Village Life in Switzerland

Preface

. To publish a new work on Switzerland in the present day, would seem to argue prima facie some degree of temerity on the part of the writer ; since no country has found so many authors to write its praises, both in prose and verse. But having during a residence of nearly three years in a secluded Swiss village (where the principal inhabitant was the village apothecary) seen and heard much that, to me, was new and interesting in the habits and manners of the peasants among whom we lived ; I have thought that a brief record of my impressions would prove equally novel to the public ; since I am not aware that any other writer has treated exclu sively of the life as it exists in the villages and hamlets scattered among the Alps, where the peasants see and hear but little of the world without their mountains. Bex: 1864. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

First Impressions of Bex — Hotel — Tempest — View of the Alps — Dinner-hour — Motley Company — Anecdote — Table d'Hote — Maitre d'Hotel — Return to Bex .... page 1

Chapter II

House-hunting — Chalets in the Air — Model Swiss House — Difficulties — Success — Wretched Accommodation for Servants — Frau A. — Our Landlord — Shopping — Pleasures of Hydropathy — Brante — Dilemma — Politeness — Prices of Provisions — Wages — Libert e et Patrie — Servants— Juge de Paix — Gaufires 13

Chapter III

Making the best of it — Stoves — Cloacae— A Bouquet— Splendid View — Avalanches — Domestic Squabbles — Mariage de Convenance— Tir Cantonal — Swiss Humour — Aspect of the Country — Swiss and English Drunkenness — Preparations for a Feast — Hecate — Fat Obelisk — Swiss Riflemen — Stump Oratory — Odd Prizes CONTENTS.

Chapter IV

Autumn — No accounting for Taste — Comparative Industry — Communal Properties — Village Cures — Immorality — Pastors and Flock — Fruit -gathering —Bien Cuit — Vendange — Fisherman of the Rhone — Grape Cure — Dark Side of the Picture — Dans la Cave — Conseil Municipal — Evil Communications, &c. — Fete ala-Champetre — English Exclusiveness — Wine Press . page "0

Chapter V

Pirrrabessa — Salines— Strong-minded Women— Crinoline — A Bad Road — Light in Darkness — La Grande Rencontre — Fatiguing Ascent — Maison-de-Cuite — Cray-fishing — Ducking a Dandy — Valley of the Rhone — Encampments — Pests of the Country — Vipers — Cure for Palsy 98 «

Chapter VI

• Charley ' — Pedestrians —Les Berge.res de Florian — Terrific Gale — ' One Look was Enough' — ' Beauty and the Beast' — Ascent of the Dent de Morcles — Guide — Bains de Lavey— Le Saut du Chien — Natives — Chalets de l'Haut — Alpine Dairy — Night in a Laiterie — Fleas — Chamois — Guide at Fault — Summit — Mind and Matter 118

Chapter VII

Picnic — A French Countess — Christening a Cascade — Frenieres — Les Plans — Pension Bernard — Search for Snow — Snow-balling in June — Exciting Pastime — The Lost Child — Happy Valley — Interior of a Chalet ....... 145

Chapter VIII

Strange Laws — Debtor and Creditor — Prince Vladimir — Prince and Principle — Better than a Duel — Suspicion — Affecting Leave-taking— Dupea — 'A Leaf from Charivari' — Rather cool CONTENTS. IX

Chapter IX

Starting for the Mountains — Swiss Champagne — Setting to rights — Beginning Life in a Chalet — The Swiss Hero — Danger of Fires — Use of Flies — Impromptu Dinners — Rambles and Scenery — Evening — Goats' milking — Raspberry Mountain . page 170

Chapter X

Neighbourhood of Les Plans — Martyrs to Custom — Grion — A Short Cut — Draught at the Fountain — Visitors — Novel Speculation — Chalets du Nant — Moraines— Glacier de Martinet — Swift Descent 194

