THE ASCENT OF THE DÔLE
I can see the importance of a knowledge of geology as a basis for the
study of history. How do valleys run--north and south or east and
west? This inclination conditions sunlight. Where the rocks are hard
and impervious there are many small streams; but in a fissured
district of chalky rock as in the Jura there are few torrents. There
is almost no water in the regions of the upper Jurassic rocks and no
temptations for settlers. But the lower and middle Jura, rich in marl,
offers excellent pasturage. The grass grows sparse but sweet where the
cretaceous rocks have crumbled. Where the sun shines bright and warm
and there is shelter from cold winds the vine is cultivated.
Poor ignorant man, wandering up into valleys where the limestone of
the hard water will give all his descendants the goître, or building
his habitation under a precipice where the whole side of the mountain
will slide down on him and overwhelm him, as happened at Val Bregaglia
in 1618 when Monte Conto wiped out most of the 2,000 inhabitants of
Piuro! How can a country like Switzerland, made up of so many scores
of valleys each different in characteristic and each conditioning the
inhabitants,--here making them taciturn, there gay and thoughtless,
here again honest and religious, there sly and untrustworthy,--how can
it have any real political unity?
* * * * *
The next morning, after breakfast, I went into the library and picked
up a copy of Addison’s “Travels through Switzerland.” One sentence
begins:--“I made a little voyage round the lake and touched on the
several towns that lie on its coasts, which took up near five days,
though the wind was pretty fair for us all the while.” He was
referring to the Lake of Geneva. As usual with me, I copied a few
paragraphs into my diary. I like to do that with letters or books.
Often one can find just the description one wants and save making an
original one. I was amused at one thing in Addison. He introduces
classical poems whenever he can with his own translations and
sometimes he forgets to put them à propos, so he adds them at the end
of his chapter.
“Near St. Julian in Savoy the Alps begin to enlarge themselves on all
sides and open into a vast circuit of ground, which, in respect of the
other parts of the Alps, may pass for a plain champagne country. This
extent of lands, with the Leman Lake, would make one of the prettiest
and most defensible dominions in Europe, was it all thrown into a
single state and had Geneva for its metropolis. But there are three
powerful neighbors who divide among them the greatest part of this
fruitful country. The Duke of Savoy has the Chablais and all the
fields that lie beyond the Arve as far as to the Ecluse. The King of
France is master of the whole country of Gex; and the Canton of Bern
comes in for that of Vaud.
“Geneva and its little territories lie in the heart of these three
states. The greatest part of the town stands upon a hill and has its
view bounded on all sides by several ranges of mountains, which are,
however, at so great a distance that they leave open a wonderful
variety of beautiful prospects. The situation of these mountains has
some particular effects on the country which they inclose. At first
they cover it from all winds except the south and north. It is to the
last of these winds that the inhabitants of Geneva ascribe the
healthfulness of their air; for as the Alps surround them on all sides
they form a vast kind of bason, where there would be a constant
stagnation of vapors, the country being so well watered, did not the
north wind put them in motion and scatter them from time to time.
“Another effect the Alps have on Geneva is that the sun here rises
later and sets sooner than it does to other places of the same
latitude. I have often observed that the tops of the neighboring
mountains have been covered with light above half an hour after the
sun is down in respect of those who live at Geneva.
“These mountains likewise very much increase their summer heats and
make up an horizon that has something in it very singular and
agreeable. On one side you have the long tract of hills that goes
under the name of Mount Jura, covered with vineyards and pasturage,
and on the other huge precipices of naked rocks rising up in a
thousand odd figures and cleft in some places so as to discover high
mountains of snow that lie several leagues behind them. Toward the
south the hills rise more insensibly and leave the eye a vast
uninterrupted prospect of many miles. But the most beautiful view of
all is the lake and the borders of it that lie north of the town.
“This lake resembles a sea in the color of its waters, the storms that
are raised on it and the ravages it makes on its banks. It receives
too a different name from the coast it washes and in summer has
something like an ebb and flow which arises from the melting of the
snows that fall into it more copiously at noon than at other times of
the day. It has four different states bordering on it: the Kingdom of
France, the Duchy of Savoy, the Canton of Bern and the Republic of
Geneva.”
