This town belongs to the archduke aforenamed. Here in our lodging we found once more the usages with which we were familiar: we found, indeed, not merely German neatness in rooms and furniture and glass windows, but German stoves as well, which commended themselves to M. de Montaigne much more than open chimneys.[116] As to food, we had here no crayfish, which thing M. de Montaigne found very strange, seeing that, ever since we left Plommieres, a distance of two hundred leagues, this dish had been put before us at every meal. Here and in all this mountainous country they commonly eat snails larger and fatter than those of France, but not so well flavoured; also truffles which they peel and serve sliced with oil and vinegar, a passably good dish. The truffles we ate at Trante had been kept for a year. Here at Rovere, greatly to the gratification of M. de Montaigne, we were plentifully supplied with oranges and citrons and olives. The bed curtains are cut short and made either of cloth or serge. M. de Montaigne also regretted the lack of those beds which they use as coverings in Germany; made not like our beds, but of the finest down enclosed in an envelope of well-bleached fustian. The beds used for lying upon in Germany are not of this character, and could not be used as coverlets with comfort.
I verily believe that, if he had been alone with his own following, M. de Montaigne would rather have gone to Cracow or to Greece by land than have turned towards Italy. He took great pleasure in his visits to strange countries, finding therein forgetfulness of his age and of his ill-health, but he could never win over the rest of the company to this view, each one of them being anxious to have done with travel and to return. He was ever wont to say that, after an uneasy night, he would rise eager and lively when he remembered he was about to sally forth to see some fresh town or district. Never did I see him less subject to fatigue or less querulous of his ailments; so full of spirit both on the road and at his lodgings; so appreciative of everything he saw, and eager for conversation with strangers; indeed I believe that this habit drew off his thoughts from his infirmities. When the others complained to him of his practice of leading the party over indirect and winding roads, often returning to the spot whence they had set out (which he would often do when he heard report of something worth seeing, or when he saw reason for varying his plan of travel), he would reply that, for his own part, he never set forth for any place other than that in which he might at present find himself; and that it was impossible he should miss or go aside from his route, because this route always lay where places unfamiliar to him were to be seen; and that, provided he did not fare the same road twice over, or see one place a second time, he never considered that he had failed one jot in his original purpose. As to Rome, which other people might easily see, he was less fain to visit it than other places, because it was well known to every one, and moreover every lackey was ready to give news of Florence and Ferrara. He said that he seemed to be in like case to one who reads some delightful story or good book, and dreads to turn the last page. The pleasure of travel was to him so keen, that he hated the sight of the place where he ought rightly to stop and rest; moreover, he devised several projects of travelling exactly as the mood might seize him, supposing that he should separate from his present companions.
On the Sunday morning, having a wish to see the Lake of Garda, a famous lake of these parts and rich in the finest fish,[117] he hired three horses for himself and Messieurs de Caselis and Mattecoulon at twenty batzen apiece. M. d’Estissac hired two others for himself and the Sieur du Hautoy, and with no escort—having left their own horses at this place, Rovere, for the day—they rode eight miles to Torbole, where they dined. This is a village under Tirolese jurisdiction, situated at the head of the lake, and opposite to it is a small town and a castle called Riva.[118] To this place they were taken by water, five miles, and the same distance to return; they accomplished the journey in about three hours, being rowed by five boatmen. They saw nothing at Riva save a tower which had the appearance of great age, and the governor of the place, the Seigneur Hortimato Madruccio, brother of the present cardinal bishop of Trante. In looking down the lake the farther end is not in view, for it is thirty-five miles long, while the width and all they could see of it did not exceed five miles. The head of the lake is in the county of Tirol, but all the lower part on either side is under the Signiory of Venice, a region rich in fine churches, gardens of olives, oranges, and other similar fruits. This lake is terribly rough in times of tempest, and the surrounding mountains are more bare and threatening than any of those we had hitherto passed, according to the report of Messieurs.[119] On quitting Rovere they crossed the Adisse, leaving the road to Verona to the left hand, and entered a deep valley where they passed through a long village and a small town, the road being the roughest and the view the most forbidding of any they had yet experienced, by reason of these mountains which obstructed the way. On leaving Torbole, they returned to Rovere to supper.
At this place we put our trunks on one of the rafts, which are called flottes in Germany, for conveyance to Verona by the river Adisse, paying therefor a florin, and on the morrow I had the charge of this transport. For supper they gave us poached eggs and a pike, together with a great plenty of flesh of all kinds. On the next morning, Monday, they set forth early, and following the valley, fairly populous but not over fertile and flanked by high, rocky mountains, they arrived after riding fifteen miles at Bourquet[120] in time for dinner. This town lies within the county of Tirol, which is very large. In this matter M. de Montaigne, when he asked whether this county included aught else than the valley we had traversed and the mountain tops we had seen, was informed that it contained divers other mountain valleys, fully as extensive and fertile, and fine towns: that the county was, as we saw it, like a robe in folds, but that, were it spread out, it would cover a very wide stretch of country. The river was all this time on the right hand, and when they resumed their journey after dinner they kept the same road as far as Chiusa, a small fort in a mountain cleft above the Adisse, which the Venetians had taken. They followed the course of the river, descending a steep slope of solid rock over which the horses could hardly keep their feet, and passing the fort aforesaid, where the Venetian government, in whose territory they had been after a mile or two on this side of Bourquet, kept twenty-five soldiers. They arrived in time for bed at Volarne after riding twelve miles. At this place they found wretched lodging, as everywhere else on the way to Verona. A young lady, the daughter of the lord of the castle who was then absent, sent M. de Montaigne a present of wine. On the morrow there were no more mountains visible on the right of the road, and to the left even the hills which lay upon the skirts of the plain were far distant. The way was for some time over a sterile plain, but when it neared the river it improved, and vines, trained upon trees, as is the fashion in these parts, came in sight. After a journey of twelve miles they arrived on All Saints’ Day before mass at Verona.
END OF VOL. I.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] The MS. of the Journal was incomplete at the time of its discovery, certain leaves having been torn away from the beginning, but the concluding paragraphs supply the date at which Montaigne must have left home, i.e. June 22, 1580. He seems to have halted at the outset of his journey near La Fère, which was at that time besieged by the forces of the League under Marshal de Matigon, and to have gone thence to Beaumont-sur-Oise, where the Journal begins on September 4th. The siege of La Fère was undertaken by Henry III. as a counter-move to the recent capture of Cahors by the Huguenots. Operations were some time delayed by the shortness of money and by an outbreak of whooping-cough, the first recorded appearance of this distemper. The king, the greater part of the courtiers, and thousands of the people of Paris were attacked, and the whole city was panic-stricken. When the Catholic leaders were at length ready to move, they spoke of the task before them as “un siège de velours,” anticipating little difficulty or danger; but they lost two thousand men before the place fell on August 31st.
[2] For notice of Mattecoulon and D’Estissac, see Introduction.
[3] There is no exact clue to the identity of this person, but there is a passage in the Essais, iii. 4, which seems to refer to him: “Je fus entre plusieurs autres de ses amis, conduire à Soissons le corps de Monsieur de Grammont, du siège de la Fère, où il fut tué.”