Chapter XI

Superstitions — Sunsets — Louise — The Avencon — Tint Young Tailleuse's Story — Drowned Dead — Fete of Mi-ete — Dogs and Cows — Chevrier — Colony of Artists — Fight with a Bullock — Critics — Ahead of the Bloomers — Winter and Summer — Seven Days' Rain— Night at Story-telling 214

Chapter XII

First Artist's Tale — Adventure in the Jura— A Dark Night — Halfway House — Something Wrong — An Attack — Retreat of Robbers — Escape — Conclusion . ..... 245

Chapter XIII

Second Artist's Tale — Tale of Horrors — Brigands — La Handek — The Ghost laid — The French Artist's Tale — Morven and Morvendiaux — Night in a lonely Auberge — Presentiment — Flight 259 a X CONTENTS.

Chapter XIV

No Hope for it — Adieux to Les Plans — Cascade Pissevache— Gorge du Trient — Mountain-roads — Valaisan Hat — Goitre Cretins — Remarkable Cure of Goitre — Clue to an Englishman — Trident-fishing— A Patriarch— Trout .... page 272

Chapter XV

Winter— Fires and Fire-brigade — Sledging — Swiss Gallantry — Balls — St. Sylvestre — Fairs — Christmas — New- Year's Amusements ■ — Burying the Carnival — False Shame — Marriages — Christenings — St. Bernard Dogs — A Word of Advice . . . 290

Chapter XVI

Spring — Wild Flowers — Fete d' Ascension — Lessives — Washerwomen — Anecdote

Chapter I

First Impressions of Bex — Hotel — Tempest — View of the Alps — Dinner-hour — Motley Company — Anecdote — Table d'Hote — Maitre-d'Hotel — Return to Bex. After residing at Bex for more than two years, and becoming every day more and more enamoured of the place, I am almost inclined to believe my memory must be playing me false, as I recall my first impressions of it. We had come from Geneva at the close of a stifling, hot, dusty day in June. For some hours we had seen signs of an approaching storm ; the clouds that had hung about the sides of the mountains since the morning gradually descended lower and lower, everything and everybody seemed to feel the depressing influence of the heavy atmosphere ; and when a curve in the railway hid the clear, cool-looking lake, that had been our companion for B so many hours, from our view, we felt we had left behind the only thing that kept up our flagging spirits.

As the train whirled us on, the valley through which it passed became narrower and narrower; the ranges of mountains to our right and left appeared as if closing upon us, rendering still more appalling the increasing obscurity caused by the now quickly gathering storm; and I confess to the absurd fear shivering through me — a combination of nervous terrors produced by the intense heat and awful gloom, and a floating remembrance of one of Edgar Poe's horrid tales I had been reading the night be fore — that we had said farewell to daylight for so long as we should remain shut up among those dark mountains. We knew nothing of the place to which we were bound beyond its having been strongly recommended to us by Baron S before leaving England, as one of the most beautifully situated villages in Europe, or perhaps in the world, where M would find exhaust less subjects for his brush and pencil, and where we might live as unconventional and pastoral a life as we pleased; the place being little known to tourists, and the peasants en consequence more honest and simple in their morals and habits than are to be found in those parts where strangers most do congregate.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BEX. 3 As we stopped at one of the most uninteresting stations possible, that looked as if it had tumbled from the clouds on to the midst of the houseless and, as it appeared to me in the dim light, naked plain, that here made a detour to the left and formed a sort of bay among the mountains, I felt so indescribably miserable at the prospect of spending, or rather wasting, our precious month's holiday in such a wretched-looking hole, that I pulled M 's sleeve, and asked in as piteous a tone of voice as I could assume, ' Whether we could not take the train on to some pleasanter place ? ' Fortunately, he was too busy with the luggage and railway officials, or perhaps did not think the matter of sufficient consequence, to give heed to my vapours ; and by the time I was seated in the little old omnibus that was to convey us to the hotel, I had made what I considered was the very stoical resolution, to remain for one night without grumbling, but at the same time had quite as resolutely determined to depart by the first train the next morning.