Addison spent a day at Lausanne, which he calls the greatest town on
the lake after Geneva, and he saw “the wall of the cathedral church
that was opened by an earthquake and shut again some years after by a
second.” But Addison adds:--“The crack can but be just discerned at
present though there are several in the town still living who have
formerly passed through it.”
Addison’s compliment to the Almighty in letting the Rhône run as it
does is quite amusing. He says: “As I have seen the great part of the
course of this river I cannot but think it has been guided by the
particular hand of Providence.... Had such a river as this been left
to itself to have found its way out from among the Alps, whatever
windings it had made it must have formed several little seas and have
laid many countries under water before it had come to the end of its
course.”
Addison went to Nyon, where he says he observed in the walls of
several houses the fragments of the vast Corinthian pillars with
several other pieces of architecture which must have formerly belonged
to some very noble pile of building.
Will and I went to Nyon a few days after our return from Geneva and we
went into the château, where there is now an interesting museum of
antiquities. The walls of the building are at least three meters in
thickness.
From Nyon we drove in the car through Trélex, Saint-Cergue, as far as
the Château de Vuarnen; from there we walked to the summit of La Dôle.
We chose our day and our time and had as perfect a view as one could
desire. It stands about twelve hundred and forty meters above the sea
but it might be rather lonely for a continued residence; for that I
should perhaps choose the Château de Monnetier, within jumping
distance of Geneva.
Here is Goethe’s account of his ascent of La Dôle. It was a more
unusual exploit in his day, and it is interesting as showing what an
effect the spell of the Alps had on the great German poet. I
translated it for my diary, but, of course, I left out a few
unessential passages:--
“The weather was very clear; when we looked around we had a view of
the Lake of Geneva, the mountains of Savoy and of Valais; we could
make out Lausanne and, through a faint mist, also the region of
Geneva. Mont Blanc, which towers above all the mountains of the
Faucigni, grew ever more and more distinct. The sun was sinking
undimmed; it was such a great prospect that a human eye cannot grasp
it. The moon, almost full, arose and we also kept mounting. Through
forest of fir-trees we climbed up toward the Jura and saw the lake in
the vaporous atmosphere and the moon reflected in it. It grew brighter
and brighter. The road is a well-constructed _chaussée_ only built to
facilitate the transportation of wood from the mountains down into the
country.
“We had been climbing a good three hours when it gradually began to
descend again. We thought that we were looking down on a large lake
below us, because a thick mist filled the whole valley over which we
could look. At last we came quite near it and saw the white bow
which the moon made in it and then we were wholly enveloped in it.”
[Illustration: THE SAVOY ALPS FROM THE NORTH SHORE OF LAKE LEMAN.]
They spent the night in a comfortable house and the next day continued
their journey into the Jura, which he explains is a word from a local
term, _joux_, meaning a crag or mountain. The next day they proceeded
on their way. It was the twenty-fourth of October, 1779.
“It was a clear, cool morning; there was hoar frost on the meadows;
here and there light mist-wreaths were drifting over; we could see
fairly well over the lower part of the valley; our house lay at the
foot of the Western Noir Mont. About eight o’clock we set forth on
horseback, and in order to enjoy the sun at once we rode toward the
west. The part of the valley where we were proceeding consists of
fenced meadows which toward the lake become rather swampy. The Orbe
flows through the center of it. The inhabitants have established
themselves in single houses partly on its banks, partly in clustering
villages which bear simple names suggested by their situation. The
first one which we passed through was Le Sentier. From afar we saw La
Dent de Baulion smiling across a fog bank which hung over the lake.
The valley widened; we came behind a crag which hid the lake from us
and entered another village called Le Lieu; the fog was rising and
then settling down again before the sun.
“Near here is a little lake which seems to have neither inflow nor
outflow. The weather became perfectly clear and as we reached the foot
of the Dent de Baulion we found here the northerly end of a large lake
which, as it turns toward the west, has its outlet into the little one
through a dam over which is built a bridge. The village above it is
called Le Pont. The lay of the little lake is, as it were, in its own
little valley, which one might call a very neat arrangement. At the
western end is a noteworthy mill constructed in a cleft of the rock
which once the little lake filled. Now it is dammed away and the mill
is built over the chasm. The water runs through sluices to the
millwheels and from there dashes down into the clefts of the rocks,
where it is swallowed up, and a mile away joins the Valorbe, where it
once more takes the name of the upper stream.
