mignonette and vervain, where broad sunflowers erect their black
discs fringed with gold, two brothers with fan-shaped beards, their
brass-mounted spectacles astride on their flat noses, and arrayed in
green gardening aprons, are plying enormous watering-cans; while, in
the green and cool half-twilight under the shadowy trees, big, rubicund
brothers walk up and down, reading their red-edged breviaries in black
leather bindings.

Happy monks! Not a fraction of a pessimist among them! How well they
understand life! A beautiful convent, beautiful nature, good wine and
good cheer, neither disturbance nor care; neither wife nor children; and
when they leave the world, heaven specially created for them, seraphim
waiting for them with harps of gold, and angels with urns of rose-water
to wash their feet!

Lucerne began as a nest of monks, hidden in an orchard like a nest of
sparrows. The first house of the town was a monastery, erected by the
side of the lake. The nest grew, became a village, then a town, then a
city. The monks of Murbach, to whom the monastery of St. Leger belonged,
had got into debt; this sometimes does happen even to monks. They
sold to King Rudolf all the property they possest at Lucerne and in
Unterwalden; and thus the town passed into the hands of the Hapsburgs.

When the first Cantons, after expelling the Austrian bailiffs, had
declared their independence, Lucerne was still one of Austria's advanced
posts. But its people were daily brought into contact with the shepherds
of the Forest Cantons, who came into the town to supply themselves with
provisions; and they were not long in beginning to ask themselves if
there was any reason why they should not be, as well as their neighbors,
absolutely free. The position of the partizans of Austria soon became so