in upon his purse for the
reception of royalty; and possibly he is now anxious that the Emperor
should pass that way, during the five years to which the tenure of the
mayoralty is restricted. Both of my companions were strong in their
French sympathies--the one because under the new rule all communal
affairs were so much better organised, the other because a wonderful
change for the better had taken place in the government superintendence
of schools. Theirs was formerly an odd corner of a kingdom that did not
care much about them, and was not homogeneous; it was now an integral
part of a well-ordered empire. They confessed that the present state of
things cost them much more in taxes, &c., excepting in the upper
mountains, where Rosset had a cousin who paid even less than under
Sardinian rule.

Of course, we talked a little on Church questions; and they were
astonished to hear that I was not only an ecclesiastic, but an ordained
priest,--a sort of thing which they had fancied did not exist in the
English Church. Rosset said the _cures_ of small communes had about L40
a year, but I must have more than that, or I could not afford to travel
so far from home. Had I already said the mass that morning? Had I my
robes in the _sac_ I had left at the _Mairie_? Was the red book they had
seen in my hands (Baedeker's _Schweiz_) a Breviary? They branched off to
matters of doctrine, and discussed them warmly; but some things they so
accommodatingly understated, and others they stated so fairly, that I
was able to tell them they were excellent Anglicans.

Higher up in the forest, we were nearly overwhelmed by a party of
charcoal-porters, who came down with their _traineaux_ like a black
avalanche. A _traineau_ is nothing more than a wooden sledge, on two
runners, which are turned up in front, to the height of a yard, to keep
the cargo in its place. In the more level parts the porter is obliged to
drag this, but on the steep zigzags its own weight is sufficient to send
it down; and here the porter places himself in front, with his back
leaning against the sacks of charcoal and the turned-up runners, and the
whole mass descends headlong, the man's legs going at a wild pace, and
now one foot, now the other, steering a judicious course at the turns of
the zigzags. The charcoal is made by Italians, who live on polenta and
cheese high up in the mountains, and bring their manufacture down to a
certain distance, after which the porters take