seats of
honour being civilly left for the strangers. The meal was frugal,
without tea or coffee, and the wine none of the best. But one ought to
be too grateful for getting anything in such a place, to be too
fastidious.

During supper there was a free general conversation, and we were asked
for news, the movements in La Vendee being evidently a subject of great
interest with them. Our French fellow-traveller on the lake of Brientz
had been warm in his eulogiums on this community, and, coupling his
conversation with the present question, the suspicion that they were
connected by a tie of common feeling flashed upon me. A few remarks soon
confirmed this conjecture, and I found, as indeed was natural for men in
their situation, that these religious republicans[39] took a strong
interest in the success of the Carlists. Men may call themselves what
they will, live where they may, and assume what disguises artifice or
necessity may impose, political instincts, like love, or any other
strong passion, are sure to betray themselves to an experienced
observer. How many of our own republicans, of the purest water, have I
seen sighing for ribands and stars--ay, and men too who appear before
the nation as devoted to the institutions and the rights of the mass.
The Romish church is certain to be found in secret on the side of
despotic power, let its pretensions to liberty be what it may, its own
form of government possessing sympathies with that of political power
too strong to be effectually concealed. I will not take on myself to say
that the circumstance of our being Americans caused the fraternity to
manifest for us less warmth than common, but I will say that our Carlist
of the lake of Brientz eloquently described the warm welcome and earnest
hospitality of _les bons peres_, as he called them, in a way that was
entirely inapplicable to their manner towards us. In short, the only way
we could excite any warmth in them, was by blowing the anthracite coal,
of which we had heard they had discovered a mine on the mountain. This
was a subject of great interest, for you should know that, water
excepted, every necessary of life is to be transported, for leagues to
this place, up the path we came, on the backs of mules; and that about
8,000 persons cross the mountain annually; all, or nearly all, of whom
lodge, of necessity, at the convent. The elevation renders fires
constantly necessary for comfort, to say nothing of cooking; and a