Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino Part 20

_Lausanne, August 21, 1835._--The broad and easy road from Fribourg crosses a country partly wooded, partly cultivated, smiling and varied but not exactly picturesque, except at Lussan. The scenery does not become grand until the mountain chain which surrounds Lake Leman appears at the end of a pine wood, which for a long time conceals both the lake and the town of Lausanne.

Like all Swiss towns Lausanne is ugly inside. Its situation is picturesque; the variations of level are inconvenient for the inhabitants, but they provide several terraces from which the view is very fine. Those at the Cathedral and the Castle are the most thought of. I prefer the Montbadon promenade which is not so high, but from which one can see the country better. There are too many roofs in the other views.

_Bex, August 23, 1835._--Less of wall and vineyard and a few more trees would make the road from Lausanne to Vevey charming. The country does not quite take my fancy until Vevey is reached. Chillon above all impressed me by its situation and its a.s.sociations. I should like to have re-read Lord Byron's verses while I was going over the famous dungeons. His name alone which is scrawled in charcoal on one of the pillars of the prison (the same to which Francois de Bonnivard was chained for six years), is enough to make this dungeon poetic.

At Villeneuve the road leaves Lake Leman and plunges into a wild and narrow gorge. The sharp and curious indentations of the rocks which flank the road supply the only beauty which adorns the four long leagues to Bex. Quite near, on a spur of rock veined with many colours, and half hidden in a clump of trees, you can see the Castle of St. Triphon, which seemed to me very fine.

Bex itself is a village which bears no resemblance to the pretty villages of the Canton of Berne. Everything already suggests the neighbourhood of Piedmont. We are all at the Auberge de l'Union which is the only one in the place and is neither good nor bad. The sulphur baths established here did not succeed; neither did the goat's milk cure. In fact the place is bare of resources and very sombre and dull, though for me it is lighted up by the rosy cheeks of Pauline and the brightness of her blue eyes. I was delighted to get here.

I got a letter on my arrival which had been left for me by Admiral de Rigny on his way to Naples. He tells me that he has found everywhere on his way a definite belief that the d.u.c.h.esse de Berry was at Chambery on the 24th, and that on the 30th, Berryer who was going to take the waters at Aix-en-Savoie disappeared a few hours after the attempt on the King's life in Paris, and afterwards reappeared at Aix much upset. Like M. de Rigny I have found this version of the story current everywhere. The Swiss papers also describe Madame la d.u.c.h.esse de Berry, but nothing is certain.

At Maintenon the Duc de Noailles has just been having a party of clever and intriguing people. M. de Chateaubriand, Madame Recamier, the Vicomtesse de Noailles, M. Ampere, in fact the whole morning congregation of the Abbaye-aux-Bois.[51] I am sorry to hear it: the Duc de Noailles should not forsake the high road for such a byway.

[51] The Abbaye-aux-Bois was a religious community of women; it was situated in Paris at the corner of the Rue de Sevres and the Rue de la Chaise. During the Revolution it was used as a place of detention. Later it reverted to its former character, and, besides the convent occupied solely by the nuns, it afforded a peaceable refuge to ladies of great fashion. Madame Recamier settled there.

From what I hear from Touraine I see that the atrocity at Paris of the 28th July,[52] has aroused indignation there, an indignation, however, which feared to speak above its breath and which is perhaps even now forgotten. We live in a time when so many monstrosities are produced on the stage, when books are so full of them, and when they are so common in real life that the public have supped full with horrors and have become indifferent to them and quite familiarised with crime. The town of Tours, a place so essentially calm, has distinguished itself by refusing to send addresses from the Tribunal, the Conseil Munic.i.p.al and the Conseil d'Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. Two rogues, glibly arguing about the letter of the law, were enough to set all the indifferent at their ease. It appears however that a creditable number of the Garde Nationale showed themselves the day of the funeral service and sent an address with some show of cordiality. When one sees the most violent and criminal pa.s.sions on the one side and on the other an exhibition of laziness and indifference, one wonders whether the repressive laws asked for by the French Ministry will be enough.

Perhaps they will only irritate!

[52] Fieschi's attempt on the King's life.

