Stom f 5e feifirari? of Qprofe66or ^amuef OXiflPer in (gtemor^ of 3ubge ^antuef (tttifPer QStecftinribge ^reeenfeb 6j^ ^amuef (ttlifPer (grecftinribge feon^ to f 3e £i6rari? of (prtncefon C^eofogicaf ^emtnarj .B83 MEMORANDA / FOREIGN TRAVEL CONTAINING NOTICES FRANCE, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AND ITALY. v^ BY ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE PHILADELPHIA: JOSEPH WHETHAM 144, CHESNUT STBEET. 1839. \'i <^ 4 ' -^^ >i"Ni ^N^S*-^ Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by Robert J. Bueckinridge. in the Clerk's Office of the Dis- trict Court of Maryland. BALTIMORE: IRINTBD BY MATCBBTT AND NEItSOKt ADVERTISEMENT. Ix submiting the present volume to the public, a brief expla- nation appears to be necessary. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Chui'ch.in the United States of America, appointed the Author its represen- tative to certain churches in Great Britain ; upon vvhicH Mission he left his native country in the spring of the year 1836. The result of a portion of his tour in Europe, consequent upon that appointment, is given in the followinor patres. As soon as cir- cumstances will permit, it is proposed to issue a second volume, on England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and after that, a third, de- voted entirely to France, especially the south of France and the general interests of that mighty kingdom. Each of these volumes is entirely independent of both the others ; though in a certain sense they form one whole, and were at first intended to have been issued together. In that case the present volume would have been the second of the series. It is now issued first, only because being complete in itself and in a greater state of forwardness than either of the others, no sufficient reason for longer delay occurs to the author. The more especially as the proper duties of his station, of which literary employment is a relaxation and not a business, might ia time to come, as in time past, have imperceptibly lengthened out weeks of delay into months, and months into years. Baltimore, Sept.^ 1839. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Entrance into France ; Boulogne ; Custom House ; Courier ; Language ; Houses ; People ; The Town ; The Surroundmg Country ; Napoleon's Column ; Mode of Life amongst the Agricultural Labourers, - - - t CHAPTER II. Travelling in France; French Money; Departure from Boulogne; Public Agitation; Route to Paris ; Sanier ; Moiitreuil; Crecy; Bernay; Bauvais; Abbeville; Face of the Country; Incidents; Pauperism; Harvest; Vine- yards ; St. Dennis ; Postillions ; Entrance into Paris, - - - - 10 CHAPTER III. Paris; Its Greatness; Situation; Beauty; Coup d' ceil of it ; Sabbath Day in Paris; Sabbath Scenes ; Reformed Church in the Rue Taitbout; Ser- vice in French, and in English ; Garden of the Thuileiies ; Place de la Concorde; Champs Elysees ; Fete of the Revolution; Scenes by Lamp- light ; A Crowd ; The Inauguration of the Triumphal Arch at Barriere de Neuilly, -,.- = .- ^20 CHAPTER IV. Religious Establishment of Paris; Papal Clergy; The Concordat ; Dress of the Ecclesiastics ; Archbishoprick of Paris; Nuns; The Churches; Cathe- dral of Notre Dame; A Marriage ; Tiie Ciioir; Coronation of Napoleon; Piws VU. ; A Funeral, - . - . - - ^ - -! . 34 1* VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Goodness of Heart of the French ; St. Gervais ; Pictures ; A Gem of Albert Durer : Relics ; Transubstantiation ; St. Eustache ; Idolatry of the Sacred Heart; Baptism of an Infant; La Madelaine; Miracle in Marble; The Pantheon ; Mirabeau ; Names of the Slain in the Revolution of July ; St. Genevieve ; Her Miracles, Tomb and Adoration ; Private Masses, PAOE. CHAPTER VI. Religious State of France, past and present; Early Conversion of the King- dom to Christianity, and Apostacy to Romanism; Influence of the latter on France; Liberties of the Gallican Church; The Pragmatic Sanction; The first Concordat; General Councils; Former State of the Clerg)'; Their Influence upon the Revolution of 1789 ; Then Conduct during its Progress ; Era of Popular Infidelity and Disorder ; The Concordat of 1802 ; Present State of tlie Papal Church in France ; Open and General Contempt of Religion ; Superstition ; Bigotry, --------56 CHAPTER VII. Departure from Paris ; Our Party ; Route to Germany by Su-asbourg ; Equip- ment ; Notices of the Country ; Champagne ; Vme Culture ; Agricultural Population; Chateau Thierry ; Meux ; Eppernay; Chalons; France, twice the Preserver of European Civilization, ------- CHAPTER VIII. Route from Chalons to the Rhine ; Lorraine ; General Aspect of the Country ; Alsace ; The Vosges and Saveme Mountams ; The Western Valley of the Rliine ; National Manners and Employments ; Inns ; Items and Incidents ; Gf n»r»l Condition, Character and Customs of tlie People, CHAPTER IX. The City of Nancy ; The princely House of Lorraine ; Strasbourg ; The Ca- thedral; Idolatrous Worship of Joan of Arc, and of tlie Virgin Mary, CONTENTS. Yii Ascent of the Cathedral Spire ; View from it ; Lists of Names ; Telegraph ; ^*°^' Insurrection of Louis Napoleon ; Reminiscence of John Calvin, . _ gg CHAPTER X. Entrance into Germany ; Grand Duchy of Baden ; Passports ; The Black Forest; Appearance of the People; Agriculture; Climate; Face of the Country ; Language ; Religion ; The Grand Duke and his Family ; Valley of the Kinzig, --'-------._. 93 CHAPTER XI. Architectural Ruins ; Minute Description of those at Hochberg ; Mountains of the Black Forest; Sourcesof the Danube ; Principality of Furstenburg; First Glimpse of the Boden See ; The Schwartzwold, _ _ _ loi CHAPTER XII. Entrance into Switzerland ; Canton and City of SchafThausen ; Notices of the Government ; Manners ; Habits ; Dwellings ; Language ; Religion and Religious Services ; Reflections ; Curious mode of collecting Alms ; De- scription of the Cataract of the Rhine, and the Surrounding Scenery; John Muller ; Ride up the Rhine, from SchafThausen to Constance, 108 CHAPTER XIII. Constance ; Hall of the Council of 1414 ; Collection of Relics, Idols, Arms, &c. ; Anecdote ; Ruined Convents ; Martyrdom of John Husa and Jerome of Prague; Spirit of the Council; Early Efforts at Reformation ; Multitudes who attended on the Council of Constance ; Desolate Condition of the City ; Beauty of the natural objects around it ; First Sight of the Alps ; Cathedral ; Column of the Virgin Mary, --15-5--- 118 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. TA.GE. Canton Thurgovie ; Route from Constance to Zurich ; Civil and Political Condition ; Cholera ; Quarantines ; Agriculture ; Singular Dress ; Canton Zurich; Gieat Prosperity; Grain Market; City and Lake of Zurich; William Tell ; Feelings of the Swiss towards Americans ; Difficulties with France; National Spirit; Arsenal of Zurich; Ulric Zwingle ; Lavater; Literary and Religious Establishments ; National Costume ; Burial of the Dead ; Birth of an Infant, --- -1*) CHAPTER XV. Occupation of Switzerland by the Romans; Canton Zug; The Fields of Cappel and Morgarten ; Churches ; Don Carlos ; Exposure of the Dead ; Canton Schwytz ; Remains of Ancient Dialects ; The Avelanche of Goldau ; Mont Rigi ; Remarkable Geological PeculiariUes ; TeU's Chapel ; The Alps, 141 CHAPTER XVI. Die Vier Waldstetten ; Origin of the Swiss Confederacy and Independence ; Canton Luzern ; Agiiculture of the Central Cantons ; City and Lake of Luzern; The Vast Chain of the .'Ups ; Public Worship ; Bridges; National Curiosity ; The Lion of Thorwaldsen, __,-_-- 152 CHAPTER XVII. Security of Interior Switzerland ; Battle Fields ; Route from Luzern to Bein ; Art of Travelling; The Enllibuch; Swiss Cottages ; The Emmen- thal ; General SUuclure of the Alpine Ranges ; City of Bern ; Public Fare; Costume; Political Changes, -------- 161 CHAPTER XVIII. Infloencc of the Local Situation of Switzerland ; Effects of the Revolution of 1830; Foreign Interference with the Affairs of the Confederation; Diffi- culliea with France in 1836; National Spirit of the Swiss; Fellenberg ; Personal Troubles; Defipiency of American Diplomatic Agents ; Notices •f Bern ; Influence of Alpine Scenery, ------ 170 CONTENTS, ix CHAPTER XIX. PAGE. Canton Freyburg ; Joseph Wolf; The Country of Gruyeres ; Pilgrims ; City of Freyburg ; Great Suspension Bridge ; The Peasantry ; Goitres ; Roman Antiquities, _.-----._. ,.179 CHAPTER XX. Canton Vaud ; Religious State ; Momiers ; Dr. Malan ; Felix Neff ; PoUtical Condition of the Canton ; Approach to Lausanne ; The City Itself; Gibbon, tlie Historian ; The Cathedral ; FeUx V. ; The Council of Basle ; The Reigning Prince of Hesse Cassel ; Manners of the Great; The Special Use of German Princes ; Addition of Canton Vaud to the Helvetic Confed- eration, ____--_ -187 CHAPTER XXI. Shores of Lac Leman ; The Vintage ; Labourers ; Common Use of Wine ; Lake Craft ; Coppet ; Madame De Stael ; Pestalozzi ; The Residence and Literary Labours of Byron ; Feruey ; Voltaire ; Estimate of him, - CHAPTER XXII. Canton and City of Geneva, and Region round about; Its past History; Present Condition ; Calvin ; His Services to Geneva ; General Estimate of hun, particularly as a Reformer, and as a Statesman ; His Cotemporaries and Successors ; Former Estimation of Geneva ; General Religious Declen- sion of the Last Century ; That Declension at Geneva, . - - - 204 CHAPTER XXIII. Sketch of tlie Reformed Church of Geneva to its Apostacy ; Arian Version of the Scriptures ; Succession of Truth hi the Church of Geneva ; The Universal Religious Impulse of tlie Present Century ; Its Origin and Pro- gress at Geneva; Robert Haldane; Its Present State; Dr. Malan; The Cliurch of the Bourg du Four; Evangelical Society; Colportage; Efforts : CONTENTS. to Preach the Gospel at Home and Abroad; School of Theology; Th« Importance of its Position and Efforts ; National Clergy ; Popular Condi- tion ; Extraordinary Session of the Grand Council of the Republic; Cimi- tiere de I'Egalite, ---.-_._--. 214 CHAPTER XXIV. Kingdom of Sardinia; Savoy; Popular Superstition ; Adoration of the Sacred Heart; Horrible Extent of Goitre and Idiocy; Singular Trait; National Character ; European Dialects ; Specimens of Savoyard Patois, - - 230 CHAPTER XXV. Physical Aspect of Savoy, and of the Alpine Ranges ; Notices of their GJeneral Structure ; Route Constructed by Napoleon ; Mont Cenis ; Change in our Mode of Travelling ; Italian Voituriers ; European Servants ; Their Condition compared with that of Household Slaves in America, - - 240 CHAPTER XXVI. First Attempt at Travelling without an Interpreter ; Fair at Frangy ; Aix, its Baths and Valley ; Chambery ; The Vale of the Isere, and of St. Jean-de- Mauriennc ; The Gorges of the Alps ; Fortress of Bramont, CHAPTER XXVII. Paasiige of the Alps; Ascent of Mont Cenis; Summit of the Mountain; Glaciers ; Popular mistake as to the route of Hannibal ; Soutliern descent of Cents ; Personal Adventure ; Striking Variation in Climate ; Vastness of the Alpine Range; Coup d'ceilof it; Its Physical, Moral, National Influ- ences; The Vallies of the Doire Repuare, and of the Aosta; Various Passes into Italy; Immense Plains of Piedmont and Lombardy; Con- quests-of Napoleon, --,256 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XXVIII. PAGE. Italy; Territorial Divisions; Kingdom of Sardinia; Piedmont; Coupd'oeil; Social State ; Mendicants ; Priests ; Soldiers ; Immense Difficulties of Reform ; Grounds of Popular Security— The Grandeur of the Future, - 268 CHAPTER XXIX. Turin ; Police ; Sabbath Day Employments ; Palaces ; Churches ; Supersti- tion, Royal and Popular ; Association of the Children of Mary ; Sismondi ; Silvio Pellico — Le Mie Prigione, - - - - - - - - 277 CHAPTER XXX. Gallery of the King at Turin; Egyptian Museum; Cbampollion; Reflections on the Hieroglyphical System ; Hieroglyphical Spirit Inherent in all Lan- guage ; Mummies; Egyptian Civilization ; Illustration of Prophecy ; Quar- antine Regulations ; Another Change of Route ; Espionage ; Social State ; Ejneute; Feverish Condition of Society, -------286 CHAPTER XXXI. Journey from Turin towards Nice; ThePo; Plains of Piedmont; Culture of Silk; Of the Vine i The Climate and Sky of Italy ; Italian Landscapes ; Savighano; Popular Sports, ---------296 CHAPTER XXXII. Lkgurian Mountains ; Colli di Tende ; Mountain Hamlets,; Perils of the way ; Wildness of the region ; Adventiu-e with Muleteers ; Storm upon Mont Braus; Geological Peculiarities; Mountain Goats; The Fruits of Italy ; The Olive ; Project of Napoleon for the Permanent Occupancy of •pper Italy, -----------~" 3(M XU CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. PAGE. Nice; Tlie Mediterranean ; Christopher Columbus ; Human Progress; Trav- ellers ; Romish Ecclesiastics ; Sentiments of iheir People towards them ; Their Condition ; Social, Moral, and Political— Influence of Events since 1830, --_---____---- 313 CHAPTER XXXIV. Present Posture of Rome ; The absolute Union of her cause with that of Despotism ; Encyclique of 1832 ; The Abbe de la Mennais ; Cardinal Pacca ; Briefs of 1833; Encyclique of 1834; Bull to the PoUsh Bishops ; Inevitable Ruin of the Papacy, --------^--326 CHAPTER XXXV. Departure from Nice ; Anti-Chamber of the Commandant of Sardinian Gen- darmerie ; The Waldenses of the Cottienn Alps, _____ sse^ I?IEI!IORA]^DA7 See. CHAPTER I Entrance into France— Boulogne— Custom House— Courier— Languagc-Housea — People— The Town— The Surrounding Country— Napoleon's Column— Mode of Life amongst the Agricultural Labourers, The boat was made fast to the pier at Boulogne Sur Mer> (so called to distinguish it from another Boulogne near Paris,) at eleven o'clock at night. It was as bright a night, as a full moon in July could make ; and as we passed up the strtets of the New Town to the Hotel des Baines, the various colours of the flags which hung from the windows of most of the houses were perfectly distinguishable. It reminded us at once, that this was the first of the three days of July, being the 27th of the month, in which France had accomplished, six years ago, so glorious a revolution. The flag, like every thing French, is rather striking; being composed of three stripes of equal width, running vertically ; the outer one red, the middle white, and the one near the staff, blue. We had not, however, landed so easily, as this slight notice might lead one to infer. Under any circumstances, the great crowd on board could not very speedily disgorge itself, when laden with such quantities and varieties of baggage, alive and inanimate. But the security of the ship owners threw some impediments, and the custom house regulations many more, in Vol. il— 2 S MEMORANDA OF the way of a short walk from the boat's deck, to a comfortable chamber at a hotel. In our own case there was a special and vexatious difficulty : for a lady who travelled under our pro- lection, had packed away her passport, forgotten it, and pro- nounced if lost — at least not in her possession. What should be done was uncertain ; but the most probable result seemed either a delay of some days, till the nearest public American agent could be written to ; or perhaps, a forced return to England. — The first impulse was, of course, frankly to state the case to the proper authorities, and abide the issue. When we had arranged our plans for visiting the continent, the urgent advice of friends in Britain had induced me to employ a person, in the double capacity of interpreter and servant. We had taken into our service, a stout, handsome young man, who speaks English tolerably well, and three or four of the languages of the conti- nent perfectly. His demand, in the way of wages was exhor- bitant, being £lO a month, and his expenses paid ; which aided by a slight sinister expression in his eye, rather settled my mind against him. He mentioned, however, very adroitly, that was a Swiss, and a Protestant; both names went to my heart, and Abram Bejaud, was engaged for the tour. This of course had occurred in England. Ana now in our exigency, he was summoned, and the difficulty explained, with directions lor him to act according to the view of the case stated above. He said it was nothing; leave it to him, and all would be right, &c. : but steadily evaded explaining how he should pr()ceed. In the mean-time most of the passengers were on shore. We in turn proceeded from the boat, by a single plank, one by one, the courier, (as he chose always to call himself) in advance. — The first salutation was from a little Frenchman in a cocked hat nearly as large as himself, who was squatted on his hams on a sort of block, about as high as a man's breast — at tlie shore end of the plank. He demanded evidence that we had paid our passage money ; was shown a ticket, and bade us pass. We were next marched across an open space, into a room, where on one side of a counter sat four or five very respectable looking men in an undress uniform of blue ; and on the other stood FOREIGN TRAVEL. 3 a confused crowd of men, women and children, guards, porters, and soldiers, all talkincr ai once, and none regarding, apparently, what his neighbour said. Pretty soon a man over the counter held up a passport, and uttered sounds, which on the third repe- tition, bore a faint resemblance to my name. I pressed forward — and found our courier and the officers, engaged in a close debate, which as nearly as my very imperfect knowledge of the language would allow me to comprehend, was to the following purport: "This is the passport of Mr. and Mrs. B — ., where are they." "No sir, it is the passport of Mr. and Mrs. and Miss B — .," said Abrani ; and in an instant, his hope of smug- gling our travelling companion through the custom house, flashed on my mind. I was at loss whether to laugh out right, at a device so superlatively ridiculous, when the ages of the parties were considered, or to renounce all benefit from so palpable a fraud, as a thing wrong in itself. But before I could summon self command, and French enough to interfere, the affair was ended. "There are but two named in the passport," said the Frenchman. "Then the American minister has forgotten to put in •'Vim B — .;" rejoined the courier ! " What can be done," said the oflficer! " Done — why let her pass," said Abram ; and suiting the action to the word, hurried our party towards the door. A gendarme, who guarded the door, near the end of tlie counter, seemed to regard all that passed ; and spoke quickly in good English ; "This way sir; this way ladies, let iiim settle it with the Beaureau." And so saying, he turned us out, and the courier back ; but in a moment more, he joined us, and we mixed in the crowd, and hurried to the hotel. It was a very great relief: and the whole matter was treated by the authorities not only in the politest but in the kindest man- ner. They could not but see, that a fraud was practised. But at the same time, they could not but know, that being only travellers, and the person interested, a female, no possible evil could occur. In the inspection of our baggage, I had the same reason to find public fame unjust here, as I had before found on landing in England. Our trunks, sacks, &c., were barely open- ed ; it was a mere form. As to bribery, it is out of the question. 4 MEMORANDA Ot And yet there is no part of the world where more smuggling is carried on, than along this very coast. There is but one solution of the case. Experience had made these people, both here and in England, acute to the last degree. Where there is ground for suspicion, it fastens at once ; and the most searching exam- inations are made. Where there is obviously no design to evade the revenue laws ; nor any intention, to do that, which the gov- ernment could have any interest or desire to prevent, tlie trav- eller may confidently rely on receiving the utmost civility. A ready obedience to law, is surely the duty of all who go volun- tarily into a strange country ; and they who evince that purpose, in a frank and respectful manner, will find little reason to join in the common outcry against the public authorities, for their treat- ment of strangers. Many laws are indeed absurd ; and many customs^at once inconvenient and ridiculous. But we forget our duly to ourselves, when we attempt to evade or resist them ; and are equally unmindful of our duty to others, when those whose office is merely ministerial, are viewed and treated, as if they were the responsible party. And it is strange that people should find it so hard to learn, that in this as in every other case, their own good is promoted by doing what is right. The American who finds himself in France for the first time, will find himself in a new world. The language which he may have been vain enough to suppose he understood somewhat of, because he could read it, and comprehend it, when slowly spoken — he will scarcely know to be French. For I take it that the two most dissimilar things that all the anomalies of human speech present, are the written and spoken language of France. Every thing, however, is strange and peculiar. The people are ae striking as their speech ; their houses, are strange as them- selves ; their dress, in keeping with all ihe rest ; and their very domestic animals, and implements of labour, unique throughout. In France, generally, all large establishments are built in the Ibrm of a hollow square, into which there is usually one large arched entrance, admitting men, and beasts, and vehicles of all sorts. You enter upon a large paved court, and find yourself surrounded by all the appurtenances of the establishment— the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 5 wails of which often mount up six or seven stories in height. — Except the shops, and the residences of people of the poorest kind, it is not common to see doors entering from without, immediately into tlie house : but rather upon the inclosed court. The whole arrangement is admirable, for convenience, for privacy, for shelter from chilly winds and hot sun, and what was not less important in former days, from external violence. — Their roofs are of slate or tile ; the walls chiefly of stone, occasionally of brick — and more rarely of wood and mud : the floors, when made of plank, are curiously constructed of short pieces of oak, laid down in squares, diamonds, &c., and very highly polished ; but they are very often composed of marble, or tiles of eight sides, painted red, and are seldom carpeted: the windows, by a simple contrivance, open each way from the centre, inwards, like a folding door; and are decidedly superior to ours; while the walls of the apartments are generally wain- scotted with wood, highly polished and left of its natural colour, and decorated to excess with the most prodigious mirrors. Such is a French house. If it be a palace, it is only more extensive and superb : if a chateau in the country, only flattened and widened : if a town establishment of a grandee, or a hotel of many residences, or a '^ tavern ^ — in the American sense — the model is the same. Of the people themselves, I had no juster ideas than of their places of abode. The French of the upper classes, are totally misconceived of by us. There is nothing of that frivolity and exaggerated lightness of manner, which have grown into a pro- verb, through the hereditary malice of the English ; but the same dignity, self-possession, and gentleness, which character- ize all gentlemen every where. Nor is. there even in their personal appearance, so much to distinguish them, as I had supposed. All I have seen of the human race, and I have seen specimens of nearly every variety that exists, leads me decidedly to place the people of the middle states in America, at the sum- mit of their kind, for physical advantages. Comparing the French with them, they would be called too short, and too- strongly built for their height. Except this and the common a* 6 MEMORANDA OF use of mustaches, you meet every day, a hundred men, that you are ready to believe are your countrymen. Of the other sex, in this rank of life, I speak not now. There seem to be Cew people of what the English delight to call the middle classes, in France : and there is, well for France, a still smaller proportion of the privileged classes. A gentleman of independent circumstances, rentier, as they call him, is the real representative of the substantial population of the kingdom ; and while those above him, are few in proportion, those below him, imperceptibly decline, from one condition to another, none sinking so low from the level, as the rabble of England. The great body of the labouring people in France, are very peculiar in their dress and appearance. The men seldom wear a hat, which they substitute by a cap, resembling a common night cap. The women wear no bonnets, but instead, a singular looking cap put on hind part before. The consequence is, that all are burnt to a degree of sallowness, approaching the complexion ol" the mulatto. The females work in the fields, with the men, using indiscriminately the same implements of husbandry; and with their short petticoats and bare arms, are more exposed than the other sex. They are in consequence, coarse, large, and homely. About the towns they often claim an exclusive right to occupations, which in other countries belong only to men. — Thus at Boulogne, females are the only porters, and may be seen bearing enormous burdens on their heads and backs, or dragging them in trundles. And yet we should be cautious in condemning such customs ; for this one, I found to be based in reasons at once politic and humane. It is a perquisite attached to the widows of those citizens who had been seamen, or in some way connected with the sea service of this coast. Boulogne is divided into two towns, having little resemblance, and not much connexion. The lower and newer of the two, is situated on the eastern bank of the Uttle river Liane, and is a modern brick town. The upper, or oM town, is built on the top of a high and steep bank, surrounded with a wide stone wall, and is itself of great antiquity. It is the Gessoriacura of Pliny ; a town of the Marini, mentioned by Csesar. From it Catharine FOREIGN TRAVEL. 7 de Medici, took the title of Countess, on her marriage with Henry of Orleans, afterwards king of France. It has given one king to England, and one to Jerusalem ; and here it was, in more ancient times, that Caligula, as Suetonius relates, ordered his troops to rush upon the ocean as upon a hostile army, and plucking up shells and pebbles, conveyed them to Rome, as evidences of his triumph. And wherefore should he not ? Or wherefore should I deride him? Caesar, and Caligula — how immeasurably separated in all that makes man illustrious, both in what he is and what he does. And yet as I tread where both have trod before me, and recall the meanness, the folly, and the infamy of one — and remember the other's greatness, majesty and long renown ; what has twenty centuries left that makes either of them more to earth, or earth to them, than the very fine dust of the balance? It is eternity alone that is worth regarding, as the end of life ; and it only, as an object of effort, can be absolutely secured. While our courier procured the passage of our trunks through the custom house, and was arranging for our departure for Paris on the morning after our arrival, we hired a carriage and drove to tlie monument, commenced by Napoleon, and now nearly completed by Louis Phillippe, to commemorate the military operations in this neighbourhood, preparatory to the contem- plated invasion of England in the year 1814. The column is built of marble ; it is a few miles from Boulogne, situated on an elevated plain in the midst of entrenchments once occupied by vast armies, and mounting up a hundred and sixty French feet, is easily ascended by a flight of steps in the inside. We were shown to the top, by an amazon, and as far as the sense of insecurity arising from a position, protected only by a slight open railing would allow, we enjoyed a boundless prospect of sea and land. To the west, the British channel lay at our feet and melted away into the horizon, out of all reach : towards the north, the English coast was distinctly visible, along an extended line; and to the south and east, the plains of France, wide, naked and uniform, dotted here and there by a village or a forest —indented by the course of some small stream — or roughened 8 MEMORANDA OF aloncr the skirts by the barren red sand hills, that fringe the coast. It is a noble prospect, little known, and seldom visited. The few Americans who come to Bouloorne are laughed out of countenance, at the bare mention of so foolish a purpose by the multitudes of English who resort to this place, partly to enjoy sea bathing, partly to live cheaper than at home, partly to escape tlieir creditors, and principally perhaps because the charge for coming here is less than for going so far in any other direction, out of England. They have not yet forgotten the event to which the monument relates ; and in the degree that all England was terrified then, ail England seems to think it right to be merry and make contemptuous speeches now. I found a kw labourers at work on blocks of marble, intended for the completion of a pavement at the base of the pillar ; but when we descended they were sleeping on the ground under ihe shade of a ^ew neighbouring trees. This led lo a conversa- tion with our giantess, as to the condition and habits of the agri- cultural labourers. I have since had many opportunities to observe their habits, and to obtain information as to their condi- tion. They live generally in villages or small clusters of houses, which are built of stone, or mud, and covered with tile or thatch. Many own small portions of land, purchased at very reduced prices, during the first revolution, when the estates of those who fled, and those who suffered, were confiscated and brought to the hammer. Their food consists of an early breakfast, of bread only, and that of a coarse description ; sometimes a little cheese, still more rarely vegetables, milk, tea or coffee. At twelve o'clock they dine on a soup made of vegetables, enriched by a small piece of butter, or animal fat of some kind, such as skim- mings of boiled meat, or the drippings of such as has been roasted ; and after dinner, a repose in the open air, of an hour or two is taken. Some go home to their mid-day meal — but most have it brought to ihem. About sun-set, they quit work, and eat a third meal, of bread only. Meat is eaten once a week, and a pint of cheap wine, about as often is drank as a luxury.— Such is the life of the agricultural labourers in France; and with it, Uiey seem^ a healthy, contented, and cheerful race. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 9 We returned through the old town, which is smaller than the new, and is very picturesque. In the centre is an ample paved square, where most of the principal buildings for public use are situated ; always excepting the churches, which in all Catholic countries were placed a little out of the Town ; for being always in former times connected with some establishment for the resi- dence of priests, monks, nuns, or some other religious persons, they were located in situations favourable to retirement and privacy. The four principal streets, leading from the four gates of the city, meet in this central square. The streets are all narrow, generally crooked, and overhung by houses, that get wider as they get higher, often having two or three offsets, at as many successive stories. At these offsets the floor and walls above are supported by the most grotesque figures, of men, beasts, and deamons, in every condition of decay. The rampart is planted with trees ; and affords a fine promenade, and delight- ful views of the sea, and the adjacent country. The house ia which Le Sage, the author of Gil Bias, died, with an inscription over the door, is still shown. The old town is east of the new ; and the two contain about eighteen thousand inhabitants, of whom an eighth part are English. In its essential characteristics the foregoing description will apply to all the walled towns of France, which once exceeded two thousand ; and which are still objects of curiosity, to Americans at least — in whose country, nothing like them is to be found. 10 MEMORANDA OP CHAPTER II. Travelling in France— French Money— Departure from Boulogne— Public Agitation —Route to Paris— Samer—Montreuil— Crecy—Bernay— Bauvais-Abbeville— Face of the Country— Incidents— Pauperism— Harvest— Vineyards— St. Dennis- Postillions— Entrance into Paris. The mode of travellinfr in France, is left very much to the option of the traveller. You may hire horses and postilions, and ride; changing every eight or ten miles. The word mile, however, never occurs; distance being estimated entirely by posts, each post being two P>ench leagues, equal to about five and a half English miles. You may take a seat in a diligence, which is a species of omnibus having four places to carry passen* gers^ and taking in all about fourteen or seventeen persons exclusive of the conducteur and postilions. The latter usually ride the horses; the former rides in an affair exactly like a gig body, set on the top of the front apartment of the diligence. This place will hold two besides the conducteur ; behind it all along the top is carried baggage; under it is a place for three people ; and then there are two apartments more, each containing six persons. The diligence is drawn by four, five, six, or even more horses, placed two or three a-breast, and fastened to the vehicle, universally with ropes, and in such a way as to prevent them from standing exactly abreast, but to cause them to pull in echelon. I rarely saw a leather or chain trace to a diligence, or hired travelling carriage in France. If you prefer to travel in a more private way, you can hire a carriage of any description, for any length of time. 1 was shown into a magazine, as they call FOREIGN TRAVEL. 11 -every such repository, and selected one out ofseveral dozen. Tiie tjostof it to Paris was one hundred i'rancs. the owner responsible for its repairs, and I only for its delivery at an appointed place in that city. The horses are under the control of the government, which prescribes regulations and fixes the price for their use; although ordinarily they are private property. They are kept at fixed stations — are let at settled rates, — and you are certain to get them and postilions, not only when wanted, at cheap rates, and of excellent descriptions ; but you are forced to take as many nt a time, and them as often as the law has determined to be necessary. Our party consisting of three, and a courier, we were obliged to take three horses and one postilion ; the cost being for him and them seven and a half francs per post, of five miles; that is, six for the three horses, and one and a half for the postilion. From Boulogne to Paris is twenty-lour posts — about one hundred and twenty English miles ; making the whole expense of carriage, horses, and postilion, exclusive of other charges, (and of douceurs) two hundred and eighty franks for four persons, or about thirteen dollars each. This is about half the expense of travelling in the same way in England ; and is far more comfortable, first, because, in England you are obhged to change your carriage every fevv miles, and secondly, because there is in France much less delay, and much more civility. I had as well say a word about the money of France. Bills are not in common circulation, ihe Bank of France issuing them, only of large denominations, five hundred francs being, I believe, ttie smallest. The gold coins oftenest met with, are the forty franc and twenty franc pieces; but gold is always worth a pre- mium here, and therefore enters but little into the ordinary exchanges. The ordinary silver coins are the pieces of five franco, two francs, one Iranc, three-quarters, half, and one-fourth of a franc. The coins of billon and copper, are of various values, from a deceme, which is two sous or the tenth part of a franc, to a centeme, which is the fifth part of a sous, or the hundredth part of a franc, and equal in value to IcvSS than a fifth part of one cent. The taille is very easy. The silver franc, may be said to be the basis of it ; twenty of them make the gold 12 MEMORANDA OF Napoleon, while the twentieth part of one is the copper sous.— The five franc piece which is very common in the United States makes this coinage familiar to Americans; who have only to recollect that the par value of the franc is about nineteen cents of our money. This is the money tory system established in 1795. There is another and much more ancient system and coinage, many of the pieces of which correspond in value with those now used under other names. But the modern coinage becoming of more value in the market, a decree of 1810 scaled the two in such a way as to render it the interest of the holders of the ancient coinage to have it recast, so that at present little of it is seen. We left Boulogne the day after our arrival, in the afternoon, intending to divide the distance to Paris into three stages, to be travelled in as many days. As we drove out of the town, and indeed as we passed through all the cities and villages on the way, the crowds of neat looking people with joyful faces, the long lines of flags streaming from the windows, and every aspect of all things around us, showed how manifestly the revolution of July, was national in France. This was the second of the three joyfully remembered days; and having a more distinct view of the flags than by the moonlight of the preceding night, I observed many of them to have a fillet of crape around the upper part of the staff". I pointed it out several times, on that and the succeeding day, to different individuals, and received from all the same response, and the same equivocal exposition. It is, they would say, for the victims of the Revolution ; and then would add, but it is improper to allow it to remain after the first day — especially improper to permit it on the third day. — This perplexed me, for all admitted it to be outre, yet the great majority did it. It struck me there might be a deeper feeling ; and 1 observed, perhaps it is for the Revolution itself— for its supposed failure, that you clothe your tri-colour in mourning? I got no answer, in any case, but a shrug of the shoulder, or a cast of the brow upwards, or the mere remark that there was a difference of opinion in France, as elsewhere. 1 found that the kino- had determined to put off" the usual review of the National FOREIGN TRAVEL. l3 Guard, that plots and conspiracies were talked of— arrests to a great extent made — a strong and anxious sensation excited in the country, and bodies of troops moving in various directions. That afternoon we met a fine squadron of cavalry consisting of several hundred men, each of whom led a spare horse. Our route lay parallel with the coast, for some distance, which at length bearing off towards the westward, left our course con- tinued in a direction a little east of south, towards the heart of the kingdom. The first night we slept at Bernay, fourteen leagues from Boulogne ; after passing through and in sight of numerous hamlets and villages, and the walled towns of Samer and Montrueil. Samer is situated on the top of a hill, and the view of it, both as the traveller approaches it and departs from it, for several miles, is very beautiful. As it lay before me, in the warm and rich light of a July sun, after I had lost the greater part of summer in a more northern climate, 1 thought I had seldom looked upon a prettier landscape, than its hill, its white v/all, its green trees, and its wide rural vicinage presented. Not unlike it, but far more extensive, is the view of Montrueil, as you emerge from the forest of Longvilliers, through which you have passed for half a league, and behold it a mile or two off, perched in almost impregnable strength upon a rock on the top of one of those chalk hills which abound in France as well as in England. It is an ancient, and must once have been a fine city. Some of its ruins are still noble. Before reaching our lodging, we crossed the small stream, which divides the departments of Somme and Pais-de-Calais, and a little further on, entered the skirts of the renowned forest of Crecy, a name so full of glory to every British ear ; and reaching Bernay, with the light of a bright moon, slept soundly, in an excellent inn. The second day's journey brought us after twenty-six leagues' travel to Bouvais, the chief town of the department of Oise. It contains about fifteen thousand inhabitants, is of unknown antiquity, and though built principally of wood, is rather a handsome town. Its manufactures of woolen, but especially those of tapestry, are admirable ; the latter being considered inferior only to those of the Gobelins near Paris. This art is Vol. n.— 3 14 MEMORANDA OF carried to so great perfection, that when inspecting the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, at Paris, I saw, in company with a considerable party, a picture of Saint somebody, (I forget who,) in the guise of a shepherdess, hanging in the treasury, behind the great Bacristie, which excited universal astonishment, when it was pronounced a piece of tapestry. It was little inferior to the majority of the paintings which are shown as great treasures in a cathedral, richer in holy relics than most others in Europe. During the day, we passed through Abbeville, on the river Somme, in ancient Picardy ; an extensive manufacturing town a few leagues from Saint Valery, at the mouth of ihe river, and up to which point all the way from Boulogne our road lay par- allel with the coast, and often in view of the sea. It interested me more for its namesake, and the sake of those persecuted Protestants, who in the new world have preserved the remem- brance of it, in a district and town of the same name in South Carolina — whither, as is well known, a portion of the Hugonots fled ; and where their offspring now occupy so conspicuous a rank, amongst the best citizens of our Republic. Bauvais is a walled town, and was never taken by an enemy, though repeat- edly besieged. In 1443, the English were repulsed from it; and in 1472, the Burgundians, to the number of eighty thousand, were unable to take it. This time, the legend goes, it was saved by the courage of its females, under the direction of a girl called Jeanne Hachette, in commemoration of whom, after the lapse of four hundred years, the grateful citizens still keep up an annual fete, on the tenth of July. If we add to this, the fact, that an unusual number of distinguished men have been natives of Bauvais, we shall see no reason to be surprised, that its inhabitants are proud of La Pucelle, as they call their pretty town. Of Marseille, Granvilliers, Airaines, and other smaller places, it is needless to make special mention. I am sure, however, they err, who say that France is destitute of charms to the trav- eller, even in this part of it, which is said to be the least inter- esting of all. Its general surface, is a wide, indeed an apparently unlimited plain ; elevated, undulating, intersected by numerous FOREIGN TRAVEL. 15 &mall streams, each causing a considerable, but gradual depres- oion ; and crossed by many ranges raised somewhat above the i^eneral level, and whose taps and sides are the resting places of many towns. There is little wood^ and what remains is in forests of some magnitude. There are no fences, no ditches, no hedges, no walls, except infvmediately about the places of human abode. The crops grow upto the roadside ;. the plats of ground are divided by invisible lines; the flocks of sheep feed in their pastures, kept from the ripe and growing crops, only by the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs.. Flocks, or single animals even, of other kinds are rarely seen*, I have observed neither cow, hog, nor horse, at large ; and the whole face of France presents a continual aspect of cultivated grounds^ inter- spersed only with human habitations. Through such a region,, a wide and nearly straight road, paved or gravelled in the middle, about twenty feet wide, and having an unpaved space on either side, of the same width, passes the whole distance from Boulogne to Paris. No tolls are demanded, and tlie same liberality and good sense, which make the highways free, are adorning them with continuous rows^ of trees on both sides, sometimes to a considerable depth. There are, however, several inconveniences, which remind us that we are in a land where men are vigilantly watched, and perhaps need watching. At least once a day, and often twice, a gendarme demands a sight of your passports; or rather of the descriptive account of you and them, which was given to you,- when they were taken from you on your entrance into France; and which are restored to you again at Paris. At every walled town you enter, you are also stopped to be interrogated, as t© whether you are carrying any thing that can be eaten or drank into them — that you might be made to pay duty, if you chanced lobe going to market; and as if they could not see, without this nonsense, that all mankind are not hucksters. So again, every inn you remain a few hours at, is forced to make out a far more perfect roll of your party, than is to be found in most congrega- tions of our church members ; which is daily inspected by the ^liceo. But above all, the army, of beggars, is intolerable.— 16 MEMORANDA OF Luckily the inferior coins of France are of small value, or they whose principles or feelings impel them to attend to such calls of human want, or degradation, might soon be forced to give up their travels and turn mendicants themselves. From the tender- est youth, to extreme old age, embracing both sexes, beggars surround you wherever you go, except in Paris. There you see very kw, except in and around the churches. But every where else, in the villages, on the road sides ; children in the arms of their parents, little girls, boys, young women, men, blind, lame, every thing, every where. In several places, little huts had been cut out of the soft rock in the hill sides, and fitted up as habita- tions, out of which mendicants would sally as soon as the rattling of the carriage gave them notice of your approach. — This horrible condition of things seems peculiar to Papal countries — and can perhaps be easily explained. By llie principles of that religion, the ecclesiastics are made the almoners oi' the public benevolence ; insomuch that not 1o consult them as to the objects and methods of it, is nearly as great a sin in their code as not to give alma at alL In all such states, where tythe was granted to the clergy — a regular part, generally one-fourth, was declared to be the patrimony of the poor ; which being two and a half per cent, on all the gross product of labour, would be a most abundant provision for the misfortunes of society. — Another result attendant on such a policy is, that no Catholic state makes any public provision for the poor, other than that contemplated above ; which indeed would be useless, if that were efficiently and honestly administered. Without calling in question the character of the Romish priesthood every where — it is quite manifest that such a system as this must be liable to enormous abuse on one hand^and corresponding suffering on the other, even when fully in exercise. But if it be remembered that a vast proportion of these persons have in all ages been mendicants themselves, there will appear but small chance for other poor. Tljen when it is considered that the tythe itself, which was the basis of the original scheme, is no longer paid in many papal countries ; it is certain that no excuse can be avail- able either for governments that permit such suffering amongst FOREIGN TRAVEL. 17 Ifte poor, without any provision for them; or for a religion that tolerates, when it might as easily as others, redress the wretch- edness, and remove the cause of it. Besides the want which probably first produced the mendicity amongst the people at large, and which common humanity should impel all men to remedy < the moral effect of the begging itself, is perhaps, still more to be deplored. All sense of shame gives place to deceit and falsehood — until to beg, creates no pain, and to deceive pro- duces no compunction. Yet the very structure of their religion produces this condition of things in all Papal states; and while you search in vain for one that has escaped it, you will not find a syllable of doctrine which forbids, nor one moral lesson which expostulates against the thing itself, in all the authorized exposi- tions and teachings of that church, in all ages. The greater part of the diiy which brought us from Bernay to Bauvais, had been damp and showery. Our third day's journey was a short one into Paris, a distance of only seventeen leagues, through Noailles, Puiseux, Beaumont upon the Oise, where the stream is of considerable breadth, Moisselles, and St. Denis. It was in the midst of hay, and wheat iiarvest; and the fields were full of persons of all ages, and both sexes — busily engaged in that season so joyful to the husbandman. Until to-day, we had not observed many vines ; but as you recede from the sea coast, they become more abundant, and occupy a larger space. There is something rather mean, in the appearance of these vineyards. They are of small extent, planted without any order, at intervals of eighteen inches or two feet between the vines, which are trained up a small stick, and do not exceed three feet in height. The grapes seem hardly half grown. As I saw the harvest ready to be completed, and the vintage still far off— I recalled many instances from the Scriptures, where the former is men- tioned as an emblem of peace, and of our ingathering, and many others where the latter is used to shadow forth the wrath of God, and the destruction of wicked men ; and I rejoiced in the beau- tiful illustration before my eyes, that as the harvest evermore precedeth the vintage, so the mercy goeth before the woe ! — Ajid shall it be thus for good to us, and toyou, my poor fellow 3* 18 MEMORANDA OF worraSj who pass each other by to-day, having nothing to unite us but our common sinful natures — and the common hopes (if they indeed be ours) which the Lord Jesus only can bestow ; shall it be good for us and you that the harvest is before the vintage, when we behold each other's faces for the second time, by the light that issues from the throne of God ? And shall it be good for thee, reader? Our last change of horses was at the ancient village of St. Denis, so renowned in the history of the monarchs of France. From the end of the sixth century, to the end of the eighteenth, they were interred in the abbey of St. Denis. One of the most brutal acts of the first revolution in France, was the decree of the Convention in 1793, in obedience to which, the remains of the sovereigns of France, of the three first races, were disinter- red and thrown into two trenches near the church. In this place too, was deposited with the most religious care, the sacred banner of France, the Orijiamme; — which was the signal for the univer- sal rising of the nation to arms, — and which so often led her enthusiastic armies to victory. This was a scarlet banner, which after the time of Charles VII., gave way to the white drapeau, and it, in its turn, after leading ihe millions to slaughter, for the space of three centuries, yielded to the tri-colour of the first revolution. I was roused from a reveree like this, by the rattling of what at first seemed a pair of kettles, but which turned out to be a pair of boots. The French postilion is the most bur- lesque creature in the world, except the monkeys you see dressed up in regimentals, riding on dogs, and bowing and doffing their caps, on all sides, for pennies for their master. I thought I was prepared by previous exhibitions, for any thing in the shape of boots ; but I was mistaken. This fellow had to ride into Paris^ and must be better equipped than usual. Hence, boots that come half way up the thigh, which all have, were too low for him ; and spurs that on all their heels look like dirk blades more than spurs, was too small for him ; and spencers that did not reach to the small of the back, and whose skirt was too short to button at all, were quite too full for him. His coat was a pair of sleeves, with two collars, one above and one below, — and FOREIGN TRAVEL. 1& might as well be pui on upside down^as any way. His boots he made no pretension of walking in — indeed he admitted they weighed ten pounds each, and the spurs alone would render them useless, except on horseback. Equipped perfectly to his heart's content, he took us rapidly over the two leagues that separate St. Denis from the capital. Montmartre was on the left ; Les Batlgnoles on the right. — The Barriere de Clichy is passed, and we enter Paris along the front of the garden of Tivoli, by the Rue Clichy and Rue de la Chauss^e d' Antin ; to the right along the Boulevart des Capu- cines ; inclining to the left down the Rue de la Paix ; by the place Vendome, and the magnificent bronze column made of the canon taken in Germany ; on through the Rue Castiglione ; to the left into the Rue Rivoh, to the Hotel Windsor, overlooking the Jardin des Thuileries. I have named the most magnificent quarter of the noblest city in Europe. I write these lines in the midst of scenes which have witnessed, or which recall great events, through the lapse of sixty generations ; and which are perhaps reserved for a still higher destiny ! 2(X MEMORANDA OP CHAPTER III Paris— Its Greatness — Situation— Beauty—Coup d' ceil of it — Sabbath Day in Paris —Sabbath Scenes— Reformed Church in the Rue Taithboui— Service in French, and in English— Garden of the Thuileries— Place de la Concorde — Champs Elysees— Fete of the Revolution— Scenes by Lamp-light— A Crowd— The Inauguration of the Triumphal Arch at Barrierc de Neuilly. It was*^ common saying with Napoleon, that a revolution in Paris, is a revolution in Europe. And although this might be, in some degree an exaggeration of the greatness of this capitalj , it is not too much to say, that it is undoubtedly the most import- ant city in the world. Nor is it to be questioned, that it has held this rank at least from the subversion of the Eastern Empire ; while we might attribute nearly as much to it, with every appearance of justice, from the moment in which Rome itself was undone. Nor can it be disguised, that although its growth in point of numbers, or even perhaps in wealth, has not kept pace with several other capitals — yet its relative importance, has been steadily augmenting, and but for its reverses at that disastrous period when all Europe marched upon it, and plunder- ed it of the vast and exquisite works of which, before, the earth itself had been pillaged for it ; there would at this moment have been nothing to name even in comparison with it. The region in which this city is located was formerly called the Isle of France, from the shape given to it by the windings of the rivers Seine and Marne. The more appropriate name of the Vale of Montmorenci, was long borne by the delicious valley in which the oily is situated ; a name derived, from that illustrious FOREIGN TRAVEL. 21 family, (whose chief seat was at Chantilly in the immediate neighborhood,) which for so many ages justified by their gran- deur and their stainless integrity, the legend of their arms, les premiers Christiens, et les plus veilles Barons de la France ; the first Christians and the most ancient Barons of France ! The vale itself is one of the most extensive and fruitful, as well as one of the loveliest on which the sun shines. And when from the top of Montmatre which rises up like a cone in the midst of it to the north of Paris ; or from the abrupt edge of Pere-la- Chaise, which overhangs the city on the east; or from the lofty brow of Mont Valerien, still more remote on the west — I have contemplated with rapture the wide and glorious landscape — I have thought earth held nothing more magnificent. The Marne unites itself to the Seine, just below Charenton — the place at which the Protestants of Paris used to go to worship, during the period when they were not allowed to assemble for that purpose within any walled town ; and the united waters pass through Paris, dividing it into two not very unequal parts, and forming those islands, within the compass of the present city. The Seine is here a considerable river. The Sequana of the Latins, it rises far to the south-east of Paris, in Burgundy, and having in its course received nine rivers that may, with some licence of speech, be called navigable, it empties itself into the British ocean, at Havre : a distance of one hundred and twenty- five miles, by land, from this city. Paris, like all the chief cities of the world, is, therefore, so situated, as on one hand to com- mand the advantages of commerce, without being subject to aggressions by sea; and on the other, to possess the facilities of an interior shuation, without being subjected by a too secluded posture to the possibility of famine. No city absolutely interior, or absolutely commercial, has ever yet arrived at the first rank. And it remains to be seen what effect modern improvements in facilitating intercourse, and making defence more perfect, will have in modifying this, along with other laws of social existence. From the top of the column in the place Vendome, towards the western end of the city, or from the cupola of the Pantheon on the hill of St. Jacques, in the south-eastern portion, a superb 22 MEMORANDA OF view is obtained of the city itself, as it spreads out like a cliarl^ under your feet. The largest and lowest down the river of the three islands, called, Isle de la Cite, is of considerable magnitude^- and is completely covered with ancient, lofty Iiouses, built of grey cut stone, and separated by narrow and irregular streets. This is the only part of Paris, that existed while the Romans- knew it, and it is that which Cgesar calls Civitas Parisiorum — after the Parish, a nation of Celtic Gaul ; while the name of Lutetia, given to it by Strabo, is still preserved, as one may see on the pannels of a certain kind of hackney coach, in the com- mon name of Lutecienne. Just above the island now described^ is another and smaller one, called Isle St. Louis, which is in length about 1,800 French feet, and is also inhabited. The third and smallest one, being also the one highest up the river, is not built on ; it is used as a depot for fire wood. These islands are connected with the banks of the river on either side, by several bridges ; of which, counting all that unite the various portions of the city, there must be above twenty. — These are built either of stone or iron ; some of them are orna- mented with statues, and elegant railings ; and while they afford many exceedingly striking views of the neighbouring parts of the city, add greatly to the picturesque character of the scenery. The river is broad, rapid, and of good depth. Its sides walled up with cut stone, and its banks flanked by wide promenades ; while its surface is covered with multitudes of bathing houses, s-wimming schools, washing boats, and similar conveniences. Paris may be considered as divided into two portions, the interior and the exterior, separated from each other by the ancient fortifications, or Boulevarts. These embrace within their circuit perhaps one half of the present city; the remaining half, situated without the Boulevarts, and between them and the bar- riers, or gates in the outer wall, is divided into a number of sub- urbs, called Faubourgs. The Boulevarts themselves have been converted into wide and magnificent streets, built up thickly on, both sides, and planted with trees; and make the circuit of the city with one of the grandest promenades in the world. Several of the leading thoroughfares running pretty nearly towards the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 23 t^rdinal points, intersect each other in central situations, and make ihe coup d' oeii, at once striking and simple. Such is the external aspect of this renowned city, built in a wide plain, gradually sloping, on both sides, towards the river. The houses are generally five or six stories high, with a story or two more in the roof. They are built of hewn stone, are covered with slate or tyle, and are ranged along well paved streets, which, in the new parts of the town, are wide and regular, with side walks ; but in the old, narrow, and sometimes perversely irregular, I shall not now attempt to speak of its interior condition. We ai-rived in the afternoon of Saturday, and had little diffi- culty in getting pleasantly accommodated. The Rue Rivoli, is occupied principally with hotels. At one of these, the hotel Windsor, we were soon comfortably settled, in an apartment containing seven pieces, on the second floor; such being the terms used to express a suit of seven rooms, in the third story. For these we were to pay twenty francs a day, for as long or as short a period as we chose to occupy them ; and might use all, or half of them, as we thought fit; all went together, and cost no more than part would have done. Every thing else was extra, and to be paid for at fixed rates, and might be called for or not at our option—and of what quality, in what quantity, and at what time we pleased. I was roused on the Sabbath morning by military music. — This is the day of parade. Early on the morning of its weekly recurrence, in the Place Carousal, which adjoins the east court of the palace of the Thuileries, a strong detachment of infantry were passing under my windows ; where they passed at the same Itour every morning afterwards, until my eyes became so accus- tomed to their crimson pantaloons, blue coats, white belts, and bell crowned caps, and ray ears so familiar with their martial music, that I soon became as indifferent to them as I saw every feody else was. It is a national peculiarity of the French, I think, that they never form themselves into those rabble routs, that in America, but still n^ore in England, flock about the streets, after every thing that excites them. I have very ofteii seen guessed it to be a sacrament. About one»third of the church is separated from the remainder, by a screen of antique railing, behind which is the grand altar ; and around the walls, are successive chapels, separated by another circular screen of solid construction, from the area in front of the aliar. The paintings in these chapels are finer than those in the chapels, in the more exposed part of the church ; and those in the choir itself, are of an order still superior. There are eight of them of large proportions, representing the birth of the Virgin, by Champagne; the visitation of the Virgin, by Jouvenet ; the annunciation to the Virgin, by Halle ; the assump- tion of the Virgin, by De la Hyre ; the presentation of the Virgin, by Champagne, &c. &c. In the religion of the modern Romans, the name of Juno, is changed to that of Mary ; but in other respects the worshipof their ancestors is marvellously preserved. Our guide, a respectable looking female, suddenly stopped in front of the great altar, and pointing to a spot, indicated by a large star, wrought of the costly marble of which the pavement is composed ; on this spot, said she, was Napoleon crowned Emperor of the French ! — And there — and there — pointing on either side, to the two thrones that terminated the rows of richly carved stalls, sat the venerable archbishop of Paris, then advanced to the extreme verge of life, and his holiness Pope Pius VII., who came to Paris to consecrate the new dynasty; which, she might have added, had already been baptized in the blood of Europe ! This imposing ceremony took place on the second of December, 1804. At that door entered the emperor, escorted by his enthusiastic guard, and accompanied by the unhappy Josephine. Here stood the Pope, the Cardinals, the great eccle- siastics, the grand officers of state, and all the elite of France, to receive him, who came to offer up the revolution, upon the altar of his own intense egotism. " Almighty God," exclaimed the Pope, as at the foot of the altar, he anointed with a triple unction the head and both the hands of Napoleon, "Thou, wha didst establish Hazael, to he ruler over Syria ; and Jehu, to be king of Israel, manifesting thy will to iheaXy by thy prophet, 5* 42 MEMORANDA OF Elias ; thou who didst also shed the holy unction of kings, upon- the head of Saul and of David, by the hands of thy prophet Samuel; bestow, by our hands, the treasures of thy grace and benediction, upon thy servant Napoleon, who, notwithstanding our personal unvvorthiness, we consecrate, this day, emperor in thy name!" Ev^n in this scene, the conduct of the emperor was perfectly characteristic. Before, all sovereigns had been crowned. He crowned himself; taking the diadem in his hands and placing it upon his head ; then placing another upon the head of Josephine. There are few acts in the history of the human race, more replete with overwhelming interest. My whole frame trembled with emotion, as the actors in it lived again before me, and my lieart was wrung with anguish at the recollection of all that single act crushed and destroyed. This amazing man, had found a mighty nation torn with horrible passions, and on the brink of ruin : and he had tranquillized them — restored order and pros- perity, and forced Europe, three times conquered, to recognize the revolution as a part of its existing system. Victory, peace, and prosperity, had been assured to the republic ; and still liberty was safe. What a moment in which to have made himself the impersonation of a glorious age ! To have consecrated to his- tory a second man, capable, like Washington, of forgetting himself, to secure to the world a just equality, a wise liberty, a liighly developed civilization, a noble vsystem of human happiness and greatness. The nation, adds one of their most philosophic historians, was in the hands of a great man, or of a despot. It depended on him, to preserve it free, or to enslave it. He pre- ferred his own selfish ends. He loved himself, more than the human race. Full of these sad thoughts, we emerged from the choir, and encountered in the great area, a procession not unsuited to them. From a side chapel near to that in which we had a short time before been witnesses of what this church calls the sacrament of marriage, there came forth a funeral procession. Here at least we are equal ; all alike nothing. And I stood reverently aa they bore along their dead, respecting even the weaknesses of a FOREIGN TRAVEL. 43 sacred grief. There came first, two officers with their battons; then the body, apparently of a man, bDrne by four others; then a company of twenty or thirty other men ; and behind, the priest I had before seen, marshalled by the same attendants. — The hearse was set down not far from the door ; the men formed two rows facing each other, before it, between which the priest passed slowly, muttering out of the same little book, the same incoherent gibberish, and in the same perfectly careless manner. As he approached the foot of the coffin, he took the same little whisk from the lad, at his elbow, and made the same motions in the air, as if scattering about holy water; and then retired. Each of the attendants approached, and after all the company iiad successively made these signals, whether to heaven, to earth, to the dead, or to the spiritual world, I know not, — they took up the body, and bore it from the church. It is one of the most extraordinary features of the papal system of worship — that its ministers profess to exercise a power over the destinies of the soul, which death itself does not weaken. And to make the tolly consummate, they pretend to secure blessings in the dread and unknown future, to one man's disembodied spirit, by idolatrous worship of another man's decayed bones ! In Paris, perhaps throughout France, the burial of the dead, is a municipal, rather than a personal affair. The city provides all the means of sepulture, and even conducts so much of the ceremony as is not religious. The expense can be increased or diminished at pleasure; from a plain box and a cart, up to churches hung in costly weeds, and mourning equipages without number. Your very grave may be purchased for a term of years, or in perpetuity ; and may be located in a cemetery more or less expensive. Paris derives a considerable revenue from this unaccustomed source. 44 MKMOaANDA OT CHAPTER V Goodness of Heart of the French— St. Gervai3— Pictures— A Gem of Albert Durer —Relics— Transubstantiation— St. Eustache— Idolatry of ibe Sacred Heart- Baptism of an Infant— La Madelaine— Miracle in Marble— The Pantlieon Mirabeau— Names of the Slain in tlie Revolution of July— St. Genevieve— Her Miracles, Tomb and Adoration— Private Masses. Some days after the one on which 1 first visited Notre Dame, I was in the neighbourhood of the Place de Greve, and came rather accidentally upon the church of St. Gervais ; whose admirable architecture is the more striking, as you would never expect to find such a work in the midst of the filthy, narrow, and irregular streets, which surround it. The churches of Paris are always open — always accessible to the public. I stepped into this out of a shower of rain, and select it almost at random, as one of the few, of which it is possible to make a special men- tion. I have never been in one, in which there were not persons at worship ; persons to beg; persons at confession; officials, and priests. There sat at the entrance, amongst others, a man, whose statue like stillness, attracted my notice. " I am blind ; and the fatlier of a family;" was the simple announcement, in his own tongue, written on a placard, affixed to his person. There was an air of reserve, almost of dignity, in this ; coupled with a certain calm submission to inevitable destiny — and a sort of taking for granted, that the human heart was not all stone, and that the simple fact was enough. I have observed this sort of gracefulness, very often, amongst the French ; and its effect is never lost on their quick-sighted and impulsive countrym.en FOREIGN TRAVEL. 45 Indeed I have remarked, as one of their most pleasing national traits, the readiness and tfie tenderness, with which the very humblest of the people, admit and contribute to the claims of wretchedness. There was a large and very handsome man, who was attend- ant at the place, and ready to do its hono\irs. He commenced with great gravity, and many marks of reverence, to show us the chapels, the altars, the paintings, — especially some statuary which he pronounced to be unrivalled in Paris, if not under the sun ; and some exceedingly curious painted glass in the windows, of great antiquity and beauty. We were shown a picture of God the Father, and passed on in silence. Presently another. Then one of the Holy Ghost. I said I was a Protestant, and disapproved of such attempts. His whole manner was changed at once ; and putting aside his saints and legends, and revolting representations of the Almighty, he took me to the opposite side of the church, and exhibited a painting by Albert Durer, which was the first, of this great master, I then had seen. The picture represented, in the centre, the crucifixion ; and in eight compare ments, four on either side, — as many scenes immediately pre- ceding and following it. It had been painted nearly three hun- dred and forty years; and yet it was as fresh, as if brought yesterday from the easel. It is a most exquisite relic ; and though he showed us, afterwards, a bone of St. Gervais the patron of the church, another of St. Laurent the patron of that quarter of Paris, and a third of St. Denis the patron of all the clergy of the city, all set in gold: in my poor heretical estimation, that relic of Albert Durer was worth all the bones of saints, be they of men, pigs, or fowls, Cand which they are, I am not compar- ative anatomist enough to decide, after the bones are set like jewels,) which all the superstition of earth hath heaped together. I was also allowed, as I had before been at Notre Dame, as you can be any where for a franc, to see the rich and extensive wardrobe ; which most of the churches possess. The possession of relics, is not only universal, but is considered indispensable; and amongst these, there is almost universally found, a portion of the true cross. This was shown to me on the present occasion 46 MEMORANDA OF — set in the silver crucifix — in the centre of which, in tlie midst of a golden sun, the consecrated wafer is borne aloft on great occasions. Or, in other words, if the priests tell true, here is a little circle about as lar<^e as a dollar, in the middle of which " the soul, body, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ," is carried, and worshipped as God, under the species of a bit of bread ; in every particle of which lie exists, whole and entire ! Think of that ; a hundred millions of Gods, as there are that many parti- cles of the bread, in a space as large as a dollar! And these ail swallowed by a priest at one mouthful! And is the world to be always convulsed to propagate this dogma ? Is freedom, personal and national, still to be cloven down before the hierarchy of a god of dough? Are our souls to be cursed, by those who avouch God's authority for all their acts, because we are unable to believe that which contradicts all our senses, outrages our reason, and stultifies all science, and shocks us, as at once contemptible and horrible ? Thanks be to God, the day star has arisen. 1 write these lines freely, on the spot where kings have slaughtered their people, and subjects bathed their liands in the blood of kings, for being only suspected of doubting, what they who hold, now only whisper to each other, where ever the light of truth has reached. Tiie church of St. Eustache, which is the parish church of the third arrondissement, is, after Notre Dame, the largest in Paris. The houses which crowd it on all sides, intercept the view of its profuse and heterogeneous exterior ornaments. Its interior consists of double aisles of immense height, whose richly deco- rated ceiling of vaulted stone, is supported by so many pillars, half Greek, half Gothic, as to confuse and disturb the whole. It possesses some beautiful specimens, of that rich painted glass, which makes the windows of the ancient churches so ornamental — and gives such softness to the light, as it passes through it. I walked leisurely about the long aisles, read the tariffs which hang on the walls of all the churches, in manuscript, indicating the rate at which certain accommodations might be enjoyed ; examined the programe of masses, fetes, Sec, for the current week, amongst which the chief seemed to have reference to a FOREIGN TRAVEL. 