CHAPTER IX.
FROM VAL LOUISE TO LA BÉRARDE BY THE COL DE PILATTE.[115]
“How pleasant it is for him who is saved to remember his danger.”
Euripides.
From Ailefroide to Claux, but for the path, travel would be scarcely more easy than over the Pré de Madame Carle.[116] The valley is strewn with immense masses of gneiss, from the size of a large house downwards, and it is only occasionally that rock in situ is seen, so covered up is it by the débris, which seems to have been derived almost entirely from the neighbouring cliffs.
It was Sunday, a “day most calm and bright.” Golden sunlight had dispersed the clouds, and was glorifying the heights, and we forgot hunger through the brilliancy of the morning and beauty of the mountains.
We meant the 26th to be a day of rest, but it was little that we found in the cabaret of Claude Giraud, and we fled before the babel of sound which rose in intensity as men descended to a depth which is unattainable by the beasts of the field, and found at the chalets of Entraigues[117] the peace that had been denied to us at Val Louise.
Again we were received with the most cordial hospitality. Everything that was eatable or drinkable was brought out and pressed upon us; every little curiosity was exhibited; every information that could be afforded was given; and when we retired to our clean straw, we again congratulated each other that we had escaped from the foul den which is where a good inn should be, and had cast in our lot with those who dwell in chalets. Very luxurious that straw seemed after two nights upon quartz pebbles and glacier mud, and I felt quite aggrieved (expecting it was the summons for departure) when, about midnight, the heavy wooden door creaked on its hinges, and a man hem’d and ha’d to attract attention; but when it whispered, “Monsieur Edvard,” I perceived my mistake,—it was our Pelvoux companion, Monsieur Reynaud, the excellent agent-voyer of La Bessée.