After looking a while, I mounted again, and stood on the very top of the hill; and, to my surprise, there, on the other side lay just such another valley, with just such a village in its bosom, and the single improvement of a river—the Yonne stealing through it, with its riband-like stream; but all the rest of the valley almost exactly as I have described the other. I crossed a vineyard to get a view to the southeast, and once more there lay a deep hollow valley before me, formed like the other two, with its little hamlet and its vineyards and mountains—as if there had been three lakes in the hills, with their edges touching like three bowls, and the terrace on which I stood was the platform between them. It is a most singular formation of country, really, and as beautiful as it is singular. Each of these valleys might be ten miles across; and if the dukes of Burgundy in feudal times rode ever to St. Bris, I can conceive that their dukedom never seemed larger to them than when crossing this triple apex of highland.
At Saulieu we left the usual route, and crossed over to Chagny. Between these two places lay a spot, which, out of my own country, I should choose before all others for a retreat from the world. As it was off the route, the guide-book gave me not even the name, and I have discovered nothing but that the little hamlet is called Rochepot. It is a little nest of wild scenery, a mimic valley shut in by high overhanging crags, with the ruins of a battlemented and noble old castle, standing upon a rock in the centre, with the village of some hundred stone cottages at its very foot. You might stand on the towers of the ruins, and toss a biscuit into almost every chimney in the village. The strong round towers are still perfect, and the turrets and loop-holes and windows are still there; and rank green vines have overrun the whole mass everywhere; and nothing but the prodigious solidity with which it was built could have kept it so long from falling, for it is evidently one of the oldest castles in Burgundy. I never before saw anything, even in a picture, which realized perfectly my idea of feudal position. Here lived the lord of the domain, a hundred feet in the air in his rocky castle, right over the heads of his retainers, with the power to call in every soul that served him at a minute's warning, and with a single blast of his trumpet. I do not believe a stone has been displaced in the village for a hundred years. The whole thing was redolent of antiquity. We wound out of the place by a sharp narrow pass, and there, within a mile of this old and deserted fortress, lay the broad plains of Beaune and Chagny—one of the most fertile and luxurious parts of France. I was charmed altogether. How many things I have seen this side the water that I have made an involuntary vow in my heart to visit again, and at more leisure, before I die!
From Chagny it was but one post to Chalons, and here I am in a pretty, busy town, with broad beautiful quays, where I have promenaded till dark, observing this out-of-doors people; and now, having written a long letter for a sleepy man, I will get to bed, and redeem some portion of my two nights' wakefulness.
LETTER XXIII.
PASSAGE DOWN THE SAONE—AN ODD ACQUAINTANCE—LYONS—CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME DE FOURVIERES—VIEW FROM THE TOWER.
I looked out of my window the last thing before going to bed at Chalons, and the familiar constellation of Ursa Major never shone brighter, and never made me a more agreeable promise than that of fair weather the following day for my passage down the Saone. I was called at four, and it rained in torrents. The steamboat was smaller than the smallest I have seen in our country, and crowded to suffocation with children, women, and lap-dogs. I appropriated my own trunk, and spreading my umbrella, sat down upon it, to endure my disappointment with what philosophy I might. A dirty-looking fellow, who must have slept in his clothes for a month, came up, with a loaf of coarse bread under his arm, and addressed me, to my sufficient astonishment, in Latin! He wanted to sit under my umbrella. I looked at him a second time, but he had touched my passion. Latin is the only thing I have been driven to, in this world, that I ever really loved; and the clear, mellow, unctuous pronunciation of my dirty companion equally astonished and pleased me. I made room for him on my trunk, and, though rusted somewhat since I philosophized over Lucretius, we got on very tolerably. He was a German student, travelling to Italy, and a fine specimen of the class. A dirtier man I never saw, and hardly a finer or more intellectual face. He knew everything, and served me as a talking guide to the history of all the places on the river.
