yard, “As-tu déjeûné, Jacot, oui, oui, oui,” I found the whole establishment in commotion, for Chambéry had received orders to illuminate and be gay for the return of its governor, Count Victor Casazza di Valmonte. He is something between seventy-five and eighty, and having become a widower three months since, losing a lady of suitable years, he made a journey to Turin, whence he now brings a young wife. It is whispered he will receive a charivari, but the town will hardly venture on so rash an act, though he is by no means popular; it is perhaps independently of his will that all precautionary measures are enforced so strictly, and only Piedmontese hold any employ. One of these prudential rules forbids all newspapers, saving the Gazette de France, to enter the territory. At the library many of the books we asked for were on the prohibited list. The fine theatre, the donation of General de Boigne, will be opened next month, but the repertory is exceedingly small, and the chance stars, who every year in the French provinces shine and make money, dislike acting here, where all pieces, ere they can be played, are submitted to the governor and the bishop, and none pass the ordeal unscathed.
On the wall of the dining room hang the list of Sardinian laws, and the permission granted to Mons. Friul to keep the hotel, which must be renewed at the end of each year, as the leave is only given for that period. Among the first are some bordering on the ludicrous; for instance, “whosoever shall make a noise in the streets at night, sans chandelle, will be punished.” “Whoever shall dance bear or monkey, or play the mountebank, without permission of the governor, &c.” We rode along the Montmeillan road after dinner; the judges and officers had gone long before, and we met the escort and its object about a mile from the town, but in clouds of dust, through which and the drawn up glasses we could scarcely see his thin withered face, and hers not at all. By the time we got back they had been received with discharges of artillery, and were ensconced in the castle, the music on the terrace, but no charivari; so we went home to change our dress, and issued forth once more to see the illumination, accompanied by the priest and officer. It was a beautiful, breathless night, and the town and boulevards, all lighted and thronged, looked well, though it was true that the urn made of coloured paper lamps, in the rue de Boigne, lost much of its beauty on close inspection, and the painted shield, placed under the castle terrace, (coats of arms and cyphers on a black ground,) resembled a hatchment, while a silly inscription began with “Happy those he governs,” which it seems is not the case, and ends by wishing long lives to bride and bridegroom, which the latter has already enjoyed, and seems unlikely to do over again.
As we stood watching, the Governor’s open carriage drove down the street at a foot’s pace. The ancient bridegroom was all smiles; the bride was dressed à la Parisienne, graceful, dark haired, and pretty, but pale, and I thought sad. The abbé was loud in his indignation at her self-sacrifice, and continued his murmurs until we arrived at the hotel.
June.
The three roads, to Les Échelles, whence we came, to Turin by the Mont Cenis, and to Geneva by Aix, meet at Chambéry. We took the Turin road a few evenings since, intending to ride but a short distance, and were lured on by its excessive beauty, mile after mile, till we reached Montmeillan, a road good as in England, winding among cultivated fields, under noble chestnut and walnut trees and acacias in blossom. The range of the Beauges on the left, with the vine growing high up its sides; and on the right, beyond the broader valley, the Granier, whose chain extends as far as Grenoble, which lies in the hollow. The nearest mountain facing Chambéry is strangely hollowed at its summit, in an immense semicircle, and the ground beneath, for nearly a league, a succession of dells and hillocks, now covered with vineyards, bears the name of Abymes de Myans, in memory of the catastrophe of 1248, when in the month of November the mighty mass, loosened as if by the grasp of an evil spirit, descended, a fall of five thousand feet on the small city of St. André and fifteen villages. The records of the time say, that the devastation ceased at the foot of an image of the Virgin, called the Ethiopian, because her face is black, to whose shrine the devout still flock, even from the near villages of France. Monsieur Friul told me that, in the midst of one of the vineyards which cover the buried houses, the top of a church steeple is still to be seen, the single tombstone of many victims.
Fording a bright stream instead of riding over its badly paved bridge, we were in sight of the castle of Chignin. The hill on which its four remaining towers still stand hangs over the village, and the road is henceforth close to the base of the mountains. These castles, which crowned rock and height the whole length of the valleys of the Arc and Isère, were the telegraphs of the middle ages; and in time of war, by fires lighted on their high turrets, gave and repeated signals from province to province. At Chignin, among the rubbish of its ruins, was found a heavy iron collar, now preserved in the museum of Chambéry; it fastened by a secret spring, and within was furnished with sharp points, which at every movement made would wound the neck of the captive, who taken in fight was detained till he paid his ransom. A little farther than Chignin, but a season or two ago, a large portion of rock fell between two cottages, providentially touching neither, and as it reached the ground splitting itself into a thousand fragments, which lie scattered among the vines, and are mostly too large to be moved. We rode down the green lane to look at it, and found an old man at work, who said nobody had been injured. An avenue of poplars brought us by sunset to Montmeillan. The hill stands alone on the plain, a miniature they tell me of the Righi. Of the strong fortress which once crowned it, we could distinguish scarce a vestige; seen from this side, it is not a very striking object; to be aware of its importance it must be viewed from the other, I mean that of Turin. The road thither extended to our right, through and over wooded hills, with the snowy mountains high above them, reaching to Mont Cenis. On the left, the Beauges which we had followed since Chambéry, and before us, as we stood below the rock of Montmeillan, the valley through which winds the Isère, seeming shut in by the white range of the Maurienne. As we stood admiring, a shower which had long threatened fell over the distant extremity of the valley; the setting sun was bright, and the rays crossed the rain which the wind blew in a contrary direction, and through sunbeams, and rain, and rainbow, shone the snow.