[Pg v]

THE JOURNAL OF
MONTAIGNE’S TRAVELS
IN ITALY

Up to February 16, 1581, the “Journal” of Montaigne’s travels was written down from dictation by a confidential servant, who seems to have combined the duties of secretary and valet. On the date aforesaid Montaigne either dismissed him or gave him leave of absence, and set to work to keep the diary himself. The portion of the “Journal” written by the secretary presents certain difficulties in translation, seeing that he wrote sometimes in the first and sometimes in the third person, and occasionally had to describe events which happened in his absence, but as far as possible uniform diction has been secured. In the earlier part Montaigne added divers notes to the margin of the MS. in his own handwriting, thus showing that he revised that portion which he did not write. From May 15, to November 1, 1581, Montaigne used the Italian tongue, reverting to French as soon as he crossed Mont Cenis.

[Pg vi]

A translation of the “Journal” was made by W. Hazlitt in 1842 and annexed to his edition of Cotton’s “Essays.” In a recent reprint of the “Essays” and of all the extant “Letters,” Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, in an introduction, remarks, as a reason for not including the “Journal,” that it is all in the third person, and was dictated by Montaigne to his secretary, being unaware, apparently, that more than half of it was written in the first person by Montaigne himself.

The portions of the “Journal” which deal with Montaigne’s sojourn at the baths of Lucca are full of details of the symptoms of the malady which troubled him, and of the results of the curative treatment. In these it has been thought permissible to abbreviate some passages and to omit others entirely, seeing that they are at the same time valueless and unpleasant. But not a word which refers to any matter of general interest has been repressed; uninteresting medical details alone have been left out.

W. G. WATERS.

In the world of literature there are many instances which exhibit the personality of a particular writer identified so completely with certain of his works that he is, so to speak, divorced from all association with any others, however great their merit, which he may have left behind him. The popular verdict, so often swayed by incomprehensible impulse, is given in favour of one or two books, and all the rest fall into oblivion or neglect. How trifling is the vogue of Walton’s “Lives” compared with that of the “Angler.” To the multitude Swift is known almost entirely as the author of Gulliver, and the name of Gray suggests the “Elegy” as inevitably as that of Cowper suggests “John Gilpin.” In like manner we find the fame of Montaigne resting on[Pg 2] the “Essays” alone; but this case is in a measure exceptional. Montaigne died in 1592, and until 1774 the “Essays” comprised the whole of his literary legacy. In the year last mentioned, a certain M. Prunis, who was collecting materials for a history of Perigord, discovered in a chest at the Château de Montaigne the manuscript account of the writer’s travels in Switzerland, the Empire, and Italy in the years 1580 and 1581.

Notwithstanding the fame of the writer, and the inherent interest of the long-hidden work, the “Journal” failed to win the public favour, and virtually Montaigne still kept the status of a single book author. It has never roused much enthusiasm in France, in spite of a generous and appreciative article by Sainte-Beuve in the Nouveaux Lundis. “Montaigne,” he writes, “is the intimate friend of every one of us, and of our intimate friends it is impossible to know too much.” And he then goes on to demonstrate the extraordinary value and interest of the “Journal” when read in connection with[Pg 3] the “Essays.” It is casting no slur on the “Journal” to say that it is inferior to the writers masterpiece in literary grace; and, so much being granted, it may be asserted that nowhere in Montaigne’s writings is his personality, with its attractive wisdom and no less attractive weaknesses, more clearly and completely exhibited than in the work under consideration.

This excellence of self-portraiture may be explained by the fact that the Montaigne of the “Essays” greets us as the philosopher in his study, face to face with the innumerable problems to be canvassed in determining the rules which should guide man’s conduct towards his fellows. Here with laborious care he searches the world of books for illustrations apt for the establishment of his position and for its defence. Now and then, in spite of the quaint charm of the writing, it seems as if we cannot see the wood for the trees, and we regret that we cannot enjoy a closer personal acquaintance with the author, a knowledge[Pg 4] at first hand, and not blurred by the cloud of approving witnesses which it has pleased him to summon up from the caverns of the libraries. But with the Montaigne of the “Journal” it is altogether different. Here we find the man giving his experience of a phase of life which, for good or evil, has become almost normal in these latter days. Most of us have crossed the Alps and descended upon Italy; and, changed as the conditions of travel are, it raises a sympathetic interest to read of the humours of the road in Montaigne’s time, and to compare his experience with our own. We are introduced to him face to face with troubles and pleasures, the intensity of which it is not difficult to gauge: the knavery of postmasters: the stupidity of guides: the discomfort of this inn, and the excellence of that. We listen to his simple narrative of his experience of men and cities, and learn to know him better here than when encumbered by the swarming hypotheses and guarding clauses which fill the pages of[Pg 5] his opus magnum. When he begins to speculate, his reflections are given in the plainest words, and rarely fail to reveal one or other of those lovable personal traits with which acquaintance, as well as tradition, will have invested him. His large-minded toleration, his fastidious care lest any judgment given should be based on insufficient knowledge, and his reluctance to commit himself to any positive statement—characteristics which dominate the drift of thought in the “Essays”—reappear in the “Journal,” and help to give to his utterances on the world as he found it an authority which few contemporary travellers could claim.

In any comparison he felt bound to draw between things in France and things over the frontier, toleration is his watchword; and he knew no more of the spirit of Chauvinism than he did of the word. But he seems to have found some tendencies in that direction in the carriage of certain young Frenchmen whom he met at Padua, and he goes on to lament that the number of these[Pg 6] should be large enough to constitute a society in itself, and that on this account his young countrymen should be debarred from making acquaintance with the people of the place. Again, he shows a little resentment at finding himself surrounded by such a crowd of Frenchmen as he found in Rome. He is full of praise of the iron work of Switzerland, and of the cookery as well. The bed-chambers in Germany did not always please him, but he could not say too much in favour of the porcelain stoves and the coverlets stuffed with feathers; and when he found the charges at the baths of Baden a little arbitrary, he adds that he would have fared no better in France. He describes the private houses round Constance as being far superior to the parallel class of house in France; and, in taking exception in a general way to defects in the service at the inns, he remarks that these things seemed amiss to him chiefly because they were unfamiliar: indeed, he lavished so much praise on German ways of living that the patriotism of his[Pg 7] amanuensis, was in one instance stirred to remonstrance. Montaigne had evidently a strong liking for Germany (though indeed he is somewhat uncomplimentary as to the personal charms of the ladies of Augsburg) and he left it with reluctance; for, when he arrived at Botzen and marked the prevalence of Italian customs there, he wrote in a strain of regret to Francis Hottoman, the jurisconsult whom he had met at Basel, expressing his satisfaction at the treatment he had met with in that city and his regrets at bidding farewell to the Empire, even though his goal were Italy. Vanity is the proverbial weakness of the Frenchman, but the only trace of it in Montaigne’s record is to be found in his action at Augsburg when some of the town officers took him for a baron, and he bade his companions not correct the error. His remarks thereanent show that he was more swayed by considerations of practical utility than by the desire of personal exaltation; as he goes on to say that, being credited with a baron’s rank, he[Pg 8] would doubtless receive more attention from the hands of the authorities.

To show how little of the braggart was in him it may be noted that when he visited the church of S. Lorenzo at Florence he did not refrain from naming, amongst the other sights he saw there, the French banners captured from Marshal Strozzi’s forces by the Florentines, and when on his way home he passed by Fornovo, the scene of the great French victory in 1495, does not allude to the battle at all. On the other hand, he expressly records that he turned aside from the road between Pavia and Milan to view the field of the battle so disastrous to the arms of France.

The bent of Montaigne’s mind led him to devote his chief attention to the rules and institutions which regulated public life in the lands he visited, rather than to what modern travellers call “sights,” and in Fynes Moryson’s travels about ten, and in Coryat’s about thirty years later, the same tendencies appear. When at any time he does describe[Pg 9] any human achievement, it is usually some mechanical device, such as the watch-tower and the water-works at Augsburg. Italy was rich, or probably much richer, in paintings than she is now, but only on three or four occasions does he find any worth mentioning. Nevertheless he writes pages in praise of the ridiculous squirts and tubes which are devised to drench the unwary visitors to Italian gardens now, just as they did at the time when he was on his travels. Artificial water-works of all sorts seem to have had a peculiar fascination for him: indeed on his way back to France he paid a second visit to Pratolino, near Florence, in order to compare the merits of the fountains there with those which he had seen at Tivoli. He ends the description of his expedition with the following thoroughly characteristic sentences: “Et essendo pregato dal casiero del palazzo di dire la mia sentenzia di quelle bellezze e di Tivoli, ne discorsi non comparando questi luoghi in generale, ma parte per parte, con le diverse considerazioni dell’un[Pg 10] e dell’altro, essendo vicendevolmente vittore ora questo, or quello.”

Perhaps it would be unfair to attribute to indifference Montaigne’s comparative silence over Italian painting. In his day it was not the fashion to write so copiously as at present concerning this particular phase of art, nor was it deemed necessary that every third-rate painter should possess his exponent and prophet. Whatever the reason, Montaigne passed it by in silence, save in a few instances, and the cause of his appreciation in these cases was evidently that the pictures possessed historic interest. At Caprarola he found portraits of Henry II. of France, Catherine dei Medici and their two sons. He mentions the pictures at Loreto, referring probably to the ex voto daubs and not to the works of Signorelli and Melozzo da Forli. In his visit to the Vatican he notices a certain gallery which was being decorated with views of Italy, ancient and modern, by the order of Gregory XIII., the reigning Pope, and also those by Vasari in the Sala Regia depicting[Pg 11] recent events of history which could hardly fail to interest him—the battle of Lepanto, the massacre of S. Bartholomew, and the death of Coligny. At Padua he praises the gardens of the Arena, but leaves unnoticed the chapel and its frescoes: probably he had never heard Giotto’s name. He has much to say of the Piazza at Siena, of the fountain and of the bronze wolf, but only a few words as to the exterior of the Cathedral, and not one about the many works of art within. At the Certosa at Pavia he mentions the carven façade and the tomb of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, but ignores the paintings. Sculpture seems to have had much greater fascination for him: he gives the names of many of the great works in the Vatican and Capitol, and praises Michael Angelo’s “Moses” and his statues in the Medici Chapel at Florence. He makes special mention of “la belle fame qui est aus pieds du Pape Pol tiers en la nouvelle église de S. Pierre,” the statue which the prudery of a later Pontiff caused to be encased in robes of bronze.

[Pg 12]

Montaigne would occasionally throw a hard word at the Jesuits, and probably he disliked them as a body, but, however this might be, he seldom failed to seek out any member of the order who might be resident in the cities he visited; no doubt because he knew he would meet a well-educated man, and one able to converse with him on the topics he had most at heart. At Rome he gives high praise to the diligence and ability of the Jesuits, probably for the reason that he found the practical drift of their policy congenial to his own humour. He certainly showed no sign of enthusiasm in contemplating the scenes of the more emotional phenomena of Catholicism, for he made no reference to S. Catherine when describing Siena, and Assisi he did not deem worth a visit. He probably went to Loreto on account of the historic fame of the Santa Casa, and he was certainly much more impressed by the material aspect of the prevalent legend, the crowds of pilgrims, the shops for the sale of candles and ex votos, the riches[Pg 13] of the treasury, and the profit of the pilgrimage to the townsfolk, than by the spiritual aspect of the same.

Montaigne, sceptic as he was in dealing with religious questions, never allowed this disposition to induce him to take up an unqualified attitude of hostility. Over the claims of the miraculous he kept his judgment in suspense, and did not condemn as a necessary imposture what he could not accept as a proven truth. Joseph Glanvil, in Sadducismus Triumphatus, holds a similar position in condemning what he calls “the credulity of unbelief,” that is, when sceptics, by way of discrediting phenomena which they cannot accept, suggest, as an alternative explanation, something still harder to believe. At Loreto, in commenting on the alleged miraculous cure of a certain M. Marteau, Montaigne shows a marked inclination to accept the popular version of the story, and omits to appraise the divers subjective influences which invariably play an important part in remedial phenomena of[Pg 14] this description. Again, he is swayed by the same humour in writing concerning the peculiar virtue of the earth in the Campo Santo at Pisa, which was fabled to preserve human remains from corruption for any length of time.

Nothing that Montaigne saw in his travels seems to have given him more pleasure than the sight of the exquisite cultivation of the plains and hillsides in Italy and the consequent well-being of the contadini. On this subject he writes with enthusiasm and even astonishment while descending the southern slopes of the Alps, and traversing the Lombard plain and the lovely valley of Clitumnus. Nowhere in the “Journal” does he speak with a stronger note of gratification than in describing these evidences of material prosperity: not even when he tells of an interview with some learned man, or sets down some new facts concerning prevalent laws and institutions, or ventures on some shrewd and luminous inference founded on his experiences of the men and cities[Pg 15] he had got to know in the course of his travels.

The part of the “Journal” which will be found most interesting to contemporary readers is unquestionably that which describes his sojourn in Rome. His perception was dazzled and awe-stricken at the spectacle of the vast and ruinous habitation which then sheltered the greatest unifying influence still existing in the world; but, impressed as he was by the majesty of the Papal power, he made it quite clear that this was not for him the true Rome. His conception of the genius of the place was in the main a subjective one. With an intelligence disciplined and enriched by historic study, he seemed to behold at every turn the phantom of that astounding domination, now empty, vain, and shattered; and, in recording his reflections on this pregnant theme, his style rises as near to rhapsody as his well-balanced temperament would allow.

With respect to Rome as he found it, Montaigne was profoundly impressed by the[Pg 16] manifestation of the concentrated power of the Catholic Church, the splendour of the religious functions, and the activity and devotion of the various confraternities. He estimates this show of religious enthusiasm, and the ardour of the people over their spiritual exercises, as the chief glory of the place as it then existed. At the same time he was quite unconvinced by the spectacle of an attempt by some priests to exorcise evil spirits, and evidently viewed the whole affair as a nauseous imposture, like Fynes Moryson on a subsequent visit. His tolerant disposition is shown by the keen interest he took over the Lutheran baptismal and marriage rites which he witnessed at Augsburg, and few experiences of his travels seem to have interested him more than the ceremony of circumcision, which he witnessed in the house of a Jew in Rome, and described in minute detail and at great length.

The main object of Montaigne’s journey was to visit certain foreign baths, with the hope of getting relief from the pains which[Pg 17] he suffered through gall-stone and gravel. Seeing that he must almost always have been in pain, or at least discomfort, and that the inconveniences of travel were in themselves no light burden in these days, the constant cheerfulness of his temper, and his freshness of sentiment and speech, whenever he chanced to be brought face to face with some attractive experience, prove what a sweet and happy nature his must have been. He records how on the road from Terni to Spoleto he was suffering from colic, which had vexed him for the last four-and-twenty hours, but this plague did not prevent him from expressing his delight over the exquisite scenery on either hand. Travel by itself was to him the keenest pleasure, as he shows in the quaint remarks he lets fall when journeying from Trent to Rovere. His companions were seemingly aggrieved that he occasionally led them a wild-goose chase, and brought them back to the point from which they started; but he gaily assured them that he never missed his way, because, as he never[Pg 18] made plans, the place in which he might find himself at sunset must needs be the legitimate end of the day’s travel. Perhaps of all the humours he displayed en route, the most marked was his insatiable curiosity and his avidity of fresh experience. He met the Pope (Gregory XIII.), the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Duke of Ferrara, and cardinals, ambassadors, chancellors, and officials out of number, and hardly one of these got rid of him without having to listen and reply to divers well-judged questions. He even went so far as to pay visits to the lodgings of the fashionable cortigiane in Rome, as Coryat did at Venice. In many places he writes in a strain which shows that, in spite of bodily ills and his clear perception of the troubles of the world, he felt a keen joy in life. On setting out for Italy he declared he seemed to be in like case to one who reads some delightful story or good book and dreads to turn the last page. The pleasure of travel was to him so intense, that he hated the sight of the place where he[Pg 19] ought by rights to stop and rest. The grant of Roman citizenship evidently pleased him greatly, as did his election as Mayor of Bordeaux, though he coquetted a little with the burgesses at first. But though he and the world were good friends, he kept constantly before his mind the certainty and the nearness of the hour when they must part. There is nothing of fear, nothing even of querulousness, in his reflections when he was evidently very ill at Lucca. “It would be too great cowardice and ischifiltà on my part if, knowing that I am every day in danger of death from these ailments, and drawing nearer thereto every hour in the course of nature, I did not do my best to bring myself into a fitting mood to meet my end whenever it may come. And in this respect it is wise to take joyfully all the good fortune God may send. Moreover there is no remedy, nor rule, nor knowledge whereby to keep clear of these evils which, from every side and at every minute, gather round man’s footsteps, save in the resolve[Pg 20] to endure them with dignity, or boldly and promptly make an end of them.” We seem here to be very far from the traditional frivolity of the Frenchman; much nearer to the calm wisdom of Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius.

Montaigne travelled in company with M. Mattecoulon, his younger brother; M. d’Estissac, probably the son of the lady to whom he dedicated the “Essay,” Book ii. No. 8; M. de Caselis, who left the party to stay on at Padua; and M. d’Hautoy, who seems to have remained with him all through the journey. Mattecoulon remained in Rome after Montaigne’s final departure, and shortly after he was imprisoned on account of a duel (“Essays,” ii. 27), and liberated by the good offices of the King of France. M. d’Estissac seems to have remained behind with him.

