Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland

by G. F. Browne

I now looked on the local map, and determined that the best plan would be to take the Bonneville diligence as far as Charvonnaz, the point on the road which seemed to lie nearest to the roots of the Mont Parmelan, and then be guided by what I might learn among the peasants. Everyone said there was no chance of getting to anything by that means; but as the hotel people saw that it was of no use to deny the glacières any longer, they proposed to take me to a man who knew the M. Parmelan well, and could tell me all about it. This man proved to be a keeper of voitures,--an ominous profession under the circumstances,--and he assured me that I could make a most lovely course the next day, through scenery of unrivalled beauty; and he eloquently told on his fingers the villages and sights I should come to. I suggested--without in the least knowing that it was so--that the drive might be all very well in itself, but it would not bring me to the glacières; on which he assured me that he knew every inch of the mountain, and there was not such a thing as a glacière in the whole district. At this moment, a gentlemanlike man was brought up by the waiter, and introduced to me as a monsieur who knew a monsieur who knew the proprietor of one of the glacières, and would he happy to conduct me to this second monsieur: so, without any very ceremonious farewell to the owner of the proffered voiture, we marched off together down the street, and eventually turned into a café, whose master was the monsieur for whom we were in search. Know the glacière?--yes, indeed! he had ice from it one year every morning. His wife and he had made a course to the campagne of M. the Maire of Aviernoz, and he--the cafétier--had descended for miles, as it were, down and down, till he came to an underground world of ice, wonderful, totally wonderful: there he perceived so immense a cold, that he drank a bottle of rhoom--a whole bottle--and drank it from the neck, à l'Anglaise. And when they had gone so far that great dread came upon them, they rolled a stone down the ice, and it went into the darkness--boom, boom, boom,--and he put on a power of ventriloquism which admirably represented the strange suggestive sound. Hold a moment! had monsieur a crayon? Yes, monsieur had; so the things were impetuously swept off a round marble table, and the excited little man drew a fancy portrait of the glacière. The way to reach it? Go by diligence to Charvonnaz--exactly what I had determined upon--and walk up to Aviernoz, where his good friend the maire would make me see his beautiful glacière, through the means of a letter which he went to write. It was absurd to see this hot little man sign himself 'Dugravel, glacier,' that being the style of his profession, naturally recalling the contradictory conduct of the Latin noun lucus.

The bones of S. Francis of Sales lie in the church of S. François in Annecy, and I made a pilgrimage in search of them through very unpleasant streets. After a time, the Italian west front of the church appeared; but the main door led into a demonstrative bakery, and the door of the north aisle was obscured by oleanders and a striped awning, and over it appeared the legend, 'Entrée de l'Hôtel.' As a man politely explained, they had built S. Francis another church, and utilised the old one. The town itself seemed to be of the squalid style of antiquity--old, no doubt, but very dirty. It is pervaded by streams, which crop up among the houses, and flow through dark alleys and vaulted passages, rarely coming into daylight, and suggesting all manner of dark crimes. The red-legged French kettledrums are, if possible, more insolent here than in other places, and it is evident that the dogs are not yet reconciled to the annexation, for the guard swept through the streets amid a perfect tornado of howls from the negligent scavengers of the place. For my own part, I was not pleased with the change of rule, when I found that since Annecy has become French, the vin d'Asti has become dear, as being now a foreign wine.

The diligence for Bonneville was to leave Annecy at half-past four in the morning; so I told them to call me at four, intending to breakfast somewhere on the way. But of course, when four o'clock came, I had to call myself, and in a quarter of an hour a knock at the door announced half-past four. I pounced upon the man, and remonstrated with him, but he assured me it did not matter; and when I reminded him that the diligence was to leave at half-past four, he observed philosophically that it was quite true, and I had better make haste, for the poste was very punctual. At the door of the bureau a loaded diligence stood, marked Annecy--Aix, and I asked had the Bonneville diligence gone? It did not go till six, the clerk told me; but I reminded him he had said half-past four when I asked him last night. Half-past four?--true, here was the carriage standing at the door. But that was for Aix, not Bonneville, I pointed out to him. Pardon--it was marked Aix, but was in fact meant for Bonneville.

