UC-NRLF 
 
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 $B 7l:,M EDI 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
LA SCAVA; 
 
 OR, 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 OF AN 
 
 EXCAVATION OF A ROMAN TOWN 
 
 ON THE 
 
 HILL OF CHATELET, 
 
 IN CHAMPAGNE, 
 ^EEN ST. DIZIER AND JOINVILLE, 
 
 DISCOVERED IN THE TEAR 1772: 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON, 
 
 BY LAUSANNE, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 MONT BLANC, 
 
 THROUGH GENEVA: 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF " LETTERS FROM PARIS IN 1791-2;" " THE 
 PRAISE OF PARIS IN 1802;" " A SLIGHT SKETCH IN 1814;" 
 " TWO TOURS IN 1817." 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, 
 
 47, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1818. 
 
C. Baldwin, Printer, 
 New Bridge-street, London. 
 

 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 All the fine things in the splendid city of 
 Paris are not in the Louvre, the Tuilleries, 
 Elysee Bourbon, the King's Library, or other 
 collections of books, pictures, prints, enamels, 
 rings, seals, coins, and medals, most liberally 
 thrown open to the pubhck, with every facility 
 of access, nearly the whole year round. There 
 are also pictures and statues of the first Ita- 
 lian masters, monumental inscriptions, Roman, 
 Greek, and Egyptian antiquities to be found in 
 private houses, chef-d'oeuvres, and belle opere, 
 such as Raphael's best and most famous picture, 
 Lo Spasimo, such as Canova's capo-d'opera, La 
 Maddalena, and La Terpsichore, the only statue to 
 which this famous artist has put his name; a Holy 
 Family, by Andrea del Sarto, in which the Angel 
 Gabriel supplies the place of Joseph : such also 
 as Roman, Greek, and Egyptian antiquities, 
 and prints, not duplicates of the royal collection ; 
 such as natural history and mineralogy, and 
 newly-discovered substances, which have not 
 
 wAt fiH'yy 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 yet found their way to the Jardin des Plantes. 
 But of all the collections of antiquities called 
 Roman and Greek, the most singular and most 
 copious is, that of the Abbe Tersan, although 
 his brightest gem has long ago passed into this 
 country, and makes one of the finest bronze 
 figures that is possessed by any cabinet. Be-r 
 sides the general collection of the Abbe in his 
 principal apartment, he has a room filled with 
 antiquities, dug up at Chatelet, between St. 
 Dizier and Joinville, in Champagne, in 1772 
 and 1773, by order, and at the expense, of the 
 king, of which an account was given in 1774 ; 
 but now, as it is not easily to be found, it is 
 proposed to present some memorial of it to the 
 publick. The purchaser, indeed, of the anti- 
 quities of Chatelet has begun to make engravings 
 of every thing he is possessed of, but being an 
 octogenarian, it is doubtful if his descriptions 
 and plates will be finished in his life-time. In 
 the mean while it may not, perhaps, be unin- 
 teresting to print some general notice of what has 
 been discovered, from the notes of M. Grig^non, 
 which may serve to explain the nature of the 
 collection, that will one day, probably, form the 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 great work of the author of Denerie's famous 
 catalogue of medals. Monsieur I'Abbe Tersan, 
 nevertheless, enjoys good health and has the 
 perfect use of his eyes, so as to enable him to 
 read inscriptions in small characters without 
 glasses. 
 
LA S C A V A, 
 
LA SCAVA. 
 
 Xn the year seventeen hundred and seventy- 
 four, Monsieur Grignion, Master of the forges at 
 Bayard, Correspondent of the Royal Academy 
 of Inscriptions, Belles Lettres, and Sciences, at 
 Paris, and Fellow of the Academy of Chalons, 
 published at Bar-le-Duc, ' Bulletin des Fou- 
 illes, faites par Ordre du Roi, d'une Ville Ro- 
 maine, sur la Petite Montague de Chatelet, 
 entre St. Dizier et Joinville, en Champagne, de- 
 couverte en 1772,' with the following intro- 
 duction. 
 
 " The eagerness of the learned in particular^ 
 
 and the curious in general, to be informed of 
 
 the success of the excavations we have been 
 
 making by the king's order, and at his majesty's 
 
 B 
 
2 LA SCAVA. 
 
 expense, in the environs of the Roman town^ 
 which we discovered in the year 1772, has 
 determined us to answer collectively to all the 
 letters, which we have received from different 
 countries, and from almost every district of the 
 kingdom, by a succinct detail of the antiquities 
 which we have dug up in the last thirteen 
 months, from the sixth of April 1773 to the' 
 thirty-first of May 1774. 
 
 STREETS. 
 
 In the course of the two last months we have 
 finished the digging out in length and depth 
 une superficie de terrein de 4818 square toises, 
 in which is the greatest part of eleven streets, 
 ninety houses, eight subterraneous temples, or 
 cedicules, thirty-eight cellars, fourteen cisterns, 
 forty-nine wells, thirty-seven latrines or privys, 
 two fosses, and two potters'-ovens, four water- 
 pipes of stone, and two of wood. 
 
 The streets are from fifteen to twenty feet in 
 breadth, and very straight, paved regularly, or 
 
LA SCAVA. ^ 
 
 with stones of unequal sizes, cemented with 
 river pebble and gravel from the hill. The first 
 pavement is composed of limestone, in pieces 
 -from six to seven inches square, laid flat, and 
 the interstices filled with small gravel. The 
 surface of this pavement is covered with the 
 ruins to the depth of twenty-four and thirty 
 inches. Under the pavement of one of the 
 streets we found foundations of a house that 
 had been probably thrown down to widen the 
 road, and make it straight. 
 
 HOUSES. 
 
 The houses are for the most part spacious, 
 and yet there are some grand with courts, 
 which had colonnades, as it should seem, from 
 the base still remaining, and the shafts buried 
 in the ruins. The houses form, in general, long 
 irregular squares, which are still to be traced 
 out by the foundations that lie under the loose 
 earth and rubbish, from eight to fifteen feet 
 beneath the surface. 
 
 B 2 
 
4f LA SCAVA. 
 
 FOUNDATIONS. 
 
 The foundations, in general, even to the 
 areas of the apartments, the temples, the cel- 
 lars, the cisterns, although on the rock of the 
 hill, are all placed on a bed of stones set on 
 end, or slightly inclined to each other, and 
 bound together with lime, and calcarious ce^ 
 ment. 
 
 CEDICULES, 
 
 The rich individuals and the most devout, 
 it appears, had their crypts, or subterraneous 
 chapels. These small temples were all of them 
 nearly of the same fonn, but of different di- 
 mensions, some seven by eight, others nine by 
 fifteen in length and breadth. The descent to 
 them was by a stone staircase, of which the 
 steps, having been turned, were, in some places, 
 on both sides much worn. Each step was from 
 seven to nine inches high, with a projection of 
 ten, and all of one stone. 
 
 A window so contrived as to diverge the rays 
 
LA SCAVA. 5 
 
 of light lit the staircase, at the foot of which 
 was a door, of which the embrasure was com- 
 posed of four stones only, two for the side- 
 posts, and two for the threshold and the lintel. 
 This door opened into a porch or pronaus of 
 the temple, of four feet broad by twelve long, 
 lit by the window of the staircase. The walls 
 of the chapels were painted in fresco, in large 
 compartments of different colours, and adorned 
 with altars and statues. They had each two 
 embrasures or openings, to give them light, 
 from three to four feet wide. 
 
 CELLARS. 
 
 The cellars differ from the chapels in having 
 no intermediate porch. They were lit by two 
 or more windows, according to their extent. 
 Some were eight feet by twelve, others ten by 
 thirteen; the largest, twelve by thirty, had a 
 well in it. 
 
 CISTERNS. 
 
 The cisterns in gene^'al are square, and 
 
6 LA SCAVA. 
 
 from six to eight feet wide, and from fifteen 
 to eighteen deep. 
 
 WELLS, 
 
 There are a great many wells from three to 
 six feet in diameter, and almost all circular. 
 One only we found to be oval, and from top 
 to bottom of the same shape. Another' was 
 square six feet from its mouth, and round all 
 below. These wells are walled from seven to 
 nine feet downwards, and then cut through the 
 rock; the deepest is fifty-five feet without a 
 spring. In one there was a httle water. It is 
 probable these wells were nothing more than 
 drains, as there are no springs in the hill, but 
 ^t its base, or the sources have taken another 
 direction. We found many fragments of beau- 
 tiful pottery at the bottom of the wells, which 
 the slaves probably had thrown in to conceal 
 their awkwardness from their master. 
 
 LATRINES. 
 
 The latrines, or houses of ease, were either 
 
LA SCAVA. ^ 7 
 
 square, circular, or semi-circular ; their shape, 
 and the black and foetid earth we got out of 
 them, shewed plainly their use and designa- 
 tion. 
 
 POTTERS'-PITS. 
 
 These pits, or fosses, are nine feet deep, 
 four long, and six wide. We found in them a 
 greenish earth, light and slaty, of a fine grain, 
 and somewhat sandy. 
 
 POTERS'-OVENS. 
 
 Stone Water-pipes, 
 
 Stone-pipes, forty-feet in length, that brought 
 water from the hill into a great cistern. 
 
 Wooden Pipes. 
 On opening a trench two feet and a half 
 wide, and fifty toises long, three hundred feet 
 nearly, was discovered a water-pipe made of 
 wood, entirely decayed. We found others that 
 were bound with iron at regular intervals. 
 
S LA SCAVA. 
 
 GOLt>. 
 
 We have seen nothing more in gold than a 
 few fragments of small tubes, one medal, and 
 one ring; et le revetissement d'un vase en 
 cuivre dore tres degrade. 
 
 SILirER. 
 
 A spoon with an oval bason, and a long and 
 delicate handle, and where it is inserted in the 
 bason it is pierced by a round hole. 
 
 CLASP. 
 
 A clasp, or fibule, of great beauty, and well 
 preserved, adorned with oak-acorns. 
 
 MEDALS. 
 
 We have collected twenty coins of pure 
 silver, some also fourrees, or plated on iron, 
 others copper washed, saucees, with silver. 
 One consular, of the Livineia family, with Re- 
 gulus on it, and one of a colony of Asia. 
 
LA SCAVA. ^ 9 
 
 TIN. 
 
 An amorphous mass of pure tin, and one 
 small tube like the tag of a lace. 
 
 '■^■^ZINC. 
 
 A small bar of zinc, which had been forged, 
 or beat out in part. The same use was made 
 of this metal as is at present. It was mixed 
 with other metals. There is an iron mine in 
 the neighbourhood, that abounds with zinc. 
 
 LEAD. 
 
 Fragments of laminated lead, or lead in 
 plates or tables ; also amorphous masses of lead 
 run, or melted, for cramps in masonry; also 
 weights of various shapes and sizes. 
 
 BRONZE. 
 
 We shall include under the article bronze, 
 not only the antiques made of rosette, or pure 
 copper, but also the laiton or mixed metal, 
 bronze proprement dit, prince's metal, &;c. 
 
10 LA SCAVA. 
 
 We shall be the more minute, because we 
 propose to view the objects hereafter, not only 
 as antiquaries, but as chemists and natural 
 historians. 
 
 Mercury. 
 A statue of Mercury of fine work, and well 
 preserved. The god is naked, and seated 'on 
 a rock, on one side of which is a ram on his 
 haunches, and on the other, a cock on his feet. 
 The base on which these figures rest is a plat- 
 form of a triangular form; at the summit of 
 the principal angle is a land-tortoise, on which 
 Mercury supports his right foot; in one hand 
 he holds a purse, in the other a caduceus ; his 
 head his winged, but he has no petasus; his 
 hair is curled, and his cast of face is interesting. 
 Another Mercury has a petasus, and wears an 
 exomide, in which the right shoulder is un- 
 covered, and to which there is but one sleeve. 
 
 Jupiter. 
 A Jupiter with the usual attributes. The 
 
LA SCAVA. 11 
 
 god is naked, except his legs, which are 
 clothed, semi-ocreata. In his right hand he 
 holds a thunder-bolt, raised to the height of 
 his head; his left hand rests on a wheel of six 
 rays; but the most curious attribute is, a large 
 moveable ring passing through the left arm, 
 and traversing the shoulder, et est enfile dans 
 un oeillet, qiii sort des deux omoplates de la 
 statue, et en fait partie. On this ring are 
 threaded nine rings, formes en S a double volute. 
 
 Hercules, 
 A naked Hercules, bending forward like 
 Atlas; on his left shoulder is the lion's skin; 
 behind the right a quiver full of arrows; in 
 his left hand a bow, whilst his right rests on 
 a club. 
 
 Statue of a Young Man, 
 Le simulacre d'un jeune homme frise en 
 eventail ; with his right hand he compresses un 
 corps cylindrique qu'il appuie sur sa poitrine 
 
121 LA SCAVA. 
 
 serree d'une bande; with his left he covers le 
 pubis, and has two oeillets, like the preceding 
 figures, one qui sort des deux omoplates, and 
 the other from the heels. The feet of the 
 statue are united behind, pour former un second 
 ceillet. 
 
 A Boar. 
 This boar has also two oeillets, one on the 
 left shoulder, and the other on the left haunch. 
 
 Ram, 
 
 A small ram, a raven, a duck, aU of corres- 
 sponding proportions with the statues already 
 mentioned, whiph are palmaires of the size of the 
 Roman palm, eight inches six lines and a half. 
 
 Bracteole. 
 
 A circular thin plate representing, in bas-relief, 
 a human head of terrific aspect. 
 
 Patera. 
 Three pateras, of which the handles are the 
 only parts well preserved ; one of these handles 
 
LA SCAVA. 13 
 
 is flat, plain, with a circular termination, an- 
 other is cylindrical, and ends in a platine angu- 
 lare that supports the head of a goat. In the 
 centre of the arch, by which the handle was 
 soldered to the bason of the patera, there is a 
 human head; and at the two extremities of 
 the arch heads of fantastic animals much 
 drawn out in length. The handle of the third 
 est tourne en fuseaux tronques, united to the 
 centre by an olive; the exterior is terminated 
 by the head of a grey-hound. 
 
 Spoons. 
 Spoons of various shapes. Some are simply 
 oval in the bason, narrowing towards the 
 handle. Others have cone-shaped ears, like 
 our ice-spoons. Others are circular, more or 
 less deep ; some are very narrow, scooped out 
 longitudinally, in the form of olive-leaves. The 
 handles of these spoons are either cylindrical, 
 or grooved: unis ou avec des cordons, et des 
 renforts, terminated in points, or by olive buds. 
 
14 LA SCAVA4 
 
 Fork. 
 A small fork of two prongs. 
 
 Lamps. 
 
 Lamps of different forms, and hooks to sus- 
 pend them of various shapes. 
 
 Handles. 
 
 Handles of aceiTa, or of jewel-boxes* 
 Acerra is a censer set by the bed of the de- 
 ceased, on which the relations burnt incense 
 till the funeral. These articles are well made 
 and in good preservation. One was for the 
 cover, or lid, the other for the side, because 
 the under part of this last is smooth. The 
 ornaments that decorate these pieces are stalks 
 with loose spikes joined to the centre by an 
 olive. 
 
 Phallus* 
 Three Phalluses to hang round the neck, 
 fix)nQi which it may be inferred, that the women 
 
LA SCAVA. 15 
 
 of this town worshipped the god of Lampsacus. 
 One of these articles is triple. 
 
 Phaleres, 
 
 Two phaleres, which were appendages of 
 helmets, and harness, as horse-trappings. 
 
 Amulets. 
 
 An amulet of a spherical form, an inch and a 
 half in diameter, with its ring. It is composed 
 of two semi-circular capsules, that shut up one 
 in the other. We were surprised to find on 
 opening it a plant folded with great nicety, and 
 well enough preserved to be recognised for the 
 Lotus odorant d'Egypte, a plant of a sweet 
 balsamic smell, and held in veneration. 
 
 Cassolettes, 
 Perfume boxes of various forms. 
 
 Half of a Roman Foot. 
 
 Divided into palms, digits, and inches. 
 5 
 
16 LA SCAVA. 
 
 Balances. 
 Two beams of small scales, one of which is 
 damasked, or ornamented with silver ; also two 
 dishes of balances not pairs, pierced each with 
 three holes disposed triangularly ; also a steel- 
 yard with a hook, to which the thing to be 
 weighed was fastened. This is in the best 
 preservation, and is graduated duodecimally, 
 and was aurificis statera, whilst the balance is 
 called by Cicero, popularis trutina. 
 