The first two books of the “Essays” were published in 1580, before the author set forth on his travels, and the work, as we know it, was first given to the world in 1588, with[Pg 21] the third book added. In this book he refers to several incidents of his sojourn in Rome—notably to the grant of Roman citizenship which was then made to him. In addition, he carefully revised the first and second books by the light of his foreign experiences, and made some six hundred additions, many of which refer to incidents connected with his journey. He mentions the strange story of Mary Germain, who underwent transformation from the female to the male sex, a story also noticed by Ambrose Paré, the great French surgeon; the execution at Rome of Catena, a notorious criminal; and his visit to Tasso at Ferrara. Curiously enough, he makes no mention of this visit in the “Journal.”

It is hard to believe that a man so communicative as Montaigne would have kept secret from his friends the existence of the written record he made of his journey; and, taking it for granted that the existence of the MS. was suspected, it is just as hard to understand how it happened that a search[Pg 22] was not made for it after his death, and that it should have lain undiscovered till M. Prunis found it in 1774. The MS. was complete, except a leaf or so at the beginning, and nearly half of it seems to have been written from dictation by a valet or secretary, Montaigne himself having taken up the task on February 16th, 1581. The handwriting, both of master and man, was very bad, and it needed all the skill of M. Capperonier, the royal librarian at Paris, and of other experts, to disentangle the meaning of the caligraphy, and make a legible copy. When this was finished, it was placed in the hands of M. Querlon, who brought out the first edition in 1774.

It would be unreasonable to expect any elegancies of style in the portion of the “Journal” written down by the secretary from dictation, and when Montaigne himself takes the pen in hand he does not greatly mend matters. All through will be found the strangest mixture of subjects, and jerkiness of style. The most incongruous themes are[Pg 23] treated in juxtaposition. At Augsburg, at the end of a discussion with a Lutheran theologian, he throws in the remark that they had white hares for supper; and again, while speaking of mixed marriages, he records that here they clean windows with a hairbrush fixed on the end of a stick. At Rome he passes in a breath from a consideration of the relative prevalence of heresy in France and Spain to a remark that all the cargo boats on the Tiber are towed by buffaloes. In cataloguing the advantages of the city as a place of abode he tells how many of the palaces of the high nobility were at the disposition of any strange gentleman who might wish to repair thither for the night with a companion to his taste, and how in no other city in the world could be heard so many sermons and theological disputes.

As soon as he had crossed the Alps on his homeward way Montaigne evidently looked upon his journey as over. The entries in the “Journal” are merely memoranda[Pg 24] of the various stopping places, and the note of sadness in these closing sentences is very evident. All interest in the places he passed is now vanished, and the humours of the road appeal to him no more. He is going home, an old man afflicted by an ailment which has proved incurable, with only the prospect of a few years of invalid life before him, and he may well be excused for falling into a mood which throws a darker shade over the last pages of his record.

BY WAY OF SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY1 in 1580 and 1581

... Monsieur de Montaigne sent Monsieur Mattecoulon2 with his squire by post to pay a visit to the count3 aforesaid, whom they found wounded, but not mortally. At Beaumont M. d’Estissac joined our party[Pg 26] for the sake of company, our routes being the same. He had with him a gentleman, a valet-de-chambre, two lackeys, a muleteer and a mule, an addition equal in number to our own party, the outlay being equally divided. On Monday, September 5th, we left Beaumont after dinner, and rode in one bout to Meaux, where we arrived in time for supper.

Meaux is a small and handsome town on[Pg 27] the Marne, divided into three parts. The town itself and its suburbs are on this side of the river towards Paris, and over the Marne lies another portion—the third—a large suburb known as the Marché, surrounded on all sides by the river and a well-constructed ditch, and containing many houses and inhabitants. This place was formerly strongly fortified by high and formidable walls and towers, but in the second period of our Huguenot troubles, the greater part of the inhabitants being of that party, all these defences were thrown down. This quarter also withstood the attack of the English, the other portions of the town being ruined, and by way of reward the inhabitants of the Marché are still exempted from payment of taille and other taxes. They point out in the Marne an island, two or three hundred feet in length, which was, they say, originally an embankment made by the English as a position from which the fortress of the Marché might be bombarded by warlike engines, the artificial work[Pg 28] having become firm ground in the course of time.4 In this faubourg we saw the abbey of Saint Faron, a building of great antiquity, where they show certain chambers in which Ogier the Dane5 is said to have dwelt. There is also an ancient refectory, with tables of stone, very long and massive, and of an unwonted size, and in the middle of this hall was formerly a spring of fresh water which[Pg 29] served for drinking. To this day most of the monks are men of gentle birth. Amongst other things is to be seen an ancient and stately tomb, upon which are carved in stone the figures of two knights of abnormal stature, and legend says that these represent Ogier the Dane and one of his paladins. It has neither inscription nor armorial device, nothing save a sentence in Latin which an abbot caused to be set thereon some hundred years ago, recording that two unknown[Pg 30] heroes lie buried below; and in the treasury they still show the bones of these knights, the bone of the arm, from shoulder to elbow, being about the length of the entire arm of a man of average stature in these days, and a little longer than that of M. de Montaigne. They show likewise two of their swords, about the length of our own two-handed swords, the edges gapped by strokes of battle. At Meaux, M. de Montaigne paid a visit to the treasurer of the church of St. Stephen, one Juste Terrelle,6 a man of note amongst the savants of France, a little old man, sixty years of age, who has visited Egypt and Jerusalem, and lived seven years in Constantinople. He showed us his library and the curiosities of his garden, where the most wonderful thing we saw was a tree of box of round growth, and so thick by artificial[Pg 31] cutting, that it seemed to be a circular ball, massive and trim, about a man’s height.

From Meaux, where we took our dinner on the Tuesday, we set out and slept at Charly, seven leagues distant. On Wednesday after dinner we went on to sleep at Dormans, seven leagues farther on, and on the morrow we arrived in time for dinner at Esprenei.7 After our arrival M. de Montaigne and M. d’Estissac went to the church of Notre Dame to hear Mass, as was their wont. M. de Montaigne had taken note that when M. de Strozzi8 was slain some years ago at Thionville they had buried his body in this church, wherefore he now inquired what manner of sepulture had been given him, and found that he had been buried in a spot in front of the high altar which was marked neither by memorial nor tombstone, nor armorial device, nor epitaph. They[Pg 32] told us, moreover, that the queen9 had caused him to be buried thus simply because this was his desire. The day being the feast of our Lady of September10 the office was said by the bishop of Rennes, one of the Parisian family of Hanequin and abbé of this church. After the Mass was finished, M. de Montaigne met in the church M. Maldonat,11 a Jesuit well known to fame by reason of his philosophical and theological learning. They held divers learned discourses together during and after dinner in M. de Montaigne’s lodging, whither Maldonat had come to see him. Amongst[Pg 33] other matters Maldonat described the baths of Spa, near by to Liège, where he had recently sojourned in company with M. de Nevers. These are exceedingly cold, and it is there considered that the colder the water the better. The springs are so cold that some who drink thereof fall into a trembling and shuddering, but soon after the water causes a fine feeling of warmth in the stomach. In his case he took a hundred ounces; the glasses being supplied by the attendants of whatever measure each particular visitor may require. The waters may be drunk fasting and also after a meal, and their effect seemed to be similar to those of Gascony. As to his own experience he gave certain observations concerning their strength, and as to the hurt which had befallen him through drinking the same when sweating and fatigued. He marked how frogs and other small animals died immediately they were thrown into the water, and how a handkerchief, which was placed over a glass filled with the same, quickly became[Pg 34] yellow. The shortest course of treatment is fifteen days or three weeks. It is a place where excellent accommodation and lodgment may be found, and is most salutary in cases of gravel or obstruction. Nevertheless neither the speaker nor M. de Nevers got any relief from the waters.

Maldonat had with him the maître d’hôtel of M. de Nevers. They gave to M. de Montaigne the printed paper relating to the dispute between M. de Montpensier and M. de Nevers,12 so that he might be rightly informed concerning the matter, and be able to explain the same to any gentlefolk who might question him thereanent. We set forth on the Friday morning and travelled seven leagues to Châlons.13 Here we lodged at the “Crown,” a fine house, where we were[Pg 35] served on silver plate, and most of us were provided with silken bedding. The ordinary houses of this district are built of chalk stone, cut into small blocks about half a foot square; some, however, are of turf, treated in like fashion. On the morrow we set out after dinner and slept at Vitri le François, seven leagues farther on.

This is a small town on the banks of the Marne, built some thirty-five or forty years ago in place of the former town, which had been burnt. It still keeps its original form, pleasant and well proportioned, and in the midst thereof is a large square, one of the finest in France. During our sojourn there, three marvellous stories were told to us. One was that Madame the Dowager de Guise de Bourbon,14 who was living at the age of eighty-seven years, could still go afoot for the distance of a quarter of a league. Another[Pg 36] was, that a short time ago, execution had been done at Montirandet,15 a place close by, upon one condemned for a certain offence. Several years before, seven or eight girls belonging to Chaumont-en-Bassigni had secretly determined to put on male attire, and to live the life of men. Amongst these one, called Mary, came from Vitry aforenamed. She got her living by weaving, passing as a well-favoured young man, and on friendly terms with every one. She engaged herself to marry a woman of Vitry, who is still alive, but on account of some strife which arose between them, the match went no further. Afterwards, having gone to Montirandet, and still following the weavers calling, she fell in love again with a certain woman, with whom she married and lived, as the story goes, contentedly four or five months. But, having been recognised by some one living at Chaumont, and the matter having been brought to the notice of the courts, she was condemned to be hanged; whereupon she[Pg 37] declared she would liefer suffer thus than live a woman’s life. She was hanged on the charge of using unlawful appliances to remedy the defects of her sex.

The third story is of a man still living named Germain,16 of humble condition, and[Pg 38] engaged in no employment. Up to the age of twenty-two years he had been regarded[Pg 39] by all the townsfolk as a girl, albeit the chin was more hairy than that of other girls, for which reason she was called Marie la barbue. It came to pass one day when she put forth all her strength in taking a leap, that the distinctive signs of manhood showed themselves, whereupon the Cardinal of Lenoncourt, at that time bishop of Châlons, gave him the name of Germain. This personage is still unmarried, and has a large thick beard. We could not see him because he was away at the village where he lived. A popular song, sung by the girls of the place, warns all girls against taking long strides lest they should become men like Marie Germain. Report says that Ambrose Paré has taken note of this tale in his book on surgery. It is certainly true, and testimony thereof was given to M. de Montaigne by the chief officials of the town. We left this place after breakfast on Sunday morning and travelled to Bar,17 a distance of nine leagues.

M. de Montaigne had already visited this[Pg 40] town. He now came upon nothing fresh worth noting, save the extraordinary outlay which a certain priest, the dean of the place, had made, and was still making, over public works. His name was Gilles de Trèves.18 He has built a chapel of marble, with paintings and ornaments, the most sumptuous of any in France; and besides this, he has erected and almost furnished a house which is the finest in the town, of the fairest structure, the best planned and furnished, elaborated with rich carved work and most comfortable as a residence. This he desires to make a college, to endow the same, and set it to work at his own charges. From Bar, where we took our dinner on the Monday morning, we journeyed four leagues to Mannese,19 where we slept.

[Pg 41]

This was a small village, where M. de Montaigne was forced to halt by reason of a colic, for which same cause he put aside the plan he had formed of seeing Toul, Metz, Nancy, Joinville, and St. Disier, towns scattered along the route, and repaired direct by diligence to the baths of Plombières. From Mannese we departed on the Tuesday morning, and took our dinner at Vaucouleur, a place a league farther on. Passing along the banks of the Meuse we came to Donremy-sur-Meuse, seven leagues from Vaucouleur, where was born the famous Maid of Orleans named Jeanne Day or Dallis. Her family was afterwards ennobled by the king,20 who made a grant of arms which was shown to us; azure with a straight sword, crowned and with a golden hilt, and two fleurs-de-lis in gold beside the sword aforenamed. A certain receiver of Vaucouleur gave a painted escutcheon of the same to M. de Caselis. The front of the little house where she[Pg 42] was born is all painted with her feats, but the colour is much decayed through age. There is also a tree beside a vineyard which they call “l’arbre de la Pucelle,” but there is nothing remarkable about it. That evening we slept, after travelling five leagues, at Neufchasteau.

Here in the church of the Cordeliers are many ancient tombs, three or four hundred years old, erected to the memory of the nobles of the province. The inscriptions thereon all run in these terms: “Here lies a certain one who died when the tale of years was passing through the twelve hundreds,” &c.21 M. de Montaigne went to see the library, which contains many books, but none of them rare; and a well from which water is drawn by vast buckets which are turned by stepping with the feet on to a[Pg 43] wooden plank attached to a wheel: the axle of the wheel aforesaid being a piece of wood to which the well rope is fastened. He had seen elsewhere others like it. Beside the well is a great stone trough, six or seven feet above the brim, and the bucket rises and empties water into this trough without further help, and lowers itself when empty. This trough is raised so high that by means of leaden pipes the water of the well finds its way to the refectory and kitchen and bath-house. It likewise springs forth out of masses of stone, built to counterfeit natural fountains. We breakfasted in the morning at Neufchasteau, and after travelling six leagues we supped at Mirecourt.

This is a fair little town where M. de Montaigne heard tidings of M. and Madame de Bourbon who dwelt near thereto. On the morning of the morrow after breakfast he went a quarter of a league or so aside from our route to see the nuns of Poussay. This was one of those religious houses, of which there are many in these parts, established[Pg 44] for the maintenance of women of good family. Each one has pension by way of sustenance, of one, two, or three hundred crowns, some less, some more, and a separate dwelling where each one can live apart. There little girls are taken in to nurse; no obligation of virginity is laid upon any except those holding office, to wit, the abbess, the prioress, and certain others. They have liberty to dress as they will, like other ladies, except that they wear on their heads a white veil; and, in church during the Mass, they wear a large cloak which they leave behind them in their seat in the choir. The inmates can receive any acquaintance who may come to seek them, whether to urge them to matrimony or for any other reason. Any one who is so minded may sell her annuity to whomsoever she will, provided that this person be of the class and condition required. For certain of the nobles of the district have this duty laid upon them, to wit, that they must be satisfied by a sworn declaration as to the lineage of the candidate[Pg 45] whom any one may bring forward. It is not unbecoming for one nun to hold three or four annuities. During their sojourn they attend religious services the same as in other places, and the greater part of them end their days there without desiring change of condition.

On leaving this place we rode five leagues to supper at Espine,22 a well-built little town where entry was denied to us for that we had journeyed by Neufchasteau where the plague had raged a short time ago. On the next day in the morning we reached Plommieres23 in time for dinner, a journey of four leagues.

From Bar-le-Duc onwards the leagues are again of the Gascon measure, and as one approaches Germany they become longer and longer, so that, at last, they wax double, or even treble. We entered Plommieres on Friday the 16th of September 1580, at two o’clock in the afternoon. It is on the borders of Lorraine and Germany, situated in a chasm[Pg 46] between divers lofty scarped hills, which close it in on all sides. At the bottom of this valley several springs, cold and hot as well, flow forth. The hot water has neither smell nor taste, and is by nature as hot as any one can endure to drink: so much so that M. de Montaigne was obliged to pass it from glass to glass. Only two of the springs are drunk. One which flows from the eastward and forms the bath, which they call the Queen’s Bath, leaves in the mouth a certain sweet taste, not unlike liquorice, and no disagreeable aftertaste. But after very careful attention, M. de Montaigne declared that a slight flavour of iron might be detected therein. The other spring which rises at the base of the mountain opposite, and of which M. de Montaigne drank only one day, is slightly harsh, and has the flavour of alum. The habit of the place is to take a bath two or three times a day. Some take their meals in the bath, where they are cupped and scarified, and do not drink the waters except after a purge. If they drink at all, they take a glass[Pg 47] or two in the bath. They deemed the practice of M. de Montaigne a mighty strange one, to wit that, without any preparatory medicine, he should take nine glasses of water, amounting to a potful, every morning at seven, and dine at mid-day; that on the days when he bathed—every other one—he should fix upon four o’clock, and only stay about an hour in the water. And on these days he willingly went without his supper.

We saw some men cured of ulcers and others of pimples on the body. The wonted course is a month at least, and rooms are let most readily in May. Few people frequent the place after the month of August, by reason of the cold, but we found much company there still, because the heat and drought had been abnormally prolonged. Amongst others, M. de Montaigne gained the friendship and acquaintance of the Seigneur d’Andelot of Franche Conté,24 the son of the[Pg 48] master of the horse of the Emperor Charles V. He himself was chief field-marshal in the army of Don John of Austria, and he held the governorship of St. Quentin after we lost the place. One portion of his beard and one side of his eyebrow had become white, and he told M. de Montaigne how this change had come about in a moment of time, on a certain day when he was filled with distress over the death of one of his brothers, whom the Duke of Alva had put to death as an accomplice of the Counts Egmont and Horn. He was sitting resting his head upon his hand, which touched the places beforenamed, wherefore his attendants, when they saw what had happened to him, deemed that some flour must have fallen upon him by accident. He has been like this ever since.

