The Cottages of the Alps; or, Life and manners in Switzerland. By the author of 'Peasant Life in Germany'

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THE COTTAGES OF THE ALPS ; OR, 3fifr ani gl.ntn.rs in it jerkin t). BY THE AUTHOR OF " PEASANT LIFE IN GERMANY." NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRANH STREET. M DCCC Entered accoriliiig*^-flCK^S&ij^i*jfe*ar 1360, by Id the Clerk's Office of the District Court os' w»*%^ Southern District of New York. W. H. TlKSOl., Stereotypes Geo. Russell & Co., Printers. TD MADAM DORA D'lSTRIA, iTlis Tolumt is 3u_tri.£_, IN TESTIMONY OF THE FRIENDSHIP or THE AUTHOR. V PRE FACE. "While the independence of Switzerland, 80 often as sailed, yet so long providentially maintained, appears to be again threatened by the advances of a powerful neighbour, it is hoped that a picture of the social and political Use of the Swiss people, from recent personal observation, may not be unacceptable to the English people who have evinced so warm an interest in the events now passing in Southern Europe.

The name upon our dedicatory page may not be familiar to our readers ; and as we have placed it there for the pur pose of making known to them the life and works of a wo man who is becoming a bright and shining light amid the darkness of Eastern despotism, it is due that we say a few words to prove her title to the slight tribute we thus pay her, and her claim to the attention of the English public* She is an Eastern princess of the ancient and noble family of Ghika. Her ancestors originated in Macedonia, and emigrated centuries ago to Wallachia, where since 1058 they have been the family from which the Hospodars have been mainly elected, under the Ottoman rule, and charac terised always by bravery, intrepidity, and love of liberty. Wallachia is one of the Danubian principalities which * This work was first published in London, by Messrs, Sampson Low, Son & Co., 47 Ludgate Hill. VI

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. have been so long the object of strife between Russia, Austria, and Turkey ; and the Ghikas are the indomitable native princes who have resisted them, and rebelled against their tyranny, unto death. After the first Russian occupation, Gregory Ghika the Seventh was the restorer of the throne of Wallachia, and the resuscitator of their beloved Roumanic language and literature. He instituted many reforms, relieved the country of a debt which had weighed upon it for a century, and formed a plan of national education. But neither Russia nor Austria wished to see the Roumaini revive in their native strength and glory, and contrived to plunge them anew into misfortunes. Fr«_n 1828 to 1834 the throne of Bukarest was vacant, and since that period only once have they been ruled by a nativ . prince.

This was Alexander Ghika, brother of Gre gory, equally noble and equally unfortunate. This brings us to the princess of our story, Helena Ghika, the niece of these two princes, and daughter of Michael Ghika, a long time " Minister of the Interior " to his brother. She was born on the 22d of January, 1829, and during all her life in the East saw her country struggling, resisting, and con quered but never subdued. Before the revolution of 1842 her father had removed his family to Dresden to complete their education, and her cousin, Alexander Gregory Ghika, has, in these latter days, commenced the struggle anew to throw off the foreign yoke. One of her books is entitled the "Heroes of Roumaini;" and those who are familiar with the history of her country will understand her enthu si'asm for liberty, and love of her people. But it is owing to the resolution of her father that she

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. VII should not be nurtured in the supineness which characterises the lives of Eastern ladies, that she received an education which would be considered masculine even in England and America. In her childhood she had an English bonne, and at seven years of age was placed under the tutorship of the renowned Professor Papadopulos, who not only taught her the rich languages of the East, Greek, Latin, and French, but imbued her with the spirit of the ancient philosophers and heroes, and initiated her into all the learning of the schools. Her fajther said, " All the progress of later years in literature was owing to the blending of niasculiue intelligence and vigour with a proper development of feminine tact and perception. These are continually reacting on ' each other, so that every new subject is handled with a profound investigation and artistic detail, which leave no roofn for fallacy.