 Roman Rings, 
 
 Rings of all sizes to fit men, women, and 
 children. Some are square, others half flat, 
 and thicker than they are wide; others semi^ 
 circular, some round, some oval. We distin- 
 guish the anneaux des bagues, which have a 
 bezel, or place for a stone to be set in. The 
 only rings that have stones in them are of 
 iron; two of this sort are of glass, and one has 
 MAIVS upon it. Some are in silver, many in 
 copper. ' T 
 
LA SCAVA. 17 
 
 Stones of Rings. 
 
 There is one in blue, a false stone, on which 
 is engraved a cupid, who holds a helmet in one 
 hand, and a spear in the other, which rests on 
 his shoulder. On another, an onyx, is written 
 NOX. On a third, Cupid and Hymen are 
 separated by a perpendicular Hne. 
 
 Among these false stones are two precious 
 ones, a jasper of an oval form, on which is a 
 cupid holding a butterfly in his fingers, whose 
 wings are spread, as a symbol of inconstancy. 
 Another is an agate, on which is a head of per- 
 fect beauty. A large ring on which is the idol 
 of Lampsacus in high-relief. 
 
 Pins, 
 Large and long pins to fasten the hair, 
 mounted with false blue stones at one end, 
 taillees en dodecahedre, like garnets; also a 
 needle used in tapestry-work. 
 
 Instruments of Surgery. 
 Probes with obtuse terminations, and per- 
 c 
 
18 LA SCAVA. 
 
 forations. Spatulas of different sizes. Leaves 
 
 of myrtle, 
 
 Formosae myrtus Veneri 
 
 Veneri gratissima myrtus. 
 
 Forcipes with hinges and springs ; small pa- 
 lettes, like poelettes, small basins to hold blood- 
 
 Ear-pickers, 
 
 Etui de poche. Cases for the pocket. 
 
 Broken mirrors. 
 
 A "vessel to hold ink. 
 
 A pen to write with like our silver and steel 
 pens. 
 
 Filigrane. 
 
 A piece in filigrane like a flattened sphere, 
 with a round hole to the center. It is made of 
 twisted wire, joined together like the meshes of 
 a net. 
 
 Tubes, 
 
 Some of which have been gilt, they are small 
 and almost capillary ; others are large and coni- 
 cal, like the nose of a pair of bellows ; others 
 with rings.^ 
 
LA SCAVA. 19 
 
 Bells. 
 Tintinnabula of various forms and sizes. 
 
 Keys 
 
 In great abundance in copper and iron, some 
 in iron with copper handles. Some, small ones, 
 with rings attached to them to be worn on 
 the fingers ; one partly bronze and partly iron, 
 with a square shaft adorned with bands and 
 astragals, and ending in the head of a chien- 
 dogue, or bull-dog, with his mouth open in the 
 act of barking, a symbol of security. Two 
 other keys end in fleurs de lis, well designed ; 
 two others in lions of barbarous work. Many 
 of the keys, in copper or bronze, are very like 
 our own. 
 
 Fibules, or Clasps 
 
 Of all sorts and sizes, from one inch to four 
 in length, square, circular, and in the shape of 
 a lozenge, adorned with engravings, relief or 
 mosaick work; others in the form of various 
 animals, such as fishes, dogs, peacocks; some 
 c 2 
 
20 LA SCAVA. 
 
 garnished with precious stones, talc, some 
 enamelled, some washed with silver. 
 
 Springs 
 Which have not lost their elasticity. 
 
 Bracelets 
 Of different sizes, very simple and unadorned. 
 
 Rings 
 For bunches of keys, with a hook like that 
 of an ear-ring. 
 
 Frames, 
 Of which the mouldings are more or less 
 finished. 
 
 Hinges 
 Of small chests and great doors. 
 
 Wheels 
 
 Of an inch and a half in diameter, well 
 made and well preserved ; others from a quarter 
 of an inch to three quarters nearly in diameter, 
 properly small circles with two diameters, that 
 cross each other at right angles to the centre. 
 
LA SCAVA. 2tl 
 
 Nails 
 
 Of different lengths and forms, some are like 
 our gilt furniture-nails, others with round heads, 
 others flat and tapering. 
 
 Vase. 
 
 A small globe-shaped vase, two inches and a 
 half in diameter, terminated by a narrow neck, 
 with a wide mouth. The vase is ornamented 
 with horizontal and perpendicular lines, sepa- 
 rated by a band that runs round the centre. 
 
 Dishes. 
 
 Three dishes, one of which is ornamented 
 in the handles with flowers, and eighteen inches 
 long, with a basin three quarters of an inch 
 nearly in depth. The others are only eight and 
 seven inches, with a basin of the same depth 
 as the long gne, and the same ornaments. 
 
 Chains. 
 Chains twisted like our jack-chains, some 
 
fe^ LA SCAVA. 
 
 with flat meshes, others wove with much art 
 and delicacy. 
 
 Medals. 
 
 There have been collected, in the course of 
 our researches, three thousand four hundred 
 coins, of which nine hundred are Gaulic. The 
 Romans, especially the large brass, are in very 
 bad condition. They begin with Julius Caesar 
 and go down with few interruptions to Con- 
 stantius Augustus, iiearly to the end of the 
 fourth century. There are some well preserved, 
 and some as they came from the mint: in the 
 list given by Monsieur Grignon is Annia Faus- 
 tina, of which he takes no notice. This coin 
 of Annia Faustina, third wife of Heliogabalus, 
 in any metal is of the greatest rarity. There 
 is also a Pertinax, but no Pescennius Niger, or 
 Annius Verus. 
 
 IRON 
 
 The article of iron is immense, upon which 
 the rust has atted so foitibly as to d'ecohipose 
 
LA SCATA. 2S 
 
 the pieces that were most exposed to its action; 
 some, however, have escaped, by being covered 
 with limestone, which was calcined when the 
 town was besieged. 
 
 Anvil. 
 
 Among the things preserved, that have not 
 lost their shape and character, is a blacksmith's 
 anvil of a quadrangular form ; also one of 
 another sort, round at one end and square at the 
 other, used apparently by workers in copper. 
 
 Mandrin. 
 A turning instrument, hollowed like the neck 
 of a bottle, for the purpose of rounding iron 
 rods. 
 
 Nails 
 Of all sizes and all shapes. 
 
 Spits 
 
 From three inches in length to eighteen, with 
 round or square heads. 
 
24 LA SCAVA. 
 
 Tools. 
 
 Nippers, small pineers, compasses, files, saws, 
 un pied d'ecrevisse de Menuisier, a hatchet, 
 ditto a small one with two edges in different 
 directions. 
 
 Knwes. 
 
 An assassin's knife sica, a carpenter's ax, 
 dolabra, a priest's knife, secespita cultri et cul- 
 telli, for sacrifices. Knives for domestic use of 
 all sorts, but none with a spring. Some are set 
 in bone, some in horn, with a hole at the end 
 to hang it up. 
 
 Steels 
 For giving an edge, and the sharpening of 
 cutting instruments. 
 
 Scissars. 
 Shears of different sizes. Scythes with teeth, in 
 the form of crescents, or only curved at the end. 
 
 Chisels 
 Of all trades, carpenter, scooper, turner, 
 sculptor. 
 
JLA SCAVA* 25 
 
 Locks and Keys 
 Of all sorts and kinds; hooks to draw back 
 the bolts of doors; rings for water-pipes, thick in 
 the middle and tapering at the edges; hooks 
 for fishermen ; filieres, or gold, silver, copper, 
 and iron wire-drawers ; bits with small chains 
 for horses ; large fibules or clasps for the com- 
 mon people; kitchen utensils of all kinds in 
 great abundance. 
 
 STONES. 
 We have found no work in marble finished 
 and complete, but fragments of stone prepared 
 and preparing ; pieces of verd antique and ser- 
 pentine ; two small round stones of quartz, 
 twenty inches in diameter, with holes in the 
 centre, hke miU-stones ; two slate-tiles, three 
 quarters of an inch thick. 
 
 Whetstones, 
 
 Eighty whetstones^and upwards, of different 
 forms, grain, and quality, have been found in 
 
Sl6 LA SCAVA. 
 
 this town, a proof that the number of workmen 
 could not be inconsiderable : on some of these 
 are seen impressions made by different tools, 
 ^ch as the awl, the punch, and the graver. 
 
 Masses of fine gres rouge, proper for the 
 sharpening of workmen's tools. Shell limestone 
 was used for the pavement of the streets, granite 
 for mill-stones ; and lava, in which were quartz- 
 crystals, and basalt served also for the grinding 
 of hard bodies. 
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 Part of the comishes, and many of the co- 
 lumns of the peristyle, or circular tange of pil- 
 lars of the principal temple, of the Corinthian 
 order, has been discovered. The pillars still 
 retain their high polish ; but the round mould- 
 ings, and the fleurons have not been finished 
 with the same care and attention, 
 
 STATUES. 
 
 We have dug up few statues entire ; the frail 
 nature of the material, the catastrophe that laid 
 
 1 
 
LA SCAVA. 27 
 
 the toWii in ruins, the file of time, and the ac- 
 cidents inseparable from excavation, are so many 
 cattses of destruction, that work together, and 
 increase the difficulty of raising any thing that 
 has lain long buried in the earth, whole and 
 unbroken. The most perfect that have been 
 extricated from the rubbish arfe, a Mercury, or 
 bust of that god, ending at the shoulders. The 
 fate has been painted, the hair of the head is 
 graceful, the petasus has no wings. 
 
 Venus, 
 A statue of Venus, callipugos Afroditee, large 
 as life, with a scarf over her shoulders, the legs 
 and arms are broke, the nose unhurt. 
 
 A new born Infant 
 Swathed with bands and rollers like a mum- 
 my ; the head, which has no hair on it, and the 
 feet, are the only parts visible. 
 
 A Group. 
 On a long stone of figures, a cubit each in 
 
28 LA SCAVA. 
 
 length : A naked Neptune, with a trident in 
 his right hand, on his left is a dolphin, reclining 
 on his breast, one foot of the god rests on a 
 flowing urn. The second figure has drapery on 
 it, and holds in the right hand a thong, or lash, 
 without a handle, and the left rests on the thigh 
 of the figure. The third is ApoUo, with a corps 
 conique in his right hand, in his left a lyre, by 
 his side a grifiin. The fourth is Minerva, with 
 a shield in one hand and a lance in the other. 
 Of the fifth the bust only remains. The sculp- 
 ture is not in the best style. A caryatide un- 
 finished. A hand, and the insigne of the divinity 
 of Lampsacus, which, from their proportions, 
 have belonged to a colossal statue of twelve feet 
 high, that most probably had been mutilated by 
 the soldiers who sacked the city. 
 
 FIRE-PLACES. 
 
 In the under-ground crypts were foyers, or 
 hearths, in which coals still remained. The fire- 
 places are regular cubes hollowed within, in the 
 
LA SCAVA, 29 
 
 shape of two funnels united at their summits. 
 Bathing tubs for children, pipes to convey the 
 water from the houses into cisterns, and spouts 
 to carry it off the houses. 
 
 EARTHS 
 
 Which furnished varieties of pottery of dif- 
 ferent colours, white, yellow, red, green, black, 
 and gray, with a tint of red ; of all of which 
 watering-pots, jars, and jugs were made ; and 
 glazed with a varnish of lead. The red earth 
 was used for bricks, some of which were twenty 
 two inches long, twelve broad, and two thick. 
 The most precious vases were made of red earth, 
 varnished with red, and highly poHshed, and 
 richly ornamented with relief. The ornaments 
 are very chaste, and we may say with Pro- 
 pertius, they were done at a time 
 
 Quum paries nuUo crimine pictus eart. 
 
 There is one fault in the greatest part of them, 
 they don't stand well on their feet. About sixty 
 names have been collected from the interior of the 
 
30 LA SCAVA. 
 
 best earthen vases. Hadrian forbad architects 
 to subscribe their names on their works, but the 
 potters of Chatelet knew of no such law in their 
 town. We read on the vases, &c. the names 
 FORMOSVS, JANVARIS, CATLVS, F. 
 MICCIO, MOMAMA, COMICVS, CRESTI, 
 COTILLVS. 
 
 GLASS. 
 
 When the town of Chatelet flourished, the 
 art of making glass was by no means in its in- 
 fancy. The numerous fragments that have 
 been dug out of its ruins prove this beyond a 
 doubt, and the variety of colours and shapes, 
 in which it appeared, incontestably ascertain the 
 truth of the fact. We have not found more 
 than one entire piece of glass, a cup made of 
 ferm ashes, verre de fougere, which was found 
 near the bones of a human skeleton. It is round 
 and three inches high, with a semicu'cular base, 
 but no foot. Among the different sorts of 
 glass, there is some white, or colourless, 
 white witli a shade of green, sea green, ai^d 
 
LA SCAVA. 31 
 
 aqua-marine, clear blue, and dark blue, pale 
 yellow, orange-colour, and tawny. All these 
 are transparent. The opake glass is also white, 
 green, yellow, red, violet, purple, blue, 'brown, 
 black. The workmen knew how to incorpo- 
 rate the colours, as appears from the pieces 
 remaining of pure white, with fillets and bands 
 of blue and blue with white. We have a bit 
 which is a mixture of white, brown, purple, and 
 flax gray, only semi-transparent, which although 
 the fracture is vitreous, is very like porcelain. 
 
 The greatest part of a vase, of a sea-gi-een 
 colour, has survived the general crash, which is 
 twelve inches in diameter, and five deep, the 
 exterior is ribbed and bossed, the interior turned 
 and polished. 
 
 BONE AND IVORY. 
 
 A great quantity of styles to write with on 
 wax-tablets has been collected. The wax-tablets 
 called diptyques and poliptyques, which last the 
 French, it seems, have abridged into poulets, 
 amatory epistles, or love letters. The length 
 
3» LA SCAT A. 
 
 of the styles is from three to four inches, and 
 varying in shape from an elongated cone to a 
 colus, or distaff, swelling in the middle. Some 
 have a round head, others end in a half circle. 
 Needles from four to six inches long. Spoons. 
 Handles of various tools. Sword-hilts, disks, 
 ^c. Tesserae, or congiaria, plain on one side, 
 and convex on the other, some are plain, others 
 have concentric circles on them, more or less 
 numerous. Only two human jaw-bones have 
 been found, as the burying-ground was near a 
 great Roman road, and out of the town. Stags'- 
 hom, like ivory, is well preserved, whUst the 
 horns of buUs and cows are reduced to lime. 
 The inhabitants of Chatelet, though far from 
 the sea, indulged themselves with oysters, as is 
 evident, from the shells that still remain in the 
 cellars of the houses of the great. 
 
 WOOD. 
 
 All the wood that has escaped the general 
 conflagration is either completely rotted, or re- 
 
LA SCAVA. S3 
 
 duced to mould, with the exception of a small 
 piece of oak, taken out of a well, in a state of 
 decomposition, and a bit of fir preserved in 
 figure, organization, and colour by its turpen- 
 tine, and the depth of earth that covered it. 
 Of the floors of the apartment nothing remains, 
 but their outlines or impressions. An earthen 
 pan, half full of cherry-stones, has been discover- 
 ed, in part decomposed ; but not so much as to 
 alter their form. Monsieur Grignon, fancies they 
 had been a compote, or confiture. He observes 
 also, that what Martial said of Vesuvius is ap- 
 plicable to this town in its present state, that it 
 lies buried in its ashes, lib. iv. ep. 44, and what 
 Montaigne has written of Rome : " On ne voit 
 que le ciel, sous lequel elle fut assise, et le plan 
 de son gite." Voyage k Rome. 
 
 pasTScmPT. 
 
 Chatelet is a village (bourg), as it is called 
 in the geographical part of the Encyclopedic 
 par arts et par metiers, on a hiU between St. 
 
 D 
 
34 LA SCAVA. 
 
 Dizier and Joinville, on the right bank of the 
 Marne, Matrona, that divided Belgic and Celtic 
 Gaul : " Matrona non Gallos, Belgasque inter- 
 sita fines," according to Ausonius, and Caesar in 
 his Commentaries. See B. Gall. lib. i. ii. and 
 Ausonii, Mosellam, v. 462. The statues that 
 have been dug up at Chatelet appear to have 
 been made great and small of every proportion, 
 of the stone of the country, and of materials 
 brought from the quarry of Savonniere, distant 
 one league and a half from the town of Castello- 
 dunum in regione Rhemorum, a camp on a hill 
 in the country of Rheims ; and it is by no means 
 improbable that this was its name; conse- 
 quently, says Grigi^on, in answer to Mr. Sceyb, 
 of Vienna, who published, in 1753, Peutin- 
 ger's Chart, or Table. The statues did not 
 come from Umbria, nor from Rome, nor from 
 Etruria, since Livy, in his fifth book, in de- 
 tailing the names of the different Gaulic nations 
 that pillaged Umbria, Rome, and Etruria, 
 makes no mention of the Belgae, and of course 
 
LA SCAVA. 35 
 
 they are not to be supposed to have been of the 
 expedition. 
 