This bath was formerly used only by Germans, but for several years past the people of Franche Conté and France have come in great numbers. There are several baths, and the principal one is built oval in shape, after the fashion of an ancient[Pg 49] edifice. It is thirty-five paces long and fifteen wide. The hot water rises from several springs, and cold water is made to trickle down into the bath so that the heat may be moderated according to the taste of those who use it. The places in the bath are set out side by side by bars suspended like those in our stables, and planks are laid over the top so as to keep off the heat of the sun and the rain. The visitors in this place maintain a singular propriety of carriage, and it is reckoned indecent for men to bathe naked or with less clothing than a little jacket, or for women to wear less than a chemise. We lodged at the “Angel,” which is the best house, because it communicates with two of the baths. The charge for lodging, when several rooms were engaged, was no more than fifteen sous a day. The hosts supply all wood for this charge, but the country is so rich therein that it costs nothing but the cutting, and the hostesses do exceedingly well in the kitchens. When the high season comes a[Pg 50] lodging like this one would cost a crown a day, and be cheap at the price. Horse feed is seven sous a day, and everything else the visitor needs to buy is good and reasonable in price. The chambers are not sumptuous, but very convenient, and, by reason of the numerous galleries, there is never need to pass through one to reach another; but the wine and bread are bad. The people are worthy, independent, sensible, and obliging. All the laws of the land are religiously observed, and every year they write afresh on a tablet, hung up in front of the principal bath, the laws there inscribed in the German and French tongues as follows:—

“Claude de Rynach, knight, lord of St. Balesmont, Montureulz en Ferette, Lendacourt, &c., councillor and chamberlain of our sovereign lord monseigneur the Duke &c., and his balli of the Vosges.

“Let it be known that for securing the comfort and quietude of the many ladies and other persons, coming from divers countries to these baths of Plommieres, we[Pg 51] have (according to the intention of his Highness) decreed and ordained as follows:

“Let it be known that corrective discipline for light offences shall remain as heretofore in the hands of the Germans, who are enjoined to enforce observation of all ceremonies, regulations, and police, which have hitherto been used for the seemly maintenance of the baths aforesaid, and for the punishment of offences committed by those of their own nation, without granting exception to any person by the payment of ransom, and without using blasphemy or other irreverent remarks against the Catholic Church and the traditions of the same.

“It is forbidden to all people, of whatever quality, condition, region, or province they may be, to use provocation in insulting language tending to lead to quarrels: to carry arms while at the baths aforesaid: to give the lie: to put hand to arms under pain of severe punishment as breakers of the peace, rebels and disobedient to his Highness.

[Pg 52]

“Also it is forbidden to all prostitutes and immodest women to enter the baths, or to be found within five hundred paces of the same under penalty of a whipping at the four corners of the town. And the householders who shall receive or conceal them shall incur the pain of imprisonment and arbitrary fine.

“The same penalty will fall on those who shall use any lascivious or immodest discourse to any ladies, or damsels, or other women and girls who may be visiting the baths, or touch them in a manner unbecoming, or enter or quit the baths in ribald fashion, contrary to public decency.

“And because by the boon of the baths aforenamed God and nature have afforded us cure and relief in many cases, and because decent cleanliness and purity are necessary in order to keep off the many contagions and infections which might well engender in such a place, it is expressly commanded to the governor of these baths to take the utmost care, and to inspect the persons of[Pg 53] those who frequent the same by day and by night; to make them keep decency and silence during the night, making no noise, nor scandal, nor horse-play. And if any person will not render obedience the governor shall forthwith carry the affair before the magistrate, so that an exemplary punishment may be given. Beyond this it is prohibited to all persons coming from infected places to repair to Plommieres under pain of death. It is expressly laid upon all mayors and officers of justice to have careful watch over the place; and upon all the townsfolk, to furnish us with billets containing the names, surnames, and residence of all the people they may have taken into their lodgings, under pain of imprisonment. All the ordinances above declared have been this day published in front of the great bath of Plommieres aforesaid, and copies of the same, both in French and in German, affixed to the nearest and most prominent portion of the bath, and signed by us, Balli of the Vosges: Given at Plommieres[Pg 54] the fourth day of May in the year of our Lord 15—.”

We tarried at this place from the 18th to the 27th of September. M. de Montaigne drank the water eleven days, nine glasses on eight days, and seven glasses the other three, and took five baths. He found the water easy to drink, and the effects of the same all he could wish. Appetite, digestion, and sleep were alike good, and his general health suffered no injury from these waters. On the sixth day he was seized with a colic, more violent than his ordinary attacks, and with pain on the right side, where he had never hitherto been troubled, save once in the course of a very trifling attack at Arsac. This seizure lasted four hours, and while it was on him he felt plainly the working and the movement of the stone in the urethra and the lower part of the stomach. The first two days he passed two small stones from the bladder, and gravel occasionally afterwards. When he left these baths he deemed that he had still in his bladder both the[Pg 55] stone of this attack of colic, and certain other small ones of which he had felt the downward passage. He judged the qualities of these waters, with regard to his own case, to be much the same as those of the high spring of Banieres,25 where there is a bath. He found the temperature of the bath very mild, indeed, children of six months or a year old are wont to sprawl about therein. His perspiration was copious and gentle. He directed me for the gratification of his landlady to let her have the escutcheon of his arms on wood—this being the custom of the country—which escutcheon a painter of the place did for a crown, and the hostess caused it to be hung up on the outside wall.

On the 27th of September, after dinner, we set forth and traversed a mountainous country, the soil of which resounded under our horses’ feet as if we were going over a vault, or even as if men were beating drums all around us. At the end of two leagues[Pg 56] we stopped for the night at Remiremont, a fair little town, where we found excellent lodging at the “Unicorn”: indeed, in all the towns of Lorraine, and this was the last of them, the traveller finds as convenient lodging and as excellent fare as in any part of France. At Remiremont is that famous abbey of religious women of the same rank as those of Poussai before described. They claim, as against M. de Lorrene,26 the sovereignty and ownership of this town. M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne paid them a visit very soon after their arrival, and inspected several of the sets of lodgings, all of which were very seemly and well furnished. The abbess, of the family of D’Inteville, had lately died, and they were about to elect another to the office, the sister of the Count de Salmes being a candidate. They also went to see the doyenne, a member of the house of Lutre, a lady who had done M. de Montaigne the honour of sending to greet him while he was at Plommieres, despatching also a supply of[Pg 57] artichokes and partridges, and a barrel of wine for his use. Messieurs were informed that certain neighbouring villages are bound to deliver on the day of Pentecost every year two bowls of snow; and, failing these, a cart equipped with four white oxen. It is said that they never fail to find snow for their rent, but it is certain that, when we were there, the heat was as great as is felt at any season in Gascony. The nun’s dress is a white veil, worn on the head, and a little lappel of crape over it. Their robes are black, made of any stuff and pattern they may choose, while on the premises, but otherwise they may wear colours, petticoats to their liking, and shoes and pattens; and dress their hair under the veil in ordinary fashion. Each nun must be descended from at least four noble houses on the father’s side and the mother’s as well. Messieurs took leave of the ladies at eventide. Early on the morrow we set forth, and after we had mounted, the doyenne sent a gentleman to M. de Montaigne begging him to go to her. He went,[Pg 58] and this visit cost us an hour’s delay. This society of ladies gave him procuration to deal with their affairs at Rome. After we left we followed for some distance a lovely and pleasant valley, skirting the banks of the Moselle, and reached Bossan,27 four leagues distant, in time for dinner.

This is a little ugly town, the last place where French is spoken. Here M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne, clad in garments of linen which were lent to them, went to see the silver mines which M. de Lorenne possesses in this place, situated some two thousand paces up a mountain gorge. After dinner we took a road through the mountains, where they pointed out to us, amongst other things, the nests of the goshawks perched on inaccessible rocks [the birds aforesaid being worth about three testoons], and the source of the Moselle. We arrived, after travelling four leagues, in time for supper at Tane.28

[Pg 59]

This is a handsome town, the first over the German frontier, and subject to the Emperor. The following morning we found ourselves in a fine wide plain, bounded on the left hand by slopes full of vineyards, fair and excellently cultivated, and of such extent that the Gascons who were with us declared they had never seen the like. This was the time of vintage.

We travelled two leagues farther to dinner at Melhouse,29 a fair little Swiss town of the canton of Basle. There M. de Montaigne went to visit the church, the people of this town being no longer Catholics. This he found, as elsewhere in the country, in good condition, for scarcely any change has been made, except with regard to the altars and the images, the churches themselves having suffered no defacement. He was vastly pleased to behold the liberty and order prevalent among these people; how our host of the “Grapes” returned from the council board of the town, held in a magnificent palace, over which he had presided, to do service to his guests at table; and to hear[Pg 61] how this man, without any following or office, who poured out the wine at dinner, had formerly led four troops of footmen into France under Casimir to fight against the king, and was now the king’s pensioner, having received three hundred crowns per annum for the last twenty years.30 While M. de Montaigne was sitting at table, this gentleman talked to him, without the least pretentiousness or affectation, of his condition and way of life; and how he and others found that their religion was no bar to their serving the king, even against the Huguenots. This we heard likewise from others whom we met in our travels, and also at the siege of La Fère31 more than fifty of these people served with us, and that they made no scruple of being married by a priest to[Pg 62] Catholic women, who were never required to change their religion. After dinner we set out travelling through a fine country, abundant, very fertile, and ornamented with divers pretty villages and hostelries, and arrived at Basle, three leagues’ journey, in time for bed.

Basle is a fine town, about the size of Blois, and divided into two parts, for the Rhine flows through the midst under a large wooden bridge of great width. The city authorities did the honour to M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne of sending a present of wine by one of their officers, who made a long speech to them as they sat at table. M. de Montaigne made a similar reply in the presence of certain Germans and Frenchmen, who were seated with them round the stove, the host serving as interpreter. The wines were very good. We went in separate parties to the house of a certain physician, named Felix Plater, which was painted and decorated in delicate French fashion with the utmost care. This house[Pg 63] the aforesaid physician had built for himself in very large, ample, and sumptuous style. Amongst other work he was preparing a book of simples, which was then well advanced, and it was his practice, instead of painting like other botanists the plants according to their natural colours, to glue the same upon paper with so great care and dexterity that the smallest leaves and fibres should be visible, exactly as in nature. He can turn the leaves of this book without fear of any plant falling out, and he showed us certain simples which had been fastened therein more than twenty years ago. At this house, and in the public school as well, we saw entire skeletons of men.

They have a custom in the town, but not in the suburbs, that the clocks shall strike one hour in advance of the true time, to wit, if it should strike ten, the time would be really nine. They say the reason of this custom is that in past years an attempt against the city miscarried on account of a similar fault of the town clock. It is called[Pg 64] Basilee,32 not from the Greek word, but because Base in German means passage. We saw many learned men: Grynæus,33 and the author of the Theatrum, and Platerus the physician already mentioned, and Francis Hottoman.34 The two last-named supped with M. de[Pg 65] Montaigne the day after his arrival. From answers given to certain questions he put, M. de Montaigne gathered that there was in Basle considerable religious discord, some calling themselves Zwinglians, some Calvinists, and others Martinists, while many, as he was informed, had in their hearts a hidden liking for the Roman religion. The ordinary form of administering the sacrament is to place it in the mouth, but at the same time any one, who so wishes, may reach out his hand for it, the ministers being chary of stirring up afresh the antagonisms of religion. The interiors of the churches are like those I have heretofore described. The exteriors are still garnished with images and with ancient tombs unmutilated, and inscribed with prayers for the souls of the departed. The organs, the bells, the crosses on the bell towers, and all the different images in the painted windows are whole as ever they were, as well as the benches and the seats of the choirs. The Calvinists place the baptismal font where[Pg 66] the high altar stood aforetime, and build at the head of the nave another altar to serve for their Lord’s Supper; the one at Basle being beautifully arranged. The church of the Carthusians is a very fine building, preserved and kept up most carefully; the same furniture and ornaments are still there, a circumstance which the reformers bring forward as a testimony of their good faith, seeing that they gave a promise to maintain these at the time of their agreement. The bishop of the place, who is strongly inimical to them, lives outside the city, and holds the greater part of the country people to the ancient religion. He enjoys an income of fifty thousand livres from the city, and thus the succession to the bishopric is kept up.

Certain of the people lamented to M. de Montaigne over the dissolute carriage of the women, and the prevalent drunkenness of the city. We witnessed an operation for rupture done by a surgeon on the child of a poor man, who was very roughly handled[Pg 67] by the operator, and likewise saw the very fine public library overlooking the river in a pleasant situation. We spent one more day at Basle, and on the next after dinner we took the road along the Rhine for some two leagues. Then we left it on our left hand and traversed a fertile country. In these parts springs abound, and no village or crossroads lack fair running water; in Basle indeed they number some three hundred. Balconies are so common in all houses, even in Lorraine, that in building they always leave between the windows of the chambers doorways looking over the streets, with the view of letting a balcony be built thereto at some future time. All through the country beyond Espine even the smallest cottages have glass windows, and the good houses are well fitted with the same, excellently arranged both within and without, the glass being made in various fashions. There is abundance of iron, and the workers thereof are very skilful, greatly in advance of ourselves, and furthermore the smallest church[Pg 68] will always have a magnificent clock and dial. Their work in tiles is excellent, and on this account the roofs of the houses are decorated with a medley of tiles, glazed in various colours, and the floors of their chambers are the same. Moreover it would be impossible to find more delicate work than that of their stoves, which are of pottery. They make much use of pine wood and are skilled carpenters, their casks being all carven and many of them varnished and painted. They are very lavish in stoves, that is to say, in the public dining-rooms. In all rooms of this sort, which are always well furnished, there will be five or six tables fitted with benches at which all the guests will dine together, each party at its own particular table. The smallest houses of entertainment will have three or four well-appointed rooms of this kind. They are pierced for many windows which are filled with rich glass, but on the whole it seems that the hosts concern themselves more with the dinner than with aught else,[Pg 69] for the bed-chambers are often mean enough, the beds never curtained and always placed three or four together, the rooms being without chimneys, and only heated from the general stove. Beyond this there is no sign of a fire, and they take it very ill if a stranger should go into their kitchens. There is much want of cleanliness in their bed-chambers, and he who gets a white sheet may deem himself fortunate: moreover, it is their fashion never to cover the pillow with sheeting; there is rarely any other covering than a feather quilt, which is very dirty.

They are good cooks, of fish especially. In fine weather or in storm their houses have no other protection from the weather than bare glass windows without wooden shutters. The houses are well windowed and very light, both below and in the chambers, the windows being rarely closed even at night. Their service at table differs greatly from ours. They never mix water with their wine, and they are justified in this[Pg 70] practice, for their wines are so thin that our gentlemen found them less potent than those of Gascony when diluted. They are, however, very light and delicate.

The body-servants dine either at their master’s table or at one close by, one valet being enough to attend to the high table, seeing that each gentleman has always his own goblet or silver cup beside him, wherefore the servant only needs to fill this as soon as it may be empty, without moving it. For this purpose they use a vessel of pewter or wood with a long spout. As to the meat, they serve only two or three dishes thereof, cut in slices. Unlike our fashion, they serve in the same dish divers sorts of well-dressed meats; sometimes indeed they bring to table one course with the other, using certain appliances of iron made with long legs, in which they carry one dish above and one below. Some of their tables are round and some square, but all are very wide, so that it is very difficult to place the dishes thereon. The valet, however, can easily manage dishes[Pg 71] arranged as above named, letting them follow, two by two, up to six or seven changes.

A fresh dish is never served till the foregoing one shall have been finished; and as to the plates, as soon as the service of viands has come to an end and the dessert is ready, the valet puts on the table a large wicker basket on a vessel of painted wood into which the chief person present first puts his plate; the others follow suit, the order of rank being closely observed. The valet removes this vessel without difficulty, and then serves the fruit in two dishes all mixed together like the other courses. At this stage they often serve radishes, and with your roast meat you will most likely have been offered cooked pears. Amongst other edibles they give a high place to the crayfish, and honour it by serving it in a covered dish, a tribute they pay to hardly any other viand. The whole country abounds in these fish, and they are served every day, and rated as a delicacy.

They take no care to wash on sitting down[Pg 72] or on rising from table. Most people go to a little laver, set in a corner of the room as in a monastery. In most places they use wooden plates and pots, clean and white as they can be made; but in some they set on the wooden plates others of pewter, until they serve the fruit, for which wood is always used. They serve this wooden ware only from custom, for in the same houses where it is seen they give their guests silver goblets in any quantity. They clean and polish their wooden furniture with great care and even the boards of their chambers. The beds are so high that steps are generally needed to mount the same, and nearly everywhere small beds are placed beside the large ones.

Seeing that they are such excellent smiths, nearly all their spits are made to revolve by springs, or by weights like clocks, or even by wooden fans fixed in the chimney and made to turn by the draught of the smoke and the vapour of the fire. These appliances cause the roast to revolve gently and slowly. They over-roast their meat somewhat. These[Pg 73] smoke-jacks35 are only worked in large hostelries which burn great fires, as at Baden, and they turn at a uniform and steady pace. After leaving Lorrenne we found the chimneys built in a fashion different from ours. They build up the hearths in the middle or in the corner of the kitchen, using almost the entire width of the place for the chimney flue. This is a vast opening seven or eight paces square, which becomes narrower as it rises to the top of the house. This structure gives them the chance to place in position their large wheel, which, in chimneys built like ours, would occupy so much room in the flue that the smoke would not be able to find a passage. The lightest repasts last three or four hours, because of the method of service aforesaid, and in sooth these people eat vastly more leisurely than we do, and in more healthful manner. There is everywhere abundance of provisions, of flesh and fish,[Pg 74] and every table is sumptuously spread—at least this was our experience. On Fridays no flesh is served, and report says that in these parts the people willingly abstain therefrom entirely, the practice of fasting being similar to that in France round about Paris. As a rule they give their horses more fodder than they can eat. We travelled four leagues and arrived in time for bed at Hornes.