I am afraid I was a little sulky at M 's impoliteness, for I remember that when he joined me in the crazy vehicle there was a debate of some moments between my pride and curiosity, before I would condescend to ask, 'And pray where is this lovely village?' when he made me stretch out my B . neck through the broken window, and about half a mile distant I saw, thrown out in strong relief by the dark heavy mountains behind, the whitish grey spire of a church tapering above the trees, in which the village seemed literally buried. The exterior of the hotel — not an unsophisticated aul >erge, as we had fondly imagined it would be ; we were bent upon finding everything primitive ; but, as it looked to our jaundiced eyes, a place of immense pretensions to gentility and very little real comfort, with its high square front that had been painted white, but not this century, its dull formal windows with green shutters baked nearly grey, and double row of sad slaty-coloured steps meeting on a platform at the top, as you see all through Switzerland — was not calculated to give an encouraging turn to our opinions respecting the place : and while we traversed the long dark low passage leading to the stairs at the other end of the house, we had abundant time for wishing our friend S in no very creditable companionship, for having been, poor man, the innocent means of sending us there.

However, our bedroom — which, as every reader of Bradshaw knows, serves for your sitting-room as well — was well furnished, very clean and comfortable, and moreover boasted a fireplace, which, though useless at that season, was pleasant to A TEMFEST. 5 see, and a luxury indicating that, after all, things were not so bad as they seemed : and when I pushed open the half-closed shutters to catch the last glimpses of daylight, the first lightning flash of the storm that had been driven to bay in that corner revealed to me for a moment something so white, so dazzling, that I felt as if I had had a transient glimpse of another world. M laughed at me, and declared I had got the railway fever, which sarcasm compelled me to hold my tongue and smoothe my indignation as best I could, waiting for morning to clear up the mystery.

And ' lang ' the morning seemed ' a coming,' for the thunder, wind, and banging of one hundred out side shutters, were enough to have roused the seven sleepers. After raging about four hours, the tempest suddenly ceased, as if the Great Master had said • Peace,' and there was a calm — a phenomenon I have frequently noticed here ; and with the quiet I slept, till the hot sun roused up the flies, when it was ' good-bye to slumber.' As my feelings were still smarting under the recol lection of M.'s stinging remarks of the preceding night, my first thought was to rush to the window ; and never, never so long as life lasts, shall I forget my first look at the scene that lay before me ; those only who behold, for the first time in their lives, those stupendous Alpine heights, can enter into the sensations that absolutely overcame me.

I looked, not on the valley, no loDger appearing naked and bare in the glorious sunlight, but covered with crops of golden grain — nor on the village, with its quaintly roofed and chimneyed houses, lying among the orchards laden with rich promise for the autumn — nor the mount further on, crowned with the ruined chateau, where I have since spent so many happy hours — nor the low range of chestnut wooded hills, dotted with picturesque farms and chalets, that stretches across the valley : my eyes were fixed on those sublime heights, peak after peak rising higher and higher, till the snowy range of Mont Blanc, eternally white, immeasurably grand — my vision of last night, but to-day a reality far surpass ing any dream — closed up the view. As I write, I have the same scene from my window ; and ever and anon, as I raise my eyes to gaze upon it, I feel that I experience the same pleasure as when I first beheld it : if I am weary, it revives me ; in the over powering heat of summer, I am refreshed by the sight of those cold white peaks ; and when careful and troubled, and inclined to despond, their pure serenity elevates my thoughts to a throne eternal with the heavens.

VIEW OF THE ALrs. But I must descend from my sublimity to breakfast, at which, as every continental traveller knows by experience, one sees little or nothing of the rest of the company that may happen to be stopping in the house, everyone taking his cup of coffee, and roll of French bread, when and how he likes ; but at dinner — the hour for which varies considerably in different localities, it being usually much earlier in those places that have great pretensions to fashion, than in out-of-the-way villages, such as Bex ; as, for instance, at Stuttgart, the residence of the king and court, it was half-past eleven, and here it is two — one meets all the visitors save the great invalids, if there are any, and the indefatigable pedestrians, who are absent on some mountain excursion. As we sat down, our place at table being indicated by the number of our bedroom, written on the back of a playing card, tied round the napkin by a piece of broad scarlet braid, I thought I had never seen such an uninteresting looking compauy assembled together for the purpose of feeding.

