A
RIDE ON HORSEBACK
TO
FLORENCE
THROUGH
FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND.
DESCRIBED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
BY
A LADY.
“I will not change my horse for any that treads but on four pasterns:
he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn
of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes; he is the prince
of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his
countenance enforces homage: nay, the man hath no wit that cannot from
the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb vary deserved praise
on my palfrey.”—SHAKSPEARE, _King Henry the Fifth_.
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1842.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS,
Stamford Street.
A ride on horseback to Florence
CONTENTS
OF VOL. II.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
Page 1
RIDE to Chillon—Castle of La Tour du
Peil—Chastellar—Chillon—Attentive gendarmes—Oubliettes—Destiny
of their inhabitants—Salle de Justice—Torture room—Eating hall
with its fleurs-de-lis—The dungeons—The beam—The interment in the
lake—Bonnivard—His misfortunes—His prison—The first pillar having
its own story—Sketches on the wall made by a captive—His
escape—Drowned in the attempt two months before Bonnivard’s
deliverance—Alexander Dumas’ name above that of Byron—The English
amateur’s painting—The fat gendarme—A bad Bonnivard—Our
determination to inhabit Chillon—Changed by thoughts of
powder—Fanny our conductress—Ludlow’s house and tomb—Contrast
between Protestant and Catholic cantons—Bulle—The bony hand holding
a crucifix—The Counts of Gruyères—Fines paid for crimes
perpetrated—The banner of Berne—Laws of the Simmenthal—The Bernese
attacking Gruyères—Count Pierre’s danger—Plague described by
Boccaccio—The Flagellans—The murdered Jews—Last of the Counts of
Gruyères—Leaving Bulle—Fribourg—Battle of Morat—The lime tree—A
monument of the young messenger—Berthhold, founder of Fribourg—Line
drawn between plebeian and noble—Bridge—Organ
CHAPTER II.
29
Canton of Berne—Village where the Swiss troops obtained a victory over
the French force in ’98—Berne—Bears in all forms—Their revenues
diminished—Their new baptism—Foundation of Berne—Rodolph of
Erlach—Laupen—Rodolph chosen guardian of orphans of the Count of
Nidau—Murdered by his own son-in-law—Cathedral—Monument to Duke
Berthhold—His wife’s execution—Charles Louis of Erlach massacred by
his own soldiers during French invasion—Treatment of Berne by the
French—Thun—Privileges—Castle of Thun—The brothers—The
banquet—The murder—The “pension”—An acquaintance—The sketcher in
haste—A Marseilles story—Spietz—The golden manor—Adrian of
Bubenberg—His saving Morat—His embassy—His return as a
minstrel—Unterseen—Unspunnen once the property of the Eschenbach
family—Walter of Eschenbach—Confidant of the parricide Duke
John—Murder of the Emperor Albert—Vengeance of Queen
Agnes—Walter’s son spared—Walter a shepherd—Lauterbrunnen—The
cascade—Grindelwald—A buried chapel in the glacier—The Harder—The
grave of an only son—Return to Thun
CHAPTER III.
74
Leave Thun—Zweizemmen—The wrong road—Château d’Œx—Gruyères—The
Préfet’s ball—Anniversary of the Virgin’s leaving school—Vevay—The
patient Griselda’s obstinacy—The exploit—Villeneuve—The Valley of
the Rhone—St. Maurice—The Theban legion—The Valais—The village
buried—The Rhone overflowed—Former inundation—The old villager
saved—St. Bernard—Story of its founder—Martigny—Riddes—Sion—The
prelate’s murder—The family of the Rarons—The Mazza—Raron
persecuted—Demands the aid of Duke Amedée—His castle burned—His
wife driven forth—His revenge—The cretins of Sierre
CHAPTER IV.
106
Rhone overflowed—Baths of Louëche—Tourtemagne—Visp—Ravages of the
Rhone—Madonnas placed to stop its further rise—Glys—Brieg—Ascent
of Simplon—Ganther—Gallery of Schalbet—The toll-gate—Hospice—The
Barons of Stockalper—Village of the Simplon—Broken
road—Algaby—Gorge of Gondo—Fanny too near the edge—Gap in the
road—Part of gallery carried away—Opportune aid—Arrival at
Gondo—Broken road near Isella—Accident during the storm—Remnant of
a carriage—The douanier’s aid—An auberge—The military post—My
consolation—An amiable hostess—Good company in a quiet kitchen—A
French gentleman expecting murder—An Italian vetturino—The Juge de
paix and his interested verdict—Torrent or bedchamber—Our hostess’s
supper—Departure—First difficulty—Road completely swept
away—Impossibility of advancing—A lady and her guide killed—Way
over the Trasquiera—Fanny aiding her conductor—A painful path—A
draught of water—Top of the mountain—Inhabitants—Milk and
apples—Fanny’s leap—Danger of Grizzle—Descent—Bridge
gone—Torrent forded—Gallery of Crevola—The broken
column—Arrival—Our friend’s welcome—Domo d’Ossola
CHAPTER V.
156
Vogogna—Country overflowed—The ferry—Isola
Madre—Baveno—Innkeeper—Isola Bella—Ground made in
1670—Arona—Castle of St. Charles of Borromeo—Castle of
Angera—Frescoes in its ruined halls—History of St. Charles of
Borromeo—Early habits—Resides in his diocese at Milan—Strives to
reform the church—Attempt to murder him—A miracle—His conduct
during the plague—Life of St. Anthony—Who cured the young pig—St.