This is a small village in the duchy of Austria. On the morrow, as it was Sunday, we went to Mass, and observed that in church the women sat on the left-hand side of the church and the men on the right, without mixing. The women have several rows of seats, set reversed, one behind the other, of a convenient height for sitting, and upon these they kneel, and not upon the ground, wherefore they seem to be upright. The men have also pieces of wood in front of them to lean upon, and they only kneel upon the chairs which are in front of them. Instead of joining the hands as we do at the elevation, they stretch them out[Pg 75] apart, and open and keep them thus raised until the priest exhibits the pyx. They assigned to M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne the third bench on the men’s side, while those of less worship in our company were afterwards given seats amongst the lesser folk; and the same on the women’s side. It seemed to us that the front rows were not held in the highest honour. The interpreter and guide whom we engaged at Basle, a sworn messenger of the city, went to the Mass with us, and showed by his carriage that he had come there with great longing and devout feeling. After dinner we crossed the river Arat36 to Broug, a fair little town belonging to the seigniory of Berne, and beyond that we went to see an abbey which Queen Catherine of Hungary gave to the lords of Berne in 1524,37 where are buried Leopold, Archduke[Pg 76] of Austria, and a great number of gentlemen who were overthrown by the Swiss in 1386. Their arms and names are there inscribed, and their remains kept with great care. M. de Montaigne held converse with the Bernese gentleman in charge of the place, who ordered that everything should be shown to him. In this abbey slices of bread and soup are always ready at hand for any wayfarer who may demand the same, and no refusal has ever been made by the heads of the abbey. From this place we crossed by a boat, which is attached by an iron pulley to a rope stretched high above the Reix,38 a river flowing out of the Lake of Lucerne, and arrived, after a journey of four leagues, at Baden, a little town with a suburb adjoining, where there are baths.

Baden is a Catholic town, under protection of the eight39 Swiss cantons, in which divers great gatherings of princes have taken place. We did not lodge in the town but in the suburb, which lies at the foot of the mountain on the bank of the Limmat, a stream, or rather torrent, which flows out of the Lake of Zürich. There are two or three uncovered public baths, which are frequented only by poor folk. Of the other kind there are great number within the houses, divided into small private rooms, both closed and open, which are let with the lodgings, and are as dainty and well fitted as possible, hot water being drawn from the water-courses for each bath. The lodgment is magnificent. In the house where we stayed three hundred mouths had to be fed every day; and, while we were there, beds were made for a hundred-and-seventy sojourners. It possessed seventeen stoves and eleven kitchens, and in the house adjoining were fifty furnished chambers,[Pg 78] the walls of all the rooms being hung with the coats-of-arms of the gentry who had lodged therein. The town, perched high on the crest of a hill, is small and very fair, like almost all the towns of this country. Moreover, they build their streets wider and more open than ours, and their market-places more ample, and there is a wealth of richly-glazed windows everywhere. They paint almost all the houses outside with various devices, and the towns consequently are very pleasant to look upon. Again, there is scarcely a town without running water in the streets, and at every cross-street will be found a handsome fountain, built either in stone or in wood, and on this account their towns are much fairer to view than those of France. The water of the baths gives out an odour of sulphur like those of Aigues-Caudes40 and certain others. The heat is tempered as at Barbotan41 or Aigues-Caudes, and for this reason the baths are very soft and pleasant.

[Pg 79]

Ladies who are fain to take their bath with daintiness and decency can repair to Baden with confidence, for they will be alone in the bath, which is like an elegant cabinet, light, with glazed windows, painted panelling, and clean flooring. Everywhere are chairs and small tables for reading or gaming while in the bath. The bather may empty and fill the bath as often as he likes, and will find a chamber adjoining. There are fine walks along the river, besides artificial ones under galleries. These baths are placed in a valley commanded by the slopes of high mountains, which nevertheless are fertile and well cultivated. The water when drunk tastes rather flat and soft, like water heated up, and there is a smell of sulphur about it, and a certain prickling flavour of salt. Amongst the people of the place it is chiefly used in the bath, in which they subject themselves also to cupping and bleeding, so that I have at times seen the water in the two public baths the colour of blood. Those who drink it by habit take a glass or two at[Pg 80] the most. The guests as a rule stay six or seven weeks, and some or other frequent the baths all through the summer. No country sends so many visitors as Germany, from whence come great crowds.

The practice of bathing here is of high antiquity and is remarked by Tacitus,42 who searched to the utmost to find the chief spring, but could get no knowledge thereof; but apparently the springs rise from a great depth below the level even of the river. The water is less clear than that of the other springs we have seen, and when drawn from the spring it shows certain minute fibres. Moreover, it contains no sparkling bubbles like other sulphurous waters when the glass[Pg 81] is filled; like those of Spa, for instance, of which M. de Maldonat told us. M. de Montaigne took some of it on the Monday morning after we arrived, seven small glasses, and on the next day five large glasses, amounting to ten of the aforesaid. On this same day, Tuesday, at nine in the morning, while the others were at table, he took a bath and fell into a heavy sweat in bed afterwards, having stayed in the bath only half-an-hour. The people of the country, who stay all day in the bath playing and drinking, stand only up to the middle in water, but M. de Montaigne lay full length and was covered to the neck.43

On this day departed from the baths a certain Swiss gentleman, an excellent servant of our State, who all the day before had held converse with M. de Montaigne concerning Swiss affairs, and had shown him a letter[Pg 82] which the French ambassador, son of our President du Harlay, had written from Souleure, where he was staying, committing to him the king’s interests while he himself should be absent. The ambassador had been summoned by the queen to meet her at Lyons, in order to devise some plan of checkmating the schemes of Spain and the late Duke of Savoy. The duke shortly before his death had allied himself with certain of the cantons, an alliance which our king had resisted, alleging that the cantons, being already pledged to him, could incur no fresh obligations without his leave. Some of the cantons, when this was pointed out to them by the Swiss gentleman aforesaid, drew back from the alliance. Indeed, all through this country they showed great respect and friendship to our king’s name and the utmost civility to ourselves. The Swiss gentleman had a train of four horses. His son, who is also in the king’s service, on one, a valet on another, his daughter, a tall, handsome girl, on another, with a horsecloth[Pg 83] and footboard in French fashion, a trunk on the crupper, and a bonnet box on the saddle-bow, without any waiting-maid, though they were two long days’ journey from their abode, which is in a town where the gentleman aforesaid was the governor. He himself rode the remaining horse.

The common dress of the women does not seem to me so becoming as that usually worn in France, nor the headgear either. This is a bonnet, à la cognard, turned up before and behind, and having in front a slight peak enriched with stripes of silk and fur trimmings. The hair hangs down behind in a braid. If you should jestingly take off this bonnet—for it is lightly attached as with us—they will show no offence, and you will see the head quite uncovered. The younger women wear simple garlands in lieu of a bonnet. There is little difference of attire to make the distinction of classes, and the habit is to salute by kissing the hand, and by offering to touch the lady’s. Otherwise, if in passing you give a greeting and bow[Pg 84] they will generally make no sign of acknowledgment, according to ancient usage, but some will bow the head slightly by way of returning the salutation. They are for the most part well-favoured women, tall, and fair.

As a nation they have an excellent disposition, even towards those who [do not]44 agree with them. M. de Montaigne, in order to make full trial of diverse manners and customs of the countries he visited, always conformed to local usage, however greatly such a usage may have irked him. Nevertheless, in Switzerland he said that he suffered no inconvenience except that he had at table, by way of napkin, only a piece of linen half a foot long: moreover, the Swiss themselves only unfold this napkin at dinner when many sauces and divers sorts of soup are served; but, on the other hand, they always provide as many wooden[Pg 85] spoons with silver handles as there are guests. And a Swiss will always be provided with a knife with which he will eat everything, and never put his fingers in his plate.

In almost all the towns the proper arms of the place are displayed, and above them those of the Emperor and of the house of Austria, but the greater part of the towns have been detached from the archduke aforesaid by ill policy. They say that all members of the Austrian house, except the Catholic king, have been brought to great poverty, even the Emperor,45 who is held very lightly in Germany. On the Wednesday the host bought a large quantity of fish, and being asked by M. de Montaigne the reason why, he replied that the greater part of the people of Baden ate fish on Wednesdays on religious grounds, a remark which confirmed what he had before heard on this subject: to wit, that those who have remained Catholics are confirmed in their faith by the fact that they have to reckon on an opposition. The host[Pg 86] added, when division and religious strife shows itself in a particular town, and infects the governing body, the bond of good feeling is loosened, and the effect of this admixture is felt in individual families, as has been manifested in Augsburg and in the imperial cities. But when a town has one central government—and every Swiss town has its separate laws and administration, is dependent on its neighbours for the preservation of order, and keeps up alliance and union only for purposes affecting the whole community—those towns which possess special civic rights, with a separate civil government complete in all parts, find therein a support for their strengthening and upholding. Towns in this case undoubtedly become stronger, closing their ranks and recruiting their forces through the contagious shock of conflicts near at hand.

Their custom of warming the houses by stoves pleased us greatly, and none of our company complained thereof; for, after you have taken in a breath or two of the air[Pg 87] which indeed may seem strange on entering a room, you are sensible only of a soft and regular heat. M. de Montaigne, who slept in a room with a stove, was loud in its praises, saying that all night he felt a pleasant moderate warmth. In warming yourself you burn neither your face nor your boots, and are free from the smoke of a French fireplace. At home we put on our warm furred dressing-gowns when we enter our apartments, but here people appear in doublet and bareheaded in the warm rooms, and put on thick garments before going into the air. On the Thursday M. de Montaigne drank the same quantity of water, which acted well and rid him of a small amount of gravel. Still, he found these waters more powerful than any others which he had ever tried—whether from the strength of the water itself or from the present habit of his body—and accordingly he drank them more sparingly.

On this same Thursday he held discourse with a minister from Zürich, a native of that[Pg 88] city, and heard from him that the religion there was formerly Zwinglian, but that now it had come nearer to Calvinism, a somewhat milder creed. Being questioned as to predestination, he replied that they kept the mean between Geneva and Augsburg, but that their people were free to debate this question. For his own part he inclined rather to the side of Zwingli, praising him highly as one who came the nearest to primitive Christianity.

On Friday, October 7th, at seven in the morning, after breakfast, we quitted Baden; and, before we set out, M. de Montaigne drank the same quantity of the water as he had taken on five previous occasions. With regard to the operation of the same, concerning which he was more sanguine than he was in the case of any other bath he had visited (both as to the bathing and the drinking), he was free in his praise of these baths beyond all the rest, not only because the place itself, and the baths and the private apartments, are comfortably and conveniently[Pg 89] managed, but also because, in all apartments, visitors are always able to go to their own rooms without passing through the rooms of other people. Moreover, persons of small means may find quarters to suit them quite as easily as those who are rich. Bathrooms, kitchens, cabinets, and chapels may be hired for a large retinue, and at the house adjacent to our own, the Cour de la Ville—ours being the Cour de derrière—there are public apartments belonging to the cantonal authorities, and occupied by lodgers. This same house has several chimneys built in French fashion, and there are stoves in all the chief apartments. The demand for payment from strangers is a little arbitrary, as in all countries and notably in our own. Four furnished chambers, with nine beds in all, two of which had stoves and one bath besides, cost us a crown a day for the masters, and for the servants four batzen:46 that is to say, a little more than nine sous apiece; the horses cost six batzen, about four sous, but in addition[Pg 90] to this they added certain nonsensical charges which were not customary. A guard is kept in the town and even in the bath quarter, which is nothing but a village, and every night two sentinels make the round of the houses, not so much to keep off the foe, as for fear of fire or other disturbance. When the hour strikes one of them is bound to cry out at the top of his voice to the other, and ask what is the hour, whereupon the other in like manner tells him the hour, and adds that he is keeping good watch. The women do their washing in the open in the public place, bringing out their little wooden tubs to the river side where they heat water and do their work excellently; they also clean the earthenware far better than do our French women in the inns. Here each chambermaid and each valet has a special charge.

One disadvantage of travel is that with ever so great diligence it is impossible for a stranger to ascertain from the people of the country whom he may meet—I speak of the cultivated folk as well as the vulgar—what[Pg 91] objects of interest may be worthy of a visit, and to make them understand what he may ask. I write thus because, after we had spent five days at Baden, and had inquired curiously concerning everything there which might be worth seeing, we were told naught about a certain object of interest which we saw by chance afterwards as we were leaving the town. This was a stone, about the height of a man, apparently a portion of some column, without adornment or workmanship, placed at the angle of a house, and easily visible to any passer-by on the high-road. There was a Latin inscription, which I was not able to decipher fully, but it seemed to be a simple dedication to the Emperors Nerva and Trajan. We crossed the Rhine at Kaiserstuhl, a Catholic town and allied to the Swiss, and onward thence we traversed a fine flat country until we came to some rapids where the river is broken up by rocks, which they call cataracts, like those of the Nile. And below Schaffhausen there is in the Rhine a gulf full[Pg 92] of vast rocks where it becomes rapid, and farther down, amongst the same rocks, it comes to a fall of two pikes’ length, where it makes a mighty leap, foaming and roaring marvellously. This fall stops the boats, and interrupts the navigation of the river. We travelled four leagues at a stretch, and came in time for supper to Schaffhausen.

This town, the capital of a Swiss canton, has the same form of religion as Zürich. On our departure from Baden we left on our right hand Zürich, whither M. de Montaigne had determined to journey, the town being not more than two leagues distant. But word was brought to him of an outbreak of plague there. At Schaffhausen he saw naught which interested him. The citizens were erecting a citadel which promised to be a good work; and they have, moreover, a butt for crossbow practice, and a place for this exercise, as fine and large and shady and well provided with seats and galleries and rooms as man could desire. There is also a similar place for shooting with the arquebus,[Pg 93] and water-mills for the sawing of wood, like those we have seen elsewhere, and others for the scutching of flax and the shelling of millet. Likewise a tree of the sort we saw at Baden and elsewhere, but not so large. Out of the lowest branches they contrive to make the floor of a sort of circular gallery, twenty paces or so in diameter. They next braid these branches together in an upward direction so as to form the side of the gallery aforesaid, and likewise let them grow upwards as high as possible. They afterwards clip the tree, and prevent the growth of any branch from the trunk, so far as it passes through the gallery, which is for the space of ten feet. They take the upper branches of the tree, and these they lay down upon supports of willow in order to form a roof to the little chamber. Then branches are plaited from below, and at last joined to those which grow upward from the contrary direction: thus the whole space is filled with green growth. Then they clip the tree as high as the top branches,[Pg 94] which they allow to grow naturally. The tree brought into this form is a very beautiful object. In addition they have made spring up at its feet a fountain of water which mounts up as high as the floor of the gallery already mentioned.

M. de Montaigne paid a visit to the burgomasters of the town, who afterwards, to show him courtesy, came with certain other public officers to sup at our apartments, when they brought a present of wine for him and M. d’Estissac, and certain speeches were made on both sides. The chief burgomaster was a man of good family who had been brought up as a page in the house of M. d’Orléans,47 and had now quite forgotten French. This canton professed to be well affected towards our interests, and had given proof of this disposition by a refusal to join the league of the other cantons, which the late Duke of Savoy had tried to bring about, and of which mention has been[Pg 95] made already. On Saturday, October 8th, we set forth at eight in the morning, after breakfast, from Schaffhausen, where we had found excellent lodgment at the “Crown.” One of the most learned men of the place had a conversation with M. de Montaigne, and told him, amongst other matters, that in truth the people of the town were not over well disposed to our Court, forasmuch as whenever he had listened to discourse concerning an alliance with our king, the majority of the people were always disposed to break it, but that by the intervention of certain rich citizens the opposite policy had hitherto been adopted. As we left the town we saw an engine made of iron, like certain others we had seen elsewhere, by the help of which carts could be loaded with heavy stones without the aid of human muscles. We passed along beside the Rhine, leaving it on our right hand, as far as Stein, a small town, the ally of the cantons, and of the same religion as Schaffhausen. Also on the road we observed many stone crosses. Here[Pg 96] we again crossed the Rhine by a wooden bridge and, still keeping beside the river on the left, we passed by another small town allied to the Catholic cantons. Here the Rhine spreads out to a vast width, equal to that of the Garonne at Blaye, and then narrows itself till the approach to Constance, a distance of four leagues.

We arrived at Constance at four o’clock. This town, which is about the size of Châlons, belongs to the Archduke of Austria, and holds to the Catholic religion, though up to thirty years ago it was in the hands of the Lutherans, whom the Emperor Charles V. drove out by force. The churches still show signs of images, and the bishop is a gentleman of the country, who lives at Rome, and as a cardinal draws from this benefice an income of forty thousand crowns. There are canonries, too, of the church of Notre Dame, which are worth fifteen hundred crowns, and are held by men of gentle family. We saw one of these on horseback coming in from the country, attired gallantly like a gentleman-of-arms; and report says that in the[Pg 98] town are many Lutherans. We ascended the clock tower, which is very high, and there found a man as fixed sentinel, who is shut therein and not suffered to quit his post, whatever may call him thence. They were constructing beside the Rhine a large covered building, fifty feet long and forty wide, or thereabouts, and fixing therein twelve or fifteen great wheels, by means of which they propose to raise continuously a large quantity of water up to a wooden tower, one storey higher, where will be an equal number of iron wheels (the lower ones are of wood), which will raise the water from the first floor to the one above. The water, having been lifted to the height of some fifty feet, will discharge itself by a large artificial channel and flow down into the town, and set several mills to work. The artisan who has the direction of this building had for his labour alone five thousand seven hundred florins, and wine to boot. In the deep water they were fixing a strong wooden erection all around to break the current; so that,[Pg 99] when the force of the water should be moderated, they might be able to draw it upwards more easily. There was also an arrangement of machinery by which the whole system of wheelwork can be raised or lowered according to the level of the water.

