Place Bellecour—Louise Labé—Clémence de Bourges—Her desertion
by her lover—His Death—Her own—Rue de la Belle
Cordière—Abd-el-Kader—The fat Cantinière Captive—Presented
to the Emperor of Morocco—The Emperor’s Love—Her
obstinacy—Application made to the Consul—Her Oaths and
Blows—Her Return—The Savoyard Regiment’s fidelity—Marquis of
—— and Dogs—Cat Massacre—Indignant Landlady—Pont de la
Guillotière—Bridge at the same spot broken beneath Philip
Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion—Leaving Lyons—Mont
Blanc—La Verpelière—Its Accommodation—La Tour de Pin—A
lovely Country—An Auberge—Destructive Storms—Pont du
Beauvoisin—Curious Landlady—Leeches en poste—A smiling
Country—A wild Pass—La Chartreuse—Valley des
Échelles—Grotto—Cascade of Cours—Chambéry.
The evening promenade of the fashionables of Lyons is under the trees
of the Place Bellecour, and capricious as fashion is called, she was
enthroned here three centuries ago. Louise Labé was a native of Lyons;
from her childhood remarkable for genius and personal attractions; at
fifteen, a fearless, vain, beautiful girl. Her father’s pride bestowed
on her an education beyond her sex and century, and an imagination
unchilled as her temper was unrestrained by control, joined to the
consciousness of her own superiority, induced her, from this early age,
to seek to rise above her sex, and laugh at all the barriers which
custom had raised between it and glory. Her hours of recreation, from
Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish studies, she passed in attaining
perfection in all military exercises, and the command of the most fiery
horse. At the age of sixteen, and during the campaign of 1542, she
appeared at the army. The Dauphin commanded the siege of Perpignan, and
Louise disdained to treat fatigues or dangers as obstacles when
distinction was before her. Her dauntless courage soon made her known
by the name of Capitaine Loys. After the siege, abandoning the
profession of arms with the same caprice which led her to adopt it, she
returned to Lyons, to cultivate letters with more enthusiasm than
before; for with her all tastes were passions.
Many sought her hand; it was said she had given her heart while at the
army to a young officer of family, but no fortune. She,
notwithstanding, on her return, accepted a rich rope merchant, named
Perrin, whose riches might afford fresh means of celebrity. In her
spacious gardens, near the Place Bellecour, crowds assembled to see
her; men of learning, poets, and artists. The subjects of their
meetings were science, poetry, and the fine arts, of all which she
seemed the beautiful genius by turns; and a knowledge of music and a
fine voice were added to these gifts of a higher order, like the wand
to the enchantress.
Among those who sought her society was her friend, Clémence de Bourges.
Much younger than Louise; of not inferior, though a different style of
beauty, of equal genius, timid as was its possessor. To her Louise Labé
dedicated a volume of poems, and became in turn confidante of her most
secret thoughts. The one was the observed of all observers, a sun round
which worlds might revolve; the other, with all her talent and
loveliness, was a mild, soft-hearted woman, content to single forth “a
bright particular star,” and make it that of her destiny. She was
betrothed to the object of her first love, a young officer, of the name
of Jean Dupeyrat, whose profession often absented him from Lyons; and
during these absences it became the habit of Clemence to pass much of
her time with Louise in discourse of her lover, sometimes showing to
her in confidence the sweet verses her affection addressed to him. At
last the officer returned; Louise’s curiosity was excited, and Clemence
was proud and happy to make him known to her. Woman’s vanity prevailed
over woman’s friendship. She tried the powers of her fascination, and
Dupeyrat was dazzled by the wit which shone from heartlessness, and
Clemence was too deeply interested to struggle long, for her hand was
paralyzed by feeling her life staked on the throw. Next she was
neglected;—the friends parted, and then she was alone; and while
Dupeyrat was following the footsteps and listening to the magic voice
of her brilliant rival, adding one more to her court, young Clemence
pined and grew pale in her solitude, but lived on still, for hope had
not quite deserted her. At last Dupeyrat left Lyons to join his
comrades at the siege of Beaurepaire, and while Clemence trusted that
absence might bring back thoughts of other times, she received news of
his death; he had been killed during the storm. She did not survive him
long, and was borne to her grave with her fair young face uncovered,
and her head crowned with white flowers, and followed to it by the
regret of all Lyons.