 That the bronze figures are of home manu- 
 facture it is clear from the founderies, and the 
 pots in which they were cast, and the crucibles 
 that still remain, in which the metals w^re 
 melted. Their length was moreover eight inches 
 and a half, Roman measure, or palmary. The 
 vases also, although in great measure of Etrus- 
 can form, may also have been made at Chatelet 
 on Etruscan models, as there were two potters'- 
 ovens in the town, which the inhabitants might 
 have procured from the manufacture of Nismes, 
 or from Samos, whence the Romans got theirs. 
 The bronze figures, just mentioned, were Lares 
 or Penates Dii Prsestites, presiding gods. The 
 town itself, or city, was entirely Roman, and 
 not Gaulic, notwithstanding the images of that 
 people found in it, and now in the midst of the 
 Roman antiquities, at the Abbaie rue de Sevres. 
 Chatelet was not covered with trees as Sceyb 
 asserts, to which he makes the Gauls bring the 
 D 21 
 
36 LA SCAVA. 
 
 spoils, and the gold of Rome, but a fortified 
 town full of streets, covered with houses, close 
 to one another, and adorned with a temple 
 seventy feet in front, with many private chapels, 
 in which were statues of their gods ; a town in 
 wkich the arts flourished, where many things 
 have been discovered, precious for their anti* 
 quity, but not for their riches; arms in smaU 
 parcels, and no gold in mass obtained from the 
 Romans as the price of peace. It is from these 
 facts, thus stated, that we are authorized to say, 
 that the assertions of Monsieur Sceyb Francis 
 Christopher, of Vienna, are unfounded, and due 
 to his own imagination and conjecture, that 
 the Lingonians arrived from Umbria, Etru- 
 ria, and Rome, and deposed their load of 
 treasures in a little wood on the hill of Cha- 
 telet. The passages from Tacitus and Livy, 
 which Mr. Sceyb has quoted, and others which 
 might be brought from Eutropius, Pliny, and 
 Polybius, by no means clear away the dark clouds 
 that hang over the origin, the name, and the 
 
LA SCAVA, ST 
 
 history of Chatelet; for when we should say 
 with Mr. Sceyb, that this town was a city of 
 the Lingones, we would just ask him, what was 
 its right name, and where are we to look for its 
 annals and its history ? 
 
 It is not extraordinary that Mr. Sceyb should 
 have been misinformed. Ptolemy, Antoninus, 
 Peutinger, and even our countryman Bergier, 
 have been guilty of omissions in their itineraries 
 of the Gauls, which have not been filled up by 
 their editors or their commentators. We will 
 perform this task for Champagne, where there 
 exist many Roman roads, which are not laid 
 down by the geographers we have quoted. 
 
 We presume that the last sack that buried 
 Chatelet in ruins, was very long before the 
 defeat of Attila, in the plains of Catalaunum, 
 Chalons-sur-Marne, whither we went many years 
 ago to reconnoitre the camp of that prince that 
 still remains near la Chepe, fanum Minervae. 
 Mr. Sceyb has never conceived, that the history 
 of this scourge of God had any connexion with 
 
58 LA SCAVA. 
 
 that of Champagne. Alesia has been conjee- 
 tured to have been the site of Chatelet, but 
 there are two weighty objections to this opinion 
 of a lady learned in geographical researches : 
 the first is, that Mr. D'Anville, in his Illustra- 
 tions of Ancient Gaul, demonstrates that Alesia, 
 mentioned by Caesar, was situated near mount 
 Auxois, near Sainte Keine; now in order to 
 give any information of the situation of Cha- 
 telet, and prove that it has no connexion or 
 resemblance to Mount Auxois, Caesar says, 
 Protinusque Alesiam quae est oppidum Mandu- 
 biorum, iter facere coepit: Alesia was then in 
 the country of Auxois, of the Mandubii ; whereas 
 Chatelet was in the countiy of the Rhemi, two 
 different towns in different provinces, a degree 
 of latitude asunder.' 
 
 The base of Chatelet is washed by the Marne ; 
 the Saulx is at a distance from it of seven 
 thousand toises to the north. The mount Auxois 
 is surrounded by two rivers, the Oze and Oze- 
 rain ; " cujus collis radices duo duabus ex parti- 
 6 
 
LA SCAVA. 39 
 
 bus flumina subluebant." B. G. lib. vii. The 
 Auxois is 250 toises high, " oppidum in colle 
 summo, admodum edito loco," lib. vii. 
 
 Chatelet is not a mountain, but a little hill. 
 Alesia had a plain before it of 2266 toises in 
 length, according to D'Anville, and circiter millia 
 passuum trium, according to Caesar. Chatelet 
 is a continuation of the rising ground that 
 borders the valley of the Mai-ne, about one 
 hundred toises broad. Alesia was a large city, 
 in which Vercingetorix had a garrison of eighty 
 thousand men, besides its own people, " millia 
 hominum octoginta delecta secum." The plat- 
 form of Mount Auxois, on which Alesia was 
 built, was 6000 feet long, and 2000 broad; 
 Chatelet's was only 2200 in length, and 1600 
 wide, a space that could not hold a garrison 
 of more than twenty-five thousand men. We 
 must therefore conclude, that Alesia is not the 
 name of the town that existed on Chatelet. 
 
 In the manuscript of the history of Joinville, 
 communicated to M. Grignon by Madame Mail- 
 
40 LA SCAVA. 
 
 leser, the author, who is of the middle of the 
 seventeenth century, says, at the article Gour- 
 zon, a village dependant on the principality of 
 Joinville, and situated opposite Chatelet, on the 
 left bank of the Marne, " In ancient times the 
 city of Gorse was built on the hill of Chatelet, 
 on the right bank, under the jurisdiction of the 
 said Gourzon/' 
 
A 
 
 JOURNEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 S I M P L O N. 
 
A 
 
 JOURNEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 S I M P L O N. 
 
 Paris, September, 1817. 
 MY DEAR MADAM, 
 
 It is now time for me to fulfil my engage- 
 ment, and write a long letter ; for it must be a 
 long one, that can give even a short account of 
 all I have seen, in which you are likely to take 
 any interest, from the day I left Calais, till I 
 returned to it again. I date my letter from 
 Paris, because of the two roads by Amiens and 
 Eeauvois you have heard what I had to say in 
 a former correspondence. In this letter I pro- 
 pose to use no repetitions, and only to speak of 
 those things which are new to me, or of such 
 
44 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 as I think you have never heard or seen in any 
 of your excursions. 
 
 At Calais I thought myself very fortunate, 
 since the first object I saw in Quillac's yard was 
 a play-bill, announcing Talma's debut in Abufar, 
 which gave me an opportunity of walking, after 
 dinner, quietly across the garden of my own 
 hotel into the house, for five franks, to see the 
 first actor in his line in France play a favourite 
 part before true judges of his merit in his own 
 country ; when a short time before you were 
 obliged to take pains to intrigue for tickets, and 
 pay a guinea for a garbled essay of his abilities, 
 for the most part misunderstood and untasted : 
 this you will say applies to me, whether at a 
 French play at London or at Calais ; with this 
 difference if you please, that if I did not admire 
 French declamation so much as to scream with 
 joy, yet I had the pleasure of seeing all around 
 me in true raptures at the one theatre, and in 
 false paroxysms of applause a contre tems at the 
 other. You remember the story of Abufar, in 
 
A JOUHKEY TO THE SlMPLON. 45 
 
 which the denouement is made by discovering 
 that the sister he is in love with is not his sister. 
 The company in the balcon and the boxes 
 was very brilhant; and JMademoiselle Georges, 
 though not on the stage, contributed something 
 to the splendour of the house, which in a dis- 
 tant province is not very great. 
 
 The journey from Calais to Pans is now 
 much abridged by the new Anglo-Gallic car- 
 riages, that hold six within much at their ease, 
 and six without, three before in the cabriolet, 
 and three behind on an uncovered bench. The 
 time is thirty-six hours from Meurice's door at 
 Calais, to the Messageries rue Montmartre, at 
 Paris, which makes a saving of twelve hours, 
 since the old heavy waggon required forty-eight 
 to perform the journey, though now from the 
 spur of the velociferes and celeriferes, it does it 
 within forty-six, and has actually gained still 
 more upon the whole of the journey. 
 
46 A JOUKKEY TO THE SIMPLON, 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 It is by no means necessary to go through 
 Paris in order to go into Swisserland by Lau- 
 sanne; yet who would pass by on the other 
 side, and not take one look at the Louvre in its 
 reformed state ? Although it has lost its eyes, yet 
 it still has precious things, particularly in sta- 
 tues, and in the works of Rubens, Vemet, Ita- 
 lian pictures from French palaces, and French 
 masters of the first rank and highest merit, only 
 to be found witliin its walls, and in its gallery 
 of unparalleled length. 
 
 In the miscellaneous rooms are exhibitions of 
 the works of artists, some of them, in the natural 
 history department, of great beauty, and objects 
 of imitation ; such as the avanturine, that is, a 
 felspar of various tints, the ground of which is 
 strewed with briUiant minute paillettes, or straw- 
 like particles of a gold colour, very difficult to 
 copy, and which painters of minerals have never, 
 that I have seen, till in this instance, succeeded 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 47 
 
 in representing. The avant urines that are 
 manufactured for ornaments are but wretched 
 copies of the felspar avanturine, which got its 
 name par une aventure, by the accident of 
 brass-filings being let fall into a vitreous sub- 
 stance in fusion, called the avanturine mixture ; 
 and the mineralogists gave the name to the 
 natural felspar, of which the circumstance had 
 produced an imitation. There is also a round 
 table of considerable size in the same place, of 
 walnut-tree, of the most beautiful workmanship. 
 Under this great gallery is the king's private 
 library, in which are many books and manu- 
 scripts of much curiosity ; among others are the 
 hours, or prayer-book of Charlemagne, presented 
 to him on the birth of his son, and re-presented 
 by the ville de Toulouse, to a late emperor, on a 
 similar occasion. During my short stay at 
 Paris, I visited St. Genevieve, and among the 
 tombs in the Souterrain, I saw a monument, 
 the head of which was ornamented with asses' 
 ears, a Fantique de Scipion at Rome; on in- 
 
48 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 quiry I found it belonged to Marechal Asne^ 
 without any intention of alluding to his name 
 most certainly, as it was set up by his friends 
 and admirers. It is somewhat singular, that 
 a tomb with the same Roman ornaments should 
 have been discovered at Java, and reported by 
 a late governor of that place. As I proposed to 
 return by Paris, I only spent two days in the 
 capital, and began my journey towards Swisser- 
 land, and made a small detour in order to take 
 in Essonne and Fontainbleau. The first object 
 that arrests the attention is a high road made 
 over a marsh by Louis the Fifteenth ; on the 
 summit are two pillars, between which is an in- 
 scription, " Ludovico Rege Christianissimo Via 
 difficilis arduaque fit facilis." At Essonne, seven 
 leagues from Paris, there are manufactures of 
 cotton and paper. Essonne, formerly Exona, 
 was a place of celebrity, and had a mint, and 
 money is stiU extant that has EXONA on it. 
 In 670 Clotaire gave Essonne to Saint Denis, 
 and charged it with the expense of clothing the 
 
A JOUHNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 49 
 
 monks. You, who are fond of botany, and 
 charmed with rural scenes, would have been 
 delighted with the appearance of this country 
 on the 18th of July, where the rye was cut, and 
 your own native butomus in full flower, and in 
 magnificent display. At Essonne you are half 
 way to Fontainebleau, where we arrived at 
 breakfast time. Fontainebleau you are per- 
 fectly acquainted with, and all its particulars 
 from actual inspection, and the books that de- 
 tail its magnificence ; its stair-case in the form 
 of a horse-shoe, its five courts, the first of which 
 puts us in mind of Trinity and Christ Church, 
 and is finer than either : but since your time, 
 you will not be displeased to be told, that the 
 apartments destined for Monsieur, when he 
 happens to be resident at this palace, were oc- 
 cupied by the Pope in captivity during nineteen 
 months, and he who confined him was himself a 
 prisoner in the same place. There is another 
 piece of local history belonging to this place. 
 In the gallery des Cerfs, or Stag's-head gallery, 
 
50 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 Monaldeschi, Queen Christina's grand Ecuyer, 
 was put to death by her order, and almost be- 
 fore her face. The road from Fontainebleau to 
 Sens is through Pont-sur-Yonne, Pons ad Icau- 
 nam, a small town on the right bank of the 
 river, with a crowded market on a Sunday, 
 through which it was with some difficulty a 
 carriage could pass, without overturning the 
 market baskets. Two leagues more brought me 
 to Sens, an archiepiscopal city on the Yonne, 
 with a handsome stone-bridge. The cathedral 
 was built by the English. The richest thing 
 here, and very lately too, was a gold table 
 covered with precious stones, and adorned with 
 most magnificent bas-reliefs of great value, all 
 whidi disappeared in the revolution. On this 
 table the four Evangelists were represented, 
 with St. Stephen on his knees in the midst of 
 them. The church you are told was built by 
 the English, and they show you the place where 
 St. Louis was married to Margaret of Provence, 
 whom he afterwards, in the year 1248, carried 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 51 
 
 with him to Palestine. In the chapter-house 
 are the portraits of Louis XVIII. and his wife, 
 who died in England, Marie Josephine Louise 
 de Savoie, married to the Count de Provence, 
 1771. On the baldaquin, over the high altar, is 
 a globe, a cross, and a serpent with an apple in 
 his mouth. The Dauphin, son of Louis XV. 
 lies buried with his wife in the choii*. The 
 monument erected to them by order of Louis 
 XV. is a most costly mausoleum, and highly 
 worthy of the great artist Coustou ; the figures 
 of Religion and Immortality are particularly 
 fine, and those of Time and Conjugal Love, 
 by Julien, a pupil of Coustou, have infinite 
 merit. The painted glass in this church is 
 by Jean Cousin, a famous sculptor of the 
 stormy reigns of Francis II. Charles IX. and 
 Henry III. in all of which he contrived to 
 please the court, Hve in great tranquillity, 
 and much at his ease. He was, undoubt- 
 edly, for painting and sculpture, the most an- 
 cient great artist the French have possessed. 
 £2 
 
521 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON, 
 
 He was born at Soucy, near Sens, and lived till 
 1589. 
 
 In travelling through a country so varied, and 
 so full of picture as France, you want something 
 besides the perpetual recurrence of wood, water, 
 valley, and precipice, to diversify the sated view, 
 and bring to your recollection what you have 
 read of the inhabitants of the castles you pass, or 
 ken from a distance. I enjoyed this pleasure on 
 the Avalon road by seeing the chateau of Ma- 
 dame de Sevigne, whose maternal fondness, and 
 charming character, have ever been the admira- 
 tion of her readers, and who at once, for style 
 and manner, was what La Fontaine still is, 
 the model and despair of those who follow him 
 in the same career. You are no sooner past 
 Dijon on this road, than you begin to descry 
 Mount Jura from the coach-box. The country 
 in the last three or four stages has varied ex- 
 ceedingly. From Bernay and its castle the de- 
 scent is rapid and precipitous, on the edge of a 
 mountain, commanding a most extensive view of 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 53 
 
 a champaign country bounded with spires, and 
 interspersed with towns, till you arrive at Pont 
 de Pani, from whence to Dijon your road is 
 between a canal with locks, a river, a wood, and 
 a village, where the church and the steeple, and 
 all the houses, are covered with tiles of various 
 colours^ painted, varnished, and tesselated like 
 a pavement ; and, what is still more agreeable, 
 the road runs between the houses and the gar- 
 dens opposite them. Beyond Dijon, which I 
 need not describe, you pass through Genlis, 
 another celebrated name, that may make you 
 think of the Veillees du Chateau, les Fees, Pa- 
 mela, and Lord Edward, and all that is real 
 and romantic. From Genlis to Aussonne the 
 country is more like Holland than France, a 
 dead flat for leagues. The spires at Dijon and 
 Aussonne are out of the perpendicular, or at 
 least, appear to lean as much as the one of 
 Chesterfield in Derbyshire ; but that is of wood 
 covered with lead. In the pretty village with 
 the varnished tiles, I read against the houses. 
 