At this point the stream is not called the Rhine, for by the upper part of the city it spreads out into a lake full four German leagues in width and five or six in length. There is a fine terrace overlooking this lake where merchandise is stored, and about fifty paces from the shore stands a finely-built lodge, where a sentinel is always on duty. A chain is here prepared, by which the way of access to the bridge may be closed, and high palisades are set, which enclose on both sides that part of the lake in which boats lie and take in cargo. Near the church of Notre Dame there is a conduit by which water from the Rhine higher up finds its way to the suburbs of the town.

We perceived that we were leaving behind us the country of the Swiss, for the reason[Pg 100] that, shortly before we came to the entrance to the town, we saw several noblemen’s dwellings, such as are seldom or never seen in Switzerland; and as to the private houses, both in town and country, we found them beyond all comparison better than in France, and they seem to lack nothing except slate roofs. To speak more particularly of the hostelries, they might perhaps provide a somewhat better style of entertainment; moreover, with regard to certain deficiencies which we found in the service, these could not have been the result of poverty. What we had seen of their way of life in other respects forbade us to believe this, seeing that it is hard to name a place where they do not drink from fine silver cups, gilded and chased; wherefore, what seemed to us strange, was simply local custom. The country is very rich, especially in wine. To return to the town of Constance, we were badly lodged at the “Eagle,” and we got from our host a sample of the barbaric German arrogance and independence over the quarrel[Pg 101] of one of our serving-men with our guide from Basle. And when the question came before the judges to whom the guide made an appeal, it chanced that M. de Montaigne asked the provost of the place, an Italian gentleman, married and settled there for a long time with full right of citizenship, whether the servants he had with him could give evidence on our behalf. The provost answered that they could, provided M. de Montaigne should have discharged them from his service. He might, of course, re-engage them immediately afterwards; a reply which seemed full of subtlety.

On the following day, Sunday, on account of this tumult, we only tarried until after dinner, and then changed our quarters to the “Pike,” where we fared excellently. The son of the captain of the town, who was brought up as a page in the household of M. de Meru,48 was always in attendance upon[Pg 102] Messieurs at table and elsewhere. He did not know a word of French. The service at table is very often varied. They gave us here, and subsequently in other places, after the cloth was removed, other courses with our wine. The first what the Gascons call canaules, then spiced bread, and lastly white bread cut into slices, but still holding together. In the cuttings they put plenty of spices and salt, as also in the crust of the bread. There are many lepers in this country, the highways being full of them. The villagers give their workmen for mid-day meal large flat loaves,49 made with fennel, and spread upon these a mess of bacon, cut very small and mixed with cloves of garlic. The Germans, when they would do honour to a man, always place themselves on his left side, whatever seat he may occupy, and maintain that to sit on his right hand is to put an insult on him, saying that to show true deference to a man it is necessary to leave[Pg 103] his right side free, so that he may easily put his hand to his arms. After dinner on the Sunday we quitted Constance, and after crossing the lake at a point about a league from the town, we reached Smardorff in time for bed, after travelling two leagues.

Smardorff50 is a small Catholic town. We had lodging at the “Standard of Cologne,” a post-house which is kept here for the Emperor’s route into Italy. There, as in other places, they fill the mattresses with the leaves of a certain tree, which serves the purpose better than straw and lasts longer. The town is surrounded by a wide plain of vineyard which produces excellent wine. On Monday, the 10th October, we started after breakfast; for M. de Montaigne was persuaded by the beauty of the day to change the plan he had made of going to Ravensburg, and make a day’s journey to Lindau instead. M. de Montaigne never took breakfast, but caused to be brought to him a piece of dry bread which he would eat during[Pg 104] the journey, adding thereto occasionally such grapes as he could get on the road, the vintage being still in course of gathering in this region even up to the outskirts of Lindau. Their practice is to train the vines up on trellises, and they leave therein divers verdurous alleys which are delightful to the view. We passed through Sonchem,51 an imperial Catholic town on the bank of the Lake of Constance, to which all the wares of Ulm and Nuremburg and divers other places are brought in waggons, thence to be conveyed through the lake to the Rhine route. After travelling three leagues we arrived about three in the afternoon at Linde.52

The little town is situated some hundred paces out into the lake, which distance is traversed over a stone bridge. There is no other entrance, all the rest of the town being surrounded by the lake, which is at least a[Pg 105] league in width, and on the other side rise the mountains of the Grisons. The lake and all the streams are low in winter and full in summer on account of the melting of the snow. All through these parts the women cover their heads with bonnets of fur like our skull-caps, each costing about three testoons;53 the outside being trimmed with some seemly grey fur, and the inside with lambs’-wool. The opening which in our caps is in front is in theirs behind, and through it may be seen their hair tucked up. Their favourite foot-gear is boots, and these are either red or white, each sort suiting the wearer not amiss. Both religions are followed. We went to see the Catholic cathedral, built in 866, where all things are as they have always been, and we saw also the church served by the Lutheran ministers. All the imperial towns have liberty in the matter of the two religions, Catholic and Lutheran, according to the leanings of the people,[Pg 106] and they devote themselves more or less to that form which they prefer. At Lindau, from what the priest told M. de Montaigne, there are not more than two or three Catholics. The priests do not fail to draw their incomes and to perform the service, and the nuns who are there do the same. M. de Montaigne had some talk also with the minister, from whom he got but little information, except to learn that the common hatred against Zwingle and Calvin was prevalent here likewise. It seems clear that almost every separate place holds for its belief some particular view; and, under the authority of Martin, whom they hail as their head, they set up divers disputes on the interpretation of the meaning of Martin’s works.

We lodged at the “Crown,” a good house. Near the stone on the panelled wall there was a sort of wooden cage for the keeping of a vast number of birds. It was fitted with hanging perches made of copper wire, which gave room for the birds to shift from one end to the other. The furniture and woodwork[Pg 107] of their houses is generally made of pine, the most common forest tree, but they paint and varnish and polish it carefully, and even use hair brushes for the furbishing of their chairs and tables. They have great abundance of cabbages, which they shred with a tool made for the purpose, and then salt the same in vessels for making soup in the winter. At this place M. de Montaigne made trial of the feather coverlets, such as they use in bed, and was full of praise thereof, finding them light and warm at the same time. It was a saying of his that people of fastidious taste had more occasion to complain when travelling of their bed furniture than of aught else, and he commended those who carried a mattress or curtains amongst the baggage when visiting strange countries.

As to fare at table, they have such vast abundance of provisions, and vary the service so widely in the matter of soups, sauces, and salads, that nothing in our own way of living can be found to equal it. They gave us soups[Pg 108] made of quince, of apples cooked and cut into strips, and cabbage salad. They make pottage of all sorts, one of rice which they eat in common, having no separate service of this dish, an excellently flavoured one. The kitchens are incomparably superior to those of our great houses, and the sitting-rooms are better furnished than with us.

They have abundance of excellent fish, which is served at the table with the meat. Of trout they only eat the liver, and they have also great plenty of game, hares, and woodcocks, which they dress in a fashion differing from our own, but a good one all the same; indeed I have never met with meat so tender as that which was commonly set before us. They serve with the meat cooked plums and slices of apples and pears, sometimes putting the roast first and the soup last, and sometimes reversing this order. As to their fruits, they have only pears and apples, which are both good, and nuts and cheese. During the meat course they hand round a utensil, made either of silver or tin,[Pg 109] having four compartments filled with divers sorts of spices. They also use cummin, or some similar grain with a hot stinging savour, as an admixture to their bread; this bread being made for the most part with fennel added thereto. After the meal they replace the glasses filled full on the table, and offer two or three sorts of eatables which serve to provoke thirst.

While he was travelling M. de Montaigne noted with regret three steps which he had neglected to take with regard to his journey. One was that he had not taken with him a cook, who might have learnt the particular methods of foreign lands, and some day at home have shown proof of his skill. The next was that he had not engaged a German valet, or joined himself to some gentleman of the country, for he felt it very irksome to be always at the mercy of a blockhead of a guide; and the last was that, before setting out, he had neither consulted those books which might have pointed out to him what rare and remarkable[Pg 110] sights were to be seen in every place, nor included in his baggage a copy of Münster54 or some similar book. In sooth there was mixed up with his judgments a certain asperity and want of regard for his own country, against which for other reasons he harboured dislike and discontent:55 certain it is that he preferred the accommodation of these lands, without comparison, to those of France, and conformed to them so far as to drink his wine without water. In drinking he never took wine for its own sake, but simply out of courtesy. Travel is more costly in High Germany than in France: for at our reckoning a man with a horse will lay out at least one crown of the sun56 per diem. In the first place the[Pg 111] innkeepers here charge for food at table d’hôte four, five, or six batzen. They make a separate item of everything, even the smallest refreshment that is taken before or after the two regular meals, wherefore the Germans as a rule quit their lodgings in the morning without drinking aught. Any additional service after the principal meals, and the wine consumed therewith—which is for them the chief expense—they reckon together. In sooth, when we consider the plentiful fare put on the table, and this especially applies to wine, even where it is exceedingly dear and brought from afar, I find the prices charged to be quite justified. They themselves have a way of urging the servants of their guests to drink, and make them keep at table two or three hours. The wine is served from large jugs, and it is reckoned a breach of good manners to let a cup be empty and not replenish it forthwith. They will never give water even to those who ask for it, except these should be persons of great worship. They add to the bill the oats eaten[Pg 112] by the horses, and lastly the charge for the stable, which includes also the hay. A good point about them is that they ask at once what they mean to accept, and one gains naught by bargaining. They are boastful, quick-tempered, and drunken, but they are neither deceitful nor robbers, according to M. de Montaigne’s opinion. We departed after breakfast and made a journey of two leagues, and arrived at Vanguen57 at two in the afternoon.

Here a mishap befell our baggage mule, which injured itself, and compelled us in consequence to halt and to hire a cart for the next day at three crowns per diem, the driver, who had four horses, keeping himself in victual for this sum. Vanguen is a small imperial town which has always refused to harbour a congregation of any form of religion other than the Catholic. They make here scythes so famous that they are sent for sale as far as Lorrenne. M. de Montaigne left it on the morrow, to wit, on[Pg 113] the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, and set out for Trent by the shortest route. We halted to dine at Isne,58 two leagues on our road, a small imperial town very pleasantly situated; and M. de Montaigne, according to his wont, went straightway to call upon a doctor of theology for the sake of discourse, and this doctor he brought in to dine with us. He found that all the people were Lutherans, and he went to visit the Lutheran church which, as with all the churches they occupy in the imperial cities, had been taken from the Catholic. While they were holding divers arguments concerning the Sacrament, M. de Montaigne bethought him how, during the journey, certain Calvinists had informed him that the Lutherans now intermix with the original tenets of Martin divers new errors, such as the “Ubi-quis me,” and maintain that the body of Christ is everywhere as well as in the Host; wherefore they fall into the same difficulty as do the Zwinglians, though by a[Pg 114] different road, the one by limiting too much the bodily presence, and the other by a too lavish application of the words (for by their reasoning the Sacrament would be no privilege to the body of the Church or to those two or three just men gathered together). Moreover, the principal Lutheran arguments were that the divinity was inseparable from the body, wherefore the divinity being omnipresent the body must be omnipresent also. They declare, in the second place, that Jesus Christ, being bound to be always at the right hand of His Father, is omnipresent, seeing that the right hand of God, to wit, His power, is in all places. The doctor aforesaid gave strong denial to this imputation, and set up a defence against the same as against a calumny; but, indeed, M. de Montaigne gathered the impression that his defence was somewhat weak.

This doctor went afterwards in company with M. de Montaigne to visit a grand and sumptuous monastery, where Mass was being said, and he entered and bided there[Pg 115] without removing his headgear until M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne had finished their prayers. They next went to view in a cellar of the abbey a long cylinder-shaped fragment of stone,59 which apparently had once formed part of a column. On it, written in easily legible Latin letters, was an inscription telling how the Emperors Pertinax and Antonius Verus had repaired all the roads and bridges for a distance of eleven thousand paces around Campidonium, that is to say, Kempten, whither we were bound for the night. This stone might have been set up to record some later repair[Pg 116] of the road, for report says that this village of Isny is of no great antiquity. In any case, having inspected all the roads about Kempten, we could find no repairs worthy of such artificers, and there was not a single bridge. We certainly remarked that a way had been cut through some of the hills, but this work was not of prime importance.

Kempten, three leagues farther on, is a town as big as St. Foy, handsome, populous, and abounding in good lodgings. We stayed at the “Bear,” an excellent house. At our meals they brought in great silver vessels of various kinds (these in sooth were intended to serve merely as ornaments, being richly worked and covered with the arms of divers gentlemen), the sort of plate which is only to be seen in houses of high quality. Here it was that we were brought to see the truth of an observation which M. de Montaigne had made elsewhere, to wit, that if foreigners ignore certain usages favoured by ourselves, it is because they hold these usages in slight esteem. For[Pg 117] instance, these people, though they possess vast store of pewter utensils as well scoured as those at Montaigne, will only make use of wooden platters, which indeed are both well made and well kept. In all these countries they put cushions on the seats in the evening, and nearly all the panelled ceilings of the apartments are vaulted half-moon fashion, which gives them a very graceful appearance. As to the linen, concerning which we had previously made certain complaints, we had no occasion to be dissatisfied; indeed, as far as my master was concerned,60 I never failed to procure enough of the same wherewith to fashion a pair of curtains for his bed, and whenever he happened to want an extra towel it was always given to him. In this town lives a certain merchant who carries on a traffic of a hundred thousand florins annually in linen. M. de Montaigne, on leaving Constance,[Pg 118] would fain have visited that canton of Switzerland61 which supplies linen for the whole of Christendom, if there had not been four or five hours needed for crossing the lake and back to Lindau. This town (Kempten) is Lutheran, and here, as at Isne, the strange custom obtains that the Catholic church is most sumptuously served, notwithstanding the lack of worshippers. On the morrow, Thursday, a working day, the Mass was said at the abbey outside the town, as it is given in Notre Dame, at Paris, on Easter Day, with organ music, though none were present but priests. Those who dwell outside the imperial towns are not free to change their religion, and many in this case attend the service aforesaid on feast days. This is a very magnificent abbey.62 The abbot holds the same as a prince, and receives therefrom an income[Pg 119] of fifty thousand florins yearly, the present abbot being of the house of Estain. All the brethren are of gentle birth. The abbey was founded in 783 by Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, who is buried there and honoured as a saint; and her bones have been disinterred from the vault in which they were laid to be placed elsewhere in a shrine.

On the same Thursday morning M. de Montaigne went to the Lutheran church, which was similar to others of the same sect and of the Huguenots, except that close by the altar, which is at the head of the nave, there are several wooden benches, with stools below, so that those who receive the supper may kneel, as is their custom. M. de Montaigne found there two ministers, elderly men, of whom one preached in German to a scanty congregation. When he[Pg 120] had finished they sang a psalm in German, to music differing somewhat from what we use. After each verse the fine organ, which had recently been erected, made a response in music, and whenever the preacher named the name of Christ he and all his hearers uncovered themselves. The sermon being finished, the other minister placed himself in front of the altar with his face towards the people, holding in his hand a book. A young woman with bare head and loosened hair approached him, and, after saluting him in the way these people use, remained standing before him. Soon afterwards a young man, an artisan with a sword by his side, presented himself, and stood beside the young woman. The minister spoke a few words into the ear of each, directed them both to repeat a paternoster, and then began to read from his book. There were certain ceremonies to be undergone by those seeking marriage, and next the minister made them take each other by the hand without kissing. When[Pg 121] this ceremony was finished the minister went his way, and M. de Montaigne caught him up, and they held a long discourse together after he had taken M. de Montaigne to his house, which was seemly and well appointed. His name was Johannes Tillianus, a native of Augsburg. M. de Montaigne asked concerning a new Confession, lately formulated by the Lutherans to which all the doctors and princes who supported it have put their names; this however, is not written in Latin. When they were leaving the church a company with violins and tambourines came to meet the newly-married pair and escorted them home. On being asked if they permitted dancing, the minister exclaimed, “And why not!” and again to the question: Why had they let Jesus Christ be represented in the windows of the church, and upon the organs newly built? and why had they set up divers images? he replied that they did not condemn the use of images as warnings and examples, but only as objects[Pg 122] of worship. Again, when he was asked why they had removed from the churches the ancient images, he answered that it was not they who had done this, but their worthy disciples the Zwinglians, who had occupied the churches in the first instance, and, being stirred up by a spiteful humour, had done this outrage and divers others to boot. The same explanation was given to M. de Montaigne by other members of this confession during his travels, the doctor at Isne to wit, who, when he was asked whether he hated the figure and effigy of the Cross, cried out straightway: “How can I be such an atheist as to hate this figure so full of joy and glory to all Christians! Opinions like these are of the devil.” And as they sat at ease at table all declared the same: that they would rather hear a hundred masses than take part in the Calvinist supper. At this place they served us white hares at table. The town is on the river Isler,63 and, after taking[Pg 123] our dinner there on the Thursday aforesaid, we travelled four leagues over a rocky, sterile road to Frienten,64 a small village, Catholic like all the rest of this country, which is under the Archduke of Austria.