Louise Labé, not formed of the “porcelain of human clay,” inherited the
fortune of her deceased husband, and died about forty years of age.
From the most celebrated of her works, a kind of drama, entitled “Love
and Madness,” Lafontaine took the plot of one of his fables. After her
decease, her house was taken down, and a street occupies its place. It
is still called after her, “Rue de la belle Cordière.”
27th May.
We are to leave the day after to-morrow, and our friend spent last
evening with us. He told us a story, which, though it certainly has
nothing to do with Lyons, I cannot forbear telling you, who have no
chance of hearing it from himself. You know that since we saw him he
has passed four years and a half in Africa, fighting against
Abd-el-Kader. In Capt. de ——’s regiment there was a cantinière, not
handsome, but a very stout, robust woman of about thirty, with a
powerful arm, and sufficiently red face not to belie her calling. In an
engagement which took place between the French and Arabs, our friend,
Capt. de ——, was at no great distance from the poor woman when she
was taken prisoner. He was with his men too fully occupied to be able
to assist her, and spite of her screams and struggles she was borne off
to Abd-el-Kader. When he saw her, he thought of his ally, the Emperor
of Morocco, who is a great admirer of fat women, and Abd-el-Kader
exclaimed, “C’est mon affaire,” and commanded that the captive should
be with due care and attention conveyed to his imperial Majesty, and
offered him as a present. The cantinière was placed on a camel, and
transported to the Emperor of Morocco.
Arrived at her destination, the emperor, struck with her appearance,
fell in love, but ere she could be placed among the ladies of his
harem, it was necessary that she should change her religion, and here
her royal master failed. She swore at him;—either he did not
understand, or the interpreter thought translation unnecessary, or love
was deaf as he is sometimes blind; for the emperor essayed all means of
conversion, and having loaded her with presents in vain, tried the
power of threats.
During this time her husband, who was a soldier in the regiment, was
inconsolable, and in spite of many of his comrades, who laughed at him,
obtained leave and set off for Toulon, to the consul, who in
consequence made application for the liberty of the captive cantinière.
The emperor had become greatly embarrassed; for having threatened to
cut off her head, she said he might if he would, but he could not make
her an apostate. He gave her slaves to attend her: she beat them
vehemently; to his gentleness she replied by oaths. Fresh from the
66th, it was useless to beseech her to be a sultana, she chose to be a
cantinière; so that when the demand for her freedom arrived, he was
rather glad to be rid of her. The poor woman, rewarded for her courage
and constancy, rejoined her husband. Capt. de —— said, that if he
would have taken her back to Oran, all the officers there had become so
interested in her fate, that a large subscription would probably have
been raised; but her husband preferred remaining in France; he feared
his rival, the Emperor of Morocco.
We have staid here long enough to become accustomed to the place and
people, and I am sorry to go away. The landlord’s pretty daughter is an
accomplished singer, and her good old aunts tell me stories in the hot
evenings on the terrace. The fat civil waiter, Ambrose, is a Savoyard,
and was a private in the regiment of Savoy at the time when the present
King of Sardinia, then Prince of Carignan, conspired against the last
monarch, his uncle; and when all the Sardinian troops went over to the
Prince, the Savoyard regiment disbanded itself and the men returned to
their mountains. I have even made acquaintance with the young pet
donkey, who follows round the yard for the bits of bread which first
won his good graces. The mention of pets reminds me of an anecdote, for
whose truth I will not vouch, but which I repeat, as it made me laugh.