“These sluices (_entonniers_) have to be kept clear, else the water
would rise and fill up the cleft again and drown the mill, as has
happened more than once. Men were busy at work, some removing the
decomposed limestone, some strengthening the structure.
“We rode back over the bridge to Le Pont and took a guide to La Dent.
As we mounted we had a fine view of the large lake below us in its
whole extent. To the eastward Le Noir Mont forms its boundary; behind
that the bald head of the Dôle comes into sight; to the westward the
precipitous crags, quite naked toward the lake, confine it.
“The sun grew hot; it was between eleven and noon. Gradually we began
to get a prospect over the whole valley and could recognize in the
distance Le Lac des Rousses, and coming up to our feet the region
through which we had been riding and the road which still remained for
us to accomplish. As we mounted higher we talked about the vast extent
of land and of the rulers which could be distinguished from that
height and with such thoughts we attained the summit; but another
drama was there prepared for us. Only the lofty mountain chains were
visible under a clear and cheerful sky; all the regions below were
bedecked with a white woolly sea of fog which stretched from Geneva
northward to the very horizon and gleamed in the sun. Out of this to
the east arose the whole unbroken range of snow and ice-covered
mountains, without respect to the names of the nations and princes who
lay claim to the possession of them, subjected only to one great
Overlord and to the glance of the sun, which painted them a lovely
rosy hue.
“Mont Blanc over opposite to us was evidently the highest; the
ice-mountains of Valais and of the Oberland came next and finally
closed in the lower mountain of the Canton of Bern. Toward the west in
one place the sea of fog was unbounded; to the left in the farthest
distance the mountains of Solothurn showed themselves; nearer still
those of Neuchâtel; directly before us a few of the lower peaks of the
Jura; below us lay some of the houses of Baulion whereto La Dent
belongs and whence it gets the name. Toward the west the whole horizon
is shut off by the Franche-Comté with a stretch of low wooded
mountains, one of which stood out quite alone by itself toward the
northwest. In front was a lovely view.
“Here is the sharp point which gives this peak the name of a tooth. It
slopes down steeply and, if anything, bends inward a little; in the
depths a little fir-wood valley with fine grassy meadows is shut in;
directly beyond lies the valley called Valorbe, where one can see the
Orbe springing from the rocks and follow in imagination its downward
course under the ground to the little lake.
“The village of Valorbe also lies in this valley.
“Reluctantly we turned to descend. If we could have waited a few hours
longer, until the fog in accordance with its custom should have
entirely dissipated, we should have been able to distinguish the
country still farther down the lake; but in order that enjoyment may
be perfect there must still be something left to be desired. Looking
down we had the whole valley in all distinctness before us; at Pont we
mounted our horses, rode along the easterly side of the lake, came
through l’Abbaye de Joux, which is now a village, but was formerly the
seat of the monks to whom the whole valley belonged. About four
o’clock we reached our quarters and found a meal which our hostess
assured us had been good at midday but which we found tasted
remarkably good.”
For their return they decided to make the ascent of the second highest
peak of the Jura, the Dôle, though it was then supposed to be the
highest.
“We packed a luncheon of cheese, butter, bread and wine and started
away about eight o’clock. Our route took us now through the upper part
of the valley under the shadow of Le Noir Mont. It was very cold;
there had been a hoar frost and it had frozen; we had still an hour
to ride in the Bernese territory where the _chaussée_, which has just
been completed, comes to an end. We entered French territory, passing
through a small fir forest. Here the scene abruptly changes. What
first struck our attention was the bad roads. The ground is very
stony; great heaps of rocks lay all about; then again for a space it
is very swampy and full of springs; the forests all about are in bad
condition; the houses and inhabitants have the appearance not exactly
of destitution but still of very straitened circumstances. They are
almost in the condition of serfs to the Canonici of Saint Claude; they
are bound to the soil; many imposts are laid upon them....
