Title: The journal of Montaigne's travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581, Volume 1 (of 3)
Author: Montaigne, Michel de
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The journal of Montaigne's travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581, Volume 1 (of 3)" ***
TRAVELS IN ITALY BY WAY OF SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY IN 1580 AND 1581,
VOLUME 1 (OF 3) ***



    THE JOURNAL OF
    MONTAIGNE’S TRAVELS
    IN ITALY

[Illustration: _Michel de Montaigne_]


͆

    THE JOURNAL OF
    MONTAIGNE’S TRAVELS
    IN ITALY BY WAY OF SWITZERLAND
    AND GERMANY
    IN 1580 AND 1581

    TRANSLATED AND EDITED
    WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

    BY W. G. WATERS
    AUTHOR OF “JEROME CARDAN,” ETC.

    IN THREE VOLUMES

    VOL. I

    LONDON
    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
    1903



PREFACE


Up to February 16, 1581, the “Journal” of Montaigne’s travels was
written down from dictation by a confidential servant, who seems to
have combined the duties of secretary and valet. On the date aforesaid
Montaigne either dismissed him or gave him leave of absence, and set to
work to keep the diary himself. The portion of the “Journal” written
by the secretary presents certain difficulties in translation, seeing
that he wrote sometimes in the first and sometimes in the third person,
and occasionally had to describe events which happened in his absence,
but as far as possible uniform diction has been secured. In the earlier
part Montaigne added divers notes to the margin of the MS. in his own
handwriting, thus showing that he revised that portion which he did not
write. From May 15, to November 1, 1581, Montaigne used the Italian
tongue, reverting to French as soon as he crossed Mont Cenis.

A translation of the “Journal” was made by W. Hazlitt in 1842 and
annexed to his edition of Cotton’s “Essays.” In a recent reprint of
the “Essays” and of all the extant “Letters,” Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, in an
introduction, remarks, as a reason for not including the “Journal,”
that it is all in the third person, and was dictated by Montaigne to
his secretary, being unaware, apparently, that more than half of it was
written in the first person by Montaigne himself.

The portions of the “Journal” which deal with Montaigne’s sojourn at
the baths of Lucca are full of details of the symptoms of the malady
which troubled him, and of the results of the curative treatment. In
these it has been thought permissible to abbreviate some passages
and to omit others entirely, seeing that they are at the same time
valueless and unpleasant. But not a word which refers to any matter
of general interest has been repressed; uninteresting medical details
alone have been left out.

    W. G. WATERS.

    _August 1903._



CONTENTS


    CHAP.      PAGE

    INTRODUCTION                                                       1

    I. FRANCE                                                         25

    II. SWITZERLAND                                                   60

    III. THE EMPIRE                                                   97

    IV. TIROL                                                        159



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I


    MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (_Photogravure_)      _Frontispiece_

    MEAUX        _To face page_ 26

    BASEL              ”        62

    BADEN EN ARGOW     ”        76

    CONSTANCE          ”        96

    KEMPTEN            ”       116

    AUGSBURG           ”       128

    MUNICH             ”       150

    INNSBRUCK          ”       158

    BRIXEN             ”       172

    TRENT              ”       180



INTRODUCTION


In the world of literature there are many instances which exhibit
the personality of a particular writer identified so completely with
certain of his works that he is, so to speak, divorced from all
association with any others, however great their merit, which he
may have left behind him. The popular verdict, so often swayed by
incomprehensible impulse, is given in favour of one or two books,
and all the rest fall into oblivion or neglect. How trifling is the
vogue of Walton’s “Lives” compared with that of the “Angler.” To the
multitude Swift is known almost entirely as the author of Gulliver,
and the name of Gray suggests the “Elegy” as inevitably as that of
Cowper suggests “John Gilpin.” In like manner we find the fame of
Montaigne resting on the “Essays” alone; but this case is in a measure
exceptional. Montaigne died in 1592, and until 1774 the “Essays”
comprised the whole of his literary legacy. In the year last mentioned,
a certain M. Prunis, who was collecting materials for a history of
Perigord, discovered in a chest at the Château de Montaigne the
manuscript account of the writer’s travels in Switzerland, the Empire,
and Italy in the years 1580 and 1581.

Notwithstanding the fame of the writer, and the inherent interest of
the long-hidden work, the “Journal” failed to win the public favour,
and virtually Montaigne still kept the status of a single book author.
It has never roused much enthusiasm in France, in spite of a generous
and appreciative article by Sainte-Beuve in the _Nouveaux Lundis_.
“Montaigne,” he writes, “is the intimate friend of every one of us,
and of our intimate friends it is impossible to know too much.” And he
then goes on to demonstrate the extraordinary value and interest of the
“Journal” when read in connection with the “Essays.” It is casting
no slur on the “Journal” to say that it is inferior to the writers
masterpiece in literary grace; and, so much being granted, it may be
asserted that nowhere in Montaigne’s writings is his personality, with
its attractive wisdom and no less attractive weaknesses, more clearly
and completely exhibited than in the work under consideration.

This excellence of self-portraiture may be explained by the fact that
the Montaigne of the “Essays” greets us as the philosopher in his
study, face to face with the innumerable problems to be canvassed
in determining the rules which should guide man’s conduct towards
his fellows. Here with laborious care he searches the world of books
for illustrations apt for the establishment of his position and
for its defence. Now and then, in spite of the quaint charm of the
writing, it seems as if we cannot see the wood for the trees, and we
regret that we cannot enjoy a closer personal acquaintance with the
author, a knowledge at first hand, and not blurred by the cloud of
approving witnesses which it has pleased him to summon up from the
caverns of the libraries. But with the Montaigne of the “Journal” it
is altogether different. Here we find the man giving his experience
of a phase of life which, for good or evil, has become almost normal
in these latter days. Most of us have crossed the Alps and descended
upon Italy; and, changed as the conditions of travel are, it raises a
sympathetic interest to read of the humours of the road in Montaigne’s
time, and to compare his experience with our own. We are introduced
to him face to face with troubles and pleasures, the intensity of
which it is not difficult to gauge: the knavery of postmasters: the
stupidity of guides: the discomfort of this inn, and the excellence
of that. We listen to his simple narrative of his experience of men
and cities, and learn to know him better here than when encumbered by
the swarming hypotheses and guarding clauses which fill the pages of
his _opus magnum_. When he begins to speculate, his reflections are
given in the plainest words, and rarely fail to reveal one or other
of those lovable personal traits with which acquaintance, as well as
tradition, will have invested him. His large-minded toleration, his
fastidious care lest any judgment given should be based on insufficient
knowledge, and his reluctance to commit himself to any positive
statement--characteristics which dominate the drift of thought in the
“Essays”--reappear in the “Journal,” and help to give to his utterances
on the world as he found it an authority which few contemporary
travellers could claim.

In any comparison he felt bound to draw between things in France and
things over the frontier, toleration is his watchword; and he knew
no more of the spirit of Chauvinism than he did of the word. But he
seems to have found some tendencies in that direction in the carriage
of certain young Frenchmen whom he met at Padua, and he goes on to
lament that the number of these should be large enough to constitute a
society in itself, and that on this account his young countrymen should
be debarred from making acquaintance with the people of the place.
Again, he shows a little resentment at finding himself surrounded by
such a crowd of Frenchmen as he found in Rome. He is full of praise
of the iron work of Switzerland, and of the cookery as well. The
bed-chambers in Germany did not always please him, but he could not
say too much in favour of the porcelain stoves and the coverlets
stuffed with feathers; and when he found the charges at the baths of
Baden a little arbitrary, he adds that he would have fared no better
in France. He describes the private houses round Constance as being
far superior to the parallel class of house in France; and, in taking
exception in a general way to defects in the service at the inns, he
remarks that these things seemed amiss to him chiefly because they were
unfamiliar: indeed, he lavished so much praise on German ways of living
that the patriotism of his amanuensis, was in one instance stirred
to remonstrance. Montaigne had evidently a strong liking for Germany
(though indeed he is somewhat uncomplimentary as to the personal charms
of the ladies of Augsburg) and he left it with reluctance; for, when he
arrived at Botzen and marked the prevalence of Italian customs there,
he wrote in a strain of regret to Francis Hottoman, the jurisconsult
whom he had met at Basel, expressing his satisfaction at the treatment
he had met with in that city and his regrets at bidding farewell to
the Empire, even though his goal were Italy. Vanity is the proverbial
weakness of the Frenchman, but the only trace of it in Montaigne’s
record is to be found in his action at Augsburg when some of the town
officers took him for a baron, and he bade his companions not correct
the error. His remarks thereanent show that he was more swayed by
considerations of practical utility than by the desire of personal
exaltation; as he goes on to say that, being credited with a baron’s
rank, he would doubtless receive more attention from the hands of the
authorities.

To show how little of the braggart was in him it may be noted that when
he visited the church of S. Lorenzo at Florence he did not refrain
from naming, amongst the other sights he saw there, the French banners
captured from Marshal Strozzi’s forces by the Florentines, and when
on his way home he passed by Fornovo, the scene of the great French
victory in 1495, does not allude to the battle at all. On the other
hand, he expressly records that he turned aside from the road between
Pavia and Milan to view the field of the battle so disastrous to the
arms of France.

The bent of Montaigne’s mind led him to devote his chief attention to
the rules and institutions which regulated public life in the lands he
visited, rather than to what modern travellers call “sights,” and in
Fynes Moryson’s travels about ten, and in Coryat’s about thirty years
later, the same tendencies appear. When at any time he does describe
any human achievement, it is usually some mechanical device, such as
the watch-tower and the water-works at Augsburg. Italy was rich, or
probably much richer, in paintings than she is now, but only on three
or four occasions does he find any worth mentioning. Nevertheless he
writes pages in praise of the ridiculous squirts and tubes which are
devised to drench the unwary visitors to Italian gardens now, just as
they did at the time when he was on his travels. Artificial water-works
of all sorts seem to have had a peculiar fascination for him: indeed
on his way back to France he paid a second visit to Pratolino, near
Florence, in order to compare the merits of the fountains there with
those which he had seen at Tivoli. He ends the description of his
expedition with the following thoroughly characteristic sentences: “Et
essendo pregato dal casiero del palazzo di dire la mia sentenzia di
quelle bellezze e di Tivoli, ne discorsi non comparando questi luoghi
in generale, ma parte per parte, con le diverse considerazioni dell’un
e dell’altro, essendo vicendevolmente vittore ora questo, or quello.”

Perhaps it would be unfair to attribute to indifference Montaigne’s
comparative silence over Italian painting. In his day it was not the
fashion to write so copiously as at present concerning this particular
phase of art, nor was it deemed necessary that every third-rate painter
should possess his exponent and prophet. Whatever the reason, Montaigne
passed it by in silence, save in a few instances, and the cause of
his appreciation in these cases was evidently that the pictures
possessed historic interest. At Caprarola he found portraits of Henry
II. of France, Catherine dei Medici and their two sons. He mentions
the pictures at Loreto, referring probably to the _ex voto_ daubs and
not to the works of Signorelli and Melozzo da Forli. In his visit to
the Vatican he notices a certain gallery which was being decorated
with views of Italy, ancient and modern, by the order of Gregory
XIII., the reigning Pope, and also those by Vasari in the Sala Regia
depicting recent events of history which could hardly fail to interest
him--the battle of Lepanto, the massacre of S. Bartholomew, and the
death of Coligny. At Padua he praises the gardens of the Arena, but
leaves unnoticed the chapel and its frescoes: probably he had never
heard Giotto’s name. He has much to say of the Piazza at Siena, of
the fountain and of the bronze wolf, but only a few words as to the
exterior of the Cathedral, and not one about the many works of art
within. At the Certosa at Pavia he mentions the carven façade and the
tomb of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, but ignores the paintings. Sculpture
seems to have had much greater fascination for him: he gives the names
of many of the great works in the Vatican and Capitol, and praises
Michael Angelo’s “Moses” and his statues in the Medici Chapel at
Florence. He makes special mention of “la belle fame qui est aus pieds
du Pape Pol tiers en la nouvelle église de S. Pierre,” the statue which
the prudery of a later Pontiff caused to be encased in robes of bronze.

Montaigne would occasionally throw a hard word at the Jesuits, and
probably he disliked them as a body, but, however this might be, he
seldom failed to seek out any member of the order who might be resident
in the cities he visited; no doubt because he knew he would meet a
well-educated man, and one able to converse with him on the topics
he had most at heart. At Rome he gives high praise to the diligence
and ability of the Jesuits, probably for the reason that he found
the practical drift of their policy congenial to his own humour. He
certainly showed no sign of enthusiasm in contemplating the scenes of
the more emotional phenomena of Catholicism, for he made no reference
to S. Catherine when describing Siena, and Assisi he did not deem
worth a visit. He probably went to Loreto on account of the historic
fame of the Santa Casa, and he was certainly much more impressed by
the material aspect of the prevalent legend, the crowds of pilgrims,
the shops for the sale of candles and _ex votos_, the riches of the
treasury, and the profit of the pilgrimage to the townsfolk, than by
the spiritual aspect of the same.

Montaigne, sceptic as he was in dealing with religious questions,
never allowed this disposition to induce him to take up an unqualified
attitude of hostility. Over the claims of the miraculous he kept his
judgment in suspense, and did not condemn as a necessary imposture
what he could not accept as a proven truth. Joseph Glanvil, in
_Sadducismus Triumphatus_, holds a similar position in condemning what
he calls “the credulity of unbelief,” that is, when sceptics, by way
of discrediting phenomena which they cannot accept, suggest, as an
alternative explanation, something still harder to believe. At Loreto,
in commenting on the alleged miraculous cure of a certain M. Marteau,
Montaigne shows a marked inclination to accept the popular version
of the story, and omits to appraise the divers subjective influences
which invariably play an important part in remedial phenomena of
this description. Again, he is swayed by the same humour in writing
concerning the peculiar virtue of the earth in the Campo Santo at Pisa,
which was fabled to preserve human remains from corruption for any
length of time.

Nothing that Montaigne saw in his travels seems to have given him more
pleasure than the sight of the exquisite cultivation of the plains and
hillsides in Italy and the consequent well-being of the _contadini_.
On this subject he writes with enthusiasm and even astonishment while
descending the southern slopes of the Alps, and traversing the Lombard
plain and the lovely valley of Clitumnus. Nowhere in the “Journal”
does he speak with a stronger note of gratification than in describing
these evidences of material prosperity: not even when he tells of an
interview with some learned man, or sets down some new facts concerning
prevalent laws and institutions, or ventures on some shrewd and
luminous inference founded on his experiences of the men and cities he
had got to know in the course of his travels.

The part of the “Journal” which will be found most interesting to
contemporary readers is unquestionably that which describes his sojourn
in Rome. His perception was dazzled and awe-stricken at the spectacle
of the vast and ruinous habitation which then sheltered the greatest
unifying influence still existing in the world; but, impressed as he
was by the majesty of the Papal power, he made it quite clear that
this was not for him the true Rome. His conception of the genius of
the place was in the main a subjective one. With an intelligence
disciplined and enriched by historic study, he seemed to behold at
every turn the phantom of that astounding domination, now empty, vain,
and shattered; and, in recording his reflections on this pregnant
theme, his style rises as near to rhapsody as his well-balanced
temperament would allow.

With respect to Rome as he found it, Montaigne was profoundly impressed
by the manifestation of the concentrated power of the Catholic
Church, the splendour of the religious functions, and the activity and
devotion of the various confraternities. He estimates this show of
religious enthusiasm, and the ardour of the people over their spiritual
exercises, as the chief glory of the place as it then existed. At the
same time he was quite unconvinced by the spectacle of an attempt by
some priests to exorcise evil spirits, and evidently viewed the whole
affair as a nauseous imposture, like Fynes Moryson on a subsequent
visit. His tolerant disposition is shown by the keen interest he took
over the Lutheran baptismal and marriage rites which he witnessed at
Augsburg, and few experiences of his travels seem to have interested
him more than the ceremony of circumcision, which he witnessed in the
house of a Jew in Rome, and described in minute detail and at great
length.

The main object of Montaigne’s journey was to visit certain foreign
baths, with the hope of getting relief from the pains which he
suffered through gall-stone and gravel. Seeing that he must almost
always have been in pain, or at least discomfort, and that the
inconveniences of travel were in themselves no light burden in these
days, the constant cheerfulness of his temper, and his freshness
of sentiment and speech, whenever he chanced to be brought face to
face with some attractive experience, prove what a sweet and happy
nature his must have been. He records how on the road from Terni to
Spoleto he was suffering from colic, which had vexed him for the
last four-and-twenty hours, but this plague did not prevent him from
expressing his delight over the exquisite scenery on either hand.
Travel by itself was to him the keenest pleasure, as he shows in the
quaint remarks he lets fall when journeying from Trent to Rovere. His
companions were seemingly aggrieved that he occasionally led them a
wild-goose chase, and brought them back to the point from which they
started; but he gaily assured them that he never missed his way,
because, as he never made plans, the place in which he might find
himself at sunset must needs be the legitimate end of the day’s travel.
Perhaps of all the humours he displayed _en route_, the most marked
was his insatiable curiosity and his avidity of fresh experience. He
met the Pope (Gregory XIII.), the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Duke of
Ferrara, and cardinals, ambassadors, chancellors, and officials out
of number, and hardly one of these got rid of him without having to
listen and reply to divers well-judged questions. He even went so far
as to pay visits to the lodgings of the fashionable _cortigiane_ in
Rome, as Coryat did at Venice. In many places he writes in a strain
which shows that, in spite of bodily ills and his clear perception
of the troubles of the world, he felt a keen joy in life. On setting
out for Italy he declared he seemed to be in like case to one who
reads some delightful story or good book and dreads to turn the last
page. The pleasure of travel was to him so intense, that he hated the
sight of the place where he ought by rights to stop and rest. The
grant of Roman citizenship evidently pleased him greatly, as did his
election as Mayor of Bordeaux, though he coquetted a little with the
burgesses at first. But though he and the world were good friends, he
kept constantly before his mind the certainty and the nearness of the
hour when they must part. There is nothing of fear, nothing even of
querulousness, in his reflections when he was evidently very ill at
Lucca. “It would be too great cowardice and _ischifiltà_ on my part if,
knowing that I am every day in danger of death from these ailments, and
drawing nearer thereto every hour in the course of nature, I did not
do my best to bring myself into a fitting mood to meet my end whenever
it may come. And in this respect it is wise to take joyfully all the
good fortune God may send. Moreover there is no remedy, nor rule, nor
knowledge whereby to keep clear of these evils which, from every side
and at every minute, gather round man’s footsteps, save in the resolve
to endure them with dignity, or boldly and promptly make an end of
them.” We seem here to be very far from the traditional frivolity of
the Frenchman; much nearer to the calm wisdom of Epictetus or Marcus
Aurelius.

Montaigne travelled in company with M. Mattecoulon, his younger
brother; M. d’Estissac, probably the son of the lady to whom he
dedicated the “Essay,” Book ii. No. 8; M. de Caselis, who left the
party to stay on at Padua; and M. d’Hautoy, who seems to have remained
with him all through the journey. Mattecoulon remained in Rome after
Montaigne’s final departure, and shortly after he was imprisoned on
account of a duel (“Essays,” ii. 27), and liberated by the good offices
of the King of France. M. d’Estissac seems to have remained behind with
him.

The first two books of the “Essays” were published in 1580, before the
author set forth on his travels, and the work, as we know it, was first
given to the world in 1588, with the third book added. In this book
he refers to several incidents of his sojourn in Rome--notably to the
grant of Roman citizenship which was then made to him. In addition,
he carefully revised the first and second books by the light of his
foreign experiences, and made some six hundred additions, many of which
refer to incidents connected with his journey. He mentions the strange
story of Mary Germain, who underwent transformation from the female to
the male sex, a story also noticed by Ambrose Paré, the great French
surgeon; the execution at Rome of Catena, a notorious criminal; and his
visit to Tasso at Ferrara. Curiously enough, he makes no mention of
this visit in the “Journal.”

It is hard to believe that a man so communicative as Montaigne would
have kept secret from his friends the existence of the written record
he made of his journey; and, taking it for granted that the existence
of the MS. was suspected, it is just as hard to understand how it
happened that a search was not made for it after his death, and that
it should have lain undiscovered till M. Prunis found it in 1774. The
MS. was complete, except a leaf or so at the beginning, and nearly
half of it seems to have been written from dictation by a valet or
secretary, Montaigne himself having taken up the task on February 16th,
1581. The handwriting, both of master and man, was very bad, and it
needed all the skill of M. Capperonier, the royal librarian at Paris,
and of other experts, to disentangle the meaning of the caligraphy, and
make a legible copy. When this was finished, it was placed in the hands
of M. Querlon, who brought out the first edition in 1774.