47 great service and exhibition of relics of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha; and after counting the chapels, which I found to be nineteen, commenced a somewhat particular inspection of them. Commencing on the right hand, as you enter the church, the first, is the Chapelle du Calvarie ; the second, the Chapelle of St. Cecelia, in which is a picture of the saint playing on the pianoforte; the third, is the Chapelle of ihe angel Gabriel. I paused, before examining the fourth, that several persons who were at their devotions before it, might finish them undisturbed. It seemed the most resorted to, of any, and on the side of it, in the aisle, was a small chevaux de (Vise, on which a number of little candles were stuck, one of which was lighted. It was the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, the devotion rendered to which, forms so consj)icuous a part of the idolatry of the Jesuits. As you stand before the chaptl, there hangs facing you, a small and rather well executed painting of a human heart, surrounded by a crown of thorns, and surmounted by a cross reposing in a flame. Above, are heads of angels gazing upon it, and below, several figures, which are probably meant to be celestial as they have wings, profoundly adoring it. On the heart itself, was a cypher which I could but imperfectly distinguish ; but which seemed like the four Hebrew letters, which compose the word Jehovah. At the bottom of the picture, were the words, Cor Jesu Sacratissimum miserere nobis : Most sacred heart of Jesus have mercy onus! Before this picture 1 beheld rational and immortal beings, rendering their worship. Tins is enough; I sighed, and turned to quit the place. At the door I met a small party bearing a very young child. They are going to have it baptized perhaps; a ceremony i Ijad long desired lo witness ; and I turned back with them. They were soon shown into the chapel on the left side of the church, in the centre of which stood a font, apparently of silver, on a pedestal about four feet high. The priest entered, apparelled nearly like liim i had seen at Notre Dame, marshalled by an official dressed in a military costume, and followed by another in deep black, of a peculiar cut, like a sort of clerical undress. Besides these three, the nurse with the infant in lier arms,— the father of the 48 MEMORANDA OF child, — a girl about thirteen, and a boy of perhaps ten, formed the company in the chapel. The priest took his stand by the font, and commenced whispering out of a little book, as if speak* ing to himself. The infant was held in the arms, opposite ; and on either side of it, stood the little girl and boy to act as sponsors for the babe; the male sponsor was obliged to stand upon a high stool, upon which the father held him, and thus fulfilled his entire part in the scene. As the door of the chapel still stood a-jar, f pointed to it, and catching the eye of the attendant, made a slight bow. He returned the salutation, and I entered and took my stand by his side, Avithin arm's reach of all the party. [ will briefly describe what I saw. But when the multitude of the absurdities is considered, and it is remembered that the words of the ceremony were in a language (Latin) which iew can speak, and which was now uttered with a foreign accent ; I shall be easily excused, if I be found in error, as to points more material than the exact order of occurrence, about which indeed I cannot be positive. During much of the ceremony, the priest extended his right hand over the child ; occasionally the little sponsors did the same; the assistant gazed about, and at inter- vals, said amen; while the official handed about tlie various utensils, cotton, little spoons, &c. &c., used on the occasion. The priest made the sign of the cross, on the forehead and breast of the child, saying at the same time, it was " to secure to it eternal life." He breathed several times in its face, saying " receive the good spirit" — with much beside ; fi)r I only give a few words of what he muttered without ceasing. Just before or just after that, he went through a process of exorcism, which was directed against an unclean spirit supposed to reside in the infant. He put his own saliva on his fingers, and transferred it into the nostrils and ears of the little sleeping subject ; using at the operation on the latter, the solenm Ephp/iratia, once pro- nounced by our Saviour, with the power of God; and which I shuddered to hear profaned to such mummery. He took a pinch of salt from a silver shell, and put it into the child's mouth. He took a little gold spoon full of oil out of a very small silver cabi- net, and touched the breast and back of the neck with it; the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 49 attendant immediately wiping it off, with a bit of cotton, with whicji he also carefully wiped the cabinet. At this moment, I think, he took up a second silver utensil, very small, and formed like a shell ; and poured out a small portion of water upon the right side of the crown of the head. Two things, however, distracted the fixed and painful attention with which I had regarded his proceedings. The first was the multitudes of caps, being no less than four, which were removed from the head of the infant, to expose it, for the performance of this part of the ceremony. The second was, that the priest in his first attempt, missed the head and poured the water into the font ; at which he uttered several ejaculations of surprise, that greatly tried the gravity of the spectators. A second attempt was more success- ful. After which, he gave the unction with chrism, taken from a second compartment of the little silver cabinet. Then followed a dumb show, with a candle which he held so as to appear as if grasped by the child, while he uttered a few sentences ; in the midst of which, they gathered closer around, and concealed it for a moment, from my view. Towards the end of the affair, he took up one end of the collar which depended from his neck, and held it for a moment over the person of the infant, with the side that had a cross on it upwards. He had several times before pressed the side with the cross, on its face and person ; and once took the collar off, reverently kissed the part that rest- ed on the back of his neck, turned it inside out and put it on again. And this is Baptism? This is that simple, significant, divine right, wherein by the pouring of water on the person, we signify the outpouring of the Eternal Spirit, for the cleansing of the soul of man : in which we manifest our wish to perform, on our part, the conditions, and to secure the fulfilment on the part of God, of the sacred promises, of that covenant of which it is so plain a seal ? No : it is a gross and degrading mummery —compounded of impiety, superstition, and folly ; no more like Christian baptism, than the Pope of Rome is like that blessed Lord, in whose name and stead he claims to rule ; than the apos- tacy in the midst of which he sits as God, is like that universal Vol. II.— G 50 MEMORANDA OF church of the redeemed in earth and heaven, of which Christ Jesus is the only and the adorable head! Amongst the churches of Paris, however, incomparably the most magnificent are the Madeleine, and the Pantheon; if, indeed, the latter should be called a church. They are neither as yet, completely finished, although the first stone of both of ihem was laid in ihe year 1764, by Louis XV. — and with some considerable intermissions, they have been wrought on ever since. The Madeleine, is situated on the outside of the Boulevart of the same name, immediately in front of the Rue Royale — down which it looks, to the place de la Concorde, and across the Seine, to the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies. Originally designed for a simple parish church, for a village which is now absorbed m the oily; Buonaparte changed its destination, and in 1808 pulled down most of what had been done in the preceding forty years, and projected the present exquisite structure, as a temple TO GLORY. La Gloire, is to a true Frenchman, meat, drink, and raiment. And he who above all men, knew the depth and intensity of this national enthusiasm, knew Ihe best how to indulge, as well as how to direct it. An inscription on the lofty front of the portico shows that this destination has also been changed ; and that the place " is under the invocation of Saint Mary Magdalene." — And as one mounts the double ascent of lofty steps, and enjoys the luxury of a promenade on the high terraces entirely around the church ; guarded by the lofty, rich, prolonged, and perfect Corinthian colonades; he is ready to con- fess that, that gentle and Irail penitent has had no where else a shrine so beautiful, nor votaries touched with a more devout sympathy. A most extraordinary miracle has occurred in this house. On one of the beautiful slabs of coloured marble, polished till they are as smooth as the forehead of a child, or the inside of -a marine shell, which decorate the lower parts of the interior walls ; was suddenly found exhibited in the stone ilself, a perfect picture of a bishop, in full attire, and of the size of nature ! It is «hown with great reverence to all visiters ; and with a little aid from the imagination, a sort of resemblance can certainly be FOREIGN TRAVEL. 51 traced. F was critical ; but the cruide, and the bystanders pro- nounced it perfect. The omen is evil then, said I ; for the staff in his hand is held up like a baton of command, and is four times too thick. It means that you are to be again subjected to the insupportable tyranny of the priests. The suggestion seemed no way beneficial to the miracle. The Pantheon is at the opposite quarter of the city from the Madelaine. It is on the left side of the river, in the place St. Genevieve, on the street and hill St. Jaques. Behind it is the College of Henry IV. ; below it, that of Louis XIV.; the great promoters of the arts in France. This like the church last mentioned, has been subjected to several changes of destination ; but since the revolution of July, has been restored to the august purpose of commemorating the benefactors of France. On the frieze of the gigantic portico, are these striking ^words : Jlux grands hommes — la patrie reconnaissante : — A grateful country — to great men ! It was the National Assembly that conceived the idea, and by a decree of 1791, consecrated the magnificent church, as the sepulchre of those who shed lustre upon their country. The same decree directed this honour to be conferred for the first time, on the remains of Mirabeau, then recently dead ; and the Assembly itself ministered at his obsequies. — Great, corrupt, heroic genius! Necessary to mankind, indis- pensable to France, dear to liberty ! Successive generations as they cast their shadows across these long pavements, and tread amidst these vast and numberless columns, will kindle with deeper emotion, when they remember it is thy monument ! And as they recall the thousand dangers, which nothing but thy dauntless courage warded off; the difficulties which thy wisdom surmounted; the triumphs which thy eloquence achieved, for young freedom ; they will weep, as they may not paliate, nor hide thy crimes ! As you enter this splendid edifice, which has the figure of a Greek cross, you find yourself in the midst of an immense area, of the same shape ; on all sides of which are rows of enormous pillars ; and surmounting the whole, a dome of great proportions, mounting up to a height, far above any other in the city. I 52 MEMORANDA OF have, on a former occasion, mentioned the wide extent and grandeur of the Panorama, presented from this pinnacle. In the great area beneath, is one of tiiose innumerable objects, which, in this capital, seem to be so skilfully arranged to breed in the people, ihe most profound passions of every kind. At the four points, when the lines of the great cross, which composes the building, intersect each other, and which constitute the salient points of the arch of the dome ; are large slabs of black marble, on which are written long rows of names, in letters of gold. At the top of each tablet is this inscription in French : '' Karnes of the citizens who died in defence of the laws and of liberty y on the xxvii., xxviii., and xxix. of July, 1830." I counted the names — there were two hundred and eighty-seven. Are thrones so easily subverted ? — I read over the places of their birth ; most of them were from the immediate neighbourhood of Paris; the whole from continental Europe. I looked at the ages. There was a lad of fifteen. I would make a pilgrimage to embrace his mother's knees. It was a boy of the Poly tech- nique school, who fell leading a desperate assault upon the Louvre. As soon as his hardy followers saw that he must die, they bore him with loud shouts of triumph across the Place Carousal, into the palace of the Thuileries, into the great hall of state, and placed him upon the throne from which his young hand was so rudely tearing its occupant! He breathed his last upon the ihrone of Charlemagne ! — A few names below his, was that of a man born in Holland : and his age given at seven- ty-four. So old, and a stranger ? Then the fire of freedom, burns far, and burns long. May it catch from heart to heart, and from land to land, till every chain melts, and every throne dissolves before it ! In the immediate neighbourhood of the Pantheon, is an ex- tremely curious and rather mean looking old church, called St. Etienne du Mont. But as the nation seems resolved that the Pantheon shall be called St. Genevieve, and it would be out of the question that the patroness of the city should have no church devoted specifically to her worship ; this queer looking affair, is now the veritable church of that respectable shepherdess. In FOREIGN TRAVEL. 53 the state of feeling and bodily lassitude, produced on most per- sons, by the inspection of the Pantheon, — climbing to its top and penetrating amongst its vaults, — there is little inchnation to visit St. Genevieve, and few do it ; — this perhaps accounts for the more gross forms of superstition, exhibited openly there. It is well worth looking at, however, on its own account. The specimen of fine stained glass in its windows is the most perfect I have seen in Paris, and far the most abundant. The interior of the church is light, rich and rather elegant— though in all respects peculiar. Some of the paintings are very curious. — Amongst others I observed some commemorating notable mira- cles by St. Genevieve : namely, the healing of Louis XIII. — the stopping of a famine — the dispersion of the army of Attila — and the cessation of a storm ! Do people believe such things ? Why not? In the same collection, is a picture of the crucifixion, which represents Louis XIII. and his minister Louvais, at the cross ! Believe them ? Why they are tlie most credible part of what I saw at this church. la passing up the aisles inspecting what was to be seen — with- out the wearisome aid of the usual attendants — I came suddenly upon two tablets of stone set in the wall, and thickly covered with a long inscription. I was so much astonished at its purport, that I transcribed the first tablet. " The tomb which is now used" said the inscription " is the same in which the corpse of Saint ** Genevieve was deposited on the 13th of January 511 : and in " which it rested for 120 years. Afterwards, through a search " instituted by Saint Eloi, we received the remains and ashes of " the patroness of Paris. This stone, which inclosed them, was " always the object of the veneration of the faithful. Despoiled " of the ornaments with which it had been decorated by the pie- " ty of the Cardinal de la Rouchfoucald, but happily preserved " in the subterranean church of the abbey ; here we behold it, " after our convulsions, the only monument on earth of a saint " who twice saved the capital ; and who, in heaven, has not *' ceased to be propitious." There is just as much more, con- sisting chiefly of details, to verily the preceding statement. It is mere waste of words to say that this is all the rankest folly . 6* 54 MEMORANDA OF and the grossest impiety and the foulest imposition. But if you will look behind the pillar, you will see in a recess the tomb it- self; surrounded by an iron railing, the spikes of which are so adjusted as to receive a candle upon each of the numerous points. A young female sat in a sort of stall, not far off, composedly at work ; and driving a traffic in various small articles, such as medals,— images,— beads,— but above all, little dirty candles, such as were called rat tails, when in my youth, we denounced them at boarding school. While I stood near, five females, and two men, came into the recess — and reverently bowing their bodies, seemed to worship the tomb. What they actually did worship, is best known to themselves. The men each purcha- sed a candle of the girl, lit it, and stuck it on a point of the railing round the tomb. There were other candles, that had been placed by previous devotees : and the whole railing was filthy from constant use. On the'opposite side of the church hung, in a frame, a schedule of private masses. There were seven separate foundations, of which the particulars were given. I made a memorandum of two. 1. "A Mass was established in 1826, by Monsieur le due de Cambaceres to be celebrated yearly on the 15th day of January ; for the repose of his soul ; for which he created an annual rent of three hundred and twenty-five francs.*' 2. '' Monsieur Mon- grud formerly professor of philosophy, created in the year 1830 a temporary foundation, for five hundred masses, for the repose of his soul; which will be celebrated every Monday at 10 o'clock, until the 15th of June, 1839." The sum given, is left blank. — Now suppose this be all fair and true : and the matter precisely as these gentlemen supposed when they established these masses — and as their church taught them it was. How then ? I say nothing of excluding a good man from happiness after death, and consigning him from 1830 till 1839, to the horrors of Purga- tory. I say nothing, of its requiring a perpetual mass to get the duke out, and keep him out. I say not a word about the blas- phemy of pretending to save bad men after death. Look at it in this light. This church teaches that the sacrifice of the mass, is not only a propitiary sacrifice for the living and the dead — but FOREIGN TRAVEL. 55 that it is the very identical sacrifice of Calvary. I do not argue whether it is so or not ; let us say it is. Then Christ is crucified, every Monday morninsr, at ten o'clock, at St. Genevieve, and will be for three years to come, making in all five hundred repe- titions of the awful scene of Calvary — for the sake of one poor sinner, — who nevertheless, might be all the time in heaven ! And the priest perpetrates the tremendous act, upon a nice cal- culation of francs and centimes ; so nice, that he tells you before- hand the day, on which he will no longer sacrifice his Saviour on this account ; — as the "pieces of silver" will be then fully earned ? But as M le Due's money is a perpetual grant, — these priests will undertake that the Lord of glory shall be offered up, yearly for- ever, for him ? I do not believe there are on earth assassins who would sacrifice their enemies, or even dumb creatures, upon the terms and totheir extent, and for the reasons on which the priests, if they believe what they say they do, must consider themselves, sacrificing him whom they call Saviour ! — How tremendous are those words, " they have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh ;— and put him to an open shame?" 56 MEMORANDA OJ* CHAPTER VI Religious State of France, past and present— Early Conversion of the Kingdom to Chrislianily, and Apostacy to Romanism— Influence of the latter on France- Liberties of the Gallican Church— The Pragmatic Sanction— The first Concordat -General Councils— Former State of the Clergy— Their Influence upon the Revolution of 1789— Their Conduct during its Progress— Era of Popular Infidelity and Disorder— TheConcordat of 1802— Present State of the Papal Church in France —Open and General Contempt of Religion— Superstition— Bigotry. The Martyrologies give the names of Christian Bishops in France, who are said to have been ordained by St. Peter himself. Such are Xystus, Fronstand, Julianus, the first Bishops of Rhemes, Perigort, and Metz. The same is affirmed, on more credible authority, of the early pastors of Aries and Vienne ; for in the time of Leo I., a controversy for rank, was decided in favour of the former, on the ground that Trophlmus its first bishop, had been set over that charge by the Apostle Peter.— The same Martyrologies assert, and therein are countenanced by much weightier authority than their own, in the assertions of Epiphanius and Theodoret ; that it was into France, and not into Asia Minor, that Paul sent Crescens, of whose mission bespeaks in his epistle to Timothy ; and that he was the first bishop of Vienne on the Rhone. It is certain that some tribes of the Gauls received Christian- ity at a very early period. And it is also certain, that in most parts it was rooted out by the Francs, on their establishing themselves in the country. These fierce barbarians were them- selves brought to a nominal reception of it, during the reign, and FOREIGN TRAVEL. 57 chieriy by the influence of Clovis, their fifth king, towards the end of the fifth century. France was amonor the earliest of the states of Europe to embrace the errors of the Papal apostacy. So far as the mere dogmas of that faith are concerned, no people embraced them witii more avidity and completeness: none shed more blood to uphold them : and none have suffered greater or more continued evils from them. The kings of France embarked in every species of crusade, at the bidding of the Pope; so that not only the plains of Asia and the sands of Africa, and the vallies of every neighbouring kingdom in Europe, have been dyed red through the religious wars in which France took a leading part; but fi'om the year 1179, when the third Council of Laieran com- manded the Vaudois to be exterminated, onward through a period of more than six hundred years — the knife of the execu- tioner blessed by the clergy, and drawn by the king's command, was hardly ever dry. The massacres, from that of Merindol to that of St. Bartholomew; the persecutions; the civil wars, which have afflicted France alone, through the procurement of the Church of Rome, have caused a degree of crime and misery, incomparably outweighing all the spiritual benefits which that church has bestowed upon the whole world. And if the eftects of that dark superstition be judged of by the whole current of its history in this realm, for the last thirteen centuries ; we see only abundant reason to confirm w hat every thing elsewhere establishes — namely, that the Papal church has been one of the greatest curses that ever afflicted the earth. This is the more to be pondered, as it occurred under circum- stances the most favourable to that faith ; for France has never followed out the ultra-montane doctrines of the church, nor received the theories of the Italian party, on the subject of the temporal power and the spiritual supremacy? of the Pope. It was the mere faith of Rome in its best aspect, which wrought all the religious ruin, by the hands of France. Since the days of the great John Gerson, who made so distinguished a figure at the Council of Constance, it has been the settled faith of the French Catholic church, that the Pope was subordinate to a 58 MEMORANDA OF General Council. And the essence of the liberties of the Galil- ean church consists in two great principles, which if rightly applied, curtail the most fearful powers of the Pope. They are, 1, that the power given by Jesus Christ to his church, is purely spiritual, and has no relation directly or indirectly to temporal things : and 2, that the plenitude of power, which the Pope has, as head of the church, should be exercised conformably to the canons received by the whole church : and that he is himself subject to the judgment of a Universal Council, in the cases designated by that of Constance. Such are the words of the Abbe Fleury in his Institution Au Droit Ecclesiastigue. And he proceeds to show that the clergy of France, assembled at Paris in 1682, solemnl}' declared these maxims to be the ancient doctrine of the Galilean church : and then deduces from them those natural and weighty conclusions which have for so long a period kept this church distinct from, though subordinate to, and replete with the worst heresies of that of Rome. The rights secured to the king and clergy of France have been generally held precious by them. They were secured for a long time, by those ordinances of the emperors and of St. Louis, which had received the appellation of the Pragmatique Sanction. This venerable name was also given to an Ordinance of the Galilean church, made by an Assembly of its clergy at Bourges in 143S, in the presence of Charles VII. ; by which it adhered to the Council of Basle, then in session. The Council and the Pragmatique Sanction, were equally odious at Rome : and for a long period bred furious contentions between the two churches, and successive kings and popes. In the year 1516, the cunning and unscrupulous Leo X., terminated the dispute by the famous Concordat between himself and Francis I. : approved by the V. Lateran Council, then in session. Although this Concordat stripped the king and church of France of many of their rights ; it is manifest, from the maxims asserted as already seen, a hundred and seven years afterwards, that they had so far evaded its provisions as to preserve the most essential, as relates to their temporal affairs. The reader will receive a full impressioii of this important fact, when he remembers that FOREIGN TRAVEL. 59 the Jesuits were always odious, and early expelled from the kingdom ; that the Inquisition was never fully established, and was repeatedly forbidden ; that several important councils are recognised as general by France, (as Constance and Basle) which are abhorred by Rome ; and others, as Trent, which are taken by Rome, as having been under the divine and unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit, are rejected entirely, or received only in part in France. So great is this discord, that at Rome it is of Faith to believe that there are but fifteen General Councils ; whereas, in France, it is of faith equally, that there have been twenty ! — A sad discrepancy truly, when the question is no less than the unerring and irrevocable decision of the universal church, as to what is, or is not the voice of God ! Three councils, admitted by both parties to be universal, have been held in France : two of them at Lyons, and the third at V'ienne. And Avignon in the southern part of the kingdom was for above seventy years the residence of the accredited popes of Rome ; not to mention the long period of schism, during which there were two, and some times three popes — one of whom usually resided there. The riches, power, influence, and numbers to which the clergy of France attained, and which ihey long possessed, seem now hardly credible. I find in HeyleyLn's Cosmography, a summary taken from Bodin, Alemont, Sir Edwin Landys, and others; exhibiting their condition towards the end of the 16th century. There were then 13 Archbishops, 104 Bishops, 1450 Abbies, 540 Arch Priories, 12,320 Priories, 567 Nunneries, 700 Convents of Friars, 259 Commondaries of Malta — a number, not known, of Jesuit Colleges. The parish priests alone amounted to 130,000, taking in deacons, sub-deacons, and all inferior orders; which was 30,000 greater than had been reckoned in the days of Louis XL, somewhat more than a century before. The parish churches for so great a multitude to o3iciate in, were only 27,400, exclusive of oratories and chapels of ease, whose number is not given ; proving plainly enough, that their ministry never Was one to proclaim and enlbrce truth, but to ofler sacri- fice. And inasmuch as there is neither priest nor sacrifice in the 60 MEMORANDA OF Christian system, except the Great High Priest, and the one all sufficient sacrifice oi" himself; this contrary system, whatever else it may be, cannot be Christianity. I shouid not omit to say that at the period in question, the revenues of the French clergy, drawn from various sources and in innumerable modes, amount- ed to seven parts out of twelve of the entire weahh of the nation. A condition resembling that of the apostles about as nearly, as their system of ceremonies and sacrifices did the simple preaching of the gospel. The doctrines of the French church, as of all the branches of that of Rome, are founded on the Creed of Pius IV., and elab- orated in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. But those who will pursue the investigation through their dogmatic and controversial, but especially their casuistical writers, will be surprised to find that to the really initiated, there are no settled points whatever ; there is nothing which intention may not vitiate ; which opposing probabilities may not unsettle ; which X\\e plenitude of power rnay not wave. So that it is no cause of marvel, that almost universal infidelity has in all ages character- ized a clergy, who upon their own theories, could not possibly be certain of any thing whatever; and who found themselves able to create a source of gain, in every source of uncertainty. A ^QVf years ago Blanco White who had been many years a Spanish Priest, published a bonk on the state of the clergy in Spain. Rather more than a century before, Antonio Gavin, under circumstances precisely similar, published a like work, on the same country. They both declare that they had scarcely known a priest who was not an atheist— and never one whose morals were not corrupt. In the interval, between these two productions, Dr. Priestly who spent some time in Paris, bore witness to the universal infidelity of the French ecclesiastics. — And the progress of the Revolution of 1789, demonstrated too fatally these sad truths. This story is little attended to. It is known that a whole people, emerging from a thousand years of superstition, plunged into the opposite abyss of horrible atheism ; but it is not remem- bered that this was the natural issue of such a slate ; and that FOREIGN TRAVEL. 61 'f hey who enforced the previous condition, were thereby privy to the final catastrophe. Between the Bible and Atheism, the dis- tance is interminable. But between the Breviary and Atheism, to prefer the former, is evidence only that religion is a natural want of the soul. Nor does the world remember how direct was the participation of the high clergy, in every act that retarded the revolution, and irritated an already excited and newly liberated people. It is forgotten that the ecclesiastics themselves, on the one hand renounced their order and concurred in the most dreadful excesses; and on the other, after exciting civil war in France, joined the emigration in stirring up all Europe against her. — Then it was that she proclaimed herself infidel. First taught that which is simply incapable of belief; then receiving at the hands of tiiose who said they were God's exclusive ministers, the perpetual assurance, that this was not only true, but exclu- sively true ; and then in the midst of their first enjoyment of long lost freedom, beholding these same men presenting them- selves between God and liberty, as if the two were separated by an impassable gulf ; hearing them from all the altars of France attempting to excite schism, and thus kindle a religious war tor the hundredth time, that by means of the blood shed in it they might extinguish all the blessings which the revolution had till then brought forth ; presented with this naked alternative, the god of the Papacy — or the liberty of regenerated France ; the religion of Romanism, or the freedom organized by the finished labours of the National Assembly, and inaugurated by the sublime ceremonies of their federation, in the presence of the king, and the nation itself represented by five hundred thousand men, in the Camp de Mars : — I marvel not at the choice they made. The Roman religion made the clergy what they were ; and they exerted a vast and most malignant influence, in making France what she became. Nor should it ever be forgotten that this conduct of the clergy had for its immediate cause, the most sordid motives. In the early contests between the three orders which composed the States General of the Kingdom, the immense majority of the Vol. II.— 7 62 MEMORANDA OF inferior clergy had adhered to the representatives of the Tliird Estate. By that movement, the Third Estate became the National Estate ; the Estates General were transferred at once into an Assembly of the nation, in which the overwhelming power was vested in the hands of the representatives of the people, though abhorrent perhaps to the high ecclesiastics. The initiative step of the revolution was completed, through the concurring voice of the representatives of the clergy, though dreaded and watched by the high ecclesiastics. On the night of the 4th of August, 1789, the next stride v/as taken ; and the representatives of the ecclesiastical body, partaking of the gen- eral enthusiasm, fully concurred. At one blow the abuses of centuries were annihilated. The provinces gave up their exclusive privileges, Dauphine setting the example, and the others following. Cities renounced their peculiar customs and rights. Franchises and corporations were broken up, at the suggestion of those who profited most by retaining them. — Personal privileges followed ; and the clergy and the nobles rivalled each other in making sacrifices, for the general good of France. Tithes were transmuted into a pecuniary tax on the motion of the Due du Chatelet; and interchanging a lofty courtesy, the Bishop of Chartres moved the abolition of the exclusive right of the chase. When this sitting closed, every Frenchman was equal in the eyes of the law : law itself was equal and the same, throughout France ; and Society had be- come its own master. In these great and beneficent changes, the clergy moved with the nation, if its representatives spoke its voice. Yet at the same moment the body of the clergy plotted against the consolidation of the new liberties of the nation. By-and-by came the decision, that the ecclesiastical estates belonged to France and not to the clergy; that the nation to avoid a horrible bankruptcy might reclaim a portion of those estates — making good by annual grants any deficit that might arise in the revenues of the clergy. In short, that the ministers of a national religion should be considered Officers of State, in so far as to be paid by the Government directly ; and the enor- mous wealth thus left free be applied to national uses. From FOREIGN TRAVEL. 63 this moment the priests of France set their faces like flints towards the ruin of their country. For a period they remained comparatively quiet, as the administration of their immense revenues were still left in their own hands. Presently the system of paper money began to operate a gradual alienation of the property of the church ; as those who received assignats, were permitted to lake a portion of tjie national domain in the redemption of them. This gradually transferred to the munici- palities the administration of them ; and the clergy, making their luxury and the cause of religion the same, threw themselves openly against the National Assembly, and plotted by every means the destruction of all that it had heretofore concurred in establishing. They offered to pay down four hundred millions of francs ; they threw all sorts of impediments in the way of the municipal authorities ; in the South, where the Protestants were still found in greater numbers than in other parts of the kingdom — they stirred up the Catholics against them ; they denounced the sales of their estates, from their altars, as sacrilege ; they used the confessional to alarm the consciences of their penitents ; and in the tribune, applied all their powers, to render the Assem- bly itself suspected. The Bishop of Nancy on an incidental question, endeavoured to obtain a vote, that the Catholic religion was the only religion of France ; and the same decision was again more formally and violently urg^ — and hardly evaded, rather than rejected by the Assembly. They who had shown their love of gold to be superior to that of liberty and country united ; shewed also, that persecution, schism, and civil war were in their estimation trivial evils, compared with the exchange of luxury for competency. The adoption of the project for the interior organization of the kingdom, served indeed as their final pretext. But it was a mere, and most shallow one. Not a syllable was contained in it touching the faith of the church ; it remained as it was. Not a syllable about the services, the ceremonies, the functions, the officers, or any of the internal affairs of the church. The fixa- tion of the number and bounds of the Bishopricks, so as to make them accord with the new departments ; nomination to them in a 64 MEMORANDA OF simple manner, according with the ancient mode of appointincj- pastors, with the concurrence of those to whom ihey were to minister ; the suppression of a lew chapters whose canons were to be replaced by vicars : such was the plan. It provided fully for the support of all the clergy; and for the curates especially, better than before. Their riches, however, were gone; and any thing served for a pretext, when that only was waited for. The Archbishop of Aix denounced the whole project, proclaimed his order to be out of the reach of the civil authority, either as it respected the institution or destitution of Bishopricks ; and when the project was submitted to vote, left the hall, followed by liis party, who from that moment declared open war against the revolution. — Let the world judge how ilir the dreadful shipwreck which followed, is justly attributable to these misguided men ; and how far their own conduct was the necessary result of tlieir religious sentiments. It is needless to trace minutely the sad tale involved in the religious history of France, for the space of eleven years im- mediately following the events of which I have now spoken. The civil wars in the departments, of which religion made so great an ingredient; the emigration of the priests — and the horrible outrages perpetrated on those that were hardy enough to continue their machinations at home ; the abolition of all reli- gion ; the change of the calendar and suppression of the Sab- bath day ; the public execration of the Bible ; the institution of a new religion by Robespierre and St. Just; the reign of atheism and terror combined ; the long and horrible era of the passions, which developed themselves at home in unbridled excess — and abroad in superhuman energy. On the 9th of Oct., 1791, the National Legislative Assembly, which had succeeded to the National Constituent Assembly, made the first decree, and it was a mild and reasonable one, against the refractory clergy. Louis XVI. refused to sanction it ; and the useless and unreasonable effort to save men, bent on the ruin of their country — even if their own should be involved in it, precipitated all that followed. On the 6th of April, 1802, the Concordat between Napoleon and Pious VIL, which had been signed at Paris on the 15th of FOREIGN TRAVEL. 65 July, and Rome on the 15th of August of the preceding year, was ratified by the Tribune, and by the Corps Legislative. By this concordat, being the second of the four of which M. De Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, has written so elaborately — the Sabbath and the four great fetes were restored ; and the old calender immediately supplanted the system of decades. — Nine Archbishops, and forty-one Bishops (less than half the number provided for by that project of the constituent Assembly, which the Catholic clergy had rejected with scorn eleven years before,) were created by the Concordat. The clergy were established as a national estate, and subjected as formerly, to the exterior monarchy of the Pope. The Cardinal Legate Caprara celebrated this event in the Cathedral of Paris with indescribable pomp. After all, the French ecclesiastics might get a lesson of wisdom, by comparing even in temporal respects, what they disdained in 1791, with what they joyfully accepted in 1802 ; or to come still nearer to us, what was despised under the Restora- tion, with what is held as sacred, and by constitutional guaran- tees, since the Revolution of 1830. And it might quicken their apprehension of the moral, to ponder on the crimes, the miseries, the ruin, which a different line of conduct, on their part, would have conduced so largely to prevent ; as well as on, what may possibly affect them as much, the irreparable injury which they have inflicted on the interests of the see of Rome. The Catholic church of France consists at present of fourteen Archbishops, and sixty-four Bishops. These are nominated by the King, and paid a regular yearly salary out of the public Treas- ury. The latter fact is the same with most of the religious teachers of France, whether Catholic or Protestant ; the Revolu- tion of 1830 having for the second time, placed all the sects upon an equal footing in the eyes of the law. Of this, however, I shall have to speak more particularly when treating in another place of the past and present condition of the Protestants of France : of whom I may now say, that they occupy a much more impor- tant posture, than seems to be generally believed. But to adhere to the present subject: the Bishops and Archbishops exceed, unitedly, the number of Departments by only two ; there being 7* 66 MEMORANDA OF eighty-six of the latter in France. They receive their canoni- cal institution from the Pope ; but are not only appointed by the King, but before taking possession of their sees, must take an oath to him which also precedes even the verifying and regis- try of their Bulls, in the Council of State. The Bishops appoint their own Vicars and Cures, but even these appointments are submitted to the King for his approval. The number of Priests in France is somewhat under forty thousand ; whicli the Arch- bishop of Paris has said, was twelve thousand less than the ne- cessities of the country required. The number of nuns is not easily ascertained ; but is variously estimated at from twenty to thirty thousand. The Catholic clergy of France, taken as a body, have I pre- sume, less influence than any other body of the same number and intelligence in the kingdom. All their poUtical influence is an- nihilated. They have Httle connexion with public education ; and fill few chairs of instruction, except those directly relating to the professionable education of their own order. Their ecclesiastical revenues are extinct — their support being derived either directly, and in moderate supplies, from the public Treas- ury ; or l>om their own people, in voluntary contributions of va- rious kinds. Destitute of the spirit of the age, and deprived of the ordinary means on which the church has been accustomed to repose : they constitute, of all churches that pretend to any sort of national existence, the most insignificant. Indeed they can no otherwise be called a national church, than as it is inscri- bed in the charter, that the majority of the nation professes to believe what they teach. This how^ever, is a mere profession. Or rather the assertion ia one which nobody believes. Tlie majority of the French are not Catholics. Of the whole population of the nation not one in six is supposed to be really a papist in faith, or even an oc casional attendant upon the Confessional ; while at least two- thirds of them, live as completely without God as if there was no God in the universe. Those who profess the Catholic faith — I speak of the bulk of ihem— consider their religious duties discharged, by attending FOREIGN TRAVEL. 67 mass on Sunday, and on the principal fetes; and confessincr once a year. The former service occupies an hour at most, on each Sabbath day — and on the days of fete, which are mt very nu- merous, of a character requiring general observance. The hour spent at mass is employed in listening to a service, chant- ed or drawled out, in an unknown tongue; and in beholdincr ser- vices of a puerile and impious superstition, which, after innumer- able turnings, and bowings and gesticulations, end in an act of direct and idolatrous worship of a piece of bread ; which all the mummery had been practised to transmute into the soul, body, and divinity of Jesus Christ. The yearly confession consists in a full revelation of all the evil thoughts, words and actions of the preceding year, to a sinful worm of the dust, like ourselves ; who rewards his penitents for their voluntary and degrading humiliation, by a full acquittal, upon easy conditions, for all the past. If any are more devout, they manifest it by a more frequent attendance on mass and confession ; a more fre- quent repetition of idolatrous prayers to the Virgin Mary, the host, and the saints; and a more punctual substitution offish and eggs, for flesh and fowl. The days of pilgrimage and pen- ance are gone with those of power and wealth ; and the church, contracting at both extremes, has become rather dull in its mon- otonous inanity, for the mercurial natures of the French. A more calculating people, would have meditated rather of the value of such services. These seem only to have considered them stupid. Both views are alike fatal to the church. It is possible that in one respect I do the people and the clergy a double injustice. The latter, in attributing to a general scep- ticism that which they permit and approve as innocent : the for- mer, in accusing them of unbelief— for doing what their religion teaches them is commendable. It is most certain that the ordi- nances of the church are far better observed than those of God ; and it is not impossible, that if the church should only condescend to regard God's laws as binding on her, the people might prove that they had gone astray through ignorance rather than irreligion* The saints^ days are far better kept than the Sabbath days ; and 68 MEMORANDA OF in all the churches no altars are so much neglected as those ded- icated to God himself. Though it be not written on his altar— the Lord Jesus is the "Unknown God." The extent to which the open contempt of religion is carried is incredible. The King transacts business in the public ofl&ces on Sunday : the Queen, who is a strict papist, was at a great horse race in the Champ de Mars last Sunday (the 11th Sept. 1836); the Chamber of Peers met on Sunday to commence the trial of Alibaud the last assassin who attempted the King's life: and the same body, during the trial of all the political prisoners, sat on Sunday: their fairs alway occur on Sunday; every the- atre in France is open every Sunday; the people employed by the government, work on Sunday ; and it is, in short, the day selected for all sorts of public amusements — and specially interesting or important occurrences. As it regards nine-tenths of the people, there is no Sabbath day, in any sense whatever; and as to a day consecrated to religious rest and instruction in spiritual things, the proportion which enjoys it is still much smaller. And yet, there are occasional evidences, that the most absurd superstition still exerts a powerful influence over the public mind* A most singular instance of which occurred within a year, at Nantz, so famous in the history of the Protestants of France. Bishop Flaget, who had Uved many years in the United States, as Bishop of Bardstown, without being suspected of possessing miraculous powers ; returned to his native country, and signalized his declining years by such astonishing miracles, as none but Prince Hohenloe has performed during this century. An im- mense sensation was created ; and the faithful firmly believe, and have made public boast, on full proof, that at his voice the impo- tent walked, and by his touch the sick were healed. There are not wanting evidences, on the other hand, that the same hopes which inspire the subjects of the Pope every where, are operating on the clergy of France, and stirring them up to aniinusual movement. Attempts to curtail religious liberty — pretensions to exclusive right — vindictive attacks on the small FOREIGN TRAVEL. 69 number of preists who constitute the independent sect, called emphatically the French Catholic Church, who have translated the service into French, and separated from the Papal church — persecutions of the evanoelical clergy — tyrannical assumptions where they are most numerous — and a thousand indications of a more evanescent kind ; prove that here also the elements are preparinar themselves for that approaching conflict, which, ii is too obvious, awaits the church of Ciirist, in all lands. MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER VII. Departure from Paris— Our Party— Route to Germany by Strasbourg— Equipment- Notices of the Country — Champagne — Vine Culture — Agricultural Population — Chateau Thierry— Meux—Eppernay— Chalons— France, twice the Preserver of European Civilization. The summer heat of Paris, which never scorches like that of almost every part of America, may be said to close with the summer itself. By or before the end of August, the nights become cool; and the climate, always equable, gradually softens into a bracing temperature. Very soon in September the autum- nal rains set in ; sometimes in torrents, but generally in soft and almost constant showers. These had prevailed for two weeks, nearly without interruption ; when, on the 16th of the month, we left the Hotel Cantorbury, No. 24, Rue de la Paix, to which we had removed a few days after our arrival in Paris ; and bid- ding our host, Petrarchi, to whom we were obliged for six weeks of great civility and excellent cheer, what seemed likely enough to be a final adieu; we set out for the Rhine ; intending also, to visit Switzerland and Italy. Our party consisted of five adults, and an " infant of days,'* as the word of life characterizes the helpless beginnings of man's unending being. How wonderfully and fearfully are we created ! A beginning so insignificant, so helpless, so frail, to usher in a duration tlienceforth eternal ; to expand itself into results so infinite and overwhelming ! How wonderfully and fearfully too, are we hnked one with another; for evil to the third and fourth, but for good, blessed be God, to the thousandth generation !— ' FOREIGN TRAVEL. 71 To thee, sweet and tender one, what are earth and all it holds, 10 bless Ihee now, and teach thee to be blessed forever ; compared with her whose knee is the school where thy all is decided ; and on whose serene and noble brow^ thou mayest read as thy first lesson, that thou shalt lack nothinoj! Blessed be thy helpless infancy ; blessed be thy days of life and peace^ when the eyes that now fill with tears as they gaze upon thee, are closed in death; blessed be thine eternal rest, through the grace and mercy of Him, who shed his precious blood for such as thee ! We got into a large carriage — five inside ; namely, our female travelling companion, our infant's mother and nurse, besides itself and I. The courier on the dickey behind — luggage every where ; — four horses and two postillions ; — and sallying out of the Barriere de Pantin, at the extremity of the Faubourg St. Martin, we took the route for Strasbourg. The carriage we hired at about five francs a day ; the horses and postillions belonged to or were controlled by Louis Phillippe the First — who not only owns or directs all in France, but decides^ how many of each you must take, or pay for, at least. His code required our equipment to be as I have specified ; for which, exclusive of the carriage, we paid eleven francs a post, of five English miles. The expenses at hotels were of course extra, and generally high. Not indeed for the mere food ; but there is always a separate and generally high charge for the rent of the rooms you occupy. For a single night, this charge for our party varied from twelve to twenty francs. Upon the whole, it may be said, that travelling in France, in the public conveyances, is rather cheap ; being about one franc for each person, for every five miles. But if, by ill Jiealth, one is forced to use private means of conveyance ; or if, for any cause, persons prefer travelling in that way, they will find it considerably more expensive. To the invalid it is often indispensable ; to others, its advantages are, superior comfort, and if you please, speed, but especially perfect command of your time, and ample opportunities to see the country and examine every thing. Our route lay directly east from Paris, and for above a hundred miles pursued the course of the river Marne, up which it led us 72 MEMORANDA OF in two days, lo Chalons, in the heart of ancient Champat^ne. There were two sources of rather special interest to us, in the country through which we passed. We were upon the route by which that well meaning man, but weak, incompetent, and unhappy King Louis XVI., made his remarkable flight from the Capitol in the year 1792 : and along which he had been brought back, in effect, a prisoner, after having almost succeeded in a manner perfectly unaccountable ; and at last failed, at the very instant of complete success, through the same mal-adroitness which spoiled so many of his undertakings. He had reached Varennes, near to Metz, two hundred miles from Paris, unsus- pected. A Cew stages further on. General Bretuil, with whom he had concerted his flight — awaited him with a powerful and well aftected army; — the King, confident of success — need- lessly exposed himself to observation; was recognized, stopped, sent back, guillotined ! Who can say how much of the destinies of Europe depended on those lew moments of imprudence, which gave so sombre a turn to the fate of this kind-hearted, but deluded King? How full of wisdom is the divine command that we despise not the day of small things? How full of con- solation is the assurance, that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered ? Another and widely different scene was enacted, in this same region, in 1814, by Napoleon, in that heroic struggle, usually called the Campaign of Paris. Of all his fourteen great cam- paigns, not one perhaps, was more illustrative of his immense genius. And although all Europe was armed against him, and had penetrated into the heart of France ; Paris fell at last, and France was dishonoured, only by the cowardice or treason of those whose courage and fidelity might have covered tl:Leir ■country with glory. But even in this dreadful exigency, the result of the campaign, seemed to the last moment, doubtful ; so much so, that Napoleon hastening with incredible speed to the Capital, and almost alone, had arrived within five leagues of the city, and in an hour more would have thrown himself in the midst of its brave population ; when he was told — Paris has capitulated ! — He calmly replied, I am two hours too late ! Nay, FOREIGN TRAVEL. 73 after the full possession of Paris by tlie allied army, Napoleon in the review of his campaigns has left it as his fixed opinion, that but for the defection of some of his chief military officers, and the open treason of his high civil agents, all the chances of war were still in favour of France ; and the ruin of the allied army nearly certain. The country itself, which has been the theatre of such great events, is beautiful beyond all description. The wide vallies of the Marne, already stripped of the summer crop, and now in a process of cultivation to receive the grains sown in autumn ; seem to the traveller s@ fertile, so easily tilled, and so kind in abundant returns, as to invite tillage and make it doubly joyful. The rural landscape in France is very peculiar, and singularly beautiful. There are no fences, no hedges, no ditches, no houses, nor even walls, only about the towns, — and forests only on the tops of the high hills, or in unfruitful soils. The whole is one wide scene of cultivation, varied by rows of trees along the high ways; and dotted over by Uttle villages clustered in every angle of a river, and hid away in every recess of the hills ; with the ancient spire or tower of a church lifting itself above the houses. The perfect cultivation of the vallies ; the vineyards covering the hill sides — for they are found only there ; the flocks of sheep of the finest wool, with their solitary shepherd, and the small black dog — his constant attendant all over Europe ; the troops of children herding turkeys and geese, for in such a country every thing must be herded ; the companies of villagers as they labour together — or eat their coarse meal on the road side — or flock home with closing day ; every thing is peculiar — and all full of life and beauty. One sees such scenes no where else in Europe : and they who have seen them, will dwell on them in many an after day. The hill slopes are longer, and the hills themselves lower, than I have seen those of Palestine, in my dreams ; or else I would say, to my heart, a thousand times as I passed through Champagne, — was not Israel so, in the days of her power ? I was in the midst of that region which produces the wine, of all others most esteemed. All the little villages through which I Vol. II.— 8 /4 MEMORANDA OF passed, give names to brands more or less esteemed. I thoucrl>.' it would be about the time of vintage ; for 1 had been abundantly supplied for ten days before leaving Paris, with the delicious- white grape, known under the name of Chasselas, but hawked about that city as the grape of Fontainbleu. I had received the impression that the best Champagne was made in part, if not entirely, of this grape. I found myself mistaken in both particulars. They told me every v/here, the vintage was three weeks off; and in the tens of thousands of acres of vineyards, I saw in Champagne, I found the grapes, purple or red, nearly without exception. As I have already said, the vines never occupy the best lands. The ranges of hills on either side of the river, and other range.'? parallel to them, are the seats of the vines ; which cover them so thickly, and are so crowded with the little white sticks which support them, that at some distance, they would easily be mis- taken for a field oi" clover, or some other green crop in full blossom. The vanes are planted without any order, not above a foot or a foot and a half apart. The sticks which support them seem about three feet high ; and a space of at least six inches at the top is bare. Each vine has from two to six bunch- es of grapes, of a deep colour, which grow very near the ground. I presume the only cultivation they receive is with the hoe ; and the districts in which they are most extensively cultivated, devote their greatest as well as their most fertile portions, to various grains and esculent roots. The full half, probably two-thirds, of the agricuhural labour of France is performed by females. On every road you meet them driving a donkey with a panier on each side of him, loaded with vegetables, fruits, merchandise, fire-wood, children, every thing. In the fields you see them using the hoe, the mattock, the hook, the plough, the rake. Their dress is striking. Their shoes are nearly always wooden, as are those of the men also ; no one of either sex goes bare-footed. I saw more bare-footed Avomen in Glasgow, than men, women, and children, in al! France. The pettycoats of the labouring women in France are very short; and nearly always made of blue or red cotton. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 75 On their busts they wear a tiorht jacket, that covers the neck, and leaves the arms bare ; an indulgence very commonly extended to the legs also. A flashy red handkerchief tastefully bound around the head completes the equipm.ent, and aided by their very general comeliness of person, and vivacity of countenance, presents a striking and agreeable object. The bonnet is an un- known luxury ; and in consequence, they all exhibit the darkest >:warth, consistent with the idea of their being really white. The appearance of the labouring men, including all sorts of mechanics, is quite as unique as that of the other sex. The universal dress is of blue cotton ; pantaloons, and an upper gar- ment, the most graceful and convenient a man can put on, which was in common use amongst the backwoodsmen of America, when I can first remember, called by them, a hunting shirt. It is precisely the garment, which the Indian makes of tanned skins; and which shows to such advantage, his beautiful pro- portions. The hat is nearly as unusual as the bonnet, and is substituted by caps of all sorts ; the most common being knitted *'otton or wool, of various colours, and without a rim. For the lirst time in Europe, I saw oxen employed in agricultural labour in Champagne ; and what surprized me more, harnessed side by by side with horses. There is nothing deserving of special notice in the numerous villages through which we passed from Paris to Chalons. — Chateau Thierry is a beautiful place, and has, passing along one side of it, a curious promontory, upon which are extensive ruins of the ancient castle from which it derives its name— a name common amongst the early princes of the Francs. Its public walks are beautiful ; and at one end of them is a monument of La Fontaine, who was born here. At La Ferte-Sous-Jouare, is one of the most extensive, and probably the very best manufac- tory of mill-stones, in Europe. I saw enough to supply the kingdom, it seem.ed to me, for a century to come. Meaux, an ancient and rather pretty town, about twenty-five miles from Paris, is famous, chiefly for having given his episcopal title to Bossuet, the greatest, the shrewdest, and amongst the most unscrupulous enemies of the Protestants ; whose false citation.s 76 MEMORANDA OF of authority, and assertions of fact, make the substance of the present Papal arguments for their system. It is a most instruc- tive comment on what Papism is, and on the manner in which it has always been defended, — that Bossuet in his defence of his system, lame as it is, was obliged to depart so far from the system itself, that his defence has been always discountenanced at Rome ; while the partizans of Rome throughout the earth, leach as authentic, that which they themselves dare not believe ! Eppernay, near to Chalons, is the centre of a great commerce in wines; and is an object of interest on account of some recol- lections of Henry IV., connected with it. The worst inn in France, I think, is there. At Chalons, we spent the Sabbath day. And although denied the privilege of worshipping with those of our own hopes — and grieved rather than comforted at the rights of a strange faith, which seem but the more idolatrous as they are better understood ; and sick at heart amid the unbe- lief of the thousands who openly despise the only religion they know any thing about; we yet rejoiced in the recurrence of another day of sweet and solemn rest. Do Christians reflect how much they lose, and how terrible is the influence of their example, by the too common desecration, especially by those who travel, of the Lord's day ? In the immediate vicinity of Chalons, one of the most remark- able and important events in the history of Europe, occurred. I speak of the overthrow, the annihilation of the power of Attila the Hun, by the Patrician ^tius, about the middle of the fifth century. The fierce barbarian at the head of a troop of savage nations, and leading in person five hundred thousand picked warriors, had dessolated all the northern provinces of the Roman Empire ; and now in his exterminating career, fell upon Gaul. — jEtius, almost the last great captain of the Empire, by the power of tactics and the force of military skill, pressed back the barba- rian king from the heart of the kingdom, into the wide and open plains of Champagne ; and it was here that awful victory was won, — the last which adorns the annals of Rome — which if it could not preserve her from ruin, at least saved Europe from barbarism. The influence of the Moguls in India, of the Mont- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 77 €hous in China, of the Tartar invasion upon Russia, and indeed upon every nation v^^here they have fixed their abode ; leaves no "oora to doubt, what would have been the present condition ot' Europe, if the Huns, the fiercest and least civilized of all the Tartars, had succeeded in their plans of conquest. — After sf whole day of butchery, night closed in, leaving the victory as yet hardly decided ; and one hundred and sixty thousand men dead on the field of battle t ft is indeed with astonishment and admi- ration, exclaims the first of living historians, that we contem- plate the most formidable power that ever affrighted the world, dashed to pieces against the last ruins of ancient civilization. It 33 mournful, but most instructive too, to recall that this illustrious benefactor of the human race, the great ^Etius, who had saved, and who alone of all mankind seemed still able to save the Em- pire ; was assassinated by the Emperor himself, Valentinian III., the last and detestable descendant of the great Theodosius— aided by his eunuchs and courtezans ! Nor is this the only occasion on which France has preserved by her courage and prowess, the civilization of Europe from total shipwreck. Three centuries later than the period of which ! have spoken, Charles Martel saved mankind from the dominion of the Saracens, as ^tius had before done from that of the Huns. The victory of Poictiers over Abderrahman, as really decided that Europe should not be Mahomedan, as that of Chalons did, that it should not be heathen ; as each in its turn did, that Asia having once given light to Europe, should not afterwards overwhelm her again with darkness. In this case also, the massacre of the conquered is described to have been terrific. Nor can it be doubted. For that power cannot be small, which, as it were, by a single stroke shatters on the one hand, great empires; and on the other, preserves the liberty, the religion, the very existence of states ! 8* 78 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER VIII. Boute from Chalons to the Ehine— Lorraine— General Aspect of the Conntry-* Alsace— The Vosges and Saverne Mountains— The Western Valley of the Rhine —National Manners and Employments— Inns— Items and Incidents— General Condition, Character and Custom of the People. From Chalons to Strasbourg the distance is somewhat over two hundred miles. We accomplished it in three days' travel, of about ten hours each. For fifteen leagues we followed the course of the Marne, to St* Dizier, which is the last town of Champagne on that side ; and soon after passing which you enter Lorraine. Champagne, above Chalons, is less beauti- ful and less fertile than below it. Occasionally the hills become lofly, barren, and wild, and vines disappear. From St. Dizier to Ligney, which is situated on the Ornain, a branch of the Meuse, and from thence by Void to Toul on the Moselle, the \vhole distance being about twenty leagues— the aspect of the country is still more abrupt, the forests more extensive, and the vallies smaller and less perfectly cultivated. This will not be wondered at, when it is remembered that three of the principle rivers of France find the sources of some of their chief branches in this high region. From this elevated region, which formed a part of ancient Champagne, issued forth those fierce Senones, a tribe of the aboriginal Celts, who not only conducted an offensive war against Rome for about a hundred years; but under the guidance of the terrible Brennus, sacked, and had nearly destroyed tiie eternal city. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 79 After passing the Moselle the face of the country assumes -^gain, all its former beauty; and from thence entirely across Lorraine, the traveller is enchanted at every step, to behold scattered profusely around, the evidences of contentment, indus- try, health and comfort ; the proofs of a frugal, and kind tem- pered people ; the monuments cf a genial climate and a grateful soil. When the sons of Louis le Debonnaire, divided the empire of the Francs, between themselves, in 813, Lothaire united to Italy the whole eastern portion of France from the sea of Provence to the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt. This long and narrow slip, which included the whole Germanic popu- lation of interior Gaul was called Lotharingia, or the kingdom of Lothaire ; whence the German Lothringen, and the French Lorraine. Alsace is to the east of Lorraine. The little town of Phals- bourg, strongly fortified by Vauban, is at the foot of the Vosges on the western or Lorraine side ; on the eastern or Alsatian foot is Saverne. The ascent of the Vosges, on this side, does not excite notice, except on account of the extensive forest, some- what larger than common ; for European forests generally, are insignificant things when compared with those of America.— This is a part of the once vast and famous wilderness of Arden- ne. When you pass the summit of the mountain, and turn to descend into the flat plains of Alsace, a sight of enchanting beauty presents itself. As far as you can see, to the right and left, is one immense plain, ascending and swelling away from the foot of the Vosges, to the summit of the Saverne mountains, some leagues off and the whole cultivated to the highest degree of perfection. The mountain, whose side you descend by a most delightful road, is thickly wooded to the summit, upon which, to your right, are the ruins of three immense castles. In the plain, I counted eight villages, besides the town of Saverne just under you. Now deluge this scene, with the rich light of an autumnal sun, shed from behind you, as he hastens to his rest, — and you will hardly blush for the enthusiasm to which the vehement progress of the carriage seems too slow, till you could plunge into it ! What glorious spots there are^ of which they who so MEMORANDA OF run up and down the earth have told us nothing! And wha? monstrous fools they make of themselves and us, in passing them in silence, to seduce us into some den, where they have to show us only the mouldering evidences, that some savage lived, or some tyrant died ! This delicious plain communicates with one much broader^ by a narrow and deep ravine which penetrates the Saverne mountains : and through the two vallies you pass, a distance of ten leagues, to Strasbourg — near, not on, the Rhine. The people of Alsace are really Germans. They speak that language as their vernacular tongue ; many of them are as entirely ignorant of French, as if they belonged to another kingdom. Over the doors, the signs are all written in both languages. The houses are thoroughly German ; with enormous walls, and sharp roofs, in which are contained nearly as many rooms as in all the build- ing besides. Three rows of windows in the roof are very common. The people are fairer, stouter, more grave, better clad, and more skilful in the art of husbandry. The women nearly all wear bonnets; and though the favourite, blue and red are still their chosen colours, the wide rimmed bonnets, of the women, and the cocked hats of the men, with their redundant slouched rims — make them appear very different from the people of Champagne and Lorraine. The people of these provinces, however, are different in their appearance and dress. Those of Lorraine, seemed to me, not so dark, nor so homely, as those of Champagne : while the singu lar looking wadded cap, which the females wear on the back of the head, — gives a bold and naked expression to their faces. In all these provinces, as nearly every where I believe in Europe, the fe- male partakes of every species of male labour ; and the male some- times obtrudes into the peculiar province of the other sex. If you see a woman herding sheep on the hill side, it is an even chance that you find a man playing feme de Chamber at the next inn. You find a woman pulling or breaking hemp, which is considered, in America, the very hardest labour ; and in the best hotels, frequently find a man sheeting beds, and arranging the apartments of female guests. All distinctions on these sub- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 81 jects seem, to a considerable degree abolished ; and each betakes himself or herself, to that employment which chance or caprice dictates. The most general fact seems to be, that the two sexes prefer to work in company; and either will employ themselves, in the other's more appropriate offices, rather than be deprived of the other's society. Every thing gives way to this mutual want. Drinking, which in England is one great end of existence, — yields in France to this superior instinct ; for the Frenchman leaves the dinner table with his wife or daughter or female friend, just at the moment, when the Englishman fixes himself for what he calls enjoyment — by sending o^the ladies and bringing better wines. Even in the CafTees, and the restourants, you constant- ly find well dressed females, dining, supping, reading newspa- pers and sauntering with their male relatives and friends; and the presiding genius in such places, is without exception, a fe- male dressed to excess, and seated in some central and conspic- uous place. — I am told that even at the gambling houses, you constantly find w^omen. In its general character, the formation of the section of France lying between Paris and Strasbourg, — is the same as that be- tween Paris and Boulogne. The original rocks are nowhere seen; tlie strata of all kinds, are generally horizontal, and never dip more than a very few degrees. The country in most places seems to rest on vast beds of chalk, — thickly interspersed with lime stone, and abounding, in many localities, with a species of soft sand stone, easily cut and which harden- ing by exposure to the atmosphere, is very excellent for build- ing. Slate must be rare, for the houses are all covered with tiles ; which give to the villages, a red and rather repulsive ap- pearance. About Vic, and Dieuze in the Department of Meur- the are salt springs ; and at Ligny, in the Department of Meuse, are manufactories of Iron. The country abounds with immense beds of clay, out of which quantities of earthenware of a beau- tiful description are made in many places. And manufactories of cotton, lace, linen, paper, hosiery, hats, &c. &c. abound every where. In many places beds of gravel are found covering hun- dreds of acresj— and to these we may attribute the excellence of 82 MEMORANDA OF the roads. For a more delightful one of equal length is not easily found ; and like all the other roads of France, it is made at the public expense, and travelled free of toll. This last fact is not likely lo escape notice by those Avho have been in England, where the toll, for a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, is about three pence sterling a mile. — You see no wild animal of any kind, — in travelling through France ; and even birds are very rare. The Cuckoo, is the most common object that has life, and freedom : a shy, and rather large bird, with white wings and a black body, — shaped like a blackbird, though twice as large, — and which is unknown in America. We took no pains to reach such inns, as were considered best ; our desire being rather to know what France was, than to enjoy her best gifts. One who is content to take what he can get, can always get something ; and is thus perfect master of his move- ments. The better class of French Hotels are the best 1 have seen, in any country. In the very poorest inn, in the smallest village, you are certain, of a clean bed, — and a cup of excellent coffee ; the latter is a luxury, which you seldom meet with even in. the best English or American Hotels. But this is the most that can be said : for the doings of these people are in some respects, hardly to be borne with. At Bourdonnay, a village of a thousand persons, about twenty-five miles east of Nancy, we spent one night, at the best of the village inns. Before we could get to the door of the house, the flank of a large manure bank which stood directly in front of the door had to be turned. 1 found this to be the case at nearly every door in the place ; and generally in all other villages. When the door was reached, a contest of a few moments with a flock of geese, that occupied the narrow, damp and dark passage, had to be pretty severely waged, to induce them to sally forth upon a second bank of manure, which blockaded the back door. A wide stairway turning short out of the vault, for the passage was no more, l«d us upon a balcony, inside the house, lighted from above, — and open to the ground floor. Upon one side was the chimney, about thirty feet broad by ten deep, — open at the bottom, and tapered up like a funnel. This fashion of building cliiranies,, FOREIGN TRAVEL. 83 which is common, is the more preposterous, as they hardly ever use fire^ except for cooking ; and then in the least possible quan- tity. — On another side of the balcony but under the same roof was a mill ; — and opposite to it our chambers. Yet after so sad a presage, we found Monsieur Berger a good host ; his littit daughter Victorine, a smart attendant ; and his interior accom- modations really good. A second night was passed at Void, a village of fourteen hun- dred souls in the Department of Meuse ; and here an incident of a trifling kind, threw some light on the slate of the people. We were rather late in getting to the inn ; our party somewhat larger than usually tarried at it ; and a mother with a young child, and herself in feeble health made some extra arrangements neces- sary. — In the course of our conversation, with each other, and with the people of the house, they gathered that 1 was the father of the child. Afterwards, when our repast was served, it appear- ed they had concluded from my invoking the blessing of God upon it — that I was a priest. When the nurse was about to put the child to rest in its mother's bed, — the daughter of our host, a grown and rather pretty woman, interfered and forbade it. On being required to explain herself, — she said, the Priest had said the child must not sleep with its mother ! — And on being further questioned, — it turned out, that she so understood something I liad said ! — Then according to her notions,— it was not out of the way for priests sworn to celibacy, to have children ; and open- ly to exercise authority, supposed to belong only to husbands ! On the other hand, it was incompatible with her Ideas that one, not a priest, should openly and reverently thank God for his daily bread ! — And in defiance of all explanation, the poor woman seemed resolved to abide the truth of that solution of the matter — which accorded best with her own ideas and the state of manners around her. At the town of St. Dizier, I had another occasion to get an item of knowledge on the same general and interesting topic — the condition of society amongst the people at large. We stop- ped an hour for rest at mid day; and in walking about the place, I fell upon the Hotel de Ville, or Town House, and walked in. Multitudes of advertisements hung upon the walls, and were 84 MEIHORANDA OF pasted and nailed to pillars, just as I had seen them all my life I read many with curiosity and interest; and found in them, the same evidence of the misfortunes, the vicissitudes, the tempta- tions, the speculations, and the whole strife of existence that thickens upon us from every source, so soon as our ardent pas- sions give us liberty to feel it. Among the rest was the one I wished to mention. It was a list of all the convictions for offences 'followed by infamy' — as it was expressed — in the town, for one year ending with February 1836. It was neatly printed, and contained in rows, the names, with the ages and description of the culprits; the crime with its circumstances ; and the pun- ishment. Tlie punishments seemed to me just, — and exceeding- ly well discriminated; and the whole affair impressed me favour- ably, towards several points of the criminal jurisprudence of the country. The li&t of crimes, engaged my special notice. I observed in Ireland, that out of every list of crimes above half were breaches of the public peace. In England, the multitude of murders, bears a shocking proportion to the whole number of crimes. In this list, which contained ten cases, there Was no murder, no breach of peace ; five of the cases were theft — and four rape! I believe you will find similar results to follow in at thousand cases, in the three countries : and they throw a strong light on the characters of the respective nations. In the same public hall, was a shallow box fastened to the wall, and protected in fi-ont by a screen of wire, through which you could read a notice fixed up in it. It was a notice of a contem- plated marriage — a publishing of the bans, by posting up a placard, instead of by outcry on the Sabbath, at church. Both ways seem amazingly like advertising a lost quadrnped ; and show how much pains the rulers of the world take to befool the people, for no end. I read the notice of course, and observed in it two things, common in France, and uncommon with us. The man's middle name was Maria, the woman's Joseph . and noth- ing is more common here than for each sex to take names thai belong to the other. Indeed the common mode of naming chil- dren is to give each child the principal name of both its parents ; boys, for example, are all Joseph Maria — the girls all Maria FOREIGN TRAVEL. 