Christopher, who was twelve feet high—The Ticino—Amusement on board
the ferry—The commissary—Sesto Calende—A charge—Somma and Julius
Cæsar’s cypress—Castle of the Visconti—Birthplace of
Teobaldo—Elected Pope when in the Holy Land with Edward the First of
England—Otho Visconti founder of his family’s grandeur—Gallerate—A
threatened beating—The Lord’s Supper on the auberge wall—The
robber’s seven towers—Battle between the Visconti—Unwarranted
preference shown by a ghost—Murder in the castle at Milan—The
murderer poisoned by his wife—Rhò—Milan
CHAPTER VI.
185
The Duomo—Our host’s advice—Joseph the Second—Tombs—That to the
memory of Giovanni and Gabrielle de’ Medici, designed by Michael
Angelo—Chapel of St. John—St. Bartholomew—Tomb of Otho, archbishop
of Milan—Crucifix carried by St. Charles of Borromeo—Antique
altar—Burial-place of St. Charles—La Scala—Opera ballet—The
Brera, once monastery of the Umiliati—Paintings—The old
castle—Arms of the Visconti—Prerogative preserved to himself by
Giovanni—The parricide—Filippo Mario—His innocent wife
executed—Carmagnuola Filippo’s general—Forced by his injustice to
change of party—Suspicions of his new masters—His
execution—Francis Sforza—His youth—His name’s origin—Jane of
Naples—Imprisoned by her husband—Set free—King James a monk of St.
Francis—Forte Braccio—Sforza’s death—Arena—Roman ruin
CHAPTER VII.
211
Leaving Milan—La Bicocca—Francis the First—Francis Sforza—Black
Bands of Giovanni de’ Medici—Lautrec—An intrigue—Samblançay—The
king prisoner—Samblançay falsely accused—Condemned to be hanged at
Montfaucon—His death deferred till dark, in expectation of the
king’s relenting—His last words resembling Wolsey’s—Lodi—The
Austrians—Imprecations—The serenade—Doubts as to the
road—Piacenza—A thirsty douanier—The cathedral—Alberoni—A
bell-ringer—The Farnese—Pier Luigi’s murder—Statues on the
piazza—Alessandro—His son Ranuccio—His danger in youth—His
escape—His cruelty—His treatment of his son—Borgo St.
Donnino—Maria Louisa—Castel Guelfo—Origin of names of Guelph and
Gibelline—Parma—Madonna in the stable—A lamp serving two
purposes—A procession seeking a criminal—Cambacérès—Ariosto—A
robber’s love of poetry—Correggio—Modena—The countess Matilda—The
Emperor Henry the Fourth—Canossa—Three days unsheltered in the
court-yard—Rubiera—Modena
CHAPTER VIII.
243
Pic de la Mirandole—Castel Franco—Bologna—A bad inn left for La
Pace—Its mistress—Statue of Pope Julius the Second—St.
Petronio—Mistake of a learned man—Charles the Fifth—Here crowned
King of Lombardy—King Enzio—His peasant-love—His twenty years’
captivity—The origin of a name—The towers—Accademmia—St.
Cecilia—The cathedral—Temple dedicated to Isis—Papal troops—A
capitulation—Cholera—An Italian hospital—French soldiers—The
procession barefoot—The well-attested miracle—The
Appennines—Lojano—The Pellegrino—Filigare—Pietra Mala—Strange
properties of its fire and cold spring—Fruit—Montecarelli—St.
Antonio’s grapes—Palazzo Borghese—Hôtel du Nord—Jerome Bonaparte’s
cook—Piazza della Santa Trinità—Spot occupied by the Palazzo degl’
Uberti left vacant—Recording escutcheons—The Saviour, king of
Florence—The Loggia—Galleria de’ Medici—Piazza del Duomo—The
Baptistery—Work of Ghiberti at twenty years old—Chains of the gates
of Pisa—A funeral
CHAPTER IX.
274
The Duomo—Its interior—Michael Angelo’s farewell—Vasari—Congress
of artists convoked—A dome of pumice stone—Brunelleschi turned
out as a madman—The egg—His colleague Ghiberti—His feigned
illness—The difficulties divided—Height of the dome—Giotto—The
Campanile—Pietro Farnese—His gilded mule—Dante—Condemned to be
burned at the stake—Peter of Toledo-Conrad the traitor—The
sacristy—The Pazzi—Julian murdered—Salviati hanged in his
cardinal’s robes—Seventy executions—The artist nicknamed Andrea
of the Hanged—The baptistery—The withered elm restored—The story
of Joseph—John the Twenty-third from pirate become pope—Palazzo
Riccardi—Gardens of Lorenzo—Michael Angelo—The Strada del
Traditore—Lorenzino—The duke Alessandro—Made unpopular through
his vices—The plot—Anecdote told by Benvenuto Cellini—The
rendezvous—The murder—Lorenzino assassinated in turn—The
Galleria—The Palazzo Pitti—Cosmo—His sons’ quarrel—The eldest
killed by his brother—The father’s revenge—His wife
poisoned—Duke Francesco and Bianca Capello—Her story and death
CHAPTER X.