It would be unreasonable to expect any elegancies of style in the
portion of the “Journal” written down by the secretary from dictation,
and when Montaigne himself takes the pen in hand he does not greatly
mend matters. All through will be found the strangest mixture of
subjects, and jerkiness of style. The most incongruous themes are
treated in juxtaposition. At Augsburg, at the end of a discussion with
a Lutheran theologian, he throws in the remark that they had white
hares for supper; and again, while speaking of mixed marriages, he
records that here they clean windows with a hairbrush fixed on the end
of a stick. At Rome he passes in a breath from a consideration of the
relative prevalence of heresy in France and Spain to a remark that all
the cargo boats on the Tiber are towed by buffaloes. In cataloguing
the advantages of the city as a place of abode he tells how many
of the palaces of the high nobility were at the disposition of any
strange gentleman who might wish to repair thither for the night with a
companion to his taste, and how in no other city in the world could be
heard so many sermons and theological disputes.

As soon as he had crossed the Alps on his homeward way Montaigne
evidently looked upon his journey as over. The entries in the “Journal”
are merely memoranda of the various stopping places, and the note of
sadness in these closing sentences is very evident. All interest in the
places he passed is now vanished, and the humours of the road appeal to
him no more. He is going home, an old man afflicted by an ailment which
has proved incurable, with only the prospect of a few years of invalid
life before him, and he may well be excused for falling into a mood
which throws a darker shade over the last pages of his record.



THE JOURNAL OF MONTAIGNE’S TRAVELS IN ITALY

BY WAY OF SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY[1] IN 1580 AND 1581



I

FRANCE


... Monsieur de Montaigne sent Monsieur Mattecoulon[2] with his squire
by post to pay a visit to the count[3] aforesaid, whom they found
wounded, but not mortally. At Beaumont M. d’Estissac joined our party
for the sake of company, our routes being the same. He had with him a
gentleman, a _valet-de-chambre_, two lackeys, a muleteer and a mule,
an addition equal in number to our own party, the outlay being equally
divided. On Monday, September 5th, we left Beaumont after dinner, and
rode in one bout to Meaux, where we arrived in time for supper.

[Illustration: MEAUX

    _To face p. 26_, vol. i.
]

Meaux is a small and handsome town on the Marne, divided into three
parts. The town itself and its suburbs are on this side of the river
towards Paris, and over the Marne lies another portion--the third--a
large suburb known as the Marché, surrounded on all sides by the
river and a well-constructed ditch, and containing many houses and
inhabitants. This place was formerly strongly fortified by high and
formidable walls and towers, but in the second period of our Huguenot
troubles, the greater part of the inhabitants being of that party, all
these defences were thrown down. This quarter also withstood the attack
of the English, the other portions of the town being ruined, and by way
of reward the inhabitants of the Marché are still exempted from payment
of _taille_ and other taxes. They point out in the Marne an island, two
or three hundred feet in length, which was, they say, originally an
embankment made by the English as a position from which the fortress of
the Marché might be bombarded by warlike engines, the artificial work
having become firm ground in the course of time.[4] In this faubourg
we saw the abbey of Saint Faron, a building of great antiquity, where
they show certain chambers in which Ogier the Dane[5] is said to have
dwelt. There is also an ancient refectory, with tables of stone, very
long and massive, and of an unwonted size, and in the middle of this
hall was formerly a spring of fresh water which served for drinking.
To this day most of the monks are men of gentle birth. Amongst other
things is to be seen an ancient and stately tomb, upon which are carved
in stone the figures of two knights of abnormal stature, and legend
says that these represent Ogier the Dane and one of his paladins. It
has neither inscription nor armorial device, nothing save a sentence
in Latin which an abbot caused to be set thereon some hundred years
ago, recording that two unknown heroes lie buried below; and in the
treasury they still show the bones of these knights, the bone of the
arm, from shoulder to elbow, being about the length of the entire arm
of a man of average stature in these days, and a little longer than
that of M. de Montaigne. They show likewise two of their swords, about
the length of our own two-handed swords, the edges gapped by strokes
of battle. At Meaux, M. de Montaigne paid a visit to the treasurer of
the church of St. Stephen, one Juste Terrelle,[6] a man of note amongst
the savants of France, a little old man, sixty years of age, who has
visited Egypt and Jerusalem, and lived seven years in Constantinople.
He showed us his library and the curiosities of his garden, where the
most wonderful thing we saw was a tree of box of round growth, and so
thick by artificial cutting, that it seemed to be a circular ball,
massive and trim, about a man’s height.

From Meaux, where we took our dinner on the Tuesday, we set out and
slept at Charly, seven leagues distant. On Wednesday after dinner we
went on to sleep at Dormans, seven leagues farther on, and on the
morrow we arrived in time for dinner at Esprenei.[7] After our arrival
M. de Montaigne and M. d’Estissac went to the church of Notre Dame
to hear Mass, as was their wont. M. de Montaigne had taken note that
when M. de Strozzi[8] was slain some years ago at Thionville they had
buried his body in this church, wherefore he now inquired what manner
of sepulture had been given him, and found that he had been buried
in a spot in front of the high altar which was marked neither by
memorial nor tombstone, nor armorial device, nor epitaph. They told
us, moreover, that the queen[9] had caused him to be buried thus simply
because this was his desire. The day being the feast of our Lady of
September[10] the office was said by the bishop of Rennes, one of the
Parisian family of Hanequin and abbé of this church. After the Mass was
finished, M. de Montaigne met in the church M. Maldonat,[11] a Jesuit
well known to fame by reason of his philosophical and theological
learning. They held divers learned discourses together during and after
dinner in M. de Montaigne’s lodging, whither Maldonat had come to see
him. Amongst other matters Maldonat described the baths of Spa, near
by to Liège, where he had recently sojourned in company with M. de
Nevers. These are exceedingly cold, and it is there considered that
the colder the water the better. The springs are so cold that some who
drink thereof fall into a trembling and shuddering, but soon after the
water causes a fine feeling of warmth in the stomach. In his case he
took a hundred ounces; the glasses being supplied by the attendants of
whatever measure each particular visitor may require. The waters may
be drunk fasting and also after a meal, and their effect seemed to be
similar to those of Gascony. As to his own experience he gave certain
observations concerning their strength, and as to the hurt which had
befallen him through drinking the same when sweating and fatigued. He
marked how frogs and other small animals died immediately they were
thrown into the water, and how a handkerchief, which was placed over
a glass filled with the same, quickly became yellow. The shortest
course of treatment is fifteen days or three weeks. It is a place where
excellent accommodation and lodgment may be found, and is most salutary
in cases of gravel or obstruction. Nevertheless neither the speaker nor
M. de Nevers got any relief from the waters.

Maldonat had with him the _maître d’hôtel_ of M. de Nevers. They gave
to M. de Montaigne the printed paper relating to the dispute between
M. de Montpensier and M. de Nevers,[12] so that he might be rightly
informed concerning the matter, and be able to explain the same to
any gentlefolk who might question him thereanent. We set forth on the
Friday morning and travelled seven leagues to Châlons.[13] Here we
lodged at the “Crown,” a fine house, where we were served on silver
plate, and most of us were provided with silken bedding. The ordinary
houses of this district are built of chalk stone, cut into small blocks
about half a foot square; some, however, are of turf, treated in like
fashion. On the morrow we set out after dinner and slept at Vitri le
François, seven leagues farther on.

This is a small town on the banks of the Marne, built some thirty-five
or forty years ago in place of the former town, which had been burnt.
It still keeps its original form, pleasant and well proportioned, and
in the midst thereof is a large square, one of the finest in France.
During our sojourn there, three marvellous stories were told to us.
One was that Madame the Dowager de Guise de Bourbon,[14] who was
living at the age of eighty-seven years, could still go afoot for the
distance of a quarter of a league. Another was, that a short time ago,
execution had been done at Montirandet,[15] a place close by, upon one
condemned for a certain offence. Several years before, seven or eight
girls belonging to Chaumont-en-Bassigni had secretly determined to
put on male attire, and to live the life of men. Amongst these one,
called Mary, came from Vitry aforenamed. She got her living by weaving,
passing as a well-favoured young man, and on friendly terms with every
one. She engaged herself to marry a woman of Vitry, who is still alive,
but on account of some strife which arose between them, the match went
no further. Afterwards, having gone to Montirandet, and still following
the weavers calling, she fell in love again with a certain woman, with
whom she married and lived, as the story goes, contentedly four or five
months. But, having been recognised by some one living at Chaumont, and
the matter having been brought to the notice of the courts, she was
condemned to be hanged; whereupon she declared she would liefer suffer
thus than live a woman’s life. She was hanged on the charge of using
unlawful appliances to remedy the defects of her sex.

The third story is of a man still living named Germain,[16] of humble
condition, and engaged in no employment. Up to the age of twenty-two
years he had been regarded by all the townsfolk as a girl, albeit the
chin was more hairy than that of other girls, for which reason she
was called _Marie la barbue_. It came to pass one day when she put
forth all her strength in taking a leap, that the distinctive signs
of manhood showed themselves, whereupon the Cardinal of Lenoncourt,
at that time bishop of Châlons, gave him the name of Germain. This
personage is still unmarried, and has a large thick beard. We could not
see him because he was away at the village where he lived. A popular
song, sung by the girls of the place, warns all girls against taking
long strides lest they should become men like Marie Germain. Report
says that Ambrose Paré has taken note of this tale in his book on
surgery. It is certainly true, and testimony thereof was given to M. de
Montaigne by the chief officials of the town. We left this place after
breakfast on Sunday morning and travelled to Bar,[17] a distance of
nine leagues.

M. de Montaigne had already visited this town. He now came upon
nothing fresh worth noting, save the extraordinary outlay which a
certain priest, the dean of the place, had made, and was still making,
over public works. His name was Gilles de Trèves.[18] He has built a
chapel of marble, with paintings and ornaments, the most sumptuous of
any in France; and besides this, he has erected and almost furnished a
house which is the finest in the town, of the fairest structure, the
best planned and furnished, elaborated with rich carved work and most
comfortable as a residence. This he desires to make a college, to endow
the same, and set it to work at his own charges. From Bar, where we
took our dinner on the Monday morning, we journeyed four leagues to
Mannese,[19] where we slept.

This was a small village, where M. de Montaigne was forced to halt by
reason of a colic, for which same cause he put aside the plan he had
formed of seeing Toul, Metz, Nancy, Joinville, and St. Disier, towns
scattered along the route, and repaired direct by diligence to the
baths of Plombières. From Mannese we departed on the Tuesday morning,
and took our dinner at Vaucouleur, a place a league farther on. Passing
along the banks of the Meuse we came to Donremy-sur-Meuse, seven
leagues from Vaucouleur, where was born the famous Maid of Orleans
named Jeanne Day or Dallis. Her family was afterwards ennobled by the
king,[20] who made a grant of arms which was shown to us; azure with a
straight sword, crowned and with a golden hilt, and two _fleurs-de-lis_
in gold beside the sword aforenamed. A certain receiver of Vaucouleur
gave a painted escutcheon of the same to M. de Caselis. The front of
the little house where she was born is all painted with her feats, but
the colour is much decayed through age. There is also a tree beside
a vineyard which they call “_l’arbre de la Pucelle_,” but there is
nothing remarkable about it. That evening we slept, after travelling
five leagues, at Neufchasteau.

Here in the church of the Cordeliers are many ancient tombs, three or
four hundred years old, erected to the memory of the nobles of the
province. The inscriptions thereon all run in these terms: “Here lies
a certain one who died when the tale of years was passing through the
twelve hundreds,” &c.[21] M. de Montaigne went to see the library,
which contains many books, but none of them rare; and a well from which
water is drawn by vast buckets which are turned by stepping with the
feet on to a wooden plank attached to a wheel: the axle of the wheel
aforesaid being a piece of wood to which the well rope is fastened. He
had seen elsewhere others like it. Beside the well is a great stone
trough, six or seven feet above the brim, and the bucket rises and
empties water into this trough without further help, and lowers itself
when empty. This trough is raised so high that by means of leaden pipes
the water of the well finds its way to the refectory and kitchen and
bath-house. It likewise springs forth out of masses of stone, built
to counterfeit natural fountains. We breakfasted in the morning at
Neufchasteau, and after travelling six leagues we supped at Mirecourt.

This is a fair little town where M. de Montaigne heard tidings of M.
and Madame de Bourbon who dwelt near thereto. On the morning of the
morrow after breakfast he went a quarter of a league or so aside from
our route to see the nuns of Poussay. This was one of those religious
houses, of which there are many in these parts, established for the
maintenance of women of good family. Each one has pension by way of
sustenance, of one, two, or three hundred crowns, some less, some
more, and a separate dwelling where each one can live apart. There
little girls are taken in to nurse; no obligation of virginity is
laid upon any except those holding office, to wit, the abbess, the
prioress, and certain others. They have liberty to dress as they will,
like other ladies, except that they wear on their heads a white veil;
and, in church during the Mass, they wear a large cloak which they
leave behind them in their seat in the choir. The inmates can receive
any acquaintance who may come to seek them, whether to urge them to
matrimony or for any other reason. Any one who is so minded may sell
her annuity to whomsoever she will, provided that this person be of the
class and condition required. For certain of the nobles of the district
have this duty laid upon them, to wit, that they must be satisfied by a
sworn declaration as to the lineage of the candidate whom any one may
bring forward. It is not unbecoming for one nun to hold three or four
annuities. During their sojourn they attend religious services the same
as in other places, and the greater part of them end their days there
without desiring change of condition.

On leaving this place we rode five leagues to supper at Espine,[22] a
well-built little town where entry was denied to us for that we had
journeyed by Neufchasteau where the plague had raged a short time ago.
On the next day in the morning we reached Plommieres[23] in time for
dinner, a journey of four leagues.

From Bar-le-Duc onwards the leagues are again of the Gascon measure,
and as one approaches Germany they become longer and longer, so that,
at last, they wax double, or even treble. We entered Plommieres on
Friday the 16th of September 1580, at two o’clock in the afternoon.
It is on the borders of Lorraine and Germany, situated in a chasm
between divers lofty scarped hills, which close it in on all sides. At
the bottom of this valley several springs, cold and hot as well, flow
forth. The hot water has neither smell nor taste, and is by nature as
hot as any one can endure to drink: so much so that M. de Montaigne
was obliged to pass it from glass to glass. Only two of the springs
are drunk. One which flows from the eastward and forms the bath, which
they call the Queen’s Bath, leaves in the mouth a certain sweet taste,
not unlike liquorice, and no disagreeable aftertaste. But after very
careful attention, M. de Montaigne declared that a slight flavour of
iron might be detected therein. The other spring which rises at the
base of the mountain opposite, and of which M. de Montaigne drank only
one day, is slightly harsh, and has the flavour of alum. The habit
of the place is to take a bath two or three times a day. Some take
their meals in the bath, where they are cupped and scarified, and do
not drink the waters except after a purge. If they drink at all, they
take a glass or two in the bath. They deemed the practice of M. de
Montaigne a mighty strange one, to wit that, without any preparatory
medicine, he should take nine glasses of water, amounting to a potful,
every morning at seven, and dine at mid-day; that on the days when he
bathed--every other one--he should fix upon four o’clock, and only stay
about an hour in the water. And on these days he willingly went without
his supper.

We saw some men cured of ulcers and others of pimples on the body.
The wonted course is a month at least, and rooms are let most readily
in May. Few people frequent the place after the month of August, by
reason of the cold, but we found much company there still, because the
heat and drought had been abnormally prolonged. Amongst others, M.
de Montaigne gained the friendship and acquaintance of the Seigneur
d’Andelot of Franche Conté,[24] the son of the master of the horse of
the Emperor Charles V. He himself was chief field-marshal in the army
of Don John of Austria, and he held the governorship of St. Quentin
after we lost the place. One portion of his beard and one side of his
eyebrow had become white, and he told M. de Montaigne how this change
had come about in a moment of time, on a certain day when he was filled
with distress over the death of one of his brothers, whom the Duke of
Alva had put to death as an accomplice of the Counts Egmont and Horn.
He was sitting resting his head upon his hand, which touched the places
beforenamed, wherefore his attendants, when they saw what had happened
to him, deemed that some flour must have fallen upon him by accident.
He has been like this ever since.

This bath was formerly used only by Germans, but for several years past
the people of Franche Conté and France have come in great numbers.
There are several baths, and the principal one is built oval in shape,
after the fashion of an ancient edifice. It is thirty-five paces long
and fifteen wide. The hot water rises from several springs, and cold
water is made to trickle down into the bath so that the heat may be
moderated according to the taste of those who use it. The places in
the bath are set out side by side by bars suspended like those in our
stables, and planks are laid over the top so as to keep off the heat of
the sun and the rain. The visitors in this place maintain a singular
propriety of carriage, and it is reckoned indecent for men to bathe
naked or with less clothing than a little jacket, or for women to wear
less than a chemise. We lodged at the “Angel,” which is the best house,
because it communicates with two of the baths. The charge for lodging,
when several rooms were engaged, was no more than fifteen sous a day.
The hosts supply all wood for this charge, but the country is so rich
therein that it costs nothing but the cutting, and the hostesses do
exceedingly well in the kitchens. When the high season comes a lodging
like this one would cost a crown a day, and be cheap at the price.
Horse feed is seven sous a day, and everything else the visitor needs
to buy is good and reasonable in price. The chambers are not sumptuous,
but very convenient, and, by reason of the numerous galleries, there is
never need to pass through one to reach another; but the wine and bread
are bad. The people are worthy, independent, sensible, and obliging.
All the laws of the land are religiously observed, and every year they
write afresh on a tablet, hung up in front of the principal bath, the
laws there inscribed in the German and French tongues as follows:--

“Claude de Rynach, knight, lord of St. Balesmont, Montureulz en
Ferette, Lendacourt, &c., councillor and chamberlain of our sovereign
lord monseigneur the Duke &c., and his balli of the Vosges.

“Let it be known that for securing the comfort and quietude of the many
ladies and other persons, coming from divers countries to these baths
of Plommieres, we have (according to the intention of his Highness)
decreed and ordained as follows:

“Let it be known that corrective discipline for light offences shall
remain as heretofore in the hands of the Germans, who are enjoined
to enforce observation of all ceremonies, regulations, and police,
which have hitherto been used for the seemly maintenance of the baths
aforesaid, and for the punishment of offences committed by those of
their own nation, without granting exception to any person by the
payment of ransom, and without using blasphemy or other irreverent
remarks against the Catholic Church and the traditions of the same.

“It is forbidden to all people, of whatever quality, condition,
region, or province they may be, to use provocation in insulting
language tending to lead to quarrels: to carry arms while at the baths
aforesaid: to give the lie: to put hand to arms under pain of severe
punishment as breakers of the peace, rebels and disobedient to his
Highness.

“Also it is forbidden to all prostitutes and immodest women to enter
the baths, or to be found within five hundred paces of the same
under penalty of a whipping at the four corners of the town. And the
householders who shall receive or conceal them shall incur the pain of
imprisonment and arbitrary fine.

“The same penalty will fall on those who shall use any lascivious or
immodest discourse to any ladies, or damsels, or other women and girls
who may be visiting the baths, or touch them in a manner unbecoming, or
enter or quit the baths in ribald fashion, contrary to public decency.

“And because by the boon of the baths aforenamed God and nature
have afforded us cure and relief in many cases, and because decent
cleanliness and purity are necessary in order to keep off the many
contagions and infections which might well engender in such a place,
it is expressly commanded to the governor of these baths to take the
utmost care, and to inspect the persons of those who frequent the
same by day and by night; to make them keep decency and silence during
the night, making no noise, nor scandal, nor horse-play. And if any
person will not render obedience the governor shall forthwith carry the
affair before the magistrate, so that an exemplary punishment may be
given. Beyond this it is prohibited to all persons coming from infected
places to repair to Plommieres under pain of death. It is expressly
laid upon all mayors and officers of justice to have careful watch
over the place; and upon all the townsfolk, to furnish us with billets
containing the names, surnames, and residence of all the people they
may have taken into their lodgings, under pain of imprisonment. All
the ordinances above declared have been this day published in front of
the great bath of Plommieres aforesaid, and copies of the same, both
in French and in German, affixed to the nearest and most prominent
portion of the bath, and signed by us, Balli of the Vosges: Given at
Plommieres the fourth day of May in the year of our Lord 15--.”

We tarried at this place from the 18th to the 27th of September. M.
de Montaigne drank the water eleven days, nine glasses on eight days,
and seven glasses the other three, and took five baths. He found the
water easy to drink, and the effects of the same all he could wish.
Appetite, digestion, and sleep were alike good, and his general health
suffered no injury from these waters. On the sixth day he was seized
with a colic, more violent than his ordinary attacks, and with pain on
the right side, where he had never hitherto been troubled, save once
in the course of a very trifling attack at Arsac. This seizure lasted
four hours, and while it was on him he felt plainly the working and the
movement of the stone in the urethra and the lower part of the stomach.
The first two days he passed two small stones from the bladder, and
gravel occasionally afterwards. When he left these baths he deemed that
he had still in his bladder both the stone of this attack of colic,
and certain other small ones of which he had felt the downward passage.
He judged the qualities of these waters, with regard to his own case,
to be much the same as those of the high spring of Banieres,[25] where
there is a bath. He found the temperature of the bath very mild,
indeed, children of six months or a year old are wont to sprawl about
therein. His perspiration was copious and gentle. He directed me for
the gratification of his landlady to let her have the escutcheon of his
arms on wood--this being the custom of the country--which escutcheon a
painter of the place did for a crown, and the hostess caused it to be
hung up on the outside wall.