“Yet this part of the valley is also a good deal built up. The natives
work hard to support themselves and yet they love their country; they
are in the habit of stealing the wood from the Bernese peasants and of
selling it again in the country. The first district is called Le Bois
d’Amont and we passed through this into the parish of Les Rousses,
where we saw lying before us the little Lake des Rousses and Les Sept
Moncels--seven little connected hills of varied forms, the southern
boundary of the valley. We soon came to the new road which leads from
the Pays de Vaud toward Paris. We followed it for a while downwards
and were soon out of our valley. The bald head of La Dôle lay before
us. We dismounted; our horses proceeded along the road to
Saint-Cergues, and we kept on our way up La Dôle.
“It was about noon; the sun seemed hot but a cool midday wind was
blowing. When, in order to get breath, we turned around to look, we
had Les Sept Moncels behind us; we could still see a part of Le Lac
des Rousses and built around it the scattered houses of the parish. Le
Noir Mont hid from us all the rest of the valley; mounting higher we
once more saw the same prospect over La Franche-Comté and nearer to us
the last mountains and valleys of the Jura toward the south. We took
great pains to avoid allowing some turn in the ascent to give us a
prospect of the region for the sake of which we were actually climbing
the mountain. I was somewhat troubled by the fog; yet I made favorable
prognostications from the aspect of the sky above.
“At last we attained the topmost peak and beheld with the greatest
delight that what had been denied us the day before was now vouchsafed
to us. The whole Pays de Vaud and Pays de Gex lay before us like a
map; all the landed estates with green hedges marked off like the
beds of a parterre. We were so high that the heights and depressions
of the country in the foreground did not appear. Villages, towns,
châteaux, vineyards, and higher up, where forest and Alps begin,
châlets, for the most part painted white and bright, shone in the sun.
The fog had lifted entirely from Lake Leman; we could see the nearer
shore clearly; we entirely looked over the so-called Petit Lac, where
the great lake narrows and draws toward Geneva, which lay directly
opposite us, and the country beyond, shutting it in, began to disclose
itself. Above all, however, the prospect of the ice and snow-mountains
asserted its rights.
“We protected ourselves from the cold blast by the shelter of the
rocks and let the sun pour down directly upon us; food and drink
tasted excellently good! We looked down on the fog as it gradually
dispersed; each of us discovered something, or claimed to discover
something. Gradually Lausanne began to show with all its châteaux;
Vevey and the Castle of Chillon came out distinctly; the mountains
that shut us off from sight of the entrance to Valais, sloping down
into the lake; from there along the Savoy coast--Evian, Ripaille,
Thonon; villages and châteaux, all clustered together; Geneva came
finally out of the fog at the right; but farther toward the south,
toward Le Mont Crédo and Mont Vuache, where the Fort l’Ecluse lies
hidden, it still lingered.
“When we turned to the left again, then the whole country from
Lausanne as far as Solothurn lay in a faint haze. The nearer mountains
and heights, wherever there were white houses, could be easily
recognized; some one pointed out to us the Castle of Chanvan as it lay
gleaming at the left by the Lake of Neuburg, and we could make out its
situation, but the castle itself we could not distinguish in the blue
haze.
“Words fail to describe the magnitude and beauty of this view; at such
a moment one is scarcely conscious of gazing; one only calls out the
names and lofty forms of well-known cities and places and rejoices in
an intoxicating recognition that those white spots before one’s eyes
are the places themselves.
“And the ranges of gleaming ice-mountains kept attracting the eye and
the soul. The sun turned more toward the west and illuminated their
mighty sides. What black shoulders of rock, teeth, towers and walls in
multifold ranks swept up from the lake before them! forming wild,
monstrous, impenetrable vestibules! As they lie there in their purity
and clarity, manifold in the free air, one willingly yields all
pretentions to the infinite, since one can never be done with the
finite in contemplation and thought (_Anschauen und Gedanken_).
“Before us we saw a fruitful inhabited land; the soil on which we were
standing, a high, bald mountain, still bears grass, fodder for cattle,
from which man draws sustenance. This the conceited Lord of the World
can claim as his own; but those mountains yonder are like a holy array
of virgins whom the Spirit of Heaven cherishes in inaccessible regions
for himself alone in everlasting chastity.