54 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 " Charbon de terre de Givors ;" a good article at 
 all times, but particularly in a country where 
 wood happens to be scarce and dear. The road 
 to Dole is full of pasture on both sides, and 
 abounds in Turkey com, ble de Turquie, with 
 which the Tuscans make pattona ; the palenta 
 of Italy consists also of Turkey com and water, 
 and chesnut-flower. At Mont sous Voudrey 
 the country rises, and beyond it a little way 
 divides into two highways, the right to Geneva, 
 and the left to Lausanne. The corpse of the 
 Baroness de Stael rested at Mont sous Voudrey 
 the night before I arrived, and on the 25th 
 July, and left it on the 26th for Copet. At 
 Salins, six leagues south of Besan^on, in the 
 cellar of the inn, is a fountain, or salt-spring, 
 and close to it a source of fresh water ; the salt 
 manufactured from the spring is uncommonly 
 white, and very productive. The town is forti- 
 fied, and lies between two hills; from hence to 
 Levier the road passes through a pine forest, the 
 property of government, of great extent 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 55 
 
 At Levier the houses are covered with firs, that 
 last fifteen years without renewing. Portalier 
 is a town near the Swiss frontier, and not far 
 from the source of the river Doubs, Dubis, on 
 the Jura. It is here you find the passport that 
 was left at Calais, and sent on before you to 
 Portalier, which ma^e it unnecessary for you to 
 procure another at Paris, for which you must 
 have paid ten francs. You now soon reach 
 Jougne, the French frontier, a narrow pass be- 
 tween high mountains of sublime and terrific 
 aspect, such as that of KiUikrankie, formed by 
 the lofty mountains that hang over the Garrio. 
 Jougne produces cheese enough of its own 
 manufacture, but no corn, no fruit, no wine. 
 For thirty or fifty sous a cow is kept all the 
 summer on the mountains. The road here, as 
 youjpnter Swisserland, passes by Fleuriau, to 
 the Cluzette, through tlie val de Travers, where 
 you enter on a scene of grandeur and magni- 
 ficence which must be seen to be felt. You are 
 struck at once, and astonished, in coming out of 
 
56 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 the narrow defile of the Cluzette, and arriving 
 at the passage of the highest point of the moun- 
 tain de Tourne. From the edge of a most 
 perilous precipice you have a fine view of the 
 Reuze rolling at an immense depth under your 
 feet : here a semicu'cular inclosure of pointed 
 rocks seems to stop the way, and bar the pas- 
 sage beyond them, in which the temple of the 
 winds may be said to reside; the inclosure is 
 called Le Creux de Vent. From the heights 
 of Mount Tourne and Boudri a fine view opens 
 upon you of the lake, and the highest Alps. 
 
 Here you see that the entrance into Swisser- 
 land by Fleuriau presents you with a fine 
 frontispiece to the volume of this romantic 
 country, and there is no reason for crying out 
 with the regret and horror of Madame de Stael 
 on passing the Rhine, " Nous sommes hors de la 
 France." I have now brought you where you 
 descend to Neuchatel, of which place I shall be 
 silent on the civil and political liberty, its toler- 
 ation in religion, greater than elsewhere in Swis^ 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 57 
 
 serland ; this you may find in other places : nor 
 shall I descant on the liberality of David Pury, 
 who gave the wealth he amassed in England 
 and Portugal to Neuchatel; nor on that of 
 M. de Pourtales who built hospitals, and esta- 
 blished charities, in his life-time; nor of the 
 monuments of the nine Counts and Countesses, 
 erected by Louis le Comte de Neuchatel ; nor 
 of the mausoleum of the Reformer WilHam 
 Farel; or the superb town-house, the library, 
 or the herbarium of Captain de Chaillet, all 
 which may be seen and consulted by travellers ; 
 but of the country houses and hills of very easy 
 access, from which you see two-thirds of the 
 Alps, of Savoy, and Swisserland, front the 
 mountains of the Canton of Ury and Schwytz 
 to Mont Blanc ; and in the Canton of Unter- 
 wald, the Titlis 10,000 feet above the sea, 
 and Mount Pilate in Lucerne 7000, from which 
 eight lakes are discernible, and the whole chain 
 of the Alps. Here is an epitome of Swisserland 
 in a distant view. From the height of la Brlin- 
 
t 
 
 Jf$ A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPL0N>1 
 
 dlen Alpe, there appears at an elevation of 
 600 feet, in the middle of a blafck projecting' 
 ix)ck, at the entrance of a cavern, a white sta- 
 tue of about thirty feet, like a man whose legs 
 are crossed, and whose arms are resting on a 
 table. The people call it our Cornel, or ' St. 
 Dominick. So in Attica, the place on which a 
 temple of Venus stood was called Cohas, be- 
 cause it resembled a lame man, who was in the 
 act of leaning to support himself. You remem- 
 ber on my touching on this subject, you once 
 told me there was a giant 180 feet high on 
 Nant-hill, near Ceme in Dorsetshire, cut out 
 in the chalk ; now St. Dominic is different, in 
 being an inaccessible lusus. At the extremity of 
 the cavern is the Trou de la Lune, or a hole 
 where they find a carbonate of chalk in powder, 
 or lac lunae, snow white, harder than common 
 chalk, composed of small transparent crystals, 
 when viewed with a strong magnifying power. 
 
 Between Neuchatel and Yverdun you hear 
 a patois spoken, which requires some study to 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 59 
 
 understand, as demi oura, duez ouras, esatteau, 
 for chateau, and they sing it out like the 
 Cornish men and Neapolitans. Not far from 
 Neuchatel you pass over a manificent stone 
 bridge that joins two mountains. At Au vernier 
 the lake of Neuchatel is embayed; the road 
 goes also by Colombier, the favorite residence 
 of Marshal Keith; the whole journey is seven 
 leagues to Yverdun. The castle built in the 
 twelfth century is now the institute of Pesta-i|t 
 lozzi, and serves him for an academy. Yver- 
 dun is well known as the birth-place of General 
 Haldimand, late Governor of Canada, in the 
 English service, as well as for the Encyclopedia 
 which was published there, besides other great 
 works which have been printed at its press. 
 The elementary method of education of Henry 
 Pestalozzi of Zurich was brought from Bourg^ 
 dorf castle, three leagues from Berne, in 1804, 
 in part, and from Bouchee, 1805, wholly, to 
 Yverdun ; from hence it has been spread far and 
 wide in Prussia and Spain, in 1809, by M^ 
 
60 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 Zeller and Col. Voitel, and Yverdun has been 
 twice visited by Dr. Bell, who first brought it 
 from Madras. From the Aiguilles de Baume, in 
 this neighbourhood, you see the lakes of Bienne, 
 Morat, Neuchatel, and Geneva, the Cantons of 
 Vaud, Fribourg, and Berne, Savoy, and the chain 
 of the Alps from Mount St. Gothard to Mont 
 Blanc. It is no more than six leagues from 
 Yverdun to Lausanne. At the end of the first 
 i| league you pass through a fine garden, as Lord 
 Orford calls Petworth, of magnificent oaks, of 
 considerable extent, from whence to the plain 
 in which Yverdun stands, there is a long and 
 terrific descent. You are so well acquainted 
 with Lausanne that I shall not enter into details, 
 except on points which are not so well known, 
 or which have not been much insisted upon. 
 The celebrated French poet Voltaire, it is 
 mentioned in many works besides his own, re- 
 sided at Lausanne from 1757 to 1769, at Mon- 
 trepos ; Haller was here at this time, but with- 
 out seeing Voltaire. Gibbon the historian 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 61 
 
 retired to a house with a long terrace fronting 
 the lake, and just without the gate of Ouchy, 
 to finish his Decline and Fall, and when it was 
 brought to a happy conclusion, and in the midst 
 of his friends and admirers, declared that the 
 work was done, and that he had taken Con- 
 stantinople. The company assembled on this 
 terrace was oftentimes very brilliant, but some- 
 times more so than at others, as when the fol- 
 lowing persons were present at the same time : 
 Prince Henry of Prussia ; the Prince of Bruns- 
 wick ; General Walmoden, N. S. of Geo. II. ; 
 I'Abbe Bourbon, N. S. of Louis XV.; two 
 grand-daughters of Rapin de Thoyras ; Miss 
 Carter ; Lady Clarges ; Monsieur Tissot, M. D.; 
 Monsieur Mercier, I'auteur de I'lndigent ; 
 Mademoiselle Crusat, I'auteur de Carohne ; 
 le Due et la Duchesse de Chablais. There was 
 a public execution in the Pays de Vaud last 
 year, a thing which had not occurred before for 
 fourteen years. Lausanne possesses a number 
 of antiquities, which the Society of Emulation 
 
0§ A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLOK'. 
 
 has met with in its excavations, such as a Ro- 
 man road, at a place called Chemin de I'Estras, 
 or Via Strata, a paved road leading from Vidi 
 to Ouchy, and to Vevey ; also bronzes and 
 medals, and a Roman mile-stone on the road 
 from Lausanne to Lutri, which is in the court 
 of the amiable rector of the university. It was 
 erected under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and 
 marked the 38th mile from Avenche, in the 
 sixth year of his reign, and the 143d of our 
 reckoning. 
 
 The road from Lausanne to Vevey is by the 
 side of the lake, and between vineyards; on 
 market-days and fairs you are treated with a 
 new costume in the dress of the Friburgers, 
 who make themselves wings with their black 
 hair, on each side of their head behind. 
 
 On a house where Edmund Ludlow lived you 
 
 read, " Omne solum forti patria est. " He 
 
 lies buried in the cathedral. 
 
 All the country between Vevey and Mon- 
 treux, and Vevey and Lausanne, is but a part 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 63 
 
 of the base of Mont Jurat, studded with pretty 
 villages and country-houses that command fine 
 views of the lake, the rocks of Meillerie, the high 
 mountains of Savoy, of the district of Aigle, and 
 of Bex, and the Valais, disposed in a semi-circu- 
 lar form about the lake to the north-east, where 
 the dent or tooth of Jaman towers above Mont- 
 reux. You may go to the fortress of ChiUon by 
 water, or by land ; the lake is here 312 feet deep, 
 and this year higher than ever. Chillon, besides 
 its own history, has the splendid name of Byron 
 on a pillar of black marble in the Souterrain. 
 From this prison you have a near view of the 
 only island on a lake of fifty miles long and up- 
 wards, whereas, on a Scots lake of thirty, you 
 have half as many islands. Perhaps you may 
 prefer your own country, but I beg to be a 
 G^nevois on this occasion. Where the Rhine 
 enters the lake, which is close to you at Chillon, 
 it abounds in eels, and no where else. 
 
 I now proceed in my journey to the Simplon, 
 through Villeneuve, Bex, and St. Maurice, by 
 

 64 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 the Pissevache to Martigny, Sion, and Biigue^ 
 of each of which I shall say a word or two. 
 
 Villeneuve is a small town of the Canton de 
 Vaud, on the road froin Aigle to Vevey. Be- 
 tween Villeneuve and Boveret the Rhone falls 
 into the lake ; and here it is the lake of Geneva 
 begins. 
 
 Bex is famous for its inn, its environs that 
 would detain you three days at least in taking- 
 views, the salines in its neighbourhood, the only 
 salt-springs in Swisserland, its transparent gyp- 
 sum, its sulphur, and muriacite, or sulphat of 
 lime impregnated with sea-salt. 
 
 St. Maurice in the bas Valais, on the Rhone, 
 between the snow-capped Dent de Midi, and 
 that of Morcles, is singular on account of the 
 narrowness of the Valais, which, nearly thirty 
 leagues in length, is shut up every night, " au 
 moyen de la porte du pont, a I'extremite duquel 
 on entre dans le Canton de Vaud." Another 
 gate serves to shut up the entrance of the dis- 
 trict of Bex, on the side of the Valais. The 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 65 
 
 best view at St. Maurice is from a hermitage on 
 a very lofty eminence upon a perpendicular 
 rock. 
 
 The great object on the road to Martigny 
 is the cascade of the Pissevache, that is, the 
 stream or torrent formed by the Salanche falls 
 several hundred feet, and almost perpendicular. 
 At sun-rise, the solar iris is beautiful. At the 
 bridge of Trient, a little farther on, the torrent 
 from the rocks is wholly vertical. 
 
 Martigny is the rendezvous of travellers into 
 Italy, to Mount St. Bernard and Chamouni. I 
 was much amused with a set that was going to 
 the monks, who laughed at the difficulties of 
 mounting where the Corsican's cannon had gone 
 before them. The numbers that go up at the 
 same time, or in the course of two or three days, 
 make it difficult to feed and lodge them, especi- 
 ally the ladies, who require separate apartments, 
 A Monk of St. Bernard is sometimes a travelling 
 title, from the known hospitality of the convent* 
 It is not long ago that there came a |>erson of 
 
66 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 this description to an English university, who 
 spoke Latin, and apparently was well ac- 
 quainted with the convent of St. Bernard. This 
 was a letter of recommendation, and he was well 
 received, and dismissed with money in his pocket; 
 and when the visit was returned hy his si*- 
 scribers, he was announced to the Prior, who 
 disclaimed him for a brother, and said, that 
 none of their order were vagabonds or mendi- 
 cants. The elevation of the convent is the 
 highest point of the passage over the mount, 
 which, according to Pictet, is 7476 feet above 
 the sea; according to Saussure, 7542; which 
 by winding make six leagues of open road, and 
 three of foot path to the top. You pay nothing 
 for your bed or board in the Hospice, but drop 
 your mite into a poor's box, which is placed in 
 the church for the purpose of receiving the vo- 
 luntary donations of grateful visitors. In the 
 chapel under the convent the bodies of travellers, 
 who have perished with cold on the mountain, 
 are ranged in order, and left to dry into mum- 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 67 
 
 mies. They remain unchanged for three years, 
 tali quali, and then begin to shriveL 
 
 I had now my choice of going on to Sion and 
 Bngne, or to Chamouny. The mnles were 
 all ready in the inn-yard for the Col de Balme, 
 or the Valorsine, and the Tete Noir, but I de- 
 cided for the Simplon. 
 
 Sion, the capital of the Valais, is situated in 
 the widest part of the valley of the Rhone, on 
 the right bank, and the stream of Sitten, which 
 descends from the glaciers of Gheltenhorn, and 
 runs into the Rhone, under one half of the 
 principal street of Sion, or Sitten, which is a 
 long bridge of boards. Against the wall of the 
 cathedral, near the great door, is an inscription, 
 of which I read perfectly, CAESARI DIVI F 
 
 AVGVSTO COS. XI PATRONO, 
 
 last word. The straw hats of the women in the 
 Pays de Vaud are large and flat, with a button 
 in the middle, a la Chinoise. In the Valais, or 
 Walais, they are small, and wreathed all round 
 with flowers, k I'ltalienne. 
 F 2 
 
68 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 The fine glaciers of Mount Rosa are but six 
 hours from Sion ; and the hermitage, consisting 
 of a church, a cloister, and several cells cut out 
 of the rock, is only one from the town, to which 
 you may go in a char de cote, or a sofa on wheels. 
 
 Brigg is seven posts and a half from Sion, 
 where you approach within five-and-twenty 
 miles of the sources of the Rhone and the Rhine. 
 I now found myself at the foot of the Simplon, 
 in the finest town of the Valais, where the 
 Rhone is of a considerable breadth, and the 
 countr}' very productive. The houses are 
 covered with a silvery micaceous schist, and the 
 churches adorned with giltstein, or potstone, of 
 a green ground, and veined with bright yellow, 
 from a quarry near Arnen on the left bank of 
 the Rhone, and the high road. 
 
 The Jesuits have a college here, and the 
 Ursulines a convent, and Baron Stockalper a 
 castle with domes, that give it the appearance 
 of the Ducal palace of St. Mark, or the Santa 
 Sophia of Constantinople. The Baron retires 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 69 
 
 with all his family to the highest apartments on 
 the slightest rumour of the small-pox in the 
 Valais, of which he is a considerable proprietor? 
 as also of a gold mine, near Gondo, beyond the 
 fifth gallery. The first full view you get of the 
 Simplon is at the splendid inn of Tourtomagne, 
 three posts and a half from Brigg, under the form 
 of a pyramid of snow. The Simplon was an- 
 ciently known under the name of Mons Scipionis, 
 Mons Sempronius, and by Italians is still called 
 Sempione. Publius Cornelius Scipio consul with 
 Tib. Sempronius Longus, 218 years before Christ, 
 went into Spain to oppose Hannibal in the second 
 Punic war; and Sempronius (Asellio), sixty years 
 afterwards, to the siege of Numantia from Milan. 
 It begins at GHss, by a road twenty-five feet 
 wide, whilst the old way was only a path and 
 passable for men on foot or mules, from the 
 same point to the neck of the mountain, and 
 two leagues shorter than the new, which counts 
 fourteen leagues from Brigg to Domo d'Ossola, 
 in passing the Simplon. 
 