85 Joseph, — and then to both, are added other names, male and female, without discrimination or limit. It apeared also, that the lady was six years the elder of the two ; which reveals another custom carried to so absurd a decree, that every French Woman seems to consider every man no matter of what age or condition, so that he be not her son or father, open to the im- pression of her charms. The consequences are often extremely revolting; still oftener irresistibly ludicrous. But on the whole, ^he power of female influence is prolonged to a much later period of life ; and old age in both sexes is freed from many habits that so often make it repulsive. VdL. n.— 9 86 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER IX. The City of Nancy— The princely House of Lorraine— Strasbourg— The Cathedral- Idolatrous Worship of Joan of Arc, and of the Virgin Mary — Ascent of the Ci^ thedral Spire — View from it— Lists of Names— Telegraph— Insurrection of Loui* Napoleon — Reminiscence of John Calvin. Nancy, the Capital of Lorraine strictly so called, is one of the most beautiful cities of France. Situated in an extensive and fertile plain on the Muerthe, not far above its junction with the Moselle, surrounded by lofty hills covered with vineyards — divided by straight and regular streets, and finely built up willi lofty stone houses, it presents a delightful aspect to the visiter. — It contains thirty thousand inhabitants, and has many objects worthy of inspection. In the midst of the Royal Square, standi a fine monument to Stanislaus Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and King of Poland. The palace and sepulchres of the ancestors of this renowned house, are still exhibited ; and perhaps few of the proudest of Europe have produced more illustrious names. From the days of Clovis even to our own, kings, dukes, and princes; statesmen, churchmen, and soldiers; queens, beautie.^. and courtezans ; all famous over the earth, have sprung from this long descended race. And it has been a rare signalized by mis- fortunes, which did not always teach it virtue or moderation. Out of the thirteien princely branches into which this family has been lineally divided, the one best known to the English reader, nnd which may be taken, both in its temper and fate, as a speci- men of all ; is that whicii the church of God has had so much reason to call the bloody house of Guise ; from which sprung FOREIGN TRAVEL. 87 Mary of Scotland, whose misfortunes have seduced mankind into a forge tfulness of her crimes ; and tlie Cardinal of Lorraine, lamous in the Council of Trent, and the subsequent persecutions of the Reformed church of France, Nor should I omit to mention Strasbourg : which is a still Uirger and more interestinir city. It contains about fifty thousand inhabitants ; is divided by the lillle river 111, and is very strono^Iy J()rtified and garrisoned. It was built by the Romans to defend their frontier on tlie Rhine, against the Germans. It has many objects of interest, and is a very great thoroughfare for travellers who pass up or down the Rhine, as well as for those who pass from France into the heart of Germany, or vice versa. The Lutheran church of France has a Faculty of Theology here; and there are schools of law, physic, science and letters, con- nected with the general system of the French Government. Its public library contains fifty thousand volumes ; a kind of treas- ure which we need more in America, than any other Europe can boast. But the great object of attraction, is the vast, and useless or worse than useless Cathedral, in which for above fight hundred years they have taught the people to worship those who are no gods. It is an immense pile, whose highest spire reaches the hight of nearly five hundred feet; rising higher even, as they boast, than St. Peter's at Rome. It is a perfect specimen of fine Gothic architecture, loaded to excess with ornaments, and interminable carvings. The interior is one spa- f^ious hall, divided by two rows of massive pillars, which support tlie high vaulted stone roof. On either side are the usual compliment of chapels ; and rather a redundant supply of the finest stained glass, in the great windows. At the end, in the centre, is the grand altar, and a carved pulpit of great beauty and richness; on one side is an enormous apparatus, which seemed as I looked casually at it, to be covered with figures and astronomical characters, and is probably intended for some scientific use ; on the other is a corresponding recess, fitted up ibr worship, according to their fashion. Here the Papist is at home ; and in the hour I spent in the cathedral, nearly a hundred persons, performed acts of devotion there. What did they 88 MEMORANDA OF worship? — I tried to discover. There were six young men on their knees before a railing ; in front of them three old women ; scattered behind them, other persons of both sexes. In front of them, hung, fastened in some way to a pillar, a female figure about as large as a girl ten years old. It was dressed in the tip of the mode, white satin, with a lace apron, a crown on its head, and I should say at a guess, three pounds of beads on its neck and breast. On the base of the frame that supported it was a latin inscription, stating that the reliques of St. Joan were there. I infer, therefore, that this was the image of that heroic and unhappy girl, commonly called Joan of Arc, who was born in a village of Lorraine, not far off; and who has had the double misfortune of having been burnt for a witch by the English, and of being worshipped as a saint by the French. How opposite are the modes in which nations may become infa- m6us ! The kneeling crowd before her image, acted precisely as they would have done, if they were worshipping the thing itself; and whether it be more proper to worship a dead woman, or her image, I leave others to settle. I examined the whole matter with care. On the left side of the altar and the figure, stood a sort of rack ; upon which hung in rows above each other, fifty-seven images in white wax. 1 counted them twice: there were just fifty-seven. Of these nine were small busts, only exhibiting the head and neck ; and depending by a string from the top of the head. Four were hearts ; each about as large as the palm of the hand. Eight were liliputian human figures ; complete, but only a few inches long, and moulded into all sorts of attitudes. The remainder of the fifty-seven, were, in about equal proportions, legs and arms ; perfect, but very small, and each hanging to its own hook. There was room enough on the rack, for as many more as were on it. Who put them there, and for what purpose ?— Inquire of some Catholic friend ; — and if he be not ashamed to tell you, you will learn one more tale, which if you have a Christian heart, will fill your eyes with tears. On the opposite side of the same column, and on various parts of the walls of the chapel it faced, were hung cards, appa> FOREIGN TRAVEL. 89 frently much used ; and at the top of which were printed in Jarge capitals the words "l 'amende honorable." What is ihis, thought I? There was a column of French, and one of German : — the same in suhstance. f translated literally a few sentences, as many as I could write on a card: "Prostrated " humbly at your feet, holy Virgin, mother of God, oh, Mary, " we ask of God and of ^ou, pardon for the outrages which *' heresy and impiety have the madness to commit against your *' honour. We present to you our hearts penetrated with the " most bitter grief, and bewail more than all, the irreverence, " and indifference, of which we, your ovvn children, are guilty " towards you." Such was, perhaps one-fourth or fifth part of a prayer in constant use, in the cathedral church of one of the principal diocesses of France, in the heart of the most civilized part of the continent of Europe ! It is extremely remarkable to observe how the worship of the Virgin Mary, has increased during the present era, in the Papal church : insomuch that she is now the principal object of their adoration throughout the world. Whatever may be the real or pretended changes, wrought by the force of circumstances in the political religion of Rome, I think any calm observer must confess, that as a spiritual system it is more corrupt now than it was before the Reformation. It teaches less of the plan of redemption, and more that is incom- patible with it ; and is a more total and absolute system of idol- atry to-day, than it was wlien the Council of Trent met. It is in this light that it lays so heavy a responsibility upon the people of God ; and calls so loudly upon them for a great and united effort to rescue the millions who are perishing under its merciless grasp. The view from the top of this church is very fine. I did not climb to the summit of the spire ; but about half way up the terrible ascent the towers are reduced in siae, and the space left forms an extensive and magnificent promenade at an elevation far above any thing else in the city. The course of the Rhine, and the rich and wide valley that skirts it on this side, lie stretched out far towards the north and south. On the eastern side of the river, the Grand-Duchy of Baden—and the moun- 9* 90 MEMORANDA OF tains of the Black Forest are in full view ; while towards thfe west the Vosgian mountains shut in the prospect. Villages and cultivated fields minorle in the soft landscape ; and the people in the crowded streets below you, move about like puppets in a show. Alas ! how hard it is to leach our hearts that the earth and all it holds, are most lovely when we see them a-far off'; that it is only needful for us to mount steadily upwards, to reduce them all to their just proportions, and exhibit plainly their real littleness ! On the terrace the family of the man who takes care of the clock of the Cathedral resides; and his apartments seem not only comfortable, but extensive. Every place where a name could be cut, seemed filled with those of persons from all pans of the world : and at all such places records are kept, for the inscription of the names of visitors. The repeated occurrence of this form at all the hotels on the Continent— where the hosts are obliged by law to keep a register, of a most exact kind, soon accustoms one to it as a matter of course. The particu- larity of Europeans, especially of the English, in making known their rank, and always exacting all which in their judgment it entitles them to expect — makes these lists, often very amusing. The same cause seems to have created embarrassment to Amer- icans—to know what to say of their condition. I perceived a diversity of practice amongst my countrymen, in all cases where I had opportunity to inspect these lists : and was rather surprised to find them hesitating a moment on such a subject. We are citizens, citizens only, all citizens, and above all, the only citizens : for the rest of mankind are subjects. And thus I insisted on all occasions in inscribing myself— simply citizen. A glorious dis- tinction, which if any choose at home to lay aside, for Colonel, Esquire, Doctor, Reverend,^or such like; let us at least by our example rebuke a servile world when it insists on knowing vjfhat our condition is. There is another thing about these lists, which commands the notice of Americans. Whenever they are of such a voluntary kind as to be exposed to mutilation, without the offender subject- ing one to punishment ; it is by no means uncommon to find 'FOREIGN TRAVEL, '91 them containing extremely bitter and insolent attacks upon individuals and states. These insults are almost invariably appended to the name of some American, and without excep- tion written in the English language. Whether it is most prob- able that Americans thus traduce tliemselves ; or that persons of other nations, not being English, use that tongue to do it ; or that the English, unable for an instant, under any circumstances to conceal their national antipathies and manners, are the real au- thors of such pasquinades ; needs, I presume, little skill to guess. On one of the lower towers of the Cathedral is constructed a Telegraph, which is the beginning of the series on this frontier of France. We had very often on our route from Paris, passed other ^stations, which communicating with each other from one eleva» tion to another every few leagues, — are enabled to transmit intelligence with astonishing rapidity. The structure is very simple; consisting of four pieces of timber, which represent exactly the letter T. The erect stem, serves only to sustain the other three timbers. They are so constructed as to assume, under the control of puUies, springs, &c. every possible shape, at every conceivable angle, both with the horizon and the zenith. A language is constructed out of these signs ; and short sentences, conveymg the essence of things, speed across France from all directions to the Capital, with the rapidity of the wind. When ihe late Mill^naire Rotchschild, died at Frankfort on the Mame, the words il est mort^ — he is dead^ — were borne by telegraph, to Calais, and thence by a carrier pigeon to London, in a few hours. Louis Phillippe, is always possessed of the earliest and most accurate information, of every thing tiiat transpires in Europe. And unless his government is foully misrepresented, it not only often conceals the truth, and reports what is false ; but even descends to the fabrication of any particular thing it may desire to have considered true at any certain place ; and then makes the telegraph send up a rumor that the thing is so and so. It is thus that they are able to distract the public mind, and to avail them- selves of contingencies for their purposes, during the time necess- ary to get true information. It is believed that such things have 9^ MEMORANDA OF been practised to a great extent, during all the present troubles in Spain, in relation to the affairs of that country. It was not long after we left Strasbourg, before the abortive attempt of young Louis Napoleon to revolutionise France and restore the imperial dynasty, exploded in that city. The most remarkable result of that affair perhaps, was the acquittal of the principal accomplices of young Bonaparte. For reasons of state, he had himself been allowed by the French Government to escape punishment ; and had been sent to the United States. But the whole force of the government, was used to bring his sjhief advisers to punishment. The first success against the government was the determination of the tribunals, that all tl.te offenders, even the military officers, must be tried by jury; the second was the acquittal of all the accused, the jury refusing to. punish the accessaries, when the King himself had withdrawn the principal from justice. So that an armed, yea open insurrec- tion, went utterly unpunished, in a country where men may commit treason even in their thoughts !^ — No evangelical Christian or lover of letters, who visits Stras- bourg, can forget that it was for a considerable period the resi- dence of Calvin ; whom it received with great distinction whcii he was driven from Geneva ; and whom, it most reluctantly gave back again, to the entreaties of liis repentant country. To the day of his death, the great Reformer cherished the most grate- ful and loyal feelings to this beloved city ; and history contains few monuments of the kind, so affecting and instructive, as the proofs of the mutual friendship and confidence of this great and then free city, and the august man it had received, cherished and jiurabered amongst its sons ! iFOREIGN TRAV&I*. 93 CHAPTER X. Entrance into Germany— Grand Duchy of Baden— Passports— The Black Forest- Appearance of the People — Agriculture— Climate — Face of the Country— Lan- guage— Religion—The Grand Duke and his Family— Valley of the Kinzig. After spending one day in Strasbourg, we took the route towards Constance. The Grand Duchy of Baden, occupies the most south-western corner of Germany. It borders on the Rhine for a great distance, stretchinor from the lake of Con- stance, to where the river Necker empties itself, not far from Manheini. But it is very narrow : the Kingdom of Wurtem- burg being, as it were, cut out of the body of it, leaving it only two long strips, which meet in a right angle opposite Basle ; where the Rhine, which pureued from Constance a couFse nearly west, suddenly turns to the north ; which course it follows to the German ocean. Both Wurtemburg and Baden, originally appertained to ancient Suevia or ScFiawbia ; a mountainous and woody region, celebrated from an early period for its inhospita- ble climate, and fierce inhabitants. We crossed the Rhine at Kehl, about a league from Stras- bourg, on an admirable bridge of boats thrown across it just below a considerable ripple. The Rhine is here wide and rapid, and washes one of the finest vallies in the world. Every thing proved that we were passing a frontier. Our passporis were inspected by the military at each end of the bridge ; and again by the Badish police, after driving a few hundred yards further. The red and blue of the French soldier, gave place to the^reen 94 MEMORANDA OF" and gray of the Radish; and even the dress of the postiflioDf was altered. Throughout Baden you are driven by men in bright yellow ; with two immense paiticolored tassels hanging in the middle of the back ; and the chord to which they belong, Ibrcing a short crooked brass trumpet, close up under the left arm, with its wide mouth behind. The passport system of Europe, seems dictated exclusively by the pusillanimity of kings ; and is enforced in exact propor- tion to the consciousness they seem to have that men abhor them. If you turn your face towards the residence of any ruler, all occasions are taken, and often made to examine youi* passports. But you may pass nearly undisturbed if you tura aside from their dwelling places. From Boulogne to Paris we were questioned eight or nine times : from Paris to Strasbourg, more than double as far, not once. And in Baden, as soon as the police understood that we were not going towards Carlsruhe, but in the opposite direction, our passports w^ere folded up and civilly returned — and our baggage not even spoken of. At the moment we were thus summarily discharged, there was a family who were going to Carlsruhe, undergoing the most mortifying search ; their trunks, bags, and boxes exposed to idle gaze, and their apparel and little minute concerns pried into by great boobies with forests of beards, and broad swords heavy enough to cleave a trunk at a blow. On another occasion near the borders of Switzerland, while our horses were changing an officer who a moment before allowed us to pass without a question ; stopped a boy fifteen yeans old, who was travelling on fool, and exam- ined him critically,, before he would permit him to go on his solitary way. The boy was going: into,, we out of the Grand Duchy. The Black Forest which formerly covered so large a part of Baden and Wurtemburg, still occupies an immense space.. We had proofs of its proximity before entering Germany. For as we drove out of Strasbourg early in the morning, on the prin- cipal market day, plank and wood, were, next to cabbages, the most striking objects for sale. From the time you enter Alsace,, th^ cabbages begin to assume a more and more conspicuous . FitSREIGN TRAVEL. 95 place in rural economy; until you presently find them in quan- tlties and of dimensions absolutely portentous. From Slras-- Ijourg to Kehl, and for several leagues after passing it, the roads were in a degree obstructed by wagons loaded with wood and plank, moving towards the first named place. Every thino; made it manifest that we were already amongst a different people. The cap of the Frenchman and the slouched hat of the Alsatian, gradually gave way to the wide rimed, high topped, i)ell crowned hat, to which the German every where seems wedded. I found myself again in a land of knee breeches — which my visit to the mid-land counties of England had made so familiar to my eyes. Here was no longer the graceful hunting shirt of the Frenchman ; but the upper garment of the men resembled more than anything else, an ancient shirt of mail, reaching to the hip, fitting close, and widened at the bottom, by a broad hem of a span's width cut into open scollops. The females, instead of having no head-om top to toe. The increased quantity of garments may do semething, and the short waists of all of them more, to produce this apj)earance. But there is surely a most radical difference in the people themselves. The culture, as well as the people, is different. Indian corn Tint] hemp take the place of the vine. Milch cows were to be seen yoked to the plough by the head, instead of the neck ; and droves of cattle aiid hogs roamed in the il)rests or grazed on the hill-sides. In every little garden was a stand for bees; and hedges every where skirted the road side. The houses remind • ed me, at every step, that we were again in a land of timber ; 96 MEMORANDA OF bein^ generally constructed of frames of wood, filled in with mortar, and very often having shingle roofs. It was in Baden that 1 saw ibr the first time a European house with a shingle or boarded roof. The climate was also changed, and the hay har- vest, of the second crop I suppose, which was nearly completed in France, was only fully commenced in Baden : while in the more elevated situations, the barley crops were yet uncut, though the first month of autumn was above two-thirds spent : and the potato crop, which is universal every where, was yet in bloom here, though already gathered in many sections through which I had just passed. This change was, however, gradual — and became more and more obvious as we mounted higher and higher into the mountains which ibrce the Rhine, as it issues from lake Constance, to take the great detour to the westward, of which I have ak-eady spoken, before it can find its way to the sea. Indeed for a few leagues after crossing the Rhine, the wide plane on the east, greatly resembles that on the west side. As you diverge from it, and on the route we took, gradually draw into the narrower valley of the river Kinzig, vineyards still cover the hills, in pleasant exposures. What is occasional in the vineyards of France, is universal almost in ihose of Baden ; in all of which you see a small solitary hut,.for the use of those that watch them at the vintage, and which constantly reminded me by their appearance of extreme loneliness, of the inspired prophet's description of the coming desolateness of Israel — " like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." The language of the people, is perhaps more remarkably difler- ent from that of their neighbours beyond the Rhine, than any thing I have hinted at. How extremely difl&cult is it to realize, that a month ago yes was yes, and no was no ; but that yester- day oui was yes, and pas was no ; while to-day. ja is yes, and nein is no! We can't realize it; we don't. For I have inva- riably observed that when people speak to those who imperfectly understand their language, they speak loud and distinctly ; thus manifesting an instinctive feeling, that the others ©ught to under- stand, but would if they heard correctly. At any rate the diversity of human speech is a most extraordinary afiair» It FOREIGN TRAVEL. 97 seems to me perfectly inexplicable on merely philosophical prin- ciples: and I am sure that after being; thrown in a condition nearly helpless, through ignorance, amongst people of strange speech, we are able to apprehend in a higher degree the abso- lute need of divme power to confer the gift of tongues ; and the mighty and ail-but appalling influence, which must have attend- ed its exercise. I may be perhaps excused too, for saying in this connexion, that the good of the world would probably be greatly promoted, by a more general attempt on the part of educated men, to obtain an acquaintance with living languages. In America especially, there was until very lately, a deplorable deficiency in this respect. Twenty years ago, there were few institutions of learning amongst us where any modern language could be properly acquired ; and even now there are few, if any, of much repute where the acquisition of such a knowledge tbrms a necessary part of education. I believe multitudes of those who have been thus neglected, would be happy to exchange half they learnt at college, for the ability to speak French or German. There is one most important respect in which portions of these two neighbouring countries are essentially one. Multitudes in both are nominally Catholics ; and you find proofs that many are really so, as you pass the high ways. Scattered thickly through Baden, as well as France, are crosses, in the fields, on the road side, in the gardens, every where. It is a solemn sight — and I never look on one without bewailing that the wickedness of man should make it an instrument both of superstition and idolatry. These crosses have always an image of the Saviour crucified, upon them; and these are of all sizes, from a few inches to the dimensions of a full grown man ; and of all grades of finish. But in addition, you often see, especially in Baden, figures of various parts of the human body; a foot, two feet, a hand, a hand and foot^ two legs, and so on, at caprice, nailed to the same cross on which is an image of the Saviour. At other times there are various figures of tools, — carpenters' tools especially, hung about them. And an invariable affix is a hole chiseled into the body of the cross, to receive presents, which , Vol. u.— 10 98 MEMORANDA OF are removed at stated periods by the priests. Besides these crosses, there are constantly to be seen images of the Virgin Mary and of various saints, of all sizes, scattered every where ; but particularly on the sides of bridges, in the fronts of taverns, and over the gates of towns. A considerable part, however, of the Badish people, as of nearly all otlier portions of the Germanic race, have embraced the principles of the Reformation. There are two qualities which delighted me with the good people of the Grand Duchy. I never saw a drunk person in Baden ; and of all people, they are the most poUte and respect- ful. If you meet any one on the road, from a child of six to an aged man, he respectfully takes off his hat. There is no servil- ity about it ; they do it to each other, whenever they meet. A civil word, a respectful salutation — a look of grave but cordial kindness, are habitually rendered to the whole world. Would that the whole world would take pattern by them. And in good truth there is much of this in many parts of Europe. I have had a Scotchman walk with me a square to show me a place [ could not find, out of mere kindness to a total stranger : and I never saw a Frenchman tried, who would not quit his work, to tell you any thing you chose to ask him about. But try a man in London. The first you meet. What did he say? Try the next. Try fifty. It is useless : you will never try another. There is a very great mistake in the world, about the general sobriety of people in all vine-growing countries. 1 saw more drunkenness in Paris than in London, in proportion to the time I was in each city. Indeed I seldom walked an hour on tirc Boulevarts, that I did not see some one intoxicated. In Baden I had an excellent opportunity to witness the habits of the people under pretty strong temptation. For the same day we left Strasbourg to go towards Constance, the Grand Duke Leopold and his family passed down to Carlsruhe. We met him and his family at Biberach, about thirty miles from the Rhine. When we got to that village, every thing was in commotion ; and as all the post horses were put in requisition by his avant courier before we arrived, we had no aliernative, but to await his coming and lake some of those he would leave, when he got the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 99 fresh ones. I rather regretted this. There are people enough in the world who are ready to puff up the great by adulation. It is good there should be a few, who can never forget that all privileged classes and orders, are the curse of the earth. There are a plenty who deem it an honour to be admitted into their presence. It is well that a handful be allowed to pity and shun them. He came by-and-by : and all seemed glad to see him. A large, fair, and rather handsome, middle aged man, riding with his children in a plain carriage; preceded by another, in which were three females and a man, than whom few courts could boast four uglier personages. One was the Grand Duchess, of whom I heard from the people of the country that she had been formerly a fille-de-chamber ; and read in the Jilminac Royal et A'^ational, of Paris, for 1836, that she was a descendant of Gustavus Vasa. The latter is perhaps true in fact ; the former, possibly just, as a criticism. I retraced tiie route this party had just travelled, up the valley of Kinzig, as far as Hochberg, that afternoon. There were garlands of tiowers hanging from the windows, arches of evergreen thrown across the streets of the villages, and every sort of demonstra- tion of a very high and gratified public feeling. But not one drunk person was to be seen. We had passed from the valley of the Rhine into the narrower one of the Kinzig — and had ascended it until it had narrowed, to a space which was completely occupied by the town of Hoch- berg, with its high, sharp, wooden houses. There can hardly be a more romantic valley. Bounded and hedged in by moun- tains of granite, covered with timber, where not covered with the products of man's industry; gradually contracting lor the whole fifty miles thai separate Hochberg from Kehl: thickly inhabited by a simple, hardy, and kind-hearted people, who have changed but little for many generations, who have every neces- sary of life, and who seem strangers to all its luxuries ; there seemed to be lacking but a knowledge of the truth as it is ia Jesus, to make it all the heart could wish. And fervently did I beseech the blessing of God on his truth, as I scattered along this lonely valley, and the lofty region into which it leads the 100 MEMORANDA OF traveller, a package of German tracts with which amongst others, the female tract distributors of my congregation had sup- plied me before I left Baltimore ; and which I had now the first, and so favourable an opportunity to use. It is thus that tiie religion of Jesus Christ brings the ends of the world together ; and these young Americans may meet in heaven, who shall say liow many souls from that sweet valley, upon whom the setheria! spark fell, scattered by their hands ? Grant, Lord, that I may behold that blissful meeting, in the world of light ! FOREIGN TRAVEL. 101 CHAPTER XI Architectural Ruins— Minute Description of those at Hochberg— Mountains of the BiackForest—Sourcesof the Danube— Principality of Furstenburg— First Glimpse of the lioden See— Tlie Schwartzwold. Those striking ruins, which every where skirt the Rhine, are found a)so on the banks of the Kinzig. The'first pronnontory that jutted out into the valley, was covered with the extensive remains ofan ancient feudal castle, frovvninorupon the summit of the clitis. What apparent trifles, change the whole destinies of generations! That castle in its day, was an impregnable fortress — whose nar- row limits might have defied the world in arms ; and from which some fierce barbarian, backed by a few scores of steel-clad rob- bers, might have have spread terror over all the surrounding region. To-day, — its fiercest lord might replace it in its prime ; and a sergeant and a dozen men, with one mortar, would reduce it to ruins in three days ! A few leagues farther up the valley we passed a second ruin- ed castle ; and at the ancient town of Hochberg found a third. We arrived early in the afternoon, and were afforded a good opportunity to examine it. A fine looking Badish boy, bare headed and bare footed, undertook to i)ilot me to the ruins ; for although they overhang the antique village, it seemed a desper- ate attempt to scale the clift^ on which they stand. A very good road, wide enough to admit a carriage, and by no means of steep ascent, left the outskirts of the town and turning the end of the mountain, wound around the precipice to the very castle yard. 10* 102 MEMORANDA OF An ascent of twenty minutes, brought us upon the summit ; and we stood so immediately above the village, that it seemed as \i 1 could leap into the street. The mountain top was of very narrow dimensions; and its surface Avas divided into several compartments of unequal extent, by four great ledges of the rock, which had been left apparently when the intervening spaces were cut away to be used in the erection of the towers. The most easterly extremity of the mountain stood in its original state. Then came a transverse cut, entirely across the narrow summit to the depth of twenty feet or more. Then there was left, about thirty feet of the primitive rock, which was excavated so as to form a prison, entered by a small doorway and lighted by a single small hole cut through tlie side, pretty liigh up. These were all to the right of the main court yard ; which was itself, a cut about forty feet square, occupying the total breadth of the top of the mountain. Then came on the left hand of the court, another section of rock through which a vaulted way ci:t through it for about thirty feet, led to the last vacancy ; beyond v.'liich stood the rock in its native state at the western extremity of the summit ; and upon it the ruins of the castle itself. This rock is ascended by a stone stair-way, supported on a wall now in a decayed state; and its whole surface, which is about forty feet square, was once covered by two large towers. One of these is still standing, in a state of pretty good preservation. It occupies about half the space on the top of the rock: and is a plaia square tower, with walls about six feet thick, and perhaps thirty feet high. It is built of the same reddish granite which compo- ses the mountain itself; and I have no doubt out of stone ci:t from the top, in the maimer I have described. There is a low arched door way — facing the valley towards the north; and j'.nmediately over the door, at a considerable height, a square window, the largest of several in the tower; and obviously so planned as to give those in the tower command of the outer ap- proach to the door ; which was the only assailable point. There v/ere around the interior walls projections of rocks, and inden- tations in the masonry, at succesive bights ; the ibrmer ap])arent!y used to sustain some conalruction for mounting from storv tc stop' ; FOREIGN TRAVEL. 103 the latter perhaps to receive the ends of timbers, that s\]pported the floors. This last conjecture seemed confirmed by a remain- Inar square of decayed wood (the only wood I could discover about the tower) which still occupied one of these recesses. I; was a piece of common pine tjf the country. Tire floor was covered deeply, with dirt and rubbish ; and 1 was unable to discern any traces of excavation in or about the rock, on which the tower stood. On the outside next to the correspondino- tower, now destroyed — was distinctly visible the ancient flue of a chimney, for about two-thirds of the height of the tower, 'Over the door way in the comparatively new stonework whicli makes the arch of it, are cut the figures 1735 ; the date no doubt -of the latest repairs. In the prison were some farming utensils, and above it, a kind of rough store house ; in the court yard the ruins of an arbour and a nine pin alley; and in the very face of the precipice, a deserted house of modern construction which seemed designed for an Inn. Such is the present state of the ancient Castle of Hochberg in the Brlsgow, which for centuries •gave the title of Marquis to one branch of the house of Baden ; and perhaps for centuries before, gave renown to stif! more ancient barons. In a quarter of the time it took us to ascend, our little guide led us down the face of the cliff by a zigzag and steep but safe path. I asked him in the best German I was master of, and his own was, I think, of the poorest, who built the castle ?— when ? — for what? — Who destroyed it? — when and why? In answer to all which he gave me as much information as any one else appears to possess, which is just none at all. It is extremely curious, that every country in the world should be filled with iTiOnuments of a previous race, not only extinct but fijrgotten. Who made the astonishing monuments of Eygpt? By whom end when, were those beautiful remains of ancient Italian civi- lization v/hich we call Etruscan, perfected? Who built Stone •Henge in England? What was tl;e origin of the Irish Round Towe.rs? What era and race, gave birth to the antiquities of Nonh and South America ? Or to end as we began, who first projected those monuments and -strong holds, whose ruins are 1EM;aRANI>-A OF we haiJ passed the day i efore ; and the two days presented us. with as nearly opposite aspects as could be imagined. Yester^ day we traversed for fifty miles, an unbroken and most delightful vale. To-day, we have crossed two of the immense ribs of Ger- many aad find ourselves at night fall once more on the Rhine, on the borders of Switzerland. — The tops of both these ranges, present extensive and rather fertile districts of pretty well cul- tivated country. The vine disappears entirely, very soon after commencing the ascent from Hochberg, and is not seen again, until you approach the Rhine. Then it is restored in more thaa its former abundance, a«d.of dimensions which put ta shame the. vineyards of France. All the vineyards on the upper Rhine look, far more like plantations of hops, than like the vineyards of Cham- pagne; and produce, I should suppose, three or four times as much to the vine. The number of vines to the acre, however, cannot be above half so great; and these are set in rows^ and managed- with a culture more^ orderly, at least in appearance. Tiie scenery in the midst of these mountains is by no means striking: less so than in any region of equal elevation I have qver seen. Indeed the region, is described by saying,, that tw(» enormous swells in- the. whole surface of .the country, are thrown across the south of .Germany, rather than bycalling it, a mountain, district. There> is one view of great beauty and extent, on the top of the Rangen, just as you begin the soi^thern descent. Our postillion had stopped, as they do at every opportunity, to attach the drag^ and which they will not only da in despite of all re- monstrances, but which they are, I found, obliged to do or be responsible for all consequences ; they and their masters. They answer all suggestions, by pointing to a post, opposite one of which they stop short, and upon which are directions to lock the wheel, there. And lest any one should pretend ignorance, there is above the German advertisement, the picture of a wheel with its drag attached. For the hundreth time our postillion st9pped to perform this office ; and after doing it as slowly as suited his mood, as slowly pointed to the distant horizon, and uttered the words Boden See. It was the Lake of Constance, in full view, at the distance of twelve leagues. A moment before L FDHEIGN TRATEL. ^107 was weak enough to be impatient, at a thing so; poor-as the phlegm of a Badish boor. A single instant, rolled back like a curtain, four hundred years. A first glimpse of that renowned lake sleeping in the last rays of day, recalled all the recollections which made it an object of such profound interest to me^ Huss, and Jerome, and Segismund, and the crowd of mighty ^end de- luded men, who handed the last over to eternal infamy, and the two first to an immortality won by fire; where are their great spirits now ! By-and-by 1 shall see them lace to face. Now I seek the spot, consecrated by meek and heroic suffering on one side, and on the other by perfidy and corruption, to which there ^re' few parallels. The Black Forest, called by the Germans Schwartswald and by the Romans Silva nigra, — of which I have had occasion to make mention several times, and which I had traversed nearly a hundred miles; was, until the discovery of North America, the most extensive and remarkable forest, of which the civilized Tv^orid had any knowledge. No natural object connected with Germany, occupies so large a space in her whole history, especi- ally her military history ; and none besides has had a. greater «hare in preserving her national independence, perpetuating the freedom of her chilldren, and giving tone to all her institu- tions. Extending originally from west to east, from above the sources of the Danube almost to its mouth ; it skirted the great- est river of Europe, for above a thousand miles, embracing in thatimmense range the whole breadth of Germany and Bohemia. In the days of Julius Caesar, its width from north to south, he states in his Commentaries, to have been, nine days' journey; while its length, having been explored for sixty days' journey, in in a fruiteless search for its close, wa&'sopposed to be indefinite.— Such a region, filled with lofty and ragged mountains, produc- tive of the most useful domeetic animals, and traversed rather than inhabited, by hardy and warlike nations; must needs have afforded an indistructable safeguard to nationality and freedom. "With the Alps as their barrier, and the Black Forest as their abode, the wonder is not that Rome made so little impression on the Germanic nations : but that>she should ever have attemp- ted to make any, 10^ MEMORANDA. &Y CHAPTER XLI Entrance into Switzerland— Canton and City of Schaffhausen— NoUces of the Government— Manners— Habits— Dwellings— Language— Religion and Religious Services— Reflections— Curious mode of collecting Aims— Description of the Cat- aract of the Rhine, and the Surrounding Scenery— John Muller— Ride up the Rhine, from Schaffhausen to Constance. The Canton of Schaffhausen is the twelfth in mac^nitude of the twenty-two which compose the Swiss Confederation. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, which washes its south- ern shore; and belongs more naturally to Germany than to Helvetia. On all its other sides it is shut up by the Black For- est. Its surface is extremely limited, and its entire population less than thirty-five thousand souls. The culture of the vine is the principal employment of the people. The whole population are of the Reformed religion ; znd the government is as com- pletely democratieal as is consistent witli the notion of represen- tation. The Canton is distributed into twenty-four tribes; and a Council of one person from each tribe, exercises the executive power of the little state ; while a Grand Council of seventy-four persons, is invested with the real sovereignty. The city of Schaffhausen is on the Rhine, in latitude forty- seven and a half. It contains seven thousand persons, and is walled, and defended by a strong but small fort. The streets are extremely irregular ; running up and down, of breadths con- stantly varying, and on courses that shift every few hundred feet Like those of most European towns, they are pretty well FOREIGN TRAVEL. 109 pavied with stones ; but like the rest, have no side walks. They are ornamented with fountains at their intersections ; which are garnished by figures of the ancient Swiss, in their national cos- tumes standing on high pillars in the middle of the fountains r, one figure to each fountain. The houses are built of stone, or plastered on the outside. They are four or five stories high ; the first and second of which are in general very low. Many of them are covered on the outside with allegorical figures as large as life ; others with historical paintings, mixed with portraits of destinguished men. All the more ancient ones have a name, written in large German letters, over the main entrance ; and not uncommonly, mottoes and short sentences, of various kinds, in various languages. The two houses opposite my window, in the hotel called * the Falcon of Gold ' — near the Schwabenthor or Suabian gate, are named ' the litde grapes ' — and ' the great contest.' The latter is covered with all sorts of paintings, and mottoes, in Latin, German, and Italian. Upon many houses, these inscriptions breathe a spirit of great piety ; and many of the names are less fantastic, though most are curious enough. There is in the place a college, in which are nine professors, who teach theology, physics, philosophy, mathematics, history, and the ancient languages. The cabinets of the town are said, to be rather good ; and the libraries select, and rich in manu- scripts ; especially that belonging to the city, which comprehends the one gathered and used by the historian Mliller. We spent a Sabbath day in Sohaff hausen ; and I can truly\ say I never spent a Sabbath in any place, where the outward ' observance of it was so universal and respectful. Silent, solemn, and grave ; the whole people seemed to give up all worldly cares and employments, and devote the day to the service and enjoy- ment of God. Ah ! thought I, the world need not be surprised that a little handful of men have dwelt in the midst of tyrants and slaves, able to vindicate their national independence. They love liberty, and they serve God ; two facts which solve all the phenomena of their remarkable history. We went at noon to the cathedral, an ancient building, to attend on the public worship of God. The people speak exclu- VOL. 11.— 11 110 MEMORANDA OF sively the German language, in which tlie services were con- ducted. As we approached the door, we observed that each person stopped for a moment, and looked at a large printed card which hung beside it. I found it to be an alphabetical list of the first lines of the German metrical version of the psalms ; and a large metal pointer was stuck in a hole opposite the one, with the singing of which the public worship commenced. The church was a low and ill looking building, but of great compass ; and was pretty soon filled with people. The females sat by themselves, in the centre of the room ; all destitute of bonnets, but wearing a tight black cap, and nearly all dressed in black dresses with very short waists. The males, occupied other places ; but all stood. The services commenced by sing- ing—then a short service of prayer, read by the minister, but without responses from the people, and during which all retained the postures they had assumed when they entered the church. Then followed the reading of a portion of Scripture ; and after- wards an earnest and apparently most acceptable exposition of a few verses. The preacher was a youthful looking man, and spoke freely, without notes, but in the grave manner of the Germans. I understood him too imperfectly to express an opinion of his effort. During the time he spoke, the males all sat ; to do which they had to let down the seats, which turned on hinges, and made a sudden and loud noise, as the seals for six or eight hundred persons creaked at once. They made this change at the instant he commenced his sermon, until which time they had stood upright. And the moment he completed his discourse they simultaneously rose, replaced the seats against the backs of the pews, and stood till the services ended ; — which they did, by a form of prayer, as at the commencement, and the singing of a psalm, announced by a clerk. There was no instrumental music of any kind ; and the whole service, though unique, struck me as simple and not inappropriate. It was one of those lessons, of which many Christians profit so little ; and of which, all who will enjoy that great part of the communion of saints to be found in worshipping in their various assemblies, will find BO many ; — not to be bigoted in our attachment to our FOREIGN TRAVEL, IH own forms; not to make important, those things so insignifis' cant that all differ about them ; not, in short, to consider forms, as of the slightest moment, when put in comparison with the substance of things. The seats seemed to be appropriated by one or two, to a family ; and the proprietor was indicated by a card, or a metal plate, nailed to the back of the seat immediately in front. — These plates contained the name, or coat of arms of the owner of the seat, with the date of occupancy by the family; to which was added, on some, a short Scripture phrase. The seat I occupied, had in front of it a plain armorial bearing on a copper plate, with the date 1671 on it. To my left hand the seat was marked with 1800, and a name written on a card. On my right 1727 was marked at the foot of a coat of arms. It was impos- sible that any thing could contrast more strongly than these things did, with the condition in which we find them amongst us. I sat in a spot consecrated for a hundred and sixty-five years, to the religious instruction of the same family, through successive generations of parents and children '. Doubtless there were others in the same room, bearing date above a century farther back. In the greater part of America — especially in that part of it with which I am most familiar — it is rather uncommon to find a man residing where his father was born ; extremely rare for three or four generations to have been dwellers in the same spot, worshippers successively in the same house of prayer. I shall never forget the sensations with which, in my youth I heard a man say he was born in the same house in which his father and grandfather were born. And though there is and should be a sense of reverence, to the dwellers in such scenes ; yet 1 find it often necessary to guard myself on such occasions from a feeling of disdain. Have you done no more, in so many ages.'' I am ready to demand. Come and see what we have done, in the compass of one hfe-time. Our fathers were your neighbours ; come and behold what they have accomplished, and anticipate if you can, what we shall have become after a thousand years of progression ! Alas ! who can read the dark volume of futu-^ rity? Who can forbid the wave to obliterate the writipg Qij 112 MEMORANDA OF the sand? This at least our RepubUc can do ; it can bless the earth while our day of glory lasts, and wring from all future ages tears of wo, that it ever ceased. This we have already done : we have ravished the whole world with the love of free- dom, and shown them that virtue added to courage is alone needful to win it; a noble moderation only, indispensable to retain it! And without virtue and courage and moderation, what boots it, whether nations be bond or free ? As we went to the church, sounds very like the rattle of a watchman, attracted our attention ; and as we turned a corner, there stood before us an old man with an instrument in his right hand with which he made this noise, under the windows of the principal houses, to attract notice ; and in his left, his hat, ready to receive the charity cast into it. None refused him ; he received their gifts kindly, but not like a common beggar ; and was only the more industrious as he met the more success. As we returned from church, we took a different street, and there saw the old man again, as busily at work as ever, and with the same apparent success. I found on enquiry, that he was a sort of beggar for the public ; and this weekly collection made on Sunday, lor the sick poor in the hospital. It seemed to me a strange substitute for the Sabbath collections so universal in other Christian churches. But really the object is better than many ; and after all, it might be hard to say, that what is laid by on this blessed day, by the Apostle's direction, might not as well be put into a hat at our window, as into a plate at the church door, which they prefer in England ; or into any one of the divers instruments with which persons are waited on in their pews, in America. It was not my intention to have visited Schaff hausen at all : but going directly to Constance, to have entered Switzerland from the eastern, rather than the northern frontier. Finding it impossible to get to Constance before the Sabbath day, our party all preferred to turn aside and spend it at Schaff hausen, rather than in one of the villages of Baden. Schaff hausen is, however, a place of great resort for travellers, who flock to see the falls of the Rhine, in its immediate neighbourhood. On FOREIGN TRAVEL. 113 Monday mominor at sun rise, we were in a carriage ; and crossing the low bridge at Schaff hausen, and mounting slowly the southern bank of the Rhine — found ourselves, after an hour's ride through vineyards loaded with grapes nearly ready for the vintage, on the cliff that overlooks this renowned water-fall. — It is the most considerable cataract of Europe ; but in comparison with the falls even of the Passaic and Mohawk, inclines one to smile at the extravagance with which its magnitude is spoken and written about. A score of such would not make the north- ern chute of the Niagara. Tt is, however, a very lovely sight ; and we were fortunate in a bright morning to visit it. Opposite Schaff hausen, the Rhine is about as wide as the Alle- ghany at Pittsburgh. It is already in rapid motion, and there is an increasing declivity in its bed, and an accelerated motion in its water until the fall is accomplished. The actual cataract occurs about a league below the town ; in which distance the river makes several sharp turns. One of these is a few hundred feet above the fall ; another precisely on the line of the cataract, which occurs at a sharp elbow of the stream. You approach at the interior side of the curve; and are conducted into and through the Chateau of Langen, to the brink of the precipice, upon which the Chateau stands. Your first distinct view of the fall exhibits it almost at your feet. Exactly opposite Langen is Neuhausen ; and the line of the fall unites the two places. The greatest volume of water, is on the southern side; and steps, and platforms, against the clifT, give you every desired view of the raging element ; conducting you near the foot of the rock, into the very edge of the thundering torrent. The water is divided in its fall by five elevated rocks of a conical shape, which add to its turbulence, and increase greatly the wildness of the scene. The height of the fall is represented to be between fifty and sixty feet. I should suppose the representation was false, by one-third at least. Indeed, there is no one actual pitch of the water, that aj^eared to me, half of the estimated height. It is rather the rushing of an immense volume of water, through a steep and very crooked channel ; than a single piteh. Its effect is very grand. And 114 MEMORANDA OF nothing could be more beautiful than the bright bow, which hung over the foaming torrent, varying its shape and posture as you varied your point and vision; seeming when viewed from above to be almost vertical to the horizon, and gradually reclining as you descend, till when seen from the lowest and nearest point to the cataract, it contracts itself around you, in a bright and perfect curve— near enough to beguile you to reach after it. It is a very lovely spot. But the ride itself would be enough, even without the sight of the falls. Tlie view of SchafFhausen, as you return, is extremely beautiful. Seated in a valley at the very bottom of an amphitheatre of hills, clothed with the freshest verdure ; its tall, thin houses, cluster together, as if they would soil as little as possible of the rich margin, which nature and industry have drawn so closely around them. An hour before, the rays of the morning sun sloping upon the fog which marked the windings of the river, revealed its crooked channel more and more distinctly, as we mounted higher and higher upon the hills. This sight is familiar to all who have been, in autumn, upon any of the streams of America, which pass through moun- tainous districts. It is especially on James' river, and the upper Ohio, that I have witnessed the rich exhibition. If we dare imitate the mythology of the refined Greeks, we might say it is the river Nymph putting off the robes which the night drew over her bosom, that she may greet with renewed joy the return of day. And earth, and sky, have few vestments, of more exquisite texture, lightness, and beauty ; none surely, that are put aside with more gentleness and grace. How does my memory cling to the solemn andjofty features of the dear relative, who first directed my eyes from his own mountain, to this beau- tiful phenomenon ! How sensibly, after the lapse of years, and the stroke of death, do I still feel his broad palm laid on my young head ; and the distant vallies of the Blue Ridge, pointed out and named over, by their rich vesture, like that I gaze on now hanging over the vallies of the Rhine ! Schoffhausen was the native place of John MUller, the illus- trious historian of Switzerland, and one of the best Germaa FOREIGN TRAVEL. 115 prose writers; called, indeed, the Tacitus of German Literature. It is known, however, that he passed the greater pa-rt of his life out of his native country ; and in the service successively, of various foreign states. He was created, if we remember rightly, a baron by the Emperor of Austria ; and at the period of his death, was in the service of Jerome Buonaparte, then King of Westphalia. Ranking as he does with the first class of historians, it is interesting to hear his sententious and sometimes disdainful characteristics of his most renowned predecessors. " All the ancients," says he, in some fragments o^ his correspondence which have been published, " were by no means equally excel- lent. Csesar writes like an Emperor, and is my favourite author: so, however, is Tacitus, though often a little too prodi- gal of reflections; and Sallust, who has compressed the most ])rofound truths, under the most energetic stile. As for Mister Titus Livy, he is far too difFusCj courtly and credulous ; though it must be confessed, much less so than his grace and his excel- lency, Mister Burgomaster Plutarch, whose prolixity and cre- dulity, pass all bounds." We left Schaffhausen the same morning for Constance, which is nine leagues above, on the opposite bank of the Rhine ; where it emerges from the Boden see, or lake of Constance. — The day was one of the loveliest of autumn. Our course lay generally along the river's brink ; sometimes in the edge of the water, with high banks upon the right, receding and rising gradually back. The clear and rapid stream, skirted on both sides by a succession of fertile vallies, and gentle slopes in per- fect cultivation; interspersed with a cliff now and then, crowned with an old castle, or more frequently with a modern chateau ; and the distance occasionally throwing up a lofty hill on the verge of the horizon ; furnishes what should be called a prolonged promenade through villages, and amongst vineyards, and along avenues of fruit trees; rather than a day's journey along its banks. About half way between Schaffhausen and Constance, the stream widens to thrice its usual breadth ; and gradually expands itself into a considerable lake, called the Unter See ; which is divided by a broad peninsula caused by the long pro- 116 MEMORANDA OF jection of lake Constance ; which pushes itself several ieao^ues to the north-west of the city itself. Before the lake is reached, the river contracts itself again, and is quite narrow at the city itself. So much so that the Austrian army which entered Switzerland in 1799, selected the village of Paradise, at the very gate of Constance, as one of the two points at which the passage of the Rhine could be most easily accomplished. The village of Stein at the other end of the Unter See, on the Baden side of the Rhine, was selected as the other. Amongst the various objects of attraction, few will pass with- out a look of interest, the Chateau of Arenenberg, the residence of Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine by her first husband, and now divorced from Louis Buonaparte. A smaller number, perhaps, will stop to survey the spot near the village of Paradise, where the heroic peasants of Thurgovie and Swabia, who, so early as the year 992, rose against the ceaseless and hereditary oppressors of mankind, were cut to pieces. Their blood, like the dragon's teeth that produced a harvest of armed men, has not ceased lor nine centuries to nourish liberty on the soil that drank it up. As the road approaches Constance, the valley widens, the rows of immense pear trees thicken into orchards laden with fruit — the villages sink lower upon the horizon which expands itself before your advancing steps ; until you turn the angle of the hill which skirts Ermatlingen, and find the plane, the city, and the lake of Constance spread out before you. A drive of twenty minutes over a plain which seems to have been in some former day reclaimed from the water, and which is now covered with fruit trees, brings you again within the territory of the Grand Duke of Baden. The words " Grosshertzogthum Baden " — point the limits which divide the Canton of Thurgovie from the Grand Duchy, to which the city and suburbs appertain. — In five minutes, you are over the ditch, and stopped in the wide gate-way, to be questioned and have your affairs examined. For two days, we had been amongst freemen; and had seen no soldiers— heard nothing about police, and began to feel like being at home. I was glad the Grand Duke's people could FOREIGN TRAVEL. 117 make neither head nor tail of my passport. They attempted in vain to decipher it ; in vain to determine what language English was ; and not less vainly to find some vise that would suit their taste, in those of the embassies of nearly every state in Europe, which to avoid trouble and delay, I had got attached to it in Paris. At length abandoning the passport, they demanded in German, who, what, and whence we were? I spoke horrible German — they no French. 1 pointed to the passport, insisting that it was their affair to find out its meaning. They at length reduced the whole to one question : " Is he a merchant or a gentleman ?" " A gentleman," said the courier. " Vorwarts," was the response ; and we entered Constance by guess. 118 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XIIL Constance— Hall of tlie Council of 1414— Collection of Relics, Idols, Arms, Ac- Anecdote— Ruined Convents — Martyrdom of John Huss and Jerome of Prague- Spirit of the Council— Early Efforts at Reformation— Multitudes wh« attended on the Council of Constance— Desolate Condition of the City — Beauty of the natural objects around it — First Sight of the Alps — Cathedral — Column of the Virgin Mary. The City of Constance is within'the territory which naturally appertains to Switzerland ; but it has always been considered a German city. It is a strongly fortified and very ancient place ; though of narrow dimensions and inhabited by few people. — The place with its suburbs and dependencies, cannot compute in all, above five thousand souls ; and instead of being of such importance as its past history might lead us to imagine, it is one of the least important of the cities of Germany of its own rank. Indeed, it has been gradually sinking for many years, and the day may come when the traveller will seek it in vain. There are neither stores, nor shops, except for the sale of the most common and indispensable articles, in the place. I tried in vain to purchase a few sheets of writing paper or a blank book ; though I was offered a cart load of popish manu- scripts ; and idols of the primeval Celts, of the ancient Romans, and of the papists ; all found on the shores of the Lake. How Strongly did they paint the successive stages of the idolatry, which for ages that cannot be counted, has possessed these beau- tiful shores. And how thoroughly do these relics exhibit, the rise and decline of knowledge ! There is a certain grace and dignity about every thing the Romans attempted ; and even FOREIGN TRAVEL. 119 in their objects and instruments of a false worship, there is out- wardly that which exhibits high cultivation of the arts, and an extraordinary sense of the fitness of things. This is the more strilfing, as it is true only of the idolatry of the Romans and Greeks : in the instruments of which, we find so much beauty and such infinite polish. The very reverse is true of ail other idolaters without exception. The gods of the heathen, are not more disgusting, than the demi-gods of the papists. The figures of the Celtic worship have hardly as much beauty as those of papal invocation ; and they both recede at measureless distances, from the era which stands between them. These hung in rows and sat in ranks, the remnants of those widely separated ages. I could not resist the internal question, why is it worse to worship that beautiful figure of Jupiter, than this miserable one of Mary t Why should not the Celt bow down and invoke the being rep- resented by the face of that hideous dog, for it seems no more ; as properly, as the Papist invokes the spirit of that object, whom they are skinning as if he were a hog, and who seems to have been worshipped, only hecause he was skinned ? These, and a prodigious number of relics of a long course of ages, are exhibited in the Hall where the Council of Constance sat. The house is situated near the only wharf in the town, hard by the lake ; and is washed on the rear by a wide canal that cuts of a small island from the shore, at thai place. It is a very large stone house, of five stories, two of which are in the roof; and is built in the plainest possible way. The Hall itself in which the Council sat, occupies the whole of the second floot of the building. Its dimensions are two hundred and sixteen German feet long, and one hundred broad. The height seems to be about twenty-two or three feet. Windows of a wide and rather low construction, occupy both sides and ends of the Hall. The floor of the story above, is supported by two rows of square wooden pillars, which divide the Council Hall lengthwise, into three aisles ; of which the central one is about as large as both the others. Upon these pillars are placed inscriptions indicating the dates at which various princes, whose names are given, visited the HalU The list is extensive ; the names, however, 120 MEMOEANDA OF being chiefly German. In one corner of the large Hall, a room of rather narrow dimensions has been cut off; in which all the objects of curiosity, of a moveable kind, have been collected. The great Hall was arranged when I saw it, to accommodate a portion of the traders who had visited the great fair of Con- stance, then drawing to a close ; and was full of stalls and coun- ters, some empty, some occupied by persons who trafficed in cloths. Better traffic, this, than " in the souls and bodies of men;" as once was done in the same place. The Frenchman, who keeps the magazine of curiosities, well deserves a visit. For though his principal objects of exhibition in his own judgment consist of some miserable wax figures — some chairs on which he says Pope Martin V. and the Emperor Segismond sat at the Council, and such hke trumpery; yet there are many other, and far more interesting objects, all of which belong to the city, and are shewn for its benefit, at a franc a head. There is a good collection of ancient arms ; and he who will examine them, will find no instrument of blood like the three pronged dagger of the Inquisition, which makes one of the list. There is also a collection of idols, saints, &c., carved and painted, which is quite extensive, and of which I have before spoken. The box used by the Council in the election of a new pope, after setting aside the three then reigning, is a very curiously carved, high roofed, oblong casket, shaped like the traps used by boys to catch rats. It is divided crosswise into five compartments; over which the names of England, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy are written. With one or other of these ruling states, those deputies might be numbered, who were selected by the Council to vote with the Cardinals, in the elec- tion of a pope ; of whom four for each nation represented, Avere appointed. At the name of each nation on the lid of the box, is a hole, large enough to admit a quill ; through which the ballots, being rolled up, were thrust into their respective apart- ments. What hopes, what fears, what machinations, what intrigues, were blasted or consummated at the final opening of this fearful casket! — The civilized world, by their representa- tives, were voting not only for their Universal Sovereign, but FOREIGN TRAVEL. 121 for the direct and all powerful representative of God himself! — the destiny of earth was in suspense, till this seal was broken : the Spirit of God would indicate infallibly his almighty will, only through these five holes; and when the scrutiny of these little receptacles of twisted papers was complete, cursings and death and the eternal flames, awaited every soul thai dared to murmur against the irresistible fiat. What a leveller is time ! The box is not worth a guinea ; and yet with a guinea, you shall effect more with nine-tenths of the human race, than with all tlie names of all the men v/ho composed the illustrious Council of Constance ! You shall poll the human race, and, omitting Papists — ninety-nine out of every hundred, will say that they decreed the foulest lies against God and virtue ; and were not only cruel murderers, but bathed their hands in the blood of the best men of their times! — Yet most of the Papal world, still asserts that this was a holy, oecumenical, and infallible Council; and that its decrees are entitled to the same credit, reverence, and implicit obedience, as if God himself had spoken them ; while ever that portion of the Catholic church which dissents from this belief, that is the ultra montaine party in Italy and the Jesuits every where ; receive the Council, with the exception of the decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions. —placing a general Council a bore the Pope, A curious incident occurred between the little Frenchman, who I have said, keeps the collection for the benefit of the good people of Constance, and myself; which is worth relating, as it exhibits a very common feeling amongst the middle and lower •classes of the population of continental Europe, towards our •country. When we were about to leave his little magazine, he ■desired me to inscribe in a book kept fijr that use, the names of our party, I had a disabled hand, at the moment ; and directed our courier to comply with the request. The Frenchman took fire at the supposed indignity to him, his book, and employers — and insisted that I must write the names myself. " No one," he asserted, " was ever permitted to decline ; it was a most posi- tive law of the city ; nay, if monsieur (meaning me) were a king, or the Pope himself, he must nevertheless write his own Vol. u.— 12 122 MEMORANDA OF name." — Amused at the fervour of the little showman, and having a mind to test it a little ; I calmly replied, " I am above all kiniTs, nay, above the Pope also." He looked at me with profound astonishment, perhaps supposing me deranged. I pro- ceeded : " Yes, for I am a citizen of the greatest republic upon earth !" — In a moment his features relaxed ; he pressed both his hands upon his breast, and making a low reverence, solemnly replied — " c''e3t vrai, c^est vraif' it is true, it is true ! Amongst the objects shown, were the door and grate of the prison of John Huss ; which had been brought from the Fran- ciscan Convent, where he was confined before he was sent to Gottlieben. 1 went to the Convent. It is now occupied as a manufactory of cotton cloth. Tiie place where the prison waSj is the dye house of the establishment ; and the cell in which he was incarcerated, has been thrown out into the yard, in the process of some modern improvements, to give air and light to the interior. The large church of the Convent is now used as a stable, cow house, and repository for straw and rubbish. The chapels around it, are stalls; and I saw hundreds of yards of cotton hanging to dry, in the choir. The cloisters are pretty well preserved, except the allegorical paintings on the inner walls ; which the master of the factory had obliterated Hy a scraper, because they attracted the attention of the boys in his employment, as they passed them going and returning, about their work. What an i.^.sue ! They who once despised the acute and learned Jerome, arc despised in turn on the very spot, by a mixer of dyes! They who conspired against knowledge and goodness, lest they should engage and corrupt the world ; have their favourite employments made the scorn of boors, because they amuse the children of their shops! I returned through the Convent of the Jesuits ; it is now used as a school. I passed the Convent of Dominicans ; it is vacant and shut up — its last use having been as a barracks and maga- zine for military stores. I was carried to the spot where once stood the church of St. Paul — in whose dungeons Jerome of Prague was confined, until his health gave way, under his severe suffering: and he was removed to the tower of Gottlieben, about FOREIGN TRAVEL. 123 a league off, on the Rhine. The rear of the church is supplant- ed by a handsome private dwelling ; what was the main entrance is the rear of the yard opening against the ramparts ; and now admits you into a coach house and suit of offices. The place ivhere Huss and Jerome were burnt, is out side of the city, beyond the ditch ; and about mid-way between the routes issuing from the southern and western gates ; both of which are in full view from it. The place is still called Die Briihle ; and is separated only by a road, from another spot called Paradise. The exact spot where these early reformers were burned, is not perhaps known. But our guide, stopping in the midst of a meadow planted with apple and pear trees, said that tradition declared the stake to have been about where he stood — or within a few yards thereof. It is impossible to describe the feelings with which every one who admires true excellence, and is capable of being impressed by real greatness, must be agitated, in the midst of these objects. It was not only the cruel and unjust death inflicted upon two heroic men ; although those men were blameless in their lives — - learned beyond their day — laborious in every good work — and martyrs to the cause of reason and religion. It was not only that they met their dreadful sufferings, and still more dreadfu trials, with a meekness, courage, and devotedness, inspired by more than human motives, and sustained by more than human strength. On the other hand, it was not only that the whole world was guilty of this act, and sunk into the brutality which eould deem it inspired by God ; for if ever a General Council really met, this was one, in the most ample sense — representing every Catholic state, and supported by the presence or representatives of the principal temporal and spiritual authorities of the world. Nor was it alone, that the enlightened men of that age from all countries — John Gerson of Paris — Poggio of Florence — iEneus Silvius, afterwards Pius II., &c. &c., concurred in the diabolical acts, and sanctioned the horrid definitions of this Assembly. It is humiliating indeed, to reflect, that the great and cultivated spirits of that age should not have relented, over the gentle and refined Jerome ; nor fallen in love with the modest, candid, and 124 MEMORANDA OF upright spirit of Huss. That they should not have blushed at the thought of dishonouring the dust of John Wiclif, whom, if they deemed him heretic, they knew to have been both virtuous and learned. Above all, that they should not have revolted with horror at the idea of compelling the Emperor Segismond to violate the safe conduct freely given to Huss ; and on the faith of which he had come to Constance. That they should have concurred with ferocious bigots in defining it as a rule of morals, that faith need not be kept with those whom the Papal church deems to be destitute of faith ; and that in such cases perjury consists not in breaking, but in keeping oaths ! Sad as these considerations make the subject, there are others that give it a more melancholy interest. We speak habitually of " the Reformation ;" and we speak correctly if we mean to indicate, merely that the attempt to which we allude, was bless- ed with more success than any similar one. But they who look closely at the past, know that in every age of tJie great western apostacy, there has been a constant opposition to its dominion, and testifying against its fatal heresies. The church oi' Rome herself enumerates not less than fifty schisms. And though she might quadruple the number of what she woulii call schisms, she has named in her existing list, amongst some real corruptions, many bright testimonies to the truth as it is in> Jesus. Indeed one of the best evidences of truth, is, to prove that Rome has cursed a doctrine, from the seventh century to the present period. This is not the place to show that these lines of witnesses had any connexion with each other. Wiclif was undoubtedly the disciple of the martyrs of Languedoc and Provence ; as Huss and Jerome, were just as surely bis. The VValdenses had perished : how, need not now be said. — The great schism of the West, during which for half a century, two or three popes ruled at once, all claiming to be the real and only vicegerent of God ; had allowed the truth to vegetate again in the secret places of the earth. The spiritual rulers of the world were too much occupied with making and unmaking popes and cardinals and bishops, and corrupting and seducing their mutual partizans ; to FOREIGN TRAVEL. 