On the 27th of September, after dinner, we set forth and traversed a
mountainous country, the soil of which resounded under our horses’ feet
as if we were going over a vault, or even as if men were beating drums
all around us. At the end of two leagues we stopped for the night at
Remiremont, a fair little town, where we found excellent lodging at the
“Unicorn”: indeed, in all the towns of Lorraine, and this was the last
of them, the traveller finds as convenient lodging and as excellent
fare as in any part of France. At Remiremont is that famous abbey of
religious women of the same rank as those of Poussai before described.
They claim, as against M. de Lorrene,[26] the sovereignty and ownership
of this town. M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne paid them a visit
very soon after their arrival, and inspected several of the sets of
lodgings, all of which were very seemly and well furnished. The abbess,
of the family of D’Inteville, had lately died, and they were about to
elect another to the office, the sister of the Count de Salmes being a
candidate. They also went to see the _doyenne_, a member of the house
of Lutre, a lady who had done M. de Montaigne the honour of sending to
greet him while he was at Plommieres, despatching also a supply of
artichokes and partridges, and a barrel of wine for his use. Messieurs
were informed that certain neighbouring villages are bound to deliver
on the day of Pentecost every year two bowls of snow; and, failing
these, a cart equipped with four white oxen. It is said that they never
fail to find snow for their rent, but it is certain that, when we were
there, the heat was as great as is felt at any season in Gascony. The
nun’s dress is a white veil, worn on the head, and a little lappel of
crape over it. Their robes are black, made of any stuff and pattern
they may choose, while on the premises, but otherwise they may wear
colours, petticoats to their liking, and shoes and pattens; and dress
their hair under the veil in ordinary fashion. Each nun must be
descended from at least four noble houses on the father’s side and the
mother’s as well. Messieurs took leave of the ladies at eventide. Early
on the morrow we set forth, and after we had mounted, the _doyenne_
sent a gentleman to M. de Montaigne begging him to go to her. He went,
and this visit cost us an hour’s delay. This society of ladies gave
him procuration to deal with their affairs at Rome. After we left we
followed for some distance a lovely and pleasant valley, skirting the
banks of the Moselle, and reached Bossan,[27] four leagues distant, in
time for dinner.

This is a little ugly town, the last place where French is spoken. Here
M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne, clad in garments of linen which
were lent to them, went to see the silver mines which M. de Lorenne
possesses in this place, situated some two thousand paces up a mountain
gorge. After dinner we took a road through the mountains, where they
pointed out to us, amongst other things, the nests of the goshawks
perched on inaccessible rocks [the birds aforesaid being worth about
three testoons], and the source of the Moselle. We arrived, after
travelling four leagues, in time for supper at Tane.[28]

This is a handsome town, the first over the German frontier, and
subject to the Emperor. The following morning we found ourselves in a
fine wide plain, bounded on the left hand by slopes full of vineyards,
fair and excellently cultivated, and of such extent that the Gascons
who were with us declared they had never seen the like. This was the
time of vintage.



II

SWITZERLAND


We travelled two leagues farther to dinner at Melhouse,[29] a fair
little Swiss town of the canton of Basle. There M. de Montaigne went to
visit the church, the people of this town being no longer Catholics.
This he found, as elsewhere in the country, in good condition, for
scarcely any change has been made, except with regard to the altars
and the images, the churches themselves having suffered no defacement.
He was vastly pleased to behold the liberty and order prevalent among
these people; how our host of the “Grapes” returned from the council
board of the town, held in a magnificent palace, over which he had
presided, to do service to his guests at table; and to hear how
this man, without any following or office, who poured out the wine
at dinner, had formerly led four troops of footmen into France under
Casimir to fight against the king, and was now the king’s pensioner,
having received three hundred crowns per annum for the last twenty
years.[30] While M. de Montaigne was sitting at table, this gentleman
talked to him, without the least pretentiousness or affectation,
of his condition and way of life; and how he and others found that
their religion was no bar to their serving the king, even against
the Huguenots. This we heard likewise from others whom we met in our
travels, and also at the siege of La Fère[31] more than fifty of these
people served with us, and that they made no scruple of being married
by a priest to Catholic women, who were never required to change their
religion. After dinner we set out travelling through a fine country,
abundant, very fertile, and ornamented with divers pretty villages and
hostelries, and arrived at Basle, three leagues’ journey, in time for
bed.

[Illustration: BASEL

_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 62_, vol. i.
]

Basle is a fine town, about the size of Blois, and divided into two
parts, for the Rhine flows through the midst under a large wooden
bridge of great width. The city authorities did the honour to M.
d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne of sending a present of wine by one of
their officers, who made a long speech to them as they sat at table. M.
de Montaigne made a similar reply in the presence of certain Germans
and Frenchmen, who were seated with them round the stove, the host
serving as interpreter. The wines were very good. We went in separate
parties to the house of a certain physician, named Felix Plater, which
was painted and decorated in delicate French fashion with the utmost
care. This house the aforesaid physician had built for himself in
very large, ample, and sumptuous style. Amongst other work he was
preparing a book of simples, which was then well advanced, and it was
his practice, instead of painting like other botanists the plants
according to their natural colours, to glue the same upon paper with
so great care and dexterity that the smallest leaves and fibres should
be visible, exactly as in nature. He can turn the leaves of this book
without fear of any plant falling out, and he showed us certain simples
which had been fastened therein more than twenty years ago. At this
house, and in the public school as well, we saw entire skeletons of men.

They have a custom in the town, but not in the suburbs, that the clocks
shall strike one hour in advance of the true time, to wit, if it should
strike ten, the time would be really nine. They say the reason of this
custom is that in past years an attempt against the city miscarried
on account of a similar fault of the town clock. It is called
_Basilee_,[32] not from the Greek word, but because _Base_ in German
means _passage_. We saw many learned men: Grynæus,[33] and the author
of the _Theatrum_, and Platerus the physician already mentioned, and
Francis Hottoman.[34] The two last-named supped with M. de Montaigne
the day after his arrival. From answers given to certain questions he
put, M. de Montaigne gathered that there was in Basle considerable
religious discord, some calling themselves Zwinglians, some Calvinists,
and others Martinists, while many, as he was informed, had in their
hearts a hidden liking for the Roman religion. The ordinary form
of administering the sacrament is to place it in the mouth, but at
the same time any one, who so wishes, may reach out his hand for
it, the ministers being chary of stirring up afresh the antagonisms
of religion. The interiors of the churches are like those I have
heretofore described. The exteriors are still garnished with images
and with ancient tombs unmutilated, and inscribed with prayers for the
souls of the departed. The organs, the bells, the crosses on the bell
towers, and all the different images in the painted windows are whole
as ever they were, as well as the benches and the seats of the choirs.
The Calvinists place the baptismal font where the high altar stood
aforetime, and build at the head of the nave another altar to serve for
their Lord’s Supper; the one at Basle being beautifully arranged. The
church of the Carthusians is a very fine building, preserved and kept
up most carefully; the same furniture and ornaments are still there,
a circumstance which the reformers bring forward as a testimony of
their good faith, seeing that they gave a promise to maintain these at
the time of their agreement. The bishop of the place, who is strongly
inimical to them, lives outside the city, and holds the greater part
of the country people to the ancient religion. He enjoys an income of
fifty thousand livres from the city, and thus the succession to the
bishopric is kept up.

Certain of the people lamented to M. de Montaigne over the dissolute
carriage of the women, and the prevalent drunkenness of the city. We
witnessed an operation for rupture done by a surgeon on the child of a
poor man, who was very roughly handled by the operator, and likewise
saw the very fine public library overlooking the river in a pleasant
situation. We spent one more day at Basle, and on the next after dinner
we took the road along the Rhine for some two leagues. Then we left
it on our left hand and traversed a fertile country. In these parts
springs abound, and no village or crossroads lack fair running water;
in Basle indeed they number some three hundred. Balconies are so
common in all houses, even in Lorraine, that in building they always
leave between the windows of the chambers doorways looking over the
streets, with the view of letting a balcony be built thereto at some
future time. All through the country beyond Espine even the smallest
cottages have glass windows, and the good houses are well fitted with
the same, excellently arranged both within and without, the glass
being made in various fashions. There is abundance of iron, and the
workers thereof are very skilful, greatly in advance of ourselves,
and furthermore the smallest church will always have a magnificent
clock and dial. Their work in tiles is excellent, and on this account
the roofs of the houses are decorated with a medley of tiles, glazed
in various colours, and the floors of their chambers are the same.
Moreover it would be impossible to find more delicate work than that
of their stoves, which are of pottery. They make much use of pine wood
and are skilled carpenters, their casks being all carven and many of
them varnished and painted. They are very lavish in stoves, that is to
say, in the public dining-rooms. In all rooms of this sort, which are
always well furnished, there will be five or six tables fitted with
benches at which all the guests will dine together, each party at its
own particular table. The smallest houses of entertainment will have
three or four well-appointed rooms of this kind. They are pierced for
many windows which are filled with rich glass, but on the whole it
seems that the hosts concern themselves more with the dinner than with
aught else, for the bed-chambers are often mean enough, the beds never
curtained and always placed three or four together, the rooms being
without chimneys, and only heated from the general stove. Beyond this
there is no sign of a fire, and they take it very ill if a stranger
should go into their kitchens. There is much want of cleanliness in
their bed-chambers, and he who gets a white sheet may deem himself
fortunate: moreover, it is their fashion never to cover the pillow with
sheeting; there is rarely any other covering than a feather quilt,
which is very dirty.

They are good cooks, of fish especially. In fine weather or in storm
their houses have no other protection from the weather than bare glass
windows without wooden shutters. The houses are well windowed and
very light, both below and in the chambers, the windows being rarely
closed even at night. Their service at table differs greatly from ours.
They never mix water with their wine, and they are justified in this
practice, for their wines are so thin that our gentlemen found them
less potent than those of Gascony when diluted. They are, however, very
light and delicate.

The body-servants dine either at their master’s table or at one close
by, one valet being enough to attend to the high table, seeing that
each gentleman has always his own goblet or silver cup beside him,
wherefore the servant only needs to fill this as soon as it may be
empty, without moving it. For this purpose they use a vessel of pewter
or wood with a long spout. As to the meat, they serve only two or three
dishes thereof, cut in slices. Unlike our fashion, they serve in the
same dish divers sorts of well-dressed meats; sometimes indeed they
bring to table one course with the other, using certain appliances of
iron made with long legs, in which they carry one dish above and one
below. Some of their tables are round and some square, but all are
very wide, so that it is very difficult to place the dishes thereon.
The valet, however, can easily manage dishes arranged as above named,
letting them follow, two by two, up to six or seven changes.

A fresh dish is never served till the foregoing one shall have been
finished; and as to the plates, as soon as the service of viands has
come to an end and the dessert is ready, the valet puts on the table a
large wicker basket on a vessel of painted wood into which the chief
person present first puts his plate; the others follow suit, the order
of rank being closely observed. The valet removes this vessel without
difficulty, and then serves the fruit in two dishes all mixed together
like the other courses. At this stage they often serve radishes, and
with your roast meat you will most likely have been offered cooked
pears. Amongst other edibles they give a high place to the crayfish,
and honour it by serving it in a covered dish, a tribute they pay to
hardly any other viand. The whole country abounds in these fish, and
they are served every day, and rated as a delicacy.

They take no care to wash on sitting down or on rising from table.
Most people go to a little laver, set in a corner of the room as in a
monastery. In most places they use wooden plates and pots, clean and
white as they can be made; but in some they set on the wooden plates
others of pewter, until they serve the fruit, for which wood is always
used. They serve this wooden ware only from custom, for in the same
houses where it is seen they give their guests silver goblets in any
quantity. They clean and polish their wooden furniture with great care
and even the boards of their chambers. The beds are so high that steps
are generally needed to mount the same, and nearly everywhere small
beds are placed beside the large ones.

Seeing that they are such excellent smiths, nearly all their spits
are made to revolve by springs, or by weights like clocks, or even by
wooden fans fixed in the chimney and made to turn by the draught of the
smoke and the vapour of the fire. These appliances cause the roast to
revolve gently and slowly. They over-roast their meat somewhat. These
smoke-jacks[35] are only worked in large hostelries which burn great
fires, as at Baden, and they turn at a uniform and steady pace. After
leaving Lorrenne we found the chimneys built in a fashion different
from ours. They build up the hearths in the middle or in the corner
of the kitchen, using almost the entire width of the place for the
chimney flue. This is a vast opening seven or eight paces square, which
becomes narrower as it rises to the top of the house. This structure
gives them the chance to place in position their large wheel, which, in
chimneys built like ours, would occupy so much room in the flue that
the smoke would not be able to find a passage. The lightest repasts
last three or four hours, because of the method of service aforesaid,
and in sooth these people eat vastly more leisurely than we do, and in
more healthful manner. There is everywhere abundance of provisions, of
flesh and fish, and every table is sumptuously spread--at least this
was our experience. On Fridays no flesh is served, and report says that
in these parts the people willingly abstain therefrom entirely, the
practice of fasting being similar to that in France round about Paris.
As a rule they give their horses more fodder than they can eat. We
travelled four leagues and arrived in time for bed at Hornes.

This is a small village in the duchy of Austria. On the morrow, as it
was Sunday, we went to Mass, and observed that in church the women sat
on the left-hand side of the church and the men on the right, without
mixing. The women have several rows of seats, set reversed, one behind
the other, of a convenient height for sitting, and upon these they
kneel, and not upon the ground, wherefore they seem to be upright.
The men have also pieces of wood in front of them to lean upon, and
they only kneel upon the chairs which are in front of them. Instead of
joining the hands as we do at the elevation, they stretch them out
apart, and open and keep them thus raised until the priest exhibits
the pyx. They assigned to M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne the third
bench on the men’s side, while those of less worship in our company
were afterwards given seats amongst the lesser folk; and the same on
the women’s side. It seemed to us that the front rows were not held in
the highest honour. The interpreter and guide whom we engaged at Basle,
a sworn messenger of the city, went to the Mass with us, and showed
by his carriage that he had come there with great longing and devout
feeling. After dinner we crossed the river Arat[36] to Broug, a fair
little town belonging to the seigniory of Berne, and beyond that we
went to see an abbey which Queen Catherine of Hungary gave to the lords
of Berne in 1524,[37] where are buried Leopold, Archduke of Austria,
and a great number of gentlemen who were overthrown by the Swiss in
1386. Their arms and names are there inscribed, and their remains
kept with great care. M. de Montaigne held converse with the Bernese
gentleman in charge of the place, who ordered that everything should be
shown to him. In this abbey slices of bread and soup are always ready
at hand for any wayfarer who may demand the same, and no refusal has
ever been made by the heads of the abbey. From this place we crossed by
a boat, which is attached by an iron pulley to a rope stretched high
above the Reix,[38] a river flowing out of the Lake of Lucerne, and
arrived, after a journey of four leagues, at Baden, a little town with
a suburb adjoining, where there are baths.

[Illustration: BADEN EN ARGOW

    _To face p. 76_, vol. i.
]

Baden is a Catholic town, under protection of the eight[39] Swiss
cantons, in which divers great gatherings of princes have taken place.
We did not lodge in the town but in the suburb, which lies at the
foot of the mountain on the bank of the Limmat, a stream, or rather
torrent, which flows out of the Lake of Zürich. There are two or three
uncovered public baths, which are frequented only by poor folk. Of the
other kind there are great number within the houses, divided into small
private rooms, both closed and open, which are let with the lodgings,
and are as dainty and well fitted as possible, hot water being drawn
from the water-courses for each bath. The lodgment is magnificent. In
the house where we stayed three hundred mouths had to be fed every day;
and, while we were there, beds were made for a hundred-and-seventy
sojourners. It possessed seventeen stoves and eleven kitchens, and
in the house adjoining were fifty furnished chambers, the walls of
all the rooms being hung with the coats-of-arms of the gentry who
had lodged therein. The town, perched high on the crest of a hill,
is small and very fair, like almost all the towns of this country.
Moreover, they build their streets wider and more open than ours, and
their market-places more ample, and there is a wealth of richly-glazed
windows everywhere. They paint almost all the houses outside with
various devices, and the towns consequently are very pleasant to look
upon. Again, there is scarcely a town without running water in the
streets, and at every cross-street will be found a handsome fountain,
built either in stone or in wood, and on this account their towns are
much fairer to view than those of France. The water of the baths gives
out an odour of sulphur like those of Aigues-Caudes[40] and certain
others. The heat is tempered as at Barbotan[41] or Aigues-Caudes, and
for this reason the baths are very soft and pleasant.

Ladies who are fain to take their bath with daintiness and decency can
repair to Baden with confidence, for they will be alone in the bath,
which is like an elegant cabinet, light, with glazed windows, painted
panelling, and clean flooring. Everywhere are chairs and small tables
for reading or gaming while in the bath. The bather may empty and fill
the bath as often as he likes, and will find a chamber adjoining.
There are fine walks along the river, besides artificial ones under
galleries. These baths are placed in a valley commanded by the slopes
of high mountains, which nevertheless are fertile and well cultivated.
The water when drunk tastes rather flat and soft, like water heated
up, and there is a smell of sulphur about it, and a certain prickling
flavour of salt. Amongst the people of the place it is chiefly used
in the bath, in which they subject themselves also to cupping and
bleeding, so that I have at times seen the water in the two public
baths the colour of blood. Those who drink it by habit take a glass or
two at the most. The guests as a rule stay six or seven weeks, and
some or other frequent the baths all through the summer. No country
sends so many visitors as Germany, from whence come great crowds.

The practice of bathing here is of high antiquity and is remarked by
Tacitus,[42] who searched to the utmost to find the chief spring, but
could get no knowledge thereof; but apparently the springs rise from
a great depth below the level even of the river. The water is less
clear than that of the other springs we have seen, and when drawn
from the spring it shows certain minute fibres. Moreover, it contains
no sparkling bubbles like other sulphurous waters when the glass is
filled; like those of Spa, for instance, of which M. de Maldonat told
us. M. de Montaigne took some of it on the Monday morning after we
arrived, seven small glasses, and on the next day five large glasses,
amounting to ten of the aforesaid. On this same day, Tuesday, at nine
in the morning, while the others were at table, he took a bath and fell
into a heavy sweat in bed afterwards, having stayed in the bath only
half-an-hour. The people of the country, who stay all day in the bath
playing and drinking, stand only up to the middle in water, but M. de
Montaigne lay full length and was covered to the neck.[43]

On this day departed from the baths a certain Swiss gentleman, an
excellent servant of our State, who all the day before had held
converse with M. de Montaigne concerning Swiss affairs, and had shown
him a letter which the French ambassador, son of our President du
Harlay, had written from Souleure, where he was staying, committing
to him the king’s interests while he himself should be absent. The
ambassador had been summoned by the queen to meet her at Lyons, in
order to devise some plan of checkmating the schemes of Spain and
the late Duke of Savoy. The duke shortly before his death had allied
himself with certain of the cantons, an alliance which our king had
resisted, alleging that the cantons, being already pledged to him,
could incur no fresh obligations without his leave. Some of the
cantons, when this was pointed out to them by the Swiss gentleman
aforesaid, drew back from the alliance. Indeed, all through this
country they showed great respect and friendship to our king’s name
and the utmost civility to ourselves. The Swiss gentleman had a train
of four horses. His son, who is also in the king’s service, on one, a
valet on another, his daughter, a tall, handsome girl, on another, with
a horsecloth and footboard in French fashion, a trunk on the crupper,
and a bonnet box on the saddle-bow, without any waiting-maid, though
they were two long days’ journey from their abode, which is in a town
where the gentleman aforesaid was the governor. He himself rode the
remaining horse.

The common dress of the women does not seem to me so becoming as that
usually worn in France, nor the headgear either. This is a bonnet,
_à la cognard_, turned up before and behind, and having in front a
slight peak enriched with stripes of silk and fur trimmings. The hair
hangs down behind in a braid. If you should jestingly take off this
bonnet--for it is lightly attached as with us--they will show no
offence, and you will see the head quite uncovered. The younger women
wear simple garlands in lieu of a bonnet. There is little difference of
attire to make the distinction of classes, and the habit is to salute
by kissing the hand, and by offering to touch the lady’s. Otherwise,
if in passing you give a greeting and bow they will generally make no
sign of acknowledgment, according to ancient usage, but some will bow
the head slightly by way of returning the salutation. They are for the
most part well-favoured women, tall, and fair.

As a nation they have an excellent disposition, even towards those
who [do not][44] agree with them. M. de Montaigne, in order to make
full trial of diverse manners and customs of the countries he visited,
always conformed to local usage, however greatly such a usage may have
irked him. Nevertheless, in Switzerland he said that he suffered no
inconvenience except that he had at table, by way of napkin, only a
piece of linen half a foot long: moreover, the Swiss themselves only
unfold this napkin at dinner when many sauces and divers sorts of soup
are served; but, on the other hand, they always provide as many wooden
spoons with silver handles as there are guests. And a Swiss will always
be provided with a knife with which he will eat everything, and never
put his fingers in his plate.