This is an evil age of ours; good centuries are rare but there is no example of one that is worse than this. I pity with all my heart those who are called upon to govern it, M. Thiers, for example, whose weariness and anxiety appear in a letter which I received from him yesterday from which I give an extract. After speaking of the personal danger from which he escaped at the time of the attempt of July 28, he adds, "But my only trouble, and it is overwhelming, is the immense responsibility of my position. I am on my feet day and night. I go from the Prefecture of Police to the Tuileries, to the Chamber, without a moment's rest, and without being sure that I have foreseen everything, for the fertility of evil is infinite, as is the case in every disordered society in which every criminal has formed a hope that he may attain anything by setting the world on fire. There are some scoundrels who would blow up this planet if they were allowed. On the day after the horrible ma.s.sacre all that occurred to them to say was 'we shall see:' these are the very words of the leader of the a.s.sa.s.sins. I know not when I shall have the rest which will be the reward of these troubles, nor what issue out of my affliction will be vouchsafed to me."

Immediately after the explosion of the infernal machine, when she learned that her husband and children had not perished, our good Queen said, "How did my sons behave?" an inquiry which I think was worthy of her. The young Princes behaved with touching devotion. They gathered closely round the King, and the next day, when traces of a bullet were discovered on the King's forehead, the Duc d'Orleans said, "And yet I made myself as tall as I could yesterday."

While Madame Recamier is at Maintenon with the d.u.c.h.esse de Noailles, my sister-in-law, the Princesse de Poix, goes to the d.u.c.h.esse d'Abrantes' Mondays where one meets Madame Victor Hugo! Wit and politics have strangely intermingled all society, good and bad!

M. le Duc de Nemours is going to London. He is nice-looking, dignified, serious and reserved, with a great air of youth and n.o.bility. One would expect him to have a great success in England, but his excessive shyness so completely deprives him of all ease and grace in conversation that he will perhaps be rated at much less than his real value.

Of all the congratulatory letters written to the King of the French by foreign sovereigns on the occasion of the attempt of July 28, the most cordial was that of the King of the Netherlands. This seems to me very good taste on his part, and I am very glad of it. I have always thought that since his misfortunes the King of the Netherlands has shown ability, readiness, and a persistency which, whatever his ultimate success, will a.s.sure him a fine page in the history of our time in which there is so little that is good to say about anybody.

While the King of the French submits to escorts and measures of precaution, and is adopting a more Royal state, the President of his Council comes to diplomatic dinners at the Tuileries in coloured trousers and without decorations, and this Minister is the Duc de Broglie!

Jerome Bonaparte and all his family have left Florence and are now at Vevey; the cholera is driving every one out of Italy into Switzerland.

_Bex, August 24, 1835._--The weather having cleared, we have been to see the salt mines near Bex, which are the only ones in Switzerland, and do not produce enough to supply the needs of the country. We did not go far into the mine because of the damp cold which we felt gaining on us, but we saw the refining plant in detail. The salt seemed to me very pure and white.

We returned through the valley of Cretet along the mountain stream of Davanson, which is the fullest and the most impetuous I have seen in this part of the Alps. Its course is long and its descent extremely rapid. It is caught in a narrow gorge, the sides of which are high and wooded. It supplies motive power for many factories, and for this purpose is divided into many little ca.n.a.ls and aqueducts. These establishments are nearly always hung, as it were, on blocks of rock which seem to have become detached from the high peaks and to be suspended by a miracle over the abyss. All the road as far as M. de Gautard's little chateau is delightful, and I was somewhat reconciled to the country, the first sight of which was a disagreeable surprise.

I am just come back from a very interesting excursion. The chief object was the cascade of p.i.s.se-Vache, a fine straight foam-white column of water which throws far and wide on all sides a damp mist, and leaps in a single jet from a breach in rocks rising into two needle-like peaks. The water of the cascade soon mingles with that of the Rhone, near the bridge where one crosses the river. The current is almost equally rapid from the source to the mouth and is particularly so in the narrow gorge through which it pa.s.ses on leaving the Valais to enter the Canton de Vaud. The frontier is at Saint Maurice, a picturesque village, where the convents, the castle, the old town and the fortifications, lying unevenly on the perpendicular rocks, present a quaint spectacle. The gate of this town is, so to speak, formed by the narrow pa.s.sage between two great rocks which separate the two cantons. From this point on the right the view reaches to the Canton de Vaud, ending in the distance beyond Lake Leman at the Jura, and on the left towards the wilderness of the Valais you can see as far as the snowy chain of Saint Bernard.