125 care for the "^ little flock " of Jesus Christ. In such a time sprung up these martyrs. And while the Council of Constance liealed the schism, which had so plainly proved the falsehood of all the pretensions of Rome, and so completely broken up in ages of confusion, all pretexts of an apostolical succession ; it struck at the same instant, with its mailed hand, the church of Christ to the earth, by its false definitions and its bloody acts. The election of Martin V. healed the schism. The sacrifice of Huss and Jerome, was the first scene in a tragedy which, after lighting the flames of civil and religious war over all Europe, and deluging the eastern half of it with blood for nearly a quarter of a century ; closed by the total suppression, by fire and sword, of this great effort for freedom and religion. Sacred names of Ziska and Procopius Rasa ; how grudgingly have those who love God and liberty rewarded your glorious deeds? These great and distinct attempts to reform the world, have been made against the church of Rome, by diflerent races, speak- ing languages radically dissimilar, inhabiting difierent countries, and widely separated by the lapse of time. The first by the nations in the south of Europe speaking the Romanesque lan- guages : the second by the Sclavonic race in the east of Europe : tlie third by the Tutonic race, in its centre. The third we now rejoice in ; the first we melt over at the well known and oft repeated tale of wo ; the second, more extensive and better sustained than the first, not less real though less successful than the third, w^e have forgotten. The history of the great Sclavonic attempt at reformation is yet to be written. The Council of Constance, it is to be remembered, was rather a Congress of the civilized world, than a mere ecclesiastical Assembly ; and while the exalted rank of many of the persons who assisted at its sessions gave a most memorable consequence to its proceedings; the multitudes who composed their retinues or flocked after them, almost exceed belief. Various lists of ihe principal personages, wiih the number and quality of their attendants have been preserved, of which the substance or copi- ous extracts of three at least are given by Lenfant, in his History of this Council. Amongst others in attendance there were 30 12* 126 MEMORANDA OF cardinals, 20 archbishops, 150 bishops, 100 abbots, 14 auditors c?r the Rota, 18 secretaries of the Pope, 140 writers of apestotical bulls, 273 attornies, 150 priors, generals of orders, &c., and 200 doctors ; these being all of the ecclesiastical state. Of civil persons, besides the Emperor Segismond who gave himself up wholly to the affairs of the Council, there were present, all the electors or deputies from those absent, many sovereign princes, besides margraves, burgraves, counts and barons, and independ- ent gentlemen beyond computation ; almost every kingdom, republic, state, city and community in Europe, being repre- sented by its respective ambassadors. There are set down as having congregated at Constance also, 2,300 knights, 18,000 inferior persons of the ecclesiastical profession, and no less than 80,000 laymen who were strangers. All these were exclusive of the retinues of the great ; as for example, of the 80 persons who composed the household of Cardinal de Viviers, the 40 persons who followed Cardinal Alba, the 352 persons with John of Nassau Archbishop of Metz, the 360 followers of the archbishop of Saltsbourg, and so in proportion of all the households of the great personages in attendance; the Emperor alone having 1000 persons in his suit. To all these are added many other lists, also independent and additional; composed of persons of more humble condition, and sometimes of very equivocal employments. As samples merely of these, we cite 75 confec- tioners, 300 fruiterers of whom 83 provided only wines of Italy^ 346 jugglers or merryandrews, 505 fiddlers; — to all of which one list adds 700 courtezans, while another asserts that no less thai? 1500 of ihem were drawn to Constance by the meeting of the Council there. If these things be so, we may readily belie\^e many of the various facts thai have been preserved, as illustra- tions of the condition and morals of this vast and motley gather- ing ; one of the most expressive of which is, that above 600' persons were drowned by night in the lake of Constance during the sessions of the Council. There was once a city devoted to ruin ; and its streets sown with salt, to mark its abiding desolation. Constance seems to be hastening to a fate more insignificant. Nothing can be more striking than its present aspect of abandonment, compared witb FOREIGN TRAVEL. 127 its former consequence, and the great events of which it was the theatre. Its cathedral stands in forsaken solitude, without a worshipper to bow before its shrines. In all Europe, I saw not one empty, but it. Its convents are converted to the commonest uses or shut up. Its Council Hall is made a mart for Jews and pedlars to huxter their wares in, and even they are unable to command any attention. The usual autumnal fair which ought to last fifteen days, and which was attended by dealers from all the neighbouring stales ; languished through eight days, and on the tenth day of it, the city was abandoned and the long rows of booths, empty and forsaken, filled the streets only with proofs of its desolateness. Strangest of all, the disciples of the very martyrs it burned, preach iheir doctrines publicly, in sight of their funeral pile, and in hearing of their prison. Yet the people of the place are said still to hate the truth with a hereditary bitterness. And although in the dominions of the Grand Duke of Baden, who is a Protestant, there is a certain degree of reli- gious liberty enjoyed ; these people became so much enraged at a missionary sent to them from Switzerland two years ago, that they ran upon him, and smote him, and cast him out of their city! Amid all other changes nature alone stands unchangeably beautiful ; and there can be few spots from which she greets the eye with a wider or more delightful prospect, than from the rowers of the cathedral of Constance. Here, as at Strasbourg, the keeper of the clock who is also bell-man, lives on the top of the tower. A few words on the door desired you to ring a bell ; and in a moment a reel on the top let down a key. I entered and ascended by a narrow and dangerous wooden stair way. From the summit portions of the Grand Duchy of Baden — of the kingdoms of Wurtemburg, and Bavaria — of the empire of Austria, and as much of Switzerland as the eye could take in, were destinctly visible. The greater part of the lake, and many leagues of the valley of the Rhine, complete the vast and delicious scene. From this spot I beheld for the first time, the everlasting Alps. And although the very nearest to me was perhaps fifty miles off, and the most remote, in the Tyrol, the Grisons, and 128 MEMORANDA OF the Valteline, thrice that distance, the first sight of them made me start, by their stupendous magnitude. I had repeatedly seen the principal mountains of America ; but we have nothing that gives one the least idea of what a mountain fourteen or fifteen thousand feet high, of which above eight thousand are covered with eternal snowSj looks like, or is. Before I left the cathedral, I walked about it once more in perfect solitude ; without beholding a single vestage af life, or any evidence that it was ever frequented, except what was fur- nished by two or three lamps burning dimly in different parts of it. How often did the crowds of the great men of the earth ihrong these long promenades, and recUne together on these vacant seats, carved as richly as if each were for a king ! — Where be they to-day, when in the Hall of their power, their secret things are made a by-word ; and in their sacred places, a solitary heretic, from a world of whose existence they had no conception, finds the echo of his footsteps as he treads upon their ashes, the only sound that has succeeded to the shout of triumph and the voice of siern command ! The fashion of this world passeth away. Treasure that lesson, oh, my heart; — for thou hast had strange proofs of its truth. On the right of the choir is a large chapel devoted to the Saviour ; in which besides his figure on the cross, are two as large as life above the altar, representing Thomas in the act of putting his fingers into his side. On the opposite side is a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary ; in which is a picture of her above the altar, with a dagger stuck in her girdle. No bad admission, 1 thought. And turning to depart, my eyes caught the inscrip- tion in Latin around the edge of the sounding board over the pulpit: " their sound has gone out into all the world." — True, most true ; and in a very peculiar sense, different from what was meant. There is left of them little else than a report. — That has indeed gone out to the very ends of the earth. I heard it there. It will spread to the uttermost verge of time ; and eternity will reiterate the tale of blood ! The egress through the inner side, leads into a handsome court ; in the midst of which is a pillar of considerable height^ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 129 upon which is a statue of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. There are two rows of inscriptions in letters of gold on the faces of the pillar. The bottom ones are long. I found from one of them that the diocess of of Constance is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and placed under her especial care. The upper row of inscriptions consisted of four short sentences — one upon each face of the plinth of the column. They follow : MaricR PatronoR Mortalium. Maricz Dumince Angelorum. Marias Terrori Infernorum. Marice Refugio Pecatorum. " To Mary the Patroness of Mortals. To Mary the Mistress of Angels. To Mary the Terror of Devils. To Mary the Refuge of Sin- ners." If these things are true, what need can there be for any other deity in the universe? If they be false, how awful is the blasphemy contained in them? But true or false, is it the same system which is taught in the Bible ? 130 MEMOKANDA OP CHAPTER XIV Canton Thurgovie — Eoute from Constance to Zuricli— Civil and Political Cond; ditioa.— Ciiolera — Quarantines — Agriculture — Singular Dress — Canton Zuiich — Gieat Prosperity— Grain Market— City and Lake of Zurich— William Tell— Feelings of tlie Swiss towards Americans — Diiliculties willi France— National Spirit— Arsenal of Zurich— Ulric Zwingle—Lavater— Literary and Religious Establishments— National Costume— Burial of the Dead— Birth of an Infant. The distance from Constance to Zurich is twelve Swiss leagues; equal to thirty six Enorlish miles. We were eleven hours making the journey, with a single team of horses ; for which we paid eighteen francs each and eight francs to the driver. There is na provision for posting in Switzerland except to go all day, with the same horses ; for which you always pay two days hire, for a single day's service; the charge for the second day being for their return. The greater part of the way, lies in the Canton of Thurgovie ; as is the case also with the route from Shatf hausen to Constance- This Canton is one of the most fertile of the Confederation. It coniuins 80.000 people: of whom 62,000, are Protestants, and 18,000 Catholics. The constitution is thoroughly free ; the Can- ton being divided into eight districts, which are subdivided into thirty circles; which elect the grand council of 100 members, to whom appertain the powers of Government. Its most consider- able towns are Dissenhofifcn and Steckhorn on the Rhine, and Frauenfeld and Winterthun, on the great road from Con- olance to Zurich. They are all walled towns ; and at Frauen^ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 131 feld which Is the capital of the Canton, there is a very exten- sive and well preserved specimen of the ancient square towers ; which seem to abound in Switzerland, even more than on the northern side of the Rhine. The people speak exclusively the German tontrue, though in a very peculiar patois. Our farther progress to the south-east from Constance, was ren- dered impossible by the prevalence of Cholera, and the sanatory r 'gulatiins of the countries beyond the Alps, in regard to it. — All the little states in the north of Italy, have been ravaged during the whole summer by this terrible scourge. In Venice, it prevailed from the end of the year 1835, for ten months with- out intermission. At this moment it rages, in the mountains of the Grisons and the Tyrol which are amongst the most elevated portions of the earth ; and has gradually extended itself south- wardly along the Adriatic, westwardly in Peidraont and Savoy, and to the north-east over Hungary, Austria, Bohemia, and parts of Bavaria. As yet the Alps have stopped its progress directly to the north. Not a case has ever occurred in Switzerland, on the northern side of these frozen barriers. The quarantine reg- ulations, are nearly as much to be avoided as Cholera itself; and the states in which the disease confessedly prevails, enforce these vexatious and worse than useless restraints against each other, as severely as if they were themselves exempt from the pestilence. The way to Italy over the Alps, has been comparatively forsa^ ken, for many months ; and the hope that the approach of autumn would produce some favourable change, is not yet realized. — We have therefore, either to abandon all idea of seeing Italy; or make a detour to the south-west of five hundred miles, and find our way to Rome by water from some port on the Mediter- ranean. We will turn then, the left flank of the Alps ; we will take up the line of march, through the centre of Switzerland and the south of France, overhung at every step by his summits. Nor will we regret having gone, needlessly, as to our main design, five hundred miles out of the way. The days we spent in accomplishing them, are days of gratified curiosity, and increas- ing knowledge ; and the vineyards of Champagne, the beauti- ful hills of Lorraine, the plains of Alsace, the clear waters of the 132 MEMORANDA OF Rhine, the blue sources of the Danube, the dark sunamits of the Black Forest, and the forsaken streets of Constance, though our eyes behold them no more, will be often revisited by the restless spirit. The whole population of Thurgovie, seemed to be labouring in the fields as we passed through their pleasant country. Some were sowing wheat ; others digging the potatoe, which seems to be universally cultivated, and no where to yield abundantly ; many were gathering in the ripe fruits, especially apples and plums, of which latter, they have the greatest quantities in Switz- erland, of the largest and sweetest kind ; from which they make a drink called " Zvegslenwasser." The cow and the ox are the chief domestic drudges; and they are yoked, in a very peculiar manner, by the neck, but each separately. In Germany they are yoked by the head ; but the same yoke commonly unites two firmly together; in America, they are caparisoned in the same way, but on the neck ; in Switzerland, by the neck, but each separately. The Swiss cattle, are generally, remarkably beauti- ful ; and they constitute a large part of the wealth of the rural districts. The people differ in a few respects from their neigh- bours of Shaff hausen and Constance ; except in the caps of the women which look exceedingly like the tail of a turkeycock, spread to its full dimensions, and seated on the back of the head. In the centre of them behind, just on the back of the head, and visible only when you are right behind them, I have often seen, down in the depths of the cap, circular brass plates, (which I believe were the heads of the largest sized curtain screws): from five or six inches over ; seated as a base around which a frame work flares obliquely backwards two feet; being occasionally, I should think three feet wide, at the upper extremity; Tliis decoration is reduced or laid aside by females, when at work : and in Switzerland as in France and Baden, they perform ev^ry sort of labour with and as the men. The Steig divides Thurgovie from Zurich ; and on its summit you are greeted with a superb view of the Appenzale and Glarus Alps, which lie off to the south-east. The Canton of Zurich, the first in rank, is one of the largest of them all. Its inhabit- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 133 anlSj are the genuine descendants of the oncient Almans, whose language, habits, and spirit they in a great degree preserve. — They number 190,000 souls,; of whom almost the whole are Pro- testants. Since the reformation, the people of this Canton have pushed all the branches of agricullure suitable to their climate and soil, to a high degree of perfection. I visited the grain market of Zurich during one of the regular market days, and was greatly delighted with the whole appearance of the scene. The large Hall, was filled with all sorts of grains and vetches, of admirable kinds ; the street before it crowded with wagons, heavily loaded, and drawn by good horses, or beautiful cattl^; the long light boats from the lake, lined the quay upon which the steps of the Hall landed in the rear ; and the farmers with their tight leather breeches, and woollen morning gowns for cloaks looked cheerful and well. There is in another part of the City an immense public storehouse for grain, provided in case of a year of scarcity. The grain is perfectly dried ; and would keep sweet, for an indefinite period. The building in which it is stored away, was originally a Convent for White Monks, One .is very often amused, at the strange migrations through which the religious houses of the dark ages have passed, siace the diffu- sion of light; and still oftener consoled, to see the public good promoted, by giving a new use or direction to what were so long sources of unmixed evil. How much better is a granary, against a time of famine, (to which interior places, are so much more subject than others,) to give people bread ; than a set of idle vagabonds who spent their lives in debauching and eating up society? How much better to feed the starving body with sound food ; than to poison the hungry soul with superstitious falsehood .'* The manufactures also of the Canton, especially those of cotton, acquired a very great perfection at an early period; and have retained it to the present time. Large quan- tities of the beautiful article, known over the world as Swiss muslin, are made here. The city of Zurich is a very pretty place, containing twelve or thirteen thousand souls; and situated on both sides of the Limalh where it issues from the Zuricher See, or lake of Zurich. Vol. ii.—lS 134 MEMORANDA OF The lake is about two leagues lono;, and one broad. Just below the town, the Sihl empties itself; and at the confluence of the rivers, and along both banks, is a most delightful promenade. In a thick grove at the end of it, is a large monument of black marble in the shape of a Roman altar, erected to Gessner, by his fellow-citizens of the town. On either side of the narrow valley in which the city is built, are mountains, which raise to the height of twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the level of the lake ; and shut in the prospect. But to the south-east, the lake, its verdant and highly adorned shores, and the distant and majestic Alps, expand before ynu from every part of the city. From some of the promenades on the ramparts, and other ele- vations in and around the place, this view is indescrihably superb. This is particulary the case, from the ramparts called die Katze ; from the terrace of the noble establishment for orphans; and from the Lindenhof. This last is a delightful spot, lifted up a hundred and fifteen feet above the Liraath, covered with im- mense Linden trees (v^hence its name) ; and refreshed by a delightful fountain. Upon it the Romans had a citadel ; here for many ages, the tribunals of Zurich held their public sessions; and ^ here if popular tradition in the place is to credited, was enacted that thrilling scene between William Tell^ his infant boy, and the Austria bailiff Gessler, at whose recital our youug bosoms heaved with such intense emotions ; and which five hundred years have not robbed of a particle of its interest in the eyes of his grateful countrymen. The admiration of the Swiss for the character of William Tell is an unbounded national passion. The duHest eye kindles at the mention of his name. Every emotion of patriotism, national gratitude, and ardent love of liberty, seems to find its readiest mode of utterance. In passionate expressions regarding this he- roic man. Their idea of him, embodies what in their view is most perfect in man ; and this abstraction is kindled into enthu- siasm by the sense of inexpressible personal obligations. If lie deserved such reverence — and who shall say he did not."* — it is refreshing to see it rendered by the free ; a standing monument that slaves he, when they say we are ungrateful. — If it exceeds FOREIGN TRAVEL, 135 all mortal desert, it reveals at least the depth of human devotion to those inextinguishable rights, which God has decreed to be the birth right of man ; but which man has so seldom enjoyed. 1 have perhaps found a more frequent expression of feehngon this subject, th;in I should have witnessed at another time; or than would be observed by any but an American. I often wish we hatl some name for our language, that would uislinguish our country. They perceive by your accent what is yowr native ^summit is often exhibited the beautiful phenomenon of the Mirage ; Nebelbild, as they call it in their own speech. It could hardly be expected that such an object in such a country could escape being devoted to superstitious uses. High up on Rigi is La Chapelle de A^olre-Dame-des-jsrieges, (our Lady of the 14S MEMORAJTDA OF Snows), founded in 1689, by Sebastian Zay, of the village oT Art, at its eastern foot. Nature did much; and extraordinary indulgencies from successive popes accomplished the rest. The Chapelle of our Lady of Snows is a place of frequent pilgrim- age. It is extremely remarkable that ihe Virgin Mary should be supposed to possess not only divine powers, as omnipresence and omniscience, — seeing she is prayed to in every place an(3 every tongue at the same moment; but she is invested with t^ power not attributed in the same religion to God himself; — namely, that of indefinite self-multiplication, so as to produce radically different persons. Thus our Lady of Loretto ; our Lady of the Snows; our Lady los Dolores, who is Don Carlos'^ divinity ; and I know not how many hundreds beside ; are each a Virgin Mary, but each a different one. So that there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the same virgin,. aU different. It is perhaps in a geological point of view that Rigi and its neighbourliood are the most remarkable. The whole region about tbe'southern end of Jake Zug is full of breccia ; and Moan* Rigi, from its base to its summit is composed of alternate layer* of it, and of a dark freestone. The immense borders of Rufii- berg and Steinberg, on the opposite side of the valley of Goldau from Rigi, are essentially mountains of breccia, or nagleflue, a;- the people of the country call it. These layers of breccia, on the side^ Mount Ruffi, where the road along the lake shore is in many places dug along its foot, are of various thickness, from three or four to twenty or thirty feet. But on the steep, and exposed northern side of Rigi, they assume a regularity almost exact, in layers that appeared at the great elevation at which they are most distinctly visible, to be about four feet thick. At this point great sections of the mountain are entirely bare, and exhibit an appearance most singularly artificial. If the columnar formation of basalt on the northern coast of Ire- land, is to be compared to the enormous collonades of some gigantic castle : we may content ourselves at length with having found his walls in the costly masonry of these Swiss mountains. Where the sides of the mountains have been uncovered for the-. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 149 road way, or where f^reat blocks of the material have rolled down in the vallies, there the breccia is slowly decomposed imder the action of the elements. In all these numerous speci- mens, the red pebble greatly predominates; and seemed the hardest of the i^roup. This struck me the more, as pebbles of that colour are comparatively rare, in all the strata of gravel, and along the shores of the lake and neighbouring rivers. The strata of which Rigi is composed, seemed to me to be very much disposed after the exterior figure of the mountain itself: sections of large curves, parallel to each other, and all elevated towards the north, at an angle of about twenty-two de- grees. These observations were made by the eye only ; and by the eye confounded, by the extreme irregularity of the position of the strata in this part of Europe. The face of Mount Albis on the side as you come from Zurich, presents many naked pre- cipices ; in all of which the strata are distinctly visible, and are perfectly horizontal. From Cappel at the foot of Albis to Art, beyond Ruffiberg, is about five leagues. Before reaching Art the strata of Kuffiberg are in some places nearly vertical ; and generally elevated considerably to the east of north. Those of Rigi, which is within a league of the last named mountain, have already been mentioned. At Luzern, three leagues farther wes:, the strata of the Musseg, which overlooks the town, are inclined about twenty-two degrees towards the south, from a ver- tical posture ; or, more correctly speaking, are elevated three- quarters of a right angle towards the south ; which is jirccisely the reverse of the strata of Ruffiberg. Three leagues fartfjier westward, Bramegg presents strata precisely horizontal, and resembling so far the strata of Albis ; the latter being limestone and calcarious earth ; the former sand stone and clay. But pre- cisely vis-a-vis to Bramegg — the north front of Mount Pilatus rises 5,760 feet in height, with strata of granite, elevated towards the north, about as much as those of Rigi; but unlike the curved strata of Rigi,— those of Pilatus are flat. These hills and moun- tains all range from north-east to south-west, in a line not above ten leagues long. On the summit of Bramegg, the face of Pila- tus seems almost to touch you ; the masses of Rigi and Ruffi- 14* 150 MEMORANDA OF berg Jay against the bosom of the gigantic and snow-daxf Afps behind them, with an outline perfectly distinct. f had nearly forgotten, in this narration, the Chapel of WiUiam' Tell, which constitutes one of the naost interesting objects in the region of which I am speaking. It is a small, solitary buildings between lake Zug and lake Waldstetten, which approach within a league of each other, situated at a steep defile of the road, and immediately on its edge. At this spot, says tradition, Tell slew the tyrant Gessler. The story of that Austrian bailiff causing st hat to be set up on a pale at Altorf, which is not far off, before wliich all were reqxjired ta make obeisance ; of the refusal of William Te?}, his arrest, his condenmation to the fearful trial of skill in archery, and the success of that trial ; is a familiar legendc The narrative prgceeds to add, that Gessler, little satisfied, sought occasion against the resolute Swiss, and at length brought him from Altorf towards his own chateau, whose ruins are in sight of this little chape! ; that he m:ght be confined, or at least watched. Tell escaped by the way, and instead of fleeing, hastened for- ward to this defile ; at that fine old tree arranged his crossboWj corded up its stiff iron bow— (they show it still at Zurich)— and as his own and his country's oppressor ascended this steep pass, drove an arrow through-and-through him. Over the door of the little edifice, protected by the projecting roof, is a painting representing the scene, and below it the following lines : Gessler's hochmuth, Teil, erschlossea ^ Unt cdle Schwitzer freyheit entsprossen Wie lang vird aber solche vaercn Norcb langcr Ten vir, die Ahen vaercn. The valley of Goldau and the adjoining shores of lake Zug,.. where it opens upon them, afforded the first clear and wide view 1 had enjoyed, pretty near at hand of the majestic Alps. From the foot of Rigi, looking beliind you, over the village of Art, the valley is sliut in only by the enormous mountains of Glarus Appcnzall and the Grisons; between which, and the spot you occupy, the lower ranges of Sclnvytz and Uri, rise in gradual and beautiful succession. The multitudes of the summits may be imagined from the fact, that on one of the bridges of Luzern there is an arranged diagram, which points out to you, from the FOREIGN TRAVEL, 151 sin<^le spot, twenty-seven summits ; of which Rigi and Pilatus are amongst the nearest and lowest, and of which some of the most easterly reach the stupendous elevation of 1,500 toises, of ten feet to the toise : the name, distance, and elevation of each being furnished in the diagram. Many of these summits are covered with eternal snow ; and already, though but the first day of October, the region of snow had commenced its descent, and the ranges of the second and third class, Avere arrayed in the frozen vestments which they wear for nine months of every year. It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of those glorious objects. You are in the midst of the first ripe fruits of autumn. The children are gathering the chesnut and the pear together; and the grape is soliciting the time of vintage, upon these narrow and delicious shores. Lift up your eyes, and the green pastures of the neighbouring mountain sides are full of herds of catde, whose bells mingle with the sounds of content, v/hich fill the earth and the air, at the happy hour of eventide. From whatever land you come, there is above this but the blue heavens and the bright clouds which decorate the sunset. Be- hold those terrible figures, whose magnitude and severity would overwhelm you, if it were not for the exquisite grace which dis- tance gives to their outline, of which every deformity is covered by a vesture so soft and rich, that the unpractised eye does not immediately decide which are Alps and which the clouds, through which they always pierce. There is a grain of the finest sand at thy feet. How insignificant a material object compared with thee ! There is Rigi at thy side. How art thou as nothing in comparison of its uplifted greatness ! And what is it to St. Gothard, or St. Bernard ; or they to the footstool, or it to the throne of God ! — Glorious, all-pervading, unseen intelligence, u'ho inhabitcst eternity, and fiUest immensity! Uncreated, imper- ishable, irresistible, mysterious Spirit; whose existence is only less inscrutible than the possibility of thy -non-existence ! Pity us, as we stand awed into a sense of our own insignificance, in the midst of one outwork of thy great and beautiful creation ! Blessed be thy name for the certainty, and the assurance thou hast added thereto, that he in whose sight nothing is great — ■does not and cannot esteem any thing small ! 152 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XVI Die Vier Waldstetten— Origin of the Swiss Confederacy and Independence— Ca- ton Luzem— Agriculture of the Central Cantons— City and Lake of Luzem —The Vast Chaia of the Alps— Public Worship — Bridges— National Curiosity— The Lion of Thorwaidsen. The four cantons of Uri, Undervvald, Schwytz and Luzern, were long known, as Die Vier Waldstetten, — the Four Forest States; or more fa miliary, as they are even yet designated, the Country of William Tell. They lie around the Waldstetten See, or lake of the Four Cantons ; Luzern and Schwyts on the north, and Underwald and Uri on the south. In all these Cantons the Catholic religion predominates, and the spiritual condition of the people is probably less altered by the events of the reformation^ than most other portions of Switzerland. Secluded, poor, and little enterprising ; but cheerful, brave, and impatient of foreign domi- nation; they would be almost unknown to the rest of mankind, if their country were not from its location in the very centre of Europe, sometimes the theatre of war, and incessantly of travel. Tlie whole four Cantons contain somewhat less than 170,000 souls, of which Luzern alone has 100,000. The physical char- acter of their whole territory is essentially the same ; wild, bro- ken and romantic — sometimes exceedingly beautiful, and still oftener savage to the last degree; a country of woods, and hills, and valleys, and terrific mountains, and inaccissable fasmesses; cut and drained by small rivers and lakes, as pure and clear as the everlasting glacieres which create and nourish them. It is the cradle of the liberties of modern Europe. And little risk i& FOREIGN TRAVEL, 153 mcurred in predictinor that if those liberties perish, the vallies of Die Vier Waldstetten are as apt as any to be iheir grave ; and the descendents of the Almans the last who will make their ob- sequies memorable. Burglen, in the Canton of Uri, was the birth place of Tell: and GrUtli in that of Unterwalden, was the spot at which the founders of the liberties ot Switzerland, matured their purposes. Les trois Swiss—or, Die Drey Schwitzcr — according as the speech be French or German, are words in every mouth : and no painting is so common, in all the Cantons, as some re- presentation of The Three Swiss— Werner Slauffacher, of Steinen in Schwytz ; Erric (or Arnold) an der Haider of Mech- thal in Unterwalden ; and Walter FUrstof Attinghausen in Uri, met from night to night, at Griitli, to bewail their own and their country's wrongs — and to mature their desperate plans for their redress. There they bound themselves to each other by the most solemn oaths, to free their country or perish.- -Walter of Attino-hausen W3C the fathci-iu-law uf William Tell; and the tower of Altorf, in which that hero was incarcerated, was in full view of his own dwelling place. It is detracting nothing from the worth of these patriots to suppose — that they caught from the more intrepid and free spirit of Tell, much of that ardour and constancy which crowned their efforts with success ; and made them in effect not only the liberators of their own narrow Can- tons — but the founders of the Swiss confederation. The Helve- tique league seems to have been proclaimed in 1315: whereas Tell had slain Gessler seven years before. There is at Brunnen i:i Unterwalden this inscription : Hier geschah der ersie ewige Bund, anno 1315, die Grundfeste der Schweilz : 'Here wus the first perpetual league, the foundation of Switzerland.' The Canton Luzern, is situated almost in the centre of Swit- zerland, and is one of the most fertile of them all. It is one of the three presiding Cantons. The Swiss Diet, meets alternately at Bern, Zurich, and Luzern, holding two annual sessions in succes- sion, at each place. Our road led through the entire length of the Canton, from lake Zug on the north east, to the rich vale of Em- raenthal in Bern on the south west. It is a country of rich hill sides and pleasant vallies ; the former never mounting up to the ter- 154 MEMORANDA OF rible region of eternal snows, and the latter never shut up in the deep seclusion, which prevails over the other forest Cantons. The people employ themselves entirely in the care of their cattle^ which abound in every part of Switzerland ; or in the culture of the soil. This is indeed the general character of the central and northern Cantons. I did not see a single tolerably large flock of sheep in Switzerland ; and wool is comparatively scarce and dear, what exists being coarse, and most usually of a black or grey co- lour. Hemp is every where cultivated for their own use ; and is the staple of their household manufactures. The grape also is un-^ known in these fertile but elevated regions. I did not see a sin- gle vineyard, from lake Zug to lake Leman; though in the in- terval I passed through the heart of four large and fertile Cantons — occupying perhaps half of ihe best country of the confederal tion. It is scarcely proper to call it a wine country. For al-^ though some Cantons cultivate the grape extensively, their wine is usually inierior, and seldom their chief staple. It is land of cattle and bees, a land of milk ana nuuey. iionp.y ;.s! in profu- sion every where, and of the most delicious quahty ; cattle of a peculiar race, unlike any I have seen elsewhere, of dun or black colour, with small horns drooped backwards, high withers, al- ways fat and perhaps therefore beautiful, constitute the real wealth of the rural population of Switzerland. The country is a country of pasturage, and at an elevation where the ground ia no longer tilled, the rich and nutritious Alpine pasturages, sus- tain multitudes of as beautiful cattle as are to be found in the world. The cheeses of Switzerland are famous over the world, and I found again and again lilile districts, in which cheeses 1 had seen or heard praised all my life as German — were, so to speak indigenous. I have eaten Gruyeres and Scherpzeger (the latter is so called from a word which signifies to grate,) again and again out of thq hands that made them. The town of Luzern stands at the western extremity of the Waldstetten lake, which amongst its several appellations receives also that of the lake of Luzern. At this point the river Reuss issues in a bold, deep and rapid stream from the lake ; and is adorned, as the Limath is at Zurich, with a large stone lower of FOREIGN TRAVEL. 155 considerable height and great antiquity, located about the centre of the stream. The surface of the lake is 1,320 leet above the level of the sea. It is six leagues long, and of a width varying at every step — but if one should not count its projecting arme, never very considerable. Its depth is above 600 feet, in many places. This is the most picturesque of all the Swiss lakes. No- thing can be more varied and magnificent than the views which its shores constantly afford. From any open spot about Lu- zern, the eye ranges over a landscape, which out of Switzerland the whole world cannot furnish. In front is the lake winding far away between promontories that rise up out of the very waters, and in the distance hide them by their deep blue shadows. On the left is the bay of Kursnacht, surmounted by the beautiful pyramid of Rigi ; on the right, the ragged and barren summits of Pilatus. Around you is the town itself, seated on both sides of the Reuss, in a narrow vale ; surrounded with walls and tow- ers, and hills that mock their puny dimensions. But far off, be- yond the shores of the lake, through the vista which it opens, is that range of eternal Alps; which gives to all the scenery of Swit- zerland, a character of such majesty, such sublime repose. That fixed, frozen, changeless glory;, towering out of the reach of earth ; cold as the brow of death, even beneath the overwhelm- ing radiance of a world of light, whose reflection makes every valley beneath them rejoice. It is not a single summit ; not even a single mountain, nor one chain of mountains, it is a world of ice and snow, and rocks, and wooded precipices ;' all in that or- der counting downwards from the top. Its fearful height, begin- ning at your feet and rising away — away — to the clouds — to the very heavens ; so far — so wide — such a terriffic pile — range be- yond range — ending you know not where. And then its vast prolongation. To the east — to the west — the same measure- less deptii — the same interminable abyss. I have travelled along its base for whole weeks together; and at every elevation from which I could command its awful proportions, I seemed no farther removed from what I saw there — no nearer to the end of its ca- reer here. Stretching from the Mediterranean far beyond the most distant portions of Hungary, and seated upon a base eighty 156 MEMORANDA OF leagues in width, of what should be the finest portions ofEurope — it is altogether the most astonishing physical object which the world affords. We spent a sabbath day in Luzern. It is a place of six or seven thousand souls, and eight Catholic churches and convents; of which, as in most considerable towns in Switzerland the Jesu- its have their full share. 1 was not able to ascertain that there was any kind of Protestant service in the place; and the whole population seems as completely Catholic, as their neighbours of Zurich or Bern are Protestant. It is extremely curious how an imaginary line often decides, what reason and conscience alone should settle; and exerts an influence over us, that throws con- tempt upon our boasted powers. In Zurich a child would laugh at holy water and the counting of beads, and consider the wor- ship of the host as absolute insanity. In Luzern the whole pop- ulation seemed to give itself up most reverently and seriously, during the greater part of the sabbatli day, to these and similar acts of religious worship. This praise at least, is justly their due, that they pay an unusual outward regard, for their sect, to the sabbath chy ; and that they seem deeply in earnest, in their misguided worship. I was for a considerable time in two of their churches ; the Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Leger, which is rather out of town, and another church in it ; perhaps an hour in each. There was nothing like an attempt to instruct the peo- ple, or even to read the Word of God to them in either. Indeed the second time there was nothing done at all — except the light- ing of lamps and the moving of tables from place to place, and the walking in and out of the servitors for about an hour; during which a house full of people, seemed patiently to expect some issue which I despaired of, and went my way. But I saw vene- rable women and men diligently engaged in counting glass beads on a long string; and I thought it a singular employment for respectable old people — especially on the sabbath day and at church. I saw persons of all ranks and ages, as they entered the house, dip their fingers in a vessel of water, several of which were dispersed in different parts of the church ; and then rever- ently apply it to their foreheads, their mouths, their breasts, and FOREIGN TRAVEd.. 157 their abdomens. Many seemed to think they had gotten too much-; for they applied their wet fingers to others, who had none. And all, while in the act of dipping in the fingers, crossed their legs by putting the right loot behind the left; and courtesied by bending the left knee forward. This at least is clear; reli- gion is an indestructible necessity of the human soul. The mind may be darkened — the judgment perverted-^the imagination heated — the passions excited ; and thus all sorts of degrading and horrible substitutes be palmed upon us, as a worship acceptable to our Creator. But it is precisely because the profound senti- ment of religion in the soul, is s Stc. of a tra^ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 159 vt'ller, is a tljinjT purely American. I have answered more such interrogatories in one hour in my own country, than I ever heard asked at any one, elsewhere. It is to be observed, that in all parts of Europe, the records made at the hotels, or by the police, go a ojreat way towards furnishing confirmed gossips, with what they obtain by word of mouth in America. And besides, it is not so easy to get information, when the great majority of those questioned are ignorant of the language they are interrogated in; as is the case with travellers in most places on the continent. At least we may solace ourselves with the reflection, that the rather uncivil curiosity of individuals in America, is confined to a small, end that the least enlightened class of our people ; whereas in Europe it is a matter of state, regulated by cabinets, and pursued for the sole benefit of the great' There is no idler in America who asks a poor traveller who falls into his power, the tenth part of the rude questions; that every king, prince and potentate on the continent will force you to answer, yea and to prove that you answer truly — and that repeatedly, before you can enter the city in which his august body is fed and lodged. Nay they often do what our ill manners at the worst would scorn. I have seen them search trunks and boxes of men and women; and heard of their searching their persons ! — But at Luzern they do the bu- siness very quietly and civilly. They only place mirrors on the outside of their windows, at such an angle that a person in the house can see all who pass along the principal streets, and re- sorts of strangers. Some have one only ; in which case they see you only as you approach or as you depart. In this case, how- ever, one look is not always satisfactory; and a head projected from the window testifies at once the curiosity and defective ar- rangement for its gratification. Many however have two glasses placed on either side of the window ; and thus the fair faces of the indwellers need only turn from right to left or left to right — and more fortunate than the lady who watched the *' Stout Gen- tleman," ihey get a view of the rear which she was hardly con- tent with — and one of the front also, which in her case was de- nied to her longing eyes. Tliis street-gazing is rather a common quality in several parts of Switzerland. At Bern all the better 160 MEMORANDA OF sort of houses are provided with cushions, to recline on, in the thick window sills of the second and third stories ; and you will not pass a street, if tiie weather is tolerably good, without find- ing persons of both sexes, and every age, engaged in the com- mendable work of lolling upon them, with their heads out of doors, and their eyes wandering in search of prey. I should not omit to mention, a monument, of exceeding beau- ty and rather decided nationality, which is found at Luzern. It is called the Lion of Thorwaldsen, and is intended to commemo- rate the fidelity and courage of the Swiss guard of Louis XVI. on the memorable days of August, 1 79^^ It was projected by M. de Phyffer, a patriotic Swiss ; the model given by Thorwaldsen at Rome ; the work done by Ahorn,, a young artist of Constance ; and paid for by a sort of national subsidy. It is a colossal lion, whose }ength is twenty-eight feet, and his height, if he stood erect, would be eighteen ieet. He is however represented as crouching, and expiring from the wound of a lance, driven through his body and broken off at both ends. And his dying body is thrown over a shield, with thefleur de lis of France upon it ; — as if the noble beast would cover and protect what he could no longer defend. Above are inscribed in great letters : — Helve-^ tiorum fidei and virtidi ; To the fidelity and courage of the Swiss ! The conception is exceedingly grand, and the execu- tion, in the very highest style of art and genius. The whole is cut at a considerable elevation, into the perpendicular face of a cliff which had been smoothed to gain a good surface, and which mounts up, and extends far in all directions. It is a most superb production. Not far off, is a small ehapel with the words, Inviciis pax ; Peace to the tmconquered — engraved over its entrance. — And the whole unity of the piece is touchingly preserved, by the presence of a fine, handsome old man as master of ceremonies, who was himself present and severely wounded, in the butchery of his com- rades commemorated by the work. The strata of the cliff which forms the element of the monument, are finely exhibited on its face ; and the very reverse of the prevailing strata of that region. These are elevated at a great angle towards the south* east. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 161 CHAPTER XVII. Security of Interior Switzerland^Battle Fields— Route from Luzern to Bern— Art of Travelling— The Entlibuch— Swiss Cottages— The Emmenthal— General Struc- ture of the Alpine Ranges— City of Bern— Public Fare— Costume — Political Changes. Luzern is often called the Gibralter of Switzerland ; but per- haps with more of fancy than truth. They who have conquered all Switzerland, up to the gates of Luzern, would risk all against almost nothing, b}' an attempt to push their conquests further. It is the outpost of the Alps, of eternal ice, of savage precipices and of a climate in which winter reigns with absolute dominion for three-quarters of the year ; and where all the sweetness and power of summer scarce adorns his terrible features with faint smiles for a few fleeting months. The vallies which penetrate these regions have no charms for the fierce shedders of human blood. The scattered and simple dwellers in them, irresistible in their defence, have sought no extension of their power, nor even of their principles. The very herds which feed upon the short thick grass of their lofty hill sides, are a race peculiar and indigenous; and their plants and trees languish and decay in all other climes. The oppressors of the earth have nothing to gain in these solitudes ; nor have they any thing to lose by permit- ting the liberty which they abhor, to dwell in peace, where noth- ing else has vigour enough to exist. And yet the hill sides, and the mountain tops, and the deep vallies of Switzerland, have felt almost as frequently as any part of Europe, the mailed footstep of the warrior ; and run as red 15* 162 MEMORANDA OF with his blood. From the summit of Bramegg, in the Entlibuchy between Luzern and Bern, as you stand facing the terrific crags of PilatuSj and looking to the south and over his brow, the vast Alps of the Oberland, and the boundless fields of ice, and snow, and living rocks, beyond and to the right and left ; you have all around, and almost within reach, renowned spots, consecrated by the fury of human passions. If you look eastward, the broken top of Russiberg, tells you of the glorious valley of Mor- garten beyond its base ; where at the first, Helvetia bathed her young freedom, in the kingly blood of Austria. If you turn to the north, Sempach is at your feet ; and the voice of Arnold of Winkelried is almost audible to you yet, as bravely devoting himself for his country, he rushed upon the long pikes of the enemy, and gathering in his arms and in his body the utmost he could contain, shouted to his faltering brethren ; " I open you the way dear confederates, remember my wife and babes." — Turn with your eyes full of tears, towards the distant west, and behold at the feet of the Jura, Murten, (or Morat, as the French call it); where Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and his proud nobles, left their bones to be buried by the hands of the " miser- able peasants," he came to sweep out of his royal track. If only such fields as these were stricken, the heart would be con- soled, under the horrors which cleave to them, by the reflection that the right triumphed, and that sharp lessons were given to tyrants. But there is Cappel between you and Morgarten ; and while we rejoice in the very home of Tell, we weep over the grave of Zwingle, slain by a brother's hand, in social and religious war. Turn too where you will, these cloud-capped summits are the everlasting monuments of strange soldiers, and foreign quarrels, but too oflen submitted in their sight, to the keen arbitration of the sword. The top of Albis to the north- east, recalls Massena, and the victory of Zurich. The gigantic bosom of St. Gothard to the south-east, still resounds the name of the ferocious Suwarrow. You strain your eyes in vain to catch a ray from the top of Saint Bernard, far to the south-west; where upon the earth's top, and above all its red glory, is inscribed the name of Napoleon, above that of Hannibal !— FOREIGN TRAVEL. 163 Terrible butchers ! I would rather be drowned in the tears shed after your footsteps, than answer for a thousandth part of the blood which cements your fame ! The most direct route from Luzern to Bern, makes the dis- tance about eighteen leagues. Persons do not generally travel it, however, but diverge to the south, and visit the romantic region beyond Thun. We were somewhat afraid of the prox- imity of the deep and increasing snow upon the Alps, — a little restricted in time, — and anxious to improve the delightful weather we had enjoyed almost constantly since we left Paris. We were not as well informed, either in regard to the routes, or the objects of interest connected with them, as we afterwards became ; which is indeed a common misfortune with travellers, and one that seems remediless. As to giving yourself up to the direction of superficial way- books, or following the notions of travellers who have preceded you, it is out of the question ; while on the other hand, to ascer- tain for yourself the real state of things, to see, to know, to ex- amine every thing, is not only an intolerable labour, but requires more previous knowledge than most mew have the happiness of possessing ; and more time than most travellers have to spare. There is great skill in travelling well, and I have seen but few who attain it. I have met with persons who seemed to me the most useless and miserable of beings, wasting their time and means ; some rushing about Europe like men in a phrenzy, without any thought, except of the moment the next stage would be reached ; and others idling and sauntering about, as if their only purpose was, to forget how many days made a year. Oth- ers will take a guide or a directory, and go to work, as if they had laid a wager how much they could look at in a given num- ber of days ; and which after seeing, is remembered simply as costing such a number of pounds, or occasioning such an amount of labour. More still, go at random; dart into a valley they came a hundred leagues to see, and dart out again; express their whole emotions on the top of the Semplon or the Splugen, by puffing out, " what a journey up ;" and seem to have just the notion of what is past over, or what is yet to come, that our 164 MEMORANDA OF dear little ones at the first dawn of reason, have of the most affecting stories ; after whose conclusion, their only response is, " Tell on, Pa." It is a high, and I am surprised to find, a rare gift, to be alive to the beauties which the Creator has lavished upon this lower world. It is not common for the past, or the present even, to be sufficiently known to make the recollections of the one, or the promises of the other, a source either of in- struction or delight. And the very power of observing and dis- tinguishing what is before the eyes, in the most obvious forms, so that truth shall be confirmed, error corrected, virtue strength- ened, and just and enlarged sentiments created and nourished — seems denied to an immense proportion of those, upon whom such invaluable opportunities are lost. I may say, after being seduced this far, that if the great mass of travellers would speak candidly, I believe they would be obliged to say, they derive as little pleasure, as it is manifest they do improvement, from that which is undoubtedly one of the most copious sources of the one and the other. And what, it may be asked, is to be inferred from hence? Nothing— just nothing; except that the world which travels, is a fair sample of the world which stays at home ; the history of the one and the other, being a story of time mis- spent, and precious opportunity sacrificed to folly, ignorance, or vice. The day and a half which it requires to go by the direct route, between the cities already named, may be happily, sweetly passed away. The first half of the way lies in Luzern, passing through the region called the Entlibuch, which I have casually mention- ed ; and which is a district of high and fertile hills, interspersed with farms and forests, and covered with the neat and comfort- able cottages of the Swiss. These cottages are common to every part of the country, and I presume to Germany also ; for I saw them first in the Grand Duchy of Baden. They are very capa- cious, with the roofs reaching very low, often almost to the ground, and the windows always in the ends of the house, which also are protected by a projecting roof. There is most frequently a long raised way of earth or stone, by which the second floor can be entered from without : and be thus made, in FOREIGN TRAVEL. 165 wliole or part, a convenient receptacle for the products of the earth. The frround floor is usually appropriated to the uses of barn, stable, and cellar; and the steep roof of the house never fails to have as many (often more) stories as the whole house beside. They are cfenerally built of wood — a frame set on a stone wall ; and the whole aspect is one of great snugness and comfort. In some regions, as around Zurich, they are all white, and have an exceedingly picturesque appearance. The latter half of the journey leads through the valley called Emmenthal in Bern, which is one of the richest and most beautiful in Switzerland, or in the world. Commencing in a narrow strip between the mountains, with a rill murmuring through it, and steep precipices hemming it in ; it widens and enlarges — full of villages and farms — covered with herds of beautiful cows, rich in machinery, and extensive bleaching yards, filled with thousands of yards of linen ; until it is lost over a gentle swell in the wide valley of the Aar. This river is one of the largest in Switzerland, and furnishes on its banks some of the finest portions of it. A more beautiful or highly cultivated region is scarcely to be found in Europe, than the banks of the Aar, in the vicinity of Bern. I had repeated opportunities during this ride, especially the former part of it, to see the range of mountains which forms the northern outposts of the Alps, in such a way as to give an exact idea of their formation, in regard to some points which are much disputed. The Albis in Zurich, the Russiberg and Rigi in Zug and Schwytz, Pilatus between Luzern and Underwald, with the Friburg mountains towards the west; these taken together Ibrm a line from north-east to south-west, in front of St. Gothard, the Semplon, and St. Bernard ; which themselves form a line behind them of incalculably greater extent and elevation. I have seen both sides of both lines. The north-western side of both is pre- cipitous, rugged, and inaccessible ; so much so,, that the sum- mits can be reached very seldom from that point. But where soil is found, it is always rich on that exposure. The opposite or south-eastern part is gradually sloped off, and is as much less fertile, as it is less abrupt. The structure of these tremendoug 166 MEMORANDA OF elevations reminded me very often of what I had seen, both elsewhere in Europe, and in every part of the United States. — Those who have been at Siirling in Scotland, have seen in mini- ature, on a very small scale, a representation of the ranges of which I now speak, furnished by the precipice on whose south- eastern face that town is huilt, and those to the right and left of it. In short, I have never seen in any part of the world, moun- tain ranges, which did not coincide in their apparent structure, if they coincided in their line of direction. They all indicate a particular and terrihle convulsion, and all demonstrate a general subsidence towards the south-east. The city of Bern is, after Geneva, the largest in Switzerland ; and it is one of the most regular and well built cities in Western Europe. It is situated in a very sharp elbow of the Aar, which carries into the Rhine, the waters of this section of the confede- ration. A fciingle bridge is thrown across the stream — the ap- proach to which on the farther side is through a long and noble avenue of trees ; and on this side up a steep ascent into the principal street of the town. On both sides of this street the foot pavemeni is rather in the houses than in the street, being conducted under a low and dark arch-way, over which the second stories of the houses extend. The streets are so laid out, that the sun never shines on but one side of them, which makes the houses on the other side as damp as their walks are gloomy. The taste of the people in the arts, is in accordance with these strange notions. One of their principal fountains, of which there are a number, as in every continental city I have yet seen, is adorned with the most extraordinary and disgusting piece of sculpture to be found amongst men. Upon the top of a pillar is seated an obese looking old man, quite at his ease, eating a baby ! He holds in one hand the lower extremeties of a child whose head and shoulders he is masticating ; and in the other, a basket full of urchins, to finish his repast. Other infants, are hung around his neck by straps, like game ; and two or three, who have got out of the basket, are scampering off around the pedestal. The whole concern, spring, man, and all — is well flamed Kindernfressendhrunnen — which any mouth but an initi- FOREIGN TRAVEL 167 ated one, could as easily eat a child, as pronounce. We may translate it, " the children gormandizing fountain." It is not, however, only in the arts of design that the Bernese furnish a model. They have a specimen of mechanical contri- vance, as amusing as the other is hideous. The principal street' of the place is nearly stopped up by a tower, through which, and to one side of it, narrow passes are opened. The tower is called, from its use, Zeiiglockenneue, and contains the town clock. It is the machinery connected with this clock, to which I allude. A minute or two before the clock strikes the hour, a wooden or metal cock, "as large as life," seated on a projection of the tower, claps his wings and crows twice ; and at the correspond- ing time after the striking of the hour, he repeats his salutations. Not far off, are various other contrivances, equally ridiculous. A man seated on a throne, opens his mouth and lowers his scep- tre at each strike of the cbck; and with the other hand turns a sand-glass up-side-down, as soon as the hour is fully told. At his feet, a circle of bears, of which about half are visible at a time, make a march in time to his sceptre and jaws ; being car- ried round on a circular plate. Near at hand is a lion rampant, who shakes his royal mane ; and a small man who strikes on two bells at the same time, in accord with the first crowing of the cock. The hour is struck twice — part of the machinery working with each— and the whole movement occupying per- _ haps three minutes. 7i(i l^i I It was market day in Bern, and the streets were crowded to ^ excess, not only with the usual attendant! on such an occasion every where, but with numerous booths and tables, exposing for sale every sort of merchandize and manufacture. It was the after part of the day, when we arrived, and yet every thing was in great activity. The markets of Europe are arranged very differently from those of America. The stalls for the sale of meat which occupy so large a part of all American markets, are seldom found at all in those of Europe ; but are kept like our grocery stores, in the various quarters where they are needed, and are always open. Markets for fowls and birds are also sep- arate, or at least held on different days, from other markets. 168 MEMORANDA OF The bird market of Bern is one of the greatest curiosities in the city. The market for vegetables is to itself— iliat for fruits to itself. The fruit market on the principal bridge of Zurich, which was held just belbre our window, in the Hotel de V Epie, and which we had three or four opportunities to see, is one of the most picturesque sights which even Switzerland affords. Every- where in Europe females are the principal attendants on the ordinary markets, both to purchase and sell ; and almost every where the donkey is the principal vehicle which transports the affairs to market, and his mistress home. But in all except the largest class of cities, there are weekly, monthly, or quarterly markets — or where they extend beyond a sin trie day, fares; at which much greater numbers attend, and trading of all sorts is practised by men as well as women. Such a one, we fell upon at Bern. And besides the activity given by it, to its ten or twelve thousand inhabitants— half as many more were gathered to- gether by its influence. Every Canton has a costume peculiar to itself; and the female especially seems to have taxed her ingenuity for the production of a sufficient number of the most singular head-dresses in the woHd. It is in this article, ihat the costumes of the different Cantons are especially distinguished. And in this, extravagance is pushed to the most absurd extent. The female of Luzern wears a skull cap fitted tight to the head, made of velvet, and richly embroidered ; while her hair is platted and hangs down her back, with broad ribbons hanging to the end of it. Bonnets are a luxury unknown to the Swiss peasants any where, except in Geneva and Vaud. The women in Freyburg p!at their hair, with the help of horse hair and stuffs, into mats of enormous thickness, which they wind round their heads. The Vaudois wear a wide brimmed straw hat, with a very low crown, and a handle in the centre of the top. The Bernese have a plain black cap, tight 10 the head, and garnished by a border of net work, either of horse hair or of silk, of the most preposterous width, certainly from nine to fifteen inches, and always black. When made of cotton or silk, the border hangs about the face and neck in ample folds. When made of horse hair, as it is commonly, it sticks FOREIGN TRAVEL. 169 Straight up, except on the top of the head, where it is drawn back and fastened, giving the head the appearance of a chicken cock's, with a double comb. The varieties in other parts of their costume, are endless, and far exceed my skill in drapery to describe. Some are rather plain — the Bernese exceedingly de- corated with chains and trinkets. Indeed, the short petticoat without sleeves, (which is universal,) when coupled with the metal ornaments, and the deep tan of the skin, very often brought to my recollection the North American Indians. In the Canton Bern, before the influences of the French Rev- olution of 18S0 had produced a corresponding result here, there existed, if we may so speak, an Aristocratic Republic, not unlike those of Venice and Genoa in former days: or as the great Ha'- ler, who was a native of Bern, has described it, a Military Repub- lic, after the model of that of Rome. The change here has been more absolute than in France itself. The aristocracy o{ the towns, and the rural noblesse con^posed of the landed propri- etors, are much more numerous, and had far more power and influence in this than in any other Canton. At present the pop- ular party is possessed of the whole power of the state ; and re- cent events seem likely to swallow up or overwhelm the entire aristocracy of Switzerland, in a mighty national movement, im- pelled by a pressure both li'om within and from without. The contest in Bern has been long contini-ied, and with various suc- cesses to the respective parties. On one occasion there had very nearly been a civil war, if FiPasmns is to be credited, because the wives of the noblesse insisted on the exclusive right to wear a particular kind of shoes ; and their hair depending. On an- other, John de Buhenberg, their SchuUheiss, was banished with his partizans " for a century and a day," because, as his enemies alleged, he governed hke a prince, rather than a citizen. At length, however, the contest is settled ; and the ancient institu- tions of Bern are likely to be subjected to still further changes, rather than to be restored. Vol. II.— 16 170 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XVIII Influence of the Local Situation of Switzerland — Effects of the Revolution of 1830 —Foreign Interference with the Affairs of the Confederation^Difficulties with France in 1836— National Spirit of the Swiss — Fellenberg— Personal Troubles —Deficiency of American Diplomatic Agents— Notices of Bern— Influence of Alpine Scenery— It happened that I was in Bern in the interval between the adjournment of the regular Diet, and the convocation of the extraordinary Diet, which the interruption of all relations between that country and France had rendered necessary. The local situation of Switzerland, with reference to Italy, France, Germany, and the dominions of the house of Austria, makes it the natural point of escape for all who find it necessary to fly from any of these countries; a city of refuge for the criminal and the unfortunate, in the centre of those powers that have been for so many ages amongst the greatest in the world. If those powers had been less, Switzerland had long ago followed the fate of Poland and the Italian republics. But it seems to be a capital necessity of great states to have something placed between them, that may relieve the severity of their mutual friction : an arm of the sea — an impassible mountain — a small state. God has furnished an enduring barrier in the difference of speech ; but the passions of men find others needful. So great is this necessity felt to be, that in the most single instance of departure from it in modern days — the partition of Poland, and the conse- quent juxtaposition of Austria and Russia — the former of those powers has long desired and offered to remedy the evil and cor- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 171 rect the defect, by restorino: its part of Poland, for the purpose of re-constituting that kingdom and restoring its ancient nation- ality ; and thus interposing between them a state less powerful than either of themselves. The events of the last fifty years have sufficiently shewn the governments of Europe, the necessity of having some vent of this son for the periodical commotions which vegetating liberty engenders. There is no alternative but butchery or expulsion — no choice but between the guillotine and Sibetia. Russia has her own Siberia — Switzerland is the Siberia of all Europe besides. The world is not likely to forget the memorable events which followed the revolution of July, in Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Peninsula. In France and Belgium alone, besides Switzer- land, the revolutionary party achieved, as they then thought, a complete triumph. There is much reason to believe that the French government encouraged revolution every where, until Louis Phillippe frightened the northern powers into an acknow- ledgment of his dynasty, by the extent and magnitude of these movements ; and then sacrificed the patriots they had excited to attempts, which became desperate, only when France disavowed them. The effects of these various commotions were too con- siderable to permit the adoption of the ordinary policy. Italy, Germany, and Poland might have furnished Switzerland with refugees enough to form an army. Another course was taken, France took the Poles into her pay ; England gave those who sought her shores, scanty and temporary supplies ; and Austria sent squadrons of them to the United States. All Europe had guaranteed the nationality of Poland ; and all Europe looked on and saw that nationality annihilated, after the most heroic strug- gle which modern times have produced. Nothing can present in a more perfectly just and striking contrast, the public senti- ment of Europe, and that of the United States, than the fact, that Congress voted an extensive domain as a national present, to those whom Europe had cast out ! The power of the democratic party in the Swiss Cantons, and the vast numbers of refugees created by recent events, have made the northern powers exceedingly watchful and jealous of all 172 MEMORANDA OF that transpires there. Under various pretexts the expulsion of these political refugees from Switzerland, had been repeatedly and urgently demanded, by Austria, Prussia, and the Grand Duke of Baden, with the connivance of the Pope, and the Kings of Sar- dinia and France. x\t length in August of this year, (1S36) the Federal Diet adopted a conclusum on the subject; which, al- though not equal to what was demanded, was more than several of the Cantons seemed disposed to yield ; and was taken as suf- ficient for the time being, by the *' Great Powers," as some of them arrogantly call themselves. In the meantime, the King o^f the French, whose life had been twice attempted and who found himself threatened not only with revolution, but with assassina- tion ; directed his ambassador in Switzerland to take a leading part in inducing the Cantons to act with vigour and promptitude against the refugees. His pretext was that they plotted against his life, as well as against the repose of States. The French ambassador, the Duke de Montebello, so managed the affair as to give the Diet great offence. At the same moment certain refugees made disclosures to leading members of it, which excit- ed suspicions against the French ambassador and King ; and a bold, acute, and perfectly successful investigation and exposure of the conduct of the former was the result. It was proved be- yond question, that the French authorities had employed spies, (especially an Italian refugee named Carsiel) for the purpose of exciting those whose expulsion they demanded, to enter into the rery plots, for having engaged in which their expulsion had been previously demanded ! MM. Keller and Monard, deputies from Zurich and Lausanne, were the leaders in this courageous act. The Diet agreed on a clear and dignified report, which neither the King of the French nor his ambassador, ever attempted to answer; ten thousand copies of which were sent to Paris for circulation. About the same period, the French ministry at the head of which was M. Theirs, was dismissed, in consequence oi" a disagreement touching the recent revolution in Spain ; and a new ministry essentially doctrinaire, after some delay, was in- stalled under the Presidency of Count Mole. An early act of this ministry was to draw up an ultimatum, equally insolent and FOREIGN TRAVEL. 173 false ; which having delivered through the hands of the Duke of Montebello to the Federal Directory, they closed at once all re- lations, whether diplomatic or commercial, between the two nations ; until ample satisfaction should be made to the insulted honor of France. It was only the day before I reached Bern, that the Duke had done his last office and closed the bureau of his embassy. A few days after, the call for the meeting of an extraordinary Diet of two delegates from each Canton, to convene at Bern on the 17th of October, was despatched .to the several cantonial direct- ories. And about the same time, the Canton Vaud, which is one of the largest in the confederacy, refused to agree even to the conclusum of the diet ; much less to the more recent de- mands of France. This step can have no other effect than to complicate the whole affair more seriously ; and render its settle- ment without bloodshed, still more difficult. — For if the Diet can with honor pacify France, and preserve the friendship of the northern powers, by rigidly executing the conclusum ; why there will remain the necessity of coercing in some way, the powerful Canton of Vaud. But on the other hand, it is obvious that the ancient spirit of Helvetia is roused ; that the conduct of the French government has united almost the whole people in ab- horrence against it, and a profound purpose to preserve at all hazards, the dignity, the independence, and the liberties of Swit- zerland. So that it seems more probable that the conclusum of the Diet would itself be repealed, than any attempt be made to coerce the Canton Vaud. If the conclusum be repealed, an army will immediately environ Switzerland, from the Rhine, around by the north, the east, and the south, to the Rhone. On the west, the line of frontier next to France is already shut up, and nothing that is Swiss is allowed to pass ; and it is declared by France that it shall not be re-opened till a satisfaction, not only impossible, but incomprehensible, is rendered. It is already avowed by the organs of the present French cabinet, that the plan of operations will be, to environ the Swiss on all sides, and starve them in their mountains. It seems scarcely possible that things should continue as they are 16* 174 MEMORANDA OF and not probable that they would go back. If the Swiss sought only revenge against France, Austria is ready and able to forget refugees, and wink to blindness at any thing that would increase her influence in Switzerland, and over the passes of the Alps. The Emperor of Austria is King of Lombardy ; and his fair- est dominions are inaccessible to all foreign powers but France ; and her only route to them is over the Alps.— But if the Swiss rely on themselves, their fastnesses, the justness of their cause, and the goodness of that benign Power, which has commanded the nations to remember the stranger, and to beware how they oppress the friendless, (and it is not for themselves, but for the stranger and the oppressed that they resist;) He will find, or make a way for their deliverance. How base is power ; how heartless, how selfish, how detestable, are the schemes and pur- poses of those, whom God himself has denominated " the basest of mankind?" There is not a man in France that wishes to go war with the Swiss ; nor one in Switzerland who wishes to go to to war with France. But the ministers of Louis Phillippe the First, did a dirty thing for a vile end, and were caught in it ; and to satisfy French honor, the only alternative is to tell an official falsehood, under tenor of threats ; or to shed innocent blood ! The world is tired of war. Christianity abhors war. Commerce detests war. Wealth trembles at war. Justice and mercy shrink from war. But all these interests united, control the mass of all modern civilization. Then why need there ever be war? There never would he warj if the race of tyrants was extinct. There is no modern civilized nation, of which the great mass is not willing to mind their own affairs, and treat all other people with justice and civility. — In such a case, there could be no war. Throw a King into the scale, and the chances are equal that he will outweigh all the interests I have named. The probability however is, that this matter has gone further than the King of the French intended ; and it has certainly been managed with a want of tact of which he would not have been guilty. A singular incident occurred very recently, which proves tids. The celebrated Fellenburg, at a public meeting in the Canton of Bern, declared in the course of an address on the pre- sent state of Swiss affairs, that he had the highest authority for FOREIGN TRAVEL. 