Uneducated women in any country are the dupes of intriguers and the strongest enemies of progress, whether in Church or State; and in every country those who oppose their elevation, by the use of the cant of " woman's rights " and " woman's sphere," and other terms of scorn and ridicule, know very well that while they can be kept floating in saloons, insipid and thoughtless, society will remain corrupt, and the pillars of freedom be continually tottering." We commend these sentiments of an Eastern prince to the consideration of some of our fellow-countrymen ; and we have not forgotten once hearing an American lady in a saloon express the utmost contempt for another, whom she had been invited to meet, aud yet to whom she refused to be introduced, because she despised a woman who made

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. literature her study, and was an authoress ! — or another, who said, " A woman who became public in any way was only worthy of contempt." To such ladies we need not present the subject of our story. They will despise her for having voluntarily renounced the " life of saloons," as she herself expresses it, to devote herself to literature and the effort by her pen to do something for the freedom of her beloved country. It will be useless for us to say to such paragons, how beautiful is her daily life, how spotless her character, how noble her enthusiasm, and how severe her labour — she is by these very virtues public, and her name becoming familiar in every tongue. Her father not only insisted that she should be thoroughly disciplined in mind, but in body ; and among various other exercises, she was taught to swim, and became so expert that in late years she saved the life of a lady in her family, the instructress of her sister, who fell into the water when no one was near to save her but herself.

Music and painting were not neglected, nor an acquaintance with general literature. She speaks and writes Russian, German, Italian, French, and English ; and at an exhibition of fine arts in St. Petersburg, obtained the prize for two of her paintings. Her invocations of the Muses have not been less successful ; and that she is the only person who has ascended the Mimch, one of the highest mountains in Switzerland, proves that these graces are not incompatible with energy and heroism. At the age of twenty years she was married to a Russian prince, Koltzoff Massalsky, a descendant of the old Vikings of Moldavia, who entered Russia in the days of Vladimir in 988, and have never been especially popular with the

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. IX reigning dynasty. She resided six years at the Russian Court, during which time her health failed, and the influence of a northern climate threatened to sink her into an early grave. Physicians said she must leave or die. The invasion of Wallachia by Russia in 1853 seemed to her a crime, against which she ventured a remonstrance.* This made her unpopular, and her passports were freely given to exile herself in whatever land she chose. She had no children to link her to the land of her adoption, and she went forth to wander, at least till her health should be restored, and it may be for ever, unless oppression should cease, and the peace which can only be the consequence of justice on the part of the stranger, should be restored between the Em pire and the dependent province. We heard of her everywhere in Switzerland as the quiet, unassuming lady, benevolent to the poor and kindly to all, acting the part of godmother to a peasant's child in a cottage, the beloved of children, sympathizing with all sorrow, and yet living entirely apart from the gay world.

The first months of her exile were spent in Ostend, in 1855, and there she published her first book, " Monastic Life," which appeared at Brussels. The next year she resided in Canton Tessino, to enjoy the delicious climate on the borders of Lago Maggiore. In quick succession since this period have appeared the volumes entitled severally, German, French, and Italian Switzerland — books which fill a void in literature that, we cannot understand why, has been lest so lori" unfilled. But we are consoled with the thought that * The old Russian party would have preferred to send her to Siberia with two other noble ladies whose crimes were the same, and who are now exiles among the eternal snows but for some reason the Emperor did not comply with their demands.

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. X no one could have done it better, and it may be well that the task was left to her. Those who would know the his tory, the heroes, the authors, the reformers, and philanthro pists of Switzerland, can find them portrayed nowhere else in their true light, indeed, nowhere else at all except in their own chronicles. It struck us as a curious coincidence that a lady should have come from the far east, and another from the far west, to meet in the little republic with the same object, the same opinions, and the same enthusiastic love of liberty, one being born subject of a despot and the other of a free government. We did not succeed in obtaining her books till our own was finished, and when we first heard of them feared we might be upon common ground and one pen rendering the other unnecessary.

But we found, without knowing it, that we began just where she had lest off, and the end of her books and the beginning of ours could not have been better fitted together had it been done by design. Hers are of the past and ours of the present, and Switzer land must be viewed in both these relations in order to be understood. There are striking resemblances in thought, in facts, and in expression even, but which can only be the result of similarity of views, as we had no knowledge of each other in any way till the works of both were finished. In her preface to this work she says, " I have travelled through great kingdoms without finding anything to make a noble feeling. There we see only such victories as spiritual tyranny or worldly despotism can exercise over the healthy understandings of men ; but you, fruitful plains of Thurgovie, peaceful valleys of St. Gall, renowned mountains of Appenzell, how different the feelings which you call up !

PREFACE, XI You walk with a fearless step and lift an independent brow to heaven, while the people of the great nations around you still bow their necks to the yoke. You are a free people, and the banner on which glitters the federal star can with just pride wave near the Lion of free, happy England, and the star-spangled banner of unconquerable America." For these principles she and her books are interdicted in Austria and in Russia, though they come freely into France and Belgium, and also are allowed in Germany. The reviews and journals of the different countries notice her according to their ideas of liberty; her genius and her talent are never gainsaid.* She forbade us to name her titles in our dedication, and though we have given them here in order to explain her life, we forget them always in our intercourse with her, for it is the woman only that we know.