When treating of Linde, I forgot to say that at the entrance of the town there is a large wall bearing signs of great antiquity, and having naught written thereon that I see. I heard that its name in German signified “the old wall.”

On this Friday morning, though our lodging was a very mean one, we did not fail to find plentiful provision. It is the habit of these people to warm neither their sheets before going to bed nor their clothes before getting up, and they take it ill if any one should have a fire lighted in the kitchen for this service, or even make use of such fire as may be burning. This was one of the chief causes of wrangling we encountered in the houses where we lodged; indeed, even in the depths of the mountains and forests,[Pg 124] where ten thousand feet of pinewood could be bought for less than fifty sous, they were just as ill disposed to let us make a fire as elsewhere. On the Friday morning we departed, and followed the more easy road to the left, instead of taking the mountain path which leads direct to Trent, M. de Montaigne being minded to make a détour of several days in order to visit certain fine cities of Germany; and annoyed that, when at Vanguen, he had altered his plan which he had first made of going direct to Germany, and had taken another route. On our road we saw, as in divers other places, certain water-mills which have water brought to them simply by wooden troughs, which take in the water at the foot of some mountain, and then, being raised and propped high above the ground, discharge the stream down a very steep incline from the end of the last trough. After going a league on the road, we stopped to dine at Frissen.65

This is a small Catholic town, belonging[Pg 125] to the bishop of Augsburg. We found there numerous members of the train of the Archduke of Austria, who was paying a visit to the Duke of Bavaria in a castle hard by.66 It was decided to leave there on the banks of the Lech our heavy baggage, and that I and certain others should take them on to Augsburg on a raft, as they term the trunks of trees bound together, which they break up when in harbour. There is an abbey in which they showed to Messieurs a chalice and a stole which they hold to be relics. These belonged to a saint named Magnus,67 who was, as they declare, the son of a king of Scotland, and a disciple of Columbanus. Pepin founded this monastery for the benefit of this Magnus, whom he made the first abbot. He likewise caused to be written there on the roof of the nave this inscription, and below the same notes of music to which it might be sung: “Comperta virtute beati Magni fama, Pipinus Princeps locum quem Sanctus incoluit[Pg 126] regia largitate donavit.” Charlemagne subsequently enriched the place still further, as an inscription in the monastery records. After dinner we all met at Chonguen68 at bedtime, after a journey of four leagues.

Chonguen is a small town under the Duke of Bavaria, and consequently entirely Catholic; for this prince, beyond any other in Germany, has kept his jurisdiction free from all touch of religious innovation, and is stiffly set in his views. There is excellent lodging at the “Star,” where we found a new fashion at table. On a square board they arrange the salt-cellars from one corner to another, the candlesticks being set between the two other corners, thus forming a Saint Andrew’s cross. They never serve eggs, or at least only when boiled hard and cut in quarters in the salads, which are of the best, the vegetables being quite fresh. The wine is drunk new, as a rule, immediately after it is made. They thresh out the corn in the barns as they may want it, using in this work[Pg 127] the heavy end of a flail. On the Saturday we journeyed four leagues and dined at Lanspergs,69 a small town belonging also to the Duke of Bavaria aforesaid, and situated on the banks of the Lech, the town, the suburbs, and the castle alike exhibiting a remarkably fine aspect. We arrived there on a market day, when the place was crowded with people, and remarked in the middle of a very large square a fountain which sent up water through a hundred pipes to the height of a pike shaft, and scattered the jets in elaborate fashion, according to the manipulation of the pipes. There is a very fine church in the town and another in the suburb, both high up on the hill, which is very steep, and the castle is similarly situated. M. de Montaigne went thither to visit the Jesuit college, finely housed in quite a new building, to which they are about to add a church. M. de Montaigne spent as much time as he had to spare in conversing with the Jesuits.

[Pg 128]

The Count of Helfenstein70 was in command at the castle. Here, if any one should favour another religion than the Roman, he would be wise to keep silent thereanent. On the gate between the town and the suburb there is a long inscription in Latin, written in the year 1552, which declares that the Senatus populusque of the town built this monument to the memory of the brothers William and Louis, dukes utriusque Boiariæ. Here there are many conceits after the following fashion: “Horridum militem esse decet, nec auro cœlatum, sed animo et ferro fretum;” and at the top thereof, “Cavea stultorum mundus.” And in another place, very conspicuous, are certain words taken from some Latin historian,71 concerning the battle which the Consul Marcellus lost to a king of this [Pg 129]nation: “Carolami Boiorumque Regis cum Marcello Cos. pugna quâ eum vicit,” &c. Besides these there are divers appropriate mottoes in Latin over the doors of private houses. These people constantly refurbish their towns and churches, which in consequence have a most prosperous look; and, as it happened most seasonably for the amenity of our visit, everything had been newly set in order in this place three or four years before; for they always put the date upon their work. The clock of this town, like those in many other towns in this country, sounds all the quarters; and they say there is one in Nuremburg which sounds the minutes. We left the town after dinner, and after going four leagues over a lengthy plain of pasture, very level, like the plain of La Beausse, we arrived at Augsburg.

This is reckoned the fairest town of Germany, as Strasburg is the strongest. The first sight we got of their household arrangements was a strange one, but it assuredly bore witness to their cleanliness. This was when we found the steps of the staircase[Pg 130] of our lodging covered with pieces of linen cloth, upon which we were required to walk in order that we might not soil the steps aforesaid, seeing that they had just washed and polished them, as is their wont to do every Saturday. We saw no trace of cobweb or of mud in our lodging: in certain of the rooms were curtains which any one may at will draw over the windows. It is rare to find tables in the chambers, save those which are attached to the foot of the bed, and these are made to go with hinges so they can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The footboards of the beds are elevated two or three feet above the frame, and are often as high as the bolsters, beautifully carven in pinewood, but the pine they use is inferior to our walnut. They make use of pewter plates polished bright, but they put inside these other plates of wood, and on the walls, beside the beds, they often hang up linen cloths and curtains in order that the walls may not be sullied by the spitting of the guests. The Germans set great store on[Pg 131] coats-of-arms, and in every apartment may be found a great number of these which the gentlefolk of the country on their travels have left behind; the glass in the windows, moreover, is often garnished with the same. The routine of table service varies greatly. Here they gave us first crayfish of a wonderful size, but in other places this dish has always come last. In many of the large inns they bring everything in covered dishes. The reason why their window glass is so brilliant is that they have no set window-frames like ours, but casements which open at will and which they clean often.

On the following morning, which was Sunday, M. de Montaigne went to see several churches. He went to some which were Catholic, and everywhere he found the service very well done. Six of the churches are Lutheran and are served by sixteen ministers, two of these churches being taken from the Catholics, and four built by the Lutherans themselves. One of the last-named he visited in the morning, and found[Pg 132] it like the great hall of a college, with neither images nor organs nor cross, but with the walls covered with inscriptions in German taken from the Bible. There were two chairs, one for the minister or for whomsoever might preach, and another one placed lower for the leader in singing the psalms. At every verse the people wait for the leader aforesaid, who gives the note. They sing in haphazard fashion, each one according to his humour, and with head bare or covered. After the singing, a minister who had been in the assembly went to the altar, and read from a book several prayers, at certain of which the people stood up and clasped their hands, and made deep reverence at the name of Jesus Christ. After he had finished his reading to the assembly, he put before him on the altar a napkin, a basin, and a saucer, in which was water. A woman, followed by a dozen others, brought to him a child, swaddled and with face bare, whereupon the minister thrice took the water in the saucer and sprinkled it on the child’s face and said[Pg 133] certain words. This being finished, two men approached and each one of them placed two fingers of the right hand upon the child; the minister then addressed them, and this was all.

M. de Montaigne held a conversation with this minister after he left the church, and was informed that the ministers receive no stipend from the church, their salary being paid by the Senate as a public charge; that there was a greater crowd of worshippers in this one church than in two or three of the Catholic churches together. We did not see a single handsome woman. The women wear a vast variety of attire, and in the case of the men it is a hard matter to say who is noble and who is not, forasmuch as all sorts of men wear bonnets of velvet and carry swords by the side. We had our lodging at the sign of the “Linde,” called after a tree of the country, which stands adjoining the palace of the Foulcres.72 A certain member of this family, who died some years ago, left a sum of two millions of French[Pg 134] crowns to his heirs, and these heirs made over to the Jesuits of the city thirty thousand florins for prayers for the soul of the deceased, with which sum the Jesuits are very handsomely equipped and provided. This house of the Foulcres is roofed with copper: as a rule the houses are much finer, larger, and higher than in any French town, and the streets much wider. M. de Montaigne estimated the population of Augsburg to equal that of Orléans.

After dinner we went to see a show of fencing in the public hall, where there was a vast crowd. We had to pay for entrance as to a puppet show, and for our seats in addition. They showed us some play with the poignard, with the two-handed sword, with the quarter-staff, and with the hanger. Afterwards we saw them shooting for a prize with bow and crossbow, on a ground far finer than that of Schaffhausen. Beyond this place, at the city gate by which we had entered, we observed a copious stream of water which was brought into the city from outside and[Pg 135] led under the bridge used for traffic. It is conveyed by a wooden aqueduct built below the bridge aforesaid, and is thus carried over the stream which forms the city ditch. This current in its course turns a number of water-wheels attached to pumps which, by means of two leaden pipes, raise the water of a spring, which rises in a hollow, to the top of a tower some fifty feet in height. On the top of this tower the water is poured into a great stone cistern, and from this cistern it runs down through divers pipes and is distributed all over the city, which in consequence is abundantly supplied with fountains. Private persons, if it be their wish, may have a right of water for their own use on payment of an annual rent of ten florins to the city, or for two hundred florins paid down. The city was enriched by this magnificent work about forty years ago.73

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Marriages of Catholics with Lutherans are common, and the one most keenly set on marriage commonly conforms to the faith of the other. There are thousands of marriages of this sort. Our host was a Catholic and his wife a Lutheran. Here they clean the glasses with a hairbrush fixed to the end of a stick. According to report, excellent houses may be bought for forty or fifty crowns apiece. The city guard did M. de Montaigne and M. d’Estissac the honour of presenting to them fourteen large vessels of wine for supper. This was brought by seven sergeants clad in uniform and an officer of worship, whom our gentlemen invited to sup, as is the custom in such cases. Something, moreover, is always given to the bearers of the offering, and the sergeants aforesaid got a crown. The officer who remained to supper told M. de Montaigne that the city maintained three officials whose duty it was to greet strangers of quality who came to visit the place, and that on this account they always took care to[Pg 137] ascertain the quality of each visitor, so that he might receive the honours due to him. Moreover, they offered more wine to some than to others. If a duke should arrive in the city, one of the burgomasters would attend to bid him welcome. Us they took for barons and knights. For certain reasons M. de Montaigne was inclined to assume this counterfeit dignity, and to keep silence as to our real quality. He spent the whole of the day walking through the town by himself, and was convinced that he was treated with greater consideration on account of the aforesaid subterfuge. A like honour indeed was paid by all the German towns.

As he was passing through the church of Notre Dame on a very cold day (for, after having enjoyed the finest weather possible up to our departure from Kempten, we had of late been sharply pricked by the cold), he carried, without thinking thereof, his handkerchief at his nose, deeming that, being alone and plainly dressed, no one would remark him; but after he had become more[Pg 138] familiar with certain of the citizens, they told him that the church officers had found his carriage on the morning aforesaid very strange. Thus he committed the fault he was ever most studious to avoid, to wit, that he had made himself conspicuous by a trick alien to the taste of those who remarked the same; for, as far as in him lay, he always conformed and brought himself in line with the manners of whatever place he might frequent; indeed, while he was in Augsburg he always wore a fur cap when he went about the town. Augsburg, they say, is free from the mice and large rats with which the rest of Germany is infested, and they tell many wonderful stories thereanent, attributing this immunity to one of their bishops who is buried there, and affirming that the earth from his tomb, which is sold in little portions the bigness of a nut, will drive away the vermin aforesaid from any place to which it may be taken.74

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On the Monday we repaired to the church of Notre Dame to witness the marriage of a rich young lady of the city—albeit ill-favoured—to a certain Venetian, a factor in the house of the Foulcres. Amongst the guests there was not one good-looking woman. This family is a very numerous one; they are all very rich, and hold the highest position in this city. We visited two apartments in their house, one high, of grand measurement, and paved with marble, and the other low-ceilinged, enriched with medals, both ancient and modern, and having a small room at the end. These are the most sumptuous rooms I ever beheld. At the gathering after the wedding we saw some dancing, and they danced nothing but Alemandes.[Pg 140] They constantly stop dancing and lead the ladies back to their seats, which are ranged in double rows against the walls and covered with red cloth; but the gentlemen do not sit there with them. After a slight pause they take their dames out again, kissing their hands, which salutation the ladies accept without returning it; and then, having placed the arm under the ladies’ armpits, they embrace them, and the ladies put their right hands on the gentlemen’s shoulders. They dance and chat together with heads bare and in sober attire.

We saw more houses belonging to the Foulcres in other parts of the city, which is beholden to this family for the great outlay of money they spend in its adornment. These houses are summer residences. In one we saw a clock which was worked by the flow of water which serves as a counterpoise. At the same place were two large covered fish-ponds full of fish, and twenty paces square. Round the brink of each of the ponds are divers small pipes, some straight[Pg 141] and others curving upwards, and through each of these water is poured in very pleasant wise into the pond, some delivering it in a direct jet, and others spouting it upwards to the height of a pikestaff. Between the ponds is a space some ten paces in width floored with planks, and between these planks are hidden certain little taps of brass. Thus, at any time when ladies may go to divert themselves by seeing the fish play about the pond, it needs only the letting go a certain spring to make every tap aforesaid send a jet of water straight upward to the height of a man, and drench the petticoats and cool the thighs of the ladies. In another place there is a fountain pipe, contrived to play a merry jest upon the spectator, for, while you look at the same, any one who is so minded may turn on the water in tiny hidden jets, which will throw in your face a hundred little threads of water; and there is set up a Latin inscription: Quæsisti nugas, nugis gaudeto repertis. Near thereto is a large cage, twenty paces square and twelve[Pg 142] or fifteen feet high, which is enclosed all round with copper wire, well knit and fastened, and inside are ten or twelve fir trees and a fountain. This cage is full of birds, amongst others Polish pigeons, which they call D’inde, and which I have seen elsewhere: these are large birds beaked like partridges.

We saw also the handiwork of a certain gardener who, foreseeing cold, inclement weather, had transported into a little shed a great quantity of artichokes, cabbages, lettuces, spinach, chicory, and other vegetables, which he had gathered as if to consume them at once, but in lieu thereof had set them by the root in soil, and hoped to keep them good and fresh three or four months; and indeed he had there a hundred artichokes, not the least withered, though they had been plucked more than six weeks. We saw also an instrument of lead bent and open at either end. If any one should fill this with water and, keeping both ends upwards, reverse it dexterously, so that one end shall suck up from a vessel filled[Pg 143] with water, while the other shall discharge outside, they say that if the stream be once set going, the water will continuously rush into the tube and discharge itself at the other end, so as not to produce a vacuum in the tube.

The escutcheon of the Foulcres is a shield divided in the midst; on the left a fleur de lys of azure on a golden ground; on the right a fleur de lys of gold on an azure ground. These arms the Emperor Charles V. granted when he ennobled them. We went to see certain men who were conveying from Venice two ostriches to the Duke of Saxony. The male was the blacker of the two, and had a red neck; the female was of a grey colour and laid a great number of eggs. The men said that these beasts felt less fatigue than they themselves, and constantly contrived to escape, but they kept them in hand by means of a band which girt them round the back above the thighs, and another one above the shoulders. These bands held them in all round, and the guards had caused to be fastened thereto[Pg 144] long reins, by means of which they could stop them, and make them turn as they desired. On the Tuesday the chief men of the city showed us with great courtesy a postern gate, through which all who wish may enter the city at any hour of the night, whether on horse or on foot, by simply giving his name, and the name of the citizen to whom he is going, or the name of the hostelry he purposes to visit. Two trusty men, paid by the city, keep guard, and horsemen on entering pay two batzen, and footmen one. The gate opposite to this one in the outer wall is covered with iron, and beside it, attached to a chain, is a handle, also of iron, which, being pulled, moves the chain and strikes a bell in the bedchamber of one of the porters in a high tower. The porter, though undressed and in bed, by means of machinery which he moves backwards and forwards can open the door aforesaid, albeit it is a hundred paces distant from his chamber. The incomer will find himself on a bridge, some forty paces long, covered throughout,[Pg 145] which stretches over the city ditch. Along this bridge is a wooden casing, within which works the machinery devised to open the outside door, which is quickly closed behind the incomer. The bridge being passed, the next place is a small enclosure; and here a stranger will have to speak to the porter aforesaid and give his name and address. Then the porter with a bell gives notice to his mate, who is lodged on a lower floor of the gate tower, which contains many apartments; and this porter, by working a spring in a gallery adjacent to his chamber, opens, in the first instance, a little iron gate; and next, by means of a great wheel, raises the drawbridge in such quiet fashion that no one can detect any movement (for everything works by means of weights on the walls and on the doors), and straightway everything closes again with a great clatter. Beyond the bridge a great door, very thick, opens by itself: this is of wood and strengthened by large sheets of iron. The stranger now finds himself in a hall, and[Pg 146] in all his passage he meets no one with whom he may speak. When he is shut up in this apartment another door, similar to the aforesaid, is opened for him, and he can enter a second hall, lighted, where he will find a brazen vessel, suspended by a chain, into which he casts the coin due for his entry, and this the porter hoists up to his chamber. If he is not content therewith he lets the stranger bide below till morning; but, if he be satisfied, he opens by similar means another great door, which closes immediately it has been passed by the stranger, who then finds himself in the town.75 This is one of the most carefully wrought devices to be found anywhere, and the Queen of England sent thither a special ambassador to inquire of the city authority how it was worked, but the explanation of the secret was refused to her. Underneath this gateway[Pg 147] there is a vast vault, in which can be stabled under cover five hundred horses, to be maintained and to be used in war without the knowledge or consent of the town council.

