"Tout son front hérissé, n'offre aux desirs de l'homme Rien qui puisse tenter l'avarice de Rome."
Among other interesting objects to be seen here are the cabinets of natural history of Monsieur de Saussure, so well known for his scientific and enterprising researches, and of Monsieur de Luc. Petrifactions of the _oursis_, or sea hedgehog, and of the _corni d'ammon_, are preserved in this collection, which were found in the Alps of Savoy, 7844 feet above the level of the sea.
It will not, I am sure, be unacceptable to the reader if I here transcribe part of the beautiful description to which I have alluded. Speaking (in Letter 23) of the exhilarating but soothing effect of the mountain air, he says--"Il semble qu'en s'elevant au-dessûs du sejour des hommes, on y laisse tous les sentimens bas et terrestres; et qu'à mesure qu'on approche des regions ethereés, l'ame contracte quelque chose de leur inalterable pureté: on y est grave sans melancholie, paisible sans indolence, content d'être et de penser. Les plaisirs y sont moins ardens, les passions plus modereés. Tous les desirs trop vifs, s'emoussent; ils perdent cette point aigue qui les rendent douloureux; il ne laissent au fond du coeur qu'une emotion legère et douce, et c'est ainsi qu'un heureux climat, fait servir à la felicité de l'homme, les passions qui font ailleurs son tourment." Without being so unfortunate as to possess Rousseau's irritable temper and fiery passions, any person of sensibility must be forcibly struck by the truth of these remarks, in passing through the same scenes.
This lake in severe winters freezes sufficiently to bear the heaviest loads. There is a popular and vulgar idea in the country, that whoever falls into this lake can no more be recovered; but another quality attached to it (of rather superior probability) is, that its fish are of so excellent a nature, as to sell, in time of Lent, at two _creutzers_ a pound dearer than those of any other. One cannot see without surprise, and even a degree of indignant concern, that the ancient chapel, containing the bones of the Bourguignons, slain by the Swiss (then the allies of Louis XI.) in 1476, should be no longer in existence. These remains of mortality were, when we beheld them, thrown upon the ground, totally unsheltered from the air, in a most careless and irreverent manner. Formerly (I have heard) the inhabitants of Morat used to celebrate the anniversary of this national triumph with feast and song. Voltaire, in his "Mélange de Poesies," alludes to this triumph of liberty in some truly elevated lines.