The sun was as bright as it always is in fair Provence, the sky as blue. The white dusty roads wound around over the green landscape, like great serpents seeking to hide their folds amid those hills. The almond, the lemon, and the fig attracted the attention of the traveller from the north, before all other trees,—not to forget however, the pale foliage of that tree which used to furnish wreaths for Minerva's brow, but now supplies us with oil for our salads. Arles, with its old amphitheatre (a broken shadow of the Coliseum) looming up above it, lay stifled with dust and broiling in the sun, as we hurried on towards Avignon. It does not take much time to see that old city, which, from being so long the abode of the exiled popes, seems to have caught and retained something of the quiet dignity and repose of Rome itself. That gloomy old palace of the popes, with its lofty turrets, seems to brood over the town, and weigh it down as with sorrow for its departed greatness. Centuries have passed, America has been discovered, the whole face of Europe has changed, since a pontiff occupied those halls; and yet there it stands, a monument commemorating a mere episode in the history of the see of St. Peter.
Arriving at Lyons, I found another palatial station, on even a grander scale than that of Marseilles. The architect has worked the coats of arms of the different cities of France into the stone work of the exterior in a very effective manner. Lyons bears witness, no less than Marseilles, to the genius of the wonderful man who now governs France. It is a popular notion in England and America, that the enterprise of Napoleon III. has been confined to the improvement of Paris. If persons who labour under this error would extend their journeyings a little beyond the ordinary track of a summer excursion, they would find that there is scarcely a town in the empire that has not felt the influence of his skill as a statesman and political economist. The Rue Imperiale of Lyons is a monument of which any sovereign might be justly proud. The activity of Lyons, the new buildings rising on every side, and its look of prosperity, would lead one to suppose that it was some place that had just been settled, instead of a city with twenty centuries of history. The Sunday, I was glad to see, was well observed; perhaps not exactly in the style which Aminadab Sleek would commend, but in a very rational, Christian, un-Jewish manner. The shops were, for the most part, closed, the churches were crowded with people, and in the afternoon and evening the entire population was abroad enjoying itself—and a cleaner, better-behaved, happier-looking set of people I never saw. The excessive heat still continues. It is now more than two months since I opened my umbrella; the prospects of the harvest are good, but they are praying hard in the churches for a little rain. During my stay at Lyons, I lived almost entirely on fresh figs, and plums and ices. How full the cafés were those sultry evenings! How busy must the freezers have been in the cellars below! I read through all the newspapers I could lay my hands on, and then amused myself with watching the gay, chattering throng around me. How my mind flew across the ocean that evening to a quiet back parlour at the South End! I could see the venerable Baron receiving a guest on such a night as that, and making the weather seem cool by contrast with the warmth of his hospitality. I could see him offering to his perspiring visitor a release from the slavery of broadcloth, in the loan of a nankeen jacket, and then busying himself in the preparation of a compound of old Cochituate, (I had almost said old Jamaica,) of ice, of sugar, yea, of lemons, and commending the grateful chalice to the parched lips of his guest. Such an evening in the Baron's back parlour is the very ecstasy of hospitality. It is many months since that old nankeen jacket folded me in its all-embracing arms, but the very thought of it awakes a thrill of pleasure in my heart. When I last saw it, "decay's effacing fingers" had meddled with the buttons thereof, and it was growing a trifle consumptive in the vicinity of the elbows; but I hope that it is good for many a year of usefulness yet, before the epitaph writer shall commence the recital of its merits with those melancholy words, Hic jacet! Pardon me, dear reader, for this digression from the recital of my wanderings; but this jacket, the remembrance of which is so dear to me, is not the trifle it may seem to you. It is, I believe, the only institution in the world of the same age and importance, which has not been apostrophized in verse by that gifted bard, Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper. If this be not celebrity, what is it?