311
Boboli Gardens—Buondelmonte—Ponte Vecchio—Santa Croce—Palazzo
Borgo—Tombs—Michael Angelo’s monument—Died the year Galileo was
born—Machiavelli—Alfieri—Galileo dying the year in which Newton
was born—Chapel of the Pazzi—San Lorenzo—Monument of Cosmo, Pater
Patriæ—Michael Angelo’s Day and Night—Contradictory
employments—His reply to a verse addressed to his statue—Cappella
dei Principi—Santa Maria Novella—Cimabue’s Virgin—Cappella de’
Spagnuoli—Portraits of Petrarch and Laura—Turned out by a
friar—Pietre Dure—Our guide again—Sarcophagus of the Gran
Duchessa—Shut up in a private oratory—Let out by a
priest—Cascine—Palazzo Vecchio—Small tower-chamber prison of
Cosmo—Savonarola—His prediction of Lorenzo’s death—The
confession—The anathema—Trial by fire—The heavy rain—Savonarola
executed—The Appennines—Birthplace of the Maréchale d’Ancre—Tre
Maschere—Fog—Rain—Lojano—Crosses—Bologna—Grizzle’s attack on
the kitchen—Miss Kemble—Modena—The ducal stable—The stuffed
charger—Parma—The five saints canonized in May—Their claims to
canonization
CHAPTER XI.
349
La Steccata—The Teatro Farnese—Its magnificence—Its ruins—Would
contain 9000—St. Jeronimo—Sir Thomas Lawrence—Alti Relievi—The
overflowed Po—The infant saved—Placentia again—Misery of
Piedmontese—Voghera—Tortona—Plains of Marengo—The wrong
road—The Tanaro overflowed—Asti—The Angelo and its
reception—Moncaglieri—The vow, and the Virgin, who resembled a
Duchess—The old Italian gentleman—Victor Amedée’s abdication—The
old man’s arrest—His death at Moncaglieri—Susa—Its
waterspouts—A chimney on fire—Mont Cenis—Fog and snow-storm—A
postilion’s wonder—Danger of tourmente—Lanslebourg—A thick smoke
and ill scent—Modane—Lesseillon—St. Michel
CHAPTER XII.
387
St. Jean de Maurienne—A tradition of two fingers—Story of a
procession of bears at Henry the Second’s passage—Peculiar
customs—Baptism—Funerals—Aiguebelle—La Carbonaria—Chambéry—Road
by the Mont du Chat—A valley of the Rhone—Pierre Châtel once a
monastery—Bellay—Murder committed by a notary—A peculiar
race—Pont d’Ain—Cathedral of Brou—Its foundress and her
motto—Bourg—Fair-time—An aubergiste—Montrevel—We are taken for
part of Franconi’s troop—Tournus—Chalons—Arnay le
Duc—Vermenton—Joigny—A poor traveller—The chapter of
Sens—Montereau where Jean sans Peur was murdered—Melun—Paris—Fanny
CHAPTER I.
Ride to Chillon—Castle of La Tour du
Peil—Chastellar—Chillon—Attentive gendarmes—Oubliettes—Destiny
of their inhabitants—Salle de Justice—Torture room—Eating hall
with its fleurs-de-lis—The dungeons—The beam—The interment in the
lake—Bonnivard—His misfortunes—His prison—The first pillar having
its own story—Sketches on the wall made by a captive—His
escape—Drowned in the attempt two months before Bonnivard’s
deliverance—Alexander Dumas’ name above that of Byron—The English
amateur’s painting—The fat gendarme—A bad Bonnivard—Our
determination to inhabit Chillon—Changed by thoughts of
powder—Fanny our conductress—Ludlow’s house and tomb—Contrast
between Protestant and Catholic cantons—Bulle—The bony hand holding
a crucifix—The Counts of Gruyères—Fines paid for crimes
perpetrated—The banner of Berne—Laws of the Simmenthal—The Bernese
attacking Gruyères—Count Pierre’s danger—Plague described by
Boccaccio—The Flagellans—The murdered Jews—Last of the Counts of
Gruyères—Leaving Bulle—Fribourg—Battle of Morat—The lime tree—A
monument of the young messenger—Berthhold, founder of Fribourg—Line
drawn between plebeian and noble—Bridge—Organ.
16th.
We dined at one, in company of some gentlemanly Swiss and French
officers, and started at three for Chillon, passing on our way the
hamlet La Tour du Peil, and catching a glimpse as we rode by of its
ruined ancient castle, pillaged and burned by order of Berne, in
punishment for having allowed the passage of foreign soldiers to
Lausanne, where lay the camp of their foe, Charles, duke of Burgundy.
Vevay suffered for the like fault, being plundered also, and of the two
towns five hundred men were massacred.
There is nothing lovelier than this road, winding along the flank of
the mountains, here rich with wood. We passed Clarens, beautiful as
Byron’s description, hiding among its own trees, and straggling up the
hill side from the shore. The noble old castle of Chastellar on its
solitary mound, and the peaked stone spire of Montreux seeming to lean
against the forest, above which the Dent de Jaman stands, cold and
barren,—all the way the lake shining below, with the stern rocks of
Meillerie opposite, and the Alps closing the valley. The heat was
excessive; and the small vineyard flies so tormented our horses that
D——’s taste for the picturesque had well nigh vanished, when a bend
in the road brought us beneath a high bank, covered with old
walnut-trees, and opposite the rock on which Chillon stands, with its
towers and tall keep, the most picturesque of feudal castles. We
crossed the covered wooden bridge, where the gendarmes stand, smiling
welcome; and the horses consigned, each to the care of two, and left in
a dark stable to be dusted with walnut branches, we were sufficiently
tranquil as to their comfort to follow our guide, who was the wife of
the concierge. She led across two courts, and opened a heavy prison
door; it was “out of the sun and into a grave.” I obeyed her injunction
to hold fast her hand, when, having scrambled over rubbish, and through
partial darkness, she drew me to the brink of a square hole, and
pointed down a depth of eighty-six feet. It was one of the fearful
oubliettes, whose existence here was unknown till about fifteen months
since. Grown accustomed to the dim light, we could distinguish a coarse
woollen rug, now laid on the brink, but which was found below serving
as shroud to a skeleton. The victim died from the fall, or was left to
perish. In the same court-yard is the entrance to another, which was,
at pleasure, dungeon or place of execution. Its depth is sixty and some
feet; and from the top of the square opening descend three steps, the
commencement of a stair which goes no farther. The condemned was
lowered to the bottom, and his food administered in like manner. If
death was decided on, he was forgotten, as there was no other
communication with the living world.
