Aosta

“ Aosta was founded by Augustus in 25 B.C. on a hitherto empty spot, to provide homes for time-expired soldiers and to serve as a quasi-fortress in an important Alpine valley. Its first inhabitants were 3,000 men discharged from the Praetorian Guard, with their wives and children; its population may have numbered at the outset some 15,000 free persons, besides slaves. The town, as it is known to us from excavation and observation, formed a rectangle 620 yds. long and 780 yds. wide, and covered an area of about 100 acres (fig. 16) . The walls formed sharp right angles at the corners, as at Turin. ”

“ At the head of its opponents were two eminent men. Among the laity was Count René de Challans, marshal of Aosta, full of enthusiasm for popery and feudalism, and bursting with contempt for the heretics and republicans of Switzerland. Distressed at witnessing the reverses suffered by his master, the duke of Savoy, he had sworn that in Aosta at least he would exterminate the Lutherans. His fellow-soldier in this crusade was Pietro Gazzini, bishop of Aosta, one of the most famous prelates of Italy. ”

“ The early stages of the growth of the house are very obscure; and its power does not seem to have formed itself till after the union of Burgundy with the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Counts of Maurienne.♦ But it seems plain that, at the end of the eleventh century, the Counts of Maurienne, which was their earliest title, held rights of sovereignty in the Burgundian districts of Maurienne, Savoy strictly so called, Tarantaise, and Aosta. ♦Aosta; its special position.♦ This last valley and city, though on the Italian side of the Alps, had hitherto been rather Burgundian than Italian. ”

“ The fertility of the Valley of Aosta is proverbial. It is covered with vineyards and corn-fields; flocks and herds abound in it; and its mineral resources are great. There is enough and to spare both for man and beast. There are poor in the valley, as there are everywhere, but life is so far easy that they are not driven to seek for subsistence in other places, and remain from generation to generation rooted to their native soil. ”

“ Savoy itself was so far favoured as to be allowed to keep its ancient name, and to form the departments of High and Low Savoy, instead of being condemned, as in the former temporary annexation, to bear the names of Leman and Mont Blanc. The Burgundian Counts who have grown into Italian Kings have thus lost the land under whose name their House grew famous. ♦Aosta spared.♦ Aosta alone remains as the last relic of the times when the Savoyard Dukes, the greatest lords of the Middle Kingdom, still kept their place as the truest representatives of the Middle Kingdom itself. ”

“ Travelling in these parts is quite different now, but I have a most wretched recollection of the long walks in the cold mist, no sound but the cry of the marmots—yet one always had a wish to go on, not back.
Delightful was the change as we descended upon Courmayeur, with its valleys of chestnut-trees and its noble view of Mont Blanc, and Aosta with its Roman ruins. In returning, I was overtaken by a tremendous snowstorm at the top of the St. Bernard, and detained the whole of a most tedious day in the company of the kind priests (monks they are not) and their dogs. ”

“ We have told how the Bernese plenipotentiaries went to Aosta in November 1535, to confer with the duke of Savoy. They pleaded there in favor of Geneva, and demanded the liberation of Saunier, then a prisoner at Pignerol. [822] They talked with everybody they met about the great questions then under discussion, and invited them to receive the teaching of Holy Scripture. Some dwellers in the valley, both among the nobility and burghers, welcomed the principles of the Reformation. ”

“ The church of St Ours, founded in 425, and rebuilt in the 12th century, has good cloisters (1133) ; the 15th-century priory is picturesque. The castle of Bramafam (11th century) is interesting. Cretinism is common in the district.
After the fall of the Roman empire the valley of Aosta fell into the hands of the Burgundian kings ”

“ An executive council was nominated from this body in 1536, and continued to exist until 1802. After the restoration of the rule of Savoy it was reconstituted and formally recognized by Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, at the birth of his grandson Prince Amedeo, who was created duke of Aosta. Aosta was the birthplace of Anselm. For ancient remains see Augusta Praetoria Salassorum.
APACHE (apparently from the Zuni name, = “enemy,” given to the Navaho Indians) , a tribe of North American Indians of Athapascan stock. The Apaches formerly ranged over south-eastern Arizona and south-western Mexico. ”