What, in spite of everything, spoiled the expedition for me was the character of the population. Cretins are numerous, and even those who are not so afflicted are horribly disfigured by goitres. The women sometimes have as many as three. The water coming from melted snow, and the deficiency of sunlight, which penetrates very little into the narrow gorges of the Valais, are responsible for the frequency of this disease.

_Geneva, August 26, 1835._--We left Bex this morning and went along the Rhone to the point at which it enters Lake Leman. Thence to Thonon by a pleasant road boldly tunnelled in the rock and built out over the lake. The view was a picturesque mixture of superb lawns, lovely chestnut trees and majestic rocks, which form a very fine spectacle.

From Thonon the road is monotonous until within two leagues from Geneva. There the natural beauty of the country is enhanced by numerous ornamental gardens cared for as well as they are in England, by pretty country houses and magnificent avenues, the whole being grouped like the town of Geneva itself in an amphitheatre round the lake.

We are at the Hotel des Bergues. My window looks out on a new wire bridge which spans the Rhone and joins the two parts of the town, leading at the same time to a small island on which is the statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau surrounded by a clump of great trees. A great part of the lake is simply covered with little boats; nothing could be gayer or more animated.

_Geneva, August 27, 1835._--The Duc de Perigord whom I met yesterday here, and who is a good authority about everything that concerns the Archbishop of Paris, explained to me as follows the _rapprochement_ of the Archbishop with the present Government. After the attempt of July 28, the Cure of Saint Roch, whose church has become the place of worship of the Royal Family since the destruction of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, went to the King, who intimated to him his intentions as to the funeral service. The Cure, whose name is the Abbe Olivier, observed that after the funeral service a _Te Deum_ in thanksgiving for the preservation of the King and his children would be an obvious and proper ceremony. The King adopted this idea adding: "This _Te Deum_ will have to take place at Saint-Roch as the Archbishop continues to oppose my Government." The Cure of Saint-Roch immediately informed the Archbishop of the innovation which his att.i.tude was about to cause, and it was this which made M. de Quelen decide to go to the King. He was received and thereafter officiated at the Invalides and at Notre-Dame. I shall hear later what pa.s.sed between the King and him.

I hear from Paris that Marshal Maison, who takes no part in the debates in the Chamber, takes out every day in a phaeton, at the fashionable hour, a young lady whom he has brought back from St.

Petersburg. He is the dandy of the Cabinet!

_Geneva, August 29, 1835._--The environs of Geneva have improved as much as the interior of the town. Every year new country houses replace and augment the number of those which used to cover the coasts of the lake. The most elaborate belongs to a banker named Bartholony.

The Italian taste predominates in the construction of these villas; the gardens and the arrangement of the flowers recall England. The frame of the picture alone is Swiss and it could not be more grandiose. Coppet, which is further from Geneva, has no particular style. It is now occupied by the young Madame de Stael who lives there in all the austerity of early Christian widowhood, and it has a deserted and lugubrious air. The village separates the chateau from the lake and blocks the view. M. and Madame Necker and the famous Madame de Stael are buried in a part of the park shut off by brushwood and very difficult to approach. Moreover, by the orders of the dead, no one (not even their children) is allowed to enter this enclosure.

The rest of the Park is full of fine trees which, however, are too close together. They are wanting in style and neatness like the general impression produced by the whole place. Strangers are no longer admitted to the house. I had been there on a former occasion.

The apartments are well arranged and well enough proportioned, but they are furnished without taste or elegance. It is in every way an establishment characteristic of a Puritan banker, vast and austere but neither n.o.ble nor imposing.

The position of Ferney is very agreeable; the house is embellished by terraces and vegetation. In itself it is small and all on the old French model of last century. The salon and bedchamber of M. de Voltaire alone remain open to the public and consecrated to the memory of the great mind who, during thirty years made this little manor the fire from whence issued so many dazzling flames of wit. We stayed a long time examining the little relics preserved by the gardener. When M. de Voltaire died he was fourteen; he recites his story well, for I do not believe that it is his own.