A few steps lead to the salle de justice. The dryness of the air and
thickness of the walls has so preserved all within, that the curious
wooden ceiling, supported in the centre by pillars, which retain traces
of paint, remains; and the planks of the floor were only exchanged for
pavement, when, on the threats of France, the caissons of the Canton de
Vaud were assembled here. At one end of this hall is a small room with
a door, on a now closed staircase, near the wide chimney. At the other
is the salle de question. A pillar of wood, to which the prisoner was
bound, still stands,—as does a beam above it, pierced with holes for
pulleys, and a portion of the old ropes hanging from them. A second
beam, which supported a wheel on which the wretch was tortured, (tied
by the arms with weights to the feet,) crumbled down a few months ago.
The pillar is seared with the red-hot irons employed in the torture;
that by burning being continued during three-quarters of an hour, with
intervals of five minutes; if it induced confession, the private stair
from the small chamber conducted the condemned to the potence in the
dungeon below. The door has been walled up, on account of the vicinity
of the powder magazine. Our guide led to the eating-hall, which was the
kitchen also. The capitals of its pillars were ornamented with
fleurs-de-lis, she said, when a count of Savoy conducted hither his
bride, a daughter of France, perhaps Bonne de Bourbon, who married the
green count Amedée the Sixth, about 1355. The two carved oaken chests
with their curious locks, at the bottom of the room, are of the same
date. The view from these windows is beautiful beyond praise, and there
is “the little isle—the only one in view,” lying in the lake like a
floating basket of flowers. Our last visit was to the dungeons: the
first is the most modern, and least sad, as its loopholes are longer
and less narrow. On one of the sills they form in the thick wall sat a
Swiss girl, the light falling on her picturesque dress, touching her
smiling face and bare arms,—she animated the dim prison house. Between
this first dungeon and that of Bonnivard, there is one smaller and
darker, though light enough for its destination: for a few moments’
stay allows the eye to distinguish, crossing a space between its
pillars, a heavy beam, whose upper part is, in several places, deeply
worn by the ropes which, upholding heavy weights, were bound round it;
and a few paces behind, the steps of the narrow stair which conducts to
the fatal door of the justice hall. The opposite wall, against which
the lake ripples or foams in its various moods, has a square cavity,
now closed with stones; the bodies of those who died unheard and unseen
were cast forth there, and beneath the waves which told no tales. A
narrow portal opens on the dungeon where Bonnivard lay. I think I
reminded you before that he was prior of the abbey of St. Victor, a man
of pure life as well as courage, who exhorted the Genevese to reform,
and censuring the vices of the catholic clergy generally, as well as
their bishops in particular, was betrayed by false friends to the duke
of Savoy, whose anger he had above all excited, by urging an alliance
between Fribourg and Geneva. One of these friends received for reward
his rich priory. He was two years in prison, and set free and
reinstated in his benefice by Pierre de la Baume, bishop of Geneva. He
by force took possession of the property of which he had been deprived
in Savoy, which, notwithstanding his affection for Geneva, was his
country. The duke besieged him in his château of Cartigny, which,
unable to defend long, he was forced to fly from, and saw himself
almost wholly deprived of his revenues. The town of Geneva granted him
a pension, and sustained him in his adversity; and the irritated duke,
desirous only of obtaining possession of his person, granted him a
safe-conduct with a view to lure him on his territory. Bonnivard,
expecting no treachery, profited by the circumstance to visit his
mother, sick and old, at Seyssel; and intending to go thence to
Lausanne, he was seized on the Jura, and dragged to Chillon. The first
two years of his detention he passed in comparative liberty; but
Charles the Third visiting the castle, he was cast, by his order, into
the vault below the level of the lake, where are
“The seven pillars of Gothic mould.”
The first column has a story of its own, for a wall of separation, now
thrown down, divided it and a space of twelve feet square from the
prior’s prison, forming one which enclosed a young man, his companion.
On the walls are a few figures, in the costume of the time, rude but
spirited sketches, the work of his long leisure; they are fresh still.
Attached to the pillar is the portion of the broken ring which held his
chain, and an iron bar of his loophole was sawed through, to allow room
for the passage of a human body. Long toil, and the use of some
instrument left him inadvertently, severed the fetters and opened the
path; but he reckoned on his powers of swimming, forgetting they were
paralyzed by the space and air of a dungeon—he plunged into the lake,
and rose no more alive. Bonnivard was delivered two months later; it
was in March, 1536. Chillon remained the last possession of Savoy in
the Pays de Vaud. Confiding in its strength, her garrison’s boats
insulted all who were not subjects of Duke Charles, and haughtily
rejected the truce proposed to the Bernese by the emperor’s ambassador.