The Marquis of H——, who passes through Lyons once a year on his way
from England to Italy, has several dogs of a large strong breed,
favourites to the degree that they always occupied cushions in the
carriage, till medical advice, in consequence of their loss of health,
obliged them sometimes to run behind. Mortal enemies to cats, I was
rather surprised, when desired to guess how many they had destroyed on
their way from Rome, to hear a thousand francs’ worth, “pour mille
francs de chats.” Most cat proprietors placed the lame or infirm in the
way of his lordship’s dogs, and set their own value on them after the
massacre. It, however, once happened, that an ancient landlady thus
lost a large Angola, an old friend of the family, and, in her wrath and
sorrow, for the Marquis of H——’s dinner she served up its mangled
remains before him in a basket.
29th May.
Left Lyons this morning; our trunks sent on as before, and our only
baggage contained in the valise Grizzle carries, leaving behind us, as
we crossed the Pont de la Guillotière, the splendid Hôtel Dieu, and the
green avenues which edge the rapid river. The bridge is the longest in
France (excepting that of the St. Esprit, over the Rhone also); its
length is two hundred and sixty toises. There existed one at this spot
in the time of Philip Augustus, King of France, but it was not then of
stone, and when the French king departed from Lyons for the Holy Land,
in company of Richard Cœur de Lion, it gave way beneath the numbers who
formed their suite, and many were drowned. The widening of the Pont de
la Guillotière, which has heretofore been dangerously narrow, is now in
progress, and the usual carelessness of the French, and their
confidence in their quiet horses, leaves for the present a great part
in its original narrowness, but the parapets taken down. We luckily
dismounted as we reached this part, for a man pulling a cart entangled
his wheel in that of a heavy waggon, and as the horses were backed to
disengage him, and the assistants swore and pulled with all their
might, we expected to see them go over. As to Fanny, she started so
violently that I feared being obliged to let go the rein.
However we passed in safety. Burning weather as we rode through the
faubourg, and ascended the long hill, whence the view back to Lyons,
the Rhone’s windings, and the mountain of Fourvières, is very
beautiful. The square tower of the latter we distinguished for miles,
diminishing by degrees, seen through vistas of poplars with which the
broad road (the best we have yet travelled) is often shaded. We lost
this prospect as we descended, but the Alps were visible, and Mont
Blanc, a little to the left, towering above them.
As we had quitted Lyons late, and loitered during the heat of the day
in the shade, it was evening when we approached La Verpilière. The deep
red clover is in blossom, and the haymaking has begun; and the dew
falling heavily, the breeze which sprung up brought with it a fresh
sweet smell. The near hills had become bolder and wooded, and a ruined
castle crowned one to the right. I asked to whom it belonged, when we
stopped to water the horses at a stone reservoir by the road side. The
peasant only knew that its name was Vavilliers, and it was not
furnished or inhabited, which is not extraordinary, as there only
remain a hollow tower and outer wall. The human race here improves as
much as the country, but the villages are still the same. This one at a
distance looked deceitfully well, having neat houses at its entrance
among clumps of chestnut trees, and I hoped the Chapeau Rouge might
prove one of them; but the street twisted and narrowed into an
abominable alley with its vile variety of odours, and there was the
inn. The landlady’s doze was disturbed as we rode into her yard, and
she came forth ungracious and scarce awake. The garçon d’écurie was at
work in the fields, and her husband she said was by trade a fiddler,
and as he was ill, moreover, there was little chance of his help, and
D—— led the horses into the barn, while I followed the hostess across
the yard and unpromising kitchen, and into the street, and then up a
stone staircase, like a ladder, to the bedroom door. Over the bricks,
unwashed and unrubbed, I picked my steps as if in the street, and I
hesitated ere I laid my gloves on the three-legged table. There was a
velvet chair which I avoided, and a wooden one, and beds with dark red
curtains so thick with dust and generations of spiders, that I feared
to desire they should be disturbed; she opened the window to show me
complacently that it faced the street, preferring the peep down into
its gutter, or opposite into the garret, to the plains and mountains.