70 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 I shall dwell a little on this subject, as I know 
 you meditate ajourney to Milan in 1818. In 1800 
 Napoleon began this famous road, that is, the la- 
 bourers and surveyors appointed by the French 
 government, on the side of the Valais, and the Ita- 
 lian engineers on the side of San Marco, the first 
 Italian village. For, as Swift truly says, in great 
 works no mention is made of those who brought 
 
 — -" The mortar, or who placed the stones ; 
 But all commend Inlgo Jones." 
 
 The width is twenty-five feet, and the fall twa 
 inches and a half in six feet, so that on either 
 side of the mountain there is no occasion to drag 
 the wheel. The most difficult part of the road 
 to make fell to the share of the Italians, who 
 bad quartz and granite to cut through, whilst 
 the slate and schist of the French in many places 
 was found to be in a state of decomposition. 
 There is no other road cut through the Alps 
 between Italy and Swisserland where heavy 
 waggons and cumbrous artillery can freely pass. 
 Inhere is no necessity at present for going to 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 71 
 
 Brigg, as the new road begins at Gliss, about 
 three quarters of a mile from Brigg, and you 
 pass the Saltine on a high and covered bridge, 
 arrive at the hamlet of Ried, traverse a forest 
 of deciduous cypresses a mile and a half long, 
 and after a series of frightful precipices come to 
 the first gallery of Holz Graben; then you 
 reach the bridge over the Ranter eighty feet 
 high, and in half an hour get to the first place 
 where you change horses at Persal, or BerisaL 
 Beyond Oesbach is the gallery of Schalbet, thirty 
 paces, and three times as long as the first. The 
 road runs on the edge of a precipice, and ser- 
 pentines till it comes to the bridge of Oesbach. 
 There are four cascades that descend from the 
 glacier of Kaltwasser on the left, and crossing 
 the road are precipitated into the abyss in 
 aqueducts of a beautiful construction. 
 
 The third gallery is now passed, and the 
 milliary stone appears as you come out of it, that 
 indicates the highest elevation of the passage, 
 one league and three-fourths from Berisal. 
 
72 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 This gallery is fifty paces long, and looks down 
 on the ancient hospice below, and sees to the 
 left the foundations of the new convent. The 
 village of Simpeln is one league and a half from 
 the neck of the mountain. From Simpeln to 
 Domo d'Ossola is six, and eight from Gliss 
 and Brigg. After passing the bridge of Krum- 
 bach and Senkelbach you arrive at Simpeln. 
 The fourth gallery is eighty paces ; and by the 
 side of the magnificent cascade of Alpimbach, 
 or Frissinone, is the fifth, of 202 paces in length, 
 with three openings to the river. All the gal- 
 leries cut through the rocks have an elevation 
 of thirty feet, and are as broad as the cause- 
 way. At a quarter of a league below Gondo 
 are the confines of the Valais and of Italy. At 
 Val-Divedro there are two bridges; and the 
 sixth and last gallery of Crevola, of eighty paces. 
 At Crevola you pass the Veriola on a bridge 
 which, for beauty of construction, surpasses 
 every thing of the kind in sublimity ; it is sixty 
 paces in length. The road, I should have said, 
 
A JOUBNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 73 
 
 from Berisal to the Simplon has been repaired, 
 and will be better next year. Beyond Isell also 
 the same operation is performing. , 
 
 I am afraid I have tired you, and to make 
 some amends I shall change the subject; and 
 having brought you within a league of Domo 
 d'Ossola, and more than half way to Milan, 
 shall begin to talk of certain events in this 
 country since the last eighteen years. 
 
 If you recollect it was in May 1799 that the 
 siege of Acre was raised, and Bonaparte sailed 
 from Egypt August the 25th, landed at Frejus 
 October the 7th, and was declared First Consul 
 on the 10th of October, having dissolved the 
 Conventional Government on the 9th. 
 
 It was also in this year of 1799, that the 
 Austrians, in the month of May, tqok posses- 
 sion of the Simplon, and on the 15th of August 
 fought a battle, in which the French beat the 
 Austrians and retook the Simplon, or St. Plomb. 
 On the 22d of September they went down, un- 
 der the command of General Tureau, to Domo 
 
74 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 d'Ossola, and forced the intrenchment of the 
 Imperialists. A few days after the French 
 were obliged to retire, and abandon the Simp- 
 Ion altogether, when the Russians had passed 
 St. Gothard, and Massena had fought a decisive 
 battle with the Russians at Zurich. 
 
 On the 4th of October General Tureau left 
 Brigg, and temounted the Simplon. 
 
 Whilst the army of reserve passed the Grand 
 St. Bernard in May 1800, under the First Con- 
 sul. General Bethencourt was sent at the head 
 of a column of a thousand French and Swiss 
 troops, with orders to pass the Simplon, and 
 seize the passes of Isell and Domo d'Ossola. 
 Avalanches and repeated falls of snow had 
 caried away a bridge they had to pass, and 
 made a breach of sixty feet in width. 
 
 An intrepid volunteer, who probably had been 
 a mason, offered to attempt a passage, which 
 he effected by fixing a rope on one side of the 
 rock, and carrying it in his hand, he went down 
 to the holes by the side-wall where the posts 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 75 
 
 of the bridge had been inserted ; then stepping 
 from one to the other he reached the opposite 
 rock, and made fast the other end of the rope. 
 The General followed him, and all the men 
 with their arms and knapsacks, the whole 
 thousand, suspended successfully over the roar- 
 ing abyss, whilst with their feet they were 
 feeling their way from hole to hole. There 
 were five dogs with the battalion; and when 
 the last man had passed, they all five plunged into 
 the deep, and three were carried away by the 
 impetuosity of the glacier, and two arrived on the 
 opposite side by superior strength in struggling 
 with the torrent. In memory of this daring and 
 successful action the names of the General and all 
 his soldiers were engraved on the rock. 
 
 Having now taken a view of the new road, 
 and satisfied myself that it would stand, pro- 
 vided the injuries offered to it in the year 
 1814 were not repeated, the bridges repaired, 
 and the rocks duly removed, that faUs of snow 
 from time to time shall bring down with them 
 
76 A JOURNEY TO THE SiMPLON. 
 
 from the mountains, I returned to Brigg ; and 
 as I passed over the bridge on the Saltine I was 
 directed to a round hole in the mountain, to 
 the left behind the grand causeway, to divert 
 the winter torrents which would otherwise in- 
 dubitably blow up the road. 
 
 From Brigg to St. Maurice, along the valley 
 of the Rhone, which, at the foot of the Furca, 
 the highest part of the valley, is 4i626 feet above 
 the lake of Geneva. On all sides the Valais, 
 which was made a canton in 1815, at the con- 
 gress of Vienna, is the most considerable in length 
 of all the valleys of Swisserland, and is surrounded 
 on all sides with very high mountains, and so 
 narrow in certain places, that between the dent 
 or tooth of Morcles and du Midi the Rhone can 
 hardly find a passage. The chain on each side 
 rises from eight to fourteen thousand feet above 
 the sea ; and what are called the lowest, the 
 Cols, from six to ten thousand. One of the 
 highest of the most pointed lay in my way down 
 to St. Maurice, and is called La Dent de Vyon, 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 77 
 
 and yet the chamois climbs to the top of it. 
 In some parts of the Valais there is a harvest in 
 May, in others not till October. The moun- 
 tains are the refuge of the chamois, marmot, 
 the lynx, the wolf, and sometimes a bear makes 
 his appearance; one had been seen between 
 Martigny and Sion in August last, just before 
 I passed. 
 
 Napoleon made a new road from the castle 
 of the Duke of Savoy to Evian, where a church 
 was removed that stood in its way. 
 
 At St. Gingoulph, alias St. Jingo, two posts 
 and a half before you come to Evian, on the 
 Geneva road, the landlady, a very eloquent 
 lady, was going on Thursday to Vevey, to buy 
 provisons for the fete of St. Jingo on the 10th of 
 August, the following Sunday, when the in- 
 habitants of the neighbourhood all around were 
 expected; but her trip was conditional, and 
 depended on good weather and the state of the 
 lake. I profited much by her obliging disposi- 
 tion and communicative talent, and heard her 
 
78 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 with great delight declaim on " the lake's fine 
 basin and enchanting banks ;" the beautiful po- 
 sition of Chillon and Montreux, the rocks of 
 Meillerie, and the point from which you descry 
 all the sides of the lake up to RoUe, where its 
 breadth is three leagues and a half to Thonon, 
 the city of Lausanne, the mountain and tower 
 of Gouzze, the tower of Pell, Vevey, and 
 Montreux ; but when she came to Vevey, she 
 said, " Monsieur a ete sans doute a Vevey ;" 
 and without waiting for my answer, went on in 
 a flood about the inhabitants, not only of Vevey, 
 but of all the residences of the English, who, in 
 her opinion, were born to travel, " et repandre 
 leur bienfaits sur les eaux qui passent." I asked 
 her if she knew Monsieur Monnet, " Comme ma 
 poche, dit elle ; you mean the master of the best 
 inn at Vevey ; he is an extraordinary creature, 
 and my great friend ; he has seen life, and been 
 in China with Lord Macartney, with Admiral 
 Payne, Mr. Beckford, and Lord Muncaster. I 
 know him well ; but the singular resident on 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 79 
 
 the lake near him, at Basset, is Monsieur Van 
 Brienen, a Dutchman, who is a merchant, and 
 has five partners, all his brothers, one at Stock- 
 holm, one at Archangel, one at Odessa, one at 
 Petersburgh, and the fifth at Hamburgh. Mr. 
 Van Brienen occupies but a part of his chateau; 
 the rest is inhabited by one of the most amiable 
 and best informed families that ever came from 
 your country." 
 
 You may easily suppose that I left St. Jingo 
 with regret as well as the Valais, at whose ex- 
 treme frontier I had now arrived. The Dents 
 d'Oche, that rises above the village, command Ge- 
 neva, twelve leagues off. The new road cut out 
 of the rock has been passable ever since the year 
 1805 ; the old one was a path. The rock now 
 and then falls down, and occasions a tempomry 
 obstruction. After Bonaparte's return from 
 Elba, there was a battle between the French 
 and the Austrians near this place, in which the 
 French were driven back with considerable 
 loss. 1 
 
80 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 The high road runs between forests of Ro- 
 binia Pseudo Acacia, Marronniers, or eating 
 chesnuts and walnut-trees. Close* to the lake, 
 the ground rising ^ quick behind is clotj^ed with 
 verdure like a park, and crowned with rocks. 
 The hill of St. Paul, above Evian, is of a fine 
 form, and beautifully shaped. Between Evian 
 and Thonon there is a mineral spring contain- 
 ing iron, much drunk in the summer by the 
 Genevois. 
 
 Thonon was the capital of the ci-devant 
 duchy of Savoy, and the last post but one. 
 Douvaines, before you reach Geneva. 
 
 You must traverse the city of Geneva before 
 you reach the good inn of Secheron, which is 
 half a mile from the gates. In the fine weather 
 this is pleasant, and the walk into town not 
 undelightful, to which you have your choice of 
 conveyance in a char de cote by land, or in a 
 boat by water. My first business was to visit 
 Mr. Hentch ; my second, Rousseau's house, in- 
 scribed Jean Jaques, ne 1712. My third, to 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 81 
 
 Cologni, out of town. Mr. Hentch was at Paris, 
 but I received a card from Madame H. "pour 
 passer la soiree a sa campagne." It will not be 
 consistent with my plan of a rapid sketch to go 
 through the city, and mark all its bulwarks, or 
 count its hospitals; these you will find in Ebel, 
 should you travel this way, but I shall set down 
 the things you are not likely to find in any 
 book. 
 
 Besides the island before mentioned, there is 
 a rock near the town, called Pierre a Niton, 
 which the Genevois interpret Neptune, but the 
 word should be written Neecton, or Swimming, 
 the Floating Rock, on which, by the instruments 
 of sacrifice found on it, and preserved in the 
 city Hbrary, it should seem, that they were used 
 in killing the animals offered to the god of the 
 lacus Lenaanus, by the fishermen. 
 
 The library, which is open to the pubhc on 
 a Tuesday only, abounds in Calvin's Letters, the 
 Homilies of St. Augustin, written in the sixth 
 century on papyrus, and a Journal engraved on 
 
 G 
 
82 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 six tablets of wood covered with wax ; the rest 
 of this curious relict of the year 1314 is at 
 Paris. It is a fragment of the house-book of 
 Philip le Bel ; and if your stay at Geneva does 
 not exceed «ix days, you may see a specimen of 
 this singular curiosity in the French capital It 
 is very difficult to read, and great pains have 
 been taken by the librarian to decipher it in part, 
 which cannot have been done equally at Paris, 
 as they have not the whole. Geneva has a small 
 botanical garden, and will soon have a very large 
 one. In the year 1816, Monsieur Decandole 
 read a course of lectures, which lasted, at least, 
 six weeks. The English, who reside here in 
 flocks, know how to value this peculiar advan- 
 tage, not merely for the discovery of many of 
 the desiderata in botany, but also in mineralogy 
 and geology. The watches, clocks, musical 
 boxes, and seals, have, for the most part, greater 
 attractions for our countrymen, wives, and 
 daughters, than the Academy and its casts, or 
 fine pictures of St. Ours, and de la Rive. The 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 83 
 
 best pictures I saw at Geneva were in a private 
 house. Mr. Hentch is in possession of Christ 
 in the Garden, by Correggio ; a very fine Paul 
 Potter ; a Rembrandt, subject, a woman teaching 
 a boy to read ; the Murder of the Innocents, 
 a picture by Rubens; and a Dying Nun, by 
 Murillo. 
 
 Geneva, in some parts ninety feet above the 
 level of the lake, is divided unequally by the 
 Rhone, whose rapid translucent waters are of a 
 deep blue. In winter, owing to the neighbour- 
 hood of the snow on the mountains, and the 
 elevation of the soil, the cold is greater than in 
 higher latitudes. 
 
 The walks in all directions round the city 
 are beautiful ; particularly so to the Plainpalais, 
 where you find Gaudin's fine models of the Alps ; 
 and to Mr. Constant's chateau and gardens, 
 where you see the confluence of the Rhone and 
 the Arve that rolls a golden wave. On the 
 summit of the little hill of St. John you pass the 
 Delices, Voltaire's country-house, which he ad- 
 G 2 
 
84 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON, 
 
 dressed : " O maison d'Aiistippe, O jardin d'Epi-^ 
 cure, recevez votre possesseur ;" when he came 
 from Cohnar to print all his works at the Ge- 
 neva press, at the instance of Mr. Cramer. 
 
 Of all the excursions, at a short distance, to 
 chateaux and campagnes from Geneva, the one 
 to Femey is the most interesting, a village made 
 by Voltaire, and increased from eight cottages 
 to eighty houses, from the year 1759 to 1775. 
 The bed-chamber of the poet, as exhibited at 
 Paris, is in the same state it was in his life- 
 time, if you except the bed-curtains, which have 
 been from time to time so curtailed by visiters, 
 that what remains, since a stop has been put to 
 the depredations of zealous enthusiasts, is hardly 
 more than equal to what has been carried away. 
 This is no unusual thing ; if I remember, you 
 have a piece of the bed-curtains in which King 
 Charles slept the night before the battle of 
 Worcester. 
 
 From Geneva to Chamouni, the boundary of 
 my present excursion, I passed through Bonne- 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 85 
 
 ville, where I found nothing more remarkable 
 than the motto of its town-clock. " Hora 
 omnibus prodest; ultimam cave." Hours are 
 profitable to all; of the last beware. Cluze, 
 eight leagues from Geneva, abounds in watch- 
 makers. Three quarters of a mile before you 
 reach Maglan, above the hamlet of Balme, is 
 a grotto about twelve hundred feet higher than 
 the valley, six hundred paces long ; beyond which 
 there is an abundance of water that comes 
 down in streams from the lake Flaine, on the 
 mountain over head. Near Maglan is the 
 cascade of Arpenas, and a surprising echo. 
 
 Sallenche is only four leagues from Cluze. It 
 is here, at Sallenche, a small town in Savoy, 
 about 1,674 feet above the level of the sea, and 
 540 higher than the lake of Geneva, that you 
 prepare to proceed in a char k banc to Cha- 
 mouni and Mont Blanc, of which you have a 
 clear view from the inn in the town. Cha- 
 mouni is only six leagues off, but it requires 
 seven hours to perform the journey. 
 