In almost all the towns the proper arms of the place are displayed,
and above them those of the Emperor and of the house of Austria, but
the greater part of the towns have been detached from the archduke
aforesaid by ill policy. They say that all members of the Austrian
house, except the Catholic king, have been brought to great poverty,
even the Emperor,[45] who is held very lightly in Germany. On the
Wednesday the host bought a large quantity of fish, and being asked by
M. de Montaigne the reason why, he replied that the greater part of the
people of Baden ate fish on Wednesdays on religious grounds, a remark
which confirmed what he had before heard on this subject: to wit, that
those who have remained Catholics are confirmed in their faith by the
fact that they have to reckon on an opposition. The host added, when
division and religious strife shows itself in a particular town, and
infects the governing body, the bond of good feeling is loosened, and
the effect of this admixture is felt in individual families, as has
been manifested in Augsburg and in the imperial cities. But when a town
has one central government--and every Swiss town has its separate laws
and administration, is dependent on its neighbours for the preservation
of order, and keeps up alliance and union only for purposes affecting
the whole community--those towns which possess special civic rights,
with a separate civil government complete in all parts, find therein
a support for their strengthening and upholding. Towns in this case
undoubtedly become stronger, closing their ranks and recruiting their
forces through the contagious shock of conflicts near at hand.

Their custom of warming the houses by stoves pleased us greatly, and
none of our company complained thereof; for, after you have taken in
a breath or two of the air which indeed may seem strange on entering
a room, you are sensible only of a soft and regular heat. M. de
Montaigne, who slept in a room with a stove, was loud in its praises,
saying that all night he felt a pleasant moderate warmth. In warming
yourself you burn neither your face nor your boots, and are free from
the smoke of a French fireplace. At home we put on our warm furred
dressing-gowns when we enter our apartments, but here people appear in
doublet and bareheaded in the warm rooms, and put on thick garments
before going into the air. On the Thursday M. de Montaigne drank the
same quantity of water, which acted well and rid him of a small amount
of gravel. Still, he found these waters more powerful than any others
which he had ever tried--whether from the strength of the water itself
or from the present habit of his body--and accordingly he drank them
more sparingly.

On this same Thursday he held discourse with a minister from Zürich,
a native of that city, and heard from him that the religion there
was formerly Zwinglian, but that now it had come nearer to Calvinism,
a somewhat milder creed. Being questioned as to predestination, he
replied that they kept the mean between Geneva and Augsburg, but that
their people were free to debate this question. For his own part he
inclined rather to the side of Zwingli, praising him highly as one who
came the nearest to primitive Christianity.

On Friday, October 7th, at seven in the morning, after breakfast, we
quitted Baden; and, before we set out, M. de Montaigne drank the same
quantity of the water as he had taken on five previous occasions. With
regard to the operation of the same, concerning which he was more
sanguine than he was in the case of any other bath he had visited (both
as to the bathing and the drinking), he was free in his praise of these
baths beyond all the rest, not only because the place itself, and the
baths and the private apartments, are comfortably and conveniently
managed, but also because, in all apartments, visitors are always
able to go to their own rooms without passing through the rooms of
other people. Moreover, persons of small means may find quarters to
suit them quite as easily as those who are rich. Bathrooms, kitchens,
cabinets, and chapels may be hired for a large retinue, and at the
house adjacent to our own, the Cour de la Ville--ours being the Cour
de derrière--there are public apartments belonging to the cantonal
authorities, and occupied by lodgers. This same house has several
chimneys built in French fashion, and there are stoves in all the
chief apartments. The demand for payment from strangers is a little
arbitrary, as in all countries and notably in our own. Four furnished
chambers, with nine beds in all, two of which had stoves and one bath
besides, cost us a crown a day for the masters, and for the servants
four batzen:[46] that is to say, a little more than nine sous apiece;
the horses cost six batzen, about four sous, but in addition to this
they added certain nonsensical charges which were not customary. A
guard is kept in the town and even in the bath quarter, which is
nothing but a village, and every night two sentinels make the round of
the houses, not so much to keep off the foe, as for fear of fire or
other disturbance. When the hour strikes one of them is bound to cry
out at the top of his voice to the other, and ask what is the hour,
whereupon the other in like manner tells him the hour, and adds that he
is keeping good watch. The women do their washing in the open in the
public place, bringing out their little wooden tubs to the river side
where they heat water and do their work excellently; they also clean
the earthenware far better than do our French women in the inns. Here
each chambermaid and each valet has a special charge.

One disadvantage of travel is that with ever so great diligence it
is impossible for a stranger to ascertain from the people of the
country whom he may meet--I speak of the cultivated folk as well as
the vulgar--what objects of interest may be worthy of a visit, and to
make them understand what he may ask. I write thus because, after we
had spent five days at Baden, and had inquired curiously concerning
everything there which might be worth seeing, we were told naught about
a certain object of interest which we saw by chance afterwards as we
were leaving the town. This was a stone, about the height of a man,
apparently a portion of some column, without adornment or workmanship,
placed at the angle of a house, and easily visible to any passer-by on
the high-road. There was a Latin inscription, which I was not able to
decipher fully, but it seemed to be a simple dedication to the Emperors
Nerva and Trajan. We crossed the Rhine at Kaiserstuhl, a Catholic town
and allied to the Swiss, and onward thence we traversed a fine flat
country until we came to some rapids where the river is broken up by
rocks, which they call cataracts, like those of the Nile. And below
Schaffhausen there is in the Rhine a gulf full of vast rocks where it
becomes rapid, and farther down, amongst the same rocks, it comes to a
fall of two pikes’ length, where it makes a mighty leap, foaming and
roaring marvellously. This fall stops the boats, and interrupts the
navigation of the river. We travelled four leagues at a stretch, and
came in time for supper to Schaffhausen.

This town, the capital of a Swiss canton, has the same form of religion
as Zürich. On our departure from Baden we left on our right hand
Zürich, whither M. de Montaigne had determined to journey, the town
being not more than two leagues distant. But word was brought to him
of an outbreak of plague there. At Schaffhausen he saw naught which
interested him. The citizens were erecting a citadel which promised to
be a good work; and they have, moreover, a butt for crossbow practice,
and a place for this exercise, as fine and large and shady and well
provided with seats and galleries and rooms as man could desire.
There is also a similar place for shooting with the arquebus, and
water-mills for the sawing of wood, like those we have seen elsewhere,
and others for the scutching of flax and the shelling of millet.
Likewise a tree of the sort we saw at Baden and elsewhere, but not so
large. Out of the lowest branches they contrive to make the floor of
a sort of circular gallery, twenty paces or so in diameter. They next
braid these branches together in an upward direction so as to form the
side of the gallery aforesaid, and likewise let them grow upwards as
high as possible. They afterwards clip the tree, and prevent the growth
of any branch from the trunk, so far as it passes through the gallery,
which is for the space of ten feet. They take the upper branches of the
tree, and these they lay down upon supports of willow in order to form
a roof to the little chamber. Then branches are plaited from below, and
at last joined to those which grow upward from the contrary direction:
thus the whole space is filled with green growth. Then they clip the
tree as high as the top branches, which they allow to grow naturally.
The tree brought into this form is a very beautiful object. In addition
they have made spring up at its feet a fountain of water which mounts
up as high as the floor of the gallery already mentioned.

M. de Montaigne paid a visit to the burgomasters of the town, who
afterwards, to show him courtesy, came with certain other public
officers to sup at our apartments, when they brought a present of
wine for him and M. d’Estissac, and certain speeches were made on
both sides. The chief burgomaster was a man of good family who had
been brought up as a page in the house of M. d’Orléans,[47] and had
now quite forgotten French. This canton professed to be well affected
towards our interests, and had given proof of this disposition by a
refusal to join the league of the other cantons, which the late Duke
of Savoy had tried to bring about, and of which mention has been
made already. On Saturday, October 8th, we set forth at eight in
the morning, after breakfast, from Schaffhausen, where we had found
excellent lodgment at the “Crown.” One of the most learned men of the
place had a conversation with M. de Montaigne, and told him, amongst
other matters, that in truth the people of the town were not over
well disposed to our Court, forasmuch as whenever he had listened to
discourse concerning an alliance with our king, the majority of the
people were always disposed to break it, but that by the intervention
of certain rich citizens the opposite policy had hitherto been adopted.
As we left the town we saw an engine made of iron, like certain others
we had seen elsewhere, by the help of which carts could be loaded with
heavy stones without the aid of human muscles. We passed along beside
the Rhine, leaving it on our right hand, as far as Stein, a small town,
the ally of the cantons, and of the same religion as Schaffhausen. Also
on the road we observed many stone crosses. Here we again crossed
the Rhine by a wooden bridge and, still keeping beside the river on
the left, we passed by another small town allied to the Catholic
cantons. Here the Rhine spreads out to a vast width, equal to that of
the Garonne at Blaye, and then narrows itself till the approach to
Constance, a distance of four leagues.

[Illustration: CONSTANCE

_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 96_, vol. i.
]



III

THE EMPIRE


We arrived at Constance at four o’clock. This town, which is about the
size of Châlons, belongs to the Archduke of Austria, and holds to the
Catholic religion, though up to thirty years ago it was in the hands
of the Lutherans, whom the Emperor Charles V. drove out by force. The
churches still show signs of images, and the bishop is a gentleman
of the country, who lives at Rome, and as a cardinal draws from this
benefice an income of forty thousand crowns. There are canonries, too,
of the church of Notre Dame, which are worth fifteen hundred crowns,
and are held by men of gentle family. We saw one of these on horseback
coming in from the country, attired gallantly like a gentleman-of-arms;
and report says that in the town are many Lutherans. We ascended
the clock tower, which is very high, and there found a man as fixed
sentinel, who is shut therein and not suffered to quit his post,
whatever may call him thence. They were constructing beside the Rhine a
large covered building, fifty feet long and forty wide, or thereabouts,
and fixing therein twelve or fifteen great wheels, by means of which
they propose to raise continuously a large quantity of water up to a
wooden tower, one storey higher, where will be an equal number of iron
wheels (the lower ones are of wood), which will raise the water from
the first floor to the one above. The water, having been lifted to the
height of some fifty feet, will discharge itself by a large artificial
channel and flow down into the town, and set several mills to work. The
artisan who has the direction of this building had for his labour alone
five thousand seven hundred florins, and wine to boot. In the deep
water they were fixing a strong wooden erection all around to break the
current; so that, when the force of the water should be moderated,
they might be able to draw it upwards more easily. There was also an
arrangement of machinery by which the whole system of wheelwork can be
raised or lowered according to the level of the water.

At this point the stream is not called the Rhine, for by the upper part
of the city it spreads out into a lake full four German leagues in
width and five or six in length. There is a fine terrace overlooking
this lake where merchandise is stored, and about fifty paces from the
shore stands a finely-built lodge, where a sentinel is always on duty.
A chain is here prepared, by which the way of access to the bridge may
be closed, and high palisades are set, which enclose on both sides that
part of the lake in which boats lie and take in cargo. Near the church
of Notre Dame there is a conduit by which water from the Rhine higher
up finds its way to the suburbs of the town.

We perceived that we were leaving behind us the country of the Swiss,
for the reason that, shortly before we came to the entrance to the
town, we saw several noblemen’s dwellings, such as are seldom or never
seen in Switzerland; and as to the private houses, both in town and
country, we found them beyond all comparison better than in France,
and they seem to lack nothing except slate roofs. To speak more
particularly of the hostelries, they might perhaps provide a somewhat
better style of entertainment; moreover, with regard to certain
deficiencies which we found in the service, these could not have been
the result of poverty. What we had seen of their way of life in other
respects forbade us to believe this, seeing that it is hard to name a
place where they do not drink from fine silver cups, gilded and chased;
wherefore, what seemed to us strange, was simply local custom. The
country is very rich, especially in wine. To return to the town of
Constance, we were badly lodged at the “Eagle,” and we got from our
host a sample of the barbaric German arrogance and independence over
the quarrel of one of our serving-men with our guide from Basle. And
when the question came before the judges to whom the guide made an
appeal, it chanced that M. de Montaigne asked the provost of the place,
an Italian gentleman, married and settled there for a long time with
full right of citizenship, whether the servants he had with him could
give evidence on our behalf. The provost answered that they could,
provided M. de Montaigne should have discharged them from his service.
He might, of course, re-engage them immediately afterwards; a reply
which seemed full of subtlety.

On the following day, Sunday, on account of this tumult, we only
tarried until after dinner, and then changed our quarters to the
“Pike,” where we fared excellently. The son of the captain of the town,
who was brought up as a page in the household of M. de Meru,[48] was
always in attendance upon Messieurs at table and elsewhere. He did
not know a word of French. The service at table is very often varied.
They gave us here, and subsequently in other places, after the cloth
was removed, other courses with our wine. The first what the Gascons
call _canaules_, then spiced bread, and lastly white bread cut into
slices, but still holding together. In the cuttings they put plenty
of spices and salt, as also in the crust of the bread. There are many
lepers in this country, the highways being full of them. The villagers
give their workmen for mid-day meal large flat loaves,[49] made with
fennel, and spread upon these a mess of bacon, cut very small and mixed
with cloves of garlic. The Germans, when they would do honour to a man,
always place themselves on his left side, whatever seat he may occupy,
and maintain that to sit on his right hand is to put an insult on him,
saying that to show true deference to a man it is necessary to leave
his right side free, so that he may easily put his hand to his arms.
After dinner on the Sunday we quitted Constance, and after crossing the
lake at a point about a league from the town, we reached Smardorff in
time for bed, after travelling two leagues.

Smardorff[50] is a small Catholic town. We had lodging at the “Standard
of Cologne,” a post-house which is kept here for the Emperor’s route
into Italy. There, as in other places, they fill the mattresses with
the leaves of a certain tree, which serves the purpose better than
straw and lasts longer. The town is surrounded by a wide plain of
vineyard which produces excellent wine. On Monday, the 10th October,
we started after breakfast; for M. de Montaigne was persuaded by
the beauty of the day to change the plan he had made of going to
Ravensburg, and make a day’s journey to Lindau instead. M. de Montaigne
never took breakfast, but caused to be brought to him a piece of
dry bread which he would eat during the journey, adding thereto
occasionally such grapes as he could get on the road, the vintage being
still in course of gathering in this region even up to the outskirts of
Lindau. Their practice is to train the vines up on trellises, and they
leave therein divers verdurous alleys which are delightful to the view.
We passed through Sonchem,[51] an imperial Catholic town on the bank
of the Lake of Constance, to which all the wares of Ulm and Nuremburg
and divers other places are brought in waggons, thence to be conveyed
through the lake to the Rhine route. After travelling three leagues we
arrived about three in the afternoon at Linde.[52]

The little town is situated some hundred paces out into the lake, which
distance is traversed over a stone bridge. There is no other entrance,
all the rest of the town being surrounded by the lake, which is at
least a league in width, and on the other side rise the mountains of
the Grisons. The lake and all the streams are low in winter and full in
summer on account of the melting of the snow. All through these parts
the women cover their heads with bonnets of fur like our skull-caps,
each costing about three testoons;[53] the outside being trimmed with
some seemly grey fur, and the inside with lambs’-wool. The opening
which in our caps is in front is in theirs behind, and through it may
be seen their hair tucked up. Their favourite foot-gear is boots, and
these are either red or white, each sort suiting the wearer not amiss.
Both religions are followed. We went to see the Catholic cathedral,
built in 866, where all things are as they have always been, and we
saw also the church served by the Lutheran ministers. All the imperial
towns have liberty in the matter of the two religions, Catholic and
Lutheran, according to the leanings of the people, and they devote
themselves more or less to that form which they prefer. At Lindau,
from what the priest told M. de Montaigne, there are not more than two
or three Catholics. The priests do not fail to draw their incomes and
to perform the service, and the nuns who are there do the same. M. de
Montaigne had some talk also with the minister, from whom he got but
little information, except to learn that the common hatred against
Zwingle and Calvin was prevalent here likewise. It seems clear that
almost every separate place holds for its belief some particular view;
and, under the authority of Martin, whom they hail as their head, they
set up divers disputes on the interpretation of the meaning of Martin’s
works.

We lodged at the “Crown,” a good house. Near the stone on the panelled
wall there was a sort of wooden cage for the keeping of a vast number
of birds. It was fitted with hanging perches made of copper wire,
which gave room for the birds to shift from one end to the other. The
furniture and woodwork of their houses is generally made of pine,
the most common forest tree, but they paint and varnish and polish it
carefully, and even use hair brushes for the furbishing of their chairs
and tables. They have great abundance of cabbages, which they shred
with a tool made for the purpose, and then salt the same in vessels for
making soup in the winter. At this place M. de Montaigne made trial of
the feather coverlets, such as they use in bed, and was full of praise
thereof, finding them light and warm at the same time. It was a saying
of his that people of fastidious taste had more occasion to complain
when travelling of their bed furniture than of aught else, and he
commended those who carried a mattress or curtains amongst the baggage
when visiting strange countries.

As to fare at table, they have such vast abundance of provisions,
and vary the service so widely in the matter of soups, sauces, and
salads, that nothing in our own way of living can be found to equal
it. They gave us soups made of quince, of apples cooked and cut into
strips, and cabbage salad. They make pottage of all sorts, one of rice
which they eat in common, having no separate service of this dish, an
excellently flavoured one. The kitchens are incomparably superior to
those of our great houses, and the sitting-rooms are better furnished
than with us.

They have abundance of excellent fish, which is served at the table
with the meat. Of trout they only eat the liver, and they have also
great plenty of game, hares, and woodcocks, which they dress in a
fashion differing from our own, but a good one all the same; indeed
I have never met with meat so tender as that which was commonly set
before us. They serve with the meat cooked plums and slices of apples
and pears, sometimes putting the roast first and the soup last, and
sometimes reversing this order. As to their fruits, they have only
pears and apples, which are both good, and nuts and cheese. During the
meat course they hand round a utensil, made either of silver or tin,
having four compartments filled with divers sorts of spices. They also
use cummin, or some similar grain with a hot stinging savour, as an
admixture to their bread; this bread being made for the most part with
fennel added thereto. After the meal they replace the glasses filled
full on the table, and offer two or three sorts of eatables which serve
to provoke thirst.

While he was travelling M. de Montaigne noted with regret three steps
which he had neglected to take with regard to his journey. One was that
he had not taken with him a cook, who might have learnt the particular
methods of foreign lands, and some day at home have shown proof of
his skill. The next was that he had not engaged a German valet, or
joined himself to some gentleman of the country, for he felt it very
irksome to be always at the mercy of a blockhead of a guide; and the
last was that, before setting out, he had neither consulted those
books which might have pointed out to him what rare and remarkable
sights were to be seen in every place, nor included in his baggage a
copy of Münster[54] or some similar book. In sooth there was mixed
up with his judgments a certain asperity and want of regard for his
own country, against which for other reasons he harboured dislike and
discontent:[55] certain it is that he preferred the accommodation of
these lands, without comparison, to those of France, and conformed to
them so far as to drink his wine without water. In drinking he never
took wine for its own sake, but simply out of courtesy. Travel is more
costly in High Germany than in France: for at our reckoning a man with
a horse will lay out at least one crown of the sun[56] per diem. In
the first place the innkeepers here charge for food at table d’hôte
four, five, or six batzen. They make a separate item of everything,
even the smallest refreshment that is taken before or after the two
regular meals, wherefore the Germans as a rule quit their lodgings in
the morning without drinking aught. Any additional service after the
principal meals, and the wine consumed therewith--which is for them
the chief expense--they reckon together. In sooth, when we consider
the plentiful fare put on the table, and this especially applies to
wine, even where it is exceedingly dear and brought from afar, I find
the prices charged to be quite justified. They themselves have a way
of urging the servants of their guests to drink, and make them keep
at table two or three hours. The wine is served from large jugs, and
it is reckoned a breach of good manners to let a cup be empty and not
replenish it forthwith. They will never give water even to those who
ask for it, except these should be persons of great worship. They add
to the bill the oats eaten by the horses, and lastly the charge for
the stable, which includes also the hay. A good point about them is
that they ask at once what they mean to accept, and one gains naught
by bargaining. They are boastful, quick-tempered, and drunken, but
they are neither deceitful nor robbers, according to M. de Montaigne’s
opinion. We departed after breakfast and made a journey of two leagues,
and arrived at Vanguen[57] at two in the afternoon.

