“The citizens of Zürich, a few years ago, refused to spend their money in building an art-museum; but thought better of it in 1906. The truth of the matter is, the people like to show their power; they like to discipline their representatives, often at the expense of their own best interests. In 1900 they turned down by a majority of nearly two hundred thousand a Workmen’s Compulsory Insurance bill which both houses had carried with only one opposing vote.
“The interference of the people with the finances of the cantons, or of the cities, often works mischief. How, indeed, could they be expected to show much wisdom in deciding on questions which even an expert would find difficult? They are willing to reduce water-rates, but they object to increase taxes, except on large fortunes. They will readily authorize incurring a good big debt, but they do not like to face the necessity of paying it, or providing for the payment of it. As a people we are a little near-sighted; we are not gifted with imagination.”
“I should think this popular interest in government would tend to educate the masses,” I suggested.
“It certainly does,” replied M. Criant. “Questions are discussed on their merits and though, of course, a tricky orator may mislead, it will not be for long.”
At this point we were interrupted, so that nothing more was said at the time about Swiss politics. Both my friends, however, renewed their invitations for me to be sure to look them up. It is one of the great pleasures and advantages of travelling that one may make delightful acquaintances. I had no intention of letting slip the opportunity of further intercourse with men so genial and well informed as Professor Landoldt and M. Criant.
The voyage came to an end, as do all things earthly. Nothing untoward happened; and we reached Cherbourg on schedule time.
CHAPTER III
A ROUNDABOUT TOUR
RUTH and her husband were waiting for me. Will took charge of my luggage. He sent my trunk by express to Lausanne. He even insisted on paying the duties on my cigars – several boxes of Havanas. I always smoke the best cigars, though, thank the Heavenly Powers, I am not a slave to the habit. I suppose every man says that, if for no other reason than to contradict his wife.
When everything was arranged, we took our places in the handsome French touring-car, which, like a living thing instinct with life, proud of its shiny sides, of its rich upholstery, of its wide, swift tires, of its perfectly adjusted machinery, was to bear us across France.
Emile, in green livery, managed her with the skill of a Bengali mahout in charge of an obedient and well-trained elephant. Emile was a character. Born in French Switzerland, he spoke French, German and Italian with equal fluency, and he had a smattering of English which he invested with a picturesque quality due to transplanted idioms and a variegated accent. Had he worn an upward-curling mustache and a pointed Napoleonic beard, one might have taken him for at least a vicomte. He knew every nook and corner of the twenty-two cantons and he had a sense of locality worthy of a North American Indian.
I could write a book about that trip from Cherbourg to Lausanne. Time meant nothing to us. We could follow any whim, delay anywhere, without serious fillip of conscience. The children were in trustworthy hands; the weather was fine. If there is anything in astrology, the stars may be said to have been propitious. We stopped for a day at the little town of Dol in Bretagne. In honour of some problematic ancestor I had the portal of the cathedral decorating my book-plate, and it was an act which a Chinese mandarin would approve – to pay our respects to the dim shades of Sir Raoul, or Duc Raoul, who is said to have accompanied William the Conqueror to England and to have killed Hereward the Wake in a hand-to-hand contest among the fens. Fortunate little town to have such a cathedral, though why Samson should be its patron saint I do not pretend to understand. His conduct with Delilah was hardly saint-like, as we are accustomed to regard conduct in these days.
We climbed Mont Dol and saw the footprints made by the agile archangel Michael when he crouched to spring over to the rock that bears his name. Generally such marks are attributed to the fallen angel who switches the forked tail. That unpleasant personage must have been in ancient days as diligent in travel as the Wandering Jew. The book of Job contains his confession to the Lord that he was even then in the habit of going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it.
We saw Mont Michel, too, and wandered all over its wonderful castle. We did not think it best to make a long sojourn in Paris. No longer is it said that good Americans go there when they die. They had been having rain and the Seine was on a rampage. What a strange idea to build a big city on a marsh! it is certain to be deluged every little while; and house-cleaning must be a terrible nuisance after the muddy waters have swept through the second story floors, even if the foundations do not settle or the house itself go floating down stream. The river was threatening to pour over the quais; the arches of the bridges were almost hidden and men were working like beavers to protect the adjoining streets from inundation.
When human beings put themselves in the way of the forces of nature they are likely to be relentlessly wiped out of existence. Mountains have a way of nervously shaking their shoulders as if they felt annoyed at the temples or huts put there by men, just as a horse scares away the flies on his flank, and, as the flies come back, so do men return to the fascinating heights. It has been remarked that large rivers always run by large cities, but the intervales through which the rivers run, the flat lands which offer such opportunities for laying out streets at small expense, are the creations of the busy waters, and they seem to resent the trespassing of bipeds, and they sometimes rise in their wrath and sweep the puny insects away.
I ought not to speak disparagingly of Paris: it was in my plan to return later and stay as long as I pleased. How can one judge of a person or of a city in a moment’s acquaintance? We left by the Porte de Clarenton; we sped through the famous forest of Fontainebleau – Call it a forest! It is about as much of a forest as a golf links are a mountain lynx. We stayed long enough to look into the famous palace, and evoke the memories of king and emperor.
We spent a night at Orléans. I dreamed that night that Julius Cæsar was kind enough to show me about. He pointed out the spot where his camp was established and he told me how he burnt the town of Genabum, the capital of the Carnutes. I had not long before read Napoleon’s “Life of Cæsar.”
To think of two thousand years of continuous existence; the same river flowing gently by. If only rivers could remember and relate! It would have reflected Attila in its gleaming waters. It would also have its memories of the Maid whose courage freed the former city of the Aurelians from its English foes.
When we reached Tours the question arose whether we should not take the roundabout route through Poitier, Angoulême and Biarritz, thence zigzagging over to Pau, with its memories of Marguerite de Valois, and the birthplace of Bernadotte, pausing at Carcassonne – if for nothing else to justify one’s memory of Gustave Nadaud’s famous poem: —
“Yet could I there two days have spent
While still the autumn sweetly shone,
Ah me! I might have died content,
When I had looked on Carcassonne” —
getting wonderful views of the Pyrenees – only three hundred and fifty-two miles from Tours to Biarritz, less than three hundred miles to Carcassonne.
One hundred and thirty miles farther is Montpellier, once famous for its school of medicine and law. Here Petrarca studied almost six hundred years ago and here, in 1798, Auguste Comte, the prophet of humanity, was born.
At Nîmes, thirty miles farther on, beckoned us the wonderful remains of the old Roman civilization – the beautiful Maison Carrée, its almost perfect amphitheatre, where once as many as twenty thousand spectators could watch naval contests on its flooded arena, where Visigoths and Saracens engaged in combats which made the sluices