We had hardly supped before the gates of the convent were shut, a circumstance which disconcerted me not a little, as the full moon gleamed through the casements, and the stars, sparkling above the forests of pines, invited me to leave my apartment again, and to give myself up entirely to the spectacle they offered.
The Coadjutor, perceiving that I was often looking earnestly through the windows, guessed my wishes, and calling a lay brother, ordered him to open the gates, and wait at them till my return. It was not long before I took advantage of this permission, and escaping from the courts and cloisters of the monastery, all hushed in death-like stillness, ascended a green knoll, which several ancient pines strongly marked with their shadows: there, leaning against one of their trunks, I lifted up my eyes to the awful barrier of surrounding mountains, discovered by the trembling silver light of the moon shooting directly on the woods which fringed their acclivities.
The lawns, the vast woods, the steep descents, the precipices, the torrents, lay all extended beneath, softened by a pale bluish haze, that alleviated, in some measure, the stern prospect of the rocky promontories above, wrapped in dark shadows. The sky was of the deepest azure; innumerable stars were distinguished with unusual clearness from this elevation, many of which twinkled behind the fir-trees edging the promontories. White, grey, and darkish clouds came marching towards the moon, that shone full against a range of cliffs, which lift themselves far above the others. The hoarse murmur of the torrent, throwing itself from the distant wildernesses into the gloomy vales, was mingled with the blast that blew from the mountains. It increased. The forests began to wave, black clouds rose from the north, and, as they fleeted along, approached the moon, whose light they shortly extinguished. A moment of darkness succeeded; the gust was chill and melancholy; it swept along the desert, and then subsiding, the vapours began to pass away, and the moon returned the grandeur of the scene was renewed, and its imposing solemnity was increased by her presence. Inspiration was in every wind.
I followed some impulse which drove me to the summit of the mountains before me; and there, casting a look on the whole extent of wild woods and romantic precipices, thought of the days of St. Bruno. I eagerly contemplated every rock that formerly might have met his eyes; drank of the spring which tradition says he was wont to drink of; and ran to every pine whose withered appearance bespoke a remote antiquity, and beneath which, perhaps, the saint had reposed himself, when worn with vigils, or possessed with the sacred spirit of his institutions.
It was midnight: the convent bell tolled; for the most solemn hour of prayer was arrived. I cannot, nor would I, attempt to unfold to you, in prose, half the strange things of which I thought, and which I seemed to see, during this wild excursion. However, I owe to it the poetical humour in which I composed the following lines, written immediately on my return, in the album of the fathers, during the stillest watch of the night:
ODE.
To orisons, the midnight bellHad toll’d each silent inmate from his cell;The hour was come to muse or pray,Or work mysterious rites that shun the day:My steps some whis’pring influence led,Up to yon pine-clad mountain’s gloomy head:Hollow and deep the gust did blow,And torrents dash’d into the vales below.At length the toilsome height attain’d,Quick fled the moon, and sudden stillness reign’d.As fearful turn’d my searching eye,Glanc’d near a shadowy form, and fleeted by;Anon, before me full it stood:A saintly figure, pale, in pensive mood.Damp horror thrill’d me till he spoke,And accents faint the charm bound silence broke:“Long, trav’ller! ere this region near,Say, did not whisp’rings strange arrest thine ear?My summons ’twas to bid thee come,Where sole the friend of Nature loves to roam.Ages long past, this drear abodeTo solitude I sanctified, and God:’Twas here, by love of Wisdom brought,Her truest lore, Self-knowledge, first I sought;Devoted here my worldly wealth,To win my chosen sons immortal health.Midst these dun woods, and mountains steep,Midst the wild horrors of yon desert deep,Midst yawning caverns, wat’ry dells,Midst long, sequestered aisles, and peaceful cells,No passions fell distract the mind,To Nature, Silence, and Herself consign’d.In these still mansions who shall bide,’Tis mine, with Heaven’s appointment, to decide;But, hither, I invite not all:Some want the will to come, and more the call;But all, mark well my parting voice!Led, or by chance, necessity, or choice(Ah! with our Genius dread to sport),Sage lessons here may learn of high import.Know! Silence is the nurse of Truth;Know! Temperance long retards the flight of YouthLearn here, how penitence and pray’rMan’s fallen race for happier worlds prepare;Learn mild demeanour, void of art,And bear, amidst the world, the hermit’s heart;Fix, trav’ller! deep this heaven-taught lore:Know Bruno brings it, and returns no more.”(Half sighed, half smiled his long farewell),He turn’d, and vanish’d in the bright’ning dell.