Here a mishap befell our baggage mule, which injured itself, and
compelled us in consequence to halt and to hire a cart for the next
day at three crowns per diem, the driver, who had four horses, keeping
himself in victual for this sum. Vanguen is a small imperial town which
has always refused to harbour a congregation of any form of religion
other than the Catholic. They make here scythes so famous that they
are sent for sale as far as Lorrenne. M. de Montaigne left it on the
morrow, to wit, on the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, and set out
for Trent by the shortest route. We halted to dine at Isne,[58] two
leagues on our road, a small imperial town very pleasantly situated;
and M. de Montaigne, according to his wont, went straightway to call
upon a doctor of theology for the sake of discourse, and this doctor
he brought in to dine with us. He found that all the people were
Lutherans, and he went to visit the Lutheran church which, as with
all the churches they occupy in the imperial cities, had been taken
from the Catholic. While they were holding divers arguments concerning
the Sacrament, M. de Montaigne bethought him how, during the journey,
certain Calvinists had informed him that the Lutherans now intermix
with the original tenets of Martin divers new errors, such as the
“Ubi-quis me,” and maintain that the body of Christ is everywhere as
well as in the Host; wherefore they fall into the same difficulty as do
the Zwinglians, though by a different road, the one by limiting too
much the bodily presence, and the other by a too lavish application of
the words (for by their reasoning the Sacrament would be no privilege
to the body of the Church or to those two or three just men gathered
together). Moreover, the principal Lutheran arguments were that the
divinity was inseparable from the body, wherefore the divinity being
omnipresent the body must be omnipresent also. They declare, in the
second place, that Jesus Christ, being bound to be always at the right
hand of His Father, is omnipresent, seeing that the right hand of God,
to wit, His power, is in all places. The doctor aforesaid gave strong
denial to this imputation, and set up a defence against the same as
against a calumny; but, indeed, M. de Montaigne gathered the impression
that his defence was somewhat weak.

This doctor went afterwards in company with M. de Montaigne to visit
a grand and sumptuous monastery, where Mass was being said, and he
entered and bided there without removing his headgear until M.
d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne had finished their prayers. They next
went to view in a cellar of the abbey a long cylinder-shaped fragment
of stone,[59] which apparently had once formed part of a column. On it,
written in easily legible Latin letters, was an inscription telling how
the Emperors Pertinax and Antonius Verus had repaired all the roads and
bridges for a distance of eleven thousand paces around Campidonium,
that is to say, Kempten, whither we were bound for the night. This
stone might have been set up to record some later repair of the road,
for report says that this village of Isny is of no great antiquity.
In any case, having inspected all the roads about Kempten, we could
find no repairs worthy of such artificers, and there was not a single
bridge. We certainly remarked that a way had been cut through some of
the hills, but this work was not of prime importance.

[Illustration: KEMPTEN

_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 116_, vol. i.
]

Kempten, three leagues farther on, is a town as big as St. Foy,
handsome, populous, and abounding in good lodgings. We stayed at the
“Bear,” an excellent house. At our meals they brought in great silver
vessels of various kinds (these in sooth were intended to serve merely
as ornaments, being richly worked and covered with the arms of divers
gentlemen), the sort of plate which is only to be seen in houses of
high quality. Here it was that we were brought to see the truth of an
observation which M. de Montaigne had made elsewhere, to wit, that if
foreigners ignore certain usages favoured by ourselves, it is because
they hold these usages in slight esteem. For instance, these people,
though they possess vast store of pewter utensils as well scoured
as those at Montaigne, will only make use of wooden platters, which
indeed are both well made and well kept. In all these countries they
put cushions on the seats in the evening, and nearly all the panelled
ceilings of the apartments are vaulted half-moon fashion, which gives
them a very graceful appearance. As to the linen, concerning which
we had previously made certain complaints, we had no occasion to be
dissatisfied; indeed, as far as my master was concerned,[60] I never
failed to procure enough of the same wherewith to fashion a pair of
curtains for his bed, and whenever he happened to want an extra towel
it was always given to him. In this town lives a certain merchant
who carries on a traffic of a hundred thousand florins annually in
linen. M. de Montaigne, on leaving Constance, would fain have visited
that canton of Switzerland[61] which supplies linen for the whole
of Christendom, if there had not been four or five hours needed for
crossing the lake and back to Lindau. This town (Kempten) is Lutheran,
and here, as at Isne, the strange custom obtains that the Catholic
church is most sumptuously served, notwithstanding the lack of
worshippers. On the morrow, Thursday, a working day, the Mass was said
at the abbey outside the town, as it is given in Notre Dame, at Paris,
on Easter Day, with organ music, though none were present but priests.
Those who dwell outside the imperial towns are not free to change
their religion, and many in this case attend the service aforesaid on
feast days. This is a very magnificent abbey.[62] The abbot holds the
same as a prince, and receives therefrom an income of fifty thousand
florins yearly, the present abbot being of the house of Estain. All
the brethren are of gentle birth. The abbey was founded in 783 by
Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, who is buried there and honoured
as a saint; and her bones have been disinterred from the vault in which
they were laid to be placed elsewhere in a shrine.

On the same Thursday morning M. de Montaigne went to the Lutheran
church, which was similar to others of the same sect and of the
Huguenots, except that close by the altar, which is at the head of the
nave, there are several wooden benches, with stools below, so that
those who receive the supper may kneel, as is their custom. M. de
Montaigne found there two ministers, elderly men, of whom one preached
in German to a scanty congregation. When he had finished they sang a
psalm in German, to music differing somewhat from what we use. After
each verse the fine organ, which had recently been erected, made a
response in music, and whenever the preacher named the name of Christ
he and all his hearers uncovered themselves. The sermon being finished,
the other minister placed himself in front of the altar with his face
towards the people, holding in his hand a book. A young woman with bare
head and loosened hair approached him, and, after saluting him in the
way these people use, remained standing before him. Soon afterwards a
young man, an artisan with a sword by his side, presented himself, and
stood beside the young woman. The minister spoke a few words into the
ear of each, directed them both to repeat a paternoster, and then began
to read from his book. There were certain ceremonies to be undergone
by those seeking marriage, and next the minister made them take each
other by the hand without kissing. When this ceremony was finished
the minister went his way, and M. de Montaigne caught him up, and they
held a long discourse together after he had taken M. de Montaigne to
his house, which was seemly and well appointed. His name was Johannes
Tillianus, a native of Augsburg. M. de Montaigne asked concerning
a new Confession, lately formulated by the Lutherans to which all
the doctors and princes who supported it have put their names; this
however, is not written in Latin. When they were leaving the church a
company with violins and tambourines came to meet the newly-married
pair and escorted them home. On being asked if they permitted dancing,
the minister exclaimed, “And why not!” and again to the question: Why
had they let Jesus Christ be represented in the windows of the church,
and upon the organs newly built? and why had they set up divers images?
he replied that they did not condemn the use of images as warnings and
examples, but only as objects of worship. Again, when he was asked
why they had removed from the churches the ancient images, he answered
that it was not they who had done this, but their worthy disciples the
Zwinglians, who had occupied the churches in the first instance, and,
being stirred up by a spiteful humour, had done this outrage and divers
others to boot. The same explanation was given to M. de Montaigne by
other members of this confession during his travels, the doctor at Isne
to wit, who, when he was asked whether he hated the figure and effigy
of the Cross, cried out straightway: “How can I be such an atheist
as to hate this figure so full of joy and glory to all Christians!
Opinions like these are of the devil.” And as they sat at ease at table
all declared the same: that they would rather hear a hundred masses
than take part in the Calvinist supper. At this place they served us
white hares at table. The town is on the river Isler,[63] and, after
taking our dinner there on the Thursday aforesaid, we travelled four
leagues over a rocky, sterile road to Frienten,[64] a small village,
Catholic like all the rest of this country, which is under the Archduke
of Austria.

When treating of Linde, I forgot to say that at the entrance of the
town there is a large wall bearing signs of great antiquity, and having
naught written thereon that I see. I heard that its name in German
signified “the old wall.”

On this Friday morning, though our lodging was a very mean one, we
did not fail to find plentiful provision. It is the habit of these
people to warm neither their sheets before going to bed nor their
clothes before getting up, and they take it ill if any one should
have a fire lighted in the kitchen for this service, or even make use
of such fire as may be burning. This was one of the chief causes of
wrangling we encountered in the houses where we lodged; indeed, even in
the depths of the mountains and forests, where ten thousand feet of
pinewood could be bought for less than fifty sous, they were just as
ill disposed to let us make a fire as elsewhere. On the Friday morning
we departed, and followed the more easy road to the left, instead of
taking the mountain path which leads direct to Trent, M. de Montaigne
being minded to make a détour of several days in order to visit certain
fine cities of Germany; and annoyed that, when at Vanguen, he had
altered his plan which he had first made of going direct to Germany,
and had taken another route. On our road we saw, as in divers other
places, certain water-mills which have water brought to them simply by
wooden troughs, which take in the water at the foot of some mountain,
and then, being raised and propped high above the ground, discharge the
stream down a very steep incline from the end of the last trough. After
going a league on the road, we stopped to dine at Frissen.[65]

This is a small Catholic town, belonging to the bishop of Augsburg. We
found there numerous members of the train of the Archduke of Austria,
who was paying a visit to the Duke of Bavaria in a castle hard by.[66]
It was decided to leave there on the banks of the Lech our heavy
baggage, and that I and certain others should take them on to Augsburg
on a raft, as they term the trunks of trees bound together, which they
break up when in harbour. There is an abbey in which they showed to
Messieurs a chalice and a stole which they hold to be relics. These
belonged to a saint named Magnus,[67] who was, as they declare, the son
of a king of Scotland, and a disciple of Columbanus. Pepin founded this
monastery for the benefit of this Magnus, whom he made the first abbot.
He likewise caused to be written there on the roof of the nave this
inscription, and below the same notes of music to which it might be
sung: “_Comperta virtute beati Magni fama, Pipinus Princeps locum quem
Sanctus incoluit regia largitate donavit._” Charlemagne subsequently
enriched the place still further, as an inscription in the monastery
records. After dinner we all met at Chonguen[68] at bedtime, after a
journey of four leagues.

Chonguen is a small town under the Duke of Bavaria, and consequently
entirely Catholic; for this prince, beyond any other in Germany, has
kept his jurisdiction free from all touch of religious innovation, and
is stiffly set in his views. There is excellent lodging at the “Star,”
where we found a new fashion at table. On a square board they arrange
the salt-cellars from one corner to another, the candlesticks being set
between the two other corners, thus forming a Saint Andrew’s cross.
They never serve eggs, or at least only when boiled hard and cut in
quarters in the salads, which are of the best, the vegetables being
quite fresh. The wine is drunk new, as a rule, immediately after it is
made. They thresh out the corn in the barns as they may want it, using
in this work the heavy end of a flail. On the Saturday we journeyed
four leagues and dined at Lanspergs,[69] a small town belonging also to
the Duke of Bavaria aforesaid, and situated on the banks of the Lech,
the town, the suburbs, and the castle alike exhibiting a remarkably
fine aspect. We arrived there on a market day, when the place was
crowded with people, and remarked in the middle of a very large square
a fountain which sent up water through a hundred pipes to the height of
a pike shaft, and scattered the jets in elaborate fashion, according
to the manipulation of the pipes. There is a very fine church in the
town and another in the suburb, both high up on the hill, which is
very steep, and the castle is similarly situated. M. de Montaigne went
thither to visit the Jesuit college, finely housed in quite a new
building, to which they are about to add a church. M. de Montaigne
spent as much time as he had to spare in conversing with the Jesuits.

The Count of Helfenstein[70] was in command at the castle. Here, if
any one should favour another religion than the Roman, he would be
wise to keep silent thereanent. On the gate between the town and the
suburb there is a long inscription in Latin, written in the year
1552, which declares that the _Senatus populusque_ of the town built
this monument to the memory of the brothers William and Louis, dukes
_utriusque Boiariæ_. Here there are many conceits after the following
fashion: “_Horridum militem esse decet, nec auro cœlatum, sed animo et
ferro fretum_;” and at the top thereof, “_Cavea stultorum mundus_.”
And in another place, very conspicuous, are certain words taken from
some Latin historian,[71] concerning the battle which the Consul
Marcellus lost to a king of this nation: “_Carolami Boiorumque Regis
cum Marcello Cos. pugna quâ eum vicit_,” &c. Besides these there are
divers appropriate mottoes in Latin over the doors of private houses.
These people constantly refurbish their towns and churches, which in
consequence have a most prosperous look; and, as it happened most
seasonably for the amenity of our visit, everything had been newly set
in order in this place three or four years before; for they always
put the date upon their work. The clock of this town, like those in
many other towns in this country, sounds all the quarters; and they
say there is one in Nuremburg which sounds the minutes. We left the
town after dinner, and after going four leagues over a lengthy plain
of pasture, very level, like the plain of La Beausse, we arrived at
Augsburg.

[Illustration: AUGSBURG

    _To face p. 128_, vol. i.
]

This is reckoned the fairest town of Germany, as Strasburg is the
strongest. The first sight we got of their household arrangements was a
strange one, but it assuredly bore witness to their cleanliness. This
was when we found the steps of the staircase of our lodging covered
with pieces of linen cloth, upon which we were required to walk in
order that we might not soil the steps aforesaid, seeing that they had
just washed and polished them, as is their wont to do every Saturday.
We saw no trace of cobweb or of mud in our lodging: in certain of the
rooms were curtains which any one may at will draw over the windows. It
is rare to find tables in the chambers, save those which are attached
to the foot of the bed, and these are made to go with hinges so they
can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The footboards of the beds are
elevated two or three feet above the frame, and are often as high as
the bolsters, beautifully carven in pinewood, but the pine they use is
inferior to our walnut. They make use of pewter plates polished bright,
but they put inside these other plates of wood, and on the walls,
beside the beds, they often hang up linen cloths and curtains in order
that the walls may not be sullied by the spitting of the guests. The
Germans set great store on coats-of-arms, and in every apartment may
be found a great number of these which the gentlefolk of the country
on their travels have left behind; the glass in the windows, moreover,
is often garnished with the same. The routine of table service varies
greatly. Here they gave us first crayfish of a wonderful size, but in
other places this dish has always come last. In many of the large inns
they bring everything in covered dishes. The reason why their window
glass is so brilliant is that they have no set window-frames like ours,
but casements which open at will and which they clean often.

On the following morning, which was Sunday, M. de Montaigne went to see
several churches. He went to some which were Catholic, and everywhere
he found the service very well done. Six of the churches are Lutheran
and are served by sixteen ministers, two of these churches being taken
from the Catholics, and four built by the Lutherans themselves. One
of the last-named he visited in the morning, and found it like the
great hall of a college, with neither images nor organs nor cross,
but with the walls covered with inscriptions in German taken from the
Bible. There were two chairs, one for the minister or for whomsoever
might preach, and another one placed lower for the leader in singing
the psalms. At every verse the people wait for the leader aforesaid,
who gives the note. They sing in haphazard fashion, each one according
to his humour, and with head bare or covered. After the singing, a
minister who had been in the assembly went to the altar, and read
from a book several prayers, at certain of which the people stood up
and clasped their hands, and made deep reverence at the name of Jesus
Christ. After he had finished his reading to the assembly, he put
before him on the altar a napkin, a basin, and a saucer, in which was
water. A woman, followed by a dozen others, brought to him a child,
swaddled and with face bare, whereupon the minister thrice took the
water in the saucer and sprinkled it on the child’s face and said
certain words. This being finished, two men approached and each one of
them placed two fingers of the right hand upon the child; the minister
then addressed them, and this was all.

M. de Montaigne held a conversation with this minister after he left
the church, and was informed that the ministers receive no stipend from
the church, their salary being paid by the Senate as a public charge;
that there was a greater crowd of worshippers in this one church than
in two or three of the Catholic churches together. We did not see a
single handsome woman. The women wear a vast variety of attire, and in
the case of the men it is a hard matter to say who is noble and who is
not, forasmuch as all sorts of men wear bonnets of velvet and carry
swords by the side. We had our lodging at the sign of the “Linde,”
called after a tree of the country, which stands adjoining the palace
of the Foulcres.[72] A certain member of this family, who died some
years ago, left a sum of two millions of French crowns to his heirs,
and these heirs made over to the Jesuits of the city thirty thousand
florins for prayers for the soul of the deceased, with which sum the
Jesuits are very handsomely equipped and provided. This house of the
Foulcres is roofed with copper: as a rule the houses are much finer,
larger, and higher than in any French town, and the streets much wider.
M. de Montaigne estimated the population of Augsburg to equal that of
Orléans.

After dinner we went to see a show of fencing in the public hall, where
there was a vast crowd. We had to pay for entrance as to a puppet
show, and for our seats in addition. They showed us some play with
the poignard, with the two-handed sword, with the quarter-staff, and
with the hanger. Afterwards we saw them shooting for a prize with bow
and crossbow, on a ground far finer than that of Schaffhausen. Beyond
this place, at the city gate by which we had entered, we observed a
copious stream of water which was brought into the city from outside
and led under the bridge used for traffic. It is conveyed by a wooden
aqueduct built below the bridge aforesaid, and is thus carried over the
stream which forms the city ditch. This current in its course turns a
number of water-wheels attached to pumps which, by means of two leaden
pipes, raise the water of a spring, which rises in a hollow, to the
top of a tower some fifty feet in height. On the top of this tower the
water is poured into a great stone cistern, and from this cistern it
runs down through divers pipes and is distributed all over the city,
which in consequence is abundantly supplied with fountains. Private
persons, if it be their wish, may have a right of water for their own
use on payment of an annual rent of ten florins to the city, or for two
hundred florins paid down. The city was enriched by this magnificent
work about forty years ago.[73]

Marriages of Catholics with Lutherans are common, and the one most
keenly set on marriage commonly conforms to the faith of the other.
There are thousands of marriages of this sort. Our host was a Catholic
and his wife a Lutheran. Here they clean the glasses with a hairbrush
fixed to the end of a stick. According to report, excellent houses may
be bought for forty or fifty crowns apiece. The city guard did M. de
Montaigne and M. d’Estissac the honour of presenting to them fourteen
large vessels of wine for supper. This was brought by seven sergeants
clad in uniform and an officer of worship, whom our gentlemen invited
to sup, as is the custom in such cases. Something, moreover, is always
given to the bearers of the offering, and the sergeants aforesaid got a
crown. The officer who remained to supper told M. de Montaigne that the
city maintained three officials whose duty it was to greet strangers
of quality who came to visit the place, and that on this account they
always took care to ascertain the quality of each visitor, so that he
might receive the honours due to him. Moreover, they offered more wine
to some than to others. If a duke should arrive in the city, one of the
burgomasters would attend to bid him welcome. Us they took for barons
and knights. For certain reasons M. de Montaigne was inclined to assume
this counterfeit dignity, and to keep silence as to our real quality.
He spent the whole of the day walking through the town by himself, and
was convinced that he was treated with greater consideration on account
of the aforesaid subterfuge. A like honour indeed was paid by all the
German towns.

As he was passing through the church of Notre Dame on a very cold
day (for, after having enjoyed the finest weather possible up to our
departure from Kempten, we had of late been sharply pricked by the
cold), he carried, without thinking thereof, his handkerchief at his
nose, deeming that, being alone and plainly dressed, no one would
remark him; but after he had become more familiar with certain of
the citizens, they told him that the church officers had found his
carriage on the morning aforesaid very strange. Thus he committed the
fault he was ever most studious to avoid, to wit, that he had made
himself conspicuous by a trick alien to the taste of those who remarked
the same; for, as far as in him lay, he always conformed and brought
himself in line with the manners of whatever place he might frequent;
indeed, while he was in Augsburg he always wore a fur cap when he went
about the town. Augsburg, they say, is free from the mice and large
rats with which the rest of Germany is infested, and they tell many
wonderful stories thereanent, attributing this immunity to one of their
bishops who is buried there, and affirming that the earth from his
tomb, which is sold in little portions the bigness of a nut, will drive
away the vermin aforesaid from any place to which it may be taken.[74]

On the Monday we repaired to the church of Notre Dame to witness the
marriage of a rich young lady of the city--albeit ill-favoured--to a
certain Venetian, a factor in the house of the Foulcres. Amongst the
guests there was not one good-looking woman. This family is a very
numerous one; they are all very rich, and hold the highest position
in this city. We visited two apartments in their house, one high, of
grand measurement, and paved with marble, and the other low-ceilinged,
enriched with medals, both ancient and modern, and having a small
room at the end. These are the most sumptuous rooms I ever beheld.
At the gathering after the wedding we saw some dancing, and they
danced nothing but _Alemandes_. They constantly stop dancing and
lead the ladies back to their seats, which are ranged in double rows
against the walls and covered with red cloth; but the gentlemen do
not sit there with them. After a slight pause they take their dames
out again, kissing their hands, which salutation the ladies accept
without returning it; and then, having placed the arm under the ladies’
armpits, they embrace them, and the ladies put their right hands on the
gentlemen’s shoulders. They dance and chat together with heads bare and
in sober attire.

