From Travels in France and Italy in 1789 by Arthur Young

21st. The shortest day in the year, for one of the expeditions that demand the longest, the passage of Mont Cenis, about which so much has been written. To those who from reading are full of expectation of something very sublime, it is almost as great a delusion as to be met with in the regions of romance: if travellers are to be believed, the descent rammassant on the snow is made with the velocity of a flash of lightning; I was not fortunate enough to meet with anything so wonderful.

At the grand crow we seated ourselves in machines of four sticks, dignified with the name of traineau : a mule draws it, and a conductor, who walks between the machine and the animal, serves chiefly to kick the snow into the face of the rider. When arrived at the precipice, which

leads down to Lanebourg, the mule is dismissed and the rammissing begins.

The weight of two persons, the guide seating himself in the front, and directing it with his heels in the snow, is sufficient to give it motion. For most of the way he is content to follow very humbly the path of the mules, but now and then crosses to escape a double, and in such spots the motion is rapid enough, for a few seconds, to be agreeable; they might very easily shorten the line one half and by that means gratify the English with the velocity they admire so much. As it is at

present, a good English horse would trot as fast as we rammassed. The exaggerations we have read of this business have arisen, perhaps, from travellers passing in summer and accepting the descriptions of the muleteers.

A journey on snow is commonly productive of laughable incidents, the road of the traineau is not wider than the machine and we were always meeting mules, etc. It was sometimes, and with reason, a question who should turn out; for the snow being ten feet deep the mules had sagacity to consider a moment before they buried themselves. A young Savoyard female, riding her mule, experienced a complete reversal; for attempting to pass my traineau her beast was a little restive and, tumbling, dismounted his rider: the girl’s head pitched in the snow and sunk deep enough to fix her beauties in the position of a forked post; and the wicked muleteers instead of assisting her laughed too heartily to move: if it had been one of the ballarini the attitude would have been

nothing distressing to her. These laughable adventures, with the gilding of a bright sun, made the day pass pleasantly; and we were in good humour enough to swallow with cheerfulness a dinner at Lanebourg that, had we been in England, we should have consigned very readily to

the dog-kennel.—20 miles.

22nd. The whole day we were among the high Alps. The villages are apparently poor, the houses ill built, and the people with few comforts about them except plenty of pine wood, the forests of which harbour wolves and bears. Dine at Modane and sleep at St. Michel.—25 miles.

23rd. Pass St. Jean Maurienne. The mountains now relax their terrific features: they recede enough to offer to the willing industry of the poor inhabitants something like a valley; but the jealous torrent seizes it with the hand of despotism, and, like his brother tyrants, reigns but to destroy. On some slopes vines: mulberries begin to appear; villages increase; but still continue rather shapeless heaps of inhabited stones than ranges of houses; yet in these homely cots beneath the snowclad hills,where natural light comes with tardy beams and art seems more sedulous to exclude than admit it, peace and content, the companions of honesty, may reside; and certainly would, were the penury of nature the only evil felt; but the hand of despotism may be more heavy. In several places the view is picturesque and pleasing: enclosures seem hung against the mountain sides as a picture is suspended to the wall of  room. The people are in general mortally ugly and dwarfish. Dine at La Chambre; sad fare. Sleep at Aguebelle.—30 miles.

24th. The country to-day, that is to Chambery, improves greatly; the mountains though high recede; the valleys are wide and the slopes more cultivated; and towards the capital of Savoy are many country houses which enliven the scene. Above Mal Taverne is Chateauneuf, the

house of the countess of that name. I was sorry to see at the village a carcan or seigneural standard erected, to which a chain and heavy iron collar are fastened as a mark of the lordly arrogance of the nobility and the slavery of the people. I asked why it was not burned with the horror it merited? The question did not excite the surprise I expected and which it would have done before the French Revolution.

This led to a conversation by which I learned that in the haut Savoy there are no seigneurs, and the people are generally at their ease, possessing little properties, and the land, in spite of nature, almost as valuable as in the lower country, where the people are poor and ill at their ease. I demanded why. Because there are seigneurs everywhere. What a vice is it, and even a curse, that the gentry instead of being the cherishers and benefactors of their poor neighbours, should thus, by the abomination of feudal rights, prove mere tyrants. Will nothing but revolutions, which cause their chateaux to be burnt, induce them to give to reason and humanity what will be extorted by violence and commotion?