“ You travel a day or two down the valley of the Rhone, and when you are become reconciled to cretins and goitres, and ill-dressed and worse formed men and women, you pass in another single day the chain of the Jura, and find yourself in France—a country as different from both Switzerland and Italy, as they are from each other. How is it that these diminutive cantons preserve so completely their nationality? It seems a problem to the traveller who passes from one to the other without leaving his carriage. ”

“ In the afternoon we crossed the Isère, a swift, muddy river, which rises among the Alps of Dauphiné, We saw their icy range, among which is the desert solitude of the Grand Chartreuse, far up the valley; but the thick atmosphere hid the mighty Mont Blanc, whose cloudy outline, eighty miles distant in a "bee line," is visible in fair weather. At Tain, we came upon the Rhone again, and walked along the base of the hills which contract its current. Here, I should call it beautiful. The scenery has a wildness that approaches to that of the Rhine. ”

“ Mountains rise on every side, groups of the Alps of Savoy, Valais, and Jura. The northern or the Swiss shore is chiefly what is known as a côte, or a declivity that admits of cultivation, with spots of verdant pasture scattered at its feet and sometimes on its breast, with a cheery range of garden, chalet, wood, and spire; villas, hamlets, and villages seem to touch each other down by the banks, and to form but one town, whilst higher up, they peep out from among the vineyards or nestle under the shade of walnut-trees. ”

“ Its scenery almost vies with that of Switzerland in grandeur, beauty, and wildness. The great mountain masses of the Alps do not end in Savoy, but extend through the south-eastern parts of France, almost to the mouths (p. 384) of the Rhône. Packed closer together than in most parts of Switzerland, the mountains of Dauphiny are furrowed by deep valleys, each with its rapid stream or torrent at bottom, in some places overhung by precipitous rocks, in others hemmed in by green hills, over which are seen the distant snowy peaks and glaciers of the loftier mountain ranges. ”

“ Toward the north the view embraces the great Lake Leman, and almost all the mountains of Burgundy and those of Switzerland in the distance distinguished by blue shadows. Nearer are the cities and lands of Geneva and Bern, an infinity of villages, churches, castles, rivers, ponds, forests, meadows, vineyards, hills, roads, and the like in such variety that the eye receives from it a wonderful recreation and nothing in the world can be seen more beautiful. ”

“ In a few days more I had reached the heart of Switzerland; but what a contrast had I experienced in passing from one country to the other! The whole of France, with the exception of my ever happy Loire, must surely be the most monotonous and unpicturesque tract of the whole continent; while Switzerland presents, at every turn, a combination [146] of the paradisaical and of terrific sterility. Smiling patriarchal pastures, walled in by granite mountains, frowning in eternal silence and solitude, save when thundering with the awful avalanche. ”

“ Many days after, at the time of Christmas, again the cry of Le Bretagne rang through the streets of Arichat; and again was there much of horror in the cry, for though the sea was calm now, there was Le Bretagne slowly sailing into port; and was not Le Bretagne at the bottom of the sea, and all hands drowned?
Small wonder that the browned faces were blanched now, as the fisher-folk lined up on the sand, as they had on that day two moons before.
“What sorcery is this?” they asked each other. It was Le Bretagne; they know her as they knew their own houses. ”

“ I know nothing so impressive as the scene from a swell on the surface of the Landes, when the eye sees the great range in silver and cobalt stretching to the south from a dim east, in which snowy peaks and silver clouds are indistinguishable, to die away beyond the reach of the eye in the west, and all beheld over a vast sheet of dark green forest, like a sea stretching to their roots. Nowadays we whirl from Bordeaux to Dax and Bayonne by rail. ”

“ The Landes—The Bordeaux and Teste Railway—Niniche—The Landscape of the Landes—The People Of the Landes—How they walk on Stilts, and Gamble.
Turn to the map of France—to that portion of it which would be traversed by a straight line drawn from Bordeaux to Bayonne—and you will observe that such a line would run through a vast extent of bare-looking country—of that sort, indeed, where
"Geographers on pathless downs Place elephants, for want of towns." ”