In a letter I had yesterday from the Duc d'Orleans occurs the following pa.s.sage: "On the day on which the laws under discussion are voted, and this dangerous weapon is placed in the hands of the executive, the difficulty will begin. It is nothing to have got them through, the trouble is to carry them into execution. Will they be able to carry on this unceasing struggle? Will they be able each day to defeat the stratagems, and to resist the tenacious purpose of men who are driven to desperation and have only one thought and one end?

Hostile critics here a.s.sert that it is much more difficult to govern regularly and coherently than to carry new laws by violent speeches while not even enforcing those which are already provided. For my part all I say is that, now Ministers have involved us in so grave a struggle, I can find no words with which to describe their conduct if they do not make a proper use of the powers which they have thought it their duty to demand, or if they try to transfer to others the burden of executing what they alone have conceived and insisted on in what they believe to be their own interests."

_Lons-le-Saulnier, August 31, 1835._--I got here last night very late, after having traversed the wild, melancholy and arid Jura. Great efforts have been used there to create an easy road, on which however you get on slowly owing to the constant ascents and descents. The roads themselves, cut out of the living rock and protected by encas.e.m.e.nts skilfully contrived so as to prevent infiltration of water, are perfectly smooth, wide and well protected against the dangers of this rugged country. From the heights of Saint Cergue I cast a last look at the lovely lake of Geneva and the Alps. The view stretches out magnificently before one and leaves a fine image in one's memory.

_Arlay, September 1, 1835._--This place, which was part of the ancient duchy of Isenghien, came to Prince Pierre d'Arenberg from his maternal grandmother, the heiress of the house of Isenghien, which descended from those of Chalons and Orange. The n.o.bility of such an origin is unquestionable, and is much in the mind of the present owner. The view from my room, and in fact from all parts of the house, is wide without being picturesque; and in this it is like the house itself, which is vast and well restored, but rather bare of furniture and rather chilly, as the ridge above it comes between it and the south.

On the summit of this ridge there are the ruins of the Gothic manor, which have not character enough to be interesting. The approaches are short, there being no other avenue than a courtyard planted with trees. There are many things wanting which are necessary to make it agreeable and effective, but it is a substantial piece of wreckage saved from the revolutionary catastrophe. The master of the house and the d.u.c.h.esse de Perigord received me with the utmost kindness.

I received here a letter from M. Royer-Collard, who was returning to his country house "after having done what he believed to be his duty and due to his honour in the Chamber," and without waiting for the vote on the law as a whole. His speech, the thought, sentiment and language of which I admire (he did not intend it to create a sensation or to carry people away), was made to satisfy the demands of his conscience. He also wished to make his position quite clear (a long silence had made some people uncertain about it) and to lay down clearly the line of his opinions. This is why, though far from well, he made this speech which is so short and yet so full of matter. It is the first time that, without exciting any murmuring or appearing ridiculous, hypocritical or imprudent, any one has praised, honoured, and defended the peers, and that the spirit of religion, the words G.o.d and Providence, have been heard in the precincts of the Chamber of Deputies. The respect with which such words were heard seemed to me, more than anything else, to place M. Royer-Collard apart in the exalted regions to which he naturally belongs.

The man in whose pay Fieschi seems to have been, and whose name is Pepin, has at last been arrested. It was a great triumph, but--he has escaped! A few hours after his arrest, following an order of the Court, this Pepin had been taken to his house from the Conciergerie where he was confined in order that a search might be made in his presence. He was taken by a Commissaire de Police and two men only, and the moment he got home he disappeared! It is extraordinary that a man whose arrest and safe keeping were so important should be entrusted _at midnight_ to the care of two guards, that he should not have been handcuffed, and that he should have been taken to his own house from which he no doubt knew of exits unknown to those in charge of him! It seems that since the affair of June 6, 1832,[53] in which Pepin was implicated, his house has been so arranged as to furnish him with means of escape. The Juge d'Instruction who allowed Pepin to escape by not having him properly guarded is called Legonidec; he is a young Judge of the Paris Cour d'a.s.sises. Some people think he will be seriously compromised by the carelessness (if it is no worse) with which he has treated this very important matter.

[53] The burial of General Lamarque, who died of cholera on June 2, 1832, took place on June 5, and was the occasion of a revolt which continued all day on the 6th.

They took me to see the ruins of the old castle, which are more extensive and important than I thought when I came. It was an important fortress in its day and was dismantled by the orders of Louis XI. in the time of the wars against Burgundy.