In one of the narrow streets of Lyons I found a barber named Melnotte. He was a man somewhat advanced in life, and I feel sure that he addressed a good-looking woman in a snowy white cap, who looked in from a back room while I was having my hair cut, as Pauline. Be that as it may, when he had finished his work, and I walked up to the mirror to inspect it, he addressed to me the language of Bulwer's hero, "Do you like the picture?" or words to that effect. I cannot help mistrusting that Sir Edward may have misled us concerning the ultimate history of the Lady of Lyons and her husband. But the heat was too intolerable for human endurance; so I packed up, and leaving that fair city, with its numerous graceful bridges, and busy looms whose fabrics brighten the eyes of the beauties of Europe and America, and lighten the purses of their chivalry,—leaving Our Lady of Fourvières looking down with outstretched hands from the dome of her lofty shrine, and watching over her faithful Lyonnese,—I turned my face towards the Alpine regions.
The Alps have always been to me what Australia was to the late Mr. Micawber—"the bright dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I remember when I was young, long before the days of railways and steamers, in the times when a man who had travelled in Europe was invested with a sort of awful dignity—I remember hearing a travelled uncle of mine tell about the Alps, and I resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, thenceforward to "save up" all my Fourth of July and Artillery Election money, until I should be able to go and see one. When the Rev. James Sheridan Knowles (he was a wicked playactor in those days) produced his drama of William Tell, how it fed the flame of my ambition! How I longed to stand with the hero once again among his native hills! How I loved the glaciers! How I doted on the avalanches! But age has cooled the longings of my heart for mountain excursions, and robbed my legs of all their climbing powers, so that if it depends upon my own bodily exertions, the Vale of Chamouni will be entirely unavailable for me, and every mount will be to me a blank. The scenery along the line of railway from Ambérieu to Culoz on the Rhone is very grand. The ride reminded me of the ride over the Atlantic and St. Lawrence road through the White Mountains, only it is finer. The boldness of the cliffs and precipices was something to make one's heart beat quick, and cause him to wonder how the peasants could work so industriously, and the cattle feed so constantly, without stopping to look up at the magnificence that hemmed them in.
At Culoz I went on board one of those peculiar steamers of the Rhone—about one hundred and fifty feet in length by ten or twelve in width. Our way lay through a narrow and circuitous branch of the river for several miles. The windings of the river were such that men were obliged to turn the boat about by means of cables, which they made fast to posts fixed in the banks on either side for that purpose. The scenery along the banks was like a dream of Paradise. To say that the country was smiling with flowers and verdure does not express it—it was bursting into a broad grin of fertility. Such vineyards! Not like the grape vine in your back yard, dear reader, nailed up against a brick wall, but large, luxuriant vines, seeming at a loss what to do with themselves, and festooned from tree to tree, just as you see them in the scenery of Fra Diavolo. And then there were groups of people in costumes of picturesque negligence, and women in large straw hats, and dresses of brilliant colours, just like the chorus of an opera. The deep, rich hue of the foliage particularly attracted my notice. It was as different from the foliage of New England as Winship's Gardens are from an invoice of palm-leaf hats. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the river rose up beautiful hills and cliffs like the Palisades of the Hudson. Let those who will, prefer the wild grandeur of our American mountain scenery; there is a great charm for me in the union of nature and art. The careful cultivation of the fields seems to set off and render more grand and austere the gray, jagged cliffs that overlook them. As the elder Pliny most justly remarks, (lib. iv. cap. xi. 24,) "It requires the lemon as well as the sugar to make the punch."
After about an hour's sail upon the river, we came out upon the beautiful Lake of Bourget. It was stirred by a gentle breeze, but it seemed as if its bright blue surface had never reflected a cloud. All around its borders the trees and vines seemed bending down to drink of its pure waters. Far off in the distance rose up the mighty peaks of the Alps—their snow-white tops contrasting with the verdure of their sides. They seemed to be watching with pleasure over the glad scenes beneath them, like old men whose gray hairs have been powerless to disturb the youthful freshness and geniality of their hearts.
