dispute the passage--a most advantageous post for an army so much
inferior in force; but the influence of beauty is not confined to
courts. The mistress of the inn was handsome; when I saw her there
were still some remains of beauty; and, to preserve her house, the
general gave up the only tenable station. He was afterwards broke
for contempt of orders.

Approaching the frontiers, consequently the sea, nature resumed an
aspect ruder and ruder, or rather seemed the bones of the world
waiting to be clothed with everything necessary to give life and
beauty. Still it was sublime.

The clouds caught their hue of the rocks that menaced them. The sun
appeared afraid to shine, the birds ceased to sing, and the flowers
to bloom; but the eagle fixed his nest high amongst the rocks, and
the vulture hovered over this abode of desolation. The farm houses,
in which only poverty resided, were formed of logs scarcely keeping
off the cold and drifting snow: out of them the inhabitants seldom
peeped, and the sports or prattling of children was neither seen or
heard. The current of life seemed congealed at the source: all
were not frozen, for it was summer, you remember; but everything
appeared so dull that I waited to see ice, in order to reconcile me
to the absence of gaiety.

The day before, my attention had frequently been attracted by the
wild beauties of the country we passed through.

The rocks which tossed their fantastic heads so high were often
covered with pines and firs, varied in the most picturesque manner.
Little woods filled up the recesses when forests did not darken the