The scenery everywhere about St. Gall is purely Alpine. The “Rosenberg,” a long, low mountain close by, is lined with magnificent villas; nothing like it elsewhere in the world. Back of these villas, far below them, but still in view, is the Lake of Constance. In front of them, deep in the valley, sits the city, while beyond the valley rise the glorious mountains. Nature and man have combined here to make everything beautiful. The people are kind and hospitable, more so than elsewhere in Switzerland. Evenings, we are often invited out to homes where the characteristic St. Gall life is enjoyable.
Many a time we have climbed up the Apfelberg to the homes of Swiss friends. Sylvester evenings, Christmas evenings, and the like, are celebrated by family reunions, sparkling Christmas trees and great dinners. Wine flows like water and the fatted Nüremberg goose takes the place of the American turkey. A circle is formed around the Christmas tree and all join hands and dance, father, mother, sister, brother, friends and servants. As at the country houses in England, for once, servants and master are on a footing. Everybody taking part gets his present.
On summer evenings the young ladies of the house sometimes place by our plates at supper wild Alpine roses that grew in their own garden. Possibly not another spot in the world, where fine modern homes and Alpine roses are side by side.
The view of the illuminated city at night from these high villas, is grand beyond any fireworks ever conceived. On festive occasions, fires are built on the sides of the opposite mountains, or Bengal lights burn on villa lawns high up beyond the valley, when the scene reveals all our imagined pictures of fairyland.
The Americans, together with the Minister and Consuls in Switzerland, celebrated the Fourth of July at the hotel “Baur au Lac” in Zurich. Minister Washburn presided. Many were present. The day before, I had sent cowboys into the higher Alps about St. Gall, to gather Alpine roses for the occasion. They brought me bushels of them, and the chief decoration of the table at the banquet was a solid pyramid of Alpine roses ten feet high.
Few American tourists visit St. Gall, but many New York importers have agents and factories here. There is a constant business rivalry between them and the Swiss.
One of the interesting people who came to us this summer was Princess Salm Salm. She has her home at Bonn on the Rhine. She is one of the most beautiful women to be met anywhere. A kind heart has kept her young. She is one of the few Americans who married foreign titles and were happy. It was a love match--not a buying of a bride. Her life has been one of extraordinary interest. Her husband, a German Prince on General Bleeker’s staff in our Civil War, fell in love with the young beauty at Washington, married her, and when the war was done took her with him to Mexico, where he was a high officer on the staff of the Emperor Maximilian. Like the Emperor, he was sentenced to be shot. His young wife, by extraordinary cleverness and great exertion, saved his life. History now relates how the Emperor’s life would have been saved also, had he followed this clever woman’s plans. All was arranged for his escape. The Emperor hesitated and was lost. The Prince and Princess went to Germany, where her beauty, talents and rank, brought her friends among the great people of the country. She and her husband were favorites of the King of Prussia. When the war with France broke out the Prince was an officer in the Fourth Guards, or the Queen’s Own regiment. His wife was one of the titled women of Germany who labored in the army hospitals. The Prince was shot dead while leading his command at Gravelotte. The Princess remained, helping the wounded to the end of the war. A more fascinating book than her story of her life in three wars, I have not read. Many novels have this interesting woman for their heroine.
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Mer de Glace, Chamouny.--[Page 311.]