86 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPJLON. 
 
 In order to arrive at Chede, a beautiful cas- 
 cade, soon after sunrise to catch the rainbow, 
 you must leave Sallenches at six ; you cannot 
 do this en voiture, but leaving it you cross a 
 torrent, and mount on foot till you can see the 
 water-fall, and the sun upon it. Then descend- 
 ing you step into your carriage, and arrive at 
 Servos in two hours, a beautiful valley, where 
 you breakfast, and get plants and minerals. 
 There are things to see at this place ; for in- 
 stance, a silver mine now at work, that pro- 
 duces an ounce of silver in a quintal; the 
 inspector's house and garden, in which are spe- 
 cimens of all the minerals of the mountains, and 
 aU the plants of the hills ; the tomb of Monsieur 
 d'Eschen, who fell into a fissure of the rock in 
 the neighbourhood, having strayed from his 
 guide. A monument to his memory was erected 
 in the eighth year of liberty, by the order of 
 the French government under the consulate of 
 Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Le Brun. In 
 your road to Servos you pass a mountain on the 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 87 
 
 left, which fell down in the year 1751, and 
 filled the valley with a thick impenetrable at- 
 mosphere of dust and brouillard for eight days. 
 From Servos to Chamouny the distance is three 
 leagues ; here you ford the brook, and pass the 
 Axve on the pont Pelissier, and then ascend 
 the Montees, at the summit of which is a 
 rock of rose-coloured quartz. You have a terrific 
 view of the Arve, at a great depth below you, 
 as you mount on the edge of the precipice, 
 rolling torrent-like between black craggy rocks 
 studded with gigantic firs ; behind you the 
 steeple of Servos, and before you the tower of 
 Ouches, are equidistant from the quartzose 
 rock. 
 
 The descent of the Montees brings you into 
 the valley of Chamouny, and you begin to de- 
 scry the glacier of Taconnay ; after that the Bos- 
 sons, and then the Bois. 
 
 The vaUey of Chamouny is washed by the 
 Arve from one end to the other, about nine 
 miles long, and from half to three quarters of a 
 
88 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON- 
 
 mile broad. There is no great road to it ; and 
 it is, as the Romans said of our country, cut 
 off from the rest of the world. The Mount 
 Breven, and the chain of the Red Needles, 
 bound it to the north, and the giant Mont 
 Blanc shuts it up to the south, at whose base 
 four glaciers descend to the edge of the valley, 
 which was not described, or even known, before 
 1741, when Pocock and Windham first visited 
 it, and spoke of it as terra incognita, eighteen 
 leagues from Geneva. Bourit, in 1773, pub- 
 lished an account of the glaciers of Savoy, and 
 soon after the incomparable Saussure edited his 
 work on the Alps, which overflowed the valley 
 during twelve years, from 1780 to 1792, with 
 a thousand travellers from all parts annually, 
 as may be seen by inspecting the Register 
 of Visiters, at the hotel d'Angleterre ; and yet 
 there are but three months and a half in which 
 the visit can be paid with safety and comfort. 
 Mr. Bourit, animated by the examples of Mr. 
 4e Saussure, in the year 1787, and of James 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE STMPLON. 89 
 
 Balma and Dr. Pacard in 1786, resolved to lead 
 the way in some untried enterprise. He did 
 not therefore attempt, as Balma had done, and 
 with success, to reach the top of Mont Blanc 
 in fourteen hours from the mountain of la Cote ; 
 or as Mr. de Saussure, in three days from Cha- 
 mouni ; the first in 1786, the second in 1787; 
 but on the 27th of the last month and year, 
 crossed directly by the valley of ice of Montan- 
 vert from Chamouni into Piemont; and in 
 order to do this, passed the night with his 
 son and two guides on Montanvert on the 
 27th ; the next day they walked twelve hours 
 on the ice, and descended in a fog and in- 
 tense cold in five hours and a half to Cour- 
 mayeur. 
 
 On the 20th they proceeded to the capital of 
 the Val d'Aost ; and on the 30th went up the 
 mountain of St. Bernard, and down on the 
 other side below the hospice to the bourg of St. 
 Peter; on the 31st they arrived at Martigni, 
 mounted the Trient, and the Col de Balme, 
 
90 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 and came to Chamouni, a walk of fifteen hours, 
 which took them four days to perform. 
 
 The origin of the village of Chamouny can- 
 not be traced higher than the eleventh century, 
 and a convent of Benedictins, founded by a 
 Count of Geneva in 1099. At this time there 
 is an inn in the valley where travellers insert 
 their descriptions in the house-book, which is 
 veiy agreeable in a bad day to read, as an 
 album, where you see now and then something 
 more than a mere list of names. For example, 
 July 26th 1817, you read " C. G. L. Pancoucke, 
 Editeur des Victoires des Francois en Espagne, et 
 ailleurs." To this name is a mark of reference 
 to a note at the bottom of the page, by another 
 traveller, with a list of French victories, or 
 battles in which they were beat. " Baylen, Vi- 
 miera, Talavera, Vittoria, Beresina, Leipsick, 
 Paris, Belle Alliance, Mont St. Jean, &c. &c." 
 The winter is very long at Chamouni, and lasts 
 from October to May, and oftentimes provisions 
 run so short that they are obhged to fetch them 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 91 
 
 from Sallenche on mules. In the valley the 
 pasturage is good, and the honey from the rocks 
 delicious. The mountains abound in chamois 
 and goats ; the horns of the tame goats are 
 straight, and of the wild chamois, recourbes or 
 bent at the tips. The gi^and business at this 
 place is to mount the hills, which you may do 
 after breakfast at your ease in your char de cote 
 for one hour, then on mules for one more, and 
 after that on foot two hours, and you will find 
 yourself either on the Montanvert, or the Cha- 
 peau, high enough to see the Mer de Glace, and in 
 time to return to dinner at six o'clock ; and yet 
 after all, the finest glacier is, as it were, at your 
 -feet in the valley, I mean the Bossons, where in 
 five hundred pillars of ice of unequal heights, 
 none less than twenty feet high, there are fifty 
 of at least one hundred and twenty. The walk 
 to these from the inn is half an hour ; and whilst 
 you are standing as near as you can well ap- 
 proach, because the intervals between the co- 
 lumns are full of ridges and fissures, you may 
 
 5 
 
92 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 guess at their altitudes by the forest of firs that 
 rises not far from them on the same inclined 
 plane. The most beautiful sight, perhaps, in 
 the valley is the source of the Arveiron, which 
 is not distant from the inn, and turns to the 
 right out of the road to the Chapeau. Here you 
 have no hill to mount, but a level road through 
 a cypress wood, which hides the grand object 
 from your view, and on coming out of the wood 
 into Arabia Petraea, or a space filled with enor- 
 mous granites, and innumerable pyramids, on 
 mounting a hillock of a hundred feet, the gla- 
 cier opens upon you, and a magnificent arch of 
 ice presents itself to view, through wliich the 
 Arveiron bursts out with impetuous violence, 
 and joins the Arve in the valley before the win- 
 dows of the eating-room of the hotel d'Angle- 
 terre. 
 
 It is very possible to go to Mont Blanc with- 
 out seeing it, and even in favourable weather 
 you must have recourse to the Buet, or Mortine, 
 to see it well with all its adjuncts. The Buet 
 
A JOUUNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 9S 
 
 is nearly one thousand feet higher than the Ca- 
 nigou in the Pyrenees, more than twice as high 
 as Ben-Nevis in Scotland, and nearly three times 
 above Snowdon in Wales. It was on the Buet, 
 above Servos, that Eschen, the naturalist, litera- 
 teur, and poet, perished. There is however no 
 necessity to mount so high ; the Col de Balme 
 is at hand between Chamouni and Martigni, 
 from which the vast domes of Mont Blanc are 
 all distinct; and the three passes into Italy by 
 Mount Cenis, St. Gothard, and the Simplon, 
 with the whole chain of the Alps in general, 
 within your ken. From the Col de Balme, 
 which lies in your way going or returning, you 
 are sure of seeing the summit, or the boss of the 
 dromedary, and run no risk of mistaking the 
 Dome de Goute for the highest point of the 
 white mountain, which you may easily do in 
 the valley. For this expedition I took my guide 
 and mules from Sallenche, and was highly 
 pleased with the attention of the former, and 
 the infallibility of the latter. I found also that 
 
94 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 mules were less liable to make false steps than 
 horses, because they are not so high-minded; 
 they look before they step, and never tread 
 upon a loose stone, if it be possible to avoid it, 
 
 A mule looks before he steps ; a horse steps 
 first, and then looks : " El mulo mira primo, 
 y passa pu^s; el cavallo passa primo, y mira 
 pues." 
 
 The valley is a fine school for the naturalist 
 in all the three kingdoms, and no bad academy 
 of the muses ; if you should by accident or de- 
 sign become acquainted with the school-master 
 of the village, who is no mean poet or pedes- 
 trian, since he has traversed on foot the whole 
 of his district, and sung all its parts from the 
 highest to the lowest, and if it be said, 
 
 " Who feeds fat oxen must himself be fat," 
 
 it may also be asserted with equal truth, 
 
 " Who climbs high rocks must be himself sublime." 
 
 But if on reading his poems you do not find him 
 so, you must allow that he had a lofty subject 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 95 
 
 in the Alps, and an exalted patron in Bona- 
 parte. 
 
 It is possible to go from Chamouni to Geneva 
 in one day by Sallenche, where you find the 
 mountains gradually diminish, and the valleys 
 vary ; the road is all level, with the exception 
 of one considerable hill. The Alpine plants are 
 in their element in the neighbourhood of Servos 
 and Mont Blanc ; at the height of seven thou- 
 sand feet above the sea, the growth of trees and 
 shrubs is found to cease. The inclosures and 
 open fields are rich in Savoy, in vines, wheat, 
 barley, oats, buck-wheat, mayz, sorgum, or In- 
 dian miUet, tares, lentils, hemp, flax, potatoes, 
 turnips, poppies, wood, madder, and tobacco. 
 
 In 1806 the academicians of Geneva reported 
 favorably of the waters of St. Gervais in rheu- 
 matic and cutaneous cases, which had been 
 recently discovered by Monsieur Goutard on his 
 own premises. These baths are within two 
 leagues of Sallenche, and eleven leagues south- 
 east of Geneva. The path to the source is by the 
 
96 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMFLON. 
 
 bridge over the torrent of the Bonnant, behind 
 the pump-room. The spring is in a wood of 
 firs, and you know you are near it on entering 
 the wood, from the strong sulphureous smeU of 
 its waters, and the appearance of gypsum on 
 its banks. From the waters of St. Gervais, 
 whose situation between the mountains is highly 
 romantic and picturesque, I returned to the inha- 
 bitants of the gi*eat banks of the lake, to enjoy 
 the beatific vision of Mont Blanc, reflected in its 
 bosom after the sun is set behind Mount Jura. 
 
 The disputes on controversial points are not 
 perfectly at rest, though not so unquiet as when 
 Voltaire wrote his " Civil War of Geneva." 
 The twenty-four volumes of the sermons of 
 Calvin, Beza, and Bullinger, are not now so 
 much thumbed, or the Homilies of St. Augustin 
 so much read, as the Bible itself. This is no 
 doubt an improvement, and must in the end be 
 productive of the best of consequences. I do 
 not remember to have seen any metrical version 
 of the " Guerre Civile de Geneve," in our Ian- 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 97 
 
 guage ; and indeed it had better remain un- 
 translated, but in parts which I shall give for 
 your amusement. The civil war of Voltaire 
 may be called the tenth ; for in France, where 
 Calvinism was introduced in the reign of 
 Francis I. its ravages were the cause of nine 
 civil wars, waged par Rome contre Geneve, 
 and the battles of Dreux, St. Denis, Jarnac, 
 Moncontour, fought during the minority of 
 Charles IX. when the churches were burnt to 
 ashes by the pretended reformers, and the tem- 
 ples by the Catholics. The tenth civil war, in 
 which the least blood was shed, was a paper 
 war. I shall present you with a few intro- 
 ductory specimens from the five Cantos. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Author sublime, unequal, long, 
 Who frogs immortalis'd in song, 
 A polish to my muse impart. 
 And teach me thy consummate art ! 
 Tassoni prodigal of thought, 
 But sparing what with sense is frauglit, 
 H 
 
98 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 - • Need I implore thy languid line, 
 
 For this caprice, and whim of mine ; 
 And thou best rival of the Roman, 
 Great Nicolas, surpass'd by no man. 
 Who paint'st the coxcomb and the fool, 
 And mostly deal'st in ridicule, 
 Thy style I cannot imitate 
 I find ; though tempting, 'tis too great. 
 Have done then with the invocation, 
 We trust ourselves for inspiration. 
 
 By mountain's side which time has worn, 
 The Rhone in rapid streams upbom 
 From prison scap'd to meet the Sone, 
 And join its waters with his own, 
 Geneva's people bursts to view. 
 Proud, noble, rich, dissembling crew. 
 No laugh betrays a want of heed, 
 Cocker's the darling book they read. 
 They hate a play, detest a ball, 
 And Rameau's airs love least of all ; 
 While sadness marks with dismal trace 
 The preacher's cheerless length of face. 
 Hither came John the learned Calvin, 
 From Picardy, conceited, vain, 
 Without a blush, himself who set 
 Paul rashly to interpret. 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 99 
 
 And preach'd to all Geneva's nation, 
 No man can work his own salvation; 
 That God does all, and nothing we, 
 And virtue of no use can be. 
 To this grand dogm his followers stuck, 
 And with bad preaching * ran a muck. 
 But Covelle, otherwise inclin'd, 
 Said God had left us unconfin'd, 
 And punishing the wicked deed. 
 To virtue gave the pious meed : 
 This novelty of irrestriction 
 To younger minds appear'd conviction, 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 Whene'er an empire's rent in twain, 
 Order and peace no longer reign ; 
 Vapours usurp the place of reason, 
 And brains are addle for a season. 
 Each temper by collision fires. 
 And double fury both inspires. 
 Of preachers a divine battalion. 
 In pride and power supreme far gone, 
 
 * A preacher who had repeated *' des graces infinies" 
 twenty times in his sermon, was thanked by one of the 
 congregation on comitig out of church, " Je te rends 
 graces infinies d'avoir fini," 
 
 H 2 
 
100 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLOK. 
 
 Pronounc'd 'gainst heretics the ban ; 
 Forth th* excommunication ran. 
 In God's own name the thunder rolls, 
 No mercy's shown to recreant souls; 
 And thus Geneva now and then 
 Can copy Rome, as monkies men. 
 But Covelle, with his brave compeers, 
 At thunders of the churchmen sneers, 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 When sailing on the silver lake, 
 To love's delightful sense awake. 
 Fair Catharine and her spouse enjoy 'd 
 Pleasures pure and unalloy'd ; 
 When Dryads danc'd upon the bank, 
 And tripp'd it o'er the margin dank, 
 When Proteus and his nymphs afloat, 
 Gambol'd in crowds around their boat ; 
 WTiere was Jean Jaques, on what intent, 
 To whom the embassy was sent ? 
 In Val Travers, from whose dark cells 
 A mountain rose, where winter dwells, 
 Whose head above black tempests crown, 
 And root to Tartarus goes down ; 
 Whose foot conducts to antres vast. 
 With savage darkness overcast^ 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 101 
 
 There's Rousseau's cave, in horrors drest, 
 Fit mansion for a man possest 
 Of hatred for God*s creatures, all 
 Consum'd by pride, devour'd by gall ; 
 Who flies the world with rancorous leaven, 
 And dreads to see the face of heaven. 
 
 In the fourth Canto, an English nobleman is 
 one of the dramatis personae, and restores Ca- 
 tharine to life by the weight of his purse. In 
 the fifth, Geneva recovers her lost gaiety, and 
 enjoys the pleasures of peace and harmony ; all 
 agree but Rousseau, who enters his protest 
 against any accommodation, crying, that all is 
 lost : " Tout est perdu, Geneve a du plaisir." 
 
 N. B. The watch-makers are not forgot in 
 this poem, and are mentioned in an exemplary 
 manner in a note to 
 
 ** Mille horlogers de qui les mains habiles," 
 Savaient guider leurs aiguilles dociles." 
 
 Geneva trades for a million of watches annu- 
 ally. Watch-making is no vulgar occupation. 
 Graham and the Lerois were famous artists. 
 