There were no jugs or basons, and I asked for them; she at first looked
embarrassed, and then, as if a sudden thought had struck her, said
“Ah!” and desired me to follow, which I did with resignation, once more
into the street, and arrived in the kitchen, where, having ejected some
kitchen-stuff from a pan of green earthenware, she said triumphantly
“voilà!” and wondered when I declined, as it was more “commode” she
observed; but finding me obstinate, went to the crockery-shop to
_borrow_ the articles required, which her hotel did not possess.
The next difficulty was dinner; she made a favour of serving it at the
usual prices, and then I found there was nothing to eat. “Soup?” she
would be very happy if it were Sunday, but malheureusement, it was
their only day for the pot au feu “à rôti:” there was a “restant” of
veal, she said, and truly it proved a picked bone rebrowned; a fresh
salad was provided, and a chicken which could scarcely have been
fledged, basted with bad oil; yet she was so certain we were satisfied,
it would have been a pity to complain. She paraded before us her sick
husband in his black cap and six pretty dirty children, and fearing we
might be dull alone invited us to the kitchen for the sake of their
company. We found that politics have some trouble in penetrating
hither, for D—— happened to mention the disturbances in Paris of the
12th of this month, and she asked with great curiosity to what he
referred, not having heard of them before.
We went to bed on mattresses resembling ploughed fields with their
clods unharrowed, and this morning, when the horses were brought out
uncleaned and uncombed, she desired we would remember her house and
stop here on our way back. I sincerely hope I may never see her face
again; we intended to-day (the 30th) going only as far as Latour du
Pin, but the road was so good, shaded by fine walnut trees, and
particularly after Bourgoin, two posts from our Chapeau Rouge, winding
through so sweet a country, the day cooled by clouds and soft showers,
that in enjoyment of them and fear of the inn, we determined on riding
on. Met a load of turf, and a barefooted girl carrying her shoes—a
memento of Ireland.
At Bourgoin the Grande Route turns, and the mountains rise straight
before; a valley to the right, watered by a narrow river, bordered by
trees, and winding through waving corn and most flowery meadows, which
stretch themselves at the foot of wooded hills dotted with habitations,
which at first reminded me of those near Ryde, in the Isle of Wight,
but grow bolder. The rising ground on the left was planted with vines,
and tiny clear streams shine along the hedge-rows, for there are
hedge-rows here full of elder blossom and wild thyme.
The villages are no longer crowded pest-houses, for the cottages are
mostly detached, each with its neat garden; and the peasants themselves
are a handsomer and happier looking race. We generally saw the women as
we passed assembled under the old trees, with distaff and
spinning-wheel, and the children herding the few sheep at the road
side, and neglecting them to run after us, and laugh at the strange
sight. There was one girl of about seventeen, standing at her door in
the large straw hat worn here, who, with her Italian eyes and Grecian
features, was perfectly lovely.
At an auberge outside the Tour du Pin we stopped to feed the horses and
eat an omelette. I declined the solitary little room wherein the pretty
girl was raising clouds of dust to prepare it for us, and chose the
more airy kitchen, where while I waited I might observe their attention
to affairs spiritual and temporal. The temporal appeared first in
order, in the print hung at the door, of a cock with extended wings,
perched on a dial plate which marked five minutes to twelve, the verse
below warning pennyless travellers:
“Quand ce coq chantera,
Crédit l’on donnera;
Mauvais payeur tu auras crédit,
Quand l’aiguille marquera midi.”
The other print, (the spiritual,) pinned above the snow-white pillow of
the bed in the corner, exhibited a large eye, inscribed, “Dieu voit
tout;” a great ear, “Dieu entend tout;” a man spurning a beggar, “un
moment;” the same man seized by devils, “l’Éternité;” I suppose this
exhortation to charity does not apply to wayfarers.