_Dijon, September 3, 1835._--I left Arlay this morning with grateful memories of the kindness with which Pauline and I were received. The Princesse d'Arenberg became a special friend of mine; her politeness, her kindness and simplicity, combined with much good sense and good manners, her education and talents, and her power of making good use of all these, a.s.sure this young woman a distinguished position among those of her age and rank of whom very few in my opinion are her equals.

I went by the new road which goes by Saint Jean-de-Losne and is much shorter. The road is good and easy, but the country it crosses--rich no doubt and well cultivated--has no special beauty or even interest apart from its many chateaux and the Burgundian ca.n.a.l which is finely shaded by poplars.

Pierres, the chateau of M. de Thiard, is the most important of those on the road. It seemed to me large and the surroundings of it are splendid, but its situation is not pleasant. It is a pity they are pulling down the castle of Seurre on the bank of the Saone. It seemed to me to be well placed. Toiran, La Bretonniere, and some others show that the province is well inhabited.

I regret having arrived too late to see Dijon. It is a fine town with splendid buildings. The streets are animated. The park, an excellent public promenade about a quarter of a league from the town and connected with it by long avenues, must be a source of great pleasure to the inhabitants.

_Tonnerre, September 4, 1835._--The road from Dijon to Montbard is bare and flat and fatiguing to the eye. Montbard is an old feudal castle of the Dukes of Burgundy situated on a considerable eminence.

It was presented by Louis XV. to M. de Buffon, who already possessed at the foot of the hill a rather large and melancholy house in one of the streets of the little town. He continued to live in this house which has nothing interesting in it except a fairly good portrait of the celebrated owner. He demolished four of the five surviving towers on the walls of the old chateau. The one he left still survives, as well as the enormous outside wall which now encloses nothing but a "quincunx" of fine trees planted by M. de Buffon, from which fine alleys lead to his house below. The trees make a delightful shady promenade. At the top of the grove there is a little house containing a single room in which M. de Buffon used to establish himself for several hours every day in order to work uninterruptedly. He had a church built on part of the foundations of the fortress, and is buried there. M. de Buffon's house is occupied by his daughter-in-law, a widow with no children.

The country becomes more varied as one approaches Ancy-le-Franc, a great and n.o.ble chateau built in the sixteenth century by Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre and afterwards bought by the celebrated Louvois, to one of whose descendants it still belongs. This chateau is perfectly regular in form; it consists of four buildings joined at each corner by a square tower. There is no princ.i.p.al staircase; each tower has its own--a very narrow one. The bedrooms are well proportioned and well furnished, but the public rooms are ill-arranged. They are small, especially the salon, in which the heavy gilding seems to add to the effect of smallness. Some ancient ceilings with panelling to match give some of the rooms a Gothic character, which is interesting. The windows are few and narrow, and the courtyard small and sombre. The castle is entirely surrounded by a vast and well planted park. The water is ugly and muddy and I saw neither gla.s.s-houses nor flowers, though the offices are considerable. The high road crosses the fore-court a few yards from the house, which I think is carrying the principle of accessibility a trifle too far.

What pleases me least is the situation of this abode. It lies at the bottom of a valley and lacks light, air, and a view. The English word "gloomy" seems made for Ancy-le-Franc. The chapel is fine, and it is needless to say that there is a theatre. How could the M. Louvois of to-day do without one?

I had often heard Ancy-le-Franc and Valencay mentioned as the two most considerable and remarkable chateaux in France. I cannot admit that there is any comparison. Valencay is much more imposing, and at the same time cheerful to live in. Its situation is picturesque and healthy: it is much richer in architectural ornament, and its finest part, which dates from the fifteenth century, is a hundred years older than Ancy-le-Franc, and in the purest Renaissance style.

It has just occurred to me that I saw no library in M. Louvois' house.

I am sorry I did not mention it to the _concierge_, who seemed, however, to be conscientiously showing us all there was to be seen.

I prefer not only Valencay to Ancy-le-Franc, but, apart from tradition, even Chenonceaux, and I should prefer Usse also if it were put in order and furnished.

_Melun, September 6, 1835._--The banks of the Yonne are pleasant enough, and are a welcome rest after the melancholy road from Dijon.