Thonon looked exceedingly tempting as it rose above the lake. My nephew declared that it was built even more Chablais than it looked—a pun which would have resulted in a scene of decapitation had we been under Alice’s Duchess. He atoned for it however by promising to take me on an excursion up the valley of the Dranse, which is one of the most fascinating rivers in Savoy.
As usual he fulfilled his promise. We equipped ourselves for walking, and, taking it leisurely, climbed along the river to the little hamlet of Saint Jean d’Aulph, where we admired the taste of the eleventh-century Cistercians who built their monastery in such a nook of the mountains. We finally arrived at Champéry, and, of course, admired the primitive calvaire and the stunning view. There, I remember, my worthy Will quoted that charming passage from Henri-Frédéric Amiel, which indeed might be applied to dozens of other horizon-aspects. He says—but it is much more effective in French:—
“The profile of the horizon takes on all forms: needles, pinnacles, battlements, pyramids, obelisks, teeth, hooks, claws, horns, cupolas; the denticulation is bent, is turned back on itself, is twisted, is accentuated in a thousand ways, but in the angular style of sierras. Only the lower and secondary ranges present rounded tops, fleeting and curving lines. The Alps are more than an upheaval, they are a tearing asunder of the surface of the earth.”
These calvaires, or rustic shrines, frequently met with in the Catholic cantons, are picturesque in their setting and though not in themselves beautiful, add much to the charm of a prospect, giving the human element, at its most humble expression, that of devotion, in contradistinction to the awful and inhuman wildness of Nature in her most tremendous and imposing aspect. Even common names here take a religious colour, as for instance the Crêt d’eau, which becomes the Credo.
Those that climb the Haute Cime of the Dent du Midi find Champéry a convenient starting-point. I, who had once in one day climbed over all the peaks of the Presidential Range, felt an ambitious stirring to repeat the feat on a higher and grander scale—taking all the six peaks in succession—La Dent Noire, La Forteresse, La Cathédrale, La Dent Jaune, and Le Doigt up to the Haute Cime.
Such an exploit would be too fatiguing for one of my venerable years, but I have seen photographs of the view from the top of the Dent du Midi, and when one has been on one mountain, even though it be not quite thirty-three hundred meters high, the views are only variants, even when one has Mont Blanc piled up across a marvellous valley filled with glaciers and azure lakes.
It is wonderful how quickly in her slow way this same cruel Mother Nature repairs the damage she does—damage as seen by human eyes. Down the side of the Dent du Midi in 1835 swept a rock-fall. Two years later, on the road between Geneva and Chamonix, a pretty little lake which was the delight of travellers was filled by a similar avalanche of rocks.
Etienne Javelle gives a vivid description of some of these catastrophes:—
“If one would take a keen pleasure in climbing the Col de Jorat,” he says, “one must be interested in something more than simple picturesque effects; especially must the climber, facing the contorted and tottering condition of these immense rocks, seek to realize the cataclysms of which these places have been the scene and those that still threaten them. When this sympathetic attitude has been attained, nothing can be more impressive than the glen and torrent of Saint-Barthelémy.
“These mountains could add many pages to the chapter of Alpine catastrophes; they have more than once terribly alarmed the inhabitants, and each generation can relate to the succeeding one the convulsions which it has witnessed.