A word as to the place where they lived and worked. Travellers who have visited Antwerp must remember the handsome Renaissance tower of St. Charles Borromeo’s Church, on the corner of the Katelina Rampart and Wyngard Street. That church was originally dedicated to St. Ignatius, the great first Jesuit, and was once a museum of Rubens’ art. At the suppression of the society its best ornaments were removed to Vienna, where many of them may be seen in the public gallery. The church itself perished by fire in 1718, but soon rose again as before. The small square it stands in is formed on two sides by massive buildings, formerly the Antwerp house of the professed fathers of the society. In the upper floor of the building opposite the church Père Bolland established his museum and printing-press, and there the work was carried on for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Few places in the history of Christian literature have a better title to be remembered with honor. In another article we shall trace the progress of the Bollandist Acta after the suppression of the Jesuit fathers until the long suspension of the work itself consequent on the French Revolution. We shall then give our readers an account of its revival some forty years ago, together with a description of the new museum and library in the Collége St. Michel, Brussels, which the writer had the honor of visiting a short time ago.
TOMBS OF THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.
“Let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”—Shakspere.
One of the most secluded and picturesque valleys of Savoy is to be found about twenty miles north of Chambéry, shut in, as by cyclopean walls, among gray jagged rocks, height piled on height—Mont du Chat on the one hand, and the mountains of Beauges on the other, while away to the north, through the gorges that give passage to the arrowy Rhone, is the dark Jura range, and to the south-east, rising into the very clouds, shine the everlasting glaciers of the Alps. At the base of Mont du Chat, which here rises abruptly fifteen hundred feet from the shore, is the beautiful lake of Bourget, clear, calm, and pure as the bright summer sky which is reflected in its bosom. It is the lac enchanté of Lamartine, who opens his impassioned romance of Raphael upon its shores, and under the inspiration of the glorious scenery wrote his poem of “Le Lac,” in which he calls upon the hours on these enchanted waters to suspend their course, and thus prolong a bliss which, to use his expression, neither time nor eternity could ever restore. In the fulness of delight and feeling he cries:
“Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent,
Coulez, coulez pour eux,
Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent,
Oubliez les heureux!”
The lake of Bourget winds for several leagues in and out among the capes and headlands, forming a beautiful series of bays and inlets which wash picturesque cliffs and verdant slopes covered with vines and fig-trees and fields of waving corn. Towards one end is the little islet of Châtillon, with an old manor-house that seems to grow out of the rock, the seat of an ancient race, flanked with towers, and surrounded by gardens with steps cut in the rock leading from terrace to terrace where grow fruitful espaliers and the fragrant jasmine. Further south is the promontory of Saint-Innocent, with its granite cliffs and ancient château jutting into the lake, of which it commands the entire view. Not far from the eastern shore is Aix-les-Bains, whose hot sulphur springs were frequented in ancient times by the Roman emperors, and are still resorted to for health or pleasure. Between Aix and the lake is the verdant hill of Tresserves, that rises almost perpendicularly from the water, covered with enormous old chestnut-trees. To the south you can see the mountains gradually descending towards the Arcadian valley of Chambéry, with many a village spire peering forth amid the dark walnut groves, or the tower of some ancient castle with battlements still frowning, though they now only serve to point a moral and adorn the landscape, if not, perchance, a tale. On the other side, at the foot of Tresserves, is the château of Bon Port, overshadowed by trees, near a sheltered bay where boats are to be found for crossing the lake. Every one goes over to the western shore, where in the gloomy shade of Mont du Chat, which veils it from the glare of the sun the greater part of the day, is the royal abbey of Hautecombe, the ancient burial-place of the house of Savoy. The profound solitude, the grandeur of the scenery, varying from stern mountain height to fair, sunny slopes and luxuriant valleys, and the pure, limpid waters of the tranquil lake giving expression to the landscape, render it one of the most lovely as well as peaceful spots in which to rest after life’s fitful fever. The luminous sky, the purple, light on the mountains, the stately colonnade of the pines with their solemn shades, the lulling sound of the torrents and cascades, the wind murmuring through the defiles, the sunny terraces where the eye passes from gloom to light, as the soul from darkness to joy, all dispose the heart to peace.