rown "red." Since I saw him
last, changes not a few had passed upon Europe, and more than one
monarch had fallen; but Mont Blanc sat firmly in his seat, and wore his
icy crown as proudly as ever.

Since my former visit to Lyons the "Reds" had made great progress in all
the countries at the foot of the Alps. Their party had been especially
progressive in Lyons; so much so as to affect the nomenclature of the
hills that overlook that city on the north. That hill, which is nearly
wholly covered with the houses and workshops of the silk-weavers, is now
known as the "red mountain," its inhabitants being mostly of that
faction; while the hill on the west of it, that, namely, which I had
ascended on the evening before, and which is chiefly devoted to
ecclesiastical persons and uses, is called the "white mountain." But
while men had been changing their faith, and hills their names, Mont
Blanc stood firmly by his old creed and his old colours. There he was,
dazzlingly, transcendently white, defying the fuller's art to whiten
him, and shading into dimness the snowy robe of the priest; looking
with royal majesty over his wide realm; standing unchanged in the midst
of a theatre of changes; abiding for ever, though kingdoms at his feet
were passing away; pre-eminent in grace and glory amidst his princely
peers; and looking the earthly type of that eternal and all-glorious
One, who stands supreme and unapproachable amid the powers, dominions,
and royalties of the universe.

The night wore on without any noticeable event, or any special
interruption, save what was occasioned necessarily by our arrival at the
several stages, and the changes consequent thereon of horses and
postilions. There was a rag of a moon overhead,--at least so one might
judge from the hazy light that struggled through the fog,--by the help
of which I kept watching the landscape till past midnight. Then a spirit
of drowsiness invaded me. It was not sleep, but sleep's image, or
sleep's counterfeit,--an uneasy trance, in which a confused vision of
tall trees, with their head in the clouds, and very long and very narrow
fields, marked off by straight rows of very upright poplars, and large
heavy-looking houses, with tall antique roofs, kept marching past,
without variety and without end. I would wake up at times and look out.
There was the same picture before me. I would fall back into my trance
again, and, an hour or so after, I would again wake up; still the
iden