Instead of eating all at once, as we do on board the steamboats in America, the French boats have a restaurant, from which you order what you please, and at any hour. The cabin was set round with small tables, and the passengers made little parties, and breakfasted and dined at their own time. It is much the better method. I descended to the cabin very hungry about twelve o'clock, and was looking about for a place, when a French gentleman politely rose, and observing that I was alone, (my German friend living on bread and water only,) requested me to join his party at breakfast. Two young ladies and a lad of fourteen sat at the table, and addressing them by their familiar names, my polite friend requested them to give me a place; and then told me that they were his daughters and son, and that he was travelling to Italy for the health of the younger girl, a pale, slender creature, apparently about eighteen. I was very well pleased with my position, and rarely have passed an hour more agreeably. French girls of the better classes never talk, but the father was very communicative, and a Parisian, with the cross of the Legion of Honor, and we found abundance of matter for conversation. They have stopped at Lyons, where I write at present, and I shall probably join their party to Marseilles.
The clouds broke away after mid-day, and the banks of the river brightened wonderfully with the change. The Saone is about the size of the Mohawk, but not half so beautiful; at least for the greater part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly compare American with European rivers, for the charm is of another description, quite. With us it is nature only, here it is almost all art. Our rivers are lovely, because the outline of the shore is graceful, and particularly because the vegetation is luxuriant. The hills are green, the foliage deep and lavish, the rocks grown over with vines or moss, the mountains in the distance covered with pines and other forest-trees; everything is wild, and nothing looks bare or sterile. The rivers of France are crowned on every height with ruins, and in the bosom of every valley lies a cluster of picturesque stone cottages; but the fields are naked, and there are no trees; the mountains are barren and brown, and everything looks as if the dwellings had been deserted by the people, and nature had at the same time gone to decay. I can conceive nothing more melancholy than the views upon the Saone, seen, as I saw them, though vegetation is out everywhere, and the banks should be beautiful if ever. As we approached Lyons the river narrowed and grew bolder, and the last ten miles were enchanting. Naturally the shores at this part of the Saone are exceedingly like the highlands of the Hudson above West Point. Abrupt hills rise from the river's edge, and the windings are sharp and constant. But imagine the highlands of the Hudson crowned with antique chateaux, and covered to the very top with terraces and summer-houses and hanging-gardens, gravel walks and beds of flowers, instead of wild pines and precipices, and you may get a very correct idea of the Saone above Lyons. You emerge from one of the dark passes of the river by a sudden turn, and there before you lies this large city, built on both banks, at the foot and on the sides of mountains. The bridges are fine, and the broad, crowded quays, all along the edges of the river, have a beautiful effect. We landed at the stone stairs, and I selected a hotel by chance, where I have found seven Americans of my acquaintance. We have been spending the evening at the rooms of a townsman of mine, very pleasantly.
There is a great deal of magnificence at Lyons, in the way of quays, promenades, and buildings; but its excessive filthiness spoils everything. One could scarce admire a Venus in such an atmosphere; and you cannot find room to stand in Lyons where you have not some nauseating odor. I was glad to escape from the lower streets, and climb up the long staircases to the observatory that overhangs the town. From the base of this elevation the descent of the river is almost a precipice. The houses hang on the side of the steep hill, and their doors enter from the long alleys of stone staircases by which you ascend. On every step, and at almost every foot of the way, stood a beggar. They might have touched hands from the quay to the summit. If they were not such objects of real wretchedness, it would be laughable to hear the church calendar of saints repeated so volubly. The lame hobble after you, the blind stumble in your way, the sick lie and stretch out their hands from the wall, and all begin in the name of the Virgin Mary, and end with "Mon bon Monsieur," and "un petit sous." I confined my charities to a lovely child, that started out from its mother's lap, and ran down to meet us—a dirty and ragged little thing, but with the large dark eyes of the province; and a skin, where one could see it, of the clearest nut-brown teint. Her mother had five such, and each of them, to any one who loved children, would have been a treasure of beauty and interest.