Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/30

46 I plunged down at once, and up again, and yet a second time; “hah, hah, hah, hah! ah! ah!”

What a wonderful sensation! what a change! I am, as it were, new born. I have left my old humanity in the bath. I feel strong, healthy, full of vigor, rejuvenated, scarcely five-and-twenty years old! The energetic life of the Aar was flowing in my veins. Thanks to the Titans' daughter.

Vitalized anew, soul and body, I wandered slowly along its verdant bank, reading in the “Album Swisse,” which I bought at a book shop, with unspeakable pleasure, L. Vulleimin's sketch of the reign of Queen Bertha. It was my first acquaintance with this remarkable Swiss historian, and with the noble Queen, who is one of the most beautiful characters of old French Switzerland, and whom the people still honor as the good genius of the country. Whilst Rudolph, her husband, as King of Burgundy, carried war into Italy, and endeavored to conquer Lombardy, she remained at home, engaged in the benevolent works of peace. “She laid down roads,” says her historian, “encouraged the cultivation of the soil, planted vineyards, and protected the poor serfs. At the same time that Queen Bertha founded convents, asylums for prayer and labor, she built fortresses in Gourse, in Moudon, in Neufchâtel, from the Alps as far as Jura; and, under the protection of these strongholds, the country, being defended from the ravages of the Huns and Saracens, was enabled to flourish. She rode on horseback through the land, visiting the peasant farmers, acquainting herself with their means of life, visiting their barns and hemp-spinneries,