175 saying, that the private sentiments of Louis Phillippe were alto- gether at variance with those of his cabinet and his ambassador, in relation to the existing difficulties ; that his heart, grateful for the protection which the Swiss had once extended to himself, was broken at the prospect of a rupture with them ; and that he not only wished, but was resolved to make an amicable adjust- men-t of the matter. — What does this mean ? Was Louis Phil- lippe deceived as to the slate of parties in Switzerland ? Is he deceived as to the result of his past measures ? Is he in earnest ? Or is he merely intrigueing to keep certain men out of the ap- proaching Diet, that he may have a better prospect of bringing it to terms ? I have mentioned the name of Felienberg. It is known that his famous establishment is at Hofwil, a league or two from Bern. I had appropriated a day to the inspection of that place ; and in thetiope of being able to accomplish it, had obtained the neces- sary letters of introduction. The state of affairs between France and Switzerland trenched on my private matters, so as to con- sume in other and useless attempts, the time I had expected to spend at Hofwil ; and thus deprived me of the pleasure and in- struction I had hoped to derive from that source. Both the ser- vants that accompanied our party — the one as courier, the other the nurse of our infant, were Swiss, with Swiss passports. To do without a nurse, was in the existing state of the mother's health, impossible ; to get along with our party, through coun- tries whose languages are constantly changing, and none of which any of us perfectly understood, was extremely difficult without a courier — a servant, at least, if not an interpreter. The entrance into Italy, except by the south of France, was sealeil up by cholera or quarantine ; and the entrance of our servants into France forbidden. The representatives of foreign powers " near" the Swiss government, as the phrase is, reside where the government is located ; and therefore at Bern at the present time. 1 thought myself fortunate, therefore, in ascertaining the difficulty, at the very place where I could probably provide against it; but soon found that I had little reason to congratu- late myself. There was no American agent of any kind at Bern ; 176 MEMORANDA OF none, that I could certainly ascertain, in Switzerland ; or even if (as some conjectured) there was one at Basle, he might as well be in Paris or London, so far as duties to be performed in Swit- zerland are concerned.— This defect of national representatives, is deeply injurious to our national character abroad, and exceed- ingly inconvenient to our citizens. My courier (who, having re- sided twelve years in England, considered himself nearly as much entitled to be an Englishman as a Swiss,) urged me to apply to the English minister. I did so, and stated the case to his substi- tute in his office (of what rank I am unable to say). The ques- tion was very simple, and was soon settled. I wished to know if the ambassador of a Iriendly power, would, in the absence of any re- presentative from my own government, say in two words, on my passport ; that besides the persons named in it, two servants had been added to my family since the passport had been given ; so that my servants might have their characters merged in mine, and pass by my passport, instead of showing their separate Swiss passports. I was asked if I would pass lor an Englishman? No ; for nothing on earth but an American. Then the British ambassador can do nothing for you, sir. — Very well; let things take their course. The courier was by this time anxious for the result, as well as disappointed at the bad progress of our first at- tempt. His next suggestion was, that as I would be nothing but what 1 was, he should become for the occasion, what he was not ; and that I should write to some American agent for a pass- port for him as an American citizen. To this I demurred as de- cidedly as to the other proposition. It was none oi' Louis Phi- lippe's business who my servants were ; and while I was respon- ble for them, he might pass them, if he chose, without asking any questions beyond the naked fact, that they belonged to my fam- ily, as mere travellers through his dominions. But if he chose to ask more, either in regard to me or them, I could neither tell, nor connive at others telling aught but the truth. As a last des- perate alternative the courier got my permission, to wait, on his own responsibility on the Russian ambassador for aid, or at least advice. The ambassador was extremely polite ; but the case was hopeless. I forbade the subject to be mentioned any fur- rOREIGN TRAVEL. 177 tlier ; and quietly resigned myself into His hands who is able to deliver alike from cholera, quarantine, the French King's in- trigues, and every other curse which the folly or guilt of man has brought upon the earth. There are many things about Bern to interest the stranger; many monuments of its former wisdom and courage; many of its present prosperity and public spirit. There are six hundred and fifty rural schools in the Canton ; and here, as in all the Pro- testant Cantons, and several of the Catholic also I believe, pop- ular education is not only gratuitous or nearly so, but the parent is obliged by law to send his child to school for a considerable portion of each year between his sixth and sixteenth year. Learning has however, had few eminent men to boast of in Bern. If we except the celebrated Haller, I cannot at this moment re- call another. This is not to be attributed to want of opportu- nities, nor lack of public estimation of learning : for the city has its Academy — its faculties of law, medicine, theology, science, languages, &o. &c.; its libraries, museums, and numerous sci- entific collections and societies. The bear is the ensign of Bern, and it is not without some siiovv of reason that it has been called a city of bears ; at least so far as the perpetual recurrence of images of that sage and grave beast, in stone, print, wood, and coin, can justify such an appellation. It makes manifest, at least, the strong military bias of the people. Amongst its public buildings, one of the largest and handsomest is the Burger-Spital, a noble hospital, on whose front is engraved, Christo in paitperibus — To Christ in the poor. The great church of the city — which was a Cathedral church before the reformation, is an immense and superb Gothic struc- ture, richly adorned with endless carvings in stone, and flanked by two lofty square towers. We were not allowed to exam- ine its interior, as some private ceremony — whether a marriage or baptism, I could not learn—was about to be celebrated in it. As we were discoursing about it, the minister passed us, to enter the church. He was a handsome man— bare headed — dressed in a long, loose robe, girdled around his loins, and his head 178 MEMORANDA OF swallowed up in a muff of monstrous dimensions. The dress was rather picturesque. But it seemed to me a silly excuse for a minister of the gospel to dress himself like a zany — that his ancestors did so five hundred years ago. The kingdom of God has as little to do with muffs and frocks, as it has with meat and drink. But of all the pleasant places about Bern, its public walks are the most delightful. Few villages, even in Switzerland, are destitute of these lovely and refreshing promenades. But Bern is rich in them. There are few spots more delicious than its Platform, situated in the heart of the upper town which is built on a cliff of the Aar; and overhanging the lower town, built on the narrow margin of the rapid current. On one side is the ca- thedral ; on the other a precipice of above a hundred feet, railed in, and the incautious warned by an inscription in the centre, that a restive horse once plunged over it with his rider. The Platform is of considerable extent, and planted with numerous horse-chesnut trees, which are favorites every where in Europe. Below you, is the lower town, and the beautiful Aar. Beyond it, the rich and highly adorned country on its borders, skirted by ranges of hills, and the distance shut in by the vast ranges of the Oberland Alps, covered with everlasting snow, and shooting up their high peaks into the sky. The majestic pyramid of Niesen, the sharp and frozen Stockhorn, the graceful and lofty propor- tions of Shreckhorn, Eiger, and Youngfraw ; " wild but not rude, awful but not austere." Bathed in the rich light of Autumn — white, all white — and so richly, dazzlingly white ; contrasting by their magnitude and their color, so strongly with the diminished and beautiful world at their leet ; these great mountains fill the mind with solemnity and seriousness. You walk back and for- ward upon this Platform; and your pace becomes more measured, and your thoughts more elevated, and your imagination enlarged, and your feelings tranquilized. Your whole being sympathises with the majesty of the scene. The children who play around you, cease to be boisterous ; the very laborer pursues his voca- tion in sedate silence ; and none but an idiot or madman ever ut- tered a loud laugh while gazing upon the Alps. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 179 CHAPTER XIX Canton Freyburg— Joseph Wolf— The Country of Gruyeres— Pilgrims— City of Freyburg— Great Suspension Bridge — The Peasantry— Goitres— Roman Anliqui- The Canton Freyburg is ranked amongst the large Cantons of Switzerland. It is situated towards the western side of the confederation; and contained in 1831, a population of 87,000 souls, of whom only seven or eight thousand residing in the dis- trict of Morat, (or Murten,) are Reformed. It is decidedly a Catholic Canton; and contains not only establishments of Je- suits, but several extensive ones of the austere'and unsocial Car- thusians; who seem to place the chief good, in silence, naked feet, and dirty clothes. Since the late revolution in this Canton, a degree of religious liberty not enjoyed in the Catholic Cantons generally, has been allowed ; though even here, it is rather a shy toleration than any real freedom. In this Canton, the French language in a miserable patois is spoken as extensively almost as the German : but this is the limit to which that lan- guage has yet penetrated the country, in the use of the people at large. There are several establishments of the professed that deserve particular notice on one account or other; and 1 regretted my inability to visit them. The hermitage of Sainte Madalaine, a league from Freyberg, is said to be cut entirely into the rock ; although the whole establishment is four hundred feet long, and its clock tower eighty feet high. It is, however, the establish- ment of Trappists at Valsainte, nine leagues off, which possesses 180 MEMORANDA OF most interest. It is the chief place of this singular fraternity ; and was for some time the residence of the missionary Wolf. This extraordinary man was born at Bavaria of Jewish parents, his father being a man of consequence amongst his people and a Rabbi. At the age of sixteen years he was baptised by a priest at Prague in Bohemia, and became a Papist. After some time he went to Rome, and spent two years in the college of the Propaganda, pursuing his studies. He was dismissed from that institution, and found his way to fiwitzerland ; and finally into the Convent of Trappi&t Monks at Valsainte. Here he remain- ed, until he became disgusted beyond farther endurance with the deceit and imposture of his companions ; and at this critical juncture of his destiny met with an English traveller, at whose suggestion he visited England. He there found friends, under whose advice he spent two years at Oxford. His subsequent history is known, as well as his extraordinary efforts and sacri- fices in the cause of Christ and his brethren : efforts and sacri- fices, attended by some excentricities and errors, vviiich however they are to be regretted, have perhaps too seriously weakened the sympathy of the Christian world in his behalf. The road from Bern lo Freyburg, and thence to Lausanne in the Canton Vaud^ over a distance of eighteeen Swiss leagues, passes through a beautiful and well cultivated region, composed of a constant successsion of hills and valleys, across which the route generally lies. To the right, the Jura mountains which skirt France and Switzerland, gradually rise fiom a distant dim line along the horizon, to bold and rocky promontories which seem much nearer than they really are. On the left, the moun- tains of the ancient country of Gruyers, famous on many ac- counts, and not amongst the least for their cheese — and the sweet and stirring music of their cow-herds ; form a kind of low screen, over which the stupendous Alps lift up their heads, crown- ed with a diadem of pure, brilliant, and everlasting snow. The Counts of Gruyers lost these rich hill sides, in a singular way. Having become greatly involved by their extravagance — the evidences of their liability passed into the hands of the Bernese and Fryburgers; who eventually took the country for the debt. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 181 By a strange chain of circumstances the people of an entire district were eaten and drunken, from subjects of a petty prince, into repubh'cans; and that without any intervention of their own. I am not able to say what influence this singular lesson on the fruits of extravagance, had in producing the edict by which from the year 1735 to this time, the sale of spirituous liquors has been prohibited in these mountains. It is said that the consumption of coffee is greater hercj in proportion to the number and wealth of the people, than in any part of the world. This may be attributed to the disuse of ardent spirits. Or prob- ably to the general habits of luxury and prodigality, for which the wealthier people amongst thern, are said to be famous. These qualities are, however, so far from being common to their neighbours, that the people of the valley of Frutigen, are re- ported to have abstained from eating meat for seven years — that by a rigid parsimony they might hoard the sum demanded by their barons, as the price of exemption from all imposts. The Swiss of another generation, would have redeemed their liber- ties with a different metal. And yet, perhaps, these simple peasants made the wiser as well as the surer purchase. The shedding of human blood should be the utmost remedy ; and that only against intolerable wrong. Even amongst the wisest of the heathen it was a principle of morals, as well as of policy, that the sword was only, ultima ratio, the very last alternative. And even in this dire extremity, its use is qualified by a most instructive limitation. Ultima ratio regum. Kings-^noi man- kind at large, but the rulers of the world, have been the great slaughter mongers of it. At the village of Schmitten, between Bern and Freyburg, we had occasion to stop for a few moments, and were overtaken by a company of pilgrims ; who were returning from Einsiedlen in the Canton Schwytz, where they had made a pilgrimage to the Benedictine Abbey, where a wooden image of JYotre-Dame des Eremites presented by the princess Hildegarde to the founder of the abbey, attracts yearly crowds of pilgrims. This company consisted of thirteen persons, of humble appearance ; of whom three were females, and one a boy ; the remaining nine being Vol. II.— 17 182 MEMORANDA OF younfir and athletic men. They declined ail conversation, except the shortest and simplest answers to such questions as seemed to them worthy of a response. Amongst those not answered was that designed to ascertain their place of abode ; and I can therefore form no idea of the distance they had gone to worship a stock, which has become doubly sacred since it escaped the fury with which the French soldiers in 1798 visited some other objects about the abbey. They were now nearly a hundred miles from the place of pilgrimage, on their return home. And although their progress was necessarily slow, seeing that some or all of them, stopped to perform an act of worship in every church and chapel and before every cross and station-mark they encountered ; yet they seemed weary and harrassed with the length of their way. For the rest, they were ragged, filthy, and haggard, to a pitiable degree; and presented a spectacle well calculated to humble our hearts in the view of what human nature is, and to fill them with sorrow at the proof of what it may be made. The city of Freyburg is one of the prettiest in Switzerland ; though one of the least frequented by travellers. The road lead- ing through it is not quite so level as that by Morat ; and all sorts of excuses are made by owners and drivers of post horses, to prevent persons from taking the route by it. 1 resolved to see it ; and Was doubly fixed in that purpose on finding that it lay precisely in my way, from which I must turn aside to avoid it. Its situation is exceedingly romantic ; the country around it beautiful; the public edifices well worthy of inspection; and its institutions curious, and antique. There are few places in Switzerland, where I would suppose a traveller could pass a short time more pleasantly. It possesses one monument of taste and enterprise, 1 might almost say magnificence, which equals any thing of the kind, perhaps in the world. The town is situ- ated on the south bank of the river Savine, whose clifis are abrupt and high. Above these clififs, and receding a Utile more from the stream, are still higher elevations ; upon the sloping face of one of which the little city stands, with its white houses, and ancient walls ; which cross the river and encompass a part FOREIGN TRAVEL. 183 of the town built on the marcrin of the water, on the north side of the Savine. The work of which I speak, is a superb suspen- sion brid<^e, thrown across the river from the tops of the chffs, and hangintr in the air without any apparent support ; 900 feet lono^, and 140 feet above the bed of the river, with a breadth of perliaps 60 feet. At each end, on the cliff, is an arch of consid" erable height, through which the way passes. Over these are drawn two cords of a diameter of six inches, which are com- posed of fine wires, tightly bound together. The ends of these large cords, passed over the tops of the arches, are fastened into the cliffs on each side of the river, at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet from the arches, and nearly on a level with their bases. This fastening, and the fulcra afforded by tlie tops of the arches, form the entire support of the bridge. The great cords pass across the river, swagging in such a way as to touch the cone of the bridge about the centre ; the bridge itself being slightly arched. The timbers of the bridge are fastened to the great cords, by vertical cords of one inch in diameter, made precisely like the great ones, and occurring at intervals of a few feet. It has been in tise for about two years ; and the heaviest burdens, in all sorts of vehicles carried over it. Its balance is so perfect, that it trembles at the tread of a single passenger. I was not able to learn the name of the architect ; and got for answer, "Oh! he is some Frenchman ; 1 believe from Lyons," It is a work full of genius and science ; in which the simple and beautiful structure is surpassed only by the hardy and grand conception. I saw various advertisements of the first scheme of the seventh class of the lotteries, by the proceeds of which this noble work is to be paid for : and I bewailed the sad neces- sity by which ignorance and vice seem doomed to obscure all that is greatest, and degrade all that is most useful amongst men. The village of Payerne, (called in German Peterlingenj) although within four or five leagues of the town of Freyburg, is situated in the Canton Vaud. It is seated in the midst of rich and highly cultivated fields, lately stripped, when I savy them, of crops of peas, tobacco, and hemp ; and Ipokiqg iflQr§ 184 MEMORANDA OF like the best portions of our middle and western states, than any part of Switzerland I had seen. We tarried an hour in the place for our driver to rest his horses — during which, I had an opportunity of seeing a large collection of the people from the vicinage at their weekly market. I observed here very strikingly exhibited, several peculiarities of the dress of the men of the middle and poorer classes, which are in a considerable degree common to other cantons. Very few wear woollen clothes ; and the hemp and cotton fabrics which poorly supply their place in a climate so damp and cold, are thin and coarse. But even these garments never fit the person. Short in the arms, short in the legs, narrow in the back, the short tails sticking fantasti- cally out, or lapping over each other, with every other possible defect of cut and make ; the whole effect is such, that the wearer looks uncomfortable and ludicrous. This is nearly universal, and is, I think, a principal reason why the peasants of the country are always considered ugly. Their wives and sisters may treat them thus through incapacity ; and indeed their hands seem fully as familiar with the hoe and plough, as with the distaff' and needle. But a very slight glance at the females of this region, is enough to make one suspect that a secret purpose lurks at the bottom of their terrible handy-work for the other sex. They are not perhaps to be thought hard of for desiring their husbands to look somewhat like themselves ; and of all the female sex I had then ever seen, these impressed me with the most disgust. To say nothing of any thing else, three women out of every four had goitres of the most terrible dimensions : and I am rather inclined to believe, that if a strict scrutiny were allowed, a large part of the remainder would -^be found not wholly free from them. I had observed a tew persons before, with this revolting disease ; which had from the first excessively offended my sight, on account perhaps, of ils rare occurrence in America. But to be thrown in an instant, amongst five hundred women, nearly all of whom were deformed in the throat, and very many to a degree scarcely admitting of belief; shocked me beyond expression. There is no feeling more instinctive in the breast of civilized FOREIGN TRAYEt. 185 and enlightened man, than tenderness and veneration towards all that is called woman. The debt of gratitude to our mothers which nothing can repay, heightened by the recollection of the tears we have wrung from their sacred eyes, serves to give to every aged woman a title to our reverence. The inexpressible tenderness of a father's heart overflows towards every bright look of maiden beauty, that recalls the name of daughter. And there is not a step of sedate and matron-like dignity and grace, that does not fill the memory, the imagination and the heart, with that form which is the centre of every blessed picture of life. How much of its sweetness, yea how much of its dignity and virtue, does life owe to these hallowed relationships ! For my part, I felt as if a calamity had overtaken me, when I found myself irresistibly repelled from the indulgence of such kindly feelings towards such multitudes, by what could only be called a misfortune : and my heart upbraided me for a fastidiousness of taste, as insuperable as it is perhaps indefensible. It would break my heart to dwell amongst such sights. The village of Milden, still nearer to Lausanne, is not perhaps worthy of special mention on its own account; and I shall remember it principally as the spot where I saw a block of de- faced stone, a few feet high, and of about half the width of its height, covered with characters, which the " tooth of time" has in a degree consumed. But that stone has the simplicity and beauty which every where distinguished the Roman altar ; and it tells more eloquently, in its disfigured solitude, the tale of ruin which it alone is left to record, than words could repeat. It is the only relic of what was once a Roman city ! All that abides to connect the idle lounger through these crooked streets, with heroic generations that have been dust for so many centuries ! They who say they have deciphered the inscription make it an- nounce that Quintus ^lius, priest of Augustus, had erected at his own expense, this altar, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and to Juno Regina; and that he had given three-quarters of a million of Sesterces (about $20,000) to the city of Minidunum for the construction of a gymnasium : upon condition that if the money 17» 186 MEMORANDA OF were not applied to this use, it should appertain as a legacy to the city of Aventicum. I am solaced by ihe belief, that this is the real import of the inscription. Religion is the first necessity of man ; learning his chiefest accomplishment; enlarged and wise benevolence, his highest excellence. It is touching to behold his memorial of the indwelling power of that which pertains to every generation, surviving all that was peculiar to the most majestic of them all. It pertains to nature, and therefore it is meet, that its memorials should live when all others die. The brook which murmurs past these walls, the mountain which ii"owns on them from afar, abide in their separate and changeless beauty and grandeur, just as when Minidunum and Aventicum, and Quintus ^lius and the wise Augustus, lived to gaze upon them. And so they will abide, when other ages in distant posterity retain of us less traces it may be, than this little stone. But in those most distant ages as in these passing now and in those buried in an unknown antiquity, the nature of man will stand changeless as the uni- verse around him. How it rejoices the heart to know that with the blessing of God, the very essence of things involves the necessity, that sustained efforts to do man good are obliged to succeed ! For they are based in necessities and impulses, stronger than all that is within and without united ; and so enduring that we can be ruined only by their mis-direction. Man will have a God. Will the Christian give him his ? Man will sub- mit mimself to be taught by those wiser than he. Will the enlightened give him truth ? Man's gifts are lavished evermore, where his affections cleave. Will the wise present him with objects worthy of a magnificent charity ? FOREIGN TRAVEL. 187 CHAPTER XX Canton Vaud— Religious State— Momiers— Dr. Malan— Felix NefF— Political Condi- tion of the Canton— Approach to Lausanne— The City Itself— Gibbon, the Histo- rian—The Cathedral— Felix V.— The Council of Basle— The Reigning Prince of Hesse Cassel— Manners of the Great— The Special Use of German Princes- Addition of Canton Vaud to the Helvetic Confederation. The Canton Vaud, is one of the most considerable in the Helvetic confederation, both in population and territorial extent : that is to say, if such language can be used, of a little state containing 180,000 people. Of these not above four thousand are called Catholics ; the remainder not only professing the Reformed religion, but there is great reason to believe enjoying evangelical ministrations of the word of life to a greater propor- tionate extent, than any other part of the continent of Europe. It is known to the religious world, that the Christians of this Canton have, during the present generation, suffered a most rigorous oppression — I should perhaps call it — from their breth- ren professing the same faith with themselves. This state of things las.ted six or eight years, during which persons were exiled, imprisoned, fined, and prohibited from assembling for worship ; and otherwise vexed and pursued in the name of the laws, and under the procurement of the public authorities and nominally Reformed pastors ; avowedly because they professed doctrines and pursued a course of life and worship, which need be no further explained to an American reader, than to say they were such as all the Christians of that country aim at. Happily, 188 MEMORANDA OF this folly and wickedness defeated its own ends : or rather God made the wrath of man praise him, and graciously restrained the remainder thereof. For the last four or five years unlimited freedom of worship has been enjoyed ; and at this time, there are above a hundred pastors in the Canton Vaud, who receive the truth in the love of it, and preach it faithfully and zealously to the people. " It is a blessed Canton," said one of the most active and enlightened Christians of Switzerland to me, one noi himself a citizen of Vaud. The state of things which preceded and ushered in this revi- val of religion throughout the Canton Vaud, as well as in other parts of Switzerland, and indeed in most countries of Europe ; was extremely curious and interesting. I mention this Canton only, at the present time. I asked Dr. Malan, at Geneva, what was a Momier. I had heard the word used, in every sense, gojd and bad ; and although I understood in general that a re- ligious sect was designated by it, I was somewhat confused by its various imports. " Ah !" said the venerable man, " you speak to the king of the Momiers — to the first, perhaps, who was branded with the name." He then proceeded to inform me shortly, of his own conversion to God ; of the privation of his appointment of instructor of youth in Geneva, on that account ; of his lack of permission to preach, the contempt of his brethren, and the scorn of his fellovv-ciiizens. In this exigency, his habit was to preach as he could in the adjoining villages of France, which are near enough for persons from Geneva to attend. The same malice which oppressed him at home, followed to revile him in the regions round about. To ridicule him, it was advertised that the great Momier would exhibit, at such and such times and places ; the word answering precisely to a noun personal, made out of our word mummery. At first he was not aware that he was meant ; but supposed that as the habits of the place and time encouraged Sabbath day exhibitions of all kinds, it was a real juggler who had availed himself of the crowd, and would actually exhibit liis mountebank tricks. — " When I found out the truth," said he, with his dark eyes FOREIGN TRAVEL. 189 beaming liojht, " I was full of joy. Then I knew it was a great thing. I did not see it so plain before. They had given it a name ; it is a great work ; they have so treated great works before : I saw that God intended great things !" The event has fully justified the. expectations of the single hearted Christian. And amidst the trials and sorrows of an apostleship, full of many that wound the spirit and break the heart ; God has permitted his servant to see the truth of that in which he trusted. It is a great work. Who shall say how much greater it is destined to become ! Amongst the early converts, either through the agency of Dr. Malan, or perhaps through the same instrumentality to which his own conversion may he attributed, was Felix NefF. "The most gifted man, both in body and mind, I ever knew, was Felix NefF." These words were spoken to me, by professor Gaussen of Geneva. NefF was a soldier in the garrison of Geneva ; was converted — became a minister of Jesus Christ — and was per- haps more directly successful, and more wonderfully blessed in his labours, than any man of this extraordinary age. It was through his instrumentality that the revival amongst the pastors in the Canton Vaud commenced ; and that at a time when he was but imperfectly educated, and not licensed to preach. He went on foot, from one parish to another, over the Canton— vis- iting the pastors. To these he preached; not directly, but with a pathos, subtility, and demonstration, which characterized the man, and marked him as a chief captain in the army of the Lord. His instructions to the pastors, (what a phrase have I used— what a lesson is contained in it— a discharged soldier teach pastors religion !) His instructions, for they were truly such, were confined exclusively to the narration of what he had seen, heard, and experienced. He asked leave to tell what God had done for his soul. The pastor listened in the retirement of his study : and the truth slew him ! He wished to make known what he had witnessed, of the work of the Lord on the heart of such, or such a one. The pastor heard — and the scales fell from his eyes. It was as the water of Marah, with the bitterness of sin gushing from the head of the fountain ; and the servant of 190 MEMORANDA OF the Lord cast in of the tree of life eternal, and the sweetness of heaven re-visited the stream. Will it be credited, that I search- ed the principal book stores in Geneva for some memoir of Felix Neff, and found none? Can it be believed that I was told in all I searched, that they had never before heard of the man ! I should not omit to state, that Canton Vaud has taken the lead in support of popular sentiments and just and liberal views in Swhzerland, for some years past. Indeed the toleration of piety dates from the revolution in Vaud following that of July in France : while on the other hand the Christians of the Canton, have with equal fervency espoused the cause of freedom. It is surely true that the Christian religion, is perfectly compatible with the existence of all kinds of social systems, not sinful in themselves ; and that chiefly, because it has nothing to do with any sort of system, except to teach all men to do perfectly all their duties. But it is just as true, that the principles of Chris- tianity are principles of justice to all, mercy to the unfortunate, and humility before God ; and that its spirit is as widely different from that of most of the existing institutions of the world, as selfishness, cruelty, and oppression, are removed from the princi- ples already stated. Let us, therefore, rejoice doubly in such manifestations as these, that true religion is at length permitted to compensate mankind for the horrors which false religion has perpetrated against them. They who love freedom more than they love virtue, — alas ! too great a portion of our kind — will learn at length that true religion is the twin sister of well regu- lated freedom. And false religion, welded to the worst corruf>- tion of thrones, to the severest oppressions of the privileged orders, to all the wrongs of the poor, and all the sufferings of the miserable; must perish before the united force of temporal and eternal interests, the combined energy of heaven and earth. As the evening began to draw around us, we approached Lausanne. "Behold Mount Blanc," said the voiturier, stopping his horses upon the summit of a hill. Not long afterwards, he paused again, saying " Lac Leman," and indicating with his hand the sheet of still water, stretched like a beautiful bow at the base of the surrounding mountains. The largest and lover. i FOREIGN TRAVEL. 191 liest of the Swiss lakes-^the loftiest and most majestic of all the mountains in the northern hemisphere, greeted us for the first time, almost at the same moment ! A wild and varied landscape, such as the world has few like, is hefore and around the traveller as he descends by this route into the delicious valley of the Leman. To the right are the steep and naked ridges of the Jura, around whose base the lake seems drawn from you in the most graceful arc. Between the bare mountain and the smiling waters, a belt of verdure rich as one can imagine, full of vines and grain and fruit trees — and the habitations of man, stretches entirely to Geneva. To the left, and in front across the lake, the dark looking hills of the neighbouring cantons and of Chab* lais in Savoy, are the first steps of the eternal Alps ; which far off seem to lean upon the sky. Above them all, far to the right, towers the triple head of Mount Blanc, ruling in cold and silent grandeur, the frozen world around him. Lausanne, elevated upon several hills considerably above the lake, but still more belovv the level of the country behind it, is seated upon the outer edge of the lake ; and while it forms a striking object in the general picture, furnishes from its various promenades the most delightful views of the other parts of it. This city is the capital of the Canton, and one of the largest and most pleasant in Switzerland. It is furnished with the apa* ratus of chateau, cathedral, terrace, fountain, &c., belonging as appears by indispensable necessity to all continental cities of any pretension. The still more important accompaniment of libra- ries, colleges, museums, hospitals, &c., are also found here, on the same scale of liberal and wise provision which distinguishes almost all the cantons. Its advantages^ its pleasures, its climate, its beauty, and perhaps more than either, its liberal and generous policy towards strangers, have made the Canton Vaud and especially the town of Lausanne, a place of great resort for various classes of them. Men of letters, men of reduced cir- cumstances, men suspected, men oppressed ; at Lausanne there are generally to be found under these and various other classes, persons from most countries of Europe. The costume, language and leatures of them all, may be seen and heard in the dark and 19^ MEMORANDA OF Steep streets ; and combine with the picturesque appearance of the place itself, to make its impression very striking. Amongst the curiosities of the place, strangers are shown the library of the Spaniard Benial de Quiros, added to that of the city near a century ago ; and the house in which Gibbon wrote his great work on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* The latter is a plain stone building, rather low, situated in the rear of the church of St. Francis, near to an ancient building which once appertained to a Convent of Franciscan Friars, but is now more usefully employed as the kitchen of a hospital. It is at present owned and occupied by a momier ; a believer in that religion, which Gibbon ridiculed, a worshipper of that Saviour whose disciples, the philosophic historian falsified the truth of history and perverted the principles of philosophy that he might traduce. Great as this change is, it happily indicates one somewhat re- serabling it, commensurate with the whole face of the Christian world. There are probably i'ew who read the works of Gibbon who do not consider his attacks on the Christian religion, as de- cided stains upon them. But in his own generation perhaps an equally great proportion of the same class of persons, cherished them as capital excellencies ; while he himself regarded them as furnishing one of the best evidences of the depth of his learning, and the greatness of his capacity. A great cycle in human thought has been accomplished. We have passed through an era in which every thing was dissolved ; and the sharp ingredi- ents which were thrown into the mass, were necessary to disen- gage the foreign and hurtful materials, and then subside with the impurities which generations of sin and error had accumu- lated. We have returned to a posture more elevated than any occupied by man, snice the days of the Apostles. We are better off than after the revival of letters ; for knowledge is more diffused and religion more general. We are happier in our posi- tion, than they were who saw the best days which the reforma- tion ushered in ; for now we stand upon the ruins of all those opinions, of which the reformers only scaled the ramparts. Or more strictly speaking, the events which have progressed with power in the world since the American revolution, and which have FOREIGN TRAVEL. 193 received so great an additional impulse in Europe since that of France of 1789; have produced upon all human interests pre- cisely the effects, which the reformation did in regard to religion. Right ideas have the mastery : it is power, brute force alone that holds society in check. The heart of the world is accessi- ble at ever pore, to the naked, simple, glorious power of truth. The time for the life from the dead is come, for the world. If the church of Christ be faithful, a career of blessedness is before her, of which all past generations have seen but the twilight. The Cathedral at Lausanne, which is regarded as one of the finest Gothic edifices in Europe, was once considered also pecu- liarly sacred. It was consecrated by one Pope, and the remains of another still repose in one of its aisles. The first was Greg- ory X., the other Felix V. The latter deserves the admiration of posterity, for an act of rare and noble self-denial, which is nearly unique in the history of the Papacy. The Council of Basle had deposed the reigning Pope, and elected the Count of Savoy, who took the title of Felix V. That the Council had ample power to do both these acts, had been expressly settled as of faith, by the Council of Constance. But the reigning Pope and his faction, chose to regard their interests as more infallibly revealed, than the will of God could be to a general council ; although they held as of faith, that such a council spake as with the voice of God. But they evaded this conclu- sion by denying that the Council of Basle was holy, general, or oscumenical : a denial which robs them of the countenance of one of the most respectable assemblies of Papal divines that ever met. Felix V., after accepting the tripple crown, and waiting vseveral years without violence or bitterness, to see if the ultra- montaine party would submit to the voice of the Council and the general wish of the Papal church : found himself reduced to the necessity of taking up arms to subdue the anti-pope — cre- ating a permanent schism by tolerating him longer, or abdicating the tiara. With the spirit of a benevolent man, and a wise prince — may we not hope also of an Immble Christian, he chose the last alternative, and resigned the Papacy, in this cathedral, in the year 1449. I trod upon his ashes with profound rever- VOL. II.— 18 194 MEMORANDA OF ence ; and looked upon his defaced monument with a feehng of kindly remembrance, strongly contrasting with the coldness, per- haps contempt, with which I regarded the pompous titles of the dead barons, and the carved marble of the mouldering prelates around him. His successors in the county of Savoy, are at the present moment kings of Sardinia : and it is not improbable they may yet rule over all northern Italy. The reigning pontiff and all who have preceded him for nearly four centuries, are the successors of the anti-pope condemned and justly deposed by the Council of Basle; which had every mark by which the Papists themselves define a general council, in a greater degree than most of those they regard as such ; and this additionally that it composed, as they say, the great Hussite schism. Either a general council is not infallible, or the Popes for four centuries have had only an anti-papal, instead of an apostolical succession — or the Council of Basle was an erroneous and schismatical assembly, instigated by the devil. If this last alternative be ad- mitted, no human ingenuity can prescribe rules by which a true general council can be distinguished from a false one ; and there- fore the faith of Rome is built on the sand. If either of the two former suppositions be true, Rome can have no faith at all. But one of the three is obliged to be true, as the three cover every possible supposition in the case. There was a curious point in the manners of the great, acci- dentally exhibited to me in great nakedness, at Lausanne. — Though grown familiar with the appearance of soldiers, I thought there were rather more than the usual portion, lounging before and about the galleries of the hotel at which I stopped. On asking what it meant, I was told they belonged to the household of the prince of Hesse Cassel, who was then a lodger in the hotel. Further enquiries revealed the fact that his highness, (whether royal or merely serene, t am not able to say,) had a family with him, that is a lady, perhaps several, and children. Another step in the investigation brought out the admission that the family, although really his, was not his real family. That is, his highness was publicly travelling up and down Europe, with his mistress and her offspring. I thank God that our FOREIGN TRAVEL. 195 republican ideas are yet sufficiently in accordance with virtue and public decency, to save us from such open manifestaiions of debauchery. But we should judge the prince of Hesse Cassel harshly, if we supposed he was at all sensible of the nature of the outrage he was committing. The number of rulers in Europe, whether great or small, who have illegitimate famihes, is generally equal to the entire actual number ; and this revolting truth has existed so long, that more than half the hereditary aristocracy of all Europe, is justly entitled to the bar sinister — the badge of bastardy, upon their proud escutcheons. Even those royal races which are extinct in the legitimate lines, sur- vive in those which are otherwise. The present royal family of England, has but three feeble remnants of the large family of George III., to nourish legitimate rulers for the British realm, in the next generation. But in the other sort, the numbers are not so easily computed. The present " most religious King" William IV., the "head of the United Church of England and Ireland," has around him a large family of the late unhappy actress Mrs. Jordan; which he is so benevolent as to treat as if it was his own, and to allow, in the use of the name Fitz-Clarence, his own ducal appellation. These young gentlemen and ladies are the attendants of royalty, the friends, equals, patrons of nobles, prelates, magnates of England. It might almost be conjectured that something of this sort was meant in England, when they spake of a man's being well horn ! These little German princes, are not liowever, to be under- rated. They play a most important part in the affairs of Europe. For though their territories be often too small for an ancient park, and their cities not so large as we could build up in Amer- ica in half a year ; yet this is all the better. The more they can be multiplied, the better for Europe— for the world — for poster- ity. There are certain parts of the earth which seem peculiarly adapted to the growth of certain creatures. The Roman empe- rors sent to one province for the brains of the peacock, and to another for the tongues of nightingales, for their costly repasts. Lybia, in all ages, is the land of the lion ; Arabia of the horse. Germany breeds queens ! These little nests of princes, are the 196 MEMORANDA OF common resort of the failing royalty of Europe. They contain too, by all odds, the purest races extant; for, as the learned reader wiU remember, the restriction of royalty to royalty in the article of marriage, was a thing unknown to ancient civilization ; and sprung originally from the barbarians who subverted the Roman empire ; amongst whom, their kingly races were consid- ered possessors of a nature superior to that of all other beings. Restricted marriages grew naturally out of this idea ; and keep- ing pace with the* fiction of divine right have stultified and nearly extinguished the blood royal of Europe. But for Ger- many, the race of kings would have expired : and there it has survived chiefly on account of the number of royal houses. The Canton Vaud appertained for a long time to the county of Savoy. Conquered afterwards by the republic of Bern, in a war undertaken to assist its allies of Geneva ; it remained until the close of the last century, subject to that Canton. As one of the consequences perhaps of the French revolution, it revolted from Bern; and when the great powers of Europe were re-set- tUng its states after the fall of Napoleon in 1814, this Canton was placed in the Helvetic confederation, on its present footing. It is said that the personal influence of General la Harpe — who was a native of Vaud, and had been attached to the person of the emperor Alexander in his youth, was the great obstacle to the re-union of the two Cantons at that period, it has no doubt been better for both, that the intrigues alleged to have been entered into by Bern, to obtain the re-annexation of Va.udj were not successful. 1 1 i FOREIGN TRAVEL. 197 CHAPTER XXI Shores of Lac Leman— The Vintage— Labourers— Common Use of Wine— Lake Crait—Coppet— Madame De Stael— Pestalozzi— The Residence and Literary Labours of Byron— Feniey— Voltaire— Estimate of hira. FiioM Lausanne to Geneva, is about forty English miles. The road passes along the shore of Lac Leman, through a region of great fertility and beauty — sustaining a dense popula- tion, and cultivated to a high degree. The villages have an ancient and rather sombre appearance; and the chateaus are hid away in the midst of groves of the walnut and pear tree. The valley is filled with vines, which were still covered with their delicious fruit, though it was the end of the first week in October. I had seen no vines since we left the shores of lake Zug, and not many since we had turned our backs on the Rhine. It surprised me to find so many and so extensive vineyards, such large vines, and such an abundant vintage ; and especially to see the white grape, which is generally considered less hardy than the purple — predominating every where. During my stay at Geneva I had an opportunity to witness the whole process of the vintage in this part of Switzerland ; and will, in a few words, describe it. On both sides of the lake the white grape is preferred — and considered more suitable to the climate, than any coloured grape. It ripens a week or ten days sooner : and on the south side of the lake, as the frosts are earlier, the vintage is commenced sooner than on the north. 18* 198 MEMORANDA OP It is apparent from these several facts, that from the commence- ment of the vintage of the white grape on the south side of the lake, to the close of that of tlie red grape on the north side, several weeks must elapse. Much also depends on the season. But in general, the two last weeks of October are considered the period of the vintage. The labourers at this season are paid about eighteen cents a day, of our money, to the females, (who compose the larger portion of them); and twenty-five or thirty cents to men. They are also fed in a plain way ; and permitted to sleep in barns, and garrets. These labourers for the region around Geneva, meet in a sort of market every Sabbath morn- ing, in that city ; and are there hired for a period of one week, or less, at a time. The process of gathering the grapes, and making the wine then commences. The bunches of grapes are picked and put into small wooden vessels ; which, as fast as they are filled, are emptied into a larger and very curious funnel shaped tub, which they use all over Europe to carry liquids in, upon their backs, with the small end of it downwards. This is filled with bunches of grapes ; and as they are thrown in, a man mashes them with a sort of a pestle, pretty much as hommony is beaten. He then carries them to the wine press, which is generally erected in the same building where the wine is stored. The grapes are emptied from the tub upon the press ; and after they have been pressed to apparent dryness, the pummice is cut up, and placed in hogsheads with water. Thii^ after soaking is used for making vinegar, for distillation into brandy, or as an inferior kind of wine, usually given to servants. The juice of the grape, is not even strained ; but thick and far more dirty than our sweet cider — it is taken from the press and thrown into hogsheads, which contain several hundred gallons each. This finishes the process. The wine ferments clear, and in three months is fit for use ; being much improved of course, by age. But it is neither racked off, nor adulterated, nor mixed. It is the simple juice of the grape, and is so used by the grower, or so passes into the hands of the wine merchant. What befalls so much of it as the wine dealer handles, is best known to the trade. But in Europe at least, I presume its extreme cheapness FOREIGN TRAVEL. 199 insures it against any adulteration except that arising from the addition of water, or inferior qualities of wine. As a drink it is in universal use. At every table rf' Hdte, one bottle at least is set by every plate — and sometimes two, one of white the other of red wine. At the cafes, they give you what they call dejeuner a la fourchette, (literally, breakfast with a fork, a. meal to which we have nothing answering,) at prices varying according to the quality of the repast and the reputation of the house, from one to three francs; always throwing in a bottle of wine. And this is a bona-fide expected to be used ; for what a European does not eat, he often carries off in his pocket. At least you will generally see this done, with the sugar left after taking cof- fee. The wine commonly drank, is as a beverage, not much superior to the common eider of America. It is sufficiently strong to produce intoxication, especially upon those not accus- tomed to stronger drinks ; and the observant traveller will very soon see reason enough to discredit the common but extremely erroneous notion, that drunkenness is rare in those countries that produce wine. The lake of Geneva, or Leman, like several of the smaller lakes of Switzerland, is furnished with two or three comfortable steam boats ; which during the greater part of the year make daily voyages around it. It also possesses some water craft of a different kind, and of a very beautiful construction and equip- age. Small vessels with narrow keels and sharp bows and sterns, and rigged with a false deck extending over the gunwales, so as to carry considerable stuff. They are furnished ordinarily with two masts, which are short and made of a single piece. To each of these is rigged a single spar, considerably longer than the mast itself, so attached that it can work up and down the mast ; and so balanced, that it can play on its own axis, both vertically and horizontally. These spars support, each a single sail, long, narrow, sharp, and triangular: and they usually lay across the masts, at a pretty sharp angle : either both on the the same side of the vessel, or with their upper points turned out on opposite sides, like the tail of a swallow. They are graceful and beautiful, and as far as my knowledge extends are confined 200 MEMORANDA OF to Lac Leman and the Mediterranean sea : at least I have seen such no where else. And I recall with a pleasant association the ancient village of Nyon on the shores of the former, where I saw thenn first, and the romantic city of Nice on the banks of the latter, from the terrace of whose sea wall, I saw her little harbour hid behind marble bulwarks, crowded with them. It is sweet to chain the memory to what we shall see no more, by bands ever so capricious ; so that they bring back to us scenes which we looked upon when our hearts were at ease, and our spirits full of peace. At a short distance from Geneva you pass through the village of Coppet, where Madame de Stael long resided. Here she produced some of her most extraordinary works, which are certainly amongst the most profound that any female has ever written ; and which are neglected to a degree unaccountable, as they were perhaps once overrated. Here she gathered around her in an honourable and elegant retirement, many of the first spirits of the age ; who from time to time, resorted to her abode and refreshed themselves with her converse. A very curious anecdote is told of one of these assemblages. Benjamin Con- stant, Schlegel, and other equally distinguished persons, were staying at Coppet, along with Pestalozzi ; whom they had in vain endeavoured to draw into a discussion on the subject of education, in order to obtain an exposition of his peculiar system. He evaded all discussion — refused all debate — escaped every snare laid by his hostess and her guests to entrap him into a full disclosure of his ideas, before an audience whom he perhaps feared, or perhaps despaired of. They at length organized a plot against him ; and by pre-concert, one afternoon, the whole array of genius at Coppet, insensibly gathered around him and hemmed him completely in. Then commenced the attack. One demanded his ideas on such a point ; another required an answer to this objection ; and all had somewhat that required explana- tion and defence. Pestalozzi as usual attempted a retreat; but arms and legs and chairs surrounded him on all sides. The attack was renewed: and for a moment the old man seemed in despair. But finally, summoning all his resolution^ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 201 he charged upon the phalanx, and leaping over the lap of one of the party, rushed out of the circle, leaving it convulsed with laughter. Almost opposite to Coppet, on the other shore of the lake and in full view, is the house of Deodati at Cologny, where Lord Byron resided ; and in which he wrote the third Canto of Child Harold, Manfred, and the Prisoner of Chillon. The scene of the last nanied poem is laid at the chatteau of that name, on the shore of this lake, near its upper end ; and the principal incidents are true. They belong to the life, sufferings, and heroic efforts of Francis Bonnivard, the defender of the liberty of Gen- eva — who languished six years chained to a rock in the dun- geons of Chillon. Byron was attended during his residence here, by the poet Shelley, and the novelist JMonk Lewis. I think none of the party, produced much impression on the Gen- evese. The house he occupied, is a plain stone edifice on the lake shore just above Cologny— and was vacant when I saw it. I had gone into the country for another purpose ; and finding myself at the gate, walked in for a moment, upon the gloomy stone terrace. I take Byron to have been one of the most extra- ordinary combinations, that has had the human shape. His poetic genius was in modern times, altogether unparalleled. And yet his heart was cold, stern, and bitter ; and his spirit caustic and capricious to a degree that would seem incompatible with a strong perception of what is beautiful and lovely, and wdiolly inconsistent with the fervid control of the imagination. It proves, that intense passion and profound thought have no necessary connexion with those qualities to which men have delighted to unite them ; nay more, that naked and alone they may triumph in regions, usually appropriated to them only when guided and sustained, by more refined and tender impulses. On the same side of the lake as Coppet, but nearer to Geneva, is the village of Ferney, the residence and I believe the domain of Voltaire; who made the acquisition of it in 1759, and lived in the chateau, if it deserve the name, till his death in 1775. The village is in the French territory ; but being only five or six miles from Geneva, and the road from thence delightful, it may 202 MEMORANDA OF be regarded, so far as travellers are interested in it, as an appur- tenance of that city. Voltaire once said in derision of the Gen- evese, that if he shook his wig he could powder the whole re- public. At present, I believe few persons find their way to his mansion, except those attracted to Geneva by its own objects of interest so derided by the literary leviathan, in ihe height of his glory. M. Bude, of a Genevese family and a protestant, is the owner of Ferney ; and anoiher house still nearer Geneva once occupied by Voltaire, is at present not only owned and occupied by a Momier, but I was told that a part of it was appropriated to the purposes of a magazine for Bibles and religious tracts. The succession to Voltaire seems even more extraordinary than that to Gibbon. I visited Ferney, and found the whole matter a very paltry affair. The house is a comfortable and rather large country house ; the grounds pretty, not more, hardly so much. The boasted church which Voltaire built, and inscribed on the front, Deo erixit Voltaire, I found full of wood and going to decay. It was a very small and mean structure in its best estate. The great objects of interest are his private apartments, which are said to be preserved in the same state in which he left them. These are particularly mean. They consist of an outer hall — an interior saloon of a circular shape behind it — and a small bed room on the left of it. Every thing here fills one with surprise, when it is remembered that this is the most secret place of a man of wealth and inconceivable vanity and preten- sion ; at the very period when he was the intimate correspondent ol" sovereigns, and the most distinguished philosopher of the world. It is a little miserable hole, adorned with some bad pictures, and a number of small and wretched engravings. Amongst these were heads of distinguished persons of all countries ; about half of the whole being Americans and Eng- lish. I observed those of Washington — Franklin — Newton — Milton ; — those also of Leibnitz — D'Alambert — Diderot — Hel- vetius— Racine — Cornelle ; — a portrait of the Emperess Cathe- rine, and one of Frederick the Great; and to my utter amaze- ment, a print of Clement XIV. Voltaire did indeed affect uni- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 203 versally on all subjects; to know and to be every thing, was the ruhng conceit of a soul, consumed with low and evil passions. But that he whose strongest wish was expressed in the anxious desire " to see the last Jesuit strangled in the bowels of the last MoJinist," and who continually sought to have it believed that it was not religion but superstition which he warred against, and the Papal system, as the concentration of folly and impos- ture ; that this same man, should hang up amongst his special favourites the head of the reigning pontiffj who was in his opinion the common father of all abominations, and the very- centre of all that is ridiculous and unprincipled ; was an exhibi- tion for which I was not prepared. No man who ever exerted so great influence as Voltaire, fell so speedily into so great contempt. With great activity of spirit, unbounded vivacity and wit, and much that cannot be denied was real genius; he possessed also an exceedingly wide range of superficial knowledge. With a laboriousness and flex- ibility never surpassed, he wrote through nearly a century, with his eyes fixed on two grand objects ; the greatness of Voltaire, and the httleness of all things else ! See the issue. No one believes he was learned — few give him credit for poetic powers even of the second order — most suspect that his historical state- ments are unworthy of the least credit — no one claims for liim any respect as a great thinker — and even his works, rich in the happiness of expression, are rejected by reason of their irrever- ence and obscenity ! A century of great and successful effort terminates, in half a century, in an issue like this I As I looked upon the fragments which excited these thoughts, how strongly did the divine assurance come to me, — »,Yo weapon formed against Zion shall prosper. Behold the proof! 204 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXII. Canton and City of Geneva, and Region round about— Its Past History— Present Condition— Calvin— His Services to Geneva— General Estimate of him ; particu- larly as a Reformer ; as a Statesman— His Cotemporaries and Successors- Former Estimation of Geneva— General Religious Declension of tlie Last Century — Tliat Declension at Geneva. Geneva is the smallest of all the little republics which com- pose the Swiss confederation ; and was the last of the twenty-two which united itself with the others. This statement is made with- out reference to the rural part of the Canton of Basle, which has been separated from the City of Basle of late years ; so that strictly speaking, there should be considered twenty-three Cantons — of which the Country Canton of Basle was the last admitted. Geneva contains only four geographical square miles of terri- tory ; and is smaller than Zug the next least, by three quarters of such a mile. The population of the Canton Geneva is rated at 52,000 ; of whom 34,000 reside in the City of Geneva, which is the most populous town in the confederation, and would long ago have reached a high, perhaps the first rank of European cities, if its people would have levelled its ramparts so as to make room for improvements, and given facilities for the aug- mentation of their Capital. As it is, the space within the walls is completely built over with houses which are generally five or six stories high ; the streets are narrow ; the shores of the Rhone which passes through the town and those of the lake which washes its walls, are encroached upon continually : and FOREIGN TRAVEL. 205 after all, considerable villages are growing up without each of the gates. The situation of the town, upon an island and both shores of the Rhone where it issues from the western end of Lac Lemian, is extremely beautiful. The larger part of it is on the south side of the river ; and as the shore is narrow on thai side, and skirted by an abrupt and high hill, upon the top and sides of which the white stone houses line the steep and crooked streets ; the whole has an aspect peculiar — unique. It presents from all quarters a striking object, as the traveller approaches, whether by land or water. And the whole surrounding region as seen from it, exhibits a series of landscapes var3''ing continually from the beautiful to the sublime as you change the point of view, and presenting a panorama hardly surpassed in the world. To- wards the east is the beauiiful lake, lined on both sides with a girdle of life, to which the desolate mountains that rear their naked sides above it, give new loveliness. Behind the town, towards the west and south, the ranges of mountains present the most superb aspects. Looking towards the south, on the left is the range of Bonneville in the distance, and next the con- ical mountain of Mole ; between which and the Bonneville on one side, and the grand and petit Salave on the other — are wide openings on either hand, through which the great Alps, with their glaciers and citadels of rock and snow, stretch away before you, as if to the world's limits. On the right, the two chains of the Salave rise up with a distinct and bold outline of that regular and rounded look, peculiar to mountains of the second and third class ; — and far above them both, the mighty figure of the glo- rious king of Alps — the triple Mont Blanc — heaves itself into the clouds. Turning further towards the west, the plain in which the Rhone and the Arne unite their waters, and the villa- ges which fill the narrow landscape, and the diminished and barren Jura pushing his rocky course far towards the north, complete the ample and various panorama. Every where in and around Geneva, the whole or some striking part of these scenes court the deUghted gaze. If I should designate one spot as peculiarly favoured with the most rich presentation of the Vol. H.--19 206 MEMORANDA OF more striking of these objects ; it would be the httle mound, on the Geneva side of the village of Grand Saconnex, on the great road as you go to Ferney. From this spot, in the afternoon, (when the atmosphere is always most clear) the view of Mont Blanc is inexpressibly magnificent — and will fully compensate for the time spent in visiting the miserable relics at Feriiey. The city of Geneva is strongly fortified after the modern fash- ion ; and it is the only city in Switzerland which I saw thus defended. Many are encompassed in the ancient way, with a high and thick wall of large stones, overlooked by still higher towers at short intervals, and provided with covered ways at the most important points ; a mode of defence perfectly useless in the present state of the art of war. At Geneva you meet with the deep ditches and thick angular stone-faced embank- ments of modern defence ; with all the mazes of outworks and inworks, which the mortar and bomb seem likely to render as insignificant, as cannon have the plain wall of the middle ages. It is not surprising that the Genevese should be suspicious of their neighbors, and profit by an experience derived from an an- tiquity as great as that of their city ; the whole of which teaches them that " they will take who have the power" — as well as the other part of the couplet, that "they may keep who can.'' in truth Geneva is one of the most ancient cities of Europe north of the Alps ; and has had, perhaps, more than its share of the troubles common to them all. It was a place of considerable importance when the Romans first penetrated Gaul ; and being conquered by them, wore their yoke five hundred years. Early in the fifth century, the Burgundians added the city to their kingdom, and made it one of their capitals. Then came the Ostrogoths in the following century, who ruled it lor a short period, and ceded it about the middle of the sixth century to the Francs ; who held sway over it for three hundred and fifty years. Afierwards came the domination of the kingdom of Aries ; and then that of the second kingdom of the Burgundians. Then followed the long and bloody feuds, between her own Ba- rons and Bishops; in which the streets ran with native blood, in furious contests for the mastery, by so called Christian pastors FOREIGN TRAVEL. 207 — pastors whose pious successors and brethren shudder with hor- ror, at the bare mention of the name of Servetus. In the thir- teenth century the Counts of Savoy became powerful in the neighborhood of the city, and often cruelly oppressed it. Then came the Reformation ; and in 1535, the Republic was proclaim- ed in Geneva, and for eighty years she had to sustain new and terrible contests for her liberty and religion. In 1798 she fell under the power of the French Republic ; but in 1813 recovered her independence ; and in 1815 joined the Swiss Confederation, as the 22nd Canton. The Congress of Vienna, and the treaties of Paris and Turin, recognized this union, augmented her little territory, and guaranteed free access to the remaining Cantons ; from which it is almost entirely cut off by the territories of France and of Sardinia. . Such is Geneva to the eye ; such have been her sufferings and \1 efforts in past generations, [f for these she deserves our regard, \ what does she not demand at our hands, for the unspeakable benefits she has conferred on mankind ! How long and how multiplied has been her descent of illustrious men ! How striking and how beautiful the lesson she has given the world of a social system, perfect in its conception, and perfect almost in its civil results ! Here is a little community in which every man is free, and every child educated ; in which the sovereign power resides in those hands that defend the State in danger, and adorn it in peace; where a common and diffused public spirit pervades the entire population; and the gOod of each is so clearly identified with the good of all, that in the great policy of the state, one finds the economy, the wisdom, the consistency and settled pro- cedure of a well regulated family. Whence came all these wonders ? Who stamped this unique and extraordinary impress on a community, not in any wise spe- cially prepared to receive it? Its list of great names, both at home and throughout the world, is as I have said full and rich ; and that too, in every department of human effort. But it was not to them all unitedly— it was not to them all in succession, so much as it was to one single capacious, glorious mind, that they and the world are indebted ; that true and undefiled reli- 208 MEMORANDA OF gion reigned so long within^ and spread so widely from these walls ; and that knowledge and freedom reign so firmly there to-day. What name is known in Geneva before Calvin ; what name known in it since, — his enemies being judge, compares with his? His enemies ! Strange that such a man had enemies while he lived! Stranger still, that three centuries of death, un- attended but by blessings, increasing in their copious stream upon the earth ; are unable to silence ignorance or to rob male- volence of its venom. Who had his deep and various learning ; and yet who equalled his meek and humble spirit ? Where shall we seek a rival to his capacious genius, his profound sagacity, his searching practical wisdom ; all tempered and adorned by a modesty almost child-like, and a gentleness becoming the heart of woman ! In an age too prone to vulgarity ; his writings are unstained by a blot. Amongst contests and with enemies "fierce as ten furies," his voluminous productions will be sought in vain for a passage, tinctured with bitterness. Perhaps the dedication of his Institutes to Francis I, may be considered an incomparable model of discourse, uttered by a free and Christian, but oppressed man, to a bigoted and tyrannical prince ; in which the deepest interests of sharp and existing contests, and waring parties are treated with a clearness, dignity and pathos, strange- ly in contrast with cotemporary efforts ; with the addresses, for example, of liUther to Henry VIII. As elegant and as kind as Philip Melancthon, he had all the courage of Luther, united to the learning of Erasmus, the philosophical spirit of Zuinglius, the self devotion of Farel ; and a piety more conspicuous in its touching, consistent and enlightened fervour, than almost any thing we meet with, even in that noble generation. If any man could deserve — he did to confer his name, not on a sect or party — but on a system, held by the deepest thinkers in all succeeding generations, and rejoiced in by the most devoted spirits in all Christian sects. Paul, " the first great corruptor of Christianity," as Mr. Jefferson has called him : Athenasius, Augustin, Calvin, the mightiest disciples of Paul! The doctrines of grace, one will call their peculiar system ; evangelical Christianity another ; moderate Calvinism a third : the uames are identical, in defiance FOREIGN TRAVEL. 209 of the hatred and ignorance of the world, and the prejudices of many real disciples of Christ. The fall and corruption of man ; the alone mode of salvation by grace through faith, in a divine Saviour crucified in the sinner's room and stead ; the indispens- able and sovereign work of the Divine Spirit, in the whole of salvation, and especially in the regeneration and sanclification of the sinner's heart, by the use of the divinely inspired word of God ; the free, unmerited and eternal love of God the Father, for the people of his heritage — the sinners for whom he gave his Son to die — and to whom the purchased Spirit is sent with power: this is the Christian system. — Jind where, out of the Bible, in ail the lapse of eighteen centuries, will you find its illus- tration and defence — its statement, its demonstration ; as you find them accomplished by the hand, and illustrated by the labours and life of John Calvin ? This wonderful man is known to posterity principally in two relations, which are now considered almost incompatible with each other; and which are, in truth, sufficiently distinct. In his chief capacity as one of the leaders of the blessed reformation of the sixteenth century, there are few lands so dark as j^pt to have heard his fame. But in the capacity of an unrivalled statesman, men know less of him. Yet he was far more decid- edly the personal founder of the liberties of Geneva, than he can be considered the father of those churches, whose polity and doctrine he influenced. Influenced, we mean in a controlling manner ; for all the reformed churches, and most of the evangeli- cal denominations which have arisen since, have exhibited the traces of his great spirit through the influence of disciples, who drank wisdom from his lips— or imbibed it from his writings. As a statesman, God gave him especially and directly to Geneva. As a religious reformer, to the whole world. In the former capacity, and the field appropriated to its exercise, his success was perfect, absolute ; and for a period of nearly three hundred years, the free institutions of that happy community have moulded its polity, and conformed its whole civil condition, into a model for the world to imitate. In the latter capacity, and the vast field, no less 19* 210 MEMORANDA OF in its compass than the hmits of the human race which apper- tained to it, I have already spoken of the nature of his services to mankind. It would however be as unjust as it would be false, to absorb all the claims of Geneva on the gratitude of the world, still more of the church, in those even of Calvin. We know less than we should know of his holy and honoured coadjutors in the early church of Geneva ; but we know enough to bless God that he gave to the world, Farel, and Viret, and Theodore de Beza. We have preserved perhaps a less vivid sense of the merits and labours of their pious and learned successors than is due to them, and to the great cause which they adorned. Still we ciie- rish the names of Chandieu, John Deodati, Theodore Tronchin, Benedict and Francis Turreitin, Benedict Pictet, Antoine Mau- rice, and how many others, whom I hope to meet in heaven ! Men who kept the odour of sanctity for generations, in the church of Geneva ; and filled all the churches of Europe with veneration for her name. So that they rejoiced in her gifts com- municated to them, and sent back as they had opportunity, gifts in return ; receiving their pastors and disciples as precious guides ; and fleeing to her beloved walls, when overtaken them- selves by the calamities inflicted on them by the enemies of God. At the Synod of Dort, Deodati and Tronchin exercised per- haps, not less influence than any two members of that venerable body. At one period the Christian refugees from France, Ger- many, Holland, Piedmont, Great Britain, Lombardy, and the cities of Lucca and Cremona in Italy, fled in such numbers to Geneva; that in a single day (15ih October, 1557) the govern- ment received three hundred persons into its protection. Who can ever forget that it was this city, which opened its gates to the unhappy Protestant exiles who escaped the massacres of Me- rmdole and Cabrieres? Or who is not affected at the recital of the tender interest which all the churches manifested, when in her turn this beloved city was environed by dangers? Inso- much that collections to the amount of a hundred thousand livres iournois were sent to Geneva, as the result of an appeal made at the suggestion of Francis Turrettin ; and employed to fortify FOREIGN TRAVEL. 