CHAMOUNI AND MT. BLANC.
“’Pon my honor, ’tis very fine,” said a very red-faced, red-whiskered Englishman, who had followed me to my solitary stand-point. “What do you think of it? Is it not fine: very fine?” And so he kept chattering on, till I crept off gently a few rods, and again essayed to be alone. But my tormentor followed up, and renewed his attack, as if it were impossible for him to see the prospect with any satisfaction unless he could keep talking to somebody all the while. A small house of entertainment stands here, and while my Englishman went in to have some brandy and water, I managed to get a few moments of undisturbed possession of the scene. Of all the points of observation in this country of stupendous scenes, there is no one that furnishes a more sublime and glorious spectacle than this. It is the crowning hour of the tour of Switzerland. I felt that I had reached the climax, and with reverence I could make a parody on the words of old Simeon. All my feelings have been of reverence in this country. The Alps and God have been around me for a month, and my soul has been rising in high converse with Him who covers these hills with his presence, and is glorious in the solitudes of these vales. And now as I look off at these glistening glaciers, so many miles of resplendent ice, a Mer de Glace, a sea of glass, lying among those mountains, and extending far down into the vales below; when I look up at these precipitous peaks actually piercing the clouds, and then at the solemn brows of those giant mountains, where the foot of man has seldom trod, and the glory of God is forever shining, I feel a sense of the presence of the Infinite and Eternal as no other scene has ever yet awakened in my soul. With the disciples on another Mount, I feel “it is good to be here.”
That was my first sight of Mont Blanc. The day could not have been more favorable, and that evening as the sun went down, I stood in the vale of Chamouni and saw his last rays lingering on the summit, the stars trooping around it at night, and the next morning before sunrise I was out again to see the first beams of day as they kissed his brow.
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.—
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink;
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth’s rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, O! wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad,
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam?
And who commanded, (and the silence came,)
“Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?”—
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain!
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer, and the ice-plains echo, God!—
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!—
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost,
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest,
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm,
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds,
Ye signs and wonders of the element,
Utter forth, God! and fill the hills with praise.—
Once more, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast.—
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain thou
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration upward from thy base,
Slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me,—rise, O! ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven.
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
Coleridge.
CHAPTER XII.
GENEVA.
A good House—Prisoner of Chillon—Calvin—Dr. Malan—Dr. Gaussen—Col. Tronchin—The Cemetery.
The Hotel des Bergues stands on the Lake of Geneva, just where the “arrowy Rhone” shoots out from its bosom. This is one of the finest hotels in Europe, and with the Trois Couronnes at Vevay, may fairly challenge comparison with any other. I brought up at this house from the Vale of Chamouni. The dismal rain through which I had been riding on a chill autumn day, had increased to a storm, and the old town, that is gloomy enough at any time, was peculiarly uninviting on its first appearance. But this city I had longed to visit, even from the time that I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “the farthest town of the Allobroges and the nearest to the frontier of the Helvetii, is Geneva.” Julius Cæsar took possession of it, and the remains of his erections are to be seen at the present day.
The Christian religion was introduced in the fifth century, and bishops appointed by the Pope by degrees became lords temporal as well as spiritual, which they are very apt to do as fast and as far as they can get the power. The right of naming the Bishops, about the year 1400, fell into the hands of the ducal house of Savoy, and their creatures became despots of the reddest dye. Their oppressions grew to be so intolerable that the citizens rebelled. A bloody persecution ensued. The chapter of its history is among the darkest of the records of popery. The deeds of patriotic heroism which were brought out have scarcely a parallel. One citizen cut his own tongue out with a razor, lest the torture should compel him to betray his friends. Bonnivard became the chained prisoner of Chillon. But his story is not to be passed over without being told.