At the head of the table sat a little German Swiss, who, I discovered, prided himself upon the correctness with which he spoke our language, and said to M , byway, I suppose, of proving that his pretensions were not ill-founded, 'I parle Inglish ven I can.' Speaking of languages, reminds me of an anecdote I heard not many days ago, about an Englishman stopping at G . It seems that like many, I had almost written most, of our country men and women, he was no great linguist, and his knowledge of French was so limited that, wishing to speak to a chambermaid who was passing, and being ignorant of the proper name by which to designate her, he hit upon the bright idea that, as a man waiter was called ' gareon,' a female domestic must be called ' feminine garjon,' which he actually shouted out, with a strong accent on the 'nine' to make it more French, to the no small amusement of everyone who heard him.

Next to me sat a fat German, who ate enormously of everything, and smacked his lips : a thin ditto was my rts-i'i-ris, who must certainly have been ill, as his appetite was no larger than a robust English man's, and who used his knife so awrkwardly, cutting his meat with his left hand, that I expected every moment to see it inserted between the ribs of his neighbour, an exceedingly proper-looking, thin, light Englishwoman, whose husband, a fine old geneial with decorations, that showed he had shared in the dangers of many a hard-won battlefield, had yet such a fear of his prim wife, that he never hazarded an observation without turning towards her aud saying, TABLE D'HOTE. 9 ' Am I right, my dear ? ' Then we had a French gentleman, and his ugly but clever little wife, who played and sang so divinely, and whose agreeable society, in spite of our romantic yearning for solitude, helped so much in rendering our stay more pleasant and agreeable ; two German ladies of middle age, travelling with their femme-de-chambre, who always ate at the same table with them, and was addressed as 'Du;' and a Swiss family, consisting of papa, mamma, two grown-up sons, who never went out, even for a walk, without asking leave from their parents, and one daughter, dressed in the highest fashion for Swiss demoiselles, namely, low body, with high net tucker, and short sleeves, with long limpy white ones descending from them, and light hair, plaited so tightly off her forehead that it seemed to have also tightened the skin all over her face.

The dinner was good and abundant. There was no ceremony, no restraint, no grand toilettes (save the young lady's); everyone seemed to have come there to escape awhile from the trammels of conventionalism, and to enjoy himself each after his own fashion. We had only one little waiter, who carved so expertly, and had such a queer bit of a nose, that you were irresistibly inclined to believe that one day in carving too quickly, the knife had turned wrong way, and cut off a slice, leaving the nostrils all wide. When we were about half-way through dinner, I saw two or three of the company rise and shake hands, with every demonstration of satisfaction, with a tall stout man who had just entered the room, and whose face was so smiling and good-tempered, you felt you would like to shake hands with him too. ' He is our landlord,' said my neighbour, the fat German, in answer to my inquiry, ' one of the best fellows in the world ; he has been away for three days, aud the house has been as dull as a hospital without him.' Praise well merited, as I found from pleasant experience afterwards ; and who that has stayed in his house will not bear testimony to the untiring cheerful assistance, in all matters, his guests receive at his hands ?

Here we spent one of the most delightful months of our lives ; and I well remember that, as we were seated in the train on our return home, I said to M , as I endeavoured to get one more look at the little village that had become so dear to me, ' I feel that we shall see this place again,' a presentiment fulfilled not long after, when, for reasons that need not be entered into, we removed with all our family to reside upon the Continent, and having found, after SECOND VISIT TO BEX. 11 residing a year at S , that it did not suit either our healths or our purse, we were casting about for some more eligible place to live at; I suddenly ex claimed one day, after a long discussion respecting the comparative merits of, I cannot tell, how many places, ' Why not go to Bex ? ' a suggestion that met with unanimous approval, and was acted upon as soon as we had received a letter from our good host of the Hotel de l'Union, telling us that we should have no difficulty in procuring a house in Bex, as several had been built since we were there.