102 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 Leroi of this day is one of the most famous 
 mechanics in Europe. A great mechanic is, 
 to a mere geometrician, as a great poet to a 
 grammarian. 
 
 To this note I may add, that Geneva is 
 likely to become as famous for its lectures in 
 natural history by Monsieur Decandolle, as by 
 its artists of fusees and pendulums, which Vol- 
 taire, in his Siecle de Louis XIY. calls physi- 
 ciens de pratique. The widest part of Geneva 
 is darkened by high wooden penthouses, that 
 project from the roofs, obscure the street, and 
 give it a dull appearance, not very unlike the 
 covered galleries of Chester. 
 
 The public library at this place is very con- 
 venient, as it lends its books, and permits the 
 inhabitants to borrow any thing they wish to 
 read at their own homes. Portraits of rnen of 
 eminence are to be found here, among which is 
 that of May erne, a native of Geneva in 1573, 
 and physician of Henry IV. at whose death he 
 came to England, was employed by James and 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 103 
 
 Charles L and II. and died in Chelsea, at the 
 age of eighty-two, 1655. He was painted by 
 Rubens. The artists of this day, as well as 
 those of his own, among which was Petitot, 
 are much obliged to Sir Theodore for his ad- 
 vancement of the art of enamelHng at that early 
 period. 
 
 The road to Lausanne from Secheron is re- 
 markably pleasant, and the conveyance by voi- 
 turier, or diligence, particularly the latter, 
 expeditious. In this journey you leave the 
 territory of the republic for that of France, 
 and pass Versoy, where the Duke de Choiseuil, 
 (who because he drove every one before him, the 
 King of Prussia called, le Cocher de I'Europe) 
 planned a town that should eclipse Geneva. 
 The French minister meant to have a port to 
 rival the republic. Coppet is upon the lake, 
 and a castle well situated in the Pays de Vaud, 
 where Bayle, of famous memory, once resided 
 nearly two years. It was also the retreat of 
 Neckar from 1790 to his death in 1804, whose 
 
104 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 compte rendu was made the pretext, but not 
 the cause, of the French revokition. His daugh- 
 ter was brought hither to be buried in the 
 garden of the castle in July last, JVIadame de 
 Stael Holstein, who died possessed of Coppet, 
 and six millions, nearly two hundred and fifty 
 
 thousand pounds sterling. MUe.G , who was 
 
 educated with the Baroness, and sat at her 
 father's table, now presides at her husband's, 
 who keeps the inn at the entrance of the castle. 
 At Lausanne I concluded my tour of the lake, 
 and from hence returned to the French capital 
 through Yverdun. From this place to Neu- 
 chatel you skirt the west side of the lake, which 
 is twenty miles long and five wide, and might 
 be made to communicate with the lake of Ge- 
 neva by the river Venoge. The road to Neu- 
 chatel is through Grandson, St. Aubin, Boudri, 
 and Colombier, running along the side of Jura, 
 through a country like the district of la Vaux. 
 On the hills to the left there is here a cottage, 
 and there a gibbet, and so near, that in one the 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 105 
 
 inhabitant sees by the light of the moon the 
 reflexion of the pendu on the wall of his bed- 
 chamber. To wake at night, and find such 
 a figure dancing in the wind by your bed's 
 side is so terrific, that nothing, with less resolu- 
 tion than an Ephesian matron was possessed of, 
 could, one would think, be reconciled to it. 
 
 At Salins I was more amused than at my first 
 visit, by a company of troubadours, who sere- 
 naded me during supper, not with singing of 
 hymen or love, but of Caesar and Alexander : 
 without some such refreshment from time to 
 time a long journey must fatigue. The lake of 
 Neuchatel, I said, might be made to commu- 
 nicate with the lake Leman, and there is still 
 such a plan one day to be executed ; and then 
 the trade and merchandize which is now carried 
 in waggons from Berne to Basil, would be 
 transported from Morges on the lake of Ge- 
 neva by a canal to the lakes of Neuchatel and 
 Bienne, that would open a communication 
 with the Thiele, the Aar, and the Rhine. Hi- 
 
106 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 therto private interests have prevented this 
 grand scheme from being executed, but this 
 may not probably be always the case. 
 
 When I arrived at Mont sous Voudrey, a 
 place you have already seen mentioned in this 
 letter, I found there had been a great wolf- 
 hunt, in consequence of boys and girls having 
 been carried away from the fields in the day- 
 time, who had been set to watch the crops. 
 The huntsmen had enclosed and killed seven 
 young ones ; but the mother, furious from the 
 loss of her little ones, had not been taken. 
 
 From Mont sous Voudrey to Paris I met with 
 nothing out of the common way. 
 
 I now take my leave of the country of fine 
 natural prospects, and return to the cities of 
 Paris and London, of which the views of the 
 latter are to me as agreeable as the Pays de 
 Vaud was to Tavernier, who, after he had 
 walked upon the Vieille Roche of the Tur- 
 quoise, trod under foot the emerald and the 
 opal, and feasted on the Mangosteen of the 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 107 
 
 Moluccas, returned with delight to the barren 
 rocks of the Jura, and the bastard fruits of 
 Swisserland. 
 
 Paris, I need not tell you, is, like Africa, fer- 
 tile in monstrous novelties. I had not been long 
 on the Boulevards before my attention was 
 called to a battle between Madame Le Blanc, a 
 famous aerobate, and an artist of the same pro- 
 fession, in which Madame Le Blanc I'Aerobate 
 means, I suppose, an air-treader, or rope- 
 dancer. One of the trades of Paris consists in 
 furnishing Greek words for new exhibitions. 
 Calcagnini, the Pope's legate, surprised the king 
 and all his court, by dehvering his speech to 
 his Majesty like an old Roman, in choice Latin. 
 A Frenchman, who told me this, said that his 
 was the only language fit to be made universal ; 
 " As to yours, " he added, " it is a patois of aU 
 languages ; " wherein he showed his ignorance, 
 since the French, as well as the English, is com- 
 posed of a variety of tongues, and from the same 
 sources, Celtic, Greek, Latin, Persian, and Arabici 
 
108 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 Whenever Talma plays there is a crowd at 
 the grate where the tickets are delivered an 
 hour before the doors are opened, and two be- 
 fore the play begins. The Orestes is well sup- 
 ported by Talma, and Mademoiselle Georges. 
 Mademoiselle Duchenoy, without the advantage 
 of a fine face, is a great actress ; but Made- 
 moiselle Burgois possesses an outline of coun- 
 tenance well suited to tragic characters. Talma's 
 robe in Orestes, I was told, contained forty 
 yards of cloth, and Kemble's, in Cato, fifty. 
 The French excel in dressing the Roman and 
 Greek characters, and are as famous for the 
 excellence of their costume, as the Romans in 
 Horace's days were for the fine dye of Tarentum 
 in their stage dresses, where the applause pre- 
 ceded the play, before the actors had said a 
 word, and the clapping was for the purple robe, 
 as with us it was on a similar occasion, " For 
 Quin's high plume, and Oldfield's petticoat." 
 
 The O. P.'s were condemned yesterday for 
 riots in the Theatre of the Varietes. There 
 
A JOUHNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 109 
 
 were four principal leaders summoned. The 
 first that appeared were let off for twenty-five 
 francs, and three days imprisonment ; the others 
 for contempt and non-appearance, to six months 
 imprisonment and two hundred francs. These 
 gentlemen have some of them a long string of 
 names, such as Pierre Charles Gueritont, Au- 
 guste Regent Henry Scullier. Achille Rolin, 
 shorter in title, but more daring than his bro- 
 thers in conspiracy, confessed that he wished for 
 the strength of Samson, to pull down the 
 pillars of the play-house. 
 
 If you wish to know my opinion of the French, 
 the worst I can say of them is, that they are 
 very ungrateful, and most uneasy under the 
 army of occupation, which they signify by say- 
 ing continually that they do not wish to see 
 any English among them, that they are not 
 wanted at Paris. This is certainly neither 
 kind nor obliging, however natural it may be, as 
 John Bull spends so much money daily in Paris, 
 that the pay and profit of one banker only 
 
110 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 amounts to thirty thousand a year for a few 
 extra clerks ; and the whole sum expended by 
 the English annually, since the restoration, is 
 more than the ecclesiastical revenue and the civil 
 list before the revolution. In the year 1791 
 there were in Paris forty-eight convents of 
 monks, holding nine hundred and nine men, 
 the amount of their revenue was valued at two 
 millions seven hundred and sixty thousand livres, 
 more than one hundred thousand pounds ster- 
 ling ; five abbeys, or priories, estimated at six 
 hundred and twelve thousand francs, about 
 twenty-five thousand a year ; seventy-four con- 
 vents of nuns, containing two thousand two 
 hundred and ninety-two women, and their in- 
 come two millions and twenty-eight thousand 
 francs, or Hvres ; if to these we add the revenue 
 of the archbishopiick, and of the fifteen collegiate 
 churches, of one million six thousand and five 
 hundred livres, there wiU be in all seven milhons 
 for the former church income in Paris only, 
 pearly three hundred thousand pounds sterling, 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON, 111 
 
 about one-tenth of the ecclesiastical revenue of 
 the whole kingdom, as much above what it ought 
 to be as it now is below the price it deserves. 
 
 Whoever governs Paris must amuse it, and 
 should bread be dear it must fall, or the people 
 will rise ; the symptom of which is a print, in 
 which a tree is represented with loaves for fruit, 
 and under it a man lying at his length, with a 
 label issuing out of his mouth, " Si le pain ne 
 baisse pas, il faut que je me leve." At the fete 
 of St. Louis, given in the Champs Elisees, meat 
 and wine were given to the populace, and the 
 theatres were opened, to which the world was 
 invited without fee or reward, and the whole coun- 
 try became a scene of joy and abundance, pays 
 de Cocagne, where masts were erected, terminat- 
 ed by wreaths of flowers, from which gold and 
 silver watches, jewels, and various trinkets depend- 
 ing were the prize of him, who could first arrive 
 at the summit by swarming a pole greased from 
 the top to the bottom. The order and harmony 
 preserved on these occasions is the master piece 
 3 
 
112 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 of police, and worthy of imitation in all coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The face of France is so much changed by 
 the destruction of its chateaux, by the chauf- 
 feurs, or bande noir, that it is not always recon- 
 noissable. The chauffeurs are a company who 
 buy up all the country-houses of the nobility 
 that are forsaken by their owners, pull them 
 down, and sell the materials ; so that a traveller, 
 who had been used to direct his course by 
 taking these great bodies of masonry for his 
 land-marks, might easily lose his way, and 
 look in vain for his direction-posts. The French 
 themselves complain bitterly of the black band ; 
 but as it is a consequence of the system of equali- 
 sation, and a military preponderance, which, 
 for the most part, they are so fond of, and are 
 now straining every nerve to revive, you cannot 
 give them much credit for their sincerity. 
 
 Improvement at Paris is the order of the day ; 
 and what with the public works, such as the Mag- 
 dalen, and the elephant fountain on the founda- 
 
A JOtrUNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 118 
 
 tion of the Bastile, the Statue of Henri IV*, on 
 the Pont Neuf, and the decoration and beautify- 
 ing of private houses, and public hotels to lodge 
 foreigners, it is not an easy matter to get your 
 own house repaired. The proportion of English 
 to Russians, Austrians, Prussians, Italians, and 
 Sicilians at Paris is, as at Rome and Florence, 
 Naples and Palermo, about a hundred to five. 
 The improvements are not however confined 
 within the walls of the capital ; the new bridge 
 at St. Cloud goes much straighter to the palace 
 than the old one, and pleasanter, by entering the 
 park, and coming again by a better way into 
 the old road. At Versailles also there are 
 novelties, such as the bosquet du Roi, to answer 
 to the bosquet de la Reine ; and the new coach 
 four times a day from Paris to Versailles, and 
 from Versailles to Paris, for thirty sous in the 
 gallery, or basket, which in fine weather is by 
 far the best place. The basin in the park, in 
 front of the ^llery of glace in the palace, which, 
 with its fine horses, is reflected in the centre 
 
 I 
 
114 A JOURNJEV TO THE SIMI»LOK 
 
 mirror of the gallery, forms the principal beauty 
 of this great and unrivalled scenery of princely 
 magnificence, and would be really gi-and, and 
 beyond measure improved, if the square pond 
 beyond the horses were not detached from the 
 basin, but flowed into it, and made all one 
 piece. In one room at the manufacture at 
 Sevres, in the road to Versailles, which every 
 body visits, there are specimens of the porcelain 
 of every country, but not always of the best of 
 Worcester and Derby, and none of Bavaria, 
 now after sixty years brought to perfection ; and 
 none of Swansea. 
 
 At St. Cloud there is a saloon, newly fitted 
 up for the Dutchess of Angouleme, and called 
 Le Cramoisi, from the colour of its furniture, a 
 beautiful deep red. At the entrance of the park 
 by the grille, or iron gate, there is a restaurateur, 
 whose name is Le Griel, which has occasioned 
 many visitors to suppose, that the name of the 
 dining place was from the grille, and not from 
 the name of the restaurateur. 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 115 
 
 Not far from this place the inimitable Jor- 
 dan lies buried, in a hollow under a robinia- 
 tree. 
 
 From St Cloud, on my return to Paris, I 
 went to the tombs in the Petits Augustins, to 
 see Abelard and Eloisa, whose heads are now 
 removed. Some time ago, on entering the street 
 which leads to the Pont Rouge, by the cloisters 
 of Notre Dame, the last house on the right, 
 under the arcades, stood, where the canon Ful- 
 bert, uncle to Eloisa, lived. Here, although 
 the house had been often rebuilt during six 
 hundred years and upwards, there were still 
 preserved two stone-medallions, which were 
 called the busts of Abelard and Eloisa ; but if 
 they are the originals they have been much 
 altered, as the costume they now have is that 
 of the beginning of the seventeenth century ; 
 the fraise and the corset, such as you see on 
 the statues of Madame de Gevres and Catherine 
 de Clermont-Tonnerre, in the Museum of Mon- 
 sieur Lenoir; and the moustaches of Abelard 
 i2 
 
116 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 and Roman cloke, show plainly the epoch in 
 which they received their last decorations. 
 
 There is much more ground to go over, for 
 a stranger at Paris, than in London, because 
 the things to be visited lie farther asunder in 
 length and breadth in the former, than the ob- 
 jects of research in the latter. The distance 
 from St. James's to the India-house is the 
 same nearly as from the Tuileries to the place 
 du Trone ; but the rue d'Enfer, to the rue du 
 Fauxbourg St. Denis, is also more than three 
 miles; whilst the distance from the Regent's 
 Park to the House of Lords is but two. A 
 foreigner must go to the New Docks, which 
 are at least four miles from his hotel at the end 
 of Pall Mall; and an Englishman, from the 
 Fauxbourg St. Honore, has as far to go to the 
 Barriere d'Aulnay, or the Burying-ground of 
 Pare Lachaise : now where there is one thing 
 in London as far off as the turnpikes, there are 
 twenty in Paris, within the barrieres, or close 
 to them. The domiciliated inhabitants of Paris 
 
A JOURNEY •<rO THE SIMPLON. II7 
 
 are not so many as six hundred thousand, those 
 of London half as many more ; but to the lesser 
 number must be added the foreigners, the King's 
 guard, and the Princes', the national, or the 
 police, and the numerous garrison. 
 
 The dome of the Invalids at Paris is fifty feet 
 in its inner diameter; that of St. Paul's in Lon- 
 don one hundred and eight ; of St. Peter's at 
 Rome, equal to the Pantheon, one hundred 
 and thirty-eight. I'llll J: 
 
 The Pont Neuf is one thousand and twenty 
 feet long by seventy-two, Westminster bridge 
 one thousand two hundred and twenty by forty- 
 four. 
 
 The new statue of Henri IV. to be opened 
 on the Pont Neuf, wiU not, perhaps, be so fine, 
 or so full of history as the last, which was the 
 first of the kind erected at Paris. It was of 
 bronze, and set up in 1635, and pulled down 
 in 1792. The horse was begun at Florence, 
 by Giovanni Bologna, a pupil of Michael An- 
 gelo, finished by Pietro Tacca, and sent as a 
 
present to Mary of Medicis, widow of Henri IV. 
 It was shipped at Leghorn, and the vessel was 
 lost near Le Havre, on the Normandy coast ; the 
 horse remained a year in the sea, when it was 
 fished up, and sent to Paris in 1614. The sta- 
 tue, once the idol of the Lutetians, was de- 
 corated with the national cockade after the 
 revolution; and after the federation in 1790 it 
 was feted during three evenings magnificently ; 
 but, alas ! in 1792, it was levelled by the fickle 
 mob, and broken in pieces by the fall: the 
 bronze was half an inch thick nearly, and the 
 cavity was filled with brick and earth ; the void 
 space was first occupied by an alarm-gun, then 
 a coffee-house, then an obelisk, lastly, by a 
 plaster figure of the patriot king, on the second 
 of May 1814, to be replaced by one in bronze. 
 