She has won for herself a title more noble than accident bestowed upon her, like England's noble queen, who immortalises the throne instead of allowing the throne to immortalise her. We have written of the people of Switzerland as we did of those of Germany, but we cannot say we have described the "peasant life," because there is, legitimately speaking, no such thing in Switzerland. According to the 4th article of their constitution, " All Swiss are equal before the law. There are in Switzerland no subjects; none who enjoy privi leges on account of birth, person, or family." Every peasant may look forward to the highest honours in the gift of the * Besides contributing to journals in Paris, Athens, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, she has written In these last six years, " The Women of the East ;" " The Ionian iBles," under the rule of Venice and British protection; " Nationality of Roumanie;" "The Orientals and the Papacy," 4c, _c, which, our readers will see, leaves her little tim« for saloons.

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. republic, if he jvill make himself Avorthy of them, and it is the occurrence of every day that the upper ranks are filled by accessions from the lower. In Germany the mercantile class and mechanics are as far below the nobility as the peasantry are, and their life and occupations come as legitimately within our sphere. In Switzerland the president and council, the senate and deputies, are also a part of the people, and thus is given us a still wider range, without departing from our subject. Here the mountains are the castles, and nature constructs all the palaces. In the cities there is nothing princely, and nothing feudal except the ruins ; we shall therefore indulge ourselves in saying whatever we think is new and interest ing, whether of high or low. But though a greater expe rience and additional language have increased our facilities for observation and study, we do not here, any more than there, confine ourselves to what we can learn by personal effort.

What others, with' larger acquaintance and better opportunities, have learned, may be more valuable than any thing we may collect ourselves, whatever may be our fitness or capacity. Of the reliability of these sources, we, of course, must be the judge. We cannot enlarge our book to unwieldy dimensions, or mar our pages with " authori ties " and " statistical proofs," which not ten persons among those for whom we write would take the trouble to examine or care to know. We are influenced by the " spirit of truth," and have no cause of malice or unkindness towards the country we have left, or the one in which we are. We could transcribe many letters, written voluntarily by

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. XIII German friends, assuring us that our representations have not even the fault of exaggeration. But we have since heard that many things are not Ger man merely, but continental. In Switzerland we have re lied wholly upon the people and their own chronicles. The Swiss are all chroniclers, and remarkably faithful in writing of themselves. We have found them always ready to open their stores for our researches, and never manifesting any fear of our pen. We are particularly indebted to Dr. Prof. Osenbrugg, of Zurich University, for a series of observations made by him self in various tours in Switzerland to see the country and to write about the people. The descriptions of prisons, court trials, and various facts in jurisprudence, were fur nished us by him, and we are only sorry that we cannot do justice to the original, in which law and poetry are blended in an unusually happy manner.

Dr. Oesterler,*of the same city, and the librarian of the Biblioteke, were invaluable assistants in our studies. The "American Minister Resident," at Berne, furnished us cordially with introductions and special passports, to en able us to travel with profit and pleasure, and we are espe cially indebted to the firm of "Dalp & Co." for any courtesy to facilitate us in our work. Whether we travelled alone, or in what sort of company, we do not this time inform the public, as it does not essen tially concern them, and we will not subject others to the reproach of the evil-minded and vulgar, but may say it is no such marvellous thing in these days to travel in any tole rably civilized country. There is sufficient law and sufficient honour among men for the protection of all who need it, and

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. XIV it may be something to the credit of Germans and Swiss that we have never, in a single instance, during three years among them, required more than our own dignity could furnish, and now, as before, can say we have had no experience that has caused us to regret having come among them. In both books we have only aimed at giving a good general idea of the people. Names and dates, localities and masses of details, only clog the memory, and answer no useful purpose in a book like this. Specialties may be in teresting to those who have travelled extensively, but to those who cannot identify each event and scene with the spot where it occurred, by personal observation, it is only tedious to attempt it. Geographies and guide-books are made especially for those who would trace heights and dis tances with exactness, and there are plenty of authors with a different plan to fill the chasms we have left.