At St. Innocent I landed, and underwent the custom house formalities attendant upon entrance into a new territory. The officials were very expeditious, and equally polite. I at first supposed that the letters V. E., which each of them bore conspicuously on his cap, meant "very empty,"—but it afterwards occurred to me that they were the initials of his majesty, the King of Sardinia. A few minutes' ride over the "Victor Emmanuel Railway" brought me to the beautiful village of Aix. It is situated, as my friend the Lyonnese barber would say, in "a deep vale shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world." It possesses about 2500 inhabitants; but that number is considerably augmented at present, for the mineral springs of Aix are very celebrated, and this is the height of "the season." There is a great deal of what is called "society" here, and during the morning the baths are crowded. It is as dull as all watering places necessarily are, and twice as hot. I think that the French manage these things better than we do in America. There is less humbug, less display of jewelry and dress, and a vast deal more of common sense and solid comfort than with us. The cafés are like similar establishments in all such places—an abundance of ices and ordinary coffee, and a plentiful lack of newspapers. I have found a companion, however, who more than makes good the latter deficiency. He is an Englishman of some seventy years, who is here bathing for his gout. His light hair and fresh complexion disguise his age so completely that most people, when they see us together, judge me, from my gray locks, to be the elder. He is one of the most entertaining persons I have ever met—he knows the classics by heart,—is familiar with English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature,—speaks nine languages,—and has travelled all over the world. He is as familiar with the Steppes of Tartary as with Wapping Old Stairs,—has imbibed sherbet in Damascus and sherry cobblers in New York, and seen a lion hunt in South Africa. But his heart is the heart of a boy—"age cannot wither nor custom stale" its infinite geniality. He cannot pass by a beggar without making an investment for eternity, and all the babies look over the shoulders of their nurses to smile at him as he walks the streets. I mention him here for the sake of recording one of his opinions, which struck me by its truth and originality. We were sitting in a café last evening, and, after a long conversation, I asked him what he should give as the result of all his reading and observation of men and things, and all his experience, if he were to sum it up in one sentence. "Sir," said he, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and turning towards me as if to give additional force to his reply, "it may all be comprised in this: the world is composed of two classes of men—natural fools and d—d fools; the first class are those who have never made any pretensions, or have reached a just appreciation of the nothingness of all human acquirements and hopes; the second are those whose belief in their own infallibility has never been disturbed; and this class includes a vast number of every rank, from the profound German philosopher, who thinks that he has fathomed infinity, down to that young fop twirling his moustache at the opposite table, and flattering himself that he is making a great impression."
Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics. I have not heard ten words of Italian since I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to become a part of France again. The Savoyards are a religious, steady-going people, and they have little love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister who governs their monarch. The high-pitched roofs of the houses here are suggestive of the snows of winter; but the heat reminds me of the coast of Africa during a sirocco. How true is Sydney Smith's remark, "Man only lives to shiver or perspire"! The thermometer ranges any where from 80° to 90°. Can this be the legitimate temperature of these mountainous regions? I am "ill at these numbers," and nothing would be so invigorating to my infirm and shaky frame as a sniff of the salt breezes of Long Branch or Nantasket.
AIX TO PARIS
There is no need of telling how disgusted I became with Aix-les-Bains and all that in it is, after a short residence there. How I hated those straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the earliest flush of the aurora! How I detested those fellows who were constantly pestering me with offers (highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys whereon to ride, when they knew that I didn't want one! How I abominated the sight of a man (who seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat and a bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking head of hair and bushy whiskers—who looked, for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir Harcourt Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the newspapers in the café! How constantly he sat there and devoured all the news out of them through the medium of a double tortoise-shell eye-glass, which always seemed to be just falling off his nose! How I abhorred the sight of those waiters, who looked as if the season were a short one, and time (as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was the atmosphere of that "seven-by-nine" room for which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how dusty, how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling; suffice it to say, that I never packed my trunk more willingly than when I left that village. I am very glad to have been there, however, for the satisfaction I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any effort to obtain. The joy of departure made even the exorbitant bills seem reasonable; and when I thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was escaping from, I felt as if, come what might, my future could only be one of sunshine and content. Aix-les-Bains is one of the pleasantest places to leave that I have ever seen. I can never forget the measureless happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris, and then taking my seat with the consciousness that I was leaving Aix (not aches, alas!) behind me.