All the fine corn and promising vines we have passed on our road, will
be unproductive this year, in consequence of the hail storms which
visited the country during our stay at Lyons. The ear has been beaten
empty, and the bunches of grapes broken; the season’s loss in this
department is computed at three millions of francs, and the peasants
are planting potatoes, it being too late for any other seed. The town
of La Tour du Pin is of course as disagreeable near, as picturesque at
a distance, but the remainder of our road was so lovely, that we many
times found ourselves exclaiming at its contrast with the gloomy flats
and hills of the Isle de France and Burgundy; for here we had the chain
of mountains, range above range, which the snow topped and the clouds
sailed before, and where their view first opened on us, a foreground of
fertile valleys, covered with cottages and clumps of old chestnut
trees, the abrupt bank on our right, crowned with and shaded by them,
while on the left, where they border the road also, they form with
their fresh green branches a fitting frame for the prospect; it would
be a pity to travel this road otherwise than on horseback, on a sunny
spring evening.
Recommended by M. Pauche to the Hôtel de la Poste, at Pont du
Beauvoisin, we made our way thither through crooked streets
innumerable. All the front rooms were already taken. I warn you against
the No. 1 on the ground floor, at the end of a long passage, with one
small barred window, looking into the narrow yard where the post horses
are cleaned, for it fell to our lot. Having been told that the landlady
was exorbitant in her demands, I rang for her, specified what we
wanted, and asked her charges. No answer, but a promenade round me with
candle in hand, as it was dark when we arrived. I repeated the question
when I thought the inspection over.
“You have had no disputes on the road, have you,” said Madame, taking
hold of the skirt of my habit and shaking it, to ascertain its weight.
“None.”
“Very well, then you won’t dispute with me; where are you going?”
“To Chambéry.”
“Is your husband your age?” This time raising her flambeau under the
rim of my hat, so as to blind me.
“He is some years older.”
“How many?” asked the indefatigable landlady.
“I can’t tell exactly at this moment,” I said, getting tired, as I
never before saw so much curiosity lodged in one fat human being.
“Not tell; you must know his age; is he thirty, thirty-five,
thirty-eight; where is he?”
“In the stable, and I dare say ready for dinner.”
The hint took her to the door, but I unhappily undid the valise, and
she rushed back to the table and asked what was in it. I answered
rather impatiently, that she had better wait while I unpacked it, so
she took me at my word, and when it was quite empty said, “bien,” and
went away. The air was insupportable; but for this there would have
been little to complain of, for the people are civil,—the landlady’s
inquisitiveness, perhaps, excepted,—and the cooking excellent. I
imagine the unusual light dinner they served us might be accounted for,
by our arriving so late; we commenced dining to the sound of a sweet
chime, which was the Angelus ringing in Savoy. To sleep was out of the
question; for as I told you, the post stables were on a level with us,
and over our heads was lodged a commis voyageur, who started at
daybreak. D—— saw his saddle and portmanteaux, weighing altogether
three hundred pounds! The landlord strove hard to induce us to stay; we
are driven out to breathe. Madame, who peeped into my room before I was
up this morning, came to inquire, “whether I kept a regular note of
expenses along the road, as everybody ought.” Monsieur praised the
excursions within the reach of horse travellers; but the inn stable,
large and handsome as it is, is choked at its entrance by heaps of
rotting manure, and into it is emptied all the kitchen refuse. I
mounted Fanny in a hurry, for close to me in the yard were two enormous
tubs of water, into which a man was emptying (there to take their
breakfast) bags full of leeches, which arrived last night en poste! I
should think no other animal would feel an appetite here.
