of my chilly habits and susceptibility of cold and who had passed several years within the tropics to scale the Alps on foot in the middle of December and to walk 24 miles in snow and ice at one o’clock in the morning, which was the hour at which we started.  I was well clad in flannel and I went thro’ the journey valiantly and in high spirits and without suffering much from the cold till within five miles of the Hospice, when a heavy snow storm came on; it then began to look a little ugly and but for Napoleon’s grand chausses we were lost.  We struggled on three miles further in the snow before we fell in with a maison de refuge.  We knocked there and nobody answered.  We then determined coute que coute to push on to the Hospice which we knew could not be more than two miles distant; indeed it was much more advisable so to do than to run the risk of being frozen by remaining two or three hours in the cold air till the diligence should come up.  In standing still I began to feel the cold bitterly; so in spite of the snow storm, we pushed on and arrived at the inn at Mont-Cenis at five in the morning.  We rubbed our hands and faces well with snow and took care not to approach the fire for several minutes, fortifying ourselves in the interim with a glass of brandy.  We then had some coffee made and laid ourselves down to sleep by the side of an enormous fire until the diligence arrived, which made its appearance at eight o’clock.  The passengers stopped to breakfast and the Scotchman proposed to me to make the descent of Lans-le-Bourg also on foot; but I was quite satisfied with the prowess I had already exhibited and declined the challenge.  He however set off alone and thus performed the entire passage of Mont Cenis on foot.  As for the rest of us we were carried down on a traineau; that is to say the diligence was unloaded and its wheels taken off; the baggage and wheels were put on one traineau and the diligence with the passengers in it on another, and in this manner we descended to Lans-le-Bourg.  Nothing remarkable occurred on this journey and we arrived at Chambery in good case.  I hired a caleche to go to Geneva, remained there three days and arrived at Lausanne on the 18th December.

[100] Horace, Sat., II, 6, 65.—­ED.

[101] Dante, Inferno, I, 33,29.—­ED.

[102] Henry Augustus, thirteenth Viscount Dillon (1777-1832), married
    (1807) to Henrietta Browne (died 1862).—­ED.

[103] Quoted from memory, with mistakes.  The text has been corrected as it
    stands in Brantome, Les Dames galantes, ed.  Chasles, vol.  I, p.
    351.—­ED.

AFTER WATERLOO

PART III.

CHAPTER XIII

MARCH-SEPTEMBER, 1817

Journey from Lausanne to Clermont-Ferrand—­A wretched conveyance—­The first dish of frogs—­Society in Clermont-Ferrand—­General de Vergeunes—­Cleansing the town—­Return to Lausanne—­A zealous priest—­Journey to Bern and back to Lausanne—­Avenches—­Lake Morat—­Lake Neufchatel—­The Diet in Bern—­Character of the Bernois—­A beautiful Milanese lady.