That the portraits of life and manners are faithful, we know, and we have been gratified in reading the letters of two German travellers, editors of a St. Louis journal, who had been twenty-five years in America, and returned to the fatherland to receive the same inq.ressions as a stranger, from the lack of progress, and the sluggishness of all enter prise, where despots rule, and the comparative sluggishness of everything in the old, time-honored world. That our suggestions will be of any use we cannot have the vanity to hope, but there is just now a general awaken ing throughout the Continent that bids fair to result in pro moting the interest of the governed. The day of blind obedience is past, and a tremulous fear has seized the sove reigns of every state, that unless they rule more wisely and

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. XV beneficently, they will soon cease to rule at all. Whether it be kingdom, or empire, or republic, we care not, provided Justice and Mercy sit on the throne and walk hand-in-hand among the people. CONTENTS

Chapter I. First Impressions

— PEOPLE, PAST AND PRESENT — CARS AND DILIGENCES- BERNE __ID ITS BEABS — PRISONERS — FEDERAL PALACE — PROMENADES — MOUN- TAINS. We entered Switzerland by its northern gate ; and as our German Guide-book says, " we have only crossed tho border before we find ourselves in a different land, and among a different people," it will be thought no sin for us to say the same. We did not read the Guide-book till long after we had made our observations, but our philosophy was instantly awake, wondering why those who had the same origin, and have spoken always the same language, should be found in paths diverging so widely in the journey through life. We had thought that German Switzerland must be very much like Germany, but even the general features, as we glance superficially, offer scarcely any points of resemblance — iu which remark we allude only to the people, their manners and cus toms ; for now, as before, to these we are-obliged to confine our selves.

The mountains, however grand, and the valleys, how ever lovely, must be passed by in silence ; not because our eyes do not behold them, or our mind does not appreciate them, but ALsS. because our "instructions" forbid us to dally among things beautiful, or our fancy to revel among things luxurious. We wish to know what kind of people inhabit this wonderful land ; and among the thousands — aye, hundreds of thousands — who have crossed its glaciers, and gone wild in its gorges, how few have thought it worth while to devote a page to the daily life of the shepherd and rover, though the imagination has woven a thousand tales of "a people who do not really exist. Yet the exclamations of surprise and discouragement are even more abundant when we say we are bound for Switzerland, than when our destiny was Germany.

An " exhausted subject," says one. " Switzerland has been written to death," says another. " The people ! Indeed", if you are to give us a book about the people, it will be more stupid still. They are no longer what they were in the days of chivalry and romance, but have degene rated into mercenary speculatists and plodding tillers of the soil. From being the most interesting, they have become the most humdrum of human beings." To this we could answer nothing when on our way, because we knew nothing ; and now shall leave our readers to prove whether those judge rightly who think a wilderness more pleasant to the eye than a fruitful field, and cottages smiling in the midst of plenty less idylish than the rude hut of the mountain. Because they no longer wear the kilt and wield the sabre, it is not necessarily true that they have not inherited the proud spirit of their fathers ; and songs of peace may indicate hearts as noble as the fierce war-whoop or the gay tambour.

This charge of degeneracy is something we hear so often, that we hope to prove its fallacy. The decision concerning the American Indian has been, that he could not be civilized ; that he preferred the tomahawk and scalping-knife. the wigwam and the skins of beasts, to the arts and comforts of Christian peo ple. Yet had whole nations of Indians voluntarily followed the plough and sowed the field, or in the course of centuries yielded to the subduing power of progress and settled in hamlets and in "white cottages with green blinds" — preferring cities and the hum of factories, what would have been said of them then ? Exactly what people say of the descendants of Tell and the brave men who defended with him their birthright. That foes without and traitors within, so long obliged them to wear the warrior's garb, aud to be ever on the watch for those who left no defile of their mountains free from the tramp of conquering hosts, and allowed no valley to escape the ravages of the ruthless destroyer, has been the reason they have not taken a higher stand among the nations, and that their federal escutcheon has not earlier become a bright and shining light, shedding its beams over a continent.

It is scarcely ten years since they were permitted to lay aside their armour. They have been the prey of every emperor, prince, and potentate from pole to pole and sea to sea ;* and to us it is ever marvellous, that in the days when their land was indeed a wilderness, aud tho most fruitful field almost a desert, they were able to march triumphant through disciplined legions, thronging from every point of the compass to defend their liberties and preserve their rights, remaining always a peculiar people, which no power could crush and no corruption entirely destroy. They have lived and fought till the nations are weary and give up the strife. They have at length agreed to let them alone, and, though the fact is but little known beyond their limits, it is yet true, that their present Government exhibits not less the wisdom which proves the * In this general assertion, Eoglaod la not included; and we might as well add, that In all cases where the term European is used, we refer only to Continental people. superiority of their statesmen and legislators, than their success in battle proved the courage of their warriors and the skill of their generals.