The Bernese army besieged it on the land side; the troops and artillery
of Geneva armed barks on the lake; the garrison was forced to
surrender, and Bonnivard set free. His pillar, retaining its iron ring,
is the second in order; the floor of rock round, worn by the uneasy
pacing of four years: on the column, among more perishing names, is
that of Byron. I noticed that of Alexander Dumas, so high above, that
to engrave its enormous letters he must have mounted a ladder. The
space on either side the range of columns which support the roof’s
groined arches, forms a sombre aisle, the inner wall left as nature
made it, irregular masses of living rock; that towards the lake
intersected with a few narrow loopholes high from the ground, which are
rather slits in the stone, so small that in the morning it is a dark
vault, and only when the beams shine low they come “creeping over the
floor.” At sunset, however, “the imprisoned ray” is not “dull:” for, as
if it acquired force from its concentration, it falls like a streak of
fire on the pillars and blocks of stone. As we saw it, the effect was
splendid, but partial, as at the extreme end an artist was sketching by
the light of candles, being otherwise in perfect obscurity. It is to
carry his materials that the young Swiss, whom we saw as we passed
again, comes daily. Last summer, an amateur, an English gentleman,
visited Chillon with the intention of painting not only the dungeon,
but Bonnivard! for this purpose he chose a gendarme of spare habit,
having a long beard and sallow face, chained him to the pillar, and
commenced his work, saying, “vous bon Bonnivard.” He could not, as you
may suppose from the specimen, explain himself in French; but Monsieur
Chéri (a strange name for a captive prior) understood his signs made
with money, and submitted with fortitude to lie robed and fettered on
the rocky floor. One day, unfortunately, a feeling of pity came over
his comrade in the court-yard above, and he descended to relieve him,
thinking to divide the duty, and that one might do as well as the
other, seeing both were gendarmes. The new comer was a healthy, very
young man, stout and beardless, unlike the studious prior, who had
eaten black bread in small quantities, and probably abstained from
shaving six years. The pallid gendarme feeling, like him he
represented, the blessing of freedom, sprang up in delight; and the
amateur, in despair, when the fat man assumed the chain, could only
hold his first prisoner fast, stamp his foot and shake his head at the
other, and repeat all the French he knew, “Lui, bon Bonnivard, rester;
vous aller, pas bon Bonnivard!” He grew at last so angry that my
conductress, who had, she said, almost expired with laughter,
interfered, and Chéri once more cast himself at the foot of his pillar.
As we went out, she mentioned the circumstance of having two English
ladies “en pension.”
D—— looked up in intense delight, the horses were in a good stable,
the gendarmes would make admirable grooms. Our best fare might be fresh
eggs, it was true, but what signified our dinner compared with the
advantages of a view of the lake, with the “Isle’s tall trees;” of
walking from the oubliettes to the torture chamber, and resting under
the potence, and in Bonnivard’s dungeon, a lodging of three chambers,
looking on the lake, which we should hear “ripple night and day.” We
told her we would come in the spring, when we should have repassed the
mountains, and she looked rather surprised and very much pleased at the
sudden wandering of our senses.
Arrived at the stable, we were confirmed in our resolve, by seeing the
gendarmes obeying orders; one holding a horse’s head, another shaking a
bough, in the places where we had left them, like the warriors in the
Belle au Bois dormant. As I mounted Fanny, the châtelaine asked
permission to touch my hand, and unaccustomed, I suppose, to see ladies
on horseback, said it would be “amusant” to have us there; so we rode
away.
Arrived on the brow of the hill, we looked down on the romantic castle,
and my eye lighted on the chapel roof. “Dear me,” said I, looking at
D——, “the powder magazine!”
“Humph,” said D——, looking down in turn.
“Is there any danger?”
“There might be;” and thereupon we both commenced enumerating all our
memories held of powder mishaps; till at last I began to think I might
fear to order dinner, from dread of some mischance in the chimney, and
to ride Fanny, lest her shoes should strike fire against the stones of
the court-yard. We talked the _pour_ and the _contre_ the whole way,
and arrived at the most perfect indecision.
We had a splendid view of a stormy sunset, of golden lake and
blackening mountains, and when we reached Vevay, night had completely
closed, and we, who had never seen the road till that afternoon, were
puzzled. Fanny was not so; she assumed her wisest manner, wound through
the crooked streets, and stopped at the stable of the Trois Couronnes.
17th.
Rain all day, detaining us within doors; we hope to leave the 20th for
Berne and Fribourg.
We walked this evening up the steep road which leads to the church of
St. Martin, as its terrace has a view no one should fail to see before
quitting Vevay. The church is simple and pretty, of the thirteenth
century. Ludlow’s monument, raised by his widow, is within it, built
against the wall; Broughton’s tombstone forms part of the pavement
near. The former’s memoirs, in which he so prides himself on his crime
as regicide, were first published at Vevay, where he lived under the
protection of the magistrates of Berne.
When William the Third ascended the throne, he returned to England, and
to London, but finding it possible that he might still be held there in
the light of an assassin, he thought it more prudent to return to
Vevay. He was seventy-three when he died; his house is still shown, and
the inscription he engraved above its doorway,
“Omne solum forti patria,”
was effaced but a short time since.
18th August.
We left Vevay late, taking the road which passes through Bulle to
Fribourg, being counselled against that by Romont. Even this is far
from a good one for horses, being for a considerable distance a painful
succession of hills, paved and steep, but from which the views are
beautiful, back to Vevay and the lake, and down the precipices to the
valley, where the Vevayse flows between deep and wild banks.
