Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/56

72 the town, with its tall tower, the bells of which are beautiful, with its terrace of thick-branched lime-trees, looks forth grandly and calmly above the tumult of human inhabitants, who seem to be clambering and climbing up and around its firm walls. Seen from Montbenon, it looks like a preacher in his pulpit, amidst his congregation. Around this stately Cathedral, around this kernel of gray-brown houses, which look as if they had stood from the times of the old Roman Laussaninum, extends in wider and ever wider circles a girdle of beauty and grace. This is composed of gardens, enchanting parks, and country houses, where the élite of the inhabitants, and wealthy families from the cultivated countries of the whole world reside—often the whole year through. These country houses are rarely remarkable for the splendid style of their building, or the luxury of their interior finishing. Their distinguishing beauty is that of their site, and the views which they command of the lake and the Alps—the heroine and heroes of the scene. These views are different in every separate situation, but the beauty of all are nearly equal. The larger residences have large gardens, beautiful pleasure-grounds and fountains; the smaller ones have, at all events, a terrace and a little grass plot, and all have an affluence of beautiful shrubs and flowers.

“How good,” said Madame Vulleimin to me one day during a walk, glancing at a country-house, “how good it is that every one here can have in his dwelling a portion of the best and the most beautiful which life affords!” Every one here can have a small house, a garden, and—this view!