After our visit to this place we went to see the church of Sainte Croix, which is very beautiful. There at certain seasons they have a great ceremony on account of a miracle which came to pass some hundred years ago. It chanced that a woman instead of swallowing the body of our Lord, took the same from her mouth and put it, wrapped in wax, into a box. She confessed what she had done, and afterwards found what she had placed in the box had changed into real flesh. They bring forward divers testimonies to confirm the above statement, written both in Latin and German, in divers parts of the church. They exhibit this bit of wax enclosed in a crystal case and a little scrap of something red like flesh. This church, like the house of the Foulcres, is covered with copper, a thing not uncommon in these parts. The[Pg 148] Lutheran church is built adjoining thereto, this religion being housed and established here, as in certain other places, almost in the cloisters of the Catholic churches. In the churchyard of this church they have set up the image of our Lady holding Christ in her arms, together with images of saints and infants, and this inscription: Sinite parvulos venire ad me, &c. In our lodging there was a machine made of iron fixed so as to reach down to the bottom of a very deep well. Then up above a servant, by working a handle which moves the machinery up and down within a space of three or four feet, produces a pressure on the water at the bottom of the well, and propels it by the pistons of the machine aforesaid, so that it is forced to ascend by a leaden pipe, which takes it to the kitchens and whithersoever else it may be needed. They have a paid cleaner who puts in order immediately any befoulment of the walls.

At table we were offered pasties, large and small, made in earthen dishes, of form and[Pg 149] colour exactly resembling that of a pasty crust; and it is very rare to sit down to a meal without sweetmeats or boxes of confectionery. The bread is the best to be had anywhere, and the wines good. In this country the wine is, for the most part, white, and what we drank was not grown near Augsburg, but five or six days’ journey distant. For every hundred florins which an innkeeper lays out in wine, the city government takes sixty as a tax, and half this amount is demanded of a private person who only buys for his own consumption. In many places they still retain the custom of putting perfumes in the bed-chambers and in the stoves.

Some time ago the town was entirely Zwinglian. But since the Catholics have been recalled,76 those of the reformed faith take the second place, and at this time, though they are greatly superior in number to the Catholics, they are ousted from all authority. M. de Montaigne also paid a visit to the Jesuits, whom he found to be men of much[Pg 150] learning. On the morning of Wednesday, October 19, we took our breakfast, and M. de Montaigne was much grieved to depart and leave unvisited the Danube and the town of Ulm which it passes, seeing that he was only one day’s journey distant. He also desired to go to a bath some half-day’s journey farther on called Sourbronne,77 which is in a level country, and has a spring of cold water, good both for drinking and for the bath when duly warmed. It has, moreover, a pleasant relish on the palate which makes it agreeable to drink, and it is excellent for distempers of the head and stomach. The bath is in great repute, and visitors can be most sumptuously housed there in fine apartments, the same as at Baden, according to what we were told thereanent; but the season of winter was now approaching, and this place lay in a direction opposite to that in which we were bound, wherefore it would have been necessary for us to retrace our steps to Augsburg, and M. de Montaigne was greatly[Pg 151] averse from traversing the same road twice. I left a shield with the arms of M. de Montaigne in front of the door of the room he had occupied, marvellously well painted, at a cost of two crowns to the painter and twenty sous to the joiner. The town is on the banks of the river Lech, Lycus. We traversed a very fine country, fertile with cornfields, and after travelling five leagues, we arrived at Broug78 in time for bed.

This is a large Catholic village, finely situated, and belonging to the duchy of Bavaria. We started on the morrow, Thursday, October 20, and after having traversed a vast plain of corn-land (for in this country no vines are planted), and then one of pasturage stretching as far as the eye could see, we arrived, after four leagues’ journey, in time for dinner at Munich, a large city about the size of Bourdeaux, the capital of the duchy of Bavaria, and the principal residence of the dukes, situated on the river Yser, Ister.

The castle is fine, and its stables are the[Pg 152] best I have ever seen either in France or Italy, vaulted, and big enough to contain two hundred horses. The city is strongly Catholic, and it is populous, finely built, and busy. Since the day after we quitted Augsburg we could reckon the cost of man and horse to be four livres a day, and forty sous for a footman at the lowest. Here we found curtains in the chambers, and though there were no testers to the beds, everything belonging thereto was exceedingly well found. They clean the floors with sawdust boiled. Everywhere in these parts they slice the radishes and turnips with as great care and attention as if they were threshing corn. Seven or eight men, each one with a big knife in his hand, will set to work on the same with regular stroke, as they work in our wine-presses. These vegetables, like their great-headed cabbages, are salted for winter use, and they plant them in their fields in the country, rather than their gardens, and harvest them. The duke, who was at this time in the city, has to wife the sister of[Pg 153] M. de Lorene,79 and has by her two sons, big boys, and a daughter. The two brothers live also in the city, but they, together with the ladies and all the rest, were gone hunting the day we were there. On the Friday morning we went our way, and, as we passed through the duke’s forests, we saw countless red deer in flocks like sheep. We went in one stretch to Kinief, an insignificant village, about six leagues distant.

The Jesuits, who sway the government mightily in this country, have made a movement which has roused against them the hatred of the people;80 to wit, that they have put constraint on the priests to make them send away their concubines under severe penalties. To judge from the complaints made thereanent, it appears that this licence[Pg 154] was formerly granted to them so freely that they treated it as a legitimate thing; moreover, they are now about to address a remonstrance to the duke. It was here for the first time in Germany that they served us eggs on a fast-day in any other way than quartered in a salad. At table we had, amongst the silver, some wooden goblets made of pipe staff and hooped. A young lady, the daughter of a gentleman of this village, sent some wine to M. de Montaigne. Early on the Saturday we set out and, after seeing on our right hand the river Yser and a great lake81 lying at the foot of the Bavarian mountains, and ascending by road for an hour, we came to the summit of the pass, where we found an inscription, recording how some hundred years ago a duke of Bavaria had cleft this way through the rocks. Then we plunged straight into the bowels of the Alps by an easy, convenient, and charmingly made road, the fine calm weather being greatly[Pg 155] in our favour. As we descended from the summit aforesaid, we passed a very lovely lake82 about a Gascon league in length and the same in width, surrounded by high and inaccessible mountains; and, keeping always the same road at the base of the mountains, we came now and again upon small pleasant level meadows with dwellings thereon, and arrived without halting at Mittevol,83 a little Bavarian village, pleasantly placed on the bank of the Yser. Here we ate the first chestnuts we had seen in Germany, served raw. In the hostelry there is a hot room, in which travellers go to get sweated for a charge of a batz and a half. I myself went to see it, while Messieurs were at supper, and found there several Germans, who were being cupped and bled. On the morrow, Sunday, October 23rd, we set forth on the same path amongst the mountains, and soon came to a house and a gate which barred the passage. This was the entrance to the country of Tirol, belonging to the Archduke of Austria, and after travelling[Pg 156] three leagues we arrived in time for dinner at Seefelden,84 a small village with an abbey standing in a very pleasant site.

The church there is a very fair one, and famous for a miracle. In 1384 a certain man, whose name has been preserved there by adequate and unbroken record, refused to content himself on Easter day with the Eucharist as offered to the people, and demanded to receive that which was wont to be given to the priesthood alone. While he had this in his mouth the earth beneath him opened and swallowed him up to the neck, and while he held on for a moment to the corner of the altar the priest withdrew the Host from his mouth. They still exhibit the hole covered with an iron grating, the altar which bears the impress of this man’s fingers, and the Host of a reddish hue like drops of blood. We found there, written in recent Latin, an account how a certain Tiroler, who had swallowed some days before a bit of flesh which stuck in his[Pg 157] throat and could neither be swallowed nor vomited, made a vow and repaired to this church, where he was healed forthwith. On quitting this place we found on the high land several nice villages, and after half-an-hour’s descent, we perceived at the foot of the hill a fair hamlet finely placed, and high above it on a cloven and seemingly inaccessible rock, a magnificent castle commanding the road we had come down, which is narrow and cut in the mountain side. The road is scarcely wide enough to let pass a common cart, as in divers other places amongst these mountains, so much so that the carters hereabout are wont to reduce the size of their carts a foot at the least. Beyond this we came upon a valley of great extent through which the Inn flows to join the Danube at Vienna. In Latin it is called Œnus. It is five or six days’ journey by water from Insprug to Vienna. To M. de Montaigne this valley seemed the fairest country he had ever seen, now narrowing itself with the mountains pressing close on it, now spreading out wide on our[Pg 158] side of the river—the left—and forming a space meet for cultivation on the very slopes of the mountains, which were not too steep for this, and now expanding on the other bank. Next it would reveal to the eye platforms on two or three different levels, one above the other, and everywhere fair houses of noblemen and churches. And all this in a country shut and walled in on every side by mountains of immeasurable height. On our side of the valley we espied in a rocky place a crucifix, set up where no man could have gone save by being let down by cords from above.85 They say that the Emperor Maximilian, grandfather of Charles V., lost himself one day while hunting in these mountains; and, as a witness of the danger he escaped, he erected this image, a story which is recorded by a painting in the hall of the Arquebusiers at Augsburg. We arrived that evening, after travelling three leagues, at Insprug.86

This is the chief town of the county of Tirol, Œnopontum in Latin, the residence of Fernand, Archduke of Austria.87 It is a very beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the valley and full of fountains and running water, a convenience most common in all the towns we have seen in Germany and Switzerland. The houses are almost all built terraced, and we found lodgment at the “Rose,” an excellent house where they served us on plates of pewter. As to napkins of French fashion, we had already had them given us several days previous. Round about some[Pg 160] of the beds they had hung curtains which, as typical of the character of the people, were fine and rich, of a certain sort of cloth, slashed and open worked, and also very short and narrow. In fine they were quite unfitted for the use to which we put such things, and there was besides a little tester, three fingers wide, with a lot of tassels. They gave me for M. de Montaigne white sheets trimmed with lace, four fingers wide, as is the custom of most towns in Germany. All night long men go about the streets crying the hour. Everywhere we have been they have the fashion of serving the fish the same time as the meat; but, as far as we saw, they offer no meat on fish days. On the Monday we departed, travelling along the right bank of the Inn through a fair plain for two leagues until we reached Hala.

We made the journey solely to see this place. Like Insprug it is a small town, about the size of Libourne, on the river Inn, which we crossed by a bridge. Here[Pg 161] is produced all the salt used in Germany; they make nine hundred loaves thereof weekly at one crown apiece, the loaves being about the thickness of a half-hogshead, and somewhat of the same shape, for the vessel which serves as a mould is of the aforesaid kind. This traffic belongs to the archduke, and is carried on at a vast cost. To produce the salt they had gathered together the greatest store of wood I ever saw, for they boil in vast stoves of iron the brine, which is brought from a mountain more than two good leagues distant.

There are several fine churches, notably one belonging to the Jesuits, and this, as well as the one in Insprug, M. de Montaigne visited. Other churches there are, richly adorned and finely situated. After dinner we recrossed the river, forasmuch as the fine palace where the Archduke Fernand of Austria dwells is there situated. M. de Montaigne desired to kiss the hand of this prince, as he passed thereby in the morning, but from what a certain count told him he[Pg 162] learned that the archduke was holding a council.

When we retraced our steps thither after dinner, and found that the archduke was in his garden, we hoped at least to be presented to him; but those who went to inform him that Messieurs were there, and at his service, brought word back that he prayed to be excused from granting an interview at that moment, but that on the morrow he would find it convenient so to do. Meantime, if Messieurs desired any favour of him, they might state their wants to a certain Milanese count. This cold reception, added to the fact that he refused to allow us to see the castle, ruffled somewhat M. de Montaigne’s temper; and when we spoke of this offence to an officer of the household this gentleman told him that the prince had said he was averse from seeing Frenchmen, for that the house of France was the foe of his own. We then returned to Insprug.

We next saw in a church eighteen magnificent bronze statues of the princes and[Pg 163] princesses of the house of Austria.88 We also went to sup with the Cardinal of Austria89 and the Marquis of Burgant,90 sons of the archduke by a concubine, the daughter of a merchant of Augsburg. She bore him only these two sons, and then he married her to make them legitimate. She died during the present year and all the court still wears mourning. Here the ceremonial is almost the same as with our princes. The hall, the dais, and the chairs were all covered with black cloth. The cardinal, the elder, is not, I fancy, more than twenty; he drank wine freely diluted with water, and the marquis naught but sweet drink.91 The dinner was[Pg 164] not served in a closed tray,92 but everything uncovered, the service of viands being conducted as with us. When they took their seats they placed themselves some distance from the table, which was moved towards them, laden with dishes; the cardinal sat highest, the right-hand place being always reckoned the chief one. In this palace we saw two tennis-courts and a seemly garden.

This archduke is a mighty builder and planner of all such useful devices. There we saw ten or twelve field-pieces, each carrying a ball as big as a goose’s egg, and mounted on wheels enriched and gilded all over; the very pieces themselves being gilded. They are made of nothing stronger than wood, but the muzzles are covered with iron plating, and inside the guns this plating is of double thickness. A man can carry one on his back. These guns are not fired so often as those cast in iron, but they will carry a ball[Pg 165] almost as far. At the archduke’s country house we saw two oxen of an extraordinary size, grey with white heads, which M. de Ferrara had given him; for the aforesaid Duke of Ferrara had married one of his sisters, the Duke of Florence another, and the Duke of Mantua a third. At Hala three others formerly resided who were called “the Three Queens,”93 for to the daughters of the Emperor they give this style, as they call the daughters of other rulers countesses and duchesses, according to their estates; also to the Emperor’s daughters is given a surname from the kingdoms ruled by the Emperor. Two of these three are dead, and the third, who was still residing there, M. de Montaigne was unable to see. She lives in religious seclusion, and has called in and established the Jesuits at Hala.

[Pg 166]

Report goes that the archduke cannot leave his possessions to his children, but that these must revert to the successor to the Empire. They could not, however, give the reason for this arrangement; and, as far as this remark applies to the wife, it seems to carry no meaning, forasmuch as, though she was not of suitable rank, still he married her, and all men hold her to have been his lawful wife, and her children legitimate. However, he has amassed much money in order to bequeath them something.

On the Tuesday morning we resumed our journey, crossing the plain and following the mountain path. At the end of the first league we ascended for an hour a small mountain by an easy road. On the left hand we had a view of divers other mountains, which for the reason that they sloped gently, were covered with villages and churches and for the most part tilled up to the very tops, a pleasing prospect on account of the diversity of the landscape aforesaid. The mountains on the right were somewhat wilder and[Pg 167] sparsely peopled. We crossed several brooks and torrents, running in varied course, and on the road we passed several large towns and villages and good inns, at the very base of the mountains. Also on the left hand were two castles and some gentlemen’s dwellings; and, about four leagues from Insprug, on the left side of a very narrow passage, we came upon a bronze tablet, richly engraved, attached to the rock and inscribed thus: “The Emperor Charles V., returning from Spain and Italy,94 where he had received the Imperial crown; and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, coming from Pannonia, seeking one another after an interval of eight years, met at this spot in the year 1530. Ferdinand commanded this memorial to be placed here.” They are represented embracing one another.

A short distance farther on, as we passed beneath a gate which blocked the road, we[Pg 168] found written thereon some Latin verses recording the passage of the Emperor aforesaid, and of his stay in this place after his capture of the King of France and of Rome. M. de Montaigne found the scenery of this pass greatly to his taste on account of the diversity of the objects to be seen, and we encountered no inconvenience, except the thickest and most intolerable dust we had ever experienced, which kept with us the whole of our mountain passage. After we had been on the road ten hours, M. de Montaigne affirmed that this journey seemed to him like moonlight travelling.95 It was always his habit, whether he purposed to halt on the road or not, to let his horses have oats to eat in the morning at the inn before starting. After faring seven leagues, we all arrived fasting late at night at[Pg 169] Stertzinguen, a decent little town,96 belonging to the county of Tirol, with a fine new castle built on the rock above. At table they gave us round loaves, joined one to another, and as everywhere else in Germany, the mustard was liquid, with the taste of white French mustard. Everywhere the vinegar is white. No wine grows in these mountains, but corn enough for the inhabitants, who drink three sorts of good white wine. All these roads are perfectly safe, being much used by merchants, coachmen, and carters. Instead of the cold, which had been instanced as a detriment to this road, we were troubled with intolerable heat. The women of the country wear cloth hats, like our scholars’ caps, with their hair braided and hanging down as in other places. M. de Montaigne, having espied a fair young girl in a church, asked if she could speak Latin, deeming she was a scholar.