Arrived at the Châtel St. Denis, with its old castle on the mound, we
could observe the contrast between the Protestant and Catholic cantons,
even between the habitations which lie on either side the frontier,
scarce a stone’s throw apart. This is the first village of the canton
Fribourg, and for the first time we saw heaps of manure piled before
the cottage doors, with the tame pig rooting in them. As it was a
holiday, the peasants who passed us were in their gayest costume, the
men with their full coloured waistcoat sleeves, the young girls with
their hair braided across their brows, and the black riband dividing it
from the enormous mass behind, for they wear their own tresses plaited
over a foundation of wool, which gives them an unnatural bulk; but as
they are commonly fresh and good-looking, not absolutely unbecoming. A
few ancient ladies, dressed after this fashion, looked far less well.
With all this attention to toilette, the poverty and dirt of the
dwellings whence they issued was melancholy. They have here a character
more entirely Swiss, as the lodging of the family and the cow stable
are under the same roof, and the warmth of the cattle being necessary
to the poor, to whom it often supplies the place of fuel, only the
richer proprietors run a partition between. It is seldom that even the
first few feet from the ground are built in stone. Fire, when it
occurs, is awfully destructive, their roofs, chimneys, and walls all
wood, and that intended for fuel piled against the planks outside,
probably for the sake of warmth, as the wind whistles through every
cranny.
The plain which extends from the top of the long hill to Bulle is
covered with rich pasture, stretching thence up the mountains, and
dotted with chalets.
It is a most picturesque town; the old brick building, with its high
tower, and small turrets with pointed roofs, is the castle of Bulle,
now the prefet’s residence. The Cheval Blanc, where we stopped, is a
good inn, and the view from the windows lovely, even in Switzerland.
There was nearly opposite, a little to the left, the castle tower and
its heavy walls, gilded by the sunset,—the road below, which wound on
towards Gruyères; its cottages with their galleries and jutting roofs,
and outside stair, advancing or retreating on either side, and between
green trees, their background a mountain range, whose pine forests were
blue in the distance; beyond a copse in the plain, (shining in the sun
also,) the town and ancient castle of Gruyères crowned one hill to the
right; a second rose abruptly behind it, wooded and in shadow; and
stretching darkly and far away behind and beyond them, the mountains,
which peak above peak shut in the valley of the Simmenthal.
While D—— was employed in superintending the evening comforts of
Grizzle and Fanny, the good-natured fille d’auberge was my guide
through the streets to the chapel of the Capucin convent, which has a
strange altar, I think of gilt crockery, and a pulpit whose effect is
peculiarly horrid, as out from it projects a solitary arm, in a Capucin
sleeve, whose bony fingers hold a crucifix.
While our dinner was preparing, for nine o’clock to-night, (those who
ride a journey keeping irregular hours,) D—— and myself strolled
towards Gruyères, along the winding road as far as the wooden bridge
which crosses the torrent of Trême, near the tower which bears the same
name, and was an outpost of the lords of Gruyères. The castle is
interesting from its age and extraordinary preservation.
The precise origin of the Comtes de Gruyères is unknown; but Müller
says they were rich and powerful even in the eleventh century. The
mountain which rises behind the castle is called La Tine, and the
Saarine foams and roars among the dark pines of its defiles. Its early
possessors depended for their revenues on agriculture only; their wars
were with the wolves, and their proudest conquests the cultivation of a
desert. The younger branches of their house owned as their inheritance
the forest-castle of Mont Salvans, and a few mountain pastures: they
lived in company of their knights among their herdsmen, and with a
simplicity resembling theirs; and from the height on which their
château of Œx still stands watched over and protected their vassals.
After the battle of Laupen, and when peace had ensued, the counts,
impoverished by the wars, were constrained by their need to part with
various rights and privileges. In 1341 Count Pierre mortgaged for ten
years to the inhabitants of Gruyères the duties they were wont to pay
on each head of cattle, those on forage, cheese, and butter, and also
the receipt of the fines paid for crimes perpetrated in the forest.
Three times at this period did Berne revive the feud with Gruyères.
The Count Pierre above-mentioned, deceased, left the administration in
the hands of a namesake, whose connexions in the Simmenthal rendered
him sufficiently powerful there to manifest the old hatred of his house
to the seigneur of Weissenburg, citizen of Berne. The greater part of
the Simmenthal was under the count’s protection; but many of its farms
and châteaux belonged to the lords of Weissenburg and others, having
been built by their ancestry. Count Pierre of Gruyères marched against
Weissenburg; Banneret Peter Wendschaz commanded the Bernese against
him. At that spot of the Simmenthal there are heights which narrow the
passage, and the Bernese, who had strayed to plunder cattle, received a
sore punishment for their lack of foresight. The banneret himself,
fighting with the courage of despair, surrounded and overpowered,
collected his failing strength for a last effort, hurled the banner of
the republic above the heads of his assailants, and died consoled,
because it was unprofaned by the touch of a conqueror: the Bernese
mournfully bore it within their walls.
The peasants of the Simmenthal enacted laws for their own territory;
that on fines showing a chivalrous spirit which did them honour. As it
was presumed that the offended might defend himself against a blow, the
offender was fined one livre only; the man who uttered abuse was fined
four, and he who falsely gave the lie in a judge’s presence, ten
livres, since it was considered most difficult to guard against slander
and calumny.