211 the city. " We should aid them" said the government of Hol- land to the Estates of the Provinces, at this memorable period (1661) " because that city has been chosen of God as the princi- pal abode of his church^ — to make true relief ion abide there : be- cause this church is the mother of so many others ; because the world now hates and persecutes her, for the rehgion she profess- es, and the gospel of Christ which she teaches !" And while the ' churches of Poland, Germany, Hungary, Transylvania, Holland, Scotland, and England, sent succours to the city from which they had received blessings above all price ; the elite of the reformed youth of France, flew to partake her dangers, led by Henry of Navarre, Sully, Du Plessis-Mornay, and their heroic compatriots ! Glorious city, that deserved such regards ! Alas ! that she has fallen from her high estate ! Blessed churches, that responded to such calls ! Quenched alas ! in their own blood ; some are now without a name ; others with little more than a name to live ! It is difficult to fix a precise date to the commencement of that period of declension in pure religion, which during the last century was observable over all the earth ; and which especially towards its close, sunk into almost universal infidelity or heresy. It is probable that we should rather regard these sad catastro- phies, as being so far isolated in each country, as to have pecu- liar causes and separate dates, as well as divers manifestations in each ; agreeing only in the general fact of forsaking God — and in the special one, of wandering far from him, in proportion as they knew little of his truth before. The Catholics of Italy are exhibited, by all witnesses, and especially in the personal me- moirs of the Bishop of Pistoia, as sunk into the lowest condition of pollution and superstition. Those of France became a horrid model of ferocious atheism. The episcopal church of England became essentially heretical, taking its own articles as the rule of judgment ; and while its clergy openly exceeded the men of the world in "sumpluous living," they preached, when they preach- ed at all, Arminian, Pelagian, and Arian, errors. The establish- ed church of Scotland died ; and piety went out from her midst, leaving only a barren orthodoxy, and a cold external decency of 212 MEMORANDA OF life. In the United States we felt the same withering influences, and exhibited the like varied results. To the north, Unitarian- ism grew up ; while in the middle and southern states, deism be- came the common sentiment. The previous condition of Mas- sachusetts made it certain, that after taking a certain march away from God, she would be Socinian ; while that of Virginia, after an equal march, forced her into a condition of more rea- sonable, but less religious skepticism. Even the mercies of God lavished on societies in such conditions, were liable to unusual per- versions, differing according to their existing conditions. Thus a wide and true revival of religion in New England, ended to a lamentable degree, in all sorts of metaphysical heresies, which still disturb the minds of men ; while in the west, the same gifts were perverted into extravagant and unnatural systems regard- ing social life, which are still exhibited amongst those called '' Shaking Quakers." There is a great principle at the base of all these varying re- sults ; a principal universal in the providence of God, as influen- ced by, or influencing in turn, liis spiritual dealings with man- kind. The condition in which we are, is the unilbrm basis of that which is to follow. The influences applied, of necessity produce some result ; and whether good or bad, it is akin to the state on which they acted. The gospel itself either melts or hardens ; and the eternity before us, will assume in its most glo- rious or most aggravated aspect, no other character, to each se- parate spirit, than the eternal developement, perhaps, of that with which it emerged from its stat§ of trial, into eternity. As with each separate individual, so also with communities, the beginnings are more distant from the final result, than we com- monly imagine. I suppose that the final cause, humanly speak- ing, of that awful state of society in France, which obscured with horror the real benefits of the first revolution ; is to be sought at least as far back as the revocation of the edict of Nantz, more than a century before its eruption : and that the brutal li- centiousness of the nobles and clergy, under the regency of the Duke of Orleans, added the finishing touch ; and so prepared the people, that the actual results were inevitable, under the giv- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 2l3 en state of the case. So too in Great Britain ; the state of the churches and people at the darkest period of the latter part of the last century, had undoubtedly a direct relation to the licen- tiousness of religious opinion fostered in the last years of the commonwealth ; and to the attrocious and perfidious conduct of the parliaments and prelates of Charles II. by whom religion was hunted down, as the only crime which could not be tolerated within the realm. The difference of the final results in the two kingdoms is fully accounted for, by the different degrees in which they prepared for themselves wrath ; and the consequently dif- ferent conditions in which they stood, when the day of wrath came to them as nations. We trust it is not too much to say, we have faith to believe, that such days will return to them no more. O ! that the world knew its day of merciful visitation ; and would appropriate its blessings before they be hid again iVom its eyes. No spot of earth has exhibited more thoroughly this mournful declension of religion than the republic of Geneva ; nor has any illustrated more forcibly at the same time, the truth of the prin- ciples already stated. For although Geneva has thoroughly shaken off" the peculiar doctrines which were so long Jier glory ; the long and blessed influence which her civil and religious insti- tutions had exerted, put her in a condition to make her fall with- out commotion, without bloodshed, without the destruction of pub- lic morals ; and to preserve after it, many of those habitudes, of which the spirit and life were gone. And what was not less important, retained her in a state easily accessible to those pre- cious influences, which in Geneva as throughout all Protestant Christendom, are repairing the breaches of Zion and restoring her lost beauty. I will speak briefly, of both these events. 214 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXIII Sketch of tlie Reformed Church of Geneva to its Apostacy— Arjan Version of the Scriptures— Succession of Truth in the Church of Geneva— The Universal Ee- ligious Impulse of Uie Present Centurj- — Its Origin and Progress at Geneva — Robert Haldaue— Its Present State— Dr. Malan— The Church of the Bourg du Four- Evangehcal Society— Colportage— Efforts to Preach tlie Gospel at Home and Abroad— School of Theology— The Importance of its Position and Efforts — National Clergy— Popular Condition— Extraordinary Session of the Grand Council of tlie Republic— Cimite ere de I'Egalite. The church of Geneva is at once Presbyterian and national : in the latter respect it resembles all the churches of the reforma- tion ; in the former, an immense majority of them. Its Confes- sion of Faith once established, was made unalterable, except by the consent of the civil as well as the ecclesiastical authorities of the Republic : in short by the will of the whole people. At the same time, perfect freedom of religion reigned in Geneva, almost from the earliest period at which any portion of mankind had emancipated themselves from the dreadful idea that the con- science can or should be coerced ; a dogma ground into the very soul of society, by the church of Rome, from the first day of its apostacy ; and which, by itself, proves that deluded hierarchy lo be the enemy of freedom, of knowledge, and of thought. All the successive changes in the institutions of Geneva, recognise these two great principles, viz : the inviolable sanctity of the faith of the national church ; and the unlimited freedom of all, to believe and teach as they pleased, on their own responsibility, as free citizens. In effect, the latter principle has saved the 1 I FOREIGN TRAVEL. 215 church of Geneva, when the former proved entirely abortive. The principle of religious liberty, which tolerated all, was forced to tolerate evangelical piety, in the established church ; at a period when all the tribunals of it persecuted and would have cast out all who were known to practice its precepts, or rejoice in its doctrines. Another lesson, to teach those still blinded to the evils of establishments, that the kingdom of Christ is in no sense a kingdom of this world. For a period of two centuries and a half, the ministers ordained in Geneva were required to protest, and did protest, ^Hhat they held the doctrine of the holy prophets and apostles, as they are comprised in the hooks of the Old and JVew Testaments; of which doctrine (it was added) we have a summary in our Catechism.'^ What the character of that summary was, admits of no doubt, when we say the Catechism spoken of is that of Calvin. After the church of Holland had adopted its famous articles in the Synod of Dort, a century after the church of Geneva had estab- lished its fame over Europe ; the latter required from its candi- dates for ordination, assent to ihese articles also; articles which two of its own pastors (Tronchin and Deodati) had exercised so large an influence in framing. Still later, (in 1678,) the churches of Zurich and Bern, composed a concensus, on the doctrines of grace, against the dogmas of certain theologians of Saumur ; and this formulary was added to the two already existing in the church of Geneva. But in the very beginning of the next cen- tury, the concensus first, and afterwards the articles of the Synod of Dort, were suppressed at Geneva ; leaving the simple formular they had used for a century before either of the others existed — not only unaltered, but as I have said already, to this day un- alterable, except by the authority of the people and government as well as that of the church of Geneva. In short, the doctrines of grace, are to this hour the only lawful creed of the established Unitarian church of Geneva ! How long the church retained the use of this form, after its ministers no longer honestly intended what they uttered at its adoption ; or how long the catechism of Calvin was actually used, after its statements had ceased to be assented to ; is 216 MEMORANDA OF extremely diflScult to be justly decided ; and is a subject of con- test amongst those most deeply interested. In this church, besides the consistory composed of pastors and ruling elders, and answering virtually to a Presbytery; there exists an associ- ation called " The Venerable Company of Pastors," which is, I believe, peculiar to it. It is a weekly meeting of all the pastors in private conference, for the single purpose of mutual counsel, examination, encouragement, and rebuke ; resembling in some degree, the class meeting for private members, and the process for examining character in conference for the preachers, which Mr. Wesley established amongst his followers ; and for which, as for some other important points of his system, many would be surprised to find, how deeply he was indebted to the Gene- vese reformer. This venerable company inscribed on its regis- ter, in 1725, these portentous words: ^*the protestation imposed by our laws, on ministers, with reference to the Catechism of Calvin, does not require them to follow it wholly ; but is simply to testify, that the substance and summary of Christian doctrine is contained in it" It is worthy of all consideration, especially on the part of the Christians of the United States at the present time, that the church which introduced this gloss upon a simple and categorical statement, needed no more and attempted no more, beyond this gloss, to become thoroughly heretical ; still retaining not only the same Confession of Faith, but the very form of adoption, which existed when the same church was thoroughly evangelical ! In the year 1788, the Catechism of Calvin was found to have been totally abandoned in the religious instruction of the schools, under the care of the established church. But for above fifty years before, other catechisms had been gradually supplanting it. In 1818 the Venerable Company of Pastors forbade one of the regents of the college of Geneva, " in the most express terms, to teach either of the following doctrines ; namely, that there is but one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; that man is born in a state of sin ; that he could not escape from that state, except through the new birth, effected by the Holy Spirit ; thai salvation is a gift, absolutely free, which God FOUEIGN TRAVEL, 2\1 snakes in his Son, to the sinners he is pleased to save ; and finally, that our (rood works are only the evidences of our love for our Saviour, and have no merit to redeem our souls." And in 1831, the Rev. Mr. Cheniviere, professor of dogmatic theolo- gy in the school of the national clmrch, published two elaborate essays against the doctrines of the Trinity and of original sin. Before this the privation of Dr. Malaa as teacher of youth, and that of Mr. Gaussen as pastor of Satigny ; had been undertaken, prosecuted, and accomplished, by the venerable company, the consistory, and the council of state, upon pretext.'; at once frivol- ous and false ; but solely for the reason that they were both faithful and zealous ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. So complete is this revolution in the church of Geneva, that I have the best authority to say there are not above two or three pastors in all the venerable company, who can be considered as decidedly holding the doctrine of the Trinity ; and not more than one, or perhaps two, who openly preach that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. About the time I was at Gen- eva, a circumstance transpired which presents in a strong light at once the sad condition of the venerable company, and the difficulties with which its few pious members find themselves environed. An Arian version of the New Testament had not only been issued by the Bible Society under the control of the national church, but funds put at their disposal by the British and Foreign Bible Society, to circulate a different and true version, were appropriated to aid the printing of the Arian version. The result was understood to be, that the British and Foreign Bible Society had broken off all connexion with the society at Geneva. And I was repeatedly assured from unques- tionable sources, that the few pastors inclined to orthodox senti- ments, were involved in this proceeding to the extent of conni- vance if not consent, to the false publication, and the faithless misapplication of funds contributed with a very different view. All this subject, from beginning to end, is so full of instruction to all who will regard the lesson ; and the whole case is so exactly pertinent to a great deal that has occurred again and again, in the churches of the United States, and amongst the Vol. II.— 20 2l8 MEMORANDA OF rest in the beloved church in which God has cast my own lot ; that I have been the more desirous to make it plain. There is, however, another and more comforting part of the story to be toid ; and I proceed to it, as to a pleasant task. Neither the entire church nor people of Geneva, have proba- bly at any time forsaken the true faith. I have already spoken of Dr. Malan and Mr. Gaussen,as having been persecuted by their brethren for confessing Jesus Christ. The last named gen- tleman had been for fourteen years before the attack made on him — that is since 1816, preaching the gospel at Satigny. We have the authority of Mr. Gaussen, in a letter addressed to his flock in 1830, for saying that his immediate predecessor at Satigny, the Rev. Mr. Cellerier, had faithfully preached to them Christ crucified for thirty years. This leaves no great space before we ascend to Antoine Maurice, the immediate successor of Benedict Pictet, as teacher of theology in Geneva ; who was himself the favourite pupil, and successor of Francis Turrettin. Here as in other churches, God has not left himself wholly without a witness in its darkest days ; and here as over all the world, he has of late years made manifest his great power, in the conversion of sinners to himself. The spiritual declension of which I have spoken as common to all lands, was not at all more remarkable than have been the succeeding revivals of sound doctrine and true piety, which during the current century have manifested themselves with an equal universality. It does not fall within the present design, to attempt either a history or a minute exposition, of either of these most remarkable manifestations. I speak now only of the fact, in regard to the latter and blessed series of events. In America and in Great Britain, the actual as compared with the comparatively recent state of Christian doctrine and effort, is so striking as to be incapable of being overlooked by the slightest observer, or the most careless reader. Though less known and operating on a smaller scale, the same influences have been felt in every Protestant church in continental Europe. Even the Jews, the Christians who profess the faith and rites of the Greek church, many portions of the Roman church, and all the scat- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 219 lered fragments which bear the Christian name, up and down, throughout the world ; have felt the indwelling power of the same all-pervading cause, and have roused themselves up, with the power of an unusual impulse, to investigate the things which belong to the peace of their souls. Nor have systems more absolutely false, retained their votaries unmoved amidst this shaking of the nations. But all testimonies, from all lands, unite in exhibiting the entire mass of human intelligence, as waking up with unprecedented alacrity to the importance of religious ideas; and as inclining itself to the consideration of that truth for which God has, at the same moment, and so wonderfully and so variously opened ways by which it might run a free course. The story of this strange work in most lands, needs to be fully told. And then we shall hear, from Holland, Denmark, Ger- many, France, Switzerland, and I know not what other states of Europe, accounts that will be to us, not less replete with interest; than the mighty work of personal conversion in America, and the great efforts for external good in England, are for all mankind who love the Lord. In Geneva their revival of religion was set in motion by the labours of a foreigner, and a layman. Robert Haldane of Scot- land, now well known by his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and his severe (f do not say unjust) Strictures on the Semi-Pelagian spirit and tendency of a portion of the American and British churches ; found himself at Geneva somewhere about the year 1816. He was a stranger in the country, and gpoke its language so badly, as to be quite incapable of sustain- ing an argument in it. He drew around him a few young persons; he covered his table with Bibles in many languages; and his might in the Scriptures, was his only weapon. He comprehended objections, which he could not answer. His reply was, a pointed and clear text of Scripture, indicated both in the original tongue and the required version. The blessing of God was richly added to these apparently fruitless labours ; and of the multitudes who attended on them, from time to time, many were converted to Christ ; and others, perhaps already his timid followers, greatly strengthened and enlarged. From 220 MEMORANDA OF this moment, the power of divine tilings assumed a new aspect at Geneva. And not a few of those, most owned of God as- instruments of subsequent good, could trace their own streanx cf blessings directly or renaotely to this devoted foreigner. Nor can it be passed without observation, that in this great religious movement at Geneva, a very large proportion o-f the earliest converts, as well as oi' the most precious subsequent fruits ; have been found amongst the descendents of those persecuted Christ- ians, to whom the city opened her gates, centuries ago. The children of the Hugonots an wards. If you look at a mountain, its general aspect gives the idea of its having been projected upwards; and its shape uniformly tapering upwards confirms this idea. But if you examine the strata, they give you just the opposite notion ; they look as ii' the centre of the mountain had fallen in, and thut* forced upwards the outer edges of its strata. Some of the learned tell us, all these phenomena are to be explained by the action of an intense heat ; others attribute every thing to the opposite element of water. 1 leave the learned to settle it. But on the one hand, the fact that all these mountains have been covered with the waters of the sea, is just as incontestible FOREIGN TRAVEL. ' 243 as that some one must have been where we fmd not only his tracks but his shoes ; for the traces of marine shells are found every where upon their summits, and in their deepest recesses. And on the other hand, there are ten thousand objects which you seem to refer as inevitably to the action of heat, as you would t[ie lijct that your dinner was over-done. One point is of l^reat importance; let us remember that tiie science of Geology is yet in swaddling clothes ; and that it will be full soon, when Its principles and truths are somewhat settled, to make a wax nose for its benefit, oui of the Hebrew language and the Mosaic cosmogony. It is hardly worth while for so called scholars and divines to unsettle what God has established ; till they are quite sure of the end for which it is to be done, and the principles on which the change is required. The great liigh-way leading through the region of which I now speak, is one of the best in Europe. Five or six days' easy travel are sufficient to accomplish the journey from Geneva to Turin, — passing by Aix, Chamberry, up the valle^y of St, Jean de Mauri- enne, and over Mont Cenis. The distance is probably two hundred English miles, or somewhat more ; and in the whole of it, great and constant as the natural obstacles to be overcome in forming the road were — there is not a spot where the voyager need dismount fVom his carriage, and verv i'ew where it is neces- sary to lock the wheels of it. Like the route over the Semplon, this also, is the work of Napoleon : conceived^ projected, and as to its difficulties finished by him. The kings of Sardinia have not disdained to identify their names with portions of the work the least important; while they have suppressed that of the superlative genius to whom it is all due. At Aiguebe'le there is an enormous triumphal arch spanning the route, adorned on both faces with pompous inscriptions, to their "great and gracious monarch " — for having made a wall and road, at one end of their hamlet. I thought as I read it, of the boy who was so ravished with the praises he heard bestowed on Dr. Johnson, a volume i>f whose works he held in his hand, that he exclaimed witii .enthusiasm, " I made the paste that bound that book !" And this is just about the relation of King Charles Felix, or King 244 MEMORANDA OF Emanuel Charles, or King Charles Albert, or all put together, for I forget which was named on the arch, to him, under whose great works they would insinuate their little shoulders. The pass over Mont Cenis, is the most southerly of all the great routes that penetrate the Alps. For this reason, amongst others, as the season was advanced — I was well content to enter Italy by it. But in addition, it is the only gootl road over the Alps, by which Italy can be entered from the north, without passincr through a part of the Lombard-Venetian kingdom; which I was anxious to avoid, as the cholera still prevailed at Milan, and the quarantine regulations as you penetrated farther towards the states of the church, became more rigid, if you had been in any part of ihat kingdom. A material change took place in our mode of travelling at the same lime. A female acquaintance who had made one of our party from the time we left the United States, concluded to remain at Geneva. I determined at the same time to dismiss' our courier. He who travels through a country of wliose lan- guage he is ignorant, especially if jje has dependent on him several other persons more helpless than hiniseif, will find it almost indispensable to have an interpreter. If he desires to i e somewhat at leisure, so that his time may be employed with reference to his own increase in knowledge ; it is nearly as indis- pensable to have a servant to perform the ten thousand nameless offices, which the mere fact of four or five people being of one party creates. And yet the class of persons who engage a& couriers, in Europe, is w^orthy of all distrust. Finding our party reduced to two, and an infant, whose nurse making the third person, spoke German and French ; we possessed as many languages as people who could speak in company — even without computing our own pretensions as extending* much beyond our vernacular English. We therefore, threw ourselves upon our resources; — and having hired an Italian voiturier to take us to Turin in five days and a half, in his own carriage, and with his own horses ; we took up the line of march, not without some misgivings, as to. our ability t<> make good our course. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 245 There is no class of persons more completely under the ban. r>C public opinion than these voituriers. I am happy and at the same time bound, to testify in their behalf I have had at differ- ent times near a dozen in my service ; and I have never had one who did not fully and liiirly perform all he undertook, and gen- erally in a manner obligincr, respectful, and to my entire satis- faction. They speak, nearly wrilhout exception, two languages ; if they be Swiss, they speak generally French and German ; if Italians or French, both those languages. For a roomy car- riage, and two or three good horses, you pay from twenty to thirty francs, or an average of about five dollars a day. They bear their own expenses, pay for extra horses and guides when necessary in the mountains, and carry you about thirty-five or forty English miles a day. The voilurier expects, at the end of the journey, an additional douceur to himself; the amount of which is left entirely to yourself, but by contract and by universal custom — something must be given. Generally from three to five francs a day, never more than the latter — very rarely so ! ttie as the former sum is expected and given. Where the driver does not own the carriage- and horses, this is his only compensation. He gets his meals at the hotels gratis, for bring- ing his passengers to them. And both in French and German he cails the douceur given to him, by a name too indicative of his habits. Pour hoire : for drink: is the universal French name, i'or such and similar gratuities: as in German trink Jeld ; drink money. The Italian calls it buona mano : good will: or good hand; as indicative, I fear, of *' the itching palm" of Italy, as the for- mer names are of the French and German propensities respec- tively to wine and strong drink. As soon as it was known in the hotel of the Crown at which we lodged in Geneva, that I had discharged my courier, a fact which he had kept secret until the carriage was at the door to carry us away; it seemed as if the house were full of persona seeking the same or any situation. I had in quick succession five or six applications made for the vacant place; and could apparently have enlisted a company of domestics in one forenoon. Servants of all kinds in all parts of Europe are generally excel- 22* 246 MEMORANDA OF lent: — faitliful, laborious, and humble to a degree that greatly surprised me. It startled me at fir^t to hear persons better dressed than myself, call me master. But the servility of domes- tics in all parts of Europe is much greater than that of the slaves of the United States, who occupy situations about the persons of their masters : and the indignities to which they sub- mit, if not so severe, are often as humiliating. At the Hotel des Emperours at Marseille, I heard on one occasion a terrible uproar under my windows ; and on demanding the cause of the hostesses passion, some hours after, from the man who served our dinner, he said his mistress was angry at him because he had neglected to lock a chamber door the preceding night, in consequence of which one of his fellow-servants had slept in a bed and been discovered ;: for which " mistress had scolded him, and boxed the ears of both !" The domestics in the public houses generally, receive no compensation whatever from their employers, except their food ; and very often pay considerable sums for their situ- ations. In most hotels on the continent, there are no females at all : men performing for the precarious gifts of travellers, offices which in America men could not be hired, and would not be permitted to perform. Or if females are obliged to be employed in a ihw services, they submit to inrpositions which in turn they force travellers to bear. Thus, washer-women, who are amongst the severest afflictions of such travellers in Europe as consider clean linen a necessary of life ; generally perform gratuitously the washing of the largest hotels, for the privilege of washing for the lodgers in it. The masters of these hotels are the most difficult to be classed. I have in some, seen the master of a very large establishment do the principal service in its eating depart- ment, as head cwjk. And I have known others reside in their town or country houses, and hire an agent to manage their hotels. One of the most extensive hotels on the continent of Europe, the Hotel Meurice, in Paris, is owned and personally managed by a female ; another, the Hotel Des Bergues at Ge- neva, belongs to a company, and is managed by the head waiter, fn general I think it may with truth be said, that the European? servants have a far harder life in most respects than the house- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 247 hold slaves of the United States ; and that fewer instances are found where they have affection for their masters, or iheir mas- ters for them, than amongst our slaves and their owners. On the other hand, I am convinced, that rhe owners of slaves are Worse served, and at a treble cost. I draw two inferences which a thousand facts have proven to me in Europe. The first is, that the friends of slave emancipation in the United States, are mistaken — greatly mistaken^ as to the relative physical con- dition of the slaves as compared with the correspond in-g labour- ing classes of the best countries of Europe ; and therefore they misdirect a great portion of their arguments and efforts on this interesting subject. The second is, that the great majority of the slave owners of our country are equally mistaken, in sup- posing that either their interests or comforts would be in the least diminished ; or rather that both would not be greatly pro- moted by a change which would deliver them from the cares, responsibilities, and changes of their present condition; and convert the reluctant, cosily, and wasteful service of their slaves into the cheap, anxious, and efficient labour of responsible serv- vants. I am aware that the present excessive value of slave labour in a Cew branches of industry, and the extraordinary condition of society in the free states, which by reason of its long continued prosperity, fills every working man's pocket with money, and makes those who would in ordinary circumstances he at service, now require servants ; these different and transient conditions may make all incredulous of what I have asserted *:Rd argued. Let them visit Europe, and be cured. 248 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXVI First Attempt at Travelling without our Interpreter— Fair at Frangy— Aix, its Batkr and Valley— Charaberry— The Vale of the Isere ; and of St. Jean-de-Maurienne— — The Gorges of the Alps — Fortress of Bramont. V ERY soon after commencing the journey from Switzerland into Italy, full opportunity was afforded us to test our compe- tence in making good our way, amid strange tongues. Leaving (Jeneva at mid-day, we had passed the frontier of ihe confeder- ation "within an Iwur; and arrived after night-fall at the little vil- l;ige of Frangy, which we found filled to repletion. The cus- tx)m of the country, fortified by ancient baronial grants, gives to linost of the towns and villages periodical fairs ; which occur once, ^wice, and sometimes oftener every year. On these occasions religious services usher in the day — and then follow trading, buying and selling of every article that the region furnishes or requires — and the day closes with all kinds of merriment. We fell upon Frangy the night before its annual fair : and to our dis- comfiture, found the only Inn in the place occupied from the cellar to the garret ; all the rooms in the village that could be hired, full ; and the very streets garnished with wagons, tents, tables and crowds of people, who seemed to wish no better ac- commodation than a nicrht ol' watching. The next Inn was two or three hours drive distant; half of our party were invalids;: and the voiturier expressed the wish to refresh his iiorses before attempting to proceed. I carried the case a point further, by FOREIGN TRAVEL. 249 refusing to think of going any Hirther, and dismounting with all hands from tt)e carriage. We were marshalled into the front room, on the first floor of the Inn, which proved to be the kitchen : and a kitchen better filled either with people or viands, I have seldom seen. The evening was a clear frosty October one; and the two great fires blazing up chimnies which occupied one entire side of the room, were delightful. This, however, gives no idea of the structure of the chimnies, common except in the best houses, on the con- tinent. At the floor there is merely a hearth; but about eight feet from the floor, resting on what might be the floor of the room above, commences a square funnel with the mouth down, and of immense dimensions ; which, tapering upwards to a narrow hole, lets the smoke escape above the roof of the house. Before these two fires were birds of all sizes, from the turkey and goose to lit- tle ones that would mock a hungry man, if he were to put them entire into his mouth. Spiked on long irons in rows, they were turned by a machine that reminded me of a yankee clock, nailed to the wall between the two furnaces. The solemn and measur- ed pace of the machine and birds, presented so strong a contrast to the proceedings of the people about me — who seemed in activity an impersonation of what the solar microscope reveals to us of the manners of the dwellers in a drop of diich water; — that I could with difficulty suppress a hearty laugh. All spoke at once — and all with an energy that seemed to say, the universe must perish if what they had to say were not instantly heard. — All were in motion, and all as it seemed in opposite directions and for opposing purposes ; and yet all without result of any kind except the ceaseless renewal of the uproar. A promiscuous crowd of French men and women, no matter whf> they are or why assembled, so that imperious decorum does not force them to be still and quiet; is one of the most astonishing objects that John Bull or Jonathan can behold. The former gentleman it fills with sullen contempt; the latter with irresistible mirth. — True to the national impulse, I was hardly enabled by a fast of eleven hours, and the present prospect of a night in the streets with my Utile liimily, to preserve a decent composure. 250 MEMORANDA OF The people of the Inn were as kind as they could be ; and how many of the multitude who proffered their services belong- ed to ihe household is not ibr me to (juess. Here, as on many other occasions, I have Ibund poUteness and kindness of heart, qualities common to the French of every condition and country. After a most noisy and protracted consultation, in which from first to last at leat^tti hundred counsellors put in a word, it was de- tinilively settled that we should, in the first place, have seats at the fire; secondly, that we siiould be speedily furnished wiin some of the biidrs fur supper; and finally, that a special appeal should be made to the Cliateau^ whose proprietor was distantly related to the master of the hotel, for a night's lodging for us uji- der his roof. This mission fully succeeded, and we were mar- shalled to the Chateau with great form. I shall preserve a grate- ful recollection as long as I live, of the family of M. Felice, for the use of two beds one night, for which 1 paid five francs next morning in the bill of his kinsman at the inn ; and shall be most happy to return the favour, (for it really was one,) free of charge- to him or ins. But I trust it is not against his own inclinations to wisli, that he may speedily inherit another Chateau ; and if this wisli be fulfilled, ihat his new one may, amidst its various im- provements, have an entrance to it, which does not pass through the stable : and that the family apartments and those appro- priated to his bestial, may be distinct in fact as well as in name. As we left the village early the following morning, ihe place was all life, and a high day dawning upon Frangy. Why should we smile at ihe humble and obscure? Why is not the greatest man of Frangy, as great as the greatest man of Paris ; and the incidents that mark its years as important as those which con- vulse the great capitals of the earth ^ The crowds who lineil all the avenues to the village were laden, it is true, with humble things. One led a goat by a willow twig around its neck — another drove before him a large black hog of the peculiar race ol" the country. Here were a iaw sheep ; there a cow, or calf; and beyond a handful of coarse thread, or a web of coarser cloth. For miles we met a stream of people, and from iiv^ry elevation could see other lines in the neighbouring roads hasten- rORElGN TRAVEL. S5I m^ lo Ihe long desired mart. How many wiblies to be frralified ; how many more, alas ! to be disappointed. The subject of long hope and anxious preparation, it is come at last. And hanily realized, it is gone to return no more, but to be supplanted by Dther objects as greedily desired, as transient, as unsatisfying, as soon forgotten. While we smile at these simple villagers, and humble peasants, It-t us remember they furnish us wilh a picture of ourselves, but loo true ; except perhaps^, that their objects of interest and pursuit are more reasonable, more innocent, more attainable than our own. The most usual route from Geneva to Chamberry, is that by Annecy ; to the left of the one we pursued. They unite before reaching the village of Aix, a mean little place distinguished for its delicious warm baths, and hardly less by the disputes of the idle learned, over some questionable and insignificant monuments found in and near it» Its local situation is delightful, and the surrounding region extremely beautiful. The small valley at the eastern end of which it is seated, at the foot of the chain of Beauges mountains, is as romantic and almost as secluded as the abode of Rasselas. Besides the Beauges on the cast, Moiit-du- Chat and MontPEpine on the opposite border, and the moun- tains of Cliambotte and Saint Innocent on the north, shut up ihe beautiful basin on three sides ; and on the fourth, the small, deep lake of Bourget reposes in a profound stillness, which seems to communicate itself to every surrounding object. The cooN ness, the retirement, the beauty, and the hot mineral baths, attract, during the warm months, numerous visitors to Aix. I found the place deserted, except by a Cew invalids, who seemed to linger in mere disgust at the effort necessary lo depart ; or in ti.e faint hope of some lingering chance, that the deep roots of disease might be extracted, or the failing spi in^-s t)f life replen- ished. I wonder rather that the healed should so soon forget the spot consecrated by blessings received, and sorrows miti- gated ; and that the last to linger about stich abodes, are not rather the grateful, than the importunate. How strong is the contrast between the spirit in which we seek, and that in which we use the blessings of heaven I 252 MEMORANDA OF The tvaters are used both for bathing and drinking; the principal ingredient being su!phur, and the liighest temperature about 34^ to ST^of Raumer. The volume of water is very ample, and all the arrangements for its use convenient and extensive. Victor Amedius III., considered himself entitled by reason of some plain and simple improvements constructed in 1772, to set upon the facade, a nonsensical inscription calling himself " Rex, Pius, Felix, ^^ugustus" — and I know not what besides. I entered the edifice under the impression of this stuff; and nearly the first words that met my eyes, were " the hath of Princes'' — written in French, over one of the doors ! Ah ! in- deed ! " How Sir," demanded I, turning to the conductor, " how Sir can you tell a prince, when he is naked ?" " Monsieur?" was his reply — not, perhaps, comprehending me. " You have a bath here appropriated to princes?" "Yes." "Do you not know that all men are equally princes, as soon as they are stripped ?"" " No Monsieur," "Then examine and you will find it so. The only difference between your princes and the servants that wait for them at this door, is annihilated the moment they undress. Change their clothes; and you change the men, nine times in ten." He seemed uncertain, whether 1 jested, or was deranged. And I was not less at a loss to account for ihe folly of those who in their vanity, had placed their insignificance so strongly before vulgar eyes. We entered Chamberry in the afternoon, and left it early the following morning, ll is a considerable town, and its situation in the midst of a narrow plain, bordered by lofty mountains and watered by two streams, is very handsome. The city itself U dark and melancholy; full of soldiers and priests. The morning we left it, we took our last look at Mont Blanc — from the elevated plains that separate the waters of the Isere from those of the rivulets that water the valley of Chamberry. From Genev^a to Chamberry — the views of the Alps are often vsuperb, Irom the tops and sides of the eminences along which the way is conducted. But very soon alter leaving the last named city you get amongst the gorges of the mountains — and from thence until you have cleared the Alps, and are fairly in FOREIGN TRAVEL. 253 the plains of Piedmont on the other side, the horizon is limited to the steep rocks on either hand, and the flanks of mountains you have just turned, or are about to scale. From Chambery, you pass directly to the river Isere, which drains the great arc of the Alps between the Little St. Bernard and Mont Cenis, and passing Grenoble empties itself into the Rhone at Valence in France. This arc shuts you in more and more as you approach its southern limb. Crossing the Isere at Mont Melian, two vallies lie before you as you ascend ; each drained by a fork of the river. That to your left is the Tarentaise, which would conduct you to the pass over the Little St. Bernard. The one to the right ascends the course of the Arche, and terminates under Mont Cenis : it is called the valley of Saint Jean-de-Mau- rienne, and is the one which we traversed. This valley, counting from Mont Melian on the Isere, to Lans- le-Bourg, at the foot of Cenis, exceeds a hundred miles in length. It is every where very narrow, and has on both sides immense mountains, which towards the upper end are full of glaciers and covered with snow nine or ten months of the year : the loftiest summits being at no time free from it. In the midst of the valley, rushes the rapid and turbulent current of the Arche — occupying by its wide stony bed, and the cold marshes on its borders, from one-half to four-fifths of the space between the bases of the mountains. Throughout almost the entire course of this long gorge, the road is supported on a wall, built in the edge of the river, on one side or the other: and crosses the stream a wearisome number of times. At most of these crossings the bridges are wide and rather elegant, of cut stone, and made in the modern fashion. At some, the narrow bridge of the mid- dle ages, hardly broad enough for a modern carriage to pass, and with the stone supporters of the port-Cullis still standing about their centre, stand beside those which have supplanted them. And in the most secluded recesses of the Alps, you meet repeatedly with bridges constructed precisely on the model discribed by Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic war; and which, given by the great Roman to the ancestors oi^ these simple Vol. II.— 23 254 MEMORANDA OF mountaineers — have been preserved unaltered for two thousand years,— and though rejected by the Avhole world beside, are still perseveringly retained by them. At short intervals the ruins of ancient castles crown the projecting summits of the lowest hills : and scattered at more considerable distances, are small stone villages, having all the appearances of want, filth, and desolation, ■which the traveller will find but too faithfully accurate, as he examines their condition more narrowly. From Geneva to Turin, we were not so fortunate as to find a single tolerable Inn. This extraordinary ravine, as will be at once seen on a mere inspection of the map, penetrates the Alps obliquely. The course of the road from Chambery to Lans-le-Bourg, presents a series of traverses — each ])arallel with a range of mountains either behind or before it — and generally both. The last long traverse from St. Jean-de-Maurienne, to Lans-le-Bourg, is similar in direction and curve to the chain of Mont Cenis, upon whose base it ter- minates, at its lowest point of elevation. Without such an ac- commodation to the structure of the country it would be utterly impossible to penetrate it even on foot; and even after all that perfect skill and patient examination could reveal, nothing short of a nation's resources could overcome obstacles that could not be evaded. The passage of the Saint Michael, and the Vorney, the ascent of Terraiguon, and especially the defile of Bramoni, may be cited as remarkable illusiraticms of what has j^ist been said. The defile of Braniout is one of the most savage spots upon which the foot of man has dared to intrude. The river rushes through a fissure in the mountain so narrow that it was hopeless to attempt to make a road along it : and at the same time so deep, that from the point where the road conducted along the face of the m.ountain overhangs it, it can be neither seen nor heard. To add to the wildness of the spot, about the middle of the pass, another stream comes thundering down the almost per- pendicular rocks, and plunges into the abyss. Just at this point are seated a series of extensive and apparently impregnable mil- itary works, extending to five dilierent fortresses, the most remote I FOREIGN TRAVEL. 255 within 2;un shot, the nearest on the brink of the precipice; and which could open upon every point of the ascent and descent — hundreds of mouths of fire. I was told by a guide, that a path which he pointed out to me, avoided this fortress, and conducted by a nearer way, deeper in the mountains, from Modanue, west- ward of Bramont, to the top of Mount Cenis. 256 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXVII. Passage of the Alps— Ascent of Mont Cenis— Summit of tlie Mountain— Glaciers- Popular mistake as to the route of Hannibal— Southern descent of Cenis— Person- al Adventure— Striking variation in Climate— Vastness of the Alpme Range— Coup d 'ceil of it— Its Physical, Moral, National Influences— The Vallies of the Doiie Ficpuare ; and of the Aosta— Various Passes into Italy— Immense Plaijis of Pied- mont and Lombardy — Conquests of Napoleon. We slept at Lans-le-BouFg, at the foot of Mont Cenis, on the night of the 20th October, 1836. On the following morning at eight o'clock we commenced the ascent of the mountain, with five mules harnessed to our carriage — two at the pole and three tandem ; and five guides attending their steps, each armed with a large whip. The number of guides is settled by law, and is always equal to the number of mules ; that being left to the op- tion of the person hiring them. In winter, or any time in case of accidents, the services of several men may be indispensable. When the road is in perfect order, and the weather fine, all above one are superfluous. Our escort shewed that in our case they were enjoying a perquisite rather than fulfilling a duty. Out of the five, one was a very old man, two were lads, and one a fine bare-headed boy often years old ; the fifth was ason of Anak in the midst of his prime. They were all illy clad, and showed plainly enough that the luxury of combs and soap had rarely in- truded on their abodes. They were all intelligent and obliging, and after enjoying the benefit of their discourse during our long walk to the top of the mountain, I parted from them with a seoti-s ment bordering on respect, • 1- I FOREIGN TRAVEL. 257 We could not have asked a more deliorhtful day, nor a more admirable condition of the road — the guides pronounced every thing to be just as was best for us ; and their authority in all these mountains is absolute over travellers. Such dreadful accidents have sometimes occurred, by neglecting their prognostics, or re- fusing to be guided by what seemed their caprices, that fearful experience has made men wise. Pursuing their vocation from infancy, indeed through successive generations, they acquire a sharpness of sense in detecting appearances which others cannot discern, and a skill in inferring from them results apparently out of reach of human foresight, which well entitle them to a confi- dence that no one has ever charged them with abusing. " Will the day be fair ?" was the first question. " Perfectly," was the ready answer. ^' Is there any snow on the mountain ?" "None in the road." "How long will it take us to reach the summit?" " The authorised time is two hours and three quart- ers; we will do it in less." The season was advanced, and we had to mount up to an elevation of nine thousand feet. But the last feeling of anxiety was removed, and the mules were put into a steady walk which they kept to the top. Unless the load is very heavy, or the road very bad, they never stop to rest. Nor indeed is it necessary, for the ascent is gradual, low and equal ; and the skill and perseverance of man has converted what was an almost impassable mule path into one of the finest roads in Europe. On this occasion, and as often afterwards as I had op- porlunity to observe, I found the iron shoes of the mules made so much longer than the hoof, as to extend fully an inch in all di- rections beyond the edge of it. They say it is to enable them to hold the better at a hard pull — especially when the sides of the mountain are covered with ice. My belief is, that the method is evil ; for the toe soon turns up, so as to make the use of the shoe as a claw impossible; and I saw several mules whose hoofs had been obviously split across, and the bottom half broken off by their own efforts to pull; in consequence of the increased length of the lever, and therefore increased strain on the instep. Mules are in very general use in this part of Europe, and are much larg- er than those of America. Their value is about four or five 33* 258 MEMORANDA OF hundred francs, equal to seventy-five to a hundred dollars: which is also the value of a horse or ass in the same region. Mont Cenis is ascended on the western side, by seven trav- erses in the road. In 35 minutes we made the first turn, having accomplished one traverse. In 1 hour and 10 minutes we were opposite the chapel of Si. Denis — which stands off to the left of the road. At the end of 1 hour and 30 minutes we reached Re- covero No. 23; that is, the first of a series of houses built at in- tervals over the mountain, for the residence of persons who work on the road, and as places of refuge for travellers and guides when in distress. The numbering begins on the Italian side of the mountain, which makes the highest number the first one en- countered as you ascend on the French side. At the Recovero already mentioned, there is a spring of clear water gushing out of the mountain as cold as ice : and hard-by the fourth traverse completes itself. At 2 hours and 25 minutes we were at Re- covero2l. At Uecovero 20, a little farther on where the sixth traverse ends, the old and new roads unite. There the eldest guide told me he had repeatedly commenced the descent by the old way on a sledge, and in six minutes landed at the village which we left two hours and a half before. From appearances the course must have been as perilous as it was rapid ; for the road seemed to make a hundred zigzags on the edge of a ridge, at each of which the guide must turn the furious course of his vehicle by a pointed staff driven against the ice; and any want of skill would precipitate sledge, guide and traveller, down the precipice at the rate of about a mile in two minutes. All along both roads poles are erected at short intervals, to indicate the place where the road passes when the ground is covered with snow. These posts were marked at four, eight and twelve feet, or thereabouts, from the ground. The lowest mark is above the common depth of the snow ; but it is occasionally formed by the wind into embankments above even the highest. In 2 hours and 40 minutes we stood on the summit of the mountain, and stopped at the Savoy barrier to discharge our mules and guides. During the ascent the view is hemmed in on all sides by moun- tains higher than any elevation you reach. On the top you find FOREIGN TRAVEL. 259 yourself in the midst of a narrow plain, some miles long and in- dented by a small lake, which seems to be fed by the surround- ing glaciers in summer, and congealed into a glacier itselfduring winter. These glaciers are nothing more than valleys or bench- es on the mountains, or recesses in their sides, filled with eternal ice. Their number is of course not known, though immense. In the Swiss Alps alone, Ebal estimates the number of consider- able ones to be about 400, covering at least 130 square leagues, and varying in depth from 100 to 600 feet. Small ones seem al- most innumerable. These are covered with snow during winter, and in summer when the snow melts and penetrates the mass, it seems to give only increased compactness to it as the water passes off. The principal glaciers have not materially changed their appearance or dimensions, during all the ages in which they have been subjected to this process^ under the eye of watchful man. But it results from these facts that the streams draining these glaciers, in other words all those which issue from the Alps, have a periodical and regular increase in their volume of water as summer advances ; and then a similar declension as winter sets in ; reversing the facts that apply to inland streams general- ly. In some Alpine streams of the first class this annual varia- tion is of great extent. The Rhone at Geneva is subject to a gradual summer rise to the height often feet, although immedi- ately issuing from the largest lake formed by the water drained from the Alps. On the northern side and on the top of Cenis, there is a thick coating of herbage during three months of the year — namely, July, August and September; and during these months, cows, sheep and goats are driven to the highest regions where vegeta- tion is found, and their milk converted into cheese. For the va- rious operations and necessities of this manufacture, these higher regions which are not peopled except by a few soldiers, inn- keepers or monks, during the other nine months ; are furnished with numerous small stone liuts, lodged in the sides of the moun- tains, which being usually shut up and forsaken, greatly increase the appearance of desolation, which is the prevailing one, amidst 260 MEMORANDA OF these solitudes. Upon the top of the mountain the horizon is completely shut in by surrounding eminences ; that is, upon the bench of the mountain which the road traverses ; for these adjoin- ing elevations of the same mountain are five thousand feet high- er than the road. Presently you pass the barrier of Italy, and hope very soon to see those vast and noble plains of which guide books, compiled by people who never saw the objects described, tell ; and which Hannibal, if he entered Italy by this route, as ma- ny of the learned assure us he did, pointed out with ecstacy to his droopiniT soldiers as the rich reward of a march from Car- thage to Gibraltar, and thence here. If Hannibal saw any plains from the top of Cenis, one of two things is inevitable— either his army passed by some unknown and now inaccessible route, some thousands of feet higher than any road ever was at this place, or indeed ever could be ; or else, which is nearly as probable, the enormous rib of the mountain which fills up every crevice to- wards Italy, has g-roMjn since the Carthagenians were here! There is another minute fact to be overcome ; there are no plains to be seen, if there was full scope to look, for more than forty English miles on the Italian side from the top of Cenis. But on the other hand, from thence to Rivoli, a narrow and crooked valley lined by lofty mountains and washed by a mountain tor- rent, is all that could be seen if the way were open and straight. Nor do I believe that all that ever grew in this little valley from the foundation of the world, would have been considered by any one cohort in that fierce army, a compensation for exchanging delicious Carthage for one campaign amidst the Alps. As to prospect from Mont Cenis — there is none, absolutely none. On the eastern face of the mountain there is first a rapid and steep descent, for a short distance, by the most magnificent road I have ever seen. It is a grand echelon of twelve or fifteen trav- erses, curved upon the brow of the rocks, and cut out of them; guarded by strong pillars and rails, and converting into beautiful ornaments three steep cascades, upon one of which it terminates, while the others are made subservient to its descent. It is a su- perb work. At its foot is a short plain, and then a regular and FOREIGN TRAVEL. 261 constant descent to Susa, the first town of Piedmont into which you enter. It is situated twenty miles from the top of the moun- tain, at the head of the narrow valley which I have already mentioned, and on the banks of the Doire Ripuare. A personal occurrence of a very curious kind befel us in pass- ing Mont Cenis. The morning was so fine that we were tempt- ed to leave our infant with its nurse in the carriage, while its mother and myself followed after it on foot, conversing with the guides. At the end of the second traverse on the road, perceiv- ing that it would lead us far round to follow it, we turned up the mountain side, expecting to meet the carriage at the next trav- erse. But imperceptibly verging from the new route, we found when Mrs. B., then much an invalid, had become futigued by the long, but as yet gentle ascent ; that we should not encounter our carriage or the new track again before we reached almost to the summit, still five thousand feet above us. This was for a moment a startling discovery. Fortunately, three of the five guides had turned aside with us, viz : two boys and the stoutest of the tiTo men. We united our ingenuity and strength, and accomplished the entire ascent as follows: — The long lashes of the whips were tied around the waist of the lady, and the boys going before pull- ed up by their handles. The man being much taller than myself, supported her under the arm that lay next the lower side of our path, as we shifted from time to time the oblique line of ascent; I myself supporting her on the other side. In this way we made the ascent up the face of the mountain, along goat paths, and oftener without any path at all ; and reached the first Recovero before the other party. A morning's v/alk to the top of Cenis is a rare adventure for an invalid ; and was in this case the begins ning of decided restoration. The changes of climate wrought in a few hours in passing the Alps, is like the work of enchantment. The weather at the western foot of the mountain was such as we should expect on a delightful autumnal morning, in the middle states of North America. As we ascended, the sun mounted high enough to shed his warm and rich beams over the middle region of the Xflountain, j^nd every thing wore the delightful aspect such a 262 MEMORANDA OF morning promised. Presently, the rays of tiie sun seemed to hare lost their power ; the strong white frost lay in the shade of the rocks ; the blades of grass were frozen ; and before we reach- ed the top the ground wasstiflf and hard with frost, the air sharp and thin, and the rays of the sun pale and languid. On the top we found a lair, cold, winter's day. As we commenced the de- scent on the other side, the laurel and pine disappeared pretty soon after the last vestiges of ice were left behind. Mid-way down, the chesnut covered the mountain side in rich leaf, and the fruit still hanging as if no frost had touched it. Before we reach- ed Susa the mulberry, the walnut and the vine covered every spot of ground on the hill sides rich enough to sustain them; the atmosphere was soft and full of light, and we were carried back to the last days of g'owing summer. The people sat in the streets at work; a pedlar hauled about a go-cart, with articles of summer apparel for sale ; and the females that herded a few goats, or cows, grazing on the road side, siood without any cov- ering on the head, neck or arms; spinning thread with the fing- ers, on the peculiar distaff and broach of the country. The male labourers were doing the work which I had seen finished in France more than a month before — preparing the ground for their grain, with four oxen yoked to a plough, whose long single handle projected behind from ten to fifteen feet; and rendered their twenty foot reed, with a goad in the end, as indispensable as the whip of other plowmen. Half the cycle of the seasons was passed over in a day. The delicious climate of Italy seemed to extend with all its power to the very limits of the land ; but to limit its balmy influences within the same circumference. In whatever light they may be considered, there are few natu- ral objects of more interest than the great chain of mountains which have received the common name of Alps : a name purely Celtic, and expressive simply of their elevation. But although that is in many places immense ; attaining very frequently to twelve, thirteen, fourteen and even fifteen thousand feet above the level of the Mediterranean ; and being throughout the great- er part of their course covered with perpetual snow, wherever they exceed eight thousand feet ; yet their other proportions are FOREIGN TRAVEL. 263 quite as striking as their height. With an average base of more than two hundred miles in breadth, they extend from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the Blaci< Sea ; a distance little short of two thousand miles across the continent of Europe. Throughout this great range they receive various appellations ; and towards their eastern extremity, where it is probable the Celtic race and language never penetrated, they lose entirely all traces of a western nomenclature. Commencing on the Med- iterranean, upon the gulf of Genoa, they separate ancient Ligu- ria from Provence, covering both with their vast ribs; and shoot- ing off through the former, the lofty chain of Appenines, which penetrate the whole peninsula of Italy ; and if counted as of the same chain with the Alps, which they absolutely are, add anoth- er thousand miles to their extent. That portion just located is called the Maritime Alps; then follow the Cottien Alps, which reach to Mont Cenis, separating Dauphine from Piedmont. Where they divide Piedmont from Savoy, they are called the Grecque Alps — that word signifying in French, a fret ivork — and fully expressing the real character of the thing. From these to Mount Rose they are called the High Alps, and often the Pen- nic Alps. Thence to the Grisons they receive the name of Hel- vetic Alps. Through the Grisons and the Tyrol to the frontiers of Carinthia they are called Rhelian Alps. Throughout Carin- thia, Styria, the region of Salzbourg, and the district of Austria they receive the general name of Nozique Alps, to the plains of Oldenburg and Hungary. They are called Carnique on the south of the Drave from Mount Pelegrino to the sources of the Save. The Julian Alps separate Frioul and Istria from Carniola, Croa- tia and Sclavonia. Then follow, along the right bank of the Danube, the Dinarique Ranges. After these are the Balkan Mountains, the ancient Hoemus; which, passing between Rou- melia and Bulgaria terminate upon the Black Sea, only to arise in greater elevation on its north-eastern borders, and under the name of Caucasus project itself even to the Caspian Sea— and probably through the bosom of Tartary, on the other side. The barrier of countless tribes ; the palladium of the weak ; the mighty rampart against ambition and power ; how manifold 264 MEMORANDA OF and potential are the offices which the silent and passive resist- ance of this dead giant has performed in the political history of the world ! Its influence upon climate, and thus upon the physi- cal constitution, the habitudes and the pursuits of the nations that have dwelt upon its sides and at its feet; its influence upon the social life of man — and thus upon his language, his literature, his taste, his knowledge — and all of good or ill that springs from the free action of mind on mind ; its direct moral influences — if indeed such influences exist in inanimate objects — but at least its indirect influence upon religion, by affecting the opportunities of receiving, and influencing the means of retaining its impressions ; in how many ways is the world different from what it would have been, by reason of the efforts which have recoiled from these awful ramparts; or been swallowed up in their cold recesses? We boast of what we are ; of what we have done ; of what we will be ; of what we will make all things around us. And yet what are we at the best, but goodly vessels driven upon waves which deride our control; by winds which mock us every hour of our existence ; and where the only thing constant seems to be the rocks, which watch in sleepless silence for our ruin. And yet we feel an indwelling sense of superiority, and an instinctive assurance of triumph, over objects to which we seem as nothing, and against which our might is less than nothing. Even the reminiscences, as if of a past and glorious state, seem to sustain our hearts amid the acknowledged insignificance of our present condition, and nourish the assurance of a greatness, future but certain. Future ; yes, in that it is not yet realised. But certain — alas! who shall assure that? And yet more than our wildest hopes may be realized ; but not here. " Glory, honour and im- mortality" are within our reach ; and the ruins of our once glori- ous nature, still instinct with enough of its former greatness, to refuse to be satisfied with the fellowship of earth, languish for something beyond ; still future ; still more exalted ; but what, we know not, and still refuse to learn. How good is the Lord, that he will permit us to be satisfied only in him! How infinitely certain would be the universal perdition of men, if the sin we FOREIGN TRAVEL. 265 seek so eagerly could fully engage and satisfy the vast desires — the immortal longings of the soul! The valley of the Doire Ripuare, which conducts the road from the base of Cenis towards the Turin, is not only extremely nar- row for a number of miles, but the river and the torrents which fall into it from the mountains on either hand, have covered a considerable part of it with gravel and stones, and rendered it unfit for cultivation. Along all these vallies the husbandman is subjected to inundations of this kind, which not only destroy his growing crops, but ruin totally his inheritance. The smallest streams gurgle along, almost lost in the wide rocky channels through which their waters sometimes rush with irresistible fury. And at intervals channels perfectly dry, gape for the streams that occasionally rush down the mountains, and hurl the rubbish, gravel and holders which they had accumulated from a hundred sources, through them, over the narrow and fertile region around. The inhabitants repay themselves by an ingenious and patient process, in which they lorce the same elements that destroy to create for them other fields. By selecting an eddy, and surround- ing it with a wall of loose stones, the waters deposit from year to year a rich loam, which by-and-by they secure against further ingress of the water, and turn to profitable cultivation. To the 'eft of this valley lies that of Aosta, into Vv'-hich the routes over the Little and Great St. Bernard both debouche. The first of these passes is the nearer of the two to Cenis, and is considered one of the easiest and lowest over the Alps. The latter is more difficult, though only a few hundred feet higher than Mont Ce- nis. Between the Great St. Bernard at the Semplon, there is a long interval of almost inaccessible mountains. The road over it is famous throughout the world, as one of the greatest of Napo- leon's conceptions. It is not quite so high as Mont Cenis, but the road has not only been neglected, but the Austrian and Sar- dinian governments did every thing they could to destroy it, ex- cept to give open orders to that effect. Recently, a change of views has been manifest; and at present the road is undergoing repairs. Beyond the Semplon the Splugen aflbrds the lowest of all the great passes of the Alps, which are there only a few thous- Vol. n.— 24 2^6 MEMORANDA OF and feet high. Still farther east is the route by the Saint Goth- ard, one of the wildest and most difficult of all, seated in the midst of the mountains of Switzerland. Beyond are the domin- ions of Austria, and the great curve in the Alpine chain corres- ponding with the head of the Adriatic* The valley of the Doire is crowded with little and peculiarly mean villages, which increase in size as the country opens; until at Rivoli, about ten miles from Turin, you find yourself in the midst of the delicious plains which stretch from thence towards the east, without interruption, to Venice and Bologna — diagonal- ly across the large end of Italy. These are the renowned pains of Lombard}' and Piedmont, drained and irrigated in turn by the Po, which the Romans designated the " Father of Rivers." — Plains which rewarded the Roman soldier for those victories which subdued the world ; which compensated the Carlhageni- ans for the horrors of their unparalleled march ; and which so ravished the barbarians who subverted the Western Empire that banishment from their own country, wherever that unkiown country lay, was considered the lot of the fortunate, that they might abide here ; death itself being preferable to existence any where else; and even war, their former joy, a burden, if it call- ed them from these abodes. It was upon these plains that Na- poleon twice decided the fate of Europe, and filled it with the terror of his name. Issuing first, an unknown boy, with a hand- ful of beaten troops from the defiles behind Nice and Genoa, he destroyed in five months five Austrian armies, each larger than his own; conquered all Italy, and dictated at Campo Formio in October, 1797, a treaty of peace whose principles became the l>asis oi' all his succeeding treaties. A lew years elapsed, and all this miL^hty work was overthrown; the French driven behind the Var, or shut up in Genoa, and Italy lost. Again the same terrible genius appeared in the midst of these plains; but from ail opposite quarter, and with a name thai filled the world. From the top of the Great St. Bernard the First Consul rushed down upon this garden of the world. Received the second lime by the people as their deliverer, all human resistance seemed like chafi' before him ; and the fiat of destiny slower and not more I rOREIGN TRAVEL. 267 certain than his stroke. On the 18th of May, 1800, he was up- on the summit of the Alps ; on the 3d of July he re-entered Paris in triumph; the object of an enthusiasm absolutely delirious, on the part of all France. He had reconquered and reorganized Italy — in forty days! How absolute and total is the change in the tide of empire! The conquerors of the world crept nerthward over the Alps, dragging victory slowly after their steps. The swoop of the eagle on its timid prey, shadows forth the return of the tide upon Italy. I 268 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXVIII. Italy— Territorial Divisions— Kingdom of Sardinia— Piedmont— Coup d'oeil— Social State— Mendicants— Priests— Soldiers— Immense Difficulties of Reform— Grounds of Popular Security— The Grandeur of the Future. Italy, embracing the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, has a superficial extent of 92,000 square miles ; larger by one- third than single states of the first class which compose our con- federacy. Of this surface two-thirds at least are mountains or marshes. It is divided at present into eleven sovereignties; or if Malta be added, into twelve ; which unitedly contain a popu- lation of nineteen and a half millions. The north of Italy is divided between the Emperor of Austria and the King of Sar- dinia ; next follow the four small Duchies of Parma, Modena, Lucca, and Massa, and below thera^ihe larger one of Tuscany, on the western side of the Peninsula ; and the states of the Pope extending obliquely across it, from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean sea. The little republic of San Marino, is in the Appenines, near the Adriatic, surrounded by the territories of the Pope. Corsica lies opposite Tuscany ; the kingdom of the Two Sicilies occupies the whole of Southern Italy, except the island of Malta, which is below that of Sicily, and which appertains to England. Nine parts out of ten of the peninsula, belong to foreigners and strangers; and the names of many of the gov- ernments are derived from sources not strictly Italian. The islands of Sicily and Sardinia give their names to half of Italy. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 269 The kingdom of Lombard-Venice, ruled with a rod of iron by Austria — contains three outrages on the national feeling in the three words of its name. It is no kingdom, but the moat abject dependency on the Austrian Empire; and its impotence is not more in contrast with the giant strength of the Lombard King- dom, than its meanness and servility are the opposite of all that made the republic of Venice, the glory of Europe, and the nurse of its civilization. To make the degradation complete, the College of Cardinals has supplanted the Senate of Rome ; and the throne of the Csesars, has been gradually and steadily de- graded into irredeemable contempt, by a series of popes who for thirteen centuries have exhibited the most criminal succession that ever existed amongst men. The states of the King of Sardinia, unitedly form the second in point of territorial extent, and the third in population, of the governments of Italy. Piedmont, Savoy, the ancient city of Nice, the republic of Genoa, and the island of Sardinia, form a Kingdom, named after the last of the five states ; and ruled oyer by the ancient house of Savoy. The ^viiole kingdom contains, a population of four millions. Piedmont is the largest, and much the most important of the states of the King of Sardinia, This beautiful region is sepa rated on the east from the Austrian possessions in Italy by the Lago Maggiore, the Ticino, and the Po. On the other three sides, it is surrounded by the Alps and the Appenines. Looking towards the former, we behold at their tops nothing but glaciers, hiding their summits in the clouds. A little lower we discover dark forests of pines ; and nearer still to the planes, a wide belt of chesnuts and oaks prove the rapid amelioration of the climate. At the foot of the mountains, a still wider zone prolongs itself over the lessening hills and into the edges of the plains, where a thin soil requires all the aid of position and indefatigable toil, to fulfil the hopes of the husbandman. Then come the wide plains , covered with the grain of every climate ; the rice of the south, springing beside the wheat of a more northern region, — and the luxuriant maize of the middle and most delightful portions of the earth ; all apparently, in singular perfection. As you advance 24* 270 MEMORANDA OF towards the south, the mulberry and the vine which flourish every where around you, become mingled with the fig, in the open air. But it is not till you pass over the borders of ancient Liguria, that the olive, the orange, the lemon, and the almond tree fill the atmosphere with their delicious fragrance, and furnish what to less favoured countries are only delicacies, — but here, the prime necessaries of life. Without the olive especially, Italy would be a hundred times worse off than America would be without the cow sfnd the hog ; for strange as the comparison may seem, it will appear to be natural, when it is known that the olive oil is meat, butter and milk— and not seldom, bread also, to thousands of people. In whole districts, neither butter nor lard are heard of, even at the best hotels ; and even the small por- tion of sheep's milk and goat's milk kept for the luxurious, who require it with coffee, is very poor and dear. The cake of the olive, after it has been mashed and the oil pressed out, is the principal fuel, in many houses — even as far north as Nice and Genoa. They put it in a bason or open furnace, and set it in the midst of the apartment : believing, or affecting to believe, that it emits neither smoke nor odour ; both of which, but espe- cially the latter, I have personal knowledge, are mistakes. Turin, the capital of ihe kingdom of Sardinia, and the chief city of Piedmont, is also one of the largest of Italy. It contains 120,000 inhabitants, of whom I suppose one in every three of the adult males, is a soldier, a priest, or a beggar. After the overthrow of Napoleon, and the restoration of the reigning family, in 1814, it was determined to restore every thing pre- cisel}' to the condition in which it stood before the French invaded Italy the first time. They who desire to see the ancient order of things, have an opportunity here, of witnessing the precise condition of European states before the French Revolu- tion. The great ideas wiilch the last fifty years have made famiHar to the world, and which have shaken the world itself— exist here only incognite. If they penetrate through all barriers and find a lodgment in some congenial soil, the dungeons of Austria are open to receive and cure the unhappy infected. Who has not heiird the name of Silvio Pellico.'' The gigantic FOREIGN TRAVEL. 