Isère

“ North of the Isère stretches a district of low hills terminating on the limits of the department in the Valloire, its most productive portion. The climate, except in the valleys bordering the Rhone, is cold, and winds blow incessantly. Snow is visible on the mountain-tops during the greater part of the year. ”

“ From the Jardin de Ville and the quays of the banks of the Isère the summit of Mont Blanc itself is visible. The greater part of the town rises on the left bank of the Isère, which is bordered by broad quays. The older portion has the tortuous and narrow streets usual in towns that have been confined within fortifications, but in modern times these hindrances have been demolished. ”

“ It is followed (in some part of their course) by the Isère, the Rhone, the Rhine, the Inn, and the Enns. One of the great folds shortly described in the preceding chapter runs up the Isère, along the Chamouni Valley, up the Rhone, through the Urseren Thal, down the Rhine Valley to Chur, along the Inn nearly to Kufstein, and for some distance along the Enns. Thus, then, five great rivers have taken advantage of this main fold, each of [Pg 293] them eventually breaking through into a transverse valley. ”

“ From the above-mentioned features of the ground, the valley narrowing more and more as you proceed, from the high mountains that align it and from its sinuosities, it follows that at every angle or curve caused by these sinuosities, you appear as if you were shut out from all the rest of the world and could proceed no further. The river Isère runs thro' and parallel with this valley. It rises in the mountains of Savoy and falls into the Rhône in Dauphiné. ”

“ There is a place where a man passes from the main valley of the Rhone over into the valley of the Isère, and where the Grésivandan so suddenly comes upon him. Two gates of limestone rock, high as the first shoulders of the mountains, lead into the valley which they guard ”

“ Fording a bright stream instead of riding over its badly paved bridge, we were in sight of the castle of Chignin. The hill on which 236 its four remaining towers still stand hangs over the village, and the road is henceforth close to the base of the mountains. These castles, which crowned rock and height the whole length of the valleys of the Arc and Isère, were the telegraphs of the middle ages; and in time of war, by fires lighted on their high turrets, gave and repeated signals from province to province. ”

“ To return to Chamberry. There is no [116] peculiarity of costume here, except that the paysannes all wear gold hearts and crosses; the poorer classes of silver, lead, or mixed metal. We changed horses at Montmeillant, and saw the fine river Isere, formed by the melting of the snows. The same sort of grand scenery continued. There were several charming campagnes (or gentlemen's houses) amid the mountains, half concealed by luxuriant woods. ”

“ The whole of this country consists of plains abounding in pasturage, excepting on the route from Aëria to Avenio, where there are narrow defiles and woods to traverse. It was at the point where the river Isère and the Rhone unite near the Cevennes, that Quintus Fabius Maximus Æmilianus,1385 with scarcely 30,000 men, cut to pieces 200,000 Kelts.1386 Here he erected a white stone as a trophy, and two temples, one to Mars, and the other to Hercules. From the Isère to Vienne, the metropolis of the Allobroges, situated on the Rhone, the distance is 320 stadia. ”

“ Farther east the lower slopes of the Central Plateau form its effective boundary; the export of men and women downhill from the plateau being apparently sufficient to restrain the general tendency to uphill spread of the language of the plain. In the Rhone valley the boundary of the langue d'oc bends southwards, so that Lyons belongs to the langue d'oïl, and the whole Isère region is intermediate between north and south. ”

“ Then she said to Fin, "You will have to go and bring here for me the head of Curucha na Gras and the sword that guards his castle; and I won't give you leave to take away any of your men with you but one, and he is the worst of them all,—'Iron back without action,' and the time for your journey is a year and a day. ”

“ So he turned up landward, bewailing the miss of us, but presently, before we had seen the last of him, was cheerful again and singing.
So we went on our way; and we also, we maidens, in our turn, saw those woeful images of the Isle of Queens and the Isle of Kings; and we came to the Isle of Nothing, and abode warily by our ferry, and so came away safe, and thus, as thou wottest, home to the castle to hear evil tidings of thee. ”

“ The remains of monasteries similar in many respects to the description just given have been found in the East. Like the Irish, they have the encircling wall, and the dwellings also are separate huts, instead of being one large building, as in the more modern establishments. The explanation of this resemblance is simple, and does not imply such immediate intercourse between Ireland and the East as has been supposed. ”

“ After three weeks of very slow travelling—for though I know several countries very well, France with her pavered villages, hilly character, vines, forests, and primeval country-manner, is always new and charming to me—after three weeks I came unexpectedly to a valley which had never entered my head; and the moment that I saw it, I said: 'Here I will live,' though I had no idea what it was, for the monastery which I saw did not look at all like a monastery, according to my ideas: but when I searched the map, I discovered that it must be La Chartreuse de Vauclaire in Périgord. ”

“ In thinking of this world of the troubadours, one must give one's thoughts a longish tether and the imagination a touch of the spur, for their journeyings were far and wide over the country, from the mountain regions in the south-eastern districts of France to the farthest west of Languedoc and the Dukedom of Acquitaine. There must stretch before the mind's eye the whole beautiful region, sea-washed along its southern boundaries, watered by splendid rivers, set with cities and ruins whose names ring through the centuries ”

“ The literary and historic associations have not unnaturally operated upon our common notions of the country; and for the "South of France," we are very apt to conjure up a brave, fictitious landscape. Yet this country is no Eden. It has been admirably described, in a single phrase, the "Austere South of France." ”

“ But the Scots which dwelt in the South of Ireland had long since, by the admonition of the bishop of the Apostolic See, learned to observe Easter according to the canonical custom.
On the arrival of the bishop, the king appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne, as he desired. Which place, as the tide flows and ebbs twice a day, is enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice in the day, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land. ”

