of triumph and congratulation." Wordsworth easily became a convert to these sentiments, and the pleasure of his journey was doubled by the fact that it made him acquainted with a country which had swept away the barriers to its liberty by so impetuous an onslaught. He was accompanied by one of his fellow-students, like himself an inhabitant of a mountainous district. Robert Jones was a native of Wales, and had acquired in that country the same passion for nature which the English lakes had inspired in Wordsworth. An attractive combination of the careless and the serious, the gay and the gloomy,1 he knew when to laugh and when to be silent, and was the very man to be an invaluable travelling companion for his friend. In order to cross a part of Europe on foot, each was provided with a walking-stick, a few necessaries done up in a pocket-handkerchief, and about twenty pounds in his pocket. Thus equipped, and dressed in a fashion which aroused the smiles of the villagers as they passed, the two young fellows must have borne as little resemblance as possible to the ostentatious tourists of that day. Landing at Calais on the eve of the Federation, they noticed in this little town How bright a face is worn when joy of one Is joy for tens of millions.2 A homeless sound of joy was in the sky: From hour to hour the antiquated Earth Beat like the heart of Man: songs, garlands, mirth, Banners and happy faces far and nigh.3 The senselessness of joy was then sublime! 4 Through Ardres, where they spent the 14th of July, Arras, which they entered at evening under windows bright With happy faces and with garlands hung, And through a rainbow-arch that spanned the street, 2 The Prelude, vi. 347-349. 5 The Prelude, x. 493. through Péronne and Soissons, they made their way southwards, finding everywhere the relics of the festival withering where they had been left. Now following the public road, now taking to the footpaths in order to shorten their long journey, they found even in the remotest villages benevolence and blessedness Spread like a fragrance everywhere, when spring Long this spirit of rejoicing kept them company, as they paced onward league by league beneath the files of elms which bordered the high roads and lulled the poet's imaginative melancholy with the rustling of their leaves. More than once, Unhoused beneath the evening star we saw Of darkness, dances in the open air Deftly prolonged, though grey-haired lookers on Walking rapidly they left behind them Château-Thierry and Sézanne, followed the banks of the Seine almost to its source, and at Châlon embarked upon the Saône which glides so gently between "the vine-clad hills and pleasant slopes of Burgundy." At Lyon the swift Rhone lent them its "wings," on which they "cut a winding passage with majestic ease" between its lofty rocks. And at Lyon on the 31st of July they were joined on board by a merry crowd Of those emancipated, a blithe host Like bees they swarmed, gaudy and gay as bees; And with their swords flourished as if to fight In their society the two strangers, Guests welcome almost as the angels were landed at Condrieu and partook of the evening meal. The supper done,1 With flowing cups elate and happy thoughts And, hand in hand, danced round and round the board; With amity and glee; we bore a name As their forerunners in a glorious course; And round and round the board we danced again. At daybreak Wordsworth resumed his voyage in company with this enthusiastic band, in whom, although he does not give their names, it is easy to recognise the delegates sent from Marseilles to the Federation. The monastery bells Made a sweet jingling in our youthful ears; And each uprising or receding spire Spake with a sense of peace, at intervals Touching the heart amid the boisterous crew By whom we were encompassed.2 At Saint-Vallier the two foreigners disembarked, and taking leave of these friends of a day, continued their journey on foot towards the mountains. On the 3rd August they reached the convent of the Grande-Charteuse, where fifty years earlier their countryman, Thomas Gray, had given utterance in the presence of the mountains to the first notes of enthusiasm for Alpine scenery which had been sounded in English literature.3 Expressing his admiration for the genius of St Bruno, who 1 The Prelude, vi. 374-406. 2 Ibid., vi. 407-414. 8 Letter to Richard West, 16th November 1739. We say " the first notes of enthusiasm." Two descriptions had previously been given, one (which at a later time Wordsworth knew and admired) by Thomas Burnet, in his Sacred Theory of the Earth, the other, short and precise, by Thomson, in Liberty, Part iv. ll. 344-362. See the noteworthy volume, James Thomson, by Léon Morel (Paris 1895), PP. 534-6. had chosen this sublime spot for his retreat, Gray affirmed that if born in St Bruno's time he might himself perhaps have been among his disciples. But when Wordsworth reached it the retreat of St Bruno's followers was no longer inviolate. As he approached the convent, he saw a riotous troop of men under arms advancing in the same direction with hostile intentions. They did not come, as was supposed by the young Englishman, who did not speak French, to expel The blameless inmates, and belike subvert As yet it was nothing more than a domiciliary visit, 1 The Prelude, vi. 426-429. 2 "En 1790, on fit trois fois l'inventaire de notre mobilier, et la troisième fois avec la dernière rigneur. Tout fut noté et l'argenterie d'église fut em. portée." (La grande Chartreuse par un Chartreux, Grenoble, 1881.) The armed occupation did not take place until May 20th, 1792. Wordsworth alludes to this occupation in his Descriptive Sketches, which were written in that year. In this poem, composed in the height of his revolutionary fervour, he expresses himself much more vehemently against the desecrators than in The Prelude, which was written long afterwards. "Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms. . . . The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock..." he writes in the Sketcher. 3 The Prelude, vi. 441-471. On the following day, when the band of persecutors had left the convent, he wandered through the dim cloisters, which from their foundation till that hour had never echoed to the tread of unhallowed footsteps; and then, quitting the monastery, entered the deep shades of the wood of Vallombre. Raising his eyes, he beheld in the different quarters of the sky, as though placed on the mountain-crests by angelic hands, the crosses which had been spared by a thousand storms only to be threatened at last by the undiscriminating whirlwind of antifanaticism.1 After leaving the Grande-Chartreuse, Wordsworth and Jones made their way to Savoy, and spent six weeks in exploring the Alps and the Swiss and Italian lakes. The two vigorous lads "several times performed a journey of thirteen leagues over the most mountainous parts of Switzerland without any more weariness than if they had been walking an hour in the groves of Cambridge. " 2 A march it was of military speed, And Earth did change her images and forms Upon the stretch when winds are blowing fair.3 Their march was in fact so rapid that it did not enable Wordsworth to describe fully, and at the same time with freshness, the scenery of the Alps or the manners of their inhabitants. When, two years later, he sought to extol the wonders of Switzerland, he found his own impressions so disconnected that he was obliged to refer to the descriptions of less hurried observers. The number and the daring of those who came to do homage to the Alps had increased to a remarkable extent 1 The Prelude, vi. 472-489. 2 Letter from Wordsworth to Dorothy, 6th September 1790. 3 The Prelude, vi. 491-499. |