From Chambery to Milan

Your truly sentimental tourist will never take it from any
occasion that there is absolutely nothing for him, and it was at
Chambéry--but four hours from Geneva--that I accepted the
situation and decided there might be mysterious delights in
entering Italy by a whizz through an eight-mile tunnel, even as a
bullet through the bore of a gun. I found my reward in the
Savoyard landscape, which greets you betimes with the smile of
anticipation. If it is not so Italian as Italy it is at least
more Italian than anything but Italy--more Italian, too, I
should think, than can seem natural and proper to the swarming
red-legged soldiery who so publicly proclaim it of the empire of
M. Thiers. The light and the complexion of things had to my eyes
not a little of that mollified depth last loved by them rather
further on. It was simply perhaps that the weather was hot and
the mountains drowsing in that iridescent haze that I have seen
nearer home than at Chambéry. But the vegetation, assuredly, had
an all but Transalpine twist and curl, and the classic wayside
tangle of corn and vines left nothing to be desired in the line
of careless grace. Chambéry as a town, however, constitutes no
foretaste of the monumental cities. There is shabbiness and
shabbiness, the fond critic of such things will tell you; and
that of the ancient capital of Savoy lacks style. I found a
better pastime, however, than strolling through the dark dull
streets in quest of effects that were not forthcoming. The first
urchin you meet will show you the way to Les Charmettes and the
Maison Jean-Jacques. A very. pleasant way it becomes as soon as
it leaves the town--a winding, climbing by-road, bordered with
such a tall and sturdy hedge as to give it the air of an English
lane--if you can fancy an English lane introducing you to the
haunts of a Madame de Warens.

The house that formerly sheltered this lady's singular ménage
stands on a hillside above the road, which a rapid path connects
with the little grass-grown terrace before it. It is a small
shabby, homely dwelling, with a certain reputable solidity,
however, and more of internal spaciousness than of outside
promise. The place is shown by an elderly competent dame who
points out the very few surviving objects which you may touch
with the reflection--complacent in whatsoever degree suits you--
that they have known the familiarity of Rousseau's hand. It was
presumably a meagrely-appointed house, and I wondered that on
such scanty features so much expression should linger. But the
structure has an ancient ponderosity, and the dust of the
eighteenth century seems to lie on its worm-eaten floors, to
cling to the faded old papiers à ramages on the