This archduke is a mighty builder and planner of all such useful devices. There we saw ten or twelve field-pieces, each carrying a ball as big as a goose’s egg, and mounted on wheels enriched and gilded all over; the very pieces themselves being gilded. They are made of nothing stronger than wood, but the muzzles are covered with iron plating, and inside the guns this plating is of double thickness. A man can carry one on his back. These guns are not fired so often as those cast in iron, but they will carry a ball almost as far. At the archduke’s country house we saw two oxen of an extraordinary size, grey with white heads, which M. de Ferrara had given him; for the aforesaid Duke of Ferrara had married one of his sisters, the Duke of Florence another, and the Duke of Mantua a third. At Hala three others formerly resided who were called “the Three Queens,”[93] for to the daughters of the Emperor they give this style, as they call the daughters of other rulers countesses and duchesses, according to their estates; also to the Emperor’s daughters is given a surname from the kingdoms ruled by the Emperor. Two of these three are dead, and the third, who was still residing there, M. de Montaigne was unable to see. She lives in religious seclusion, and has called in and established the Jesuits at Hala.
Report goes that the archduke cannot leave his possessions to his children, but that these must revert to the successor to the Empire. They could not, however, give the reason for this arrangement; and, as far as this remark applies to the wife, it seems to carry no meaning, forasmuch as, though she was not of suitable rank, still he married her, and all men hold her to have been his lawful wife, and her children legitimate. However, he has amassed much money in order to bequeath them something.
On the Tuesday morning we resumed our journey, crossing the plain and following the mountain path. At the end of the first league we ascended for an hour a small mountain by an easy road. On the left hand we had a view of divers other mountains, which for the reason that they sloped gently, were covered with villages and churches and for the most part tilled up to the very tops, a pleasing prospect on account of the diversity of the landscape aforesaid. The mountains on the right were somewhat wilder and sparsely peopled. We crossed several brooks and torrents, running in varied course, and on the road we passed several large towns and villages and good inns, at the very base of the mountains. Also on the left hand were two castles and some gentlemen’s dwellings; and, about four leagues from Insprug, on the left side of a very narrow passage, we came upon a bronze tablet, richly engraved, attached to the rock and inscribed thus: “The Emperor Charles V., returning from Spain and Italy,[94] where he had received the Imperial crown; and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, coming from Pannonia, seeking one another after an interval of eight years, met at this spot in the year 1530. Ferdinand commanded this memorial to be placed here.” They are represented embracing one another.
A short distance farther on, as we passed beneath a gate which blocked the road, we found written thereon some Latin verses recording the passage of the Emperor aforesaid, and of his stay in this place after his capture of the King of France and of Rome. M. de Montaigne found the scenery of this pass greatly to his taste on account of the diversity of the objects to be seen, and we encountered no inconvenience, except the thickest and most intolerable dust we had ever experienced, which kept with us the whole of our mountain passage. After we had been on the road ten hours, M. de Montaigne affirmed that this journey seemed to him like moonlight travelling.[95] It was always his habit, whether he purposed to halt on the road or not, to let his horses have oats to eat in the morning at the inn before starting. After faring seven leagues, we all arrived fasting late at night at Stertzinguen, a decent little town,[96] belonging to the county of Tirol, with a fine new castle built on the rock above. At table they gave us round loaves, joined one to another, and as everywhere else in Germany, the mustard was liquid, with the taste of white French mustard. Everywhere the vinegar is white. No wine grows in these mountains, but corn enough for the inhabitants, who drink three sorts of good white wine. All these roads are perfectly safe, being much used by merchants, coachmen, and carters. Instead of the cold, which had been instanced as a detriment to this road, we were troubled with intolerable heat. The women of the country wear cloth hats, like our scholars’ caps, with their hair braided and hanging down as in other places. M. de Montaigne, having espied a fair young girl in a church, asked if she could speak Latin, deeming she was a scholar.
Here we had curtains to our beds of thick linen dyed red. In all our travels in Germany we found no room or chamber which was not panelled, the ceilings being very low. M. de Montaigne suffered this night from colic for two or three hours, and very sharply, to judge from what he said next morning. Then indeed, when he rose from bed, he passed a stone of medium size which crumbled easily: outside it was yellowish, and when broken showed white in the middle. He had taken cold the previous day and found himself ailing, but he had not suffered from colic since Plommieres. This seizure partially removed the fear he felt that at Plommieres some gravel had descended into the bladder without passing therefrom, and that certain matter, there arrested, was collecting and consolidating. Now, seeing what had happened, he felt he might reasonably infer that, if there were indeed other particles, they would have joined themselves to the stone he had just passed. On the way he complained of pain in his loins, and now he declared he had prolonged the day’s journey simply on this account, deeming that he would find greater ease on horseback than elsewhere. At this place he called for the schoolmaster to converse with him in Latin, but the fellow was a fool from whom he could get no information as to the country.
On the morrow, Wednesday, October 26, we set out over a plain some half-quarter of a league in width, having the river Aisoc[97] on our right hand, and traversed this plain for two leagues. At the foot of the neighbouring mountains we saw here and there spaces of ground, inhabited and cultivated and often adjacent one to the other, but could discern no road leading thereto. We passed four or five castles, and crossed the river on a wooden bridge, and came upon some roadmakers who were repairing the way because it was somewhat stony, but not worse than the roads in Perigord. Then, having passed a stone gateway, we mounted to higher ground, where we came upon a level space about a league in length, and espied a similar plain on the other side of the river, both being sterile and rocky. There were some very fine low-lying meadows on our side of the stream. After going four leagues without halt we arrived in time for supper at Brixen, a fair little town, through which flows the river aforesaid, crossed by a wooden bridge. A bishop resides here and we saw two fine churches. We found good lodging at the “Eagle.”
BRIXEN
From Civitates Orbis Terrarum
To face p. 172, vol. i.
The level ground here is of no great extent, but the adjacent mountains rise so gently, even on the left-hand side, that they can, so to speak, be curled and combed up to the very ears.[98] The whole country seems full of clock towers and villages high up in the hills, and near the town are several fine houses well built and situated. M. de Montaigne declared “that he had all his life distrusted the verdict of other people upon the amenities of foreign lands, no one being able, apparently, to appreciate them except by the rule of his own peculiar habit, and the custom of his village; and that he paid very little respect to the information given him by travellers. But now he was more amazed than ever over their stupidity, seeing that he had heard tell—and especially concerning travelling in this region—of the exceeding difficulties to be overcome in these passes of the Alps; that the manners of the people were uncouth, the roads impassable, the lodging rough, and the air intolerable. As to the air, he thanked God to find it so mild—for he was fain of excess of heat rather than of cold, and up to the present we had experienced only three days of cold, and an hour or so of rain—and moreover, if he were minded to take his little girl[99] of eight out for a walk, he would as lief take her out on this road as in his own garden; that, as to the lodgings, he had never seen a country where they were so plentiful and good, having always found accommodation in handsome towns well supplied with provision and wine at a cheaper rate than elsewhere.”