Away we went to the frontier. The tiny bridge, with the French sentinel
on one side and the Savoy soldier opposite, seems a strange division of
countries to those used to sea and sickness. Here were formalities to
go through on account of the horses. D—— received back the fifty-five
francs paid at Calais, and deposited seventeen francs duty on entering
Savoy. There is a lovely glimpse from the bridge of the Guier, gurgling
along the bottom of its ravine. We were detained some time at the Savoy
douane, though they were not at all troublesome, but the horses’
description was to be copied; and (witness the wisdom of the King of
Sardinia, or his delegates) notwithstanding that Savoy is so poor a
country, they receive ungraciously, and would eject unceremoniously,
strangers who bring English horses. The custom-house officers were in
the first instance about to bind us to quitting the territory within
three days; however, when D—— represented that I required some rest,
and asked for ten, they consistently inserted two months.
The road from the pont is very good, and the country fertile and lovely
as we ascended the hill, and the Guier wound far below in its wild
ravine. The mountains at every step grow more grand; the fine trees,
which abound, are mostly chestnut; and the cottages, now built in the
Swiss style, with jutting roofs and outside stairs and galleries, hide
themselves among them, sometimes betrayed only by a stream of light
smoke. Their gardens are even neater than in England, and we have a
luxury which you perhaps will hardly comprehend, in cooling our horses’
feet in the innumerable mountain streams which sparkle along at every
step. Arrived at the summit of the hill, look back towards the pont and
France, (an extensive and fertile view,) before the road turns
suddenly, and the scene, the very air changes at the narrow road, with
its giant wall of rock on the left hand, and on the other a low
parapet, from which the precipice goes sheer down to the Guier, foaming
angrily at its bottom, and warring with the crags, which, towering
again on the other side, have opened hardly enough to leave it way.
This is the Pass of Chailles, very grand, and I thought rather fearful,
as Fanny continually started from the cliff and towards the parapet.
The road, such as I have described it, winds a considerable way, and
before us, in the space the advancing rocks leave, were mountains white
with snow, which an old peasant said were those near La Chartreuse. The
mountain wind was chill certainly, but we confessed it had a “freshness
and life” which revived. The sky, which had been cloudless, suddenly
changed, and the clouds came rolling over the crags, bringing a
muttering of thunder and then a loud clap, augmented and prolonged by
all the échos. The horses trembled, and promised to be troublesome, and
we got on faster; but the storm had rushed on above our heads, and
settled on the top of a purple peak far away, before we reached the
cottage, which stands where this wild pass ends, and the roaring Guier
becomes a quiet stream. Fear, I suppose, had made me thirsty and
hungry; I bought some fresh milk in a clean bowl, and Fanny sprang
aside from a yoke of oxen, and covered her mane and my habit.
We had intended sleeping at Les Échelles but, as at La Tour du Pin, the
inn looked unpromising, and we merely fed the horses and went on to
Chambéry. Last Thursday was the Fête Dieu, and the wreaths of box,
which only a few feet asunder hung across the narrow street above our
heads, looked uncommonly pretty. The Valley des Échelles opened before
us as we left the town. Fancy the long fertile vale surrounded by
mountains, which enclose it except at the spot where you enter—behind
you and the town they are towering and snowy, while those which skirt
the road you pursue the whole length of the valley are milder and green
and cultivated, a contrast to the range of bare and broken cliffs on
your right and parallel to them.
In front at the extremity of the vale, which it crosses like its
barrier, is the hill which terminates it; the road you must travel cut
along its edge and crossing two bridges; the last so high that the head
turns to look at it, for it arches over a mountain stream, and its
white line seen from below looks like a branch of bent osier. A gradual
ascent leads to it, and, arrived there, you have no terror left but
much wonder, for fifty paces beyond the road seems to terminate. The
rock is before, and the precipice below, and you forget the grotto cut
through.
