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Travel in the two last Centuries of three Generations
Travel in the two last Centuries of three Generations Author:S. R. Roget Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II 1783: A JOURNEY FROM LAUSANNE TO LONDON are able to give a much fuller account of Mrs. Catherine Roget's journey back to England than of... more » the travels referred to in the last chapter, as she wrote a diary of the whole journey herself. The account below is but slightly abridged from the original, and much of it, in addition to the contrast between the travelling conditions then prevalent and those of to-day, has a special interest in view of the later history of the countries traversed. Regarding the route adopted, Romilly writes: " For the sake of avoiding any of the places through which my sister passed with her husband when she left the country, and which she thought would be attended with remembrances too painful for her to endure, we made rather a circuitous journey." The travellers passed right through the Franco-German frontier territory into Belgium at a time when, although ominous clouds were gathering, the storm of the French Revolution had not yet burst; LouisXVI was King of France and had yet ten years to live; Napoleon, a boy of fourteen, was still at the school at Brienne, and the power of Prussia was yet undreamed of. " Sept. 24, 1783.—Set out from Lausanne the 24 Sept. Mr. B 's family accompanied us as far as Moudon, where we dined. Moudon is a small town in the canton of Berne, formerly the capital of the Pays de Vaud. At the town house is an antique altar with an inscription not much defaced and a singular cage to confine delinquents, which turns on a pivot. Parted from our good friends, continued our journey to Pay erne, where we lay. Sept. 25.—From Payerne, passed through Avenches. About half a mile before we arrived, at Morat, is an ossuaire (a collection of bones gathered up after the battle between Charles the Bold and the S...« less