Ladies’ Edinburgh Magazine > Volume 5

52 77/1? Ladies Edinburgh Magazine.
from which the true-hearted bishop went forth, and where
the family of De Sales still dwell.
Is that all ? No; there is a monograph on Les Abimes de
Myaus, and on the shrine of the wonder-working Virgin
there. That may go: but the pamphlet about the tombs at
Hautecombe we will keep, for we went there yesterday.
We rowed over to the Abbey, visited the tombs of the
Kings, heard the monks chant the offi,ces des Morts, saw the
famous well (which is intermitting, and has caprices, just
like any woman), ate cherries in the woods, lay on our oars
under the shadow of the rocks, and then rowed back, and
landed in a creek full of water-lilies.
How beautiful this Savoy is ! How rich, too, in souvenirs !
Wedged in between the Alps and the Elione, it now forms
only a province of France, but it once had a history of its own.
One is tempted to regret that its last king, so true to the
interests of Italy, should have forgotten his country and his
father's house, and have ceded Savoy to the ambition of a
Napoleon. In extenuation of this act, it is now said, ' Oh ! but
French is the language of the country, and was always spoken
in Savoy by every one above the rank of a chimney-sweep.'
That is true. Only the shepherd in the mountain pastures,
or the labourer who treads the winepress, or the boy who
drives the kids, speaks in patois. French was the language
of St Francis de Sales, of Ducis, of Eapin, of Vaugelas, of
Bonnivard, of Berthollet, of Cardinal Tournon, of General
Lallee, of De Boigne, of Mde. de Warens, of Buloz, and of
the two De Maistres. Yet to draw from this any inference of
dependence on France would be to err. Though conquered by
the Eomans, though held as a fief by the German emperors,
though watered with Saracen blood, though often coveted
by Burgundy, and attacked by France, though sometimes
possessed of Geneva and sometimes deprived of it, though
absorbed by Piedmont, though united to Sardinia, though
conquered by one Napoleon and finally sold to another, stiU
Savoy has had a i-vle of her own in history. Though a small
state, she has played a great part, and it has been her good
fortune to have in government, as in race, and in physical
geography, both merits and charms of her own.
Her climate is delightful. She has her mountains, upon
whose crests lies the perpetual snow, and whose frontiers are
sought alike by tourists, and artists, and men of science. Her
valleys stand full of the corn and wine and oil of the South.
Her bright-running ' Nants'^ would entitle her to be called
"the Wales of the Continent, were it not that the uplands of
' Or streams, as the Nanthruid, and le hon Nant.