We had arranged our journey to arrive early at Chambery, for an opportunity to see what is most

interesting in a place that has but little. It is the winter residence of almost all the nobility of Savoy. The best estate in the duchy is not more than 60,000 Piedmontese livres a year (£3000), but for 20,000 livres they live en grand seigneur here. If a country gentleman has 150 louis

d’or a year, he will be sure to spend three months in a town; the consequence of which must be nine uncomfortable ones in the country, in order to make a beggarly figure the other three in town. These idle people are this Christmas disappointed, by the court having refused admittance

to the usual company of French comedians;—the government fears importing among the rough mountaineers the present spirit of French liberty. Is this weakness or policy?

But Chambery had objects to me more interesting. I was eager to view Charmettes, the road, the house of Madame de Warens, the vineyard, the garden, everything, in a word, that had been described by the inimitable pencil of Rousseau. There was something so deliciously amiable in her character, in spite of her frailties—her constant gaiety and good humour—her tenderness and humanity— her farming speculations—but, above all other circumstances, the love of Rousseau have written her name amongst the few whose memories are connected with us by ties more easily felt than described.

The house is situated about a mile from Chambery, fronting the rocky road which leads to that city and the wood of chestnuts in the valley. It is small and much of the same size as we should suppose in England would be found on a farm of one hundred acres, without the least luxury

or pretension; and the garden, for shrubs and flowers, is confined as well as unassuming. The scenery is pleasing being so near a city and yet, as he observes, quite sequestered. It could not but interest me, and I viewed it with a degree of emotion; even in the leafless melancholy of

December it pleased. I wandered about some hills which were assuredly the walks he has so agreeably described.

25th. Left Chambery much dissatisfied for want of knowing more of it. Rousseau gives a good character15 of the people and I wished to know them better. It was the worst day I have known for months past, a cold thaw of snow and rain; and yet in this dreary season, when nature so rarely has a smile on her countenance, the environs were charming. All hill and dale tossed about with so much wildness that the features are bold enough for the irregularity of a forest scene, and yet withal softened and melted down by culture and habitation to be eminently beautiful. The country enclosed to the first town in France, Pont Beauvoisin, where we dined and slept. The passage of Echelles cut in the rock by the sovereign of the country is a noble and stupendous work. Arrive at Pont Beauvoisin, once more entering this noble kingdom and meeting with the cockades of liberty, and those arms in the hands of THE  PEOPLE which, it is to be wished, may be used only for their own and Europe’s peace.—24 miles.

26th. Dine at Tour du Pin, and sleep at Verpiliere. This is the mostadvantageous entrance into France in respect of beauty of country. From Spain, England, Flanders, Germany, or Italy by way of Antibes, all are inferior to this. It is really beautiful and well planted, has many enclosures

and mulberries, with some vines. There is hardly a bad feature except the houses; which instead of being well built and white as in Italy, are ugly thatched mud cabins without chimneys, the smoke issuing at a hole in the roof or at the windows. Glass seems unknown, and there is an air of poverty and misery about them quite dissonant to the general aspect of the country. Coming out of Tour du Pin we see a great common. Pass Bourgoyn, a large town. Reach Verpiliere. This day’s journey is a fine variation of hill and dale well planted with chateaux, and farms and cottages spread about it. A mild lovely day of sunshine threw no slight gilding over the whole.

For ten or twelve days past they have had, on this side of the Alps, fine open warm weather with  sunshine; but on the Alps themselves and in the vale of Lombardy, on the other side, we were frozen and buried in snow. At Pont Beauvoisin and Bourgoyn our passports were demanded by the milice bowgeoise, but nowhere else: they assure us that the country is perfectly quiet everywhere and have no guards mounted in the villages—nor any suspicions of fugitives, as in the summer. Not far from Verpiliere pass the burnt chateau of M. de Veau, in a fine situation, with a noble wood behind it. Mr. Grundy was here in August, and it had then but lately been laid in ashes; and a peasant was hanging on one of the trees of the avenue by the road, one among many who were seized by the milice bourgeoise for this atrocious act.—27 miles.

26th. The country changes at once; from one of the finest in France it becomes almost flat and sombre. Arrive at Lyons, and there for the last time see the Alps; on the quay there is a very fine view of Mont Blanc which I had not seen before; leaving Italy, and Savoy, and the Alps, probably never to return, has something of a melancholy sensation. For all those circumstances that render that classical country illustrious, the seat of great men—the theatre of the most distinguished actions—the exclusive field in which the elegant and agreeable arts have loved to range—what country can be compared with Italy?