“We stayed there, in eager rivalry, striving now with the naked eye,
now with the telescope, to make out cities, mountains and localities,
and we did not start to descend until the sun in its waning again
allowed the fog to spread its evening breath over the lake. Just at
sunset we came to the ruins of Le Fort de Saint-Cergues. Even down
below in the valley our eyes were still fastened upon the
ice-mountains far across. The farthest away, at the left in the
Oberland, seemed to be melting in a thin fiery vapor; those nearest
still stood with well-marked red sides facing us; gradually they grew
white, green, grey. It looked almost disquieting. As a mighty body
dies from without in toward the heart, so all of them slowly grew pale
up toward Mont Blanc, whose broad bosom still glowed rosy and seemed
to preserve for us a reddish glow.
“At last reluctantly now we had to take our departure. We found the
horses at Saint-Cergues and, in order that there might be nothing
lacking, the moon rose and gave us light on our way to Nyon, while, as
we rode, our excited senses once more grew calm and assumed their
wonted tone, so that we were able with fresh enjoyment to find
pleasure in looking out of the windows of our inn on the wide
spreading reflection of the moon in the perfectly unruffled lake.”
* * * * *
It makes one realize the flight of time to read a little farther on of
Goethe’s visit to the illustrious De Saussure, through whose
initiative the ascent of Mont Blanc was accomplished nearly seven
years later. Goethe wanted to assure himself that it was feasible so
late in the season to go from Geneva by way of Cluse and Salanches
into the Valley of Chamonix and from there by way of Valorsine and
Trient into Martinach in the Valais. De Chaussure encouraged him to
do so, and in company still with the Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar
he made his famous trip which included a visit to Sion and the peak of
the Saint-Gothard.
Just a hundred years after Gray and sixty years after Goethe
penetrated these mountains still another great poet enriched his
imagination by experiences in the Alps. Curiously enough all three of
them related their adventures and their sensations in the form of
letters. Victor Hugo was at Geneva and at Lausanne in September. He
had been at Lucerne, at Bern and upon the Rigi. He, too, was impressed
by the wonders of the Alpine mists. He, too, describes a sunset:--
“At this moment the abyss was growing magnificent. The sun was going
down behind the notched crest of Pilatus. Its rays rested only on the
highest summits of all the mountains and its level rays lay across
these monstrous pyramids like golden architraves.
“All the mighty valleys of the Alps were filling with mists; it was
the hour when eagles and Lämmergeier seek their eyries.
“I had stepped forward to the edge of the precipice above which rises
the cross and from which Goldau is visible. I was alone, with my back
turned toward the sunset. I know not what the others were looking
at; what I saw was sublime enough for me.
[Illustration: “ALL THE MIGHTY VALLEYS OF THE ALPS WERE FILLING WITH
MISTS.”]
“The immense cone of shadow projected by the Rigi, clearly outlined by
its edges and, because of the distance, free from any visible
penumbra, gradually mounted, rock by rock, tree by tree, the steep
side of the Rossberg. The shadow mountain was devouring the sunlight
mountain. This vast dark triangle, the base of which was lost beneath
the Rigi and the apex of which was each instant coming nearer and
nearer the summit of the Rossberg, has already embraced Art, Goldau,
ten valleys, ten villages, half of the Lake of Zug and the whole Lake
of Lowerz. Clouds of reddish copper color floated across it and
changed into pewter. In the depths of the ravine Art floated in a
twilight glow starred here and there by lighted windows. Already poor
women were sewing down there by their lighted lamps. Art lives in the
night; the sun sets for its inhabitants at two o’clock.
“A moment later the sun had disappeared, the wind blew cold, the
mountains were grey. Not a cloud was in the sky. The Rigi had become
solitary once more, with a boundless blue sky arching above.
“In one of my earlier letters I spoke of ‘these granite waves called
Alps.’ I had no idea I had hit it so accurately. The image which came
into my mind appeared to me in all its vividness on the summit of the
Rigi after the sun had gone down. These mountains are really billows,
but giant billows. They have all the forms of the sea; there are
green, dark swells, which are the crests covered with evergreens;
blond and earthy seas, which are the granite slopes gilded with
lichens; on the loftiest undulations the snow is torn off and falls in
masses into black ravines as the foam does. You might think you saw a
mighty ocean solidified in the midst of a tempest by the breath of
Jehovah.
“What would become of the horizon and the mind of man should these
enormous billows be suddenly set in motion again?”