f God and man, unless she mounted into
the pulpit, it is quite impossible to conjecture. Aeneas Sylvius gives
it as his opinion that these things were used as a protection against
the cold, which to his Italian blood seemed very great. But that notion
was surely instilled into the courtly churchman by some fair, demure
Baloise; for had it been well-founded, the sentry-boxes would have risen
and fallen with the thermometer, and not with the rank of the occupant.

The walls of the churches were hung around with the emblazoned shields
of knights and noblemen, and the roofs were richly painted in various
colors, and glowed with splendor when the rays of the sun fell upon
them. Storks built their nests upon these roofs, and hatched their young
there unmolested; for the Balois believed, that, if the birds were
disturbed, they would fire the houses.

The dwellings of men of any wealth or rank were very curiously planned,
elaborately ornamented, richly painted, and adorned with magnificent
tapestry. The tables were covered with vessels of wrought silver, in
which Sylvius confesses that the Balois surpassed even the skilful
and profuse Italians. Fountains, those sources of fantastic and
ever-changing beauty, were numerous,--so numerous, says our
afterward-to-be-infallible authority, that the town of Viterbo, in
Tuscany, had not so many,--and Viterbo was noted for its beauty, and for
being surrounded with the villas of wealthy Italians, who have always
used water freely in the way of fountains.

Bale, although it then--four hundred and twenty years ago--acknowledged
the Emperor for its sovereign, was a free town, as it is now; that is,
it had no local lord to favor or oppress it at his pleasure, but was
governed by laws enacted by representatives of the people. The spirit of
a noble independence pervaded the little Canton of which it was and
is the capital. Though it was fortified, its stone defences were not
strong; but when Sylvius tells us that the Balois thought that the
strength of their city consisted in the union of its inhabitants, who
preferred death to loss of liberty, we see what stuff its men were made
of, and why the town was free.

Among its peculiarities, Bale had no lawyers,--this happy and united
Bale. The Balois did not trouble themselves about the Imperial law,
says Sylvius; but when disputes or accusations were brought before the
magistrates, they were decided according to custom and the equity of
each cas