My children had heard so much of the place, that they were almost wild with delight when we made the announcement, that we had decided upon going there with as little delay as possible. They had never liked S , therefore almost any change would have been agreeable ; but to go to Bex, from which they had received so many pleasant letters, the place that was a sort of El Dorado to their young imagination, was beyond all things de lightful. What joy, what happiness ! All the long two days' journey, they were incessantly asking ' how far they were from Bex ; ' and when at last we neared the little well-remembered station, we could hardly restrain them from jumping out before the train stopped. It was pleasant to be welcomed * B6 so cordially by our host, M. Wagner, who hadcome to meet us ; and on reaching the hotel, we found that his thoughtful care for our comfort had made him give us rooms in the pretty vine-covered pension, communicating with the main building by means of a covered gallery, looking into a garden full of roses, oleanders, pomegranates, and orange trees, about which scores of the lovely humming-bird hawk moths were flitting, as graceful, and almost as beau tiful, as their more brilliant namesakes, and rows of acacias cast a pleasant shade upon the seats beneath.

Chapter II

House-hunting— Chaleta in the Air — Model Swiss House Difficulties — Success — Wretched Accommodation for Servants — Prau A. — Our Landlord — Shopping — Pleasures of Hydro pathy — Brante — Dilemma — Politeness — Prices of Pro visions — Wages — Liberte et Patrie — Servants — Juge de I'aix— Gauffres. Our first care, after a night's rest, was to procure a house; and as we had been subjected to all sorts of disgusting annoyances at S , through so many families living under the same roof, a nuisance you may as well make up your mind to submit to on the Continent, we were desirous of getting one to our selves ; preferring a small house and privacy, to a large one with the espionage and interference of the landlord and tenants. In our mind's eye we had visions of a delicious chalet, embowered in chestnut woods on a mountain side, with balconies a la Suisse, trellised with vines, a fountain making dulcet music to the ear, and a splendid view over ' all the country side,' But, alas for our chalets in the air, we were soon told that they were only for summer use, and that to take the whole of a house was a thing unheard of, impossible, as they were large enough for barracks.

So, with a sigh, at hav ing to relinquish our cherished project of living in a real Siuiss chalet, we sallied forth to inspect the rooms that were offered for our selection. Our first visit was made to an etage — which, I must explain, means all the rooms on the same floor — on the second, in England we should call it the third, story of a tall whitewashed building, decorated with the invariable green shutters, to which we mounted by means of a filthy flight of wooden steps, leading on to a dilapidated balcony, hung with all sorts of wearing apparel, dirty rags, &C. and garnished with various articles of crockery that we think it decent to keep in our bedrooms. From the balcony, an inner flight of stone stairs brought us to the maison a louer, which consisted of four bedrooms and a kitchen, all having brick floors, and not a shred of a carpet.

The furniture, though clean, was of the very poorest description. There was no sitting-room, or salon, as it is designated : the kitchen, not large enough to swing a mouse in, had no cooking appa ratus, merely an ordinary stove about a foot square. Every drop of water we should have required would MODEL SWISS HOUSE. have had to be carried from a considerable dis tance, no small consideration to people who con sider daily bathing as aD absolute necessity : and I soon discovered that it was a house suitable only for a family who took their meals at an hotel, and did not cook at home, and who, moreover, did not require it for the winter months, as the absence of stoves, and other comforts, plainly showed that it was intended only for a summer let. Thence we proceeded to the residence of M. Vantard, who had formerly been malt ce-d' hotel here, but, having failed, had retired from business with a considerable fortune, and built himself an exceedingly pretty house on the outskirts of the village, with large barns and outhouses, all in the true Swiss style, for storing the produce of the farm and garden, separated from the house by a court, which boasted the rare luxury of a private fountain, shaded by a large plane tree, the whole forming as charming a picture of a complete Swiss domicile as one would wish to see.

