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As told the present writer by a native of the district, it happened when, in the nighttime the mountain came down, the herdsmen and their cows gathered in the chalets stout buildings which are prepared to resist avalanches of snow. In one of these, which was protected from crushing by the position of the stones which covered it, a solitary herdsman found himself alive in his unharmed dwelling.
The village is chiefly made up of farmhouses; on the mountain-sides and in the valley are the chalets and shepherds' huts, abandoned in winter. The homesteads are massed round the two churches, Catholic and Protestant, most having a narrow strip of garden and balcony carried along the upper storey, which does duty as a drying-ground.
On the mantelpiece and on tables were mingled precious ivories from Japan, trumpery chalets from the Tyrol, choice bits of Sevres and Venetian glass, bottles with ladders and little men inside them, vulgar china fowls sitting on eggs, and a thousand restless little objects screeching in dumb agony at one another. The more one looked the more confounded became confusion.
The families of Grandson, Lesdiguières, and Dohna successively held the barony; and in later times the title de Coppet hid a name more widely known, for on the Châlet of Les Biolles, some distance to the east of La Baronne, the name of Auguste de Staël de Holstein de Coppet is carved, after the fashion of Swiss châlets.
Those who had been living in luxurious hotels were establishing themselves in villas and chalets of the suburbs; the poor, tired of the rations of the slaughter-house, were exerting themselves to find jobs in the public works of the interior. Many were still remaining in Barcelona, meeting together in certain beer gardens to read the home periodicals and talk mysteriously of the works of war.
Crossing the Kreuzer bridge, they made their way past little wooden chalets, through groves of oak where the sunlight came flickering in between the leaves, through pine woods whose long vistas were solemn as cathedral aisles, until at last they gained the summit of the lower range of hills, from which was a glorious view on every hand.
The prettiest view of Amiens was from the banks of the Somme outside the city, on the east side, and there was a charming walk along the tow-path, past market-gardens going down to the river on the opposite bank, and past the gardens of little chalets built for love-in-idleness in days of peace.
No faces of any kind now greeted him there; only trees confronted him, gaunt, ghostlike in the early morning mists. Even the squirrels were yet abed in their miniature Swiss chalets in the air. The sun rose at last, red and threatening. He now met a policeman who looked at him questioningly. Mr. Heatherbloom greeted him with a blitheness at variance with his mood.
There is a nice clean hotel, with broad piazzas and balconies directly on the sea and a few chalets are already built, but there is an absolute dearth of trees and shade. There was quite a strong sea-breeze the day we were there, and the fine white sand was blown high into the air in circles, getting into our eyes and hair.
I conjectured from the heaps of fagots which remained in the yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned of themselves to roost in the room, or on the roof, and from the stacks of hay and straw which stood untouched in the orchard, that the family had gone to gather in a late harvest in the high chalets of the mountain, and had not yet come down again.
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