My imagination was too much disturbed, and my spirits far too active, to allow me any rest for some time, and I had not long been quieted by sleep, when I was suddenly awakened by a furious blast, that drove open my casement, and let in the roar of the tempest, for the night was troubled. In the intervals of the storm, in those moments when the winds seemed to pause, the faint sounds of the choir stole upon my ear; but were swallowed up the next instant by the redoubled fury of the gust, which was still increased by the roar of the waters.
I started from my bed, closed the casement, and composed myself as well as I was able; but no sooner had the sunbeams entered my window, than I arose, and gladly leaving my cell, hastened to the same knoll where I had stood the night before. The storm was dissipated, and the pure morning air delightfully refreshing; every tree, every shrub, glistened with dew. A gentle wind breathed upon the woods, and waved the fir-trees on the cliffs, which, free from clouds, rose distinctly into the clear blue sky. I strayed from the knoll into the valley between the steeps of wood and the turrets of the convent, and passed the different buildings, destined for the manufacture of the articles necessary to the fathers; for nothing is worn or used within this inclosure which comes from the profane world.
Traversing the meadows and a succession of little dells, where I was so lately bewildered, I came to a bridge thrown over the torrent, which I crossed; and here followed a slight path that brought me to an eminence, covered with a hanging wood of beach-trees feathered to the ground, from whence I looked down the narrow pass towards Grenoble. Perceiving a smoke to arise from the groves which nodded over the eminence, I climbed up a rocky steep, and, after struggling through a thicket of shrubs, entered a smooth, sloping lawn, framed in by woody precipices; at one extremity of which I discovered the cottage, whose smoke had directed me to this sequestered spot; and, at the other, a numerous group of cattle, lying under the shade of some beech-trees, whilst several friars, with long beards and russet garments, were employed in milking them.
The luxuriant foliage of the woods, clinging round the steeps that skirted the lawn; its gay, sunny exposition; the groups of sleek, dappled cows, and the odd employment of the friars, so little consonant with their venerable beards, formed a picturesque and certainly very singular spectacle. I, who had been accustomed to behold “milk-maids singing blithe,” and tripping lightly along with their pails, was not a little surprised at the silent gravity with which these figures shifted their trivets from cow to cow; and it was curious to see with what adroitness they performed their functions, managing their long beards with a facility and cleanliness equally admirable.
I watched all their movements for some time, concealed by the trees, before I made myself visible; but no sooner did I appear on the lawn, than one of the friars quitted his trivet, very methodically set down his pail, and coming towards me with an open, smiling countenance, desired me to refresh myself with some bread and milk. A second, observing what was going forward, was resolved not to be exceeded in an hospitable act, and, quitting his pail too, hastened into the woods whence he returned in a few minutes with some strawberries, very neatly enveloped in fresh leaves. These hospitable, milking fathers, next invited me to the cottage, whither I declined going, as I preferred the shade of the beeches; so, throwing myself on the dry aromatic herbage, I enjoyed the pastoral character of the scene with all possible glee.
Not a cloud darkened the heavens; every object smiled; innumerable gaudy flies glanced in the sunbeams that played in a clear spring by the cottage; I saw with pleasure the sultry glow of the distant cliffs and forests, whilst indolently reclined in the shade, listening to the summer hum; one hour passed after another neglected away, during my repose in this most delightful of valleys. The cattle were all slunk into the recesses of the wood, and were drinking at the streams which flow along their shades, before I could prevail on myself to quit the turf and the beech trees. Never shall I cease regretting the peaceful moments I spent in Valombré, as never perhaps, were I even to return to it, may so many circumstances unite to render it pleasing.
When I returned unwillingly to the convent, the only topic on which I could converse was the charms of Valombré; but notwithstanding the indifference with which I now regarded the prospects that surrounded the monastery, I could not disdain an offer made by one of the friars, of conducting me to the summit of the highest peak in the desert.
Pretty late in the afternoon I set out with my guide, and, following his steps through many forests of pine, and wild apertures among them, strewed with fragments, arrived at a chapel, built on a mossy rock, and dedicated to St. Bruno.
Having once more drunk of the spring that issues from the rock on which this edifice is raised, I moved forward, keeping my eyes fixed on a lofty green mountain, whence rises a vast cliff, spiring up to a surprising elevation; and which (owing to the sun’s reflection on a transparent mist hovering around it) was tinged with a pale visionary light. This object was the goal to which I aspired; and redoubling my activity, I made the best of my way over rude ledges of rocks, and crumbled fragments of the mountain interspersed with firs, till I came to the green steeps I had surveyed at a distance.
