The country about is most beautiful, and the people simple and kind. My life is devoted to my health. I wish that I could say that I am not still an invalid; but, except when attacked by the pains in my chest, I am now comfortable, and enjoy my baths, my walks, and the repose and incognito which I find here. I begin the day with douches, hot and cold, and when thoroughly exhausted am wrapped in sheet and blanket, and conveyed to my hotel and laid on my bed. After my walk I find myself obliged again to take to my bed for two hours before dinner. But this whole treatment is in pleasant contrast with the protracted sufferings from fire, which made my summer a torment; and yet I fear that I must return again to that treatment. It is with a pang unspeakable that I find myself thus arrested in the labors of life and in the duties of my position. This is harder to bear than the fire. I do not hear of friends engaged in active service, like Trumbull in Illinois, without a feeling of envy.From Aix he went with short pauses to Northern Italy by way of Geneva, Lausanne, Vevay, Soleure, Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen,
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
30
: addresses before colleges and lyceums.—active interest in reforms.—friendships.—personal life.—
1845
-
1850
.
Chapter
36
:
first
session in Congress.—welcome to
Kossuth
.—public lands in the
West
.—the
Fugitive Slave Law
.—
1851
-
1852
.
Chapter
37
: the national election of
1852
.—the
Massachusetts
constitutional convention
.—final defeat of the coalition.—
1852
-
1853
.
Chapter
38
: repeal of the
Missouri Compromise
.—reply to
Butler
and
Mason
.—the
Republican Party
.—address on Granville Sharp.—friendly correspondence.—
1853
-
1854
.
Chapter
39
: the debate on
Toucey
's bill.—vindication of the antislavery enterprise.—
first
visit to the
West
.—defence of foreign-born citizens.—
1854
-
1855
.
[569]
friend.1 The mineral springs of Aix—aluminous and sulphurous, and issuing from the earth with a temperature as high as one can bear—have been sought from the time of the Romans for the cure of rheumatism and other diseases.
The establishment has been much changed since 1858, being enlarged after the cession of Savoy to France.
The town is hemmed in by hills; and within two miles is Lake Bourget, celebrated by Lamartine, on the shore of which, in the monastery of Haute Combe, are the tombs of the princes of the House of Savoy.
In this retreat,2 then far more quiet than now, Sumner remained three weeks, taking baths, hot and cold, at 7 A. M., under the direction of Dr. Davat, the resident physician, and carried from and to his hotel, as is the custom, on a chair or divan, wrapped in a sheet.
He rose late, taking breakfast at 11 A. M., and passing four or five hours of the day on his bed, and retired at eight.
He walked and drove among the vineyards and enjoyed the scenery.
The guests were all strangers;3 but he found one of them, M. Mollier, a French lawyer, very agreeable, and they were correspondents for some years afterwards.
Sumner wrote to E. L. Pierce, September 11:—
1 