_August 5, 1820._
Whenever I feel any strong emotion, especially of pleasure, you, friend
of my youth and age,--you, dear resemblance of my father,--are always
present to my mind; and I always wish and want immediately to
communicate to you my feelings.
I did not conceive it possible that I should feel so much pleasure from
the beauties of nature as I have done since I came to this country. The
first moment when I saw Mont Blanc will remain an era in my life--a new
idea, a new feeling, standing alone in the mind.
We are most comfortably settled here: Dumont, Pictet, Dr. and Mrs.
Marcet, and various others, dined and spent two most agreeable evenings
here; and the fourth day after our arrival we set out on our expedition
to Chamouni with M. Pictet, as kind, as active, and as warm-hearted as
ever. Mrs. Moilliet was prevented, by the indisposition of Susan, from
accompanying us; but Mr. Moilliet and Emily came with us at five o'clock
in the morning in Mr. Moilliet's landau: raining desperately--great
doubts--but on we went: rain ceased--the sun came out, the landau was
opened, and all was delightful.
My first impression of the country was that it was like Wales; but
snow-capped Mont Blanc, visible everywhere from different points of
view, distinguished the landscape from all I had ever seen before. Then
the sides of the mountains, quite different from Wales indeed--
cultivated with garden care, green vineyards, patches of _blé de
Turquie_, hemp, and potatoes, all without enclosure of any kind, mixed
with trees and shrubs: then the garden-cultivation abruptly
ceasing--bare white rocks and fir above, fir measuring straight to the
eye the prodigious height. Between the foot of the mountain and the road
spread a border-plain of verdure, about the breadth of the lawn at Black
Castle between the trellis and Suzy Clarke's, rich with chestnut and
walnut trees, and scarlet barberries enlivening the green.
The inns on the Chamouni roads are much better than those on the road
from Paris; we grew quite fond of the honest family of the hotel at
Chamouni. Pictet knows all the people, and wherever we stopped they all
flocked round him with such cordial gratitude in their faces, from the
little children to the gray-headed men and women; all seemed to love
"Monsieur le Professeur." The guides, especially Pierre Balmat and his
son, are some of the best-informed and most agreeable men I ever
conversed with. Indeed for six months of the year they keep company with
the most distinguished travellers of Europe. With these guides, each of
us armed with a long pole with an iron spike, such as my uncle described
to me ages ago, and which I never expected to wield, we came down La
Flegère, which we mounted on mules. In talking to an old woman who
brought us strawberries, I was surprised to hear her pronounce the
Italian proverb, "_Poco a poco fa lontano nel giorno._" I thought she
must have been beyond the Alps--no, she had never been out of her own
mountains. The patois of these people is very agreeable--a mixture of
the Italian fond diminutives and accents on the last syllable--
Septembré, Octobré.
Our evening walk was to the arch of ice at the source of the Arveron,
and we went in the dusk to see a manufactory of cloth, made by a single
individual peasant--the machinery for spinning, carding, weaving, and
all made, woodwork and ironwork, by his own hands. He had in his youth
worked in some manufactory in Dauphiné. The workmanship was astonishing,
and the modesty and philosophy of the man still more astonishing. When I
said, "I hope all this succeeds in making money for you and your
family," he answered, "Money was not my object: I make just enough for
myself and my family to live by, and that is all I want; I made it for
employment for ourselves in the long winter evenings. And if it lasts
after me, it may be of service to some of them; but I do not much look
to that. It often happens that sons are of a different way of thinking
from their fathers: mine may think little of these things, and if so, no
harm."
The _table-d'hôte_ at Chamouni--thirty people--was very entertaining. We
had a most agreeable addition to our party in M. and Madame Arago: he
was very civil to us at Paris, and very glad to meet us again. As we
were walking to a cascade, he told me most romantic adventures of his in
Spain and Algiers, which I will tell you hereafter; but I must tell you
now a curious anecdote of Buonaparte. When he had abdicated after the
battle of Waterloo, he sent for Arago, and offered him a considerable
sum of money if he would accompany him to America. He had formed the
project of establishing himself in America, and of carrying there in his
train several men of science! Madame Bertrand was the person who
persuaded him to go to England. Arago was so disgusted at his deserting
his troops, he would have nothing more to do with him.
We returned by the beautiful valley of Sallenches and St. Gervais to
Geneva. I forgot to mention about a dozen cascades, one more beautiful
than the other, and I thought of Ondine, which you hate, and _mon Oncle
Friedelhausen._ We had left our carriage at St. Martin, and travelled in
_char-à-bancs_, with which you and Sophy made me long ago
acquainted--cousin-german to an Irish jaunting-car. We were well
drenched by the rain; and as we had imprudently lined our great straw
hats with green, we arrived at St. Gervais with chins and shoulders dyed
green. The hotel at St. Gervais is the most singular-looking house I
ever saw. You drive through a valley, between high pine-covered
mountains that seem remote from human habitation--when suddenly in a
scoop-out in the valley you see a large, low, strange wooden building
round three sides of a square, half Chinese, half American-looking, with
galleries, and domes, and sheds--the whole of unpainted wood. Under the
projecting roof of the gallery stood a lady in a purple silk dress,
plaiting straw, and various other figures in shawls, and caps, and
flowered bonnets, some looking very fine, others deadly sick--all
curious to see the new-comers. M. Goutar, the master, reminded me of
Samuel Essington: [Footnote: An old servant.] full of gratitude to M.
Pictet, who had discovered these baths for him, he whisked about with
his round perspiring face, eager to say a hundred things at once, with a
tongue too large for his mouth and a goitre which impeded his utterance,
and showed us his douches and contrivances, and spits turned by
water--very ingenious. Dinner was in a long, low, narrow room--about
fifty people; and after dinner we were ushered into a room with calico
curtains, very smart--a select party let in. Many unexpected compliments
on _Patronage_ from a Dijon Marquise, who was at the baths to get rid of
a redness in her nose. Enter, a sick but very gentlewomanlike Prussian
Countess, _Patronage_ again: Walter Scott's novels, as well known as in
England, admirably criticised. She promised me a letter to Madame de
Montolieu.
At Chamouni there is a little museum of stones and crystals, etc., where
MM. Moilliet and Pictet contrived to treat their geological souls to
seven napoleons' worth of specimens. An English lady was buying some
baubles, when her husband entered: "God bless my soul and body,
_another_ napoleon gone!"
At the inn at Bonneville--_shackamarack_ gilt dirt, Irish-French. Pictet
bought a sparrow some boys in the street threw up at the window, and
said he would bring it home for his little grandson. It was ornamented
with a topping made of scarlet cloth. He put it in his hat, and tied a
handkerchief over it; and hatless in the burning sun he brought it to
Geneva.
_August 6._
The day after our return we dined at Mrs. Marcet's with M. Dumont, M.
and Madame Prevost, M. de la Rive, M. Bonstettin, and M. de Candolle,
the botanist, a particularly agreeable man. He told us of many
experiments on the cure of goitres. In proportion as the land has been
cultivated in some districts the goitres have disappeared. M. Bonstettin
told us of some cretins, the lowest in the scale of human intellect, who
used to assemble before a barber's shop and laugh immoderately at their
own imitations of all those who came to the shop, ridiculing them in a
language of their own.
_To_ MRS. EDGEWORTH.