We returned through the valley of Cretet along the mountain stream of Davanson, which is the fullest and the most impetuous I have seen in this part of the Alps. Its course is long and its descent extremely rapid. It is caught in a narrow gorge, the sides of which are high and wooded. It supplies motive power for many factories, and for this purpose is divided into many little canals and aqueducts. These establishments are nearly always hung, as it were, on blocks of rock which seem to have become detached from the high peaks and to be suspended by a miracle over the abyss. All the road as far as M. de Gautard's little château is delightful, and I was somewhat reconciled to the country, the first sight of which was a disagreeable surprise.
I am just come back from a very interesting excursion. The chief object was the cascade of Pisse-Vache, a fine straight foam-white column of water which throws far and wide on all sides a damp mist, and leaps in a single jet from a breach in rocks rising into two needle-like peaks. The water of the cascade soon mingles with that of the Rhone, near the bridge where one crosses the river. The current is almost equally rapid from the source to the mouth and is particularly so in the narrow gorge through which it passes on leaving the Valais to enter the Canton de Vaud. The frontier is at Saint Maurice, a picturesque village, where the convents, the castle, the old town and the fortifications, lying unevenly on the perpendicular rocks, present a quaint spectacle. The gate of this town is, so to speak, formed by the narrow passage between two great rocks which separate the two cantons. From this point on the right the view reaches to the Canton de Vaud, ending in the distance beyond Lake Leman at the Jura, and on the left towards the wilderness of the Valais you can see as far as the snowy chain of Saint Bernard.
What, in spite of everything, spoiled the expedition for me was the character of the population. Crétins are numerous, and even those who are not so afflicted are horribly disfigured by goîtres. The women sometimes have as many as three. The water coming from melted snow, and the deficiency of sunlight, which penetrates very little into the narrow gorges of the Valais, are responsible for the frequency of this disease.
Geneva, August 26, 1835.—We left Bex this morning and went along the Rhone to the point at which it enters Lake Leman. Thence to Thonon by a pleasant road boldly tunnelled in the rock and built out over the lake. The view was a picturesque mixture of superb lawns, lovely chestnut trees and majestic rocks, which form a very fine spectacle. From Thonon the road is monotonous until within two leagues from Geneva. There the natural beauty of the country is enhanced by numerous ornamental gardens cared for as well as they are in England, by pretty country houses and magnificent avenues, the whole being grouped like the town of Geneva itself in an amphitheatre round the lake.
We are at the Hotel des Bergues. My window looks out on a new wire bridge which spans the Rhone and joins the two parts of the town, leading at the same time to a small island on which is the statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau surrounded by a clump of great trees. A great part of the lake is simply covered with little boats; nothing could be gayer or more animated.
Geneva, August 27, 1835.—The Duc de Périgord whom I met yesterday here, and who is a good authority about everything that concerns the Archbishop of Paris, explained to me as follows the rapprochement of the Archbishop with the present Government. After the attempt of July 28, the Curé of Saint Roch, whose church has become the place of worship of the Royal Family since the destruction of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, went to the King, who intimated to him his intentions as to the funeral service. The Curé, whose name is the Abbé Olivier, observed that after the funeral service a Te Deum in thanksgiving for the preservation of the King and his children would be an obvious and proper ceremony. The King adopted this idea adding: "This Te Deum will have to take place at Saint-Roch as the Archbishop continues to oppose my Government." The Curé of Saint-Roch immediately informed the Archbishop of the innovation which his attitude was about to cause, and it was this which made M. de Quélen decide to go to the King. He was received and thereafter officiated at the Invalides and at Notre-Dame. I shall hear later what passed between the King and him.
I hear from Paris that Marshal Maison, who takes no part in the debates in the Chamber, takes out every day in a phaeton, at the fashionable hour, a young lady whom he has brought back from St. Petersburg. He is the dandy of the Cabinet!
Geneva, August 29, 1835.—The environs of Geneva have improved as much as the interior of the town. Every year new country houses replace and augment the number of those which used to cover the coasts of the lake. The most elaborate belongs to a banker named Bartholony. The Italian taste predominates in the construction of these villas; the gardens and the arrangement of the flowers recall England. The frame of the picture alone is Swiss and it could not be more grandiose. Coppet, which is further from Geneva, has no particular style. It is now occupied by the young Madame de Staël who lives there in all the austerity of early Christian widowhood, and it has a deserted and lugubrious air. The village separates the château from the lake and blocks the view. M. and Madame Necker and the famous Madame de Staël are buried in a part of the park shut off by brushwood and very difficult to approach. Moreover, by the orders of the dead, no one (not even their children) is allowed to enter this enclosure. The rest of the Park is full of fine trees which, however, are too close together. They are wanting in style and neatness like the general impression produced by the whole place. Strangers are no longer admitted to the house. I had been there on a former occasion. The apartments are well arranged and well enough proportioned, but they are furnished without taste or elegance. It is in every way an establishment characteristic of a Puritan banker, vast and austere but neither noble nor imposing.
The position of Ferney is very agreeable; the house is embellished by terraces and vegetation. In itself it is small and all on the old French model of last century. The salon and bedchamber of M. de Voltaire alone remain open to the public and consecrated to the memory of the great mind who, during thirty years made this little manor the fire from whence issued so many dazzling flames of wit. We stayed a long time examining the little relics preserved by the gardener. When M. de Voltaire died he was fourteen; he recites his story well, for I do not believe that it is his own.
In a letter I had yesterday from the Duc d'Orléans occurs the following passage: "On the day on which the laws under discussion are voted, and this dangerous weapon is placed in the hands of the executive, the difficulty will begin. It is nothing to have got them through, the trouble is to carry them into execution. Will they be able to carry on this unceasing struggle? Will they be able each day to defeat the stratagems, and to resist the tenacious purpose of men who are driven to desperation and have only one thought and one end? Hostile critics here assert that it is much more difficult to govern regularly and coherently than to carry new laws by violent speeches while not even enforcing those which are already provided. For my part all I say is that, now Ministers have involved us in so grave a struggle, I can find no words with which to describe their conduct if they do not make a proper use of the powers which they have thought it their duty to demand, or if they try to transfer to others the burden of executing what they alone have conceived and insisted on in what they believe to be their own interests."