The diligence reached the end of the by-road leading to Villaz in about half an hour, and all the fever of Geneva and Annecy seemed to fly away before the freshness of this green little lane, with clematis in full flower pervading the hedges, and huge clusters of young nuts peeping out, and promising later delights to fortunate passers-by. But, alas! the little lane soon came to an end, and as I faced the fields of corn up the mountain-side, the hot thunderous air came rolling down in palpable billows, and oppressive clouds took possession of the surrounding hills. Three-quarters of an hour brought me to Villaz, a close collection of houses on the hill-side, with arched stone gateways leading into the farmyards,--a fortified style of agricultural building which seems to prevail in that district. After an amount of experience in out-of-the-way places which makes me very cautious in saying that one in particular is dirtier than a dozen others, I venture to say that the auberge of Villaz is the most squalid I have come across; and I would not feed there again, except in very robust health, even for a new glacière. Still, it was absolutely necessary to eat something, and the landlady promised coffee and bread. She showed me first into the kitchen; but as it was also the place where the domestics slept, with many quadrupeds, I declined to sit there. Upon this she led me to the salon, where the window resisted all our efforts for some little time, and then opened upon such a choice assortment of abominations, that I fled without my baggage. The next attempt she made was the one remaining room of the house, the family bedroom; but that was so much worse than all, that I took final refuge on the balcony, a sort of ante-room to the hen-house. The cocks at the auberge of Villaz are the loudest, the hens the most talkative, and the cats the most shaggy and presuming, I have ever met with. Even here, however, all was not unmitigated darkness; for they ground the coffee while the water was boiling, and the consequent decoction was admirable. Moreover, the bread had a skin of such thickness and impervious toughness, that the inside was presumably clean.

Aviernoz lay about an hour farther. Almost as soon as I left Villaz, the thunderstorm came on in earnest, with sheets of rain, a regular Wolkenbruch.[^[66]] The rain was most refreshing; but lightning is not a pleasant companion in presence of a bright ice-axe, and I was glad when the houses of Aviernoz came in sight. The village had the appearance of being lost; and the houses were scattered about so irregularly, that it was difficult to know which was the best point to make for. The road studiously avoided the scattered houses, and the Mairie seemed especially difficult to find. When at length it was found, the maire, like the queen in the poets, was in the kitchen; and he sat affably on the end of a bench and read the letter of introduction aloud, asking me, at the conclusion, how was our friend Dugravel, a man amazing in many ways. When I confessed that I had only made the acquaintance of the amazing man the night before, and therefore did not feel competent to give any reliable account of the state of his health, beyond the fact that he seemed to be in excellent spirits, the maire looked upon me evidently with great respect, as having won so far upon a great character like Dugravel in so short a time, and determined to accompany me himself. Meantime, we must drink some kirsch. The maire was a young man, spare and vehement. He talked with a headlong impetuosity which caused him to be always hot, and his hair limp and errant; and at the end of each sentence there were so many laggard halves of words to come out together, with so little breath to bring them out, that he eventuated in a stuttering scream. His clothes were of such a description, that the most speculative Israelite would not have gone beyond copper for his wardrobe, all standing. There were two women in the house, to whom he was exceedingly imperious: one of them received his orders and his vehemence with a certain amount of defiance, but the other was subdued and obedient, and I believe her to have been the mayoress. He poured himself and his household at my feet, knocked a child one way and his wife another, and, from the air with which he dragged off the tablecloth they had laid, and ordered a better, and swept away the glasses because they were not clean enough--which in itself was sufficiently true,--and screamed for poached eggs for monsieur, and then impetuously ate them himself--I fancy that he might have been taught to play Petrucio with success.

When we had sat for a quarter of an hour or so, a heavy-looking young man, in fustian clothes and last year's linen, came into the room, and was introduced as the communal schoolmaster. We shook hands with much impressment on the strength of the similarity of our professions, and the maire explained that the new arrival acted also as his secretary, for there was really so much writing to be done that it was beyond his own powers; and as the schoolmaster lived en pension at the Mairie, it was very convenient. M. Rosset, the schoolmaster, stated that he had heard us, as he sat in his room, talking of the proposed visit to the glacière, and he should much wish to accompany us. We both expressed the warmest satisfaction; but the maire suggested--how about the boys? That, M. Rosset said, was simple enough. The world would go to the school at nine o'clock, and, finding no schoolmaster, would go home again, or otherwise employ itself; and he could have school on the weekly holiday, to make up for the lost day. This weekly holiday is universally on Thursday, he said, because that day divides the week so well; and I failed to persuade him that there was a commemoration intended in the choice of that day, as in the observance of Friday and Sunday. The maire utterly refused to take a cord, on the ground that there was no possibility of such a thing being of the least use. Fortunately, I had now my own axe, which in more able hands had mounted more than once Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, so I had not the usual fight to procure that instrument.