 In former letters from Paris I mentioned, if 
 you remember, that the barber's sign had on it 
 the words " Ici on rajeunit," here you may be 
 made young again ; not by the waters of the 
 fountain of Jouvence, or the caldron of Medea, 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 119 
 
 but by having your beard taken off, and your 
 hair dressed. The shops at Paris are distin- 
 guished by their colours : the brandy shops are 
 painted red ; the barbers', blue ; the commercial, 
 green. The waiters at the restaurateurs wear 
 jackets and aprons, and at all the coffee-houses 
 and ice-shops, except at the Mille Colonnes and 
 the Palais Royal, where the costume is dif- 
 ferent, and the gar^ons are dressed in coats, 
 waistcoats, and pantaloons, like their visitors. 
 The churches are well attended even by the 
 higher ranks ; and when the Cure perceives any 
 one neglectful and careless of his duty, he lets 
 him or her know that they are not good Ca- 
 tholics. 
 
 A Cure, or Rector, of a large parish waited 
 on a lady of high distinction, to whom he was 
 conducted from the anti-chamber into her apart- 
 ment by two beautiful pages, and being seated, 
 he regretted exceedingly, that he had not had 
 the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship of late at 
 mass, and hoped that indisposition had not 
 
120 A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 prevented her from coming to church. She 
 thanked the Rector for his kind attention, and 
 flattered herself he would permit her to pray at 
 home. " Ah, Madame," he replied, " if the 
 church prayer-books had as fine pages as your 
 Ladyship's, I make no doubt I should see you 
 much oftener." Bishop Bossuet's gardener, 
 D'Alembert has told us, made the same sort of 
 remark, on seeing his Lordship in his garden, 
 which he seldom visited ; but on going into it 
 one day, commended the gardener for the great 
 care he had taken in making it so trim. The gar- 
 dener expressed his joy in seeing his master, and 
 regretted much that he had not had that pleasure 
 more frequently, and added, that if I planted 
 Chrysostoms and Saint Austins Mon seigneur 
 would pay me daily visits. 
 
 The plains of Pantin, in the road to Bondy, 
 produce a great revenue by the sale of la pou- 
 drette, or rich manure of Paris, which is there 
 dried and reduced to powder, and sold for the 
 purpose of being strewed on corn-lands. La 
 
A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 121 
 
 poudrette has been tried for orange-trees and 
 flowers, but does not agree with either, although 
 it greatly improves onions. 
 
 The French have always some new hobby- 
 horse. In 1816 the one they rode was near the 
 Barriere du Roide, called the Montagues Russes, 
 of which we saw a specimen in the ballet Russe, 
 at our own Opera-house. In 1817 the magni- 
 ficent garden of Beaujon was thrown open with 
 the improvement of a descent to the right and 
 left, and an ascent. The car is drawn up to the 
 point from which it starts, and the person in it. 
 The projector of the mountain du Roule having 
 made a fortune, transferred his machinery to 
 the Fauxbourg du Temple in September last, 
 and drew vast crowds to his new theatre in an 
 opposite direction. Le Saut de Niagare was 
 also announced about the same time at the 
 Ruggieri-gardens, where the fall is still more 
 terrible, by being more perpendicular ; but 
 the French ladies are not to be daunted, aU 
 though now and then, from the highest to t}i§ 
 
122f A JOURNEY TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 lowest, some one has the misfortune d'etre 
 ecartee. 
 
 I shall now leave you, having arrived at the 
 foot of the mountain, and conclude my long let- 
 ter without a word of politics, though I know 
 you wish much to be told my opinion on the 
 stability of the French monarchy, after the de- 
 mise of the present Ring, who, in order to secure 
 the succession of the throne to his relatives, has 
 taken his officers out of the enemy's camp, and 
 his ministers from the opposition. They say a 
 great man had a dream, which he told to a cer- 
 tain dutchess. The great man dreamt that the 
 tester of his bed, " le ciel de son ht," fell down 
 upon him ; upon^which the dutchess exclaimed, 
 " Juste Ciel ! " Adieu till we meet. 
 
 UJ|»!^i 
 
123 III 
 
 A Table of the Altitudes of the highest Moun- 
 tains of the Alps, from Mount Jura to 
 Mont Blanc. 
 
 Fathoms. 
 The principal needles of the valley of 
 
 Chamouni, in fathoms above the sea . . 1330 
 
 Antherne,Huts (Chalets) 920 
 
 Col, or neck 1160 
 
 Aost (City of,) 305 
 
 Arberon, Col de 780 
 
 Argentiere, aiguille (Needle) 2015 
 
 Arpenas (Meadows,) 266 
 
 ■^ Point from which the cascade falls is 
 
 eight hundred feet above the valley. 
 
 Arrache, a village ♦ 550 
 
 Balme, neck of, 1187 
 
 Bar (Huts of the meadow) 1030 
 
 Bernard, Convent of the great St. Ber- 
 nard 1246 
 
124 TABLE. 
 
 Fathoms; 
 
 Blanc (Mont) 2450 
 
 Has eight hundred and seventeen fa- 
 thoms less than Chimbora9o. 
 
 Bon homme (Cross of) 1255 
 
 Bonneville , 227 
 
 Bougy (Signal of) at the foot of the Jura 451 
 
 Breven 1306 
 
 Breuil, Horn, or Breithorn in Valais . . 2002 
 
 Buet 1578 
 
 Cenis (Mont) 1060 
 
 Cervin (Mont) in the Valais 2309 
 
 Chamouny (Priory) 524 
 
 Chanalette (Top of) near St. Bernard 1403 
 
 Cornu (Lake) 1160 
 
 Cote (Mountain of) 1319 
 
 Courmayeur 630 
 
 Pole (Jura) 847 
 
 Dru (Needle) 1948 
 
 Fenetre (Top) near St. Bernard . . 1466 
 
TABLE. 125 
 
 Fathoms. 
 
 Ferret (Col) 1195 
 
 Huts 859 
 
 Finsteraarhorn, Berne 2206 
 
 Flaine (Lake of) 714 
 
 Flegere (Cross of) about . . 1100 
 
 Fours (Top of) 1396 
 
 Gallenstosh, Berne . . . . , 1880 
 
 Giant (Col du) 1763 
 
 Needle of 2174 
 
 Geneva (Lake) 188 
 
 Gervais (Saint) village 408 
 
 f Baths of 305 
 
 Gothard (St.) highest point 1662 
 
 Gres (Glacier of) 1^25 
 
 Jardin (Le) 1414 
 
 Joly (Mount) 1363 
 
 Joux (Lakeof ) 505 
 
 Jungfrauhorn, Berne 2148 
 
 Martigny (Valley of) 249 
 
^^ TABLE. 
 
 Fathoms. 
 
 Megeve (VaUey) 580 
 
 Midi (Needle) 2009 
 
 ; The foot 1368 
 
 ? «^* Dent (in the Valais) 1633 
 
 Mole (Le) 948 
 
 Montanvert . , 954 
 
 Pissevache (cascade) two hundred and 
 
 seventy feet. 
 Plateau, second of Mont Blanc, where 
 
 Saussure lay 1995 
 
 Remy (St.) Col 1650 
 
 Rogne (La) near the Bon Homme 2070 
 
 Rose, in the Valais 2430 
 
 Salenches 280 
 
 Servos 4»28 
 
 Varenes (Needle) 1388 
 
 Velan (Mont) en Valais 1722 
 
 Verte (Needle) 2094 
 
127 
 
 Posting fi'om Geneva to Milan by the Simplon, 
 
 Posts. 
 
 From Geneva to Douvaines 2^ 
 
 Thonon 2 
 
 Evian 14- 
 
 St. Gingoulph S-^ 
 
 Vionna 2^ 
 
 St.Maurice. .. 2^- 
 
 Martigny 24- 
 
 Riddes 2-^ 
 
 Sion 2^. 
 
 Sierne 2-^ 
 
 Tortumagne 2^ 
 
 Viege 2^ 
 
 Biigg 14^ 
 
 Berisall 3 
 
 Simplon 3 
 
 Isell 2i 
 
 Domo d'Ossola 2-^ 
 
 Vogogna 2 
 
128 POSTING. 
 
 Posts. 
 
 Baveno * 3 
 
 Sesto Calende 2i- 
 
 Arona 1 
 
 Cassina buon Gesu 2 
 
 Rho 11^ 
 
 Milan 1^ 
 
 * At Baveno you embark to see the Borsomean Islands^ 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A 
 
 Page 
 
 Academy i 
 
 -^dicules 4 
 
 Aerobate 107 
 
 Alesia 38 
 
 Altars 5 
 
 Amulets 14 
 
 Antiquities, 16 — 50 
 
 Anvil round atone end, 
 and square at the 
 other, like an Egyp-f 
 tian shield (Hamil- 
 ton's ^gyptiaca,4to. 
 
 p. 117) 23 
 
 Arve 92 
 
 Arveiron 92 
 
 Atlas 11 
 
 Austin (St.) 120 
 
 Auxois 38 
 
 B 
 
 Balances 16 
 
 Bande noir 112 
 
 Barber's device 118 
 
 Page 
 
 Bar-le-Duc 1 
 
 Bayard ibid. 
 
 Beaujon 121 
 
 Belles Lettres 2 
 
 Belme 67 
 
 Bernard (St.) 65,66 
 
 Boar 12 
 
 Bon mot 119,122 
 
 Bossons , . . . 91 
 
 Broken Bridge .... 74, 75 
 
 Bronze 9 
 
 Buet 92 
 
 Bulletin 1 „ 
 
 C 
 
 Caesar . 34 
 
 Calais 44 
 
 Cascade 72, 86 
 
 Celeriferes 45 
 
 Cellars 5 
 
 Chalons 1 
 
 Chalons-sur-Marne . . 37 
 
 Chamois 91 
 
 Chamouni . . 65, 87, 89, 90 
 
 K 
 
ISO INDEX. 
 Page 
 
 Champagne 1 
 
 Charlemagne 47 
 
 Chatelet S3 
 
 Cherry-stones 33 
 
 Chillon 78 
 
 Chrysostom 120 
 
 Cisterns 5 
 
 Clasps 8 
 
 Cluzette 56 
 
 Cocagne . . .. Ill 
 
 Colonnades 3 
 
 Coppet 103 
 
 Cramois 114 
 
 D 
 
 D' Anville 39 
 
 Decandolle 82, 102 
 
 Delices (les) 84 
 
 Denis (St.) 48 
 
 Derbyshire 53 
 
 Dogs 75 
 
 Dominic 58 
 
 Domo d'Ossola 73 
 
 Drains 6 
 
 Pace 
 
 Elba 79 
 
 Eloisa 115 
 
 Encyclopedic 33, 4 
 
 English 113 
 
 Ephesian Matron 105 
 
 Eschen 86,93 
 
 Essonne ...... ... 
 
 . .. 48 
 
 Evian 
 
 ... 77 
 
 Excavations ..... 
 Exona 
 
 1 
 
 . .. 48 
 
 F 
 
 Felspar 
 
 Ferney 
 
 Foot 
 
 . . . 46 
 ... 84 
 ... 15 
 
 Fork 
 
 . .. 14 
 
 Foundations 
 
 Fountainebleau . . 
 Freius 
 
 . . . 3, 4 
 . 48, 49 
 . .. 75 
 
 French play . . .«. 
 Fulbert 
 
 ... 44 
 ... 115 
 
 Gallery 71, 72 
 
 Gaudin's models .... 83 
 
 Geneva 82, 84 
 
 Genevieve 47 
 
 Genlis 53 
 
 Georges 45 
 
 Gervais (St.) 95, 96 
 
 Gheltenhorn 67 
 
 Gibbon 61 
 
 Gingoulph 77 
 
 Givors 54 
 
 Gold 8, 36 
 
 Gondo 69 
 
 Gothard(St.) 74, 94« 
 
 Green earth 7 
 
Griel 
 
 Guerre civile 
 
 H 
 
 Haldimand 
 
 Handles 
 
 Hannibal 
 
 Henri IV. (statue of) 
 113, 
 
 Hercules 
 
 Horlogers 
 
 House-book of Philip 
 
 leBel 
 
 Houses 
 
 I J 
 
 Jaman 
 
 Java 
 
 Jingo (St.) 
 
 Improvements 
 
 Inscription 48 
 
 Jordan 
 
 Iselle 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 K 
 
 Killikrankie 
 
 L 
 
 Lake of Geneva 
 
 Lamps 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page 
 114 
 
 97 
 
 59 
 14 
 69 
 
 117 
 
 11 
 
 101 
 
 82 
 3 
 
 63 
 
 47 
 
 77 
 
 113 
 
 ,67 
 
 115 
 
 73 
 
 10 
 
 83 
 14 
 
 131 
 
 Page 
 
 Landlady (eloquent) . . 77 
 
 Lares 35 
 
 Latrines 2, 6 
 
 Lausanne 46 
 
 Lead 9 
 
 Lenoir 115 
 
 Library 102 
 
 Library (King's own) . . 47 
 
 Lingones 36 
 
 Livy 34 
 
 London and Paris com- 
 pared 116 
 
 Ludlow 62 
 
 M 
 
 Massena 74 
 
 Maurice, Qt^ 
 
 Medals 8 
 
 Mercury 10 
 
 Meurice 45 
 
 Missal 47 
 
 Money spent by Eng- 
 lish 110 
 
 Monnet 78 
 
 Montague 33 
 
 Mont Blanc, like the 
 Chanelin of Tartary, 
 
 ever white 95, 96 
 
 Montmartre 45 
 
 Morcles 76 
 
 Mules 94 
 
 k2 
 
132 
 
 N 
 
 mDEX. 
 Page 
 
 Napoleon 70 
 
 Neuchatel 57 
 
 Niagara 121 
 
 Nismes 35 
 
 Niton 81 
 
 O 
 
 Oche{dentde) 79 
 
 Odessa 79 
 
 Ovens , 7 
 
 Papyrus 81 
 
 Paris 43, 46 
 
 Patera 12 
 
 Peutinger 34 
 
 Phaleres 14 
 
 Phalli 14 
 
 Pictures 82 
 
 Pipes 7 
 
 Pissevache 64, 65 
 
 Pliny 36 
 
 Poet of Mont Blanc 95, 96 
 
 Polybius 36 
 
 PontNeuf 117 
 
 Pope (the) 49 
 
 Potter's pits 7 
 
 Pottery (fine) 6 
 
 R 
 
 Ram 
 
 12 
 
 Page 
 Rhone and Arve .... 83 
 
 Rings 16 
 
 Road to Geneva 83 
 
 Roman 17 
 
 Rosa 68 
 
 Rousseau 101 
 
 Rubens 46, 83 
 
 Ruggieri 121 
 
 Russians 74 
 
 S 
 
 Sallenche 9S 
 
 Samos 35 
 
 Samson 109 
 
 Sceyb 34,36 
 
 Scipio 69 
 
 Scipion 47 
 
 Secheron 103 
 
 Sempronius 69 
 
 Sens 50 
 
 Servos 86, 87 
 
 Sevigne 52 
 
 Sevres 114 
 
 Shops 119 
 
 Silver 9 
 
 Simpeln 72 
 
 Simplon 43, 73, 69 
 
 Sion 67, 68 
 
 Spoons 12 
 
 Statue 11 
 
 Stockalper 68 
 
 Streets 6 
 
Page 
 Swisserland 46 
 
 Tacitus 37 
 
 Talma 44,108 
 
 Tavernier 106 
 
 Temples 2 
 
 Tin 9 
 
 Toulouse 47 
 
 Town (Roman) 2 
 
 Trient. ..'. 65 
 
 Trinity 49 
 
 Tureau 74 
 
 Valais 78 
 
 Valorsine 67 
 
 Van Brienen , 79 
 
 Vases 35 
 
 INDEX. 133 
 
 Page 
 
 Velociferes 45 
 
 Vercingetorix 39 
 
 Vernet 46 
 
 Versailles 114 
 
 Vesuvius 33 
 
 Vevey 78 
 
 Vienna 36 
 
 Voltaire 61,84,96 
 
 Volute 11 
 
 Vyon 76 
 
 Yverdun 59, 104 
 
 W 
 
 Wells 
 
 Zinc 
 
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