We saw more houses belonging to the Foulcres in other parts of the
city, which is beholden to this family for the great outlay of money
they spend in its adornment. These houses are summer residences. In
one we saw a clock which was worked by the flow of water which serves
as a counterpoise. At the same place were two large covered fish-ponds
full of fish, and twenty paces square. Round the brink of each of
the ponds are divers small pipes, some straight and others curving
upwards, and through each of these water is poured in very pleasant
wise into the pond, some delivering it in a direct jet, and others
spouting it upwards to the height of a pikestaff. Between the ponds is
a space some ten paces in width floored with planks, and between these
planks are hidden certain little taps of brass. Thus, at any time when
ladies may go to divert themselves by seeing the fish play about the
pond, it needs only the letting go a certain spring to make every tap
aforesaid send a jet of water straight upward to the height of a man,
and drench the petticoats and cool the thighs of the ladies. In another
place there is a fountain pipe, contrived to play a merry jest upon the
spectator, for, while you look at the same, any one who is so minded
may turn on the water in tiny hidden jets, which will throw in your
face a hundred little threads of water; and there is set up a Latin
inscription: _Quæsisti nugas, nugis gaudeto repertis_. Near thereto is
a large cage, twenty paces square and twelve or fifteen feet high,
which is enclosed all round with copper wire, well knit and fastened,
and inside are ten or twelve fir trees and a fountain. This cage is
full of birds, amongst others Polish pigeons, which they call _D’inde_,
and which I have seen elsewhere: these are large birds beaked like
partridges.

We saw also the handiwork of a certain gardener who, foreseeing
cold, inclement weather, had transported into a little shed a great
quantity of artichokes, cabbages, lettuces, spinach, chicory, and other
vegetables, which he had gathered as if to consume them at once, but in
lieu thereof had set them by the root in soil, and hoped to keep them
good and fresh three or four months; and indeed he had there a hundred
artichokes, not the least withered, though they had been plucked more
than six weeks. We saw also an instrument of lead bent and open at
either end. If any one should fill this with water and, keeping both
ends upwards, reverse it dexterously, so that one end shall suck up
from a vessel filled with water, while the other shall discharge
outside, they say that if the stream be once set going, the water will
continuously rush into the tube and discharge itself at the other end,
so as not to produce a vacuum in the tube.

The escutcheon of the Foulcres is a shield divided in the midst; on
the left a _fleur de lys_ of azure on a golden ground; on the right
a _fleur de lys_ of gold on an azure ground. These arms the Emperor
Charles V. granted when he ennobled them. We went to see certain men
who were conveying from Venice two ostriches to the Duke of Saxony. The
male was the blacker of the two, and had a red neck; the female was
of a grey colour and laid a great number of eggs. The men said that
these beasts felt less fatigue than they themselves, and constantly
contrived to escape, but they kept them in hand by means of a band
which girt them round the back above the thighs, and another one above
the shoulders. These bands held them in all round, and the guards had
caused to be fastened thereto long reins, by means of which they could
stop them, and make them turn as they desired. On the Tuesday the chief
men of the city showed us with great courtesy a postern gate, through
which all who wish may enter the city at any hour of the night, whether
on horse or on foot, by simply giving his name, and the name of the
citizen to whom he is going, or the name of the hostelry he purposes to
visit. Two trusty men, paid by the city, keep guard, and horsemen on
entering pay two batzen, and footmen one. The gate opposite to this one
in the outer wall is covered with iron, and beside it, attached to a
chain, is a handle, also of iron, which, being pulled, moves the chain
and strikes a bell in the bedchamber of one of the porters in a high
tower. The porter, though undressed and in bed, by means of machinery
which he moves backwards and forwards can open the door aforesaid,
albeit it is a hundred paces distant from his chamber. The incomer will
find himself on a bridge, some forty paces long, covered throughout,
which stretches over the city ditch. Along this bridge is a wooden
casing, within which works the machinery devised to open the outside
door, which is quickly closed behind the incomer. The bridge being
passed, the next place is a small enclosure; and here a stranger will
have to speak to the porter aforesaid and give his name and address.
Then the porter with a bell gives notice to his mate, who is lodged on
a lower floor of the gate tower, which contains many apartments; and
this porter, by working a spring in a gallery adjacent to his chamber,
opens, in the first instance, a little iron gate; and next, by means
of a great wheel, raises the drawbridge in such quiet fashion that no
one can detect any movement (for everything works by means of weights
on the walls and on the doors), and straightway everything closes again
with a great clatter. Beyond the bridge a great door, very thick, opens
by itself: this is of wood and strengthened by large sheets of iron.
The stranger now finds himself in a hall, and in all his passage
he meets no one with whom he may speak. When he is shut up in this
apartment another door, similar to the aforesaid, is opened for him,
and he can enter a second hall, lighted, where he will find a brazen
vessel, suspended by a chain, into which he casts the coin due for
his entry, and this the porter hoists up to his chamber. If he is not
content therewith he lets the stranger bide below till morning; but, if
he be satisfied, he opens by similar means another great door, which
closes immediately it has been passed by the stranger, who then finds
himself in the town.[75] This is one of the most carefully wrought
devices to be found anywhere, and the Queen of England sent thither a
special ambassador to inquire of the city authority how it was worked,
but the explanation of the secret was refused to her. Underneath this
gateway there is a vast vault, in which can be stabled under cover
five hundred horses, to be maintained and to be used in war without the
knowledge or consent of the town council.

After our visit to this place we went to see the church of Sainte
Croix, which is very beautiful. There at certain seasons they have a
great ceremony on account of a miracle which came to pass some hundred
years ago. It chanced that a woman instead of swallowing the body of
our Lord, took the same from her mouth and put it, wrapped in wax, into
a box. She confessed what she had done, and afterwards found what she
had placed in the box had changed into real flesh. They bring forward
divers testimonies to confirm the above statement, written both in
Latin and German, in divers parts of the church. They exhibit this bit
of wax enclosed in a crystal case and a little scrap of something red
like flesh. This church, like the house of the Foulcres, is covered
with copper, a thing not uncommon in these parts. The Lutheran church
is built adjoining thereto, this religion being housed and established
here, as in certain other places, almost in the cloisters of the
Catholic churches. In the churchyard of this church they have set up
the image of our Lady holding Christ in her arms, together with images
of saints and infants, and this inscription: _Sinite parvulos venire
ad me_, &c. In our lodging there was a machine made of iron fixed so
as to reach down to the bottom of a very deep well. Then up above a
servant, by working a handle which moves the machinery up and down
within a space of three or four feet, produces a pressure on the water
at the bottom of the well, and propels it by the pistons of the machine
aforesaid, so that it is forced to ascend by a leaden pipe, which takes
it to the kitchens and whithersoever else it may be needed. They have a
paid cleaner who puts in order immediately any befoulment of the walls.

At table we were offered pasties, large and small, made in earthen
dishes, of form and colour exactly resembling that of a pasty crust;
and it is very rare to sit down to a meal without sweetmeats or boxes
of confectionery. The bread is the best to be had anywhere, and the
wines good. In this country the wine is, for the most part, white,
and what we drank was not grown near Augsburg, but five or six days’
journey distant. For every hundred florins which an innkeeper lays out
in wine, the city government takes sixty as a tax, and half this amount
is demanded of a private person who only buys for his own consumption.
In many places they still retain the custom of putting perfumes in the
bed-chambers and in the stoves.

Some time ago the town was entirely Zwinglian. But since the Catholics
have been recalled,[76] those of the reformed faith take the second
place, and at this time, though they are greatly superior in number to
the Catholics, they are ousted from all authority. M. de Montaigne also
paid a visit to the Jesuits, whom he found to be men of much learning.
On the morning of Wednesday, October 19, we took our breakfast, and
M. de Montaigne was much grieved to depart and leave unvisited the
Danube and the town of Ulm which it passes, seeing that he was only one
day’s journey distant. He also desired to go to a bath some half-day’s
journey farther on called Sourbronne,[77] which is in a level country,
and has a spring of cold water, good both for drinking and for the bath
when duly warmed. It has, moreover, a pleasant relish on the palate
which makes it agreeable to drink, and it is excellent for distempers
of the head and stomach. The bath is in great repute, and visitors can
be most sumptuously housed there in fine apartments, the same as at
Baden, according to what we were told thereanent; but the season of
winter was now approaching, and this place lay in a direction opposite
to that in which we were bound, wherefore it would have been necessary
for us to retrace our steps to Augsburg, and M. de Montaigne was
greatly averse from traversing the same road twice. I left a shield
with the arms of M. de Montaigne in front of the door of the room he
had occupied, marvellously well painted, at a cost of two crowns to the
painter and twenty sous to the joiner. The town is on the banks of the
river Lech, _Lycus_. We traversed a very fine country, fertile with
cornfields, and after travelling five leagues, we arrived at Broug[78]
in time for bed.

This is a large Catholic village, finely situated, and belonging to the
duchy of Bavaria. We started on the morrow, Thursday, October 20, and
after having traversed a vast plain of corn-land (for in this country
no vines are planted), and then one of pasturage stretching as far as
the eye could see, we arrived, after four leagues’ journey, in time for
dinner at Munich, a large city about the size of Bourdeaux, the capital
of the duchy of Bavaria, and the principal residence of the dukes,
situated on the river Yser, _Ister_.

[Illustration: MUNICH

_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 150_, vol. i.
]

The castle is fine, and its stables are the best I have ever seen
either in France or Italy, vaulted, and big enough to contain two
hundred horses. The city is strongly Catholic, and it is populous,
finely built, and busy. Since the day after we quitted Augsburg we
could reckon the cost of man and horse to be four livres a day, and
forty sous for a footman at the lowest. Here we found curtains in the
chambers, and though there were no testers to the beds, everything
belonging thereto was exceedingly well found. They clean the floors
with sawdust boiled. Everywhere in these parts they slice the radishes
and turnips with as great care and attention as if they were threshing
corn. Seven or eight men, each one with a big knife in his hand, will
set to work on the same with regular stroke, as they work in our
wine-presses. These vegetables, like their great-headed cabbages, are
salted for winter use, and they plant them in their fields in the
country, rather than their gardens, and harvest them. The duke, who was
at this time in the city, has to wife the sister of M. de Lorene,[79]
and has by her two sons, big boys, and a daughter. The two brothers
live also in the city, but they, together with the ladies and all the
rest, were gone hunting the day we were there. On the Friday morning
we went our way, and, as we passed through the duke’s forests, we saw
countless red deer in flocks like sheep. We went in one stretch to
Kinief, an insignificant village, about six leagues distant.

The Jesuits, who sway the government mightily in this country, have
made a movement which has roused against them the hatred of the
people;[80] to wit, that they have put constraint on the priests to
make them send away their concubines under severe penalties. To judge
from the complaints made thereanent, it appears that this licence was
formerly granted to them so freely that they treated it as a legitimate
thing; moreover, they are now about to address a remonstrance to the
duke. It was here for the first time in Germany that they served us
eggs on a fast-day in any other way than quartered in a salad. At
table we had, amongst the silver, some wooden goblets made of pipe
staff and hooped. A young lady, the daughter of a gentleman of this
village, sent some wine to M. de Montaigne. Early on the Saturday we
set out and, after seeing on our right hand the river Yser and a great
lake[81] lying at the foot of the Bavarian mountains, and ascending
by road for an hour, we came to the summit of the pass, where we
found an inscription, recording how some hundred years ago a duke of
Bavaria had cleft this way through the rocks. Then we plunged straight
into the bowels of the Alps by an easy, convenient, and charmingly
made road, the fine calm weather being greatly in our favour. As we
descended from the summit aforesaid, we passed a very lovely lake[82]
about a Gascon league in length and the same in width, surrounded by
high and inaccessible mountains; and, keeping always the same road at
the base of the mountains, we came now and again upon small pleasant
level meadows with dwellings thereon, and arrived without halting at
Mittevol,[83] a little Bavarian village, pleasantly placed on the bank
of the Yser. Here we ate the first chestnuts we had seen in Germany,
served raw. In the hostelry there is a hot room, in which travellers
go to get sweated for a charge of a batz and a half. I myself went
to see it, while Messieurs were at supper, and found there several
Germans, who were being cupped and bled. On the morrow, Sunday, October
23rd, we set forth on the same path amongst the mountains, and soon
came to a house and a gate which barred the passage. This was the
entrance to the country of Tirol, belonging to the Archduke of Austria,
and after travelling three leagues we arrived in time for dinner
at Seefelden,[84] a small village with an abbey standing in a very
pleasant site.

The church there is a very fair one, and famous for a miracle. In
1384 a certain man, whose name has been preserved there by adequate
and unbroken record, refused to content himself on Easter day with
the Eucharist as offered to the people, and demanded to receive that
which was wont to be given to the priesthood alone. While he had this
in his mouth the earth beneath him opened and swallowed him up to the
neck, and while he held on for a moment to the corner of the altar the
priest withdrew the Host from his mouth. They still exhibit the hole
covered with an iron grating, the altar which bears the impress of this
man’s fingers, and the Host of a reddish hue like drops of blood. We
found there, written in recent Latin, an account how a certain Tiroler,
who had swallowed some days before a bit of flesh which stuck in his
throat and could neither be swallowed nor vomited, made a vow and
repaired to this church, where he was healed forthwith. On quitting
this place we found on the high land several nice villages, and after
half-an-hour’s descent, we perceived at the foot of the hill a fair
hamlet finely placed, and high above it on a cloven and seemingly
inaccessible rock, a magnificent castle commanding the road we had
come down, which is narrow and cut in the mountain side. The road is
scarcely wide enough to let pass a common cart, as in divers other
places amongst these mountains, so much so that the carters hereabout
are wont to reduce the size of their carts a foot at the least. Beyond
this we came upon a valley of great extent through which the Inn flows
to join the Danube at Vienna. In Latin it is called Œnus. It is five or
six days’ journey by water from Insprug to Vienna. To M. de Montaigne
this valley seemed the fairest country he had ever seen, now narrowing
itself with the mountains pressing close on it, now spreading out wide
on our side of the river--the left--and forming a space meet for
cultivation on the very slopes of the mountains, which were not too
steep for this, and now expanding on the other bank. Next it would
reveal to the eye platforms on two or three different levels, one above
the other, and everywhere fair houses of noblemen and churches. And
all this in a country shut and walled in on every side by mountains of
immeasurable height. On our side of the valley we espied in a rocky
place a crucifix, set up where no man could have gone save by being let
down by cords from above.[85] They say that the Emperor Maximilian,
grandfather of Charles V., lost himself one day while hunting in these
mountains; and, as a witness of the danger he escaped, he erected this
image, a story which is recorded by a painting in the hall of the
Arquebusiers at Augsburg. We arrived that evening, after travelling
three leagues, at Insprug.[86]

[Illustration: INSBRUCK

_Reproduced from Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 158_, vol. i.
]



IV

TIROL


This is the chief town of the county of Tirol, _Œnopontum_ in Latin,
the residence of Fernand, Archduke of Austria.[87] It is a very
beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the
valley and full of fountains and running water, a convenience most
common in all the towns we have seen in Germany and Switzerland. The
houses are almost all built terraced, and we found lodgment at the
“Rose,” an excellent house where they served us on plates of pewter.
As to napkins of French fashion, we had already had them given us
several days previous. Round about some of the beds they had hung
curtains which, as typical of the character of the people, were fine
and rich, of a certain sort of cloth, slashed and open worked, and also
very short and narrow. In fine they were quite unfitted for the use to
which we put such things, and there was besides a little tester, three
fingers wide, with a lot of tassels. They gave me for M. de Montaigne
white sheets trimmed with lace, four fingers wide, as is the custom of
most towns in Germany. All night long men go about the streets crying
the hour. Everywhere we have been they have the fashion of serving
the fish the same time as the meat; but, as far as we saw, they offer
no meat on fish days. On the Monday we departed, travelling along the
right bank of the Inn through a fair plain for two leagues until we
reached Hala.

We made the journey solely to see this place. Like Insprug it is a
small town, about the size of Libourne, on the river Inn, which we
crossed by a bridge. Here is produced all the salt used in Germany;
they make nine hundred loaves thereof weekly at one crown apiece, the
loaves being about the thickness of a half-hogshead, and somewhat
of the same shape, for the vessel which serves as a mould is of the
aforesaid kind. This traffic belongs to the archduke, and is carried
on at a vast cost. To produce the salt they had gathered together the
greatest store of wood I ever saw, for they boil in vast stoves of iron
the brine, which is brought from a mountain more than two good leagues
distant.

There are several fine churches, notably one belonging to the Jesuits,
and this, as well as the one in Insprug, M. de Montaigne visited. Other
churches there are, richly adorned and finely situated. After dinner we
recrossed the river, forasmuch as the fine palace where the Archduke
Fernand of Austria dwells is there situated. M. de Montaigne desired to
kiss the hand of this prince, as he passed thereby in the morning, but
from what a certain count told him he learned that the archduke was
holding a council.

When we retraced our steps thither after dinner, and found that the
archduke was in his garden, we hoped at least to be presented to him;
but those who went to inform him that Messieurs were there, and at his
service, brought word back that he prayed to be excused from granting
an interview at that moment, but that on the morrow he would find it
convenient so to do. Meantime, if Messieurs desired any favour of him,
they might state their wants to a certain Milanese count. This cold
reception, added to the fact that he refused to allow us to see the
castle, ruffled somewhat M. de Montaigne’s temper; and when we spoke
of this offence to an officer of the household this gentleman told him
that the prince had said he was averse from seeing Frenchmen, for that
the house of France was the foe of his own. We then returned to Insprug.

We next saw in a church eighteen magnificent bronze statues of the
princes and princesses of the house of Austria.[88] We also went to
sup with the Cardinal of Austria[89] and the Marquis of Burgant,[90]
sons of the archduke by a concubine, the daughter of a merchant of
Augsburg. She bore him only these two sons, and then he married her
to make them legitimate. She died during the present year and all the
court still wears mourning. Here the ceremonial is almost the same as
with our princes. The hall, the dais, and the chairs were all covered
with black cloth. The cardinal, the elder, is not, I fancy, more than
twenty; he drank wine freely diluted with water, and the marquis naught
but sweet drink.[91] The dinner was not served in a closed tray,[92]
but everything uncovered, the service of viands being conducted as with
us. When they took their seats they placed themselves some distance
from the table, which was moved towards them, laden with dishes; the
cardinal sat highest, the right-hand place being always reckoned the
chief one. In this palace we saw two tennis-courts and a seemly garden.

This archduke is a mighty builder and planner of all such useful
devices. There we saw ten or twelve field-pieces, each carrying a ball
as big as a goose’s egg, and mounted on wheels enriched and gilded all
over; the very pieces themselves being gilded. They are made of nothing
stronger than wood, but the muzzles are covered with iron plating, and
inside the guns this plating is of double thickness. A man can carry
one on his back. These guns are not fired so often as those cast in
iron, but they will carry a ball almost as far. At the archduke’s
country house we saw two oxen of an extraordinary size, grey with white
heads, which M. de Ferrara had given him; for the aforesaid Duke of
Ferrara had married one of his sisters, the Duke of Florence another,
and the Duke of Mantua a third. At Hala three others formerly resided
who were called “the Three Queens,”[93] for to the daughters of the
Emperor they give this style, as they call the daughters of other
rulers countesses and duchesses, according to their estates; also to
the Emperor’s daughters is given a surname from the kingdoms ruled
by the Emperor. Two of these three are dead, and the third, who was
still residing there, M. de Montaigne was unable to see. She lives in
religious seclusion, and has called in and established the Jesuits at
Hala.

Report goes that the archduke cannot leave his possessions to his
children, but that these must revert to the successor to the Empire.
They could not, however, give the reason for this arrangement; and, as
far as this remark applies to the wife, it seems to carry no meaning,
forasmuch as, though she was not of suitable rank, still he married
her, and all men hold her to have been his lawful wife, and her
children legitimate. However, he has amassed much money in order to
bequeath them something.

On the Tuesday morning we resumed our journey, crossing the plain and
following the mountain path. At the end of the first league we ascended
for an hour a small mountain by an easy road. On the left hand we
had a view of divers other mountains, which for the reason that they
sloped gently, were covered with villages and churches and for the most
part tilled up to the very tops, a pleasing prospect on account of
the diversity of the landscape aforesaid. The mountains on the right
were somewhat wilder and sparsely peopled. We crossed several brooks
and torrents, running in varied course, and on the road we passed
several large towns and villages and good inns, at the very base of the
mountains. Also on the left hand were two castles and some gentlemen’s
dwellings; and, about four leagues from Insprug, on the left side of
a very narrow passage, we came upon a bronze tablet, richly engraved,
attached to the rock and inscribed thus: “The Emperor Charles V.,
returning from Spain and Italy,[94] where he had received the Imperial
crown; and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, coming
from Pannonia, seeking one another after an interval of eight years,
met at this spot in the year 1530. Ferdinand commanded this memorial to
be placed here.” They are represented embracing one another.