Half an hour from the Mairie, when we had well commenced the steep ascent of the mountain-side, the maire turned suddenly round and exclaimed, 'But the inspector!' Rosset was a sallow man, but he contrived to turn white, while M. Métral (the maire) explained to me that the inspector of schools was to visit Aviernoz that day. The schoolmaster recovered before long, and said he should inform the inspector that a famous savant had come from England, and required that the maire and the instituteur should accompany him to the glacière, to aid him in making scientific observations. In order that he might have documentary proof to advance, he asked for my card, and made me write on it my college and university in full.

As I have already said, the maire's style of talking required a good deal of breath, and so it was not unnatural that the ascent should reduce him to silence. The schoolmaster talked freely about scholastic affairs, and gave me an account of the ordinary tariff in village schools, though each commune may alter the prices of its school if it please. Under seven years of age, children pay 4 francs a year, or, for shorter periods than a year, at the rate of 75 centimes a month; between seven and thirteen, 6 francs a year, or 1 franc a month; from thirteen to eighteen, 8 francs a year, or 1 f. 50 c. a month. There is the same difficulty in France, of course, as with us, in keeping children at school after they are old enough to earn a few centimes by cattle-keeping; and the Ministry of Education had shortly before addressed questions to every schoolmaster in the country, asking what remedy each could suggest. My present friend had replied, that if the Government would give the education gratis, something might be done; but he had expressed his opinion that nothing short of an actual subsidy to parents of children beyond eight or nine years of age would ensure a general improvement.

Having given me this information, he observed that it was every man's business to learn, though he and I might be teachers also, and therefore he was sure monsieur would pardon him if he asked what those black patches on monsieur's hands might mean,--pointing to certain large areas of Epsom plaster which covered the tokens of many glacières. When his mind was set at rest as to this phenomenon, the maire called a halt, and took his turn of talking. He began to tell me about himself and his wealth, Rosset backing him up and putting in the most telling parts. He had very extensive property, and the more level parts of it were certainly valuable, consisting of 200 journaux of good arable land: the forests through which we walked were his, and he possessed three montagnes and châlets higher up on the mountain. The glacière was his own property; and two years ago he had discovered another in the neighbourhood, which he had not since visited. He was assisted in his capacity of maire by twelve councillors--in a larger commune it would have been fifteen--and the council met four times in the year. If it was desirable that they should meet on any other occasion, he must write to the prefect of the arrondissement for permission, specifying the business which they wished to conduct, and to this specified business they must confine themselves entirely. Then he wished to know, had we maires such as he in England? Hereupon I drew a fancy picture of the Lord Mayor of London, receiving the Queen and the Royal Family in general in a friendly way, and giving them a dinner,--which, he observed, must cost a good deal, a great deal. However, he looked round upon his fields and houses and mountains, and seemed to think that he could himself stand a considerable drain upon his purse for the reception of royalty; and possibly he is now anxious that the Emperor should pass that way, during the five years to which the tenure of the mayoralty is restricted. Both of my companions were strong in their French sympathies--the one because under the new rule all communal affairs were so much better organised, the other because a wonderful change for the better had taken place in the government superintendence of schools. Theirs was formerly an odd corner of a kingdom that did not care much about them, and was not homogeneous; it was now an integral part of a well-ordered empire. They confessed that the present state of things cost them much more in taxes, &c., excepting in the upper mountains, where Rosset had a cousin who paid even less than under Sardinian rule.

Of course, we talked a little on Church questions; and they were astonished to hear that I was not only an ecclesiastic, but an ordained priest,--a sort of thing which they had fancied did not exist in the English Church. Rosset said the curés of small communes had about £40 a year, but I must have more than that, or I could not afford to travel so far from home. Had I already said the mass that morning? Had I my robes in the sac I had left at the Mairie? Was the red book they had seen in my hands (Bädeker's Schweiz) a Breviary? They branched off to matters of doctrine, and discussed them warmly; but some things they so accommodatingly understated, and others they stated so fairly, that I was able to tell them they were excellent Anglicans.