271 strides which men have taken, within that wonderful half cen- tury, in which the human race has made a greater progress in wealth, in general knowledge, in social improvement, and in religious ideas, — in short, in all that is practically efficient and great, than in the preceding ten centuries ; have left all Italy, and with the rest, Sardinia, just where she was. She has stood still. Supported by the whole military power of Austria — the throne of Sardinia is seated upon the top of a pyramid of Romish altars — exalted out of the reach of knowledge or reform. Every thing is settled upon principles which exclude the idea of merit, and make personal effort a useless absurdity. If a man he of such a rank, he is entitled to command a regiment, or have a bishopric; if of another, his place is to be that of priest or captain. The only possible exception is, that the king should degrade or elevate at his caprice, above or below the standard, but within the charmed circle ; or that the pope should give or refuse favour, a point or two aside from the usual course. The great bulk of the people have no rights, but to rejoice in the paternal government of the king, and grow wise under the spiritual guidance of the ecclesiastics, and pay with contentment the grinding demands of both. It is a most instructive hint, on the nature of kingly power, that the only thing which was left untouched in 1814, was the public imposts: which being im- mensely augmented were generally allowed to stand as they were ! The mendicants of Turin, for number, urgency, and squalled want, exceed belief And multitudes who are loo much disabled by afflictions to follow and harrass'the passers-by ; assume cer- tain positions, and there make known their wants and sorrows, in loud and periodical lamentations. The proportion of blind, deformed, and disabled persons, throughout Sardinia, is frightful. Many of these cases are presented by very young persons, and seem to manifest either a degree of poverty which renders the care of children impossible to their wretched mothers ; or, which is still more frightful to suppose, a degree of brutal degradation, which so weakens even the parental affections, as to render mothers careless of the helpless infancy of their oflJipring, 272 MEMORANDA OF I ought, perhaps, to apologize to all three of these immense classes, for uniting them ; for so little is their affinity in some respects, that I never saw a soldier beg ; nor a priest give one farthing to a mendicant. Both these peculiarities struck me vi'ith force. For the very few native beggars I had seen in my own happy country, passed generally for " old soldiers." And the Roman priesthood every where, makes the act of alms-giving so great a virtue, and professes so constantly the duty of per- forming it ; that I had expected nothing less than some general provision for the poor, where Catholicism reigned, and hoped surely to see ready manifestations of benevolence by the priests themselves. In both respects I was entirely disappointed. The poor, the mendicant, the wretched, unpitied, unprotected sufferer, multiplies generally in proportion to the absolute reign of papism ; and the total absence of all general and public provision for their support accords with this horrible increase of the need of it. — On the other hand, the Catholic ecclesiastics seem to consider the duty of alms giving to have relation to them only as recipi- ents, never as distributors of the bounty of the world. I have said I never saw a priest bestow an alms. I should add, I never saw one solicited for an alms. The mendicant who sits in rags at the street corner, unable to walk, and imploring a copper in the name of God, stops his complaints, and bows his head in reverent silence, while the priest passes in total neglect of him. The most urgent beggar will encounter a hundred priests in a day, and never think of demanding charity from one. I have sought the solution of this mystery. I have demanded of the poor — " Why do you beg me ? I am a stranger and a heretic. — I saw you but now, pass that well dressed priest in silence. Why did you not beg him ?" To such enquiries I have never received a verbal or a direct answer. Some have stared in my face, in absolute amazement : some have shrugged their shoulders : some looked at me acutely, and smiled : some turned on their heel and walked off. I have asked for the solution, at persons better informed and of various classes ; and the response has always been, in substance, that the contributions flowed all the other way : that the beggars gave the priests daily, weekly, monthly, FOREIGN TRAVEL. 273 and yearly contributions, for ten thousand objects, directly and indirectly spiritual ; but that the priests gave the beggars nothing of their own, at any time — and rarely the full amount of that which the benevolence of former ages placed in their hands, in trust, for suffering humanity. There is, however, an important sense in which soldiers, men- dicants, and priests must be coupled in the minds of all who think deeply. In the existing state of human society there must needs be wars and bloodshed ; and the only alternative seems to be, to pay soldiers or to pay masters. The necessity for public teachers is even more apparent than that for public defenders, and is likely to be more extended in duration. For even if we rank liberty above all human attainments, it were better to lose earth than heaven. But it must be manifest that the wants of a community are exceedingly limited in both these respects, as to the relative proportions of the body, which shall be called on to defend and teach the remainder. Indeed it is evident that the public capacity to support these two corps, is limited, almost as narrowly as the public necessity for them can be. When the necessary proportion is overpassed, the community is burdened, and the required duties worse performed. When the support- able proportion is exceeded, the state is impoverished and op- pressed ; its defenders become its greatest curse, and serve only to repress its efforts at reform ; while its public teachers of all kinds, but especially its religious teachers increase the general poverty, by the amount drawn from it for their own subsistence, augment the aggregate licentiousness, by the contagion of their own idle and vicious lives — and add the sanction of religion and philosophy to the ignorance and degradation of a condition which cannot be remedied without at once undermining their power, and destroying their importance. These remarks apply of course, only to that condition of society in which religion finds itself established by force of law. Their truth is fully illustrated in the dreadful condition of the people of which I write. Here the main end of government is to gratify the sov- ereign caprices, of a man they call " King ;" and to pamper the lust of a small privileged class around him. The great aim of 274 MEMORANDA OF all the immense preparations for public defence is to keep the people themselves in subjection. And the real object of the Papal church, no other than to extend indefinitely a system necessary for tyrants, because it sanctifies their crimes ; neces- sary for the oppressed and debased, because it makes their suf- ferings virtues, and their brutal sensualism harmless; and for the hierarchy itself, necessary as a competent support for the present day — and the only hope which the future presents for regaining the empire of the world. It would be unjust to apply these remarks with absolute uni- versality. I do not doubt that amongst the Catholic clergy of all countries there may be persons of virtue and honour, who fulfil their known duties with propriety ; and who would seize Avith joy every occasion to ameliorate evils which they see to be dreadful, but which they cannot see are either inherent in their religious system, or results of its usual action. On the other hand, it is proven by facts of no distant occurrence, as well as by manifest tokens visible in all the armies of Europe — that it is not always safe to trust that the soldier has entirely forgotten all the duties of the citizen, and all the noble sympa- thies of man. In the year 1820, the attempt to free northern Italy from the yoke of foreigners, and unite it in one powerful state, under some native prince — was conceived, matured, and but for a premature explosion would probably have been exe- cuted, by a portion of the Sardinian army. That it failed, proves the general truth of m}? observations ; while the fact of its con- ception teaches, as I admit, that their truth is not universal. Nor should we on the whole consider the present King of Sar- dinia, or any other particular Sovereign responsible, in the largest extent for existing systems. If Charles Albert were ever so desirous of giving free institutions to Sardinia, it is most probable that he would fail, perhaps perish, in the undertaking; or if he succeeded, it would be with care, labour, and danger, far beyond what he would encounter in the quiet enjoyment of his absolute power. It is far Irom certain that the mass of his sub- jects are in a condition either to appreciate or enjoy such glorious gifts. It is clear, past question, tiiat the power and influence of FOREIGN TRAVEL. 275 his nobles and priests would be thrown against him. And few can doubt what would be the course of all other absolute sov- ereigns, especially his neighbours of Austria and Naples, if an attempt were made to organize liberty in Italy. The truth is, there exists a vast conspiracy against man, formed between kings, soldiers, and the hierophants of all false religions. The sword and the king are constant elements; the third varies as {\ilse religion varies — but is ever its minister, whether Priest, Mufti, Bramin, or Conjurer. Against this terrific combination we have a tripple defence : the Bible, the Press, and the Schoolmaster. With the free action of either one of these agents, we can subvert the whole power of our enemies combined. But though we can subdue our adversaries with either, we can recover the world only by the united power of all these agents. In France the power of the press alone, has destroyed all adverse combinations; but the Bible and the horn book were wanting, and therefore nothing stable exists. In England, they have the Bible and the press only; in Ireland the press only ; in Scotland only, and in some of the Swiss Cantons, all three. Behold in each the appropriate results. In the midst of this conflict, there is one thought too consoling to be forgotten. The ranks of our adversaries are no longer thoroughly united. In several countries absolute power has wavered, and fragments of constitutions have been given to a ihw states where till lately despotism prevailed. So again, in one single instance, unique and illustrious in the whole lapse of centuries, a state thoroughly Papal, (I mean Belgium) driven by the intense power of the age, has permitted for the time religious toleration, nominally complete. But above all, the vast engines of oppression, the millions of armed men of Europe, are already penetrated more or less, with a restless instinct of their irresist- ible power. I know not what the sentiment which impels these terrible masses is. Nor is it at all important what it is, in the first stages of its impulsion. The grand necessity of the age is satisfied as soon as it is manifest that this Leviathan lives by an independent existence. It may be impelled by patriotism, by a Jove of liberty, by a lust of power, by a savage thirst for blood. 276 MEMORANDA OF Let it only be impelled by some indwelling emotion, some spring of action which the hands of legitimate tyranny cannot touch, nor the voice of hereditary superstition lull, — and then that mon- ster dies and the world lives. If the armies of the earth were disbanded, half the earth would be disenthraled by the act. For there is no alternative but to permit mankind to do as they list ; or to prevent it by the bayonet. The former is our theory ; the latter that of Europe. But if in Europe her only means of enforcing her own theory become more dangerous than to adopt ours, the final result could be no longer doubtful. As to the fact, on this new and deeply interesting topic, I need only remind the reader, at the present moment, that all the recent revolutions of Europe have been emphatically military revolutions! How grand is the aspect of the future; and how immense is the responsibility laid upon those who are in a posture to control it! The natural action of the moral elements is subverting already, or preparing for speedy dissolution, all that is not fit to be employed in the re-construction of society. This is but the first and smallest portion of the work. It presents a crisis which must come — which will not abide — and which if lost, must be waited for till the lapse of another era, more dark perhaps than that from which we have emerged. It is the very instant in which to prepare for the birth of nations. The husbandman who stQod on the borders of the Nile, saw no cloud, and heard no sound of the coming waters. But he beheld on his right iiand and on his left, the perpetual memorials that the fertilizing streams would return with the Virgin and Lion of his Zodiac. He looked upon the Sphinx, and he looked towards the heavens ; and he prepared himself for the coming labour ; certain that the bread he cast upon the waters would return again after many days ; but certain too, that if he lost that season, he lost what could never be replaced, and to which the like could return only in its appointed order. Behold the image of our state, our duty, our danger, and our hopes ! FOREIGN TRAVEL. 277 CHAPTER XXIX Turin — Police — Sabbath Day Employments — Palaces— Churches— Superstition, Royal and Popular— Association of the Children of Mary— Sismondi— Silvio Pel lico — Le Mie Prigione. The ancient Taurini who inhabited the region between the Po and the Tanaro, and said to have derived their appellation from the figure of a bull, which they used as their ensign in war. Turin, or in Italian Toreno, lays claim to more classical author- ity for its name ; and preserves still, an inscription which asserts that it was on the spot where she stands, that Jupiter first rest- ed, after carrying off Europa on his shoulders, under the form of milk white bull. They surely claim but Uttle in naming their ancestors and their city for the god ; in comparison of those who name the whole continent after his mistress. The city itself is one of the few brick ones on the continent. It belongs to the still smaller class of cities regularly laid out, in wide, rectangular streets. The colour of the clay of which the bricks are made, gives a muddy appearance to the walls of the houses ; and the thin wide bricks resembling tiles, contrast badly with the immense proportions of the palaces, churches, and rows of hotels, stores and shops, which are constructed of them. On the whole, it is a fine looking city — ornamented with several spacious open squares ; skirted by delightful promenades ; and its principal streets provided with those fine coUonades which are very common in Sardinia, and which form so delightful an appurtenance to the Rue Oastiglione and Rue Rivoli, in Paris. Vol. il— 25 278 MEMORANDA OF The city is almost square, and is entered only by four gates^ corresponding with the four cardinal points. At whichever gate the traveller seeks admission, he is questioned by the armed police — his proposed residence noted— and his passport taken from him. For this last he receives a receipt, which he presents at the proper bureau and receives his passport when he is ready to depart. I can testify, however, that he does not always get back the appurtenances which accompany his passport. I had provided for mine a morocco case, and had the passport attached to a fine sheet of muslin, and fastened firmly in the case. With- out some such precaution, the constant handling of this indis- pensable companion of every traveller in Europe, soon reduces it to a state of ruin. Mine had passed harmless through many hands ; but the fine finish of the case, and its just proportions probably displeased the police of Turin. Far be it from me to call in question their honesty. So it was ; I recovered the pass- port, but never the case. And when I pointed out to the head of the department, the proof of the loss, in obvious violence which had been necessary to separate the parts ; he honoured me with a shrug of the shoulders, and a contortion of the mus- taches which seemed intended to say that the afiair was at once very small, and very common. I so took it ; and simply observ- ed that as the thing suited me, 1 Avould pay double its value, for the finding of it. The answer was another shrug and contor- tion, which seemed to say that perquisites of this kind could not safely tolerate either composition or scrutiny. I said to my- self, remember you are in Italy. One of the days we spent in Turin was the Sabbath day. The population generally seemed to regard the day, as a day of rest at least, better than in most parts of France — better perhaps than in some parts of Switzerland, Geneva included. The shops were generally closed ; public labour suspended ; and a large part of the people, especially females, inclined to devote a portion of the time to such religious exercises as they have been taught are acceptable to God. Two hours in the forenoon, and two in the afternoon, are canonical in Geneva. In Sardinia the forenoon only is regarded as sacred. After mid-day, the churches FOREIGN TRAVEL. 279 are generally closed — the people devote themselves to amuse- ment, promenade the streets, fill the public walks and gardens, resort to the cafes, theatres, and gaming houses ; and commit greater excesses, than in the remaining six days of the week. Tiiere is, as far as l could learn, no Protestant preaching in Tu- rin, except that at the Prussian Embassy ; and I did not hear of that, until it was too late to attend. The king of Prussia pursues on this subject a line of conduct, uniform, and somewhat peculiar; in all cases attaching a Protestant, and sometimes a pious minister as chaplain to his embassies. At the present moment, the chaplain to his embassy at Rome, is said to be a man of evangelical views, a faithful witness to the truth, in the midst of apostacy. I was not at all favourably struck with the architecture or decorations of the churches of Turin, any more than of its pal- aces. The latter are plain almost to meanness ; the former dis- figured by redundant and tasteless decorations, and constructed in a manner replete with puerile conceits, and destitute alike of simplicity and grandeur. Every thing is crooked, gaudy and intricate, when an attempt at elegance is made ; and when con- venience merely is consulted, they degenerate into meanness and even dirt. I observed here for the first time, large webs of tap- estry hung out upon the fronts of a number of the churches during the Sabbath day; apparently for the more convenient use of those without, who can thus adore the figures marked on them without being obliged to pass into the crowded churches. The appearance is not unlike that of a carpet warehouse, with gaudy Brussels and Turkey fabrics depending from the win- dows and hanging in festoons about the walls. There are no less than a hundred and ten churches and chap- els in Turin — all of which, I believe without exception, have some special ground on which to claim the peculiar veneration of the faithful. The cathedral, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, who by a strange anachronism has been put into the Calendar of St. Peter's Disciples, possesses a relic of St. Suaire, superbly set in gold and jewels, and sumptuously venerated in a chapel decorated with the richest black marble, superbly polished 280 MEMORANDA OF and gilded. The Consolata of the Feuillans, has an image of the Virgin, deemed singularly hoi}' and efl&cacious, and therefore adored by multitudes with peculiar fervour. The Saint Therisa of the barefooted Carmelites, has a sacred alabaster figure of Saint Joseph, worshipped under a cupola supported by six mar- ble pillars ; all of different colours. I am not informed in what degree the efficacy of this image is derived from its curious and variegated habitation. In the church of St. Philip-di-Neri, there is a chapel adorned with a picture, the subject of which I cannot recall ; but which is literally imbedded in silver hearts, like the waxen ones I saw in the cathedral at Strasbourg. I made a slight estimate by counting the number of hearts in one or two rows and festoons, and then counting the number of fes- toons and rows. The hearts were of very different dimensions, and the strings of them of every variety of length and shape. — After making all due allowance, I could not estimate these votive offerings at less than three thousand, in this one small chapel. Amongst them were figures of other portions of the human body; but these bore no proportion to the number of hearts. Is this to be considered accidental ; or is it an evidence of the extent to which the " Adoration of the Sacred Heart" — has spread in Piedmont as well as in Savoy ? These ex voto offerings were exceedingly common amongst the ancient Romans; but it remained for those who borrowed all their religious customs, to turn it, like the rest, to a profitable account. In the neighbourhood of Turin are two churches held in peculiar veneration, erected by two of the kings of Sardinia, under very peculiar and somewhat similar circumstances — a cen- tury apart — and both dedicated to the Virgin Mary. At the ex- tremity of a noble bridge over the Po, on the other side from the city, is a rotunda of moderate dimensions, constructed after the model of the Pantheon at Rome. It bears an inscription in large letters, " To the Great Mother of God" During his exile the late king, Victor Emanuel, made a vow to the Virgin Mary, that if she would give him back his crown he would build her a church. In 1814 he found himself seated again on his absolute throne ; and redeemed his vow, by erecting this church. At the distance of FOREIGN TRAVEL. 281 two miles from Turin, seated on a lofty mountain, is the rich and costly church of Superga. For many miles in most direc- tions it presents a grand object to the traveller, as he approaches or departs from Turin. Towards the west, as far as Rivoli ten miles off on the side of Mont Cenis, its white walls are seen with perfect distinctness ; and towards the south, 1 thought I could discern it distinctly at the distance of a day's journey over the plains of Piedmont. A tablet at this church expresses that when the French beseiged Turin, in 1706, the then reigning King, Victor Amedius, vowed to the Virgin Mary a superb church, if she would cause the French to raise the seige. She did so, says the record ; and the faithful king not only built the church, but erected a statue to her, which the faithful might ven- erate as the most acceptable homage to the protectress of the city. The French Marshal Villars, on being shown this image, drily observed, " I had no idea the Virgin Mary so nearly resembled the Duchess of Burgoine i" whose share in raising the seige of Turin, is reputed to have been fully equal to the Virgin's, In such a country, and with such a patronage of idolatry and superstition, there can surely be no wonder that the knowledge of the true God is almost extinct amongst the people ; nor that a most extraordinary system, of which the Virgin Mary is the head, has supplanted all true religion. In 1814 we see the idol- atry of 1706 reiterated in the same place, by the successor to the throne of the same kingdom; the only difference being that the latter period, attributed to a dead female all the power and providence of a vast and complicated series of events, instead of one single and rather subordinate action, referred to her by the earlier of the two. In the year 1799, the Aretines in Tus- cany rose against the French, raised an army of twenty-five thousand men, appointed the Virgin Mary generalissima, and entered Florence in triumph, headed by Signora Mari. Such was their dependence on^the divine guidance of the Virgin, that four hundred Aretines marched to Prato Antico, and gave bat- tle to seven thousand of Napolean's veterans ! This is only thirty-seven years ago, being nearly synchronous with the period 25* 282 MEMORANDA OF in which the Lazaroni of Naples broiled and ate those whom they called Jacobins, in the name of the Pope and the blessed Virgin. In the instant in which I write, a powerful nation is deluged with civil blood, shed by armies, of which one has for- mally recognized "our Lady los Dolores," as commander-in- chief— thereto appointed by a royal decree. Spain is desolated by troops whose king openly avows that his only hope of regain- ing his throne is based on the favour of the Virgin Mary ; and whose royal standard is nothing else than a lady's undergarment ! This worship of the Virgin which has been so long insensibly usurping the place of all others in the Romish church, or insin- uating itself into a participation with all that can stand its ground against it, is at length fully organized. It will probably pervade the entire apostacy in form, as well as in fact. An immense organization calling themselves the " Children of Mary" — is already formed over the whole world. Its inception is not very recent; but it was only in 1816, if my memory is accurate, that the Pope formally recognized it by a bull, and favoured it at once with privileges and strong recommendations to the faithful. The month of May is devoted by them in a peculiar manner, to the service of the Virgin. They have modes of recognition ; keep special images of Mary for private worship ; bind them- selves to strive for the extension of their order and the total conversion of the world to it; and being of CJltra-Montaine or Italian origin, the order like that of the worship of the human heart of Jesus and Mary, is thoroughly devoted to the princi- ples, if not to the party of the Jesuits. I saw in Italy and France, hymn books in honour of Mary, in the hands of the young ; and more grave expositions for persons more advanced. I repeat what I have before had occasion to say ; the Virgin Mary is the real object of the religious worship of European Papists. On ancient works the initials J. O. M. and J. R. are often met with ; signifying Jupiter, Optimus, Maximus, and Juno Rep^ina; Jupi- ter, the Benificent, the Almighty; Juno, the Queen, In the three first initials the Papists make no change, but simply supply the word Jupiter, with the word Jesus ; and so use the initial at the present day. But more frequently they change the first letter, I FOREIGN TRAVEL. 283 by inserting D or P, in the place of J : in the former case the D standing for Deuij (God,) and in the latter for Pontifex, (High Priest, Pope). We may therefore substitute one word in the famous line "Jehovah, Jove or Lord," and make it read, *' Pope, Jove, Jehovah, Lord ;" — and the " Universal Prayer" will in this assert a particular historical truth, if not a universal theological one. In the second series of initials, they only change the first, so as to Make it Mary instead o^ Juno ; and so use it M. R. In effect, the slightest observation will show any one, how incessantly the epithet " Queen'' is applied to Mary, in all her liturgies, and by all her eulogists. And even where this form cannot possibly be used, it is supplied by the initials A. M. — jive Maria — Hail Mary ; which indicate the dedication of more churches and altars to her, than to all " the Lords many and Gods many" — of their Calendar. Now let me in the fear of God ask this plain question : can any man with an honest conscience call that system Christian, in which these elements enter? If not, what ought Christians to do, to save those who are under the bonds of delusion, and to hinder its further spread? I have mentioned incidentally the name of Silvio Pellico. I was deprived of the happiness of seeing him at Turin", as I had before been at Geneva of meeting with Sismondi. They were both absent ; or rather the latter was residing near Pavia ; the former is not, as I had been informed, a resident of Turin, but of a village some leagues off. Sismondi is one of the most voluminous writers of this age : Silvio Pellico has published little that I know of, beyond a single small volume. And yet, with all the just fame of the Genevese historian and philosopher, a fame which is well deserved, and will increase with time ; I am ready to place the modest and oppressed Italian by his side, as one of the most remarkable men who has illustrated the pres- ent generation. I believe no single book Avhich this century has produced, has exerted a greater influence and is destined to have a larger share in fashioning the ideas of Europe, than Le Mie Prigiotie (My Prisons) of Silvio Pellico. The victim of Austrian hatred of liberty, he suffered for ten years all the vex- 284 MEMORANDA. OF ations, oppressions and insults of a rigorous confinement in various prisons, for no alleged crime, nor by reason of any for- mal conviction ; but on suspicion, and by way of detention ! — His little volume reveals the history of his own heart, and tells the story of the miserable partakers of his various captivities. And what a story it is ! Modest, grave, candid : full of pathos, full of dignity ; without a word of reproach or bitterness against the oppressor and the unjust ; eloquent for the sorrows of all other sufferers, and pitiful for those whose very crimes break our hearts ; but as to lis own severe trials, recording them only as causes or illustrations of his mental experience. To write a book which is in all respects so remarkable, a man should be at once a poet, a philosopher, and a Christian. And such 1 am persuaded is Silvio Pellico. Le Mie Prigione has already passed through five French edi- tions — and been translated both into English and German. I am not aware of its having been re-published in America. I had never seen it till my ItaHan master in Paris put it into my hands : and as we read it together, I cannot venture to estimate the number of times that the depth of our emotions arrested for a moment the progress of our studies. It is no mean tribute to a book, that in a use like this, its power over the heart should be so strongly manifest. Yet such is its extraordinary forbearance and gentleness, that not only Sardinia, but Austria and all Italy, except the states of the Pope, permit its free circulation. The Congregation of the Index Prohibitorius, under the eye of the Sovereign Pontiff, prohibits the circulation of it, in the pontifi- cal states. The same authority which imprisoned Gallileo, and forced him in view of the stake to retract his sublime discoveries in science, and swear on the holy Sacrament that the earth was flat and stationary, and that the sun revolved around it ; the same terrible spirit which disinterred and dishonoured the sacred dust of John Wiklif, because he taught that a man should believe his own senses ; and burnt John Huss for asserting the right of private judgment : the same tribunal which taught, as it says of God, has so long chosen for the faithful both their books and their victuals ; that authority, spirit, and tribunal, have passed FOREIGN TRAVEL. 285 upon Silvio Pellico, and consigned his beautiful production to everlasting fame — by placing it in a like condemnation with the most exquisite performances of all past times. I am not sure that if I were asked for a selection of the best books that had been written in all ages— I could do better than copy the list which the Papal church has prohibited. ( 286 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXX Gallery of the King at Turin— Egyptian Museum— Champollion— Reflections on the Hieroglyphical System— Hieroglypliical Spirit Inherent in all Language— Mum- mies— Egyptian Civilization— Illustration of Prophecy— Quarantine Regulations — Anotlier Change of Route— Espionage— Social State— Emeute— Feverish Condi- tion of Society. The King of Sardinia has a Gallery of Paintings, which is said to possess an extensive and superb collection of the Flem- ish School. It is justly considered one of the most interesting objects in Turin. I did not find opportunity to see it in the only way in which such an object can be said to have been seen. One had almost as well not see the great works of art, as to be obliged to run over them, as a child turns over a port folio, knowing only by their titles, that he has passed the objects by. He who has spent days and weeks in the galleries of Europe, for example in that of the Louvre, growing into the.very spirit of the great dead, by the intense and enthusiastic study of their works ; acquires imperceptibly a feeling towards pictures a-kin to that which the most precious living objects engender ; and so passes them by when they come within his reach, only under strong necessity, and then with a sense of privation, of which the uncultivated spirit has no conception. For my part, I hardly doubt the story of that Roman maiden, who is said to have died of love at the feet of the Apollo Belvidere. There is here also an Egyptian Museum, the most complete and various in Europe; collected and arranged by the predecessor of the present king, at a cost of three hundred thousand francs. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 287 Amongst these monuments of long forgotten generations, — ChampoUion^ the renowned expositor of the hieroglyphical sys- tem of Egypt, spent days and months of intense and enthusi- astic labour. It was here that he found or forced some of the most striking proofs of his previous conjectures ; and the beetles, and bulls, and birds, before whose intricate forms the savans of Europe had so long turned pale, stood revealed to the fervid imagination of the triumphant Frenchman, in their double capa- city as at once the Gods, and the keys of thought, to that re- markable people. It seems to me that nothing is easier than for a man to make just what he pleases, out of any system of hiero- glyphics ; or on the other hand, to make a system of hieroglyph- ics out of any thing he chooses to light on. The only requis- ite is, that there should be previous system in the thing explain- ed ; and a pre-conceived system to be supported. Thus, Baron. Swedenburg, having resolved that he would find a certain spirit- ual and interior sense in Scripture, which should be perfectly coherent in itself, and reveal the future in a more full manner than other modes of exposition ; had need only to say that every leading word of the Scripture, meant a leading word of his own system, and the two were as certain to coincide, as a man's coat cut precisely to his measure is certain to fit him. Now he who takes the hieroglyphics, and makes a system, has only to reverse this order, and make the man to the coat ; as it is not impossible Champollion has done ; in practising a delusion more innocent, but possibly not less real, than thai of Swedenburg. What renders this somewhat probable, is, that several opposite systems for explaining hieroglyphics, seem equally to eflect the mere object of explanation, but to result in expositions widely differ- ent ; a result not only necessary, on the principle I have stated above, but explanatory of it. It is not, however, insinuated, that all attempts to explain the Egyptian hieroglyphics have been either delusive or deceptive ; nor in particular have I any intention of asserting that the system of Champollion, is either the one or the other. I am rather inclined to the opinion that it is neither. And not the less so, that the results of his explanations are comparatively so poor 288 MEMORANDA OF and barren. For it is hardly conceivable that a man like Cham- pollion would devote his life to a phantom, which he very soon perceived would end its nothing, except the unravelling of a mystery, important only because it was hidden ; unless he was not only satisfied, but satisfied on good grounds, that he was guided by truth. The results are too barren for fiction ; and they correspond so nearly in their insignificance, with precisely similar inscriptions, in every intervening age down to our own ; that he who will read any series of monumental records, whether in books or in church-^^ards, will see great reason to think that these which have survived so many attacks of time, are at length truly expounded. For it is more difl&cult to find a reason which should place the worshippers of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, — in this respect, above those devoted to a more reason- able idolatry, or a pure worship ; than to receive even the im- probable, or useless speculations of the ingenious and learned. Our opinions on such subjects, as on many others, are ex- tremely liable to be influenced generally by the course of our own previous studies. This subject is in its very nature philolo- gical ; and a man who has had occasion to make himself ac- quainted only with some of the languages which have prevailed in western Europe, from the Greeks downwards ; would probably be in a very different temper of mind, in deciding in regard to it, from another who had studied some of the utterly different Shemitish tongues. He who will compare the French with the Hebrew, is ready to admit almost any thing which may be de- manded of his credulity in regard to llie structure of human speech. And if what they tell us of the Chinese of our own day be true, I see in it and dialects kindred to it, every thing so remote from both the families of languages before spoken of that I am ready to believe any thing Champollion could assert of the mystical language of Egypt. And really why not ? Every sys- tem of telegraphic signs is a hieroglyphical system ; and these sys- tems both by flags and characters are now extremely cofnraon and complete. Most systems of short-hand writing are the same : mathematical signs compose a singularly perfect system : the arithmetical figures in constant use are another : and the Roman FOEEIGN TRAVEL. 289 characters afford an instance of the double use contended for in the Egyptian figures, for we use them both as letters and numer- als. By the way let me say, we have as completely lost the method of written calculation by the Roman, Greek, and He- brew numerals, as we have that of construeing the Egyptian signs. Let any man attempt to go through the simplest arith- metical process in writing, by the aid of any of these numerals, and he will see at once that we have lost the art ; if indeed it ever existed, except as a mental process. The truth is, that what we call the figurative use of words approaches very nearly to a hieroglyphical system. And there is here another somewhat similar peculiarity of language, which reveals one of its greatest difficulties, and shows at the same moment the strong tendency of all language to what may be called the independent or hieroglyphical, in its component parts. See the use of the smallest particles ; we say " a man of cour- age" — then we say " one of them." In one of these sentences, of J is descriptive ; in the other paritive ; and so small is the afiin • ity of the two senses, that he who first learns one sense of the particle, is confounded when he comes to the knowledge of the other. But these difficulties multiply themselves indefinitely. We say, *' he obtained it of me," giving it a strong transitive sense. Then we say, *' I am deprived of hope" — making the privitive sense equally strong. He who has attempted to ac- quire any foreign language so as to express his ideas in it rapidly, is not only sensible of the tendency in him=5elf to give fixation to the sense of words, and a strong and constant reluctance to use them in any but what seems to him the prime sense : but he is also surprised to find in every word, an inherent power of combina- tion, and a facility of independent, separate, may I not add hie- roglyphic meaning and action, which give to language so large a part of its flexibility and variety. These suggestions may be of little use, in regard to their main intent. But they seem to me to afford a clear and strong argument against all quackery in learning languages ; and especially against the very prevailing one of memorising arbitrary phrases, as a substitute for an exact knowledge of peculiar forms. Vol. n.— 26 290 MEMORANDA OF Before the expeditiow of Napoleon into Egypt, mummies were regarded as great rarities in every part of the world. I distinct- ly reraeraber, even fifteen or twenty years after that era, the finding of a human body in a saltpetre cave in Kentucky ; and the strong and universal emotion which the exhibition of the imperfect and hideous object produced. Even at present, mum- mies in a state of perfect preservation are not common in Amer- ica. In every part of Europe it is quite the reverse. Two or three of them form a part of the smallest museums ; and they stand by scores, about the halls of those more extensive. It is said that a regular trade has been carried on in the interior of Egypt, in this extraordinary species of merchandise, since the French savans began to ransack the catacombs and reveal the boundless extent of their treasures. The price is as regularly fixed as that of grain ; and at Cairo or Rosetta, the peasants will bring in to order kings, or priests, or nobles, who have ceased to live in the flesh some thousands of years, attached to their backs like sacks of wheat — and sold by poll, at fifteen francs each. This whole subject is worthy of the more consideration, on account of the remarkable and perpetual tests which the history and condition of Egypt afford, by which to try the word of God. I do not remember that God ever said of any country, except Egypt, that it should be perpetually degraded and enslaved. He said this of her, and said it against ail possible calculations of human wisdom. For lier local situation rendered her the strong- est and the most secluded of all nations. He said it at the most improbable of ail times ; for it was when she who was first, was also most I'amous in arts, letters and power. To perpetuate the knowledge of what she really was, he permitted his own chosen people to be ground down in slavery, that their hands might upbuild on the spot itseUj the most stupendous monuments of power and riches that the world contains. And then came nation after nation, and conqueror on the heels of conqueror. Then fell stroke after stroke; and Egypt, through countless centuries lay perishing under the fiat of Jehovah. Time weak- ened the power of this proof. In the raidst of the apostacy of 1 \ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 291 the world, God selected the only nation avowedly Atheist — and allowed her to precipitate upon Egypt, resistless armies led by heroes, nursed in victory, and accompanied by the most profound and elegant philosophers of their lime. Witness the result. The destiny of Egypt written in that word more enduring than earth and sky, is only stiffened into a more rigid and death-like fixedness. But at the same moment her unknown monuments are revealed — her vast ruins explored — her majestic fragments turned up to the light of heaven. And now, there is no spot in Europe which is not replete with monuments, to prove that the ancient grandeur of Egypt was as extraordinary as her present degradation. In the Basilica of St. Peter's at Rome, stands one of her Obelisks; in the Place of Concord at Paris, I saw them in the process of setting up a second, which had stood countless ages by the Nile ; and England, it is said, is seeking a third as one of her chiefest ornaments. The richest apartments of the grand museums of the earth are full of Egyp- tian marbles ; the most chaste and enduring monuments of arch- itectural beauty, have derived their first conceptions from the temples of these dead priests, and the palaces of these withered and blackened kings, into whose ghastly faces children gaze unmoved, in lands remote from their sepulture — and about the monumental details of whose occupations and descent, scholars fill the world with the painful and laborious trifles of learning ! Egypt as she was, and as she is, separated by the widest interval which divides human conditions, lives forever, side by side ; and challenges the world through all ages, to behold how true is God — and how fearful a thing it is to lall into his hands. One principal object of our going to Turin, instead of cross- ing the Alps from Geneva to Milan by the Semplon, was entirely defeated. We had been informed, as we supposed on sufficient authority, that the way to Rome through Sardinia was open; while that by the Lombard Venetian states continued shut, by long and repeated quarantines. This seemed the more to be relied on, as the cholera was still raging on the shores of the Adriatic, and had hardly ceased in the Milanese, but had not existed at all for many months in any part of Sardinia, ex- 292 MEMORANDA OF cept the city of Genoa. When we reached Turin, we found that the whole kingdom of Sardinia was considered infected, by the Papal authorities ; and that a quarantine of eighteen days, shut up in the chamber of a lazaretto, with a soldier at the door watching to see if you Avould not have cholera, must be submit- ted to by all who would pass directly from one to the other. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, for the sake of keeping his states in full communication with those of the Pope, arranges his quar- antines precisely as the former does his : and as the territories of the two extend entirely across the peninsula, there remained no possibility of penetrating Italy directly, except on conditions as insupportable as they are absurd and barbarous. It is at least a consolation that the superstition and ignorance of the Papal authorities, by making their proceedings ridiculous ; and their extraordinary timidity by rendering them contemptible ; will tend to bring the whole quarantine system with its vexations and inhumanity into the universal odium, which ought to attach to it. Leaving out of the question the certainty that very few diseases are contagious, and that of these few, hardly one is really capable of being reached by any sort of quarantine regu- lations; what can be more admirably calculated to give a man every sort of disease, which is not contagious, than to shut him up amid the filth, bad air, and horrid accommodations of tempo- rary hospitals— that he may be watched for weeks together, lo see if he wont die ? I had knowledge in my childhood of a singu- lar proof of the power of the imagination over a man in perfect health, and under circumstances but little calculated to aid its de- lusions ; which sufficiently proves v/hat it might do, if helped by causes, as injurious as its own vagaries- A traveller who passed the night at the hotel of a village in which one of our colleges is located ; was unfortunate enough to offend some of the younger students, who for purposes of their own, were spending at the same hotel, hours that might have been better employed else- where. They resolved on being revenged. And after the traveller had retired to rest, one of them crept into his room —carried off his vest— sewed up a large tuck down the back — replaced it— and then they unitedly gave the alarm of fire, with FOREIGN TRAVEL. 293 all their might. As was foreseen, the stranger arose and hastily- dressed himself; the house was all confusion ; the alarm proved to be false. When matters had a little subsided, one of the lads obserred to the stranger that he looked very much swollen. He took little notice of the remark ; but as his attention was directed that way, tried to button his vest. He found it would not button ! The boys regarded him with surprise, and appa- rent interest ; sympathised with his deplorable state ; bewailed his alarming increase of bulk, and urgently proffered their servi- ces to bring in the village physician. In short, it became a serious affair. The stranger became alarmed ; he nauseated, he became giddy, his pulse throbbed, his skin tingled ; and when the medical man arrived, prompt and decided measures were considered indispensable ! How far matters would have gone, it may be hard to say ; as the whole affair was solved by one of the lads revealing the tuck in the back of the vest ! Shut out from farther approach to Rome by land, it only remained to seek a continuance of our proposed journey by water. We turned our steps directly south, towards the Medi- terranean ; hoping to be able to reach Naples or Civitta Vecchia from Nice or Geneva, by one of the numerous steam boats, which bring so nigh together the ports of that great inland sea. The night of the 25th of October, 1836, the last one we spent in Turin, was signalised by a multitude of simultaneous arrests, not only in that city, but throughout Sardinia. It was not mentioned at all, that I ever saw, in any of the Sardinian newspapers ; and was communicated to those of adjoining king- doms only in general terms, through private sources. For the press and the post office are equally, but in different ways under the surveillance of the government. Indeed the system of espi- onage exceeds all that can be credited, by a simple minded American. Persons in every condition of life from the highest nobility and clergy down to street beggars and waiters in hotels, are spies in the pay of the state. No relations of society are so sacred as to resist such attempts; and as the Inquisition makes it a religious duty in the child to inform against the pa- rent, and in the wife to denounce her husband ; the govern* 26* 294 MEMORANDA OF ments of tyrants only turn this moral precept into practice, and reward the performance of virtue, by bestowing the recompense it has won. Not a little of the treacherous, deceitful, suspicious, cruel, and cowardly character which other Europeans attribute to the Italians, may undoubtedly be traced to the terrible influ- ences directed against them by their governments. How shall he confide in religion or honour, whose king, the source of honour as Montesquieu affirms, reigns by trampling on all its precepts ; and whose priests, the ministers of his religion, practice and teach the violation of the most sacred laws of morality ? How shall he trust to friendship or to the ties of nature, whose wife is the mistress of his friend — his children of doubtful parentage, — and friend, wife and child, mutually spies upon each other and upon him ? Spies, whose devotion consists in revealing at the confessional, every thing that most nearly touches him, to the priest ; and who derive at once indemnity, power, and wealth, from betraying him to the state ? We may abhor the crimes of Italy, and turn with disgust from many aspects of the national character of its people. But we should never forget tliat these unhappy men are the victims of a most cruel destiny; nor cease to abhor with a double fervour that which has made them what they are. In good truth, no nation has suffered more, none perhaps has resisted the influences of social and national corrup- tion, with a more abiding and devoted spirit. These arrests were said to have been made in consequence of information communicated by the government of France, to that of Sardinia ; and which revealed a conspiracy of vast ex- tent, ramified through both of those kingdoms, and several others. Its first explosion was to have been in Sardinia ; hence, as was alleged, the first arrests were made there. They who pay any attention to such rumours fabricated and put in circulation by the agents of the governments themselves — will soon find how little credit they deserve. But if they search deeper, they will find that every despotic government of Europe, and all others that would gladly become so ,• not only have spies in every conspiracy against themselves, but that they have absolutely excited most of the mad attempts which have signalized the last FOREIGN TRAVEL. 295 fifteen years. All sorts of facilities are given to agitators,- who are first paid for seducing, and then for betraying their victims. And there can be no doubt that hundreds have been implicated, who but for the temptations thrown before them by their own rulers, would never have imagined treason. It is, however, a vain thing to resist by expedients, the inhe- rent nature of things. No degree of external power can sup- press the ceaseless action of that which springs eternal from within. No outward preparation, however complete and organ- ized, can guard at every point, the sleepless watchings of an activity which inheres as a portion of the existence which is op- pressed. The heart of man cannot be robbed of any sentiment which makes a portion of itself. Thus we find in every part of Europe, a constant series of real attempts at change, in addition to those false movements fostered by power, for its own cruel ends. And thus too, we find in the midst of circumstances which seem to forbid secrecy or escape, the weak eluding the all powerful, and the hunted patriot escaping the fangs of his pursu- ers like the partridge on the mountain. These Sardinian arrests, made over a whole kingdom in the same moment ; and previous- ly concerted under every possible advantage— were to a consid- erable extent foreseen, and eluded , by many of the intended victims. Even after weeks of the most rigorous search — no traces could be found, of persons marked, and dogged, up to the hour when their fate was considered fixed. Humanity is consoled by reflections and incidents, which prove the existence of resources against the absolute ruin of society, whicli in the utmost extremity, still open to it a door of hope. 296 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXXI Journey from Turin towards Nice— The Po— Plains of Piedmont— Culture of Silk —Of the Vine— The Climate and Sky of Italy— Italian Landscapes^Savigliano— Popular Sports. As we drove out of the southern gate of Turin, into a thick October fog, which at this season covers the banks of the Po till mid-day, I perceived that the arraed police were thribbled both in numbers and in vigilance. I have given the reason of these changes in the foregoing chapter. I learnt it a week after- wards at Nice ; to which point we now bent our steps, up the main stem of the Po— and then up its southern branches, to their head in the Alps ; and onward over their enormous summits to the Mediterranean Sea. The distance from Turin to Nice, may- be about a hundred and fifty English miles ; of which the first half is a level plain, the last one of the most savage regions of Europe. Most of the streams which issue from the southern and eastern sides of the Alps, in their mighty curve from the Mediterranean towards the head of the Adriatic — find their way first into the Po ; which after draining and watering the larger part of the wide and rich plains of upper Italy, throws itself by many out- lets into the last named sea, through an extensive alluvial delta, like that of the Nile or the Mississippi. This river compared with any known to the Romans in the earlier periods of their greatness, might justify much of the enthusiasm with which they regarded Eridauus, the father of rivers. Compared with the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 297 great streams of Asia or America, it sinks into absolute insignifi- cance. At Turin, it is little more than half as wide as James river at Richmond ; and its most distant head not much over a hundred miles from thence. Above that city, its bed is wide and rocky, giving too clear evidences of frequent and terrible floods, to which it is subject throughout its whole course. On the portions of it near its mouths, there is a class of officers called Guardia di Poy whose business it is to watch the progress of its inundations ; and to prevent, as it is said, persons on its opposite banks from mutual attempts to protect themselves by sluicing off the increasing waters upon each other. Every part of the plains of Piedmont, which 1 saw, and the fact is the same with the entire region watered by the Po — was completely irri- gated, and might apparently be easily inundated by its waters. Small channels conducted the water in every direction through or around the fields. Delightful streams ran at the road side, always on one, and generally on both sides, at the foot of the rows of mulberries, poplars, and elms, which every where skirt the high-ways. These innumerable and constant drains, reduce the volume of its waters \ery much at their ordinary stage, and afford a great relief against its floods ; besides beautifying the landscape, and fertilizing ihe country. I presume they also affect injuriously the health of all this part of Italy — whose labouring population burnt by their intense sun to a deep brown — add to it an air of lassitude, and a hollowness of visage, which strongly betokened the absence of elastic and vigorous health. There is as little in the aspect of the people as of the country, to recall the region and the name of their ancestors ; and one is ready to question at every step, the propriety of their ancient name of Cis-alpine Gaules. Before reaching Raconiggi, we crossed the river in a boat, which traversed the stream merely by the force of the current. Being attached to a large cord, the other end of which was made fast to a post planted about the middle of the stream, perhaps a hundred yards above, and kept from svvagging in the water by resting on a succession of small skiffs : the helm had only to be turned to the right or left, according to the direction required for the boat to go ; and thus 298 MEMORANDA OF throwing its bow to the stream, at such an angle that the diagonals of the forces, as they shifted, made practically a curve, — we were soon landed on the opposite shore. I had seen several such contrivances in America. This was the only one I saw in Europe, and I was surprised to see any thing at once so simple and ingenious, in this place. And my surprise had cer- tainly no reason to be diminished, when I saw a box fastened upon one side of the boat (ill written and ill spelt,) inscribed thus : Elemosina per le anime purganti : Alms for the souls in purga- tory. Grain, wine, and silk, are the great staples of these rich plains, in all their extent. Of the first class of articles, rice was for a long period the principal, as an article of export; and a consid- erable trade is still carried on in it. But the excessive sacrifice of life and health which was constantly found to attend its cul- ture, has caused it to be restricted to places remote trom the high-ways and towns. The silk trade of Europe, especially of Italy, was nearly destroyed during the wars of the French rev- olution. And before the manufacture of the article had been reinstated, it encountered a new enemy. The invention of the cotton gin, and the power loom, and the perfection of the various subordinate processes by which cotton is prepared for the loom, and afterwards for the person, all sustained by the perfection of the steam engine, and its application to all these processes, have unitedly produced a revolution in commerce, whose influences the world is only beginning to perceive. Amongst the first of its efiects will be, to supplant wool, hemp, flax, and silk, in part of their former uses ; by an article at a tenth or fiftieth of the cost of the former, and answering all its material ends. Not- withstanding the enormous value of labour in the United States, and its cheapness in Italy and France, the silk trade of both countries, is languishing year by year, under the influence of our increased culture of cotton. It does not perhaps enter into the thoughts of our cotton planters, that their wealth is a direct cause of the poverty of thousands in the south of Europe. So strongly does the modern state of human society, lock the des- tinies of communities in each other. 1 FOREIGN TRAVEL. 299 The culture of the vine, is universal in every part of Europe, ^vhere the climate will at all allow of it ; and its mode of treat- ment is more various than that of any other production of the earth. In the central parts of France, the vines are planted very close, without method; trimmed within a few inches of the ground, stuck with a single short stick, and but few sprouts allowed to stand. It is a poor, thin soil, which they devote to the vine ; and the culture corresponds. In Alsace, Baden, and the Swiss Cantons on the Rhine, and the lakes Constance and Geneva, the vine grows to a larger size, is planted in regular rows one or both ways, stuck with high poles, and treated some- what as we treat the hop. In Savoy, they often devote their best lands to the vine, and there you see it most commonly run- ning up small elm trees, and married, as they express it, from tree to tree ; or trained upon arbours of a peculiar Ibrm, and low construction. In the rich plains of Piedmont, the vines are, planted in wide rows, from twenty to fifty feet apart, and these intervals tilled in various ways. In the rows, the vines are very close together, generally within a foot of each other : and here the main stems are allowed to grow to the height of four or five feet, at ivhich they are stopped, supported by a double rack, ou which the young shoots rest, and look somewhat like a row of our raspberry bushes. In the south of France, especially in Provence and Languedoc, the soil given to the vine is a poor, red gravel, over which the vines sprangle like a field of briars, without any sort of slicks or other support. They are planted close, rarely in rows ; the shoots grow about three feet in a season — and are trimmed close at the end of it. As you mount the valley of the Rhone, in Dauphine, they stick the vine with three or four small sticks, wide apart at the bottom, and united at the top : and around these, six or eight feeble boking twigs are trained. Around Lyons, they make escaliers of the vine, as we do of various fruit trees. In general, I may say I have not seen any two districts in which this universal plant was cullivaled alike. What I had long suspected was thus fully proven to me : namely, that the ill success attending the culture of the vine in the United States, has proceeded entirely from absurd attempts 300 MEMORANDA OF made under the guidance of ignorant foreigners, to treat the vine precisely as they treated it, in their respective districts in Europe. The vine is one of the hardiest of plants, and is indig- inous in every part of the United States, often of a better qual- ity, in a state of nature, than hundreds of European vineyards yield at the present day. A considerable and uniformly success- ful experience, now confirmed by all I have seen in several of the principal vine growing nations of the world, fully convinced me that a little more reliance on our own common sense, directed to the observance of the habits and necessities of the plant in various localities, are only wanting, to make it flourish in every part of America. We cannot expect in our more rigorous latitudes the delicious table grape of the south of Europe; but in their proper location we can have the best, and every where the good. However all reasonable men should set their faces against the use of brandy, as well as other distilled poison ; and however the fanatical may push their conclusions against the pure juice of the grape, to the extent almost of condemning by implication the personal habits of the Saviour of the world as immoral ; still, none have yet denied, nor if they should will man}' believe them, that the grape is amongst the most delicious and healthful of fruits. I had heard always of the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere of Italy — and the consequent richness of its moon and star light, and the deep blue of its sky. I am not sure that I am qualified to speak on these subjects, by reason of not having seen the skies and moons, either of Florence, Rome, or Naples. But I can easily imagine that a person from France or any part of Great Britain, would be a still more unqualified judge, even after seeing every part of Italy ; for both those countries, and especially the former, bear no comparison in these respects, even with the best regions of the United States ; far less with boasted Italy. Indeed Italy throughout its whole extent, corresponds in climate much more with America, than with northern Europe. The climate of that part of it under the Alps, resembles exceedingly that of our middle states ; and that of the part skirting the long bases of the Appenines, assimilates FOREIGN TRAVEL. 301 closely to the climate of the Carolinas. Georgia, and Florida. I believe the climate of Florida to be little, if at all, inferior to that of Naples. As to the autumnal months in Sardinia, they resemble exceedingly the same season in Virginia, and especially in Kentucky and Tennessee. The same redness of the sky ; the same strong outline imparted to every object; the same bright sun ; the same delicious mellowness of the light of the moon and stars. It reminded me when it was finest of our Indian Summers, when not too much accompanied by the hazi- ness which there, as well as here, frequently attends them. But in addition to that haziness, in all northern Italy, and probably in every part of it, the autumnal months being with them dense and damp fogs, which from midnight till noon of the following day envelope the whole country, and hide the face of day. From the top of the CoUe di Tende, which is the first summit that is ascended on the route to Nice, I had a most sombre view of one of these fogs. When the atmosphere is clear, the pros- pect from this mountain is one of immense extent and variety ; and we had looked forward to it with great expectation. — When we reached the top, it was nearly noon. Towards the south, the sky was perfectly clear ; and the wilderness of rocks and mountains, strewed in absolute confusion and stretching to the sea, stood out in perfect distinctness — and seemed to swell into unnatural vastness. To the north and east. Piedmont and Lombardy lay covered with one continued and impenetrable bed of dark cloud, too thick, and the rays of the sun too direct to make any reflexion of light visible — and therefore uniform in its sad and monotonous stillness. At the distant skirts of this sea of fog, the dim outlines of the Alps could with difficulty be seen ; and at long intervals the highest summits projected their forms. They strike the imagination like ramparts and watch towers around an empire smitten on a sudden with universal death, and from which they would warn the approach of any living thing ! But all days are not like this, nor all the prospects of this beautiful country so sombre as that now described. From the Royal Palace at Rivoli. — from the heights around Turin, — but especially from the Public Square of Savigliano, we enjoyed , Vol. n.— 27 302 MEMORANDA OF under favour of a delicious sky, views whicFi stamp their images indelibly on the memory; and which afford, in ti;e delight with which the lover of nature recalls them, some of the sweetest and most humanising results of travel. The sight of the vast panorama of the Alps and Appenines, first under a clear sun-set. and then by a brilliant moon, from Savigliano, in the plain of the Po, has nothing to surpass it in beauty. The south-eastern side of the Alps is far less rugged than the north-western, and iheir lofty outline is more distinct. When these grand proportions, changing constantly as the eye traces their long lines carved upon the heavens, rest upon a burning sky still illuminated long after the sun has disappeared — and bathed in the light of a moon nearly at its full ; the glorious picture is such a one as the great architect of the universe only could create! All the towns through which we passed, and many of the villages, were ornamented on both sides of their principal streets with such colonnades, as I have already described, in speaking of Paris, Bern, and Turin. The repeated and violent rains, and the hot suns of Italy, make such covered ways almost indispen- sable ; and in effect they are nearly universal. They are as ancient as the Roman republic; at least ISero is said to have projected them, in every part of the new and magnificent ciiy which he planned, and which he had it so much at heart to finisn, that lor this reason, and not out of the capricious folly usually attributed to him, he burned the ancient and ill built pan of Rome. At Savigliano, we found these colonnades along liie widest slreeis in the place, lined ^vtth ;; large part of the popula- tion, eagerly watching the progress of a game of a kind whicn was new to me, and which seemed to fill all ranks, ages, and sexes, with enthusiasm. The game was played in the open street, by a number of men, divided into two parties. Soldiers stripped of their rich uniforms, which were held by boys, and which indi- cated, in some of their proprietors, officers of rank ; and citizens of the principal classes, seemed to be the players. Clustered along, as anxious spectators, were women, priests, and men of every condition — while boys, beggars, and idlers, caught the universal spirit and did their part, in rushing about after stray balls. At one end of the street was a plank, long and wiae FOREIGN TRAVEL. 303 set endwise at a small angle to the ground, and of course some- what elevated at one end. Upon this elevated end, stood a handsome, athletic man, clothed only in pantaloons and linen, the latter open at the breast — and the sleeves tightly rolled up on the shoulders. Over his right hand he wore a wooden socket, which completely covered the whole fist ; and made a lump as large as the head of a young child, cut round with opposite rows of flutes, so as to make the outside full of knobs. In fnmt of him, at the distance of twenty feet, stood a man of humble appearance, whose duty it was to toss a large ball made of hard and light wood, to be struck by the mailed hand of the player. At the signal, he tossed the ball ; at the same instant the other rushed dov^-^n the plank, and struck the ball with the momentum derived from the rapid motion, the weight of his body, and the total exertion of his strength, catching it on his gauntlet at the height of about two feet from the ground. It flew high and far through the air ; and all his antagonists scat- tered along for a hundred yards, waited for it, armed like him- self—and ready to catch it on their mailed hands, and hurl back. After the two blows, some decision was had, on princi pies which I made no effort to comprehend; and the same, or another person took his stand on the board, and the whole was ar-.tpd liver. It was a fair and striking sight. And oh! how many years of my life did it bring back in a moment, before me. How plainly did the sports of my childhood, and the bright-eyed and warm-hearted companions that made those sports so joyful, live again at my side ; and how did my heart swell to bursting with their crowded and beloved images ! Life itself is a blessing ; an infinite blessing, for which it seldom occurs to us to be grate- ful. The sense of being, the joy of effort, the power of muscle, the gush of blood, the nerve strung tightly up ; all, even all that is most essentially mortal and perishing about us, has its incai-u- lable value and blessedness. Yea Christ hath borne its likeness ; its very infirmations find in him a sense responsive to them. And in the day of his great glory, this dust though it be feeble now, and in our pride and folly too often contemned, shall rise and shine with him forever ! 304 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXXII. Lijurian Mountains — Colli di Tende— Mountain Hamlets— Perils of the way— Wildness of the region— Adventure Avith Muleteers— Storm upon Mont Braus — Geological Peculiarities— Mountain Goats— The Fruits of Italy— The Olive— Pro- ject of Napoleon for the permanent occupancy of upper Italy. The mountains which lie directly in the route from Turin to Nice, are the links which unite the Alps and Appenines toe;ether. They might as well receive the latter as the former appellation, for ought that I can see ; but I believe it is never given to them until they stretch farther towards the East and South. The little town of Limone is situated at the Northern, as Nice is at the Southern base of these wild ranges. The width of their base is above fifty miles at this point, which is the narrowest for many miles in both directions. There are three immense ranges parallel with each other, the smallest of which seemed to me to be both wider and higher than the Alps at Mont Cenis : and the three united produced on me, so strong a sense of the danger of their passage— that I would prefer, with reference to that single point, to cross the Atlantic, rather than ride in any sort of vehicle from Limone to Nice. The first or most northern of these ridges is called the Colli di Tende — the second Bais, and the third Braus ; and the whole mass generally. Colli di Tende — the plural form of the first name. We ascended each of them precisely as we had previously as- cended Cenis ; and yet it required half an hour more to ascend the first, about the same for the second, and nearly an hour FOREIGN TRAVEL. 305 more to ascend the third, than was consumed in ascending Cenis; while in every instance the descent required also a longer time than the descent of Cenis. This, and ihe eye alone, are my au- thorities for expressinn; the opinion I have hazarded as to their relative heitrht ; for I have not been able to ascertain that these summits have been accurately measured. But my estimate is the more likely to be true, as distance here is always measured by time. If you ask ho-.v liir it is lo such a place, or how hiojh such a mountain is, the answer is universally given in time. As an hour, or half an hour, or whatever else it may be; meaning, that it will take a person so long to walk it, at a moderate pace, say from three to four English miles to the hour. 1 saw little in Savoy itself approaching the savage wildness of this region. And yet every where you find little villages clus- tered in the narrow and rocky vallies of the small streams ; and often planted against the sides of barren mountains, where there seems hardly space for ihem to stand, or other inducement than necessity, to abide. On the ascent of Tende I counted from one peak seven hamlets in the surrounding ravines; and that they were not depopulated we soon had full proofl For, the one most elevated, being also nearest the road, sent out a swarm of four- teen ragged, but beautillil children ; who beset our carriage un- til every one had dogged us out of a trifle. I tried to stop their terrible lamentations for a sous, by entering into conversation with some of the largest; but we seemed farther from under- standing each other, than in any attempt I had made. The name of their village is Polis, which is good Greek for a city ; but it seemed to be as much misapplied as it was out of place. Or can it be possible that the language of the Phocians, whose settlements along the neighbouring coast have been exterminated for so ma- ny centuries, does in reality still tincture the dialects of these in- accessible mountains, as well as those of Provence.