ROUSSEAU'S COUNTRY.
IT is announced that Les Charmettes, the home of Madame de Warennes, where Rousseau for a time found shelter, is to be sold. In these days of improvements, few more in- teresting and genuine pxivate houses are to be found, and certainly few more charming. The place is scarcely more than a mile from the quiet arcaded old city of Chambery, which, it is to be feared, the tourist knows rather because of its proximity to Aix-les-Bains than for its own sake. But there are few more pleasant cities in France than Chambery, with its fresh green public garden watered by a stream, its cathedral, its dignified old streets with their arcades, and its glorious situation. Lift your eyes above the roofs and you see the white cross high on its mountain summit, while in every direction charming walks invite your footsteps. For Rousseau, the genuine lover of Nature, the pioneer of the modern rambler, no place could have held greater attractions.
After winding one's way past those big barracks which form the least attractive feature of an average French city, one arrives at a leafy country lane, bordered with woodland, and in autumn thick with wild berries. A few straggling pas- sengers and an occasional cart form the sole indications of active life. Les Charmettes is on the right, and you reach it along a path cut in the garden. Such a garden, redolent of the last century, suggestive of the age before the modern life- scramble began ! Thick walls of box, old-fashioned flowers, sunny walls with burdens of luscious fruit, ancient pear trees, large melons,—one's thoughts instantly revert to that delight- ful poem on a garden by Marvell, and one sinks in sensuous ease into a rustic seat—
"Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade."
In a sense the garden pleases more than the house. You feel the charm of Nature, the beauty of a garden that is still attended to with industrious care, but you would not so greatly desire to live in the house. It is rather musty, the doors do not fit, there is a suggestion of cold, and perhaps damp. The historic associations are not altogether satisfac- tory, and a long tenantless gap makes the place seem home- less. Interesting, however, it certainly is, and well preserved, with many indications of the singular woman and of the strange, erratic, impulsive genius whom Dr. Johnson thought more deserving of hanging than most of the criminals of Newgate. Taken altogether, the tourist can scarcely feel anything but pleasure in looking on so famous a scene.
To the reader of the "Confessions" the whole region round Chambery should be full of interest, if not for Rousseau's sake, then for the sake of history and scenery. Is it possible that the English people do not read the famous book which Rousseau composed in England, or that they do not dream of the glorious and varied scenery to be found in this part of France which skirts the mighty eastern borderland of Mont Blanc ? Certain it is that outside Aix-les-Bains scarcely any English tourists are to be found. The present writer, during a long series of pedestrian rambles, only found three, and those at a hotel in Annecy. Yet scarcely any part of Europe possesses more charm. You are not in the midst of the high Alps, but you see the great snow-clad peaks and aiguilles of Mont Blanc from many points of view, and if you have imagination it is perhaps stirred more by the thought of the tremendous crevasses from which you are separated by the smiling green slopes and lovely sheets of water and secluded valleys just because of the contrast between the awful and the beautiful aspects of Nature. Neither in Switzerland nor the Bavarian or Styrian Alps is the scenery more varied. No wonder that Taine loved the Lake of Annecy and did much of his work there. It has not the supreme grandeur of Lucerne, Geneva, or the Konigs-see, but it is as good a lake to live by as any, perhaps better, for you feel more at home amid its emerald meadows and swelling green hills dotted over with pretty chalets, and you are never overwhelmed by the tourist element. The majority of the passengers on the steamer are country folk returning with their purchases from Annecy, and alighting at the little wooden piers, until, by the time you have reached the other end, but few people are left. Annecy itself cannot be praised too highly as a place of sojourn for a few golden, restful days. The quaint streets, the canals, the old houses with their carved timber balconies, the lovely shaded
park on the edge of the placid, deep-blue lake,—Europe or the world has not much to show more beautiful. The mountains are not close by Annecy as they are by Chambiry; there is a greater sense of space, as there is a more vivid impression of luscious green. But either place is very near to an earthly paradise.
From either city to Grenoble is but a short journey, but here you emerge on quite a different scene. Chambery and Annecy are quiet spots, except in the former case on the day of the great musical fetes, which attract the whole country for miles round, but Grenoble is by comparison a bustling provincial capital, which only escapes being a large town by reason of the fact that it is off the main lines of railway com- munication. It was one of the great cities of Gaul, and its roads rang to the tread of the Roman legions. It was the first city in which the principles of the French Revolution took root and clearly manifested themselves, as a fine public tablet will remind you. In the old hotel of the 'Three Dauphins' (crowded usually by the commis-voyageurs) a plate on the wall tells you that Napoleon stayed there on his way from Elba to Paris. Altogether a fine old historic city, which impresses you not less by its glorious situation than by its aspect of dignity and even grandeur. It has its modern Parisian streets and boulevards, but you pass them by for the older part with its winding lines, high roofs, and old houses, the river rushing in its onward course through the heart of the city. A sunset at Grenoble is a memory to be treasured, like the view from the fortress at Salzburg or the view of Florence from Fiesole. The city is all aglow with golden light, and behind it is the long range of mountain, its shades varying from a deep purple to a pale lavender, so apparently dreamlike and ethereal that one would scarcely be surprised to see the whole entrancing vision melt away.
If you are at Grenoble you will not wish to leave Rousseau's country without making a pilgrimage to the Grande Chartreuse with Matthew Arnold's noble "Stanzas" in your mind. The railway takes you to Voiron, whence a mountain railway carries you by winding routes to a little town, whence you may walk or drive to the "world-famed Carthusian home." The beautiful mountain road, overlooking a deep gorge, ended, you see the towers of the huge grey building and its walls, out- buildings, and gardens rise before you, surrounded by the well-wooded mountain fastnesses. In front of the greensward is the grand entrance (beneath which a man must bid his woman companions farewell, for they cannot enter here), which leads into that old-world court where are the cold fountains that eternally plash into the marble basins night and day. The heat of the valley has yielded to a delicious coolness, which becomes deadly cold at night, even in summer. An awe creeps over your spirit as you recall that for a thousand years holy souls have offered up prayer on this lonely mountain. Truly it is one of the sacred shrines of Europe. And, whatever your creed, you cannot, when you are aroused from the little cell assigned to you, and hasten along the bare icy corridors to the midnight Mass, help feeling that this is one of the experiences of life. You are taken from everyday affairs, the vulgarity and noise of secular existence are for- gotten, and you gaze from the gallery down into the darkened church, its solitary light burning on the high altar, and the black stalls filled with those dim white forms sequestered from the world, feeling as though you had passed the dark portal and had reached some other state. The Grande Chartreuse is not, in these days of excursions, all that it was, but it is still a place of quiet and repose for the spirit. The monks look happy, the plain but excellent fare is good for the body, and the keen cool air and delightful woodland walks serve body and soul too.
Altogether, we recommend Savoy and Dauphiny to those who love the most delicious natural scenery blended and heightened by human associations. It is a far cry from Rousseau to the Carthusian brotherhood, but both belong to the wonderful movement of Western Europe, neither can be alien to the comprehensive mind. There is no part of Europe, either, where one finds more courtesy or sees greater signs of widespread prosperity. The rich green meadows and the thick clustering orchards are owned by an intelligent and indus- trious people who love their native haunts, who are simple, pious, and peaceful. The region affords rest for heart and brain, and a golden harvest of loveliness for the quiet eye.
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