Switzerland is the object of the envy, and malice, and vitupe ration of the despotisms which surround her. It is the policy, and it is the practice, of princes and their courtiers;- to cause to be published continually the most slanderous falsehoods con cerning the little republic, its government, its laws, and its people.* Yet, in the heart of Europe, bounded on every side by em pires and kingdoms, trying to annihilate them by force or seduce them by bribery, with emissaries, either open or disguised, for centuries throwing confusion into their councils, endeavouring to blind or corrupt them, they have survived and retained enough of strength and right principle to form a government, which, if not perfect, is in advance of most, and, in some respects, superior to all. God grant that no blow from without, and the wiles of no serpent within, may again endanger its foundations.

We came first upon Swiss soil in Basel, but cannot stop here to tell its glories — the grand old city that was the seat of coun cils, and entertained whole retinues of popes, and bishops, and cardinals, emperors, kings, and princes, with wise men from the East, long before America had a name. We will come again and assign it due place and importance among its sisters of the Confederacy. We must first give a few general impressions as we pass along. It had been told us that the Swiss post allowed just forty pounds of baggage, and we therefore took just forty pounds, in * We find this asserted by a German author, Dr. Kolb, of Speyer, who has lately pub lished in Zurich a work on the political condition of Switzerland, including its financial military, and commercial relations. order to avoid all trouble of weights and measures, which we thus succeeded in doing, except on railways, where they allow none.

But so much baggage every person may have without fear of the merciless Custom-house inspector ; and when it was set down on the platform in Basel depot, a man placed his hand respectfully upon it, and asked, " What have you in this ?" " The usual articles of a lady's wardrobe." " Nothing else ?" " Nothing." Upon which he respectfully bowed and departed. This is a pleasant beginning, and puts us in good humour, for nothing yet ever put us so thoroughly out, as to see our dresses aud muslins, on which the laundress had left her best impression, overturned and crumpled by the rude assaults of an employe. Nothing ever obliterates so entirely every trace of more than one Christian virtue from our bosom as this barbarous infringement of the most sacred of human rights. That a lady cannot carry a comb and brush, and morning-dress, a few " Pills, powders, patches, billet-doux," without having them submitted to the scrutiny of some solemn man of office, is indeed an evidence in any country that civilization has not done its perfect work.

We are at last where one may have a little sanctum which profane eyes aud hands cannot invade, and we must experience some very serious wrong to blot out the influence of this one incident ou entering a strange laud. So much for " first impressions " and " little things." We are struck not the less pleasantly with these cars, con structed after the American model, with rows of seats on each side of a long carriage, the cushions of grey cloth, and the wood painted " curly-maple," all neat as wax. Here is a little room for first-class passengers at the end, also like those in every American railway carriage, but here an extra price is demanded for those who occupy them. Not opening at the side, they are the thoroughfare through which every one must pass to reach places of lower rank, and offer therefore no privacy and no special advantage.

But in a country so thronged with travellers of high and low degree, it would cause great complaint not to have some place set apart to give a nominal distinction and importance to those who claim to be of a superior order. We took a seat once among those exclusives, and found it the most uncomfortable we ever had in a railway carriage. It was a hot, dusty day, and the crowd was overwhelming. The room being small, one has continually the unpleasant sensation of short rapid drafts from constantly opened doors and always open windows. Two or three persons who could not find seats in the second class, took them without scruple in the first, the conductor making no objections and exacting no more money for the privilege. Those who had paid the extra price were thus incommoded, and had only the consolation of saying and exhibiting that they were first-class passengers, which we have often noticed was sufficient for some people, whatever the annoyance they might expe rience.

What a difference, too, in the officials, as they perform their several duties. Here is not the solemn look and heavy step of one who says in every motion: I am an officer of the Emperor or King, or Grand Duke, as may be, with a cumber some uniform to substantiate the assertion, all which made them, though uniformly courteous, as uniformly terrible. The first of this class whom we notice, answers to our idea of one who in boyhood sang Swiss songs on the mountains. We ask him a question for no other purpose than to see if his manners will correspond with his round red cheeks and merry black eyes. Oh, yes; he has no idea that he is of any particular consequence, only that he takes all the tickets and keeps the accounts cor rectly. Now and then, as we pass through the villages, a nice looking peasant woman takes her scat by our side, and an ever varying costume is presented to our eyes, and also a respectable and self-respecting deportment, evidently the result of a con sciousness that they are no man's servants.