Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/45

Rh the people of Lausanne who are able to do so, betake themselves for some weeks, and there live in freedom, enjoying the mountain air, milk and fruit, in a word, all the luxuries which pastoral life affords in the neighborhood of the glaciers. For this purpose, the herdsmen give up their huts to the townspeople, who remove thither with their children and their households. One hears every day of individuals or families who had betaken themselves “à la montagne,” or who are intending to do so.

I have in the mean time made some agreeable acquaintance, both in and out of Lausanne, which I hope on some future occasion to improve. First and foremost, two amiable persons, a married couple, intimate friends of M. Vinet, M. and Mme. F., at whose beautiful estate at St. Prex, near Merges, on the shore of Leman, it was very pleasant to me to converse with them of their deceased friend, who was alike remarkable as a man and a thinker. Mme. F. was at this time occupied in preparing for the press the notes which he left behind him, of the literature of France during the sixteenth century, a course of lectures which he had given in Lausanne. But my indisposition at this time prevented my full enjoyment either of the pleasures of society or the beauties of the country. And thus I merely saw at a distance “Wufflens” castle, with its many towers, a stately memory of Queen Bertha, the royal spinner, who held the sceptre and the distaff with the same hand, as the old song says, together with the trowel, building fortresses and towers which bear her name.

I was present at various evening parties in Lausanne,