Beneath the bridge the stream rushes turbulently down, forcing a narrow
passage among trees and stones, and gushing far under the stone arch
into the valley; the loveliest view of the valley itself is from this
high bridge: you see it terminated by distant snow peaks and guarded by
its mighty frontier of rocks having strange forms, in which you may
fancy castle towers and cathedral portals, contrasting with the sweet
mild plain below them, every yard cultivated; the glittering church
spire rising among clumps of trees, and the river alternately hiding
itself among its own fringes, or shining like a white riband through
luxuriant corn-fields and meadows resembling flower-gardens; patches of
turf under the fine old trees like dark green velvet, and cottages
which, as you look down on them, make you say of each—“I could live
there;” it is like the happy valley, only one would not want wings to
fly out of it.
The gallery is at no great distance from a kind of passage formerly
used by foot-passengers to arrive at the long ladders which were then
the road to the valley, a descent of more than fifty metres; they gave
it its name, des Échelles.
The entrance to the grotto is, as I told you, but a few steps further;
a magnificent project nobly accomplished: it was finished only in 1813,
for the passage constructed by Charles Emanuel in 1670 was not at this
spot; it exists, and is still visited for its romantic beauty, but we
did not see it. The grotto is blown through the solid rock, which forms
its walls, and its arched roof, and is about eight hundred feet long;
as it receives no light save through its two apertures, it was so dark
about the centre that I could see the ground, over which Fanny trod
very unwillingly, only where it shone with pools of water, which
distils through the crevices and dripped on our heads all the way.
Issuing from it, we found a wilder and less beautiful road, without
verdure or habitation, winding among masses of grey rock, which must
have a savage aspect in winter, but are now covered with purple
columbine and the red ragged robin. Here and there we saw a feeble
beggar or young peasant herding the few sheep or small cows perched
among the crags. After a time these crags are interrupted by green
knolls and brushwood, then by old trees and cottages, and we came again
on a river winding through a wooded dell, a magnified copy of the
Dargle in Wicklow. The road thence to Chambéry is varied and beautiful
beyond expression, always good for our horses’ feet, but sometimes very
ill protected from precipices, which, if not the most terrible in
Savoy, are sufficiently so to break the neck of horse and rider. Not
far from Chambéry is the Cascade of Cous, falling from the rock on the
right about two hundred and fifty feet. It has no great volume of
water, but is exceedingly picturesque, foaming or shining as it breaks
against the uneven stones on the cliff’s side, or springs over them and
down to the clear pool at its foot, whence it throws up a spray light
as smoke, and then supplies the bright stream which passes beneath the
road to the river, which we had followed some time, and was here still
on the left, dashing through wooded defiles, turning romantic mills and
murmuring down diminutive falls. Where the road is narrowest, some
solitary peaks of granite stand by its side among trees and bushes,
detached from the crags behind them like their outposts. We crossed a
handsome bridge and broader stream before we caught sight of Chambéry,
which lies embosomed in mountains; a bold and beautiful view, but not
matching that of the Échelles. Behind the town, which lay before us,
rises a line of fine frowning mountains—the Beauges; that which seems
to hang over Chambéry, presenting at its summit a succession of seeming
towers and ramparts like a mighty fortification. Far away to the left
shone the lake of Bourget, on the road to Geneva. The valley is
fertile, and the vines trained in arbours. The road close to the town
has been changed, and as we crossed the new broad bridge, the abandoned
one made a pretty feature in the landscape.
Entering Chambéry, we rode under the old palace of the Counts and Dukes
of Savoy, with its high terrace shaded by magnificent horse-chestnuts,
and a still most royal looking tower, which stands alone, and whose
hollow walls have defied time and two fires. The governor’s palace is
modern, and joins at its extremity another portion of the ancient
building, which must once, from the traces remaining, have occupied the
entire platform. The chapel remains, that part which rises above the
narrow street, built in the Gothic style: the façade has been altered
to the Italian taste and spoiled. We passed before fine boulevards and
extensive barracks, containing at present three thousand men; and,
unlike travellers worn and weary, entered the town at a gallop.