Required by their allies of Fribourg to march with them against the
sire of Grumingen, vassal of Gruyères, the Bernese gladly answered to
the call, and seized on his castle, though he sued for peace. The count
and his knightly companions were wont to pursue their chivalrous sports
on the green meadows which stretch beneath the castle. The count’s
attendants had dispersed themselves in a wood not far distant, and in
the copses which surround the Tour de Trême, when the men of Berne and
Fribourg, with a force superior to his own, surprised the count himself
in the oak-tree meadow. Pierre fought with the heroism of his antique
race, but the numbers had well nigh overpowered him, when two of his
vassals, Clarembold and Ulric Bras de fer, resolved to save him at all
hazards, flung themselves before his person, favoured his retreat, and
guarding the narrow defile through which he had passed, kept his
enemies at bay, till the count, who had hastily sounded his war-note
and gathered his scattered troop, spurred back to the charge, put the
assailants to the rout, and many of them to the sword. To Clarembold
and Bras de fer, who covered with blood hailed his reappearance and
joined in his attack, he accorded privileges and franchises, which he
extended to their posterity. Their memories are still honoured in their
village of Villars sous Monts.
Soon after this, in 1349, ushered in by fearful earthquakes, broke out
the plague described by Boccaccio, which desolated Europe and Asia.
According to the general belief, a third of the population of
Switzerland died; the churchyards were filled to overflowing, and the
victims buried in unconsecrated ground, and without religious rites,
which priests were wanting to perform; whole regions were left desert,
and lordships abandoned and unclaimed by friend or foe. Struck with
terror, men strove to avert the scourge by the various and horrid means
prompted by fear and fanaticism. It was then that numerous travelling
societies, the Flagellans, wandered from canton to canton, inflicting
blows and torment on themselves, for the sins of the world. Where they
passed, the excited people devoted to death a number of Jews, innocent
of all crime; it is well known that at Kybourg, the more enlightened
Duke Albert was forced against his will to deliver three hundred to the
flames; that at Bâle they were all driven into a wooden house, and
burned with it; while at Constance and at Eslingen, in the synagogue,
the despairing people inflicted death on themselves.
The vassals of Gruyères, unflinching in battle, attached and faithful
to their lords, had obtained from them so many and important
privileges, either as reward for their services, or in barter for the
sums of money their necessities demanded, as to become almost as free
as the most democratic states of Switzerland. But for their insatiable
ambition, the counts of Gruyères might have been the happiest of
mortals; but they looked from their tall towers on the height, less to
rejoice in their possessions than to mourn that they saw their
boundary. Not being kings themselves, they strove to find consolation
in rendering themselves necessary to royalty; and they led their
vassals from their flocks, and mountain pastures, and calm homes, to
fight in foreign quarrels, and in climates so different from their own,
that those sunk victims to the change who had been spared by the sword.
Count Michel of Gruyères, who died in 1570, was the last of his line.
He was one of that brotherhood of La Cuiller, who quitted their own
lands to ravage those of Geneva. He had commanded their army, forced
many of his vassals to serve under their banner; and also sold yearly,
and for several years, five hundred men to the French armies in Italy.
They had rendered good service to the king of France, but Henry the
Second, under various pretences, refused to pay the immense sums he
owed to Gruyères; and Michel saw his country depopulated in vain, his
debts accumulating, though he had received a large loan from his
neighbours and sold his subjects a portion of his lordly privilege,
till at last, persecuted by his creditors, and notwithstanding his
carelessness of their welfare, mourned by his devoted vassals, he
abandoned the inheritance of his fathers, which he saw before his eyes
divided between the two cantons, and concealed his shame and sorrow in
the castle of a relative in Burgundy, where he died poor and without an
heir.
19th August.
So unwell this morning as to fear durance vile at the Cheval Blanc,
but, being determined to go if possible, set off at three. I had hoped
our road lay beneath Gruyères, but it led through the streets of the
town, and thence for a considerable distance across rich meadows, their
green pastures spotted with chalets; farther on they are divided by
pine forests, the road skirting or passing through them, the sunshine
reposing on their verdant glades, or playing among their old trunks, or
excluded where these have been felled and supplied by multitudes of
young stems crowded in nature’s extravagance. The hedges were gay with
wild pinks and woodbine, and on the sides of the road were strips of
green and rivulets for Fanny’s feet. We left on the right a gorge,
through which the Saarine flows, commanded by a noble looking ruin. The
peasantry here are almost German, and therefore perhaps a milder and
more amiable race than the French or Genevese. They issued from their
cottages and ran from their work in the fields to see us pass by, but
always took off their hats and wished good evening. The clouds had
threatened rain, but the wind, which whistled in the firs, blew it over
us and left only a fine stormy sky above the mountains, partly hiding
their white heads, while the sun was brilliant in the valley. As we
passed the meadows where the cows were grazing, and the little cowherd
lay almost hid in the clover, we thought of Lord Byron’s praise of the
bells; their tones, differing and harmonizing, tinkled sweet music.
Nearer Fribourg is a fair view into the gorge from the road, which
hangs over it where a sweep of the Saarine makes almost an island of a
tract of pine grove, and a suspension bridge has been flung from the
peninsula to the shore. An avenue of fine trees leads into Fribourg, of
which the first view with its dim mountains and most golden valley, is
more striking than that of any town I have seen as yet, from the
magnitude of the mighty chasm, over whose very edge the houses seem to
hang giddily high above the torrent, and the feudal watch-towers, which
guarded once, and are still ranged along the winding of its opposite
shore. The far famed bridge was not visible, but we could see that now
in progress, crossing the gorge of the Gotteron, which issues from the
Saarine. In its present and unfinished state it hangs in an awful curve
over the abyss, like a thread for a fairy rope-dancer.