“ This whole town and county seems to be but one entire rock, as it were, an exceedingly pleasant shire, full of gentry. Here, I observed divers to live in the rocks and caves, much after the manner as about Tours, in France. The church is well built on an eminence; there is a fair house of the Lord Clare's, another of Pierrepont's; an ample market place; large streets, full of crosses; the relics of an ancient castle, hollowed beneath which are many caverns, especially that of the Scots' King, and his work while there. ”

“ In what may strictly be called the south of France, that region bordering along the Mediterranean, Provence, and the southerly portion of Languedoc, one is manifestly environed with a mellowness and brilliance of sky and atmosphere only to be noted in a sub-tropical land, a feature which finds further expression in most of the attributes of local life. ”

“ But when I came to live at Auxerre, I saw that he spoke the truth. It is a large district, or bishopric, and the mountains, hills, and plains are covered with vines. There they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; but they send their wine by river to Paris, where they sell it nobly; and live and clothe themselves from the proceeds. Three times I went all about the district with one or another of the brothers: once with one who was preaching and affixing crosses for the Crusade of the French king (St. Louis) ”

“ GLENGARRIFF AND BANTRY BAY TWO of the most famous men in English literature have passed unstinted praise on the beauty and charm of the southern Irish coast.
If one looks at a map of the southwest of Ireland, it will be seen that its whole coast-line is broken into serrations, making harbours, islands, bays, and coves. If he should go to the coast itself, he will have revealed to him a wondrous kaleidoscope,—alternate scenes of sweet, pathetic gentleness, and stern and rugged grandeur, all full of engrossing charm. ”

“ My Paris haunts me just like yours. You—you play your drum among the pines. Me—I write here.... What a right pair of Provencal people we are. Back in Paris, we miss our Alpilles and the smell of wild lavender. Right here and right now, bang in the middle of Provence, we miss our barracks, and everything that reminds us of it is so dear to us!... ”

“ From the banks of the river, as far as the eye can reach in every direction, the land was known in Cæsar’s time as Provincia or The Province, although the term Provence is in these modern times only applied to the extreme south-eastern portion.
The wayfarer, in this land of sunshine and fertility, passing through its villages and visiting its towns, will continually meet with those relics, ruins, and remains which are left like footprints by races, dynasties, and empires long since passed away. ”

“ The Isle of Man derives its name from the ancient British word mon, which means "isolated." Around this singular place there are many rocky islets, also isolated, and upon one of the most picturesque of these, where art and Nature have vied in adding strength to beauty, is built the castle of Peele, off the western coast, overlooking the distant shores of Ireland. ”

“ Around all are the embracing waters of the Seine breaking the light with their thousand facets. The island, when seen from the east as one sails down the river, is not less imposing, for the great mother church of Notre Dame, with the graceful buttresses of the apse like folded pinions, seems to brood over the whole Cité. ”

“ Independently of its castles and abbeys, the definite relics of the ages, such a landscape seems charged and interfused. It has, has always had, human relations and is intimately conscious of them. That little speech about the loveliness of his county, or of his own part of his county, was made to me by my companion as we walked up the grassy slope of a hill, or “edge,” as it is called there, from the crest of which we seemed in an instant to look away over most of the remainder of England. ”

“ The Greek version of the Book of Esther—a varient of Istar—contains the remarkable passage, “A little fountain became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water”: in the neighbourhood of the Kentish Stour is Eastry; in Essex there is a Good Easter and a High Easter, and in Wilts and Somerset are Eastertowns. In England the sun was popularly supposed to dance at Eastertide, and in Britain alone is the Easter festival known under this name: the ancient Germans worshipped a Virgin-mother named Ostara, whose image was common in their consecrated forests. ”

“ If the Irish say most heartily, "Long live the Queen," let the Queen respond heartily, and "while I live I will do good to my Irish subjects." If the sixty-two mud-wall huts to each hundred in the worst parts, and twenty-three in the best, as Mr. Bright asserts, look a little untidy in an isle where castles and rich domains dot the green surface, why not substitute the comely cottage? and if the manure-heap be unseemly to the eyes and unsavory to the nose, plant in its stead the vine and the rose— for be assured, in no isle of the sea will they bloom fairer. ”

“ The widest area of heresy was in the provinces of Languedoc and Provence, to whose precocious mental development we have already referred.23 The Counts of Toulouse no longer ruled in the thirteenth century over any of modern Spain, but north of the Pyrenees they were tenants-in-chief to the French king for one of the most fertile provinces of southern France, while as Marquesses of Provence they were vassals of the Emperor for the country beyond the Rhone. ”

“ To its scattered inhabitants of that day little Ireland must have seemed a region of incalculable extent, filled with enemies to kill or to be killed by; a region in which a man might wander from sunrise to sunset yet never reach the end, nay, for days together without coming to a second sea. ”

“ The Isle of France is regarded as a fortress which protects our Indian possessions. It is as though Bordeaux were regarded as the citadel of our American colonies. There are 1,500 leagues between the Isle of France and Pondichery. Had we but spent on a fortress on the Malabar coast or the mouth of the Ganges half of the money which has been wasted on the Isle of France the English would not now be masters of Bengal. What, then, is the use of the Isle of France? To grow coffee and serve as a port of call. ”

“ Passing further away, towards Austria, travelling up the Isar, till the stream becomes smaller and whiter and the air is colder, the full glamour of the northern hills, which are so marvellously luminous and gleaming with flowers, wanes and gives way to a darkness, a sense of ominousness. ”

“ Then the Norman barons built castles and married Irish ladies, and they no more desired to return to England, for Ireland was a country abounding in treasure.
"The old chieftains of Erin prospered under these princely English lords, who were the chief rulers and who had given up their surliness for good manners, their stubbornness for sweet-mildness and their perverseness for hospitality." ”