These I ascended with some difficulty, and, leaving a few scattered beech-trees behind, in full leaf, shortly bid adieu to summer, and entered the regions of spring; for, as I approached that part of the mountain next the summit, the trees, which I found there rooted in the crevices, were but just beginning to unfold their leaves, and every spot of the greensward was covered with cowslips and violets.
After taking a few moments’ repose, my guide prepared to clamber amongst the rocks, and I followed him with as much alertness as I was able, till laying hold of the trunk of a withered pine, we sprang upon a small level space, where I seated myself, and beheld far beneath me the vast desert and dreary solitudes, amongst which appeared, thinly scattered, the green meadows and hanging lawns. The eye next overlooking the barrier of mountains, ranged through immense tracts of distant countries; the plains where Lyons is situated; the woodlands and lakes of Savoy; amongst which that of Bourget was near enough to discover its beauties, all glowing with the warm haze of the setting sun.
My situation was too dizzy to allow a long survey; so turning my eyes from the terrific precipice, I gladly beheld an opening in the rocks, through which we passed into a little irregular glen of the smoothest greensward, closed in on one side by the great peak, and on the others by a ridge of sharp pinnacles, which crown the range of white cliffs I had so much admired the night before, when brightened by the moon.
The singular situation of this romantic spot invited me to remain in it till the sun was about to sink on the horizon: during which time I visited every little cave delved in the ridges of rock, and gathered large sprigs of the mezereon and rhododendron in full bloom, which, with a surprising variety of other plants, carpeted this lovely glen. A luxuriant vegetation,
“That on the green turf suck’d the honey’d showers,And purpled all the ground with vernal flow’rs.”
“That on the green turf suck’d the honey’d showers,And purpled all the ground with vernal flow’rs.”
My guide, perceiving I was ready to mount still higher, told me it would be in vain, as the beds of snow that lie eternally in some fissures of the mountain, must necessarily impede my progress; but, finding I was very unwilling to abandon the enterprise, he showed me a few notches in the peak, by which we might ascend, though not without danger. This prospect rather abated my courage, and the wind rising, drove several thick clouds round the bottom of the peak, which increasing every minute, shortly screened the green mountain and all the forest from our sight. A sea of vapours soon undulated beneath my feet, and lightning began to flash from a dark angry cloud, that hung over the valleys, and deluged them with storms, whilst I was securely standing under the clear expanse of ether.
But the hour did not admit of my remaining long in this proud station; so descending, I was soon obliged to pass through the vapours, and, carefully following my guide (for a false step might have caused my destruction), wound amongst the declivities, till we left the peak behind, and just as we reached the green mountain, which was moistened with the late storm, the clouds fleeted and the evening recovered its serenity.
Leaving the chapel of St. Bruno on the right, we entered the woods, and soon emerged from them into a large pasture, under the grand amphitheatre of mountains, having a gentle ascent before us, beyond which appeared the neat blue roofs and glittering spires of the convent, where we arrived as the moon was beginning to assume her empire.
I need not say I rested well after the interesting fatigues of the day. The next morning, early, I quitted my kind hosts with great reluctance. The Coadjutor and two other fathers accompanied me to the outward gate, and there within the solemn circle of the desert bestowed on me their benediction.
It seemed indeed to come from their hearts, nor would they leave me till I was a hundred paces from the convent; and then, laying their hands on their breasts, declared that if ever I was disgusted with the world, here was an asylum.
I was in a melancholy mood when I traced back all the windings of my road, and when I found myself beyond the last gate, in the midst of the wide world again, it increased.
We returned to Les Echelles; from thence to Chamberry, and, instead of going through Aix, passed by Amecy; but nothing in all the route engaged my attention, nor had I any pleasing sensations till I beheld the glassy lake of Geneva, and its lovely environs.
I rejoiced then because I knew of a retirement on its banks where I could sit and think of Valombré.
[110]Hills in the neighbourhood of Quang-Tong.
[127]The Peries, inhabitants of Ginnistan, live upon perfumes, etc., etc. See Richardson’s Dissertations.
[133]Thisbe, a favourite greyhound torn to pieces by a mad dog.
[140]See the description of the Grande Chartreuse.
[156]The conduct of the emperor, since the death of his mother, seems to be accomplishing this prediction apace.
[170a]It is reasonably conjectured that the sea formerly washed the walls of Padua.
[170b]T. Livius, L. i., c. i.
[170c]Lib. v., c. iv., p. 5.
[171]Called Roscani in Venetian, and reduced to ashes for the glass manufactory at Murano.
[182]A nephew of Bertoni, and worthy of his uncle.
[214]Mentioned by Dante in his “Purgatorio.”
[240]Mem. pour la Vie de Petrarque, vol. i., p. 439.
[284]Angela are frequently represented, in legendary tales, as riding on the beams of the moon.