^ We followed the Virminagno, a branch of thePo, to its head in the Tende ; and passing the mountain, descended into the bed of the Roja, and along it through a chasm no where wide enough, by nature, for the easy passage of the furious stream itself; and every where so deep that at mid-day the shades of evening seem 27* 306 MEMORANDA OF to be closing around you. To get to this fearful pass, you des- cend eighty-four traverses upon the face of the Tende, at every one of which you hang over a precipice, without the slightest protection of any kind between you and it; with nothing but the instinct of the horse or mule to assure you that he wont walk over; and every thing to convince you, that if your carriage ac- quires a too rapid impulse, or is unskilfully guided at the sharp turns, it will probably force him over. When you have achiev- ed this perilous descent you find yourself at the beginning of the chasm of the Roja, along which a road barely wide enough to permit two vehicles to pass, has been walled up or cut out of the rock for the space of about fifteen English miles. The very ferocity of nature is stamped upon every lineament around you ; and the wild chaos of the strata, where any are visible, corres- ponds with the terrible physiognomy of the region. To pass the second and third mountains was not less dif&cultj nor perhaps less dangerous than the first. The traverses were sharper ; and if not so frequent, (which I do not say, as I count- ed but one series, which, if my memory is accurate, was as I have said, those of the Tende,) it was only because they were more precipitous. I had seen much reason to distrust the skill of our driver, and therefore determined to take the reins myself at the second descent. They have in all these mountains a mechanical contrivance attached to the rear of their carriages, by which both the hind wheels can be subjected to any required degree of fric- tion, or locked at the same moment. When I took the reins I bade the driver walk behind and regulate the " Mechanique." — About halfway down the mountain we encountered a brigade of carts ascending, with six or eight mules in each. The road being both crooked and narrow would render passing difficult, if it were level ; but its being steep in addition, greatly increased that diffi- culty. In effect, the driver sauntered after us smoking with some vagabond he had found to consort with ; and utterly ne- glected the mechanique. The driver of the foremost cart attempt- ed at the moment of passing, to change his team from the out- side of us to the inside. It was too late ; and our whole vehicle came thundering against the centre of his line of mules, just at FOREIGN TRAVEL. 307 the turn. The carriawe did not upset ; nor was his team driven over the precipice ; but I am sure no one could tell why both should not have happened. The matter now was to rectify the evil ; and that was not so easily done, where muleteers were one of the parties. I had a few hours before seen enough to convince me of the stupidity of that whole race, in an attempt made by several, aided by our driver, to help up a poor mule that had fallen under its over- burdened cart, in descending the mountain on the other side ; and which we encountered as we came up. After they had been ut- terly foiled in their own attempts, they were with difficulty per- suaded to lift at the ends of the shafts rather than at the body of the cart ; and with still more, to try the desperate experiment of letting the mule get up himself after the cart was taken off him, instead of attempting to lift up mule, cart and all at once by main force. I had little hope, in a case apparently more complicated, of gaining a hearing; and therefore resigned myself in patience, to await what I foresaw must pretty soon come — namely, the end of their wits. The first movement Avas a furious quarrel between our voiturier and the muleteer. The second was an attempt by each to pass at all hazards, and in utter disregard of what might befall the convoy of the other; an attempt as hopeless as one to drive through the mountain. Then followed despair ; they tore their hair, they covered their eyes with both hands, they tossed their arms wildly towards heaven, twisted their bodies in numer- ous contortions, and uttered loud and incoherent curses. Sup- posing the time to interfere had come, I dismounted, unfastened the mechanique, and by the help of the horses and the muleteers, backed or rather lifted our carriage a few feet up the mountain, thus leaving a pass way ; and then fastened the mechanique so that the vehicle could not move. Ten minutes' work put every thing to rights ; and yet I think it is nearly certain, that if the same thing had occurred next day, the same preliminary scene would have been enacted over again. — A few Yankees are sadly needed in Italy. When we came to descend the third mountain, we thought it better, even for a young and delicate infant and its invalid moth- 308 MEMORANDA OF er to risk the cold of these lofty summits in the open air, and as to the latter, the fatigue of a descent on foot ; than to commit them for the third time to the possibility of such frisjhtful acci- dents. Indeed, after the adventure with the muleteers, this had been tried to a small extent; and we had determined, though in much anxiety, to extend the experiment farther on this final oc- casion. But as we reached the top of Braus, a storm of wind and rain of such violence encountered us, that there remained no al- ternative but to resign ourselves to the necessity of another long and fearful descent ; under circumstances more unfavorable than those under which either of the preceding had been made. I deemed that descent nearly the most perilous adventure of a life not barren of vicissitudes. The same almighty and benificent hand, that has so long, so tenderly and so irresistibly spread it- self over and around us, for good, and for good only ; was still our guide, our shield and our defence. How sweet is that state of heart in which, when we know not what to do not even what should be done, we are enabled to commit ourselves to our Sa- viour's absolute disposal, with a sacred confidence like that with which a wounded child throws itself upon its parent's breast; certain that every thing will be done for us that an affection, at once infinitely wise and tender can dictate! It is indeed the goodness of God that leadeth us to repentance ; and we may con- fidently say, that the heart which is unaffected by it, is out of the reach of the most delightful influences to which our being is subject. I have said so much in other places of the strata of the greai chain of which these mountains constitute a part, that I ought not to trespass on the patience of a general reader, by adding any thing more. I will only say, that I was surprised at the fre- quent recurrence of lime, flint and basalt, which I met with here; and not less so, at the great extent and singular location of some of these formations. They were burning a lime-kiln°on the very top of Mount Braus ; and for miles around, just after leaving that point, layers of basalt as regular as if they had been cut, not only covered the mountains but seemed to form their entire mass. The strata lay in a curve from east to west — generally accom- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 309 modated to the shape of the particular locality ; and the separate fragments, were six or eight feet square, by about two thick- each section being about the third or fourth part of a cube. While the subject is before my mind I had as well say, that in the volcanic mountains of Cevenes and Ardache, on the west side of the Rhone, in France, and nearly on the same parallel with the region of which I now speak, are to be found the same wonderful formations of columnar basalt, and to a far greater extent than those at the Isle of Stafa in Scotland, and the Giant's causeway in Ireland; the last of which is considered by all tour- ists so great a curiosity. While we paused for a moment, in the midst of the gathering storm, to examine this basalt stratum on the top of Braus, our attention was attracted by a multitude of sounds, resembling a slight hammering on the rocks ; and in another moment the larg- est flock of goats I ever saw, emerged from a ravine hard by. There were, I judged, several hundred, escorted by half a dozen young females who had watched them all day as they browsed through the recesses and along the edges of these desolate pre- cipices ; and were now hastening to their shelter, from the ap- proaching darkness and the gathering tempest. The goat and the ass are the never failing companions of the poor, throughout the temperate latitudes of Europe. The latter performs all his labour — the former supplies the greater part of his luxuries; and both, the most abstemious of all creatures and the least choice of all in the small portion of food needful for them, seem intend- ed by nature as the peculiar heritage of poverty. Even in this severe region, the genial sun, and the patient hand of industry can force nature to be kind against her purpose. The delicious fig grows on the lower steps of the mountains, and at their foot springs up spontaneously from scattered seed, along the crevices of the rocks. It is a singular fruit. No one likes it at first; and yet no one eats a few dozen without finding it amongst the most delicious of all the productions of the earth. We found it on the table wJien we entered France, in the end of July ; and we parted with it with reluctance at Avignon, in the end of November. The same facts occurred with reference to 310 MEMORANDA OF the delightful white grape of Europe, called about Paris th^e grape of Fontainbleau; about Marseilles, Pense ; but generally, the Chasselas. This grape occurs to me at present, from the similarity of treatment which it and the fig require in the early- spring season, to prevent the cold dews from nipping the tender bud, and so destroying the crop; a treatment which shows the watchfulness and patience to which they who would secure these gifts of a good providence, are annually subjected, even in clim- ates supposed to be so balmy. There is a peculiar species of reed indiginous all along the coast of the Mediterranean; and which is cultivated also to considerable extent for many house- hold and agricultural purposes. Wattled fences and pailings are made of it ; vines and plants are stuck with it ; hurdles to dry fruit on, and to transport light articles with, are constructed of it ; and so of other things. A joint of this reed is cut and placed as a case over every fig shoot, and every sprout of the most del- icate vines, for several weeks each spring ; and thus, though at great labour, they insure full annual crops of both. The orange, the lemon and the almond, about in the order I have named them, meet the eye as the traveller approaches more and more nearly to the Mediterranean. By-aud-hy the cork tree presents itself, and is one of the greatest curiosities of this part of Europe. ' It is an evergreen oak, with a very thick bark, which is taken off every fall; leaving the tree with a thin black under bark, which soon supplies the place of the coat removed. The best cork trees are in Spain ; but they flourish along the whole coast from Nice to Toulon, growing spontaneously. Indeed, I never saw them cultivated but in nurseries ; and had some trou- ble to procure a few to send to America. The almond is not un- like the peach, and seems hardier than the orange or lemon. It is cultivated much more extensively than either of them ; it is not planted in orchards ; in many portions of Italy and the south of France the road-sides are lined and ornamented with them. It is not an evergreen ; and by the middle of November its fruit was already gathered and its leaves cast. But the olive, the beautiful olive, constitutes at once the grace and the wealth of all soutliern Europe. Palas gave it, said the FOREIGN TRAVEL. 311 refined Athenians, to her children as the most priceless benefac- tion ; and surely the moral atones for the fiction. For peace is the choicest gilt which wisdom can bestow on man. How sub- lime was the rebuke of the dying Pericles to his weeping friends, who solaced their hearts by the recital of his great deeds: "You forget my greatest glory ; no citizen of Athens has been obliged to put on mourning on my account." I think no one can look upon this beautiful evergreen without deep emotion. Its pale-green leaves, which cover it as thickly and as gracefully as the plumage of a bird, spread freshness and verdure over regions which, without it, would be desolate beyond expression ; lor such is the aspect of those localities where it de- lights to flourish. The severest features of nature are covered by its sweetest and most precious gifts : like as the charity, which while it hopeth, believeth and endureth all things, and so, is for itself above all price ; hath for its office to cover the oifences of those to whom are its outgoings, and thus for its use is above ail praise. It was a leaf of it that the bird of peace bore back to the waiting ark ; the faithful messenger which announced to the rem- nant of a drowned world, that the wrath of God was overpassed. And from that solemn moment, to the glorious hour when the natural branches shall be graffed back in the stock from which for our sakes they were broken off, and the whole earth smile as the garden of the Lord ; how full is all scripture of the image of this tree ! The garden and the mount ; the anguish which ush- ered in the scene of Calvary ; and the catching up into heaven, which closed its awful wonders: ihey were the garden and the mount of Olives. And when he returns again to earth in peer- less glory, Olivet shall rejoice the first in the footsteps of the de- scended God ; and cleave in twain before the glory and majesty of his presence ! The region under the northern base of these mountains, was selected by Napoleon for the display of one of those gigantic pro- jects with which his restless and sublime imagination teamed. The plains of Lombardy, as they are most frequently called ; or to speak more definitely, that part of them which lies in a triangle between Genoa, Turin and Milan, was the spot on which he 312 MEMORANDA OF twice decided the fate of Europe. This region assumed so much importance in his eyes, that he seems to have considered it the natural battle ground for all who would contend for Italy ; and the real spot to decide the question, as to the mastery of the Alps. With this view, after the victory of Marengo he selected Alex- andria, which is somewhat central in the triangle indicated above; and silently but vigorously commenced fortifying it impregnably, for a garrison of sixty thousand troops. Upon this work millions of money were expended ; and it was relinquished only when Europe had subdued — and treachery undone him. It is easy to see, what, however, no one seems to have seen before him ; that such a position so occupied, not only secured the dominion of It- aly, and overawed Switzerland ; but fortified all the chances of war against Austria from the side of Italy, to a degree that al- most erased the barrier of the Alps. There is something sur- prisingly grand and effective in all the conceptions of this extra- ordinary man. FOREIGN TRAVEL. 313 CHAPTER XXXIII Nice— The Mediterranean— Christopher Columbus— Human Progress— Travellera —Romish Ecclesiastics— Sentiments of their people towards tliera— Their Con- dition ; Social, Moral, and Political— Influence of Events since 1830. The County of Nice is the smallest of the states of the king of Sardinia. It is one of the least productive and probably the wildest of all the little states into which Italy found herself rent, after her furious and long continued efforts for inde- pendence. Heaps of mountains — narrow and rocky vallies — a barren and iron-bound coast upon the Mediterranean ; such is this little district. Its climate is reckoned one of the best in Europe ; and one cannot fail to be struck with the favourable change not only in the productions of the soil, but in the aspect of the people, as he draws nearer to the famous sea whose shores have been the nursery of the human race— and have witnessed the rise and the decay of so many empires. The town of Nice is one of the most common resorts of travellers— especially of those who seek health. And it has preserved even from the days of Augustus, tlie fame of its beauty, its salubrity, and its delicious fruits. It is small and for the most part irregularly built; occupying both banks of a small stream, and stretching along the margin of the sea. Its public walks are extremely noble ; the one especially which occupies the sea front, is amongst the finest in Europe. From the little river at the west end of the town, to the har- bour beyond its eastern extremity, raust be more than a mile. Vol. II.— 28 314 MEMORANDA OF For this whole distance an elevated battlement winds itself along the shore, sometimes cut into the hills upon the side and at ihe base of which the city stands — sometimes walled up against the beating waves along the flat beach— and for a long distance passing upon the top of a range of low shops which skirt anoth- er and lower promenade within the city. The warm light of the setting sun illuminates the city, the wide, beautiful panorama around it, and the lofiy mountains in the distance. On the other side is the noble bay of Nice. Across it the white towers of Antibes in France. Far to the opposite point the dim shadow of Corsica. And between the two the ample bosom of the sea. At your feet the waves come ceaselessly, chasing each other upon the beach. One rolls its waters far up on the wet pebbles, or bursts them against the black cliffs; and as it retires into its secret places to renew its strength — another comes behind it rushing upon the same ceaseless ruin. There is a subdued and solemn murmur, like the distant hum of a multitude, that makes itself heard on the margin of the sea : coming onward with each advancing wave, subdued in the crash with which it is dissolved ao:ainst the beach, and renewed again in the silence which ensues. Thus recurring evermore, with the advancing wave— and lost for a moment as it disappears, it strikes the imagination like the mournful wail of some living creature. It is after such a fashion that generation follows generation — and ages chain themselves to the destinies of perishing ages that went before ; their existence as it passed, empty as this sound upon the face of the deep ; and when it is finished, leaving no trace behind more valuable than the weed upon the sand ! At the end of this walk is the harbour of Nife, pent in between mountains, sheltered from the sea by a wall of marble, and filled with the light, sharp rigged shallops of the Mediterranean, manned with sailors of every race and costume found upon its borders. It is almost impossible to realize that these are the instruments with which Vasco di Gama, Americus Vespucius, and Christopher Columbus, gave to their world, two olhers greater than itself. Nor is it less difficult to read the acts of that Providence, which came into this distant region and these FOREIGN TRAVEL. 315 narrow seas; to select the unknown and apparently unsuitable instruments of designs, by whose accomplishment the whole world was to be thoroughly revolutionized, and its total destiny reversed. Once more ; it is astonishing to reflect that the sub- hme conceptions which took possession of the great souls I have named, and which consumed them like an indwelling fire, till they developed by deeds what their words could not make (heir dull cotemporaries comprehend ; that these vast ideas should have possessed the human mind precisely at the era, when of all others there was the least room to suspect their existence. Yet why marvel? Tiie excellency of the power of all good and all great deeds, is constantly of God : and therefore the weaker the instrumentality, the more obvious are the power and guidance from above. It was from the cell of an unknown monk, that the renewed whisperings of that lost truth which will regenerate the world, were first heard. It was from ihe distant verge of civilization that the sounds of that freedom came, before whose voice all thrones tremble, and at whose call the astonished world fixes its eyes with horror upon the long track of blood which the footsteps of tyrants have drawn across all past ages ! Thus too, those great discoveries could not have been made sooner without becoming subservient in the existing condition of the world, to the exclusive propagation of ignorance, superstition and oppression; nor could they have been delayed later, without arresting for a time the onward progress of the human race, and robbing liberty and virtue of a shelter for their exiles. The invention of printing, the construction of the mar- iner's compass, the final overthrow of the ancient order of soci- ety in the East, the consequent revival of learning in Europe, the opening up of the new world, the glorious Reformation, the American Revolution, the era of modern efforts to convert the world ! What a chain of events, having their seeds germin- ating in the midnight of the world, and already so developed as to show that universal freedom and universal Christianity, will attest the accomplishment of their mission ! I felt of course a peculiar interest in the private history of Columbus, and endeavoured to make some researches about his 316 MEMORANDA OF family, the place ol" his birth, &c. &c. I soon found, however, that nothing certain could be ascertained. Six or seven villages are asserted by as many different authors to have been the place of his birth. His name, if not extinct in its native region, is confined to persons totally unknown. At Turin there is a Senior Colombo, an extensive silk manufacturer, a remarkably noble looking man. who is the only person of the name, I saw. No history seems to me, more pointed in its instructive and solemn teaching, than that of this great discoverer. Perhaps of all the mere men that have lived, he will be found to have exercised the largest influence over the destinies of the world. And yet the world rarely inscribes his name upon any list, however ex- tended, of its illustrious men ; and the lands he brought to light, substitute for his, an inferior designation. The history of the human mind developes nothing more grand than the profound and far-sighted wisdom which guided his meditations to their sublime result ; nor does anything in human conduct surpass the noble constancy with which he sustained, conducted, and achieved his glorious purpose, against the pity and contempt, if not the scorn of his generation. The gratitude of his sovereigns repaid him for services beyond all that subject ever rendered — with insult and chains; and posterity has awarded to his mag- nificent character, the meed of praise due to a bold seaman and a good guesser! It is probable that the peculiar situation of Italy at the present moment, and the great difficulty of penetrating the cordons which each little state draws around itself, nominally to exclude cholera, but in part also, perhaps to check the influx of unwhole- some opinions ; may have been the means of accumulating an unusual number of travellers along the northern shore of the Mediterranean. Nice, Toulon, Marseille, Nismes, and indeed all the cities and even villages from Leghorn to Montpelier, a distance of four or five hundred English miles, were during this autumn thronged with strangers. The same result has present- ed itself, however, in every part of the continent in which I have been ; and that to such a degree, as to afford here as well as in our own country, a striking illustration ol' that trait of the latter FOREIGN TRAVEL. 317 times, which the prophet expresses when he says that the mul- titudes "shall run to and fro." We have reason to rejoice that the predicted consequence is already manifesting itself every where ; and that the necessary result of a free, rapid, and en- larged intercourse amongst the nations, must be, that " know- ledge shall increase." Men behold reflected in the conduct of others, the follies and weaknesses characteristic of their own countries; and they grow wiser and more charitable at the same moment. They see in the peculiar evils and vices of others, the strongest illustrations of the contrary virtues or blessings voucli- edsafe to their beloved homes ; and they are doubly fortified both in the purpose to uphold with renewed vigour what is good in their own lot, and in the ardent desire to bestow on all, the same mercies which appertain to themselves. It is thus our own con- ceptions are enlarged and rectified, and our purposes of good fortified and enlightened, by the passive influence of others over us. How great must be the active influence of such multitudes, upon the communities through which they incessantly flock, or amidst which they take up their temporary abode. Errors are corrected, new wants are created, higher efforts are promoted, better methods are diffused, and activity and energy before un- known, imparted to every portion of the living mass. On one side of all the cities of Europe, you find what is called the new towiit the west end, or by some similar appellation distinguished in name, as its whole aspect distinguishes it in reality, from the ancient town. The one is dirty, dark, and damp ; its streets crooked, irregular, and narrow ; and its whole compass contracted into the narrowest possible space, crowded with high and desolate looking houses, and compassed about with immense defences. The new town is airy, neat, and striking; its streets wide, regu- luar, and beautifully adorned ; its compass ample and free, and its whole aspect one of comfort, elegance, and prosperity. Such are the present and the past, of human society. There, is what the wave of civilization must purify or obliterate ; here, is that which must spring up in its fertilizing course. The Steam Boat and the Rail-Road have not wrought a more thorough revolu- tion in the means of human intercourse — than that intercourse 28* 318 MEMORANDA OF itself in the degree that it is enlarged, must work in the whoJe condition of the world. The great mass of European travellers are English ; after them perhaps Germans, then Italians and Russians, — and fewest of all, French. There is not much individual wealth in France, and the French live at home, more to their minds, and at a cheaper rate than any where else. The world has nothing to offer them like Paris, and to Paris they who travel go. Their climate is equal to any in Europe, if not the best of all ; and their domestic excitements and means of knowledge of a partic-- ular kind, before all others. On the contrary the English have more individual wealth, and fewer means of spending it pleas- antly at home, than any people in the world ; while even those whose circumstances are confined, may live in almost any part of Europe for less money, in better style, in a better climate, with incalculably better means of improvement and more re- spectably, than in most parts of Britain. In England, poverty is not only the greatest of misfortunes, but is counted by the upper classes amongst the most serious offences ; in so much that beggarly, is the most contemptuous epithet in their vocabu- lary. In France, I think it would make little or no odds in a man's standing with the world, whether he walked, or drove one, two, or six horses ; whether he lived on five francs a day, or wasted a thousand. In England, "a respectable appearance," is in all cases not only indispensable, but in the majority of cases the nature of the appearance, is the principal ground on which society bases its estimate. It is not strange then that the French travel very little, and rarely abide permanently out of France ; nor that the English travel a great deal, and abide in every part of Europe. Upon the vyhole, this is good to all concerned. The English, of all people, need most this extensive intercourse with strangers ; and of all people in Europe they have most with which to repay others in kind for the advantages they receive. Many of the useful arts are with them more advanced, than on the continent ; their language is stored with a more robust literature than any other ; many of them have more accurate and elevated ideas on FOREIGN TRAVEL. 3ig religious subjects than most other Europeans ; and though neither they nor the rest understand as yet the true principles of human freedom — they have on some few points, better matured and more thoroughly practised the knowledge they possess, than most of their neighbours on the continent. These are immense gifts to bestow. And on the other hand, their inordinate pride of wealth, place, and rank, attended by a subserviency to them in others, that exceeds all belief— even if incurable, is subjected to profitable discipline when abroad. Their extraordinary national vanity, and national prejudice against all other people, are liable to be rectified when they see that others possess many advan- tages over them in very important particulars ; and that many of those representations of their writers, by which their evil and selfish passions are pampered from childhood — are as false when they sedulously depreciate other nations, as when they habitually overrate their own. Every American reader will need only remember what every Englishman has said of us, every time he has spoken of us in comparison with themselves, from the 4th day of July, 1776, down to the present moment; to be fully satisfied that very little credit is to be attached to what they say of other states, in the same relation. For nay own part, if I should characterize the English by a single epithet, I should say they are the abusive nation. Their daily and periodical press, even what they call their religious press, lavishes upon the most distinguished men of their own country every epithet of scorn and infamy, in which the language so copiously abounds ; and they all turn upon all others, who for any reason, or by any chance are brought into conflict, or even into comparison with themselves, the united abuse which had before been spent in their domestic broils. The national judgment and temper, thus pervert and embitter themselves to a degree, which has hardly a parallel in the history of the world. I speak of whole nations — and therefore speak in general terms. There are multitudes of both of those, of which I have now said most, to whom these observations could have no true appli- cation. Some of the most arduous and adventurous of modern travellers have been French ; and some of the most interesting 220 MEMORANDA OF volumes of travels ever written, are in that.language. It is also true that multitudes of English are amjngst the most candid and enlightened men of Europe ; and their great works of charity sufficiently attest, that true religion rr.akes all men who are bap- tized in its glorious spirit, essentially the same. But there are also multitudes of them, upon whom all that benefits and corrects others is lost — and who seem to seek in intercourse with the world, only new food for their prejudices. I heard an English traveller say, that the best oranges in the world could be obtained in England alone ; another, that their grapes were better than those of the south of France ; a third, that their figs were incomparably superior to all others. And yet these are tropical fruits, and the ^southermost point of England is above the 50th degree of north latitude ! I heard an English gentleman who had seen all Europe, say that after seeing London and its public monuments — there was nothing worth looking for any where else ; and yet there is not a city in Europe, of the first class, so poor of sights as London. I have heard and read, times out of number, that England was not only the most enlightened and free of all nations, past or present, but even that it was the only one in which perfect liberty and complete civilization now reign ; and yet they have no written constitution — the powers residing in their king and parliament are such as define the most absolute despotism — their oligarchy is the most powerful and privileged in Europe — their established hierarchy the richest and idlest that ever existed in any Protestant country — their national means of superior education limited to those who hold peculiar religious opinions, and denied to all others, and no system of popular education adequate to the wants of a fiftieth part of the people existing at all ; while a quarter of the entire population beg bread, or live in poor-houses, — and their statute book is crowded with fictitious crimes and cruel punishments to a degree unprecedented amongst nations ! At Nice, as in every part of Italy, the multitude of Romish ecclesiastics, continually surprises you — and gives an extremely fantastic appearance to society. If you. dine at a table d'Hote in any considerable hotel — a third of the guests at least, are sure FOREIGN TRAVEL. 321 to be ecclesiastics. If you enter a caffe to take some slight refreshment, or read a e^azette, you find ecclesiastic:^ sauntering or lounging about the rooms, sipping chocolate, coffee, or eau- de-vie, or earnestly engaged in conversation, in those under tones required by the place and so appropriate to their habits. If you walk the streets, you are absolutely certain to encounter ecclesiastics, of all grades and ranks, from the filthy and bare- footed friar, up to the luxurious prelate in his costly equipage, and down to the delicious fop mincing along as gingerly as a thorough exquisite. They all wear their costume — or at least enough of it to distinguish themselves at all times. And it is curious to see how various that costume is — and how carefully, at the same time, it preserves its generic character. Some dress in black, some in brown, some in white, some in a mixture of the two last named colours. Some go barefooted, some wear shoes without stockings, some a sort of sandal; but most generally short breeches and stockings. Some go bareheaded, some wear caps, and most use large hats, cocked up into all sorts of shapes- All these particulars, so far from being indifferent, are matters of deep import, and belong to the rule of the particular order, or the rank of the party; and so well settled are they, that any resident of the Country will at once designate the wearer by his dress. I speak exclusively of the male sex ; for the varieties in the costume of the female professed, though very great and exceedingly ridiculous, are commonly within the bounds of propriety. The most striking thing about these priests, of all orders and conditions, seems to be their universal idleness. They do no work, they never preach, they write no books. What do they do? Alas! the universal ignorance which has settled Hke a pall over Italy, shows too plainly what they never do : while univer- sal corruption of manners, which makes the land an abomination — gives too much reason to fear, that they who impress upon public morals their general tone—have not been merely passive in this deep pollution. It is rather surprising to find that the great body of the peo- ple, neither are nor pretend to be, ^t all deceived as to the real 322 MEMORANDA OF character of the Papal priesthood. I have conversed with hun- dreds, freely and directly on the subject — I have sought informa- tion from all classes of the people — I have tried to penetrate into the real sentiments of the multitudes, as to the character of their own clergy. And I solemnly declare I never heard a single human being in any part of Catholic Europe, express the slight- est confidence in the genera! piety, or even morality of their own priesthood. On the contrary, with one universal consent, more unanimous than any by which I have found any other disrepu- table fact established— they admit that in general iheir priests are dissolute, rapacious and ignorant. It is indeed true, that 1 have found persons defend the admitted conduct of the priest- hood, either on the ground of strong necessity, or resulting good, or the official sanctiiy of the sinner ; but nobody questions the facts themselves. Nor am I at liberty to conceal, that the uni- versal impression attributes to them, not vice merely, nor gross sin only, but deep, general, and habitual crimes. Crimes such as history has charged them with in all stages of their apostacy, and the public records of so many nations fastened upon tliem ; crimes, which by the admission of their own analists have so often and so thoroughly polluted the Holy See itself; which have so defiled multitudes of their orders, and houses, (as the Tem- plars and Jesuits) as to acquire their suppression by Papal au- thority, and which more than at any former period, seem at ihe present day to pervade the hierarchy as a body. They who doubt what I assert, will no longer be incredulous, if they will appeal to the same testimony on which 1 rest for these grave assertions. There is another fact not less important, but perhaps even less , generally supposed to exist. The masses of the Catholic popu- ^ -I^^Jation of Europe, but especially of Italy and France, not only have no respect for the personal character of their clergy; but nourish a deep sense of injuries received at their hands, and a profound sentiment of bitterness towards them. I do not speak of the immense multitudes who have openly forsaken the Papa- cy, and who though nominally still Catholics treat all the preten- sions of the church with unconcealed scorn : nor yet of the por^ FOREIGN TRAVEL. 323 tion not less considerable, who retain a sort of shy and qualified relation to the church, while they shun and despise its ministers. What I have said is doubtless true, in an eminent degree of both these classes ; and how large they are, may be inferred from the statement by De Pradt, in his work entitled Les Quatre Concor- dats, that in Paris the Easier Communions during the whole period of the restoration, that is, from 1815 to 1830, never ex- ceeded eighty thousand, and often fell short of forty thousand a year. That is to say, there was only about one in twenty of the population of Paris, who during the brightest days which the Papacy has witnessed for half a century, was wiUing to avoid mortal sin, by confessing and communing once a year. But as I have said, it is one of the real and true adherents to Papism, that I speak. And it is not easy to imagine how they could think of the personal character of their priests as they do, and not feel towards them a sentiment of terror, if not of hatred. It is the last and highest evidence of corruption indicated in the Scriptures, that we should have pleasure in those who commit things which, we are conscious, God judges to be worthy of death. But even nature itself, in its worst estate^ seems incapable of such degradation, provided the offences be committed upon, or against ourselves. VVe may be so circumstanced as to bear in silence what we are not able to redress — and what we dare not even avow. Marshal Marmont was loth perhaps to be called traitor and have his jaws boxed by the Duke of D'Angouleme, when he communicated to him the inevitable ruin of the house of Bourbon. So the sincere Papist, who sees no alternative between the loss of his own soul and the souls of his children, and communion with a church whose ministers, in a thousand forms of injury, make him the victim of their lusts ; may indeed submit to his cruel destiny. — But he will nourish in his soul; the sense of his injuries ; and he will retain the impression of the personal worthlessness of those whose official character alone is any thing, but that every thing, to him. It is in this way we find it easy to account for the extraordi- nary fact, that in all Catholic countries the priests are the very first victims of the fury of their own flocks, in all times of pop- 324 MEMORANDA OF ular commotion. The moment any impulse stronger than the habitual awe, with which they are taught to regard the pretend- ed representatives of God, takes possession of the soul, and oblit- erates that servile terror; the fury of long restrained passions overleaps all bounds, and is quenched only in the blood of those under whose injuries they writhed, but which the power of superstition prevented them from redressing in proper time and due measure. These facts are unique, and find no place in rela- tion to any other religion true or false except the Papacy. And how strongly do they illustrate that awful denunciation of John in the Apocalypse — by which we learn that although the nations shall give their power to Rome, until the word of God shall be fulfilled ; yet when the day of recompense does come, those very nations shall not only hate her, and make her desolate and naked, but " shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire."— (Rev. xvii.) The events of the last six years in Europe, have been calcu- lated to increase in a very great degree, the mutual alienation of the priests and the people ; and to furnish the latter with pub- lic and permanent grounds of distrust, hardly less cogent than the private and personal ones they beiure had for aversion. For it can no longer be doubtful that the whole Papal hierarchy of Europe is committed, sold, and transferred to a system, agains; which the masses of Europe have for fifty years, but especially since 1830, contended not only with energy, but with the vehe- mence of desperation. France, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, Sardinia, Naples, the Pontifical States, the Sclavonic Provinces of the Austrian Empire, Spain and Portugal, have within the last six years, been the scenes of convulsions more or less bloody, and more or less successful; but in every case originating from the same causes, and tending to the same result. The world is fatigued with the insolence of power, and exhausted in its suffer- ance of its stupid and cruel domination. The voice which issues from the ruins of the past, has no longer any charm for the hu- man soul. But there is a new and ravishing voice whose sounds come to the nations from the bosom of the unknown future ; at the gentlest whispers of which their spirits vibrate, — and amidst whose loud calls they rush furiously to battle. Call it what FOREIGN TRAVEL. 325 you please — the spirit of the age — the spirit of movement — the spirit of life or that of death : its spell is upon the human race, and to resist it, is as idle as to bid the sun return in his glorious march; It is not an impulse which was engendered yesterday, or which sprung from accident. Look along the whole arc of time, and you behold in all great eras the operation of one of those grand impressions. Nay more ; you may see amongst them all, taken as a series, a chord of deep and quick sympathy, and a grand progressive developement throughout. The heroic ages illuminated the dawn of civilization. The sublime sentiment of patriotism — the single absorbing passion of devotion to coun- try, presided over all the glory of Rome. A third developement occurred, and the bright, lofty, and romantic spirit of chivalry conferred all their grandeur on the middle ages ; and held its vigils by the cradle from which modern society emerged. All the spirit of our own great era is summed up in a single word, — intense, abstract, quenchless love of liberty. Liberty to think ; behold the reformation of religion, and the birth of all modern science. Liberty to speak ; behold the power of the press, the advancement of popular education, and the resistless energy of organized public sentiment. Liberty to obey the dictates of the great truths we have discovered and proclaimed ; behold the ne- cessity to re-construct all human society upon a model free, equal, and practical. — Behold the cause, and doubt if you can, the issue of those fierce contentions which every where agitate the world. Vot. II.— *29 326 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXXIV Present Posture of Rome— The absolute Union of her cause with that of Despot- ism— Encychque of 1832— The Abbe de la Mennais— Cardinal Pacca— Briefs of 1833— Encyclique of 1834— Bull to the Polish Bishops— Inevitable Ruin of the Papacy. The pope of Rome is a temporal prince — as well as the pre- tended spiritual chief of the whole world. He is the vicar of Jesus Christ ; and it is of faith in the Roman Catholic church to believe, that he is invested with all tl;ie powers, as the temporal and visible' head of the church, which would reside in Christ if he were on earth. The outward unity of a body like the Papa- cy, necessarily involves the existence of an infallible tribunal, to dispose of such questions as misht endanger its oneness. And although various attempts have been made to place that infalli- bility in other hands, either conjointly with the Pope, or to the exclusion of him ; yet the strength of logic is surely in favour of the claims of Christ's vicar to that prerogative, and the necessary course of events must settle the practical exercise of all its functions, in the same hands in which the power, the pat- ronage, and the active control rest. Whatever, therefore, coun- cils may have defined, or scholars proven, the Pope is the active depository of the infallible and plenary authority of the church. But this same Pope is the head of a temporal monarchy, whose important functionaries are all priests, and which from the days of Charlemagne has entered largely into the social system of Europe. To imagine that the successive pontiffs should have one system of conduct and one code of morals, in their capacity FOREIGN TRAVEL. 327 as spiritual head of the church, and an opposite one as chief of the temporal monarchy of the church ; is totally absurd and puerile. This mixture of temporal and spiritual functions has disturbed Europe for above a thousand years ; and has finally led the Papacy into a line of policy which has identified Rome with the cause of despotism — and sealed her ruin in the coming; tri- umph of free opinions. The subject is too large to permit our entering upon it here, in the way of simple speculation. The mere proofs of what I assert are scattered through so many ages and are so redundant, that for that very reason, all mention of any but the latest is omitted. But the very latest acts of this solemn drama are clear and full — and to them I beg the serious attention of the reader. "On the 18th day before the calends of September, (the 15th of August,) being the holy day of the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary, in the year of the incarnation 1832^ and the second of our pontificate," as his own words are; Gregory XVI., at present occupying the See of Rome, issued his first Encyclique Letter. It is addressed to all the Patriarchs, Primates, Arch- bishops, and Bishops of the earth — and gives professedly the authoritative and infallible solutions of the Pope, of the difficul- ties which then and still beset the church. In this ibrmal docu- ment it is decided amongst other things : 1. That every species of novelty, of what sort soever, or in reference to what thing soever, endangers the universal church; 2. That the fertile source of the most dreadful evil is the opinion diffused amongst men, that salvation is possible out of the doctrine and pale of the Roman Catholic church ; 3. That one of the most "absurd and erroneous," or " rather deleterious maxims" which flows from the horrid indifferentism of the preceding principle, " is that liberty of conscience should be assured and guaranteed to all men ;" 4. That from the same source flows the liberty demanded with such ardour and tumult by many— "the fatal and detest- able liberty of publishing whatever any one chooses ;" 5. That these writings thus scattered amongst mankind, inculcate the horrible absurdities, that it is lawful to revolt against the princes, 328 MEMORANDA OF to withdraw our fidelity from them, and to subvert thrones; 6. That on the contrary, "invariable submission to princes" is necessarily and universally a clear precept of the Christian reli- gion; the reverse ol' which was iu former ages, never taught except by the "Vaudois, the Beguads, the Wiklifites, and other children of Belial, who were the scum and disgrace of the human race, and who have been so often and so justly struck with anathema by the Apostolic See;" 7. That the interests of kings are necessarily promoted by all their acts of support and succour rendered to the Papacy ; that the union of church and state has been in all ages favourable to both — and is now dis- turbed only by the partizans of unbridled liberty; and that all Roman Catholic princes are, and should be exhorted to promote by their assistance and authority the principles and wishes ex- pressed in this present letter. This Encyclique Letter was the result of an examination which had then been just concluded, into the writings of the Abbe de la Mennais, and his associates ; but especially into the doctrines and scope of the periodical called UJlvenir, which commanded so much attention and exerted so great influence at that period, in France. The Cardinal Barthelemi Pacca, in a letter dated August 16, 1832, addressed from Rome to the Abbe de la Mennais, enters into the private history of the whole cause ; and gives some cotemporary and authoritative expositions of the Encyclique itself— which indeed it was the chief object of his letter to transmit to the Abbe, by the Pope's commraand. In this letter the cardinal, by the express order of the Pope, as he asserts, complains to the Abbe, amongst other things: " That he had entered into any sort of digressions, upon subjects whose decision appertained not to the tribunal of the public, but to that of the government of the church ;" 2. That the " Holy Father disapproved, and even forbade his doctrines relative to civil liberty and politics, doctrines which by their nature could only tend lo excite and propagate sedition and revolt on the part of subjects against their sovereigns ;" 3. That " the doctrines of VJlvenir in regard io freedom of religion and freedom of the press^ were equally reprehensible, and in opposition to the doo- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 329 trines, the maxims, and the practice of the church ;" 4. That the Holy Father was extremely astonished and afflicted, that any Catholic should openly avow such doctrines ; which although in certain circumstances, prudence mif^ht require them to be tolerated, as the least of several evils, should never be repre- sented as either desirable or good in themselves ;" 5. That " the griefof the Holy Father was rendered complete, by the proposal to form a society amongst those who notwithstanding the butch- ery of Poland, the dismemberment of Belgium, and the conduct of governments which call themselves liberal, still hoped for the liberty of the world, and were willing to labour for it." •' On the 8th of May, 1833, and in the third year of his pon- tificate," the same Gregory XVI. addressed a Brief to his " ven- erable brother, Paul Therese David, Archbishop of Toulouse" — in the course of which he says he " had published the sound doctrine, which alone any should be permitted to follow." "Our Encyclique," he adds, " has been received every where with joy, with eagerness, with sentiments of veneration; as we have been assured, with expressions of gratitude, both by bishops and other persons, of the greatest respectability in all orders of society." A few months after the preceding, the Pope despatched another Brief, dated the 5th of October, 1833, and addressed to his "Ven- erable brother C. L., Bishop of Rennes." This brief was in- tended for the Abbe de la Mennais's guidance and direction in the difficult circumstances in which he found himseHj by reason of his thorough devotion to the interests of the Papacy and his equally ardent attachment to principles of liberty and humanity, which he found loo late, were intolerable at Rome. He had sent an humble address to the Pope, through the hands of the Bishop of Rennes, asking the commands of the holy father, " We have," the Pope answers, " but one single thing to reply ; it is that he shall engage to follow uniquely and absolutely the doctrine laid open in our Encyclique Letter, (in which, as we can say with Innocent I., our most holy predecessor, we have imposed no new precepts, but those which have been established by the tradition of the Apostles and Fathers,) and that he shall , 29* 330 MEMORANDA OF neither write nor approve any thing which is not conformed to this doctrine." About a month after this, we find Cardinal Barthelemi Pacca writing to the Abbe, by the Pope's commands, on the everlasting subject of the Encyclical Letter of iSS'i. After passing in review the existing circumstances of the case, he says that noth- ing would satisfy the most holy father, but a declaration " simple, absolute^ and unlimited,^' that he believed as the Encyclique taught, and rejected what it prohibited. Just a month after this, namely, on the 28th of December, 1833, the Pope despatched a Brief to his " dear son F. la Men- nais," acknowledging the receipt of " the humble and simple declaration" which had been so long demanded. It was finally obtained from that extraordinary man. In this Brief the Pope exhorts him so to employ the talents and knowledge which so eminently distinguished him, "that others might think and speak, unanimously, according to the doctrine laid down in our Encyclique." Things stood in this posture for about six months, at the end of which time the Abbe published his Words of a Believer : a work which he declares to Uie Archbishop of Paris, in a letter dated April 29, 1834 — is exclusively political, and designed par- ticularly for the people ; and that its only object was to plead the cause of •' political aid civil liberty," and to enforce upon its friends the necessity " of order, law, and justice," in the prose- cution of their great objects. As the proceedings of the Abbe and his friends, had furnished the occasion for the Encyclique of August 15th, 1832, which had been levelled more particularly at the ^venir ; so the Words of a Believer produced the Ency- clique of the 7th of the calends of July, 1834, in the fourth year of the pontificate of Gregory XVf. The last Encyclique is, if possible, more pointed, virulent, and outrageous than the first; it more thoroughly identifies Rome with the cause of tyrants ; and more completely renounces all sympathy with (he wants, the sufferings, the aspirations, the rights of the great bt)dy of mankind. " Venerable brothers, all the patriarchs, j^rimates, archbishops and bishops," begins this FOREIGN TRAVEL. 331 horrible bulletin, *' we have experienced a most lively joy, from the signal testimonies of faith, obedience, and religion with which, we have been informed, our Encyclique Letter, of the 15th of August, 1832, has been every where eagerly welcomed ; in which, to acquit ourselves of a duty imposed by our charge, we have announced to the universal Catholic flock, the sound doctrine, which alone any one is permitted to follow, on any of the points there treated." — "Venerable Brothers, we Avere seiz- ed with horror, at the first coup-d-oeil we cast over this book," (Words of a Believer). " It has endeavoured to shake and to destroy the Catholic doctrine, such as we have defined it in our Encyclique already cited, both in regard to the submission due to power, and in regard to the duty to turn the people away from the pernicious scourge of indifferentism, and to put a curb upon the unbounded freedom of opinion and of speech ; and in regard, finally, both to the absolute liberty of conscience, a lib- erty entirely to be condemned, and to that horrible conspiracy of societies for the ruin of the church and the state, composed of all false worships and sects." " Not satisfied with an audacity even thus great, it would establish by force, the absolute freedom of opinion, of speech, and of conscience." '' In the transports of its fury, it provokes the people to unite and associate themselves in all parts of the world, and without ceasing it urges and press- es towards the accomplishments of its pernicious designs, in a manner to make us perceive that on this point also, it tramples under foot both our advice and our prescriptions." " It is a book, in short, which is filled with propositions, respectively false, calumnious, audacious, anarchical, contrary to tlie word of God, impious, scandalous, erroneous, already condemned by the church — and especially in the cases of the Vaudois, the Wiklifites, the Hussites, and other similar heretics ;" and therefore the most holy father having, as he says, heard some of the cardinals of the holy Roman church, his venerable brothers, and on his own proper motion, of his certain knowledge, and in all the plenitude of his apostolic power " reproves, condemns, and desires that all shall perpetually hold as reproved and condemned," both the book and its propositions. 332 MEMORANDA OF I will add but one more, to these conclusive extracts ; but one additional Bull to those already proving with unanswerable cer- tainty, the league of Rome with all that is at work to degrade and oppress the human race. In the month of July, 1832, Pope Gregory XVf. addressed a Brief to the bishops of Poland. Po- land, heroic, unfortunate, illustrious Poland — whose name is identified with all that is noble in courage and constancy, all that is grand in devoted patriotism and love of liberty— all that identifies a people with the profound interests of the whole human family, and demands from the entire race the tenderest sympathy and the loftiest veneration ! In the midst of her murderous struggle against the most forocious tyranny which modern times have witnessed, and for rights which every nation in Europe had guaranteed by solemn compact, and which every man on earth if the case be made his own, will acknowledge to be precious as life ; in such a crisis, what says the father of the faithful, to his bleeding children ? What words of tenderness, consolation, and affect ion^ shall his lips distil, for those whose righteous cause is perishing amidst the tears of all the friends of man, and whose great souls are overwhelmed under the burden of insupportable misfortunes? Hear him; ponder his words! •'Venerable brothers, the Bishops of Poland ; health, and the apostolic benediction. We have been informed of the frightful misery into which this flourishing kingdom has been plunged during the past year ; we have understood at the same time that this misery has been caused exclusively by the plots of the malevolent, who in these unhappy times have used the interest of religion as a pretext for conspiring against the power of legit- imate sovereigns, and have precipitated their country into an abyss of misery, by breaking all the bands of legal submission." *' Your duty obliges you to watch with the greatest care, lest these evil-minded men, the propagators of false doctrines, spread amongst your flocks the germ of corrupt and deceitful theories. These men, making /eal for the public good their pretext, abuse the creduhty of the simple, who in their blindness serve as instruments for troubling the peace of the kingdom and over- throwing the established order. It is necessary for the benefit FOREIGN TRAVEL. 333 and honour of the disciples of Jesus Christ that the perfidy and wickedness of such prophets of lies should be placed in their true light. It is necessary to refute their fallacious principles, by the immutable word of Scripture, and by authentic monuments of the tradition of the church. These pure sources, from which the Catholic clergy should draw the principles of their actions and of the instructions which they give the faithful, make clearly manifest that submission to power instituted by God, is an im- mutable principle, from which no one can ever withdraw himself, except when the power violates the laws of God, or of the CHURCH !" " Your magnanimous Emperor will receive you with bounty, and will hear our representations and our prayers, con- cerning the interests of the Catholic religion, which he has always promised to protect in this kingdom. Certainly reason- able people will commend you, and your enemies will be forced to keep silence." For this Bull, Nicholas, the Emperor of Russia, put at the disposal of Gregory XVI., Pope of Rome, a column of Russian soldiers — and guaranteed the integrity of his temporal power. At least so says the Abbe de la Mennais, in his late work entitled Affaires de Rome. The thing which imports us, is the fact rather than ihe motive of the Bull. Then we assert that the Papacy has declared its cause to be indissolubly united with that of despotism. It has staked its infallibility — it has invoked the Scriptures, the fathers, and its own constant principles, maxims, and traditions — and has made its fate the fate of the oppressors of the earth ! Since the 15th day of August, 1832, till this hour, not a whis- per has been heard from any part of the earth, calling in ques- tion these horrible profanities, on the part of one single Papal bishop or high ecclesiastic ! The universal Roman Catholic and apostolical church, is therefore delivered over, finally and forever, to an alHance with the workers of every dark deed against freedom, knowledge, and civilization ! Now will the nations renounce their hopes, their light, their convictions, their assured triumph — and of free will put on again the chains they have already broken, and bow meekly lor the 334 MEMORANDA OF tripple fastening of those which have already eaten inio the bone ? Will they do this at the command of a voice impotent as it is unlovely ; and which scarcely heard above the noise of the falling sepulchres around its habitation, could not so far arrest the attention of the world, that half mankind were con- scious it had spoken ? Or rather, is it not certain that Rome has fortified herself so impregnably, that she cannot sally forth from a position where she must finally die in solitary scorn — despised, abhorred by the world she had so long betrayed, and which she finally conspired to sacrifice ? At this moment the solitary cord which binds the most devoted Papal communities to the priesthood and the church, is a belief in their official sanctity and authority. Their religious doctrines are refuted by the senses, and are incapable of belief; their political code is contradicted by the consciousness of every human being, and draws in its train the surrender of every right, privilege, enjoyment, and ornament of human nature. Yet they who demand these unspeakable sacrifices, so far from having any personal claims to superior holiness, intelligence, or excellence ; are rarely respected for their virtues, often abhorred for the injuries they have inflicted. The action of such a sys- tem while it endures, is replete with misery ; and its nature is such that when it terminates, it must be by convulsion. If men can be persuaded that God has in reality selected from amongst them as his sole representatives, those who are distinguished chiefly by the turpitude of their principles, the unreasonableness of their dogmas, and the looseness of their conduct ; it will be utterly in vain to persuade them at the same time, that God re^ quires of themselves other and better things. But we should never cease to remember that nature is a revelation from God, as real as any ; and that it was in knowledge as well as holiness, he created man after his own image. The dictates of nature and the teachings of enlightened reason, must be coincident with all subsequent revelations of the mind of God ; or if they be not, nature must hush her giant energies to silence, and glo» FOREIGN TRAVEL. 335 rious reason sleep upon her shininf^ throne — before we are capa- ble of hearinc^ the pretended voice of heaven ! The Papal system, belongs to the midnight of the world. By a fatal but unerring instinct, it has united itself so indissolubly to most of tlie capital evils which have afflicted mankind, that while society cannot complete its perfect developement until it is destroyed, it will carry with it in its final overthrow, most of the obstacles to ihat great and blessed necessity. 336 MEMORANDA OF CHAPTER XXXV. Departure from Nice— Anti-Chamber of ihe Commandant of Sardinian Gendarme- rie—The Waldenses of the Cottienn Alps. Within an hour after feaving Nice we had passed the Pojit de Var, and were in France. Disappointed in our expectation of finding a communication by steam boat, established between that city and the more southern parts of Italy; we had no alternative but to retrace our steps, seeking to reach Rome by land, or to go forward as far as Marsaille, and embark there, the latier was, as we had every reason to hope, an open route, by which we might reach Naples within eight or ten days ; and for these, as well as on other accounts we preferred to advance. At Nice we found an American consul, who added the name of our only remaining domestic to our own on the back of my passport; and we passed the barrier, having experienced for the twentieth time a civility on the part of custom house officers, for which the world gives them little credit. 1 am sorry to make an exception to a fact so general, in the case of some of the Sardinian functionaries. I have already spoken of those at Turin ; at Nice they were not less offensive, though probably less directly criminal. In every part of Europe in which I had been, except this kingdom, the personal attendance of travellers is not required at the bureaus ; the passport sent by the hands of another — generally a person who makes a profession and a living out of such little offices, being deemed sufficient. At FOREIGN TRAVEL. 337 Turin and Nice, every thing must be done in person. At the htter place I called to get the last signature to my passport — being that of the Commandant of the Gendarmerie of the de- partment, pretty early on the morning I left the city. The small anti-room was full — and amongst the assembly, if I might except myself, and a tremendous Turk, there was not another person who was not both ragged and filthy. Some were persons of the poorest sort, from the adjoining parts of France ; some were Italian sailors and their wretched female companions; many were subjects of the king of Sardinia, seeking permission to go from one of his states to another, or possibly to leave his kingdom. The contrast between the wretchedness of these miserable beings, and the sleek and pampered insolence of the slaves hired to watch them, and in whose presence we all stood awaiting their good pleasure to go about our lawful business, and digest- ing as we might their habitual impertinence ; was strong and painful in a high degree. The Turk got tired of the scene, rose up from a bench on which he was reclining, stuffed a hand- ful of phials of perfumes into his bosom, and marching up to the wicker door which separated the office from the anti-chamber, rammed a thick bundle of ragged papers through it, and left the room. They seemed to be ship's papers. Perhaps he had just entered port. The men in authority looked at him in silence, and with perfect contempt ; and the crowd gazed listlessly after him as he stalked slowly offl I concluded I would follow the Turk's movement, only inversely : so I walked up to the wicker and demanded my passport in broad English. As nobody under- stood me, they all looked up. 1 then repeated the demand in French. After much hesitation and a long trial to memorize my name, and then a hunt after the passport, it was produced. — Then came fifty questions. Where had I come from ? I show- ed them the last visa of the Sardinian police, which was an official answer. Where was I going? To Rome. Then f must take my passport to the representative of his holiness and get his signature, before they could do any thing. 1 pointed to the proper signature and seal. The passport was in English, which was a dead letter to the querist; and hence another series Vol. u.— so 338 MEMORANDA OF of interrogatories. What'[countryman was I ? I told him.-* Then it was necessary for me to get our consul's visa. I pointed to it on the back of the passport. He read it, being in French, and as it stated that the persons named were going to France, whereas I had said to Rome, another cross-questioning became necessary. You must have the visa of the French Consul. There it is ; I go to Rome by way of Marseille. In short, every thing was as it should be, but still nothing could be done. At length another person salHed out from an inner apartment, and taking the case in hand, settled it at once. It appeared that the first interrogater had no other object but to prolong the discourse indefinitely, with me and all others, till the veritable Simon Pure saw fit to attend to his business ; and as he had not been so moved for several hours, about a dozen such scenes as I have described had transpired. The Turk understood the mat-» ter sooner than I did, and bolted. The poor wretches around us seemed to take it in complete earnest to the last, and as many as had passed through the hands of the calechist appeared in despair as to their prospects, A woman with three little chil- dren stood near the door, ejaculating French imprecations upon herself and her evil lot. 1 put a trifle into the hand of the child nearest to me, a bright faced boy of six years old, and left the room. The day afterwards, as we drove along the shore of the sea, twenty miles from Nice, I saw a boy get up behind our carriage, and at once recognized the lad. Did you ever see me before ? said I. Oh ! Oui Monsieur, was his instant reply. Where ? In the passport office at Nice. This is well, thought I. Who knows what the same prompt, observant, and perspicuous spirit may do towards surmounting the ills of poverty, and the evils of a state of society so infinitely unnatural ? He had come from the opposite side of France, with his mother and Httle sisters, on foot, on a visit to their relatives, after their fall labours were finished ; and were now returning home. This is well too : for after all, it is the ties of blood that bind us most tenderly and ndissolubly to each other; and that hearti s open to all kind and good impressions, which beats strongly under the power o i' FOREIGN TRAVEL. 339 this great sentiment. I shall never see thai boy nn)re ; i shall never know him, even if we should be attain jostled together in the short journey of life. But it pleases me to recall his look of ready and affectionate recognition ; and I count it a mercy to have had the chance, by a kind word, and a small token, to quicken the power of human sympathy in his youni]^ heart: and that too at a moment when it was ready to burst. Before taking our leave of Italy, there is one subject which should on no account be omitted. In the Alps of Piedmont, lying behind Susa as you enter Italy over Mont Cenis, and to the right hand of Pinerolo as you go from Turin to Nice, in the deepest recesses of the Cottienn Alps, lies concealed one of the most interesting communities that exists on earth. Shut up ia the rugged bosom of the mountains is a little band of Waldenses — the direct descendents of those ancient and persecuted men, who at such' terrible cost, and amidst such frightful darkness, kept the light of truth burning steadily and quenchlessly. — Sprung from an antiquity so remote and so clearly established even by their enemies and persecutors, that none can disprove the tradition which unites them to the apostles of the Lord ; luminously, gloriously recorded for seven hundred years, in the curses of the books of the enemies of God ; through every cen- tury of which their blood has attested their intrepid sincerity, and the anathemas of Rome made manifest the purenessof their faith. Driven into these inaccessible fastnesses, by the keen sword of the crusader, and the gibbet of the fierce inquisitor, they " of whom the world was not worthy," have preferred the *'dens and caves of the earth" to palaces stained with the blood of God's saints ; and have chosen rather to be "destitute, iorsaken, afflicted," than to make " a covenant with death," and " be at agreement with hell." There are three principal vallies inhabited by these interest- ing people. The valley of Lucerna is the most southerly, and lies under the august form of Mont Viso. Farther to the north, and just behind the village of La Perosa are the vallies of San Martino and Sesane. The torrent from which the last named valley takes its name, rises under Mont Genievre, near Briancon. 340 MEMORANDA OF In the region of the first named valley is Mont Vaudalin, on whose summit is the cavern which afforded shelter to the feeble remnants of the persecuted Vaudois, in their times of sorest need. In the same district is Pre-du-Tour, the ancient seminary of the Vaudois pastors, before the reformation. In the valley of San Martino is situated the defile of Bolsille, so famous in the wars of this heroic people. The three vallies are divided into thirteen parishes, which embrace all the villages and numerous hamlets. There are at present settled pastors in all these parishes : and I have thought it not uninteresting to give their names. They are, Messrs. Mondon, Best, (moderator of the Presbytery,) Goante, Gay, Mouston, (secretary,) Peyrot, Monaslier, Monnet, Vincon, Talla, Rostaing, the father, (adjunet moderator,) Rostaing, the son, Peyran. The population of the thirteen parishes is about 21,500 souls, of whom 1,783 are Papists. The increase must be very slow; as the total population was stated by De Thou, at 15,000, in 1560. From the period of the reformation less has been known of these retired and humble disciples than could have been wished, and far less interest felt in them, than their past history deserved. They seem indeed to have been set as a sort of spectacle for the world ; for not only were they objects of relentless persecu- tion for ages before the reformation, but at every crisis since, whenever that sword has been unsheathed, it has fallen with the most unpitying edge upon them. Nay, even where prudence required that the rights of other protestants should be respected — or their power was sufficient to vindicate itself— these weak and unpitied victims were often made to bear the two-fold bit- terness of a malignity rendered iurious by repression. Nor is it alone from those whose religious principles inculcate persecution as a sacred duty, that these unhappy mountaineers have suffer- ed wrong. Some of their own pastors seem to have been im- bued to a considerable degree with the same woful spirit of de- clenfiion, which during the last century, carried away all the world; and the true knowledge of spiritual things remaining amongst that body, was leeble and ready to perish. Edu- FOREIGN TRAVEL. 341 cated at Geneva, they imbibed the spirit which had supplanted the spirit of Christ there ; and the pastors of the Vaudois whose ancestors for countless generations had given up all for Christ, themselves had almost given him up ; and they who had been always persecuted, became enemies of the followers of Jesus amongst their own flocks ! In short, they were to a lamentable extent Arians ; and just not persecutors. That wonderful man of God, Felix NefF, during his residence in the neighbouring districts of the high Alps of France, visited these secluded vallies. He spent a few weeks only in the scat- tered villages and hamlets. But God was with him, and those feeble labours were the beginning of a work of grace, which with more or less power has extended through all the churches of the Vaudois in Piedmont. Many of the pastors are believed to be converted to God ; others are less decidedly opposed to evangelical religion ; and the whole body is said to be gradually but decidedly tending towards the right way. Meanwhile many of the people are already in advance of some of their pastors, in the knowledge of spiritual things, and filled with an eager desire for the return of the entire flock to the good old paths in which their fathers trod, and found peace even amidst the furnace of affliction. In Italy itself, the land of darkness and of blood, God hath not left himself without a witness. And it is striking to observe that at the moment and in the degree that the cause of his enemies waxes feeble, his children come forth clothed anew in vestments borrowed from the skies, and shining with the light of heaven. Mankind should never cease to remember that the " fell and savage cruelty" as Oliver Cromwell truly described the con- duct of the Duke of Savoy to his Vaudois subjects, interests us all nearly as much as it does those presently exposed to it. For says Oliver most truly, in one of those noble epistles which he addressed to all the principal powers of Europe, on the occasion of that persecution of the Waldenses of Piedmont which occur- red during his protectorate; "although this fell and savage cruelly first began upon those poor and helpless people, it threat- ens all that profess the same religion." Nor is his inference less 342 MEMORANDA OF clear and indisputable, that this fact " imposes upon all a greater necessity of providing for themselves in general, and consulting the common safety." The great interests of liberty and religion are the same every where and at every period ; and so also are the designs as well as the cruelty and crimes of tyrants. But of all tyrants, those who profess to act by immediate revelation from God, and therefore to act infallibly, are the most danger- ous to the human race — the most to be dreaded and abhorred. How much of the honour of Cromwell's remarkable and noble interposition lor his " exterminated and indigent brethren," as he tenderly called them, is to be credited to Milton, who was then his private secretary for foreign correspondence, need not be too curiously inquired into. Milton's feelings may be easily understood from the thrilling verses, with v/hich we conclude, at once, the subject and the present volume. But whatever may be said of Cromwell, it must be allowed that all noble, generous, manly, and Christian impulses could never have been strangers to him, who was the kinsman and pupil of John Hampden, tlie patron, guide, and father of Henry Ireton ; whose favourite chaplain was John Howe, and his confidential secretary John Milton ! Immortal names ; whose very friendship is a seal and passport to the world's applause ! Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ; Ev'n them who kept tliy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones. Forget not : in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To H^av'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant ; tliat from these may grow A hundred fold, who having leam'd tby way Barly may fly the Babylonian woe. Princaton Theological Semma;, M^^ ,|,|||| 7 1012 00021 8166