Our evening walk was to the arch of ice at the source of the Arveron, and we went in the dusk to see a manufactory of cloth, made by a single individual peasant--the machinery for spinning, carding, weaving, and all made, woodwork and ironwork, by his own hands. He had in his youth worked in some manufactory in Dauphiné. The workmanship was astonishing, and the modesty and philosophy of the man still more astonishing. When I said, "I hope all this succeeds in making money for you and your family," he answered, "Money was not my object: I make just enough for myself and my family to live by, and that is all I want; I made it for employment for ourselves in the long winter evenings. And if it lasts after me, it may be of service to some of them; but I do not much look to that. It often happens that sons are of a different way of thinking from their fathers: mine may think little of these things, and if so, no harm."
The _table-d'hôte_ at Chamouni--thirty people--was very entertaining. We had a most agreeable addition to our party in M. and Madame Arago: he was very civil to us at Paris, and very glad to meet us again. As we were walking to a cascade, he told me most romantic adventures of his in Spain and Algiers, which I will tell you hereafter; but I must tell you now a curious anecdote of Buonaparte. When he had abdicated after the battle of Waterloo, he sent for Arago, and offered him a considerable sum of money if he would accompany him to America. He had formed the project of establishing himself in America, and of carrying there in his train several men of science! Madame Bertrand was the person who persuaded him to go to England. Arago was so disgusted at his deserting his troops, he would have nothing more to do with him.
We returned by the beautiful valley of Sallenches and St. Gervais to Geneva. I forgot to mention about a dozen cascades, one more beautiful than the other, and I thought of Ondine, which you hate, and _mon Oncle Friedelhausen._ We had left our carriage at St. Martin, and travelled in _char-à-bancs_, with which you and Sophy made me long ago acquainted--cousin-german to an Irish jaunting-car. We were well drenched by the rain; and as we had imprudently lined our great straw hats with green, we arrived at St. Gervais with chins and shoulders dyed green. The hotel at St. Gervais is the most singular-looking house I ever saw. You drive through a valley, between high pine-covered mountains that seem remote from human habitation--when suddenly in a scoop-out in the valley you see a large, low, strange wooden building round three sides of a square, half Chinese, half American-looking, with galleries, and domes, and sheds--the whole of unpainted wood. Under the projecting roof of the gallery stood a lady in a purple silk dress, plaiting straw, and various other figures in shawls, and caps, and flowered bonnets, some looking very fine, others deadly sick--all curious to see the new-comers. M. Goutar, the master, reminded me of Samuel Essington: [Footnote: An old servant.] full of gratitude to M. Pictet, who had discovered these baths for him, he whisked about with his round perspiring face, eager to say a hundred things at once, with a tongue too large for his mouth and a goitre which impeded his utterance, and showed us his douches and contrivances, and spits turned by water--very ingenious. Dinner was in a long, low, narrow room--about fifty people; and after dinner we were ushered into a room with calico curtains, very smart--a select party let in. Many unexpected compliments on _Patronage_ from a Dijon Marquise, who was at the baths to get rid of a redness in her nose. Enter, a sick but very gentlewomanlike Prussian Countess, _Patronage_ again: Walter Scott's novels, as well known as in England, admirably criticised. She promised me a letter to Madame de Montolieu.