A short distance farther on, as we passed beneath a gate which blocked
the road, we found written thereon some Latin verses recording the
passage of the Emperor aforesaid, and of his stay in this place
after his capture of the King of France and of Rome. M. de Montaigne
found the scenery of this pass greatly to his taste on account of
the diversity of the objects to be seen, and we encountered no
inconvenience, except the thickest and most intolerable dust we had
ever experienced, which kept with us the whole of our mountain passage.
After we had been on the road ten hours, M. de Montaigne affirmed that
this journey seemed to him like moonlight travelling.[95] It was always
his habit, whether he purposed to halt on the road or not, to let his
horses have oats to eat in the morning at the inn before starting.
After faring seven leagues, we all arrived fasting late at night at
Stertzinguen, a decent little town,[96] belonging to the county of
Tirol, with a fine new castle built on the rock above. At table they
gave us round loaves, joined one to another, and as everywhere else
in Germany, the mustard was liquid, with the taste of white French
mustard. Everywhere the vinegar is white. No wine grows in these
mountains, but corn enough for the inhabitants, who drink three sorts
of good white wine. All these roads are perfectly safe, being much
used by merchants, coachmen, and carters. Instead of the cold, which
had been instanced as a detriment to this road, we were troubled with
intolerable heat. The women of the country wear cloth hats, like our
scholars’ caps, with their hair braided and hanging down as in other
places. M. de Montaigne, having espied a fair young girl in a church,
asked if she could speak Latin, deeming she was a scholar.

Here we had curtains to our beds of thick linen dyed red. In all our
travels in Germany we found no room or chamber which was not panelled,
the ceilings being very low. M. de Montaigne suffered this night from
colic for two or three hours, and very sharply, to judge from what he
said next morning. Then indeed, when he rose from bed, he passed a
stone of medium size which crumbled easily: outside it was yellowish,
and when broken showed white in the middle. He had taken cold the
previous day and found himself ailing, but he had not suffered from
colic since Plommieres. This seizure partially removed the fear he
felt that at Plommieres some gravel had descended into the bladder
without passing therefrom, and that certain matter, there arrested, was
collecting and consolidating. Now, seeing what had happened, he felt
he might reasonably infer that, if there were indeed other particles,
they would have joined themselves to the stone he had just passed. On
the way he complained of pain in his loins, and now he declared he
had prolonged the day’s journey simply on this account, deeming that
he would find greater ease on horseback than elsewhere. At this place
he called for the schoolmaster to converse with him in Latin, but the
fellow was a fool from whom he could get no information as to the
country.

On the morrow, Wednesday, October 26, we set out over a plain some
half-quarter of a league in width, having the river Aisoc[97] on our
right hand, and traversed this plain for two leagues. At the foot of
the neighbouring mountains we saw here and there spaces of ground,
inhabited and cultivated and often adjacent one to the other, but could
discern no road leading thereto. We passed four or five castles, and
crossed the river on a wooden bridge, and came upon some roadmakers
who were repairing the way because it was somewhat stony, but not
worse than the roads in Perigord. Then, having passed a stone gateway,
we mounted to higher ground, where we came upon a level space about
a league in length, and espied a similar plain on the other side of
the river, both being sterile and rocky. There were some very fine
low-lying meadows on our side of the stream. After going four leagues
without halt we arrived in time for supper at Brixen, a fair little
town, through which flows the river aforesaid, crossed by a wooden
bridge. A bishop resides here and we saw two fine churches. We found
good lodging at the “Eagle.”

[Illustration: BRIXEN

_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_

    _To face p. 172_, vol. i.
]

The level ground here is of no great extent, but the adjacent mountains
rise so gently, even on the left-hand side, that they can, so to
speak, be curled and combed up to the very ears.[98] The whole country
seems full of clock towers and villages high up in the hills, and
near the town are several fine houses well built and situated. M. de
Montaigne declared “that he had all his life distrusted the verdict
of other people upon the amenities of foreign lands, no one being
able, apparently, to appreciate them except by the rule of his own
peculiar habit, and the custom of his village; and that he paid very
little respect to the information given him by travellers. But now he
was more amazed than ever over their stupidity, seeing that he had
heard tell--and especially concerning travelling in this region--of
the exceeding difficulties to be overcome in these passes of the Alps;
that the manners of the people were uncouth, the roads impassable, the
lodging rough, and the air intolerable. As to the air, he thanked God
to find it so mild--for he was fain of excess of heat rather than of
cold, and up to the present we had experienced only three days of cold,
and an hour or so of rain--and moreover, if he were minded to take
his little girl[99] of eight out for a walk, he would as lief take
her out on this road as in his own garden; that, as to the lodgings,
he had never seen a country where they were so plentiful and good,
having always found accommodation in handsome towns well supplied with
provision and wine at a cheaper rate than elsewhere.”

They use in these parts a machine with various wheels to turn the
spits. They bind closely a strong cord round a great spindle of iron;
this unwinds itself, and, the movement thereof being arrested somehow,
the process lasts an hour. When it stops the machine has to be wound
up afresh. As to smoke-jacks we saw several of these. So great is
the abundance of iron that, besides fitting gratings of divers sorts
to their windows and doors, they cover even the wooden shutters with
plates of iron. Here we came again into the land of vines, which we
had lost sight of since we quitted Augsburg. Round about these parts
most of the houses have every storey vaulted. In Germany they do what
we cannot do in France, to wit, they use hollow tiles to cover the
narrowest slopes of roofing, as in their clock towers. Their tiling is
smaller and more hollowed, and sometimes plastered at the joints. We
quitted Brixen on the morning of the morrow, and traversed the same
wide open valley, the roadsides being adorned with divers fine houses.
Travelling with the river Eisock on our left, we passed a small village
named Clause,[100] inhabited by various sorts of workers, and at the
end of three leagues came to Colman[101] in time for dinner, a small
place where the archduke has a pleasure-house.

At table they gave us, together with silver goblets, others of painted
earthenware, and they washed the glasses with white salt. The first
service was sent up in a hot dish, very handy, which they placed on the
table with an iron implement. It contained eggs poached with butter.
On quitting this place we found the road somewhat narrow, and the
rocks closed upon us so much that the pass was hardly wide enough for
ourselves and the river together. In sooth we should have been in
danger of pushing one another into the abyss, if they had not built
between the river and the wayfarers a wall which was continued in
places a German league at a stretch. The more lofty of the mountains
which stood around us were wild rocks, some in solid masses, some
scored and broken up by the passage of the torrents, and some of a kind
of shale which let fall below innumerable fragments of astonishing
size, wherefore it impressed us that it would be perilous to travel
here during a tempest. We saw likewise whole forests of pine trees torn
up by the roots which still carried masses of earth. But the country
is well peopled, for, beyond these lower hills, we caught sight of
others higher up, cultivated and inhabited; and we learned also that
above these were fine, broad, level fields and good houses occupied
by rich farmers, who raised abundant corn for the villages below. We
crossed the stream by one of the numerous wooden bridges and then had
it on our left hand. Amongst other objects we saw a castle, perched on
the loftiest and most inaccessible point of the mountains, which they
told us belonged to a baron of the country, who lived there and enjoyed
his fine lands and hunting. Beyond these hills there is always to be
seen the range of high Alps, which we left to themselves. They indeed
bar the issue from this pass, so that the traveller has continually to
return to the course of the stream, and to emerge again at some turn
or other. This county of Tirol, which yields no revenue except from
the mountains, is worth three hundred thousand florins a year to the
archduke, more than he gets from all the rest of his dominions. We
crossed the river again by a stone bridge, and, after a bout of four
leagues, we arrived in good time at Bolzan.[102]

This town, about the size of Libourne, is situated on the river before
named, and is somewhat less pleasing than other towns we had visited in
Germany, so much so that M. de Montaigne exclaimed that it was evident
we were about to cross the German border. The streets are narrow, and
there is no fine public place, but we still found fountains, running
water, paintings, and glass windows. Wine is so plentiful that they
supply the whole of Germany with what it needs, and the bread eaten in
these mountains is the best in the world. The church is a very fine
one, and possesses amongst other things a wooden organ, which is very
high and placed close to the crucifix by the great altar. But the
player sits some twelve feet lower, beside the column to which the
organ is attached, and the bellows are underground outside the church,
about fifteen paces behind the organist. The open space in which this
town is situated is only just large enough to contain it, but the
mountains to the right hand stand back somewhat, thus giving a little
extra ground. From here M. de Montaigne wrote to François Hottoman,
whom he had met at Basel, “that albeit he was bound for Italy, he had
fared so well in Germany that he quitted it with much regret; that
strangers had to suffer the exactions of innkeepers there as elsewhere,
but that this abuse would soon right itself, and that the traveller
would no longer be at the mercy of guides and interpreters who sold him
and shared the profit. In every other respect he had always met with
unbounded courtesy and convenience, and was specially struck with the
justice and security everywhere prevalent.”[103] We left Bolzan early
on Friday morning, and at two leagues’ end we halted for breakfast and
to feed our horses at Brounsol.[104]

This was a small village standing above the river Eysock which, after
bearing us company so far, now mixed itself with the Adisse[105] and
flowed therewith to the Adriatic Sea, broad and tranquil, and no longer
resembling the brawling and furious torrents of the mountains above.
The plain, too, became a little broader as far as Trante,[106] and
the hills showed their peaks less prominently. The slopes of these,
however, are less fertile than those higher up, and in the valley are
some swamps which encroach upon the road in places, but elsewhere the
travelling is easy in the bottom of the valley and along the plain.
Two leagues after leaving Brounsol we came to a large village where a
great crowd was assembled by reason of a fair. Farther on was another
well-built village, called Solorne,[107] where the archduke has a small
castle on the left of the road, set in a strange position on the point
of a rock. Five leagues’ journey took us to Trante, where we arrived in
time for bed.

[Illustration: TRENT

    _To face p. 180_, vol. i.
]

Trante is somewhat larger than Aagen, an unpleasant place, and quite
lacking in the grace of the German towns, with narrow and crooked
streets.[108] Two leagues before reaching it we heard the Italian
tongue, and the town itself is equally divided between the two
languages, one quarter thereof being called after the Germans, with a
church in which they have a preacher of their own speech. We heard no
talk of the new forms of religion after we left Augsburg. In Trante,
which is on the Adisse, we saw the cathedral, which had a look of
great antiquity,[109] and the same may be said of a square tower near
thereto. We likewise visited Notre Dame, the new church where the
Council was held, in which church there is an organ, the gift of a
private gentleman. This is exceedingly beautiful; it is set up in a
marble gallery which is carved and adorned with divers fine statues,
those of some singing children being especially lovely.[110] This
church was built by _Bernardus Clesius Cardinalis_ in 1520, a native
of Trante and afterwards bishop.[111] Trante is a free town under the
charge and governance of the bishop, but at a time when they were hard
pressed in a struggle with the Venetians, the people called in the
Count of Tirol to help them, and in return therefor he has retained
certain authority and rights over the town. There has been a contention
between him and the bishop over this matter, but the bishop, who is a
Cardinal Madruccio, now holds possession.[112]

On this point M. de Montaigne said “that he had taken note during his
journey of those citizens who had done good service to the towns where
they were born; of the Foulcres of Augsburg, to whom was due the main
part of the embellishment of that city, who had placed palaces at all
the crossings of the streets, and filled the churches with all kinds
of works of art; of this Cardinal Clesius also, who, besides building
this church and several streets at his own charges, added a very fine
building to the castle of the town.” The outside of this building is
nothing remarkable, but within it is furnished and painted and enriched
in a fashion beyond anything that can be imagined. All the panel work
below is enriched with painted patterns, the bosses of the ceilings
are gilded and carven, the floors are made of a kind of hardened
earth painted like marble, a part of the rooms being fitted after one
fashion, and part, _à l’Allemande_, with stoves. One of these is of
porcelain darkened to the colour of bronze, and made in the form of
a group of large human figures, which, being heated warm the room.
Moreover there are certain others, stationed close to the wall, which
give out water, this being brought to them from the fountain in the
court below. This is a fine piece of work. We saw there also amongst
the other designs on the ceilings a torchlight procession by night,
which M. de Montaigne admired greatly, also two or three circular
chambers, in one of which was an inscription recording how “Clesius,
having been sent in the year 1530 to the coronation of the Emperor
Charles V. by Pope Clement VII., on St. Matthias’s Day, as envoy on
the part of Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Count of Tirol,
and brother of the aforenamed Emperor, was made a cardinal, being
already Bishop of Trent.” Moreover, they have set round the chamber
the armorial bearings, and painted on the walls the arms and the names
of the gentlemen who accompanied him: some fifty in number, all counts
and barons owing service to the bishopric. In one of these chambers
there is a trap door through which a man can slip into the town without
passing the main entrance, and two richly ornamented chimney-pieces.
This was an excellent cardinal. The Foulcres have done great building
work, but they have built for their posterity, while the cardinal
aforesaid has built for the public weal, for he has left this castle,
together with the furniture still in it worth more than a hundred
thousand crowns, to his successors in office. Besides this he left to
the public fund of the bishopric a hundred and fifty silver thalers,
which is held without payment of interest on the same. In spite of
these benefactions they have left his church of Notre Dame unfinished,
and have erected a very mean tomb over his body. His successors provide
themselves with no other furniture than the aforenamed for the castle.
Some of this is fitted for the winter, some for the summer, and none of
it can be alienated.

Here they reckon distance by the Italian mile, of which five go to make
one mile of Germany, and they count the hours through to twenty-four
without dividing them in the midst. We found good lodging at the
“Rose,” and left Trante on the Saturday after dinner. We followed a
road like the last we traversed in the valley, which was here wider and
girt by higher, uninhabited mountains, having the river Adisse on our
right hand. There we passed a castle[113] belonging to the archduke,
which commands the road, like various other strongholds elsewhere,
built to control the passage, and arrived at Rovere[114] very late,
after travelling fifteen miles. Never until now did we journey in the
dewfall,[115] so carefully had we laid out our time on the road.

This town belongs to the archduke aforenamed. Here in our lodging we
found once more the usages with which we were familiar: we found,
indeed, not merely German neatness in rooms and furniture and glass
windows, but German stoves as well, which commended themselves to M. de
Montaigne much more than open chimneys.[116] As to food, we had here
no crayfish, which thing M. de Montaigne found very strange, seeing
that, ever since we left Plommieres, a distance of two hundred leagues,
this dish had been put before us at every meal. Here and in all this
mountainous country they commonly eat snails larger and fatter than
those of France, but not so well flavoured; also truffles which they
peel and serve sliced with oil and vinegar, a passably good dish. The
truffles we ate at Trante had been kept for a year. Here at Rovere,
greatly to the gratification of M. de Montaigne, we were plentifully
supplied with oranges and citrons and olives. The bed curtains are cut
short and made either of cloth or serge. M. de Montaigne also regretted
the lack of those beds which they use as coverings in Germany; made
not like our beds, but of the finest down enclosed in an envelope of
well-bleached fustian. The beds used for lying upon in Germany are not
of this character, and could not be used as coverlets with comfort.

I verily believe that, if he had been alone with his own following, M.
de Montaigne would rather have gone to Cracow or to Greece by land than
have turned towards Italy. He took great pleasure in his visits to
strange countries, finding therein forgetfulness of his age and of his
ill-health, but he could never win over the rest of the company to this
view, each one of them being anxious to have done with travel and to
return. He was ever wont to say that, after an uneasy night, he would
rise eager and lively when he remembered he was about to sally forth to
see some fresh town or district. Never did I see him less subject to
fatigue or less querulous of his ailments; so full of spirit both on
the road and at his lodgings; so appreciative of everything he saw, and
eager for conversation with strangers; indeed I believe that this habit
drew off his thoughts from his infirmities. When the others complained
to him of his practice of leading the party over indirect and winding
roads, often returning to the spot whence they had set out (which he
would often do when he heard report of something worth seeing, or when
he saw reason for varying his plan of travel), he would reply that,
for his own part, he never set forth for any place other than that
in which he might at present find himself; and that it was impossible
he should miss or go aside from his route, because this route always
lay where places unfamiliar to him were to be seen; and that, provided
he did not fare the same road twice over, or see one place a second
time, he never considered that he had failed one jot in his original
purpose. As to Rome, which other people might easily see, he was less
fain to visit it than other places, because it was well known to every
one, and moreover every lackey was ready to give news of Florence and
Ferrara. He said that he seemed to be in like case to one who reads
some delightful story or good book, and dreads to turn the last page.
The pleasure of travel was to him so keen, that he hated the sight of
the place where he ought rightly to stop and rest; moreover, he devised
several projects of travelling exactly as the mood might seize him,
supposing that he should separate from his present companions.

On the Sunday morning, having a wish to see the Lake of Garda, a famous
lake of these parts and rich in the finest fish,[117] he hired three
horses for himself and Messieurs de Caselis and Mattecoulon at twenty
batzen apiece. M. d’Estissac hired two others for himself and the Sieur
du Hautoy, and with no escort--having left their own horses at this
place, Rovere, for the day--they rode eight miles to Torbole, where
they dined. This is a village under Tirolese jurisdiction, situated at
the head of the lake, and opposite to it is a small town and a castle
called Riva.[118] To this place they were taken by water, five miles,
and the same distance to return; they accomplished the journey in about
three hours, being rowed by five boatmen. They saw nothing at Riva save
a tower which had the appearance of great age, and the governor of
the place, the Seigneur Hortimato Madruccio, brother of the present
cardinal bishop of Trante. In looking down the lake the farther end is
not in view, for it is thirty-five miles long, while the width and all
they could see of it did not exceed five miles. The head of the lake
is in the county of Tirol, but all the lower part on either side is
under the Signiory of Venice, a region rich in fine churches, gardens
of olives, oranges, and other similar fruits. This lake is terribly
rough in times of tempest, and the surrounding mountains are more bare
and threatening than any of those we had hitherto passed, according
to the report of Messieurs.[119] On quitting Rovere they crossed the
Adisse, leaving the road to Verona to the left hand, and entered a deep
valley where they passed through a long village and a small town, the
road being the roughest and the view the most forbidding of any they
had yet experienced, by reason of these mountains which obstructed the
way. On leaving Torbole, they returned to Rovere to supper.

At this place we put our trunks on one of the rafts, which are called
_flottes_ in Germany, for conveyance to Verona by the river Adisse,
paying therefor a florin, and on the morrow I had the charge of this
transport. For supper they gave us poached eggs and a pike, together
with a great plenty of flesh of all kinds. On the next morning, Monday,
they set forth early, and following the valley, fairly populous but not
over fertile and flanked by high, rocky mountains, they arrived after
riding fifteen miles at Bourquet[120] in time for dinner. This town
lies within the county of Tirol, which is very large. In this matter
M. de Montaigne, when he asked whether this county included aught else
than the valley we had traversed and the mountain tops we had seen,
was informed that it contained divers other mountain valleys, fully as
extensive and fertile, and fine towns: that the county was, as we saw
it, like a robe in folds, but that, were it spread out, it would cover
a very wide stretch of country. The river was all this time on the
right hand, and when they resumed their journey after dinner they kept
the same road as far as Chiusa, a small fort in a mountain cleft above
the Adisse, which the Venetians had taken. They followed the course of
the river, descending a steep slope of solid rock over which the horses
could hardly keep their feet, and passing the fort aforesaid, where the
Venetian government, in whose territory they had been after a mile or
two on this side of Bourquet, kept twenty-five soldiers. They arrived
in time for bed at Volarne after riding twelve miles. At this place
they found wretched lodging, as everywhere else on the way to Verona. A
young lady, the daughter of the lord of the castle who was then absent,
sent M. de Montaigne a present of wine. On the morrow there were no
more mountains visible on the right of the road, and to the left even
the hills which lay upon the skirts of the plain were far distant.
The way was for some time over a sterile plain, but when it neared the
river it improved, and vines, trained upon trees, as is the fashion
in these parts, came in sight. After a journey of twelve miles they
arrived on All Saints’ Day before mass at Verona.


END OF VOL. I.


    Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
    Edinburgh & London


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The MS. of the Journal was incomplete at the time of its discovery,
certain leaves having been torn away from the beginning, but the
concluding paragraphs supply the date at which Montaigne must have left
home, _i.e._ June 22, 1580. He seems to have halted at the outset of
his journey near La Fère, which was at that time besieged by the forces
of the League under Marshal de Matigon, and to have gone thence to
Beaumont-sur-Oise, where the Journal begins on September 4th. The siege
of La Fère was undertaken by Henry III. as a counter-move to the recent
capture of Cahors by the Huguenots. Operations were some time delayed
by the shortness of money and by an outbreak of whooping-cough, the
first recorded appearance of this distemper. The king, the greater part
of the courtiers, and thousands of the people of Paris were attacked,
and the whole city was panic-stricken. When the Catholic leaders were
at length ready to move, they spoke of the task before them as “_un
siège de velours_,” anticipating little difficulty or danger; but they
lost two thousand men before the place fell on August 31st.

[2] For notice of Mattecoulon and D’Estissac, see Introduction.

[3] There is no exact clue to the identity of this person, but there
is a passage in the Essais, iii. 4, which seems to refer to him: “Je
fus entre plusieurs autres de ses amis, conduire à Soissons le corps de
Monsieur de Grammont, du siège de la Fère, où il fut tué.”