The avenue passed, the road becomes precipitous, and scarcely, on a
dark night, safe we crossed a bridge, and rode beneath an ancient gate
to enter the old town. The houses which line the streets, narrow and
ill-paved, are curious and of great age, as are the quaint fountains;
at the summit of whose gilt and painted columns figure grotesque saints
and Virgins. After various windings we reached this hotel, the
Zahringerhof, which should be chosen for its situation and view, as it
is close to the bridge and built on the very edge of the chasm.
20th August.
Stayed at Fribourg, a cold day broken by hail-storms, and passed it in
walking over the town and along the narrow valley of the Gotteron. Not
far from the hôtel on the Place, and opposite the town hall, which is
built on the site of the palace of Duke Berthhold, is the venerable
lime-tree, planted, according to tradition, the 22nd June, 1476, the
day of the battle of Morat.
The young soldier who brought the tidings was a native of Fribourg; he
had been wounded in the conflict, and feeling he grew weaker as he
approached the town from fatigue and loss of blood, and that his shout
of victory waxed too feeble to be heard, he gathered a bough as he
passed, and waved it over his head in token of rejoicing. Arrived at
this place, where the townsmen were assembled, he faltered forth his
news and sunk down to die. They planted on the very spot his lime-tree
branch, and it lived and grew his monument, and is now so old, that the
decaying branches are rested on the four stone pillars and wooden
trellis-work which surround it; there is an express order to tie no
animal near, but it is dying of extreme age, and will hardly outlive
another winter.
Berthhold, duke of Zahringen, was imperial governor of Zurich,
landgrave of Burgundy, and lieutentant of Œchtland and Lausanne. By his
command ancient villages were surrounded by walls and free towns built,
behind whose fortifications the peasants of the empire, who united
themselves to the inhabitants, might rest in peace and security. The
love of change, the hope of gain, but above all of liberty, quiet, and
order, aided in peopling these towns. The duke, as hereditary governor,
and because the high roads and bridges were everywhere property of the
feudal lord, taxed each house, and levied a duty on all merchandise;
and also, when a subject died without heirs, inherited a third of his
possessions. The citizens were tried by twelve or twenty-four of their
own body, presided, over by an “avoyer” elected yearly, and sentence
pronounced in accordance with the facts proved by a sufficient number
of witnesses. Each townsman was, during his life, master of his own
property, and it fell to his widow in case of his demise. The whole
town took care of the orphans. The feudal lord could neither force a
man to become a citizen, nor prevent an inhabitant of his town from
departing if so pleased him; but freemen and serfs sought therefore the
more willingly within it a safeguard from the dangers consequent on
dispersion; and the serfs were considered free if during the first year
their master failed to claim them and prove their servitude by the
affirmation of seven relatives. When the lord of the city required
their presence, they were bound only to journey to a distance whence
they might return to sleep in their own homes.
In the year 1178, Berthhold the Fourth, whose father and uncle had set
the example of encouraging these establishments, chose the village
built along the precipices of the Saarine, and founded his town of
Fribourg partly on a territory belonging to the abbey of Payerne, but
mostly on his own land, and with the aid and counsel of various barons.
It became inhabited; boasting freedom, but certainly not equality, for
the nobles, as yet unused to citizenship, kept the line of demarcation
so strongly marked as even to fix on a separate place of burial, and,
in consequence of this, six hundred years passed without so confounding
distinctions, as to give one language to the town on the shore, and
that on the crags above it—German being the dialect most in use among
the inhabitants of the former, while their fellow-citizens spoke French
only. This is no longer the case, but in 1794, when Müller wrote, many
who lived in the one spot were unintelligible to the other.
Taking one of the steep streets, which is paved in steps as a stair, we
walked to the massy roofed wooden bridge, across which the diligence to
Berne travelled before the new one was built, the descent and ascent
occupying about an hour. From between its heavy wooden work you have a
good view of the suspension bridge, 174 feet above the bed of the
torrent, and which, though so much longer than the Menai, for its
length is 905 feet, appears of so much lighter construction; from this
spot the Zahringen hôtel seems a real castle in the air. We crossed the
Saarine, and turned to the left, and under an old archway of Duke
Berthhold’s time, which forms the entrance to the gorge of the
Gotteron. It is a lonely and beautiful glen, sunk deep between wooded
crags which barely allow room for a path way beside the stream, which
bounds brightly on, flashing in the sun, while it turns the heavy
wheels of rustic mills, as if glad of its own usefulness; and farther,
where the valley is less narrow, winding through the small green
meadow, and among the picturesque wooden cottages, as if seeking repose
near those it has toiled for. In the spring, the quiet river becomes at
times a destructive torrent, uprooting tree and dwelling. About
Fribourg cretinism exists, and among the elder peasantry the goitre is
common—we saw in the glen one poor idiot, who howled and gibbered as
we went by.
Dined in company of a French family—the elder hope just issued from
the Jesuits’ college, a disagreeable specimen of their training, with
large black hands and unpleasant habits. In the evening went to the
cathedral, which in itself is only gaudy, but whose organ and organ
player are most wonderful. Listening to the higher tones, it was
difficult to persuade myself that I did not hear a chorus of sweet
voices, and its “storm” did not resemble an earthly instrument touched
by a mortal hand; it was like “nothing but thunder,” and solemn and
awful, as it rolled along the aisle’s dusk in the evening.