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Travels through the Pennine Alps, by the same, 1788. small folio, both translated from the French. Travels in Switzerland, and in the country of the Grisons, by the Rev. W. Coxe, 1791. 3 vols. 8vo. These travels were performed in 1776, and again in 1785 and 1787, and bear and deserve the same character as the author's travels in Russia, &c., of which we have already spoken. Mr.
Little doubt existed in the minds of the monarch and his ministers that these hostile demonstrations were encouraged, if not suggested, by the secret agents of Philip III of Spain, and the Duke of Savoy, who had been busily engaged some time previously in dissuading the Swiss and Grisons from renewing the alliance which they had formed with Henri III, and which became void at his death.
He likewise desired the friendly offices of the Queen to protect the principality of Orange against the possible designs of the French monarch, and intimated that occasions might arise in which the confiscated estates of the family in Burgundy might be recovered through the influence of the Swiss cantons, particularly those of the Grisons and of Berne.
The victory gained in the year 496 near Cologn, by Clovis I. king of the Franks, over the Alemanni, who had wrested from the Romans all the dominions on the northern side of the Alps; and the defeat of both Romans and Goths in Italy, in the year 549, by the treacherous arms of Theodebert king of Austrasia, whose dominions soon after devolved to the crown of France, necessarily gave the aspiring Merovingian race a great ascendency over all the countries surrounding the Grisons; and accordingly we find, that this district also was soon after, without any military effort, considered as part of the dominions of the reviving western empire.
At the same time he undertook to provide the necessary supplies for its maintenance during the transit. The rumor of this arrangement roused the Huguenots, the Genevese, the Swiss, and the Grisons. The Prince of Conde and the Admiral Coligny entreated Charles IX. not to neglect so favorable a moment of inflicting a deadly blow on the hereditary foe of France.
The occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria was, nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accordingly, entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived and hastened to anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabinet. Auffenberg was defeated by Massena on the St.
But the princes of the empire delayed to send auxiliaries, and the Emperor then learned, with increasing horror, that his army sent over the Engadine mountains to suppress the Grison League had been destroyed in midsummer by avalanches, famine, and the masses of rock which the Grisons threw down from the mountains; then that on the woody height of Bruderholz, not far from Basel, one thousand Swiss had vanquished more than four thousand of their enemies; that, shortly after, in the same region near Dornach, six thousand Confederates had obtained a brilliant victory over fifteen thousand Austrians, killing three thousand men, with their general, Henry of Furstenberg.
He hastily despatched troops to cover the French frontiers; and the republics of Geneva, Bern, Zurich, and the Grisons followed his example, all ready to offer a determined opposition to the dreaded enemy of their religion and their liberty.
A bit of climbing ivy converts a hideous ruin into a bower, as the Alp roses and the Iva make a garden for one short month of the roughest rocks in the Grisons. Only that which lives and of which the life is beautiful can reconcile us to those surroundings which would otherwise offend our sense of harmony, or oppress us with a dullness even more deadly than mere ugliness can ever be.
The GRISONS are in possession of an old dance, which is not without its merit, and which they would not exchange for the politest in Europe; they being as invariably attached to it, as to their dress.
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