We found these rooms, as regards situation, arrangement, and furniture, very superior to those we had just left, but as there were only two bedrooms, and the proprietor would not hear of our converting either the salon or salle-a-manrjcr into another chambre-a-coucher, and we could not very well see how, by any system of cramming, we could squeeze five children into one little room, we were compelled to search further, not without casting many a wistful look at the bright clean-looking house, with its tasteful pinewood balconies encircling three sides of the building. The price, too, asked for these rooms was exorbitant, exactly four times the rent of the first we had looked at. After these two experiments, I began to think that house-finding in Bex was not so easy an affair after all as M. Wagner had led us to expect, and that the troubles arising from such a need are pretty much of a muchness all over the world.

However, have a house we must ; for though the cost of living at the hotel is very reasonable, only four francs a day per head, it soon amounts to a large sum when you are eight in number. I should fill a volume if I were to give an account of all the houses we visited in search of apartments ; of the number of flights of stairs we moimted, some of the rooms being five, six, and even seven stories high ; or of the wonderful treasures in the way of old furniture, to which it was impossible to affix any age, that were revealed to our admiring gaze. More than once, M sallied forth solus, determined to do or die, but with no better success, although he declared DIFFICULTIES. 17 he had been into every house in the village ; and he added, ' I have seen more ugly old hags in one hour in this place, than I ever thought of seeing in my life.' At the end of a week we grew desponding, as we seemed no nearer the attainment of our desires ; and were even beginning to impute selfish motives to our smiling host for having assured us we could so easily procure a houses — when he verified the popular adage, by entering our apartment with the joyful announce ment that he had met with exactly what we wanted, in a new large house, erected by a notaire in a charming situation, at the entrance to the village from the railway; so of course we started off in stanter, and were not a little pleased to find that the accommodation was enough, though none to spare, the rooms lofty and of moderate size, the furniture sufficiently good to last our term out, which is all you must ever hope for, and the position of the building unexceptionable — with such a view, that, if the rooms had lacked all other agremens, I think we should have been tempted to take them for that alone.

There was a salon, three bedrooms, a small bare room for M 's studio, a large empty kitchen, and last, not least, a magnificent balcony, of which more c anon. A cellar, down three flights of stairs, was at our disposal for storing our provisions, a wash-house when finished (as an instance of the remarkable despatch used in building in the Vaud, I may mention that, at the expiration of two years, it is still in the lath and plaster state), and a room for servants 'in the roof. When I mounted to the top story to inspect the latter, I found that all the rooms in that part were only partitioned off by means of boards, laid so carelessly and roughly one above the other, that in some places you could thrust your hand between ; and I shivered as I pictured to myself how the wind would blow through them in the winter.

As I entered the little low chamber (it would be much more ap propriately designated as a den), I knocked my head against an immense beam that hung down a foot and a half from the low roof, and in the only part of the room where, but for that, it would have been possible to stand upright, as the remainder of the roof sloped down to the little window, about a foot square. There was a small bed, a dilapidated wooden chair, a jug and basin on a projection formed by another beam in a corner, but of dimensions so tiny that I cannot suppose they were placed there for use, and a wee looking-glass nailed against the wall, in so low a position, that to be available it must be approached WRETCHED ACCOMMODATION. 19 on the knees, a circumstance much more mortifying to Swiss female vanity, than the impossibility of washing the skin.

When I looked round the wretched little hole, so bare and cheerless-looking, even at that season, and contrasted it with the comfortable, almost luxurious apartments our servants have in England, I positively shuddered, and, turning to the Frau A , who con ducted us over the house, I asked if she did not think it would be difficult to induce any servant to sleep there? I am quite sure she thought I was out of my senses, for her astonishment was so great that it was some moments ere she replied, with considerable asperity, that 'Her domestics slept on straw and were satisfied ; that the bedroom I saw had been pro vided with extra comforts (jug and glass, I thought) to meet the requirements of any English family who might take the apartments ; as, from having had them lodging with her before, she had found out that English servants were not content with such accommodations as were thought sufficient for their own domestics.' And no wonder! for I declare that in England I have seen pigs better lodged.