[4] Meaux was besieged by the English under Henry V. in 1422. The
Marché was the last part to surrender. After the English had gained
the town, Monstrelet writes (_Ch._ cclvii.): “Dedens laquelle ville se
loga le roy d’Angleterre et grant multitude de ses gens. Et tantost
après gaigna une petite ysle assez près du marchié, en laquelle il fit
asseoir plusieurs grosses bombardes qui moult terriblement craventèrent
les maisons du dit marchié et aussi les murailles d’icelleui.” Ed.
Paris, 1860.

[5] “Dans les premières années du xviii. siècle on venait encore
admirer à Saint Faron le somptueux tombeau d’Ogier, monument executé
certainement avant le xii^e. siècle, et suivant Mabillon dès le ix^e.,
fort peu de temps après la mort du héros. Ce n’est pas ici le lieu de
décrire ce tombeau, dont une gravure nous est heureusement restée; mais
pour faire voir l’étroit lieu qui unit les souvenirs historiques et les
traditions romanesques, nous ajuterons que devant les colonnes avancées
qui formaient une sorte de péristyle autour de la tombe d’Ogier et
de Benoît, son compagnon de guerre, on distinguait les statues de
Roland, d’Aude la fiancée de Roland, d’Olivier, et d’un prélat qui
semblait bénir l’union d’Aude et de Roland. Dans les mains d’Olivier
était un rouleau sur laquelle Mabillon avait lu ces deux vers: ‘_Audæ,
conjugium tibi do, Rollande, sororis, Perpetuumque mei socialis fœdus
amoris_’.... Ogier voulut-il consacrer dans l’abbaye de Saint Faron
un immortel souvenir aux héros de Roncevaux? et lui même aurait-il
ainsi présidé à l’érection d’un riche monument qui devait lui servir
de sepulchre? ou bien les moines de Saint Faron, plusieurs siècles
après sa mort auraient-ils eu la première pensée d’un mausolée dont ils
auraient emprunté les principaux détails de sculpture et d’architecture
au traditions populaires?”--_Histoire littéraire de la France_, xx. 690.

Gaston Paris (_Histoire poétique de Charlemagne_) remarks: “Le monument
de Saint Faron de Meaux tendrait aussi à faire croire qu’il (Ogier) a
été confondu avec Olivier.”--P. 307.

[6] He was a cleric attached to the diocese of Auxerre, and in 1546
became treasurer of the cathedral of Meaux. He was sent by Francis I.
to the East with instructions to acquire Greek MSS., and some of his
collections are now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. He died in 1590, and
was buried in the cathedral of Meaux.

[7] Epernay.

[8] Piero Strozzi, son of Filippo, and an exile. He entered the service
of Francis I. in 1542, and served under the French kings till his death
at the siege of Thionville in 1558.

[9] Catherine dei Medici. Strozzi was bitterly hostile to the Medicis
then ruling in Florence.

[10] September 8th, the Nativity of the Virgin.

[11] A Spaniard educated at Salamanca and a member of the Jesuit order
since 1562. He taught theology and philosophy at Paris, and was said to
have converted many Protestants. His success raised envy amongst the
other orders, and he was accused of heretical views on the immaculate
conception. De Thou, who was hostile to the Jesuits, speaks of him as
a man of the highest character and the most brilliant parts. His chief
work is a commentary on the Bible. He died at Rome in 1583.

[12] Montpensier was Louis de Bourbon, who died in 1582. Nevers was the
son of Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. He married Henrietta, the last
of the house of Cleves, and abandoned his Italian title for that of
Duc de Nevers. He died in 1595. The dispute referred to was over some
question of Court precedence.

[13] Châlons-sur-Marne.

[14] Antoinette de Bourbon, daughter of François de Bourbon, Comte de
Vendôme, and Marie de Luxembourg. She married in 1513 Claude, Duke of
Guise and Aumale, who died in 1550. She lived till 1583.

[15] Montier-en-Der.

[16] This strange story is worthy of remark on account of the notice
thereof by Ambroise Paré, the illustrious French surgeon. He writes
(_Œuvres_, vol. iii., p. 19, Paris, 1841): “Aussi estant à la
suite du roy à Vitry le François en Champagne, i’y vis un certain
personnage nommé Germain Garnier: aucuns le nommoient Germain Marie,
parcequ’estant fille estoit appellé Marie: jeune homme de taille
moyenne, trappé et bien amassé, portant barbe rousse assez espaisse,
lequel jusqu’au quinzième an de son aage avoit esté tenu pour fille,
attendu qu’en luy ne se monstroit aucune marque de virilité, et même
qu’il se tenôit avec les filles en habit de femme. Or ayant atteint
l’aage susdit, comme il estoit aux champs et poursuiuoit assez vivement
ses porceaux qui alloient dedans un blé, trouvant un fossé le voulut
affranchir: et l’ayant sauté, à l’instant se viennent à lui développer
les genitoires et la verge virile, s’estans rompu les ligamens par
les quels auparavant estoient tenus clos et enserrés (ce qui ne luy
aduint sans douleur) et s’en retourna, larmoyant en la maison de sa
mère, disant que ses trippes estoient sortiés hors du ventre: la quelle
fût fort estonnée de ce spectacle. Et ayant assemblé des Médicins
et Chirugiens pour la dessus auoir advis, on trouva qu’elle estoit
homme, et non plus fille: et tantost après avoir rapporté à l’Éuesque,
qu’estoit le défunt Cardinal de Lenoncourt, par son autorité et
assemblée du peuple, il receut le nom d’homme; et au lieu de Marie (car
il estoit ainsi nommé auparavant) il fut appellé Germain, et lui fût
baillé habit d’homme.”

Goulart (_Histoires admirables et mémorables_, Senlis, 1628) also
notices the story. In the _Novellæ_ of Morlini, which was first
published at Naples in 1520, Novella XXII. is of a character somewhat
similar, and was borrowed by Straparola for the ninth fable of the
thirteenth night of the _Piacevoli Notti_.

Montaigne refers to this matter again in the “Essays,” i. 20: “Passant
à Vitry le François je pûs voir un homme que l’Évesque de Soissons
avoit nommé Germain,” a manifest lapse of memory, as in the text above
he expressly states that he was not able to see Germain. His memory was
evidently treacherous. “Ma librairie est assise à un coin de ma maison:
s’il me tombe en fantaisie chose que j’y vueille aller chercher ou
escrire, de peur qu’elle ne m’eschappe en traversant seulement ma cour,
il faut que je la donne en garde à quelqu’autre. Si je m’enhardis en
parlant, à me détourner tant soit peu de mon fil, je ne faux jamais de
le perdre: qui fait que je me tiens en mes discours, contraint, sec, et
reserré. Les gens qui me servent, il faut que je les appelle par le nom
de leurs charges ou de leur païs: car il m’est tres-malaisé de retenir
des noms. Je diray bien qu’il a trois syllabes, que le son en est rude,
qu’il commence ou termine par telle lettre: et si je durois à vivre
longtemps, je ne crois pas que je n’oubliasse mon nom propre, comme ont
fait d’autres.”--_Essais_, ii. 17.

[17] Bar-le-Duc.

[18] Son of a certain Pierre de Trèves. The college he founded was
directed by the Jesuits up to the outbreak of the Revolution; the
chapel alluded to was added to the collegiate church of St Mark. He
became dean of the college, and died in 1582; and his portrait now
hangs in the museum at Bar-le-Duc.

[19] Manois.

[20] Charles VII.

[21] “Cy git tel qui fut mors lors que li milliaires courroit per mil
deux cens.” Querlon in his note in the edition of 1774 adds: “Entre
autres plusieurs tombeaux de Seigneurs de la Maison du Châtelet il est
rapporté dans les observations de l’Abbé Desfontaines (_Lettre 467_)
qu’un du Châtelet voulut y être enterré tout debout dans le creux d’un
pillier, disant que ‘jamais vilain ne passeroit par dessus son ventre.’”

[22] Épinal.

[23] Plombières.

[24] Jean d’Andelot, who fought on the Imperial side at Pavia. He was
of the family of Andelot of Montague.

[25] Bagnères de Bigorre.

[26] The Duke of Lorraine.

[27] Bussang, a well-known medicinal spring near the source of the
Moselle.

[28] Thann.

[29] Mülhausen. It was not incorporated with France till 1798.

[30] The host’s story is somewhat contradictory. He says that for
twenty years past he had been the pensioner of the King of France, and
in the same breath talks of having marched with John Casimir, the son
of Frederic III., Elector Palatine, to fight against this same king in
1567. Perhaps his pension may have been in arrear.

[31] La Fère had fallen on August 31st.

[32] “De nomine hujus urbis quidam scribunt, sed sine probatione, ipsum
tractum a Basalisco. Fuerunt alii qui priusquam evulgarentur omnes
libri Ammiani Marcellini (saltem qui extant) putabant Basileam sic
dictam a passagio et trajectu, qui in eo fuit loco anteaquā civitas
extrueretur, ut scilicet a passagio illo rectius Pastel quam Basel
primum fuerit vocata. At Ammianus irrita reddit hanc cōjecturam,
qui civitatē illam Græca voce βασιλείαν, id est regnū vocat, quasi
Regnopolim seu regiam civitatem.”--Munster, _Cosmographie_ 1566, p. 400.

[33] It is difficult to identify this personage; probably he was Simon
Grynæus _minor_ (so called to distinguish him from his grandfather
Grynæus _major_) who wrote on medicine and mathematics, and died in
September 1582. Or he might have been Samuel, a younger son of Grynæus
major, a jurisconsult who was syndic of Basel, and died in 1599. There
was also a John James, a famous theologian, who died in 1617.

[34] François Hottoman was a French jurisconsult, sprung from Silesian
parentage, born at Paris in 1524. Though he became a Calvinist, he
retained the favour of Catherine dei Medici, who sent him twice on
missions into Germany. He fled from Paris after St. Bartholomew, and
died at Basel in 1590. He was always in poverty through his attempts to
find the philosopher’s stone.

[35] Cardan, in his _De Rerum Varietate_, first published in 1553,
gives a description and drawing of smoke-jacks then used in Italy. Book
xii. c. 58.

[36] The Aar to Brugg.

[37] This sentence is confused and incorrect. The reference is
manifestly to the abbey of Königsfelden, close to Brugg, which was
founded in 1310 by the Empress Elizabeth and her daughter Agnes,
Queen of Hungary, on the spot where Albert of Austria, husband of the
former, was killed by John of Suabia in 1308. Duke Leopold and sixty
of the knights who fell at Sempach in 1386 were buried here, but were
disinterred by the order of Maria Theresa in 1770, and re-entombed at
St. Blasien, in the Black Forest. Querlon mistakes it for the abbey of
Mouri.

[38] Reuss.

[39] At this date there were thirteen cantons in the Confederation.

[40] Eaux-Chaudes, in Béarn.

[41] A village in the Department of the Gers.

[42] The ancient name was Aquæ Helvetiæ. In the time of Nero, according
to Tacitus (_Hist._, i. 67), it had all the appearance of a town: “In
modum municipii extructus locus, amœno salubrium aquarum usu frequens.”
But nothing is said about the personal investigations of Tacitus, to
which Montaigne alludes.

Querlon, in a note on this passage, remarks: “Je ne sais où l’écrivain
a pris cela. La mémoire trompoit quelquefois Montaigne come tous ceux
qui citent beaucoup, car on ne peut mettre cette érudition que sur son
compte.”

[43] In the spring of 1416 Poggio Bracciolini visited Baden, and
during his stay wrote to his friend, Niccolo Niccoli, a description
of the place, which is one of the most graphic and vivid pictures of
contemporary life. It is given in Shepherd’s “Life of Poggio.”

[44] “... à ceus qui se conforment à eux.” But sense seems to show that
a “_ne_” must have slipped out of the text.

[45] Rodolf II.

[46] 21 batzen = 1 Rhenish florin.

[47] Probably Charles, the younger brother of Henry II., who died in
1545.

[48] According to Querlon this gentleman was Charles de Montmorenci,
afterwards Duc d’Anville and Admiral of France, son of the Constable,
Anne de Montmorenci.

[49] _Fouasses_, which Querlon describes as “espèce de galettes.” See
also Rabelais, Book i., ch. xxv.

[50] Markdorf.

[51] This is probably meant for Buchhorn, a free imperial city. In
1810 it came under the rule of Würtemberg and received the name of
Friedrickshafen.

[52] Lindau.

[53] A silver coin worth about eighteen pence in English money.

[54] The _Cosmographia_ of Sebastian Münster, one of the earliest
guide-books.

[55] “Il me semble que je n’ay rencontré guères de manières qui ne
vaillent les nostres,” _Essais_, iii. 9. Montaigne’s liking for Germany
and German ways is very marked. It may perhaps be explained by a
passage in _Essais_, i. 25: “Mon père me donna en charge à un Allemand,
qui depuis est mort fameux medecin en France.”

[56] A gold coin of the time of Louis XI.

[57] Wangen.

[58] Isny.

[59] Now in the museum at Augsburg. The inscription is in Mommsen,
_Corpus Insc._, iii. n. 5987:--

                    IMP. CAESAR.
    I. SEPTIMIUS. SEVERUS. PIUS.
    PERTINAX. AUG. ARABIC.
    ADIAB. PARTHICUS. MAXIMUS.
    PONTIF. MX. TRB. POT. VIII.
    IMP. XII. COS. II. P. P. PROCOS. ET
    IMP. CAESAR. MRCUS. AUREL.
    ANTONINUS. PIUS. AUG. TRB.
    POT. IIII. PROCOS. ET.
            A. CAMB. M. P.
                XI.


[60] This passage seems to show that the servant who acted as
Montaigne’s amanuensis for this part of the diary was also his
_valet-de-chambre_.

[61] St. Gallen.

[62] The abbey of Kempten was the most important of South German
monasteries. It was founded by Benedictines from St. Gallen in the
eighth century, became an imperial free town in 1289, and in 1360 the
abbot was made a prince. The old town, as Montaigne saw it, is still
Protestant, and a new Catholic suburb has grown up outside the walls.
The legend of Hildegarde’s burial there and that she was once abbess of
the convent seems to be false.

[63] Iller.

[64] Pfronten.

[65] Füssen.

[66] Hohenschwangau.

[67] St. Magnus was the first abbot of Kempten.

[68] Schongan.

[69] Landsberg.

[70] Schweikhart, son of Count George von Helfenstein. He was president
of the Imperial Court at Innsbruck from 1562-1564. He was a man of
learning and literary taste, and translated into German the works of S.
Basil and the story of Barlaam and Josaphat. He died in 1591.

[71] Livy.

[72] Fuggers.

[73] Augsburg was one of the first cities in Europe to be supplied with
water by artificial means. The old water-works are still to be seen.
The view of Augsburg in Münster’s _Cosmographia_ shows them exactly as
Montaigne writes of them.

[74] Variants of this legend are numerous. Hector Boece (cap. ix.)
affirms there are no rats in Buchan, and Sir Robert Gordon, writing on
Sutherlandshire, says: “If they come thither from other parts in ships
they die presently as soon as they do smell the air of that country.”
In Sir John Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland,” in an account
of Roseneath, in Argyleshire, it is stated: “From a prevailing opinion
that the soil of this parish is hostile to that animal, some years ago
a West India planter actually carried out to Jamaica several casks of
Roseneath earth, with a view to kill the rats that were destroying his
sugar canes.”

[75] “And this their entrance is so curiously admitted, as many
strangers desirous to see the fashion, suffer themselves of purpose
to be locked out at night, and willing give a reward to the souldiers
letting them in.”--Fynes Moryson, _Itinerary_, i. 20.

[76] In 1552: Münster, _Cosmographia_ (1559), p. 607.

[77] Sauerbrunnen.

[78] Bruck.

[79] Wilhelm, who married Renée of Lorraine, and abdicated in 1596.

[80] “... denique Laici usque adeo persuasum habent nullos Cœlibes esse
ut in plerisque parochiis non aliter velint Presbyterum tolerare, nisi
Concubinam habeat, quo vel sic suis sit consuetum uxoribus, quæ nec sic
quidem usque quaque sunt extra periculam.” Nicolaus de Clemangis, _De
Præsulibus Simoniacis_, p. 165.

[81] Probably the Starnberger See. This road was made by the Romans.

[82] The Kochel, or Walchen See.

[83] Mittenwald.

[84] Seefeld.

[85] Martinswand.

[86] Innsbruck.

[87] Ferdinand of Tirol, son of the Emperor Ferdinand I. and brother of
Maximilian II. He was born 1537 and died 1595.

[88] The tomb of Maximilian I. in the Hofkirche at Innsbruck.

[89] Cardinal Andreas, the son of Ferdinand of Tirol and Philippina
Welser. He was made a cardinal at nineteen years of age by Gregory
XIII. He became legate in Germany, and Philip II. at one time wanted to
make him governor of the Netherlands. He died in Rome in 1600, and lies
buried in the church of S. Maria dell’ Anima. He was about twenty-four
when Montaigne saw him.

[90] Karl, the second son of the Archduke.

[91] _Bouchet_, sugar and water flavoured with cinnamon.

[92] _Nef_, which, according to Querlon, here means, “_étui ou boîte où
se met le couvert des princes et des rois_.”

[93] Ferdinand I. left nine daughters. The Three Queens were Margaret,
who died in 1566; Helena, who died in 1570; and Magdalen, who was alive
at the time of Montaigne’s visit. Barbara was duchess of Ferrara,
Joanna, grand-duchess of Florence, and Catherine duchess of Mantua.

[94] Charles was crowned at Bologna in 1530. The monument referred to
still stands in the pass of Lueg on the Brenner.

[95] “M. de Montaigne disoit que c’estoit la lune de ses tretes.”
Querlon remarks, by way of explanation: “Parceque cette poussière
obscurcissait le jour, ne lui laissoit, ainsi que la lune, que ce qu’il
falloit de clarté pour se conduire.”

[96] Stertzing. Here the watchman still calls the hours of the night as
he did at Innsbruck in Montaigne’s time.

[97] Eisack, a stream which rises on the Brenner and joins the Adige
near Botzen.

[98] “Qu’elles se laissent testonner et peigner jusques aus oreilles.”

[99] Leonore, the only one of his children who survived him. In
alluding to those who died in infancy he says, _Essais_, ii. 8: “Ils
me meurent touts en nourrice: mais Leonor, une seule fille qui est
echappée à cette infortune, a attainct six ans et plus.”

[100] Klausen.

[101] Kolmann.

[102] Botzen.

[103] In his _Voyage faict en 1600_, the Duc de Rohan puts this matter
in a different light: “Je passay à Trente nullement agréable--et
si ce n’estoit pour ce qu’elle est demy Italienne, me rejouissait
de sortir de la petite barbarie et beuvette universelle, je n’en
parlerois pas: ne trouvant point que tous les mathematiciens de nostre
temps puissent jamais si bien trouver le mouvement perpetuel que les
Allemans le font faire à leur goblets ... cette si grand frequentation
de bouteils obscurcit tellement leurs autres belles parties que cela
les rends méprisables et inaccostables de tout le monde. Car ils ne
pensent faire bonne chère ny permettre amitié ou fraternité, comme
ils disent, à personne sans y apporter le seau plein de vin pour la
sceler à perpetuité.” The love of eating and drinking is still a marked
characteristic amongst the Tirolese.

[104] Branzoll.

[105] Adige.

[106] Trent.

[107] Salurn.

[108] Montaigne shows himself here less judicial than usual. He had
evidently been so well pleased with his sojourn in Germany that he
looked on everything over the frontier with a jaundiced eye.

[109] It was begun in 1212 and is built entirely of marble. The tower
alluded to is the Torre di Piazza, in which was hung Rengo, the great
bell of Trent.

[110] The work of Vincenzio Vicentini, 1534.

[111] Bernardo Clesio, bishop from 1514 to 1539. He was made cardinal
in 1530.

[112] The relations of the bishops of Trent with the counts of Tirol,
which resulted in the _quasi_ subjection of the first named, had been
embroiled by disputes over the right of taxation which the counts of
Tirol claimed over Church property in Trent ever since the twelfth
century. Cardinal Madruccio held the see from 1567 to 1600. He was a
member of an illustrious family of the city.

[113] Probably Castel Beseno, a notable stronghold in these times. Or
it might have been Castelbarco, afterwards a Venetian frontier fortress.

[114] Roveredo. It had formerly been Venetian, but was now under Tirol
as a fee of the bishop of Trent.

[115] In the _Essais_, iii. 13, Montaigne writes of his horror of dew
and vapours.

[116] Another instance of his love of German customs.

[117] Garda has always been famous for its fish, and the fishing
industry gave its name to the town at the outlet, Peschiera. Cardan
(_De Vita Prop._, c. xxx.) tells of a mighty pike he ate at Sirmio
after a narrow escape from drowning in the lake. In Coryat’s time it
was celebrated for its abundance of “Carpes, Troutes, and Eeles.”

[118] Now an important town at the head of the lake.

[119] In describing this excursion the secretary uses sometimes the
first and sometimes the third person plural, but this sentence seems to
show that he did not accompany the others, and on leaving Roveredo he
went to Verona on a raft in charge of the luggage.

[120] Borghetto.



Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, superscripts are represented
thus y^n.



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