“ The women work much more than the men; they even row the boats on the lakes. All the Swiss, however, are very industrious; and I like Switzerland altogether exceedingly. I leave this place to-morrow, and am going on to the beautiful valley of Sornen, (there was a view of it in the Diorama,) and then to the lake of the four cantons, or lake of Lucerne, and round the canton of the Valais to Geneva, and from thence for the lakes of Italy. If you examine a map for these places, it will be an amusement for you.
Lady Byron has been here for two days ”

“ The eye passes over the valley of the Rhone—that, however, is not yet visible—and rests on the long series of snowy peaks, which you know are the finials of the barrier ridges that separate Switzerland from Italy—the Michabel, the Weisshorn, the Matterhorn, the Dent d’Heréns, the Dent Blanche. ”

“ Happy Cornwall, which can show so fair a product of its soil! Well, Miss Courtenay, I know Italy and Switzerland by heart, and I like this Cornish landscape better than either. It is not so beautiful—it would not do as well for a painter or a poet; but it comes nearer an Englishman's heart. What can one have better than the hills and the sea? Switzerland can show you bigger hills, ghostly snow-shrouded pinnacles that mock the eye, following each other like a line of phantoms, losing themselves in the infinite; but Switzerland cannot show you that. ”

“ Here commune and canton are the real units of government. In the federal power at Bern the Swiss peasant takes little interest, often not even knowing the name of the national president. In the highest ranges a canton coincides with a mountain-rimmed valley—Valais with the basin of the upper Rhone, Glarus with the upper Linth, Uri with the Reuss, Graubünden with the upper Rhine, to which is joined by many pass routes the sparsely peopled Engadine, Ticino with the drainage basin of upper Lake Maggiore, Unterwalden with the southern drainage valleys of Lake Lucerne. ”

“ When you travel in German Switzerland you will see pastors preaching on giddy heights, standing on rocks or rustic pulpits of the trunks of trees. A few shepherds and cheese-makers, their leather caps in their hands, and women with their heads dressed up in the costume of the canton group themselves about in picturesque attitudes; the scenery is pretty, the pastures green, or the harvest just over, cascades to the road, and flocks with their bells ringing every note on the mountain. ”

“ It was to Italy that he turned his steps, passing through Brussels and Flanders, lingering on the Rhine, enamored with its ruined castles, still more with Nature, and making a long stay in Switzerland. Here he visited the Castle of Chillon, all the spots made memorable by the abodes of Rousseau, Gibbon, and Madame de Staël, and all the most interesting scenery of the Bernese Alps,--Lake Leman, Interlaken, Thun, the Jungfrau, the glaciers, Brientz, Chamouni, Berne, and on to Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of Shelley and his wife. ”

“ The Val d’Aoste, less than a hundred kilometres, all counted, has more scenic and architectural surprises than any similar strip in Europe, but it is not a piste to be raced over by the scorching automobilist at sixty miles an hour. On the contrary it can not be done with satisfaction in less than a day, even by the most blasé of tourists. The railway also ascends the valley as far as Aoste, and one may cross over by coach into France or Switzerland by either the Col du Petit Saint Bernard or the Col du Grand Saint Bernard. ”

“ No wonder that half the hotels in Switzerland are named Bellevue.
An omnibus bears you from Ouchy, which is simply the port of Lausanne, back into the city, past pretty country residences, walled in, over the gates of which the owners have placed suggestive names: "My Rest;" "Heart's Desire;" "Good Luck;" "Beautiful Situation;" anything which fancy or individual taste may dictate. Of Lausanne I recall little but an endless mounting and descending of stairs. ”

“ Historic France is there! Auvergne is Auvergne, Languedoc is only Languedoc; but Touraine is France; the most national river for Frenchmen is the Loire, which waters Touraine. For this reason we ought not to be surprised at the great number of historically noble buildings possessed by those departments which have taken the name, or derivations of the name, of the Loire. At every step we take in this land of enchantment we discover a new picture, bordered, it may be, by a river, or a tranquil lake reflecting in its liquid depths a castle with towers, and woods and sparkling waterfalls. ”