Here we had curtains to our beds of[Pg 170] thick linen dyed red. In all our travels in Germany we found no room or chamber which was not panelled, the ceilings being very low. M. de Montaigne suffered this night from colic for two or three hours, and very sharply, to judge from what he said next morning. Then indeed, when he rose from bed, he passed a stone of medium size which crumbled easily: outside it was yellowish, and when broken showed white in the middle. He had taken cold the previous day and found himself ailing, but he had not suffered from colic since Plommieres. This seizure partially removed the fear he felt that at Plommieres some gravel had descended into the bladder without passing therefrom, and that certain matter, there arrested, was collecting and consolidating. Now, seeing what had happened, he felt he might reasonably infer that, if there were indeed other particles, they would have joined themselves to the stone he had just passed. On the way he complained of pain in his loins, and now he declared he had[Pg 171] prolonged the day’s journey simply on this account, deeming that he would find greater ease on horseback than elsewhere. At this place he called for the schoolmaster to converse with him in Latin, but the fellow was a fool from whom he could get no information as to the country.

On the morrow, Wednesday, October 26, we set out over a plain some half-quarter of a league in width, having the river Aisoc97 on our right hand, and traversed this plain for two leagues. At the foot of the neighbouring mountains we saw here and there spaces of ground, inhabited and cultivated and often adjacent one to the other, but could discern no road leading thereto. We passed four or five castles, and crossed the river on a wooden bridge, and came upon some roadmakers who were repairing the way because it was somewhat stony, but not worse than the roads in Perigord. Then, having passed a stone gateway, we mounted to higher ground, where[Pg 172] we came upon a level space about a league in length, and espied a similar plain on the other side of the river, both being sterile and rocky. There were some very fine low-lying meadows on our side of the stream. After going four leagues without halt we arrived in time for supper at Brixen, a fair little town, through which flows the river aforesaid, crossed by a wooden bridge. A bishop resides here and we saw two fine churches. We found good lodging at the “Eagle.”

The level ground here is of no great extent, but the adjacent mountains rise so gently, even on the left-hand side, that they can, so to speak, be curled and combed up to the very ears.98 The whole country seems full of clock towers and villages high up in the hills, and near the town are several fine houses well built and situated. M. de Montaigne declared “that he had all his life distrusted the verdict of other people upon[Pg 173] the amenities of foreign lands, no one being able, apparently, to appreciate them except by the rule of his own peculiar habit, and the custom of his village; and that he paid very little respect to the information given him by travellers. But now he was more amazed than ever over their stupidity, seeing that he had heard tell—and especially concerning travelling in this region—of the exceeding difficulties to be overcome in these passes of the Alps; that the manners of the people were uncouth, the roads impassable, the lodging rough, and the air intolerable. As to the air, he thanked God to find it so mild—for he was fain of excess of heat rather than of cold, and up to the present we had experienced only three days of cold, and an hour or so of rain—and moreover, if he were minded to take his little girl99 of eight out for a walk, he would[Pg 174] as lief take her out on this road as in his own garden; that, as to the lodgings, he had never seen a country where they were so plentiful and good, having always found accommodation in handsome towns well supplied with provision and wine at a cheaper rate than elsewhere.”

They use in these parts a machine with various wheels to turn the spits. They bind closely a strong cord round a great spindle of iron; this unwinds itself, and, the movement thereof being arrested somehow, the process lasts an hour. When it stops the machine has to be wound up afresh. As to smoke-jacks we saw several of these. So great is the abundance of iron that, besides fitting gratings of divers sorts to their windows and doors, they cover even the wooden shutters with plates of iron. Here we came again into the land of vines, which we had lost sight of since we quitted Augsburg. Round about these parts most of the houses have every storey vaulted. In Germany they do what we[Pg 175] cannot do in France, to wit, they use hollow tiles to cover the narrowest slopes of roofing, as in their clock towers. Their tiling is smaller and more hollowed, and sometimes plastered at the joints. We quitted Brixen on the morning of the morrow, and traversed the same wide open valley, the roadsides being adorned with divers fine houses. Travelling with the river Eisock on our left, we passed a small village named Clause,100 inhabited by various sorts of workers, and at the end of three leagues came to Colman101 in time for dinner, a small place where the archduke has a pleasure-house.

At table they gave us, together with silver goblets, others of painted earthenware, and they washed the glasses with white salt. The first service was sent up in a hot dish, very handy, which they placed on the table with an iron implement. It contained eggs poached with butter. On[Pg 176] quitting this place we found the road somewhat narrow, and the rocks closed upon us so much that the pass was hardly wide enough for ourselves and the river together. In sooth we should have been in danger of pushing one another into the abyss, if they had not built between the river and the wayfarers a wall which was continued in places a German league at a stretch. The more lofty of the mountains which stood around us were wild rocks, some in solid masses, some scored and broken up by the passage of the torrents, and some of a kind of shale which let fall below innumerable fragments of astonishing size, wherefore it impressed us that it would be perilous to travel here during a tempest. We saw likewise whole forests of pine trees torn up by the roots which still carried masses of earth. But the country is well peopled, for, beyond these lower hills, we caught sight of others higher up, cultivated and inhabited; and we learned also that above these were fine, broad, level fields and good[Pg 177] houses occupied by rich farmers, who raised abundant corn for the villages below. We crossed the stream by one of the numerous wooden bridges and then had it on our left hand. Amongst other objects we saw a castle, perched on the loftiest and most inaccessible point of the mountains, which they told us belonged to a baron of the country, who lived there and enjoyed his fine lands and hunting. Beyond these hills there is always to be seen the range of high Alps, which we left to themselves. They indeed bar the issue from this pass, so that the traveller has continually to return to the course of the stream, and to emerge again at some turn or other. This county of Tirol, which yields no revenue except from the mountains, is worth three hundred thousand florins a year to the archduke, more than he gets from all the rest of his dominions. We crossed the river again by a stone bridge, and, after a bout of four leagues, we arrived in good time at Bolzan.102

[Pg 178]

This town, about the size of Libourne, is situated on the river before named, and is somewhat less pleasing than other towns we had visited in Germany, so much so that M. de Montaigne exclaimed that it was evident we were about to cross the German border. The streets are narrow, and there is no fine public place, but we still found fountains, running water, paintings, and glass windows. Wine is so plentiful that they supply the whole of Germany with what it needs, and the bread eaten in these mountains is the best in the world. The church is a very fine one, and possesses amongst other things a wooden organ, which is very high and placed close to the crucifix by the great altar. But the player sits some twelve feet lower, beside the column to which the organ is attached, and the bellows are underground outside the church, about fifteen paces behind the organist. The open space in which this town is situated is only just large enough to contain it, but the mountains to the right hand stand back[Pg 179] somewhat, thus giving a little extra ground. From here M. de Montaigne wrote to François Hottoman, whom he had met at Basel, “that albeit he was bound for Italy, he had fared so well in Germany that he quitted it with much regret; that strangers had to suffer the exactions of innkeepers there as elsewhere, but that this abuse would soon right itself, and that the traveller would no longer be at the mercy of guides and interpreters who sold him and shared the profit. In every other respect he had always met with unbounded courtesy and convenience, and was specially struck with the justice and security everywhere prevalent.”103 We left Bolzan early on Friday[Pg 180] morning, and at two leagues’ end we halted for breakfast and to feed our horses at Brounsol.104

This was a small village standing above the river Eysock which, after bearing us company so far, now mixed itself with the Adisse105 and flowed therewith to the Adriatic Sea, broad and tranquil, and no longer resembling the brawling and furious torrents of the mountains above. The plain, too, became a little broader as far as Trante,106 and the hills showed their peaks less prominently. The slopes of these, however, are less fertile than those higher up, and in the valley are some swamps which encroach upon the road in places, but elsewhere the travelling is easy[Pg 181] in the bottom of the valley and along the plain. Two leagues after leaving Brounsol we came to a large village where a great crowd was assembled by reason of a fair. Farther on was another well-built village, called Solorne,107 where the archduke has a small castle on the left of the road, set in a strange position on the point of a rock. Five leagues’ journey took us to Trante, where we arrived in time for bed.

Trante is somewhat larger than Aagen, an unpleasant place, and quite lacking in the grace of the German towns, with narrow and crooked streets.108 Two leagues before reaching it we heard the Italian tongue, and the town itself is equally divided between the two languages, one quarter thereof being called after the Germans, with a church in which they have a preacher of their own speech. We heard no talk of the new forms of religion[Pg 182] after we left Augsburg. In Trante, which is on the Adisse, we saw the cathedral, which had a look of great antiquity,109 and the same may be said of a square tower near thereto. We likewise visited Notre Dame, the new church where the Council was held, in which church there is an organ, the gift of a private gentleman. This is exceedingly beautiful; it is set up in a marble gallery which is carved and adorned with divers fine statues, those of some singing children being especially lovely.110 This church was built by Bernardus Clesius Cardinalis in 1520, a native of Trante and afterwards bishop.111 Trante is a free town under the charge and governance of the bishop, but at a time when they were hard pressed in a struggle with the Venetians, the people called in the Count of Tirol to help them, and in return therefor he has retained[Pg 183] certain authority and rights over the town. There has been a contention between him and the bishop over this matter, but the bishop, who is a Cardinal Madruccio, now holds possession.112

On this point M. de Montaigne said “that he had taken note during his journey of those citizens who had done good service to the towns where they were born; of the Foulcres of Augsburg, to whom was due the main part of the embellishment of that city, who had placed palaces at all the crossings of the streets, and filled the churches with all kinds of works of art; of this Cardinal Clesius also, who, besides building this church and several streets at his own charges, added a very fine building to the castle of the town.” The outside of this building is[Pg 184] nothing remarkable, but within it is furnished and painted and enriched in a fashion beyond anything that can be imagined. All the panel work below is enriched with painted patterns, the bosses of the ceilings are gilded and carven, the floors are made of a kind of hardened earth painted like marble, a part of the rooms being fitted after one fashion, and part, à l’Allemande, with stoves. One of these is of porcelain darkened to the colour of bronze, and made in the form of a group of large human figures, which, being heated warm the room. Moreover there are certain others, stationed close to the wall, which give out water, this being brought to them from the fountain in the court below. This is a fine piece of work. We saw there also amongst the other designs on the ceilings a torchlight procession by night, which M. de Montaigne admired greatly, also two or three circular chambers, in one of which was an inscription recording how “Clesius, having been sent in the year 1530 to the coronation of the Emperor[Pg 185] Charles V. by Pope Clement VII., on St. Matthias’s Day, as envoy on the part of Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Count of Tirol, and brother of the aforenamed Emperor, was made a cardinal, being already Bishop of Trent.” Moreover, they have set round the chamber the armorial bearings, and painted on the walls the arms and the names of the gentlemen who accompanied him: some fifty in number, all counts and barons owing service to the bishopric. In one of these chambers there is a trap door through which a man can slip into the town without passing the main entrance, and two richly ornamented chimney-pieces. This was an excellent cardinal. The Foulcres have done great building work, but they have built for their posterity, while the cardinal aforesaid has built for the public weal, for he has left this castle, together with the furniture still in it worth more than a hundred thousand crowns, to his successors in office. Besides this he left to the public fund of the bishopric a hundred[Pg 186] and fifty silver thalers, which is held without payment of interest on the same. In spite of these benefactions they have left his church of Notre Dame unfinished, and have erected a very mean tomb over his body. His successors provide themselves with no other furniture than the aforenamed for the castle. Some of this is fitted for the winter, some for the summer, and none of it can be alienated.

Here they reckon distance by the Italian mile, of which five go to make one mile of Germany, and they count the hours through to twenty-four without dividing them in the midst. We found good lodging at the “Rose,” and left Trante on the Saturday after dinner. We followed a road like the last we traversed in the valley, which was here wider and girt by higher, uninhabited mountains, having the river Adisse on our right hand. There we passed a castle113 belonging[Pg 187] to the archduke, which commands the road, like various other strongholds elsewhere, built to control the passage, and arrived at Rovere114 very late, after travelling fifteen miles. Never until now did we journey in the dewfall,115 so carefully had we laid out our time on the road.

This town belongs to the archduke aforenamed. Here in our lodging we found once more the usages with which we were familiar: we found, indeed, not merely German neatness in rooms and furniture and glass windows, but German stoves as well, which commended themselves to M. de Montaigne much more than open chimneys.116 As to food, we had here no crayfish, which thing M. de Montaigne found very strange, seeing that, ever since we left Plommieres, a distance of two hundred leagues, this dish had been put before us at every meal. Here and in all[Pg 188] this mountainous country they commonly eat snails larger and fatter than those of France, but not so well flavoured; also truffles which they peel and serve sliced with oil and vinegar, a passably good dish. The truffles we ate at Trante had been kept for a year. Here at Rovere, greatly to the gratification of M. de Montaigne, we were plentifully supplied with oranges and citrons and olives. The bed curtains are cut short and made either of cloth or serge. M. de Montaigne also regretted the lack of those beds which they use as coverings in Germany; made not like our beds, but of the finest down enclosed in an envelope of well-bleached fustian. The beds used for lying upon in Germany are not of this character, and could not be used as coverlets with comfort.

I verily believe that, if he had been alone with his own following, M. de Montaigne would rather have gone to Cracow or to Greece by land than have turned towards Italy. He took great pleasure in his visits to[Pg 189] strange countries, finding therein forgetfulness of his age and of his ill-health, but he could never win over the rest of the company to this view, each one of them being anxious to have done with travel and to return. He was ever wont to say that, after an uneasy night, he would rise eager and lively when he remembered he was about to sally forth to see some fresh town or district. Never did I see him less subject to fatigue or less querulous of his ailments; so full of spirit both on the road and at his lodgings; so appreciative of everything he saw, and eager for conversation with strangers; indeed I believe that this habit drew off his thoughts from his infirmities. When the others complained to him of his practice of leading the party over indirect and winding roads, often returning to the spot whence they had set out (which he would often do when he heard report of something worth seeing, or when he saw reason for varying his plan of travel), he would reply that, for his own part, he never set forth for any place other than that[Pg 190] in which he might at present find himself; and that it was impossible he should miss or go aside from his route, because this route always lay where places unfamiliar to him were to be seen; and that, provided he did not fare the same road twice over, or see one place a second time, he never considered that he had failed one jot in his original purpose. As to Rome, which other people might easily see, he was less fain to visit it than other places, because it was well known to every one, and moreover every lackey was ready to give news of Florence and Ferrara. He said that he seemed to be in like case to one who reads some delightful story or good book, and dreads to turn the last page. The pleasure of travel was to him so keen, that he hated the sight of the place where he ought rightly to stop and rest; moreover, he devised several projects of travelling exactly as the mood might seize him, supposing that he should separate from his present companions.

On the Sunday morning, having a wish to see the Lake of Garda, a famous lake of these[Pg 191] parts and rich in the finest fish,117 he hired three horses for himself and Messieurs de Caselis and Mattecoulon at twenty batzen apiece. M. d’Estissac hired two others for himself and the Sieur du Hautoy, and with no escort—having left their own horses at this place, Rovere, for the day—they rode eight miles to Torbole, where they dined. This is a village under Tirolese jurisdiction, situated at the head of the lake, and opposite to it is a small town and a castle called Riva.118 To this place they were taken by water, five miles, and the same distance to return; they accomplished the journey in about three hours, being rowed by five boatmen. They saw nothing at Riva save a tower which had the appearance of great age, and the governor of the place, the Seigneur[Pg 192] Hortimato Madruccio, brother of the present cardinal bishop of Trante. In looking down the lake the farther end is not in view, for it is thirty-five miles long, while the width and all they could see of it did not exceed five miles. The head of the lake is in the county of Tirol, but all the lower part on either side is under the Signiory of Venice, a region rich in fine churches, gardens of olives, oranges, and other similar fruits. This lake is terribly rough in times of tempest, and the surrounding mountains are more bare and threatening than any of those we had hitherto passed, according to the report of Messieurs.119 On quitting Rovere they crossed the Adisse, leaving the road to Verona to the left hand, and entered a deep valley where they passed through a long village and a small town, the road being the roughest and the view the most forbidding of any they had yet[Pg 193] experienced, by reason of these mountains which obstructed the way. On leaving Torbole, they returned to Rovere to supper.

At this place we put our trunks on one of the rafts, which are called flottes in Germany, for conveyance to Verona by the river Adisse, paying therefor a florin, and on the morrow I had the charge of this transport. For supper they gave us poached eggs and a pike, together with a great plenty of flesh of all kinds. On the next morning, Monday, they set forth early, and following the valley, fairly populous but not over fertile and flanked by high, rocky mountains, they arrived after riding fifteen miles at Bourquet120 in time for dinner. This town lies within the county of Tirol, which is very large. In this matter M. de Montaigne, when he asked whether this county included aught else than the valley we had traversed and the mountain tops we had seen, was informed that it contained divers other mountain valleys, fully as extensive and fertile, and fine towns: that[Pg 194] the county was, as we saw it, like a robe in folds, but that, were it spread out, it would cover a very wide stretch of country. The river was all this time on the right hand, and when they resumed their journey after dinner they kept the same road as far as Chiusa, a small fort in a mountain cleft above the Adisse, which the Venetians had taken. They followed the course of the river, descending a steep slope of solid rock over which the horses could hardly keep their feet, and passing the fort aforesaid, where the Venetian government, in whose territory they had been after a mile or two on this side of Bourquet, kept twenty-five soldiers. They arrived in time for bed at Volarne after riding twelve miles. At this place they found wretched lodging, as everywhere else on the way to Verona. A young lady, the daughter of the lord of the castle who was then absent, sent M. de Montaigne a present of wine. On the morrow there were no more mountains visible on the right of the road, and to the left even the hills which lay upon the skirts of the[Pg 195] plain were far distant. The way was for some time over a sterile plain, but when it neared the river it improved, and vines, trained upon trees, as is the fashion in these parts, came in sight. After a journey of twelve miles they arrived on All Saints’ Day before mass at Verona.

END OF VOL. I.

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