Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/323

Rh enjoyment. The pleasurable gave its hand to the useful. All the Cantons met as brethren, as children of the same Liberty, of the same beloved mother-country, and here, united in sportive and earnest intercourse, learned to know each other better, and the better to understand the meaning of their Confederation.

The new palace of the Federal government, at Berne, is nearly completed, and is a magnificent building. The government evidently is endeavoring still more to develop a central life in the confederated states, and, by so doing, to lead them to a higher unity and harmony. And is as it should be.

I returned by way of Freyburg from the great family feast to the shores of Lake Leman. In Freyburg I paid a visit to the grave of Père Girard, which a dirty Franciscan monk of Père Girard's convent, and who smelt strongly of brandy, showed to me. A snow-white marble stone, with a simple inscription, covers the resting-place of the friend of children. I heard in the Cathedral of Freyburg the remarkable organ which, like that at Rome, gives a perfect imitation of the crash of thunder, and the roaring of the wind, and choruses of beseeching human voices. The organist played “La Promenade sur Mer.”

Whilst on the shores of Lake Leman I again visited Montreux and Clarens, saw the Rhone valley at Bex, visited old and new friends in their summer home—the Alpine cottages on the glaciers, from the icy fountains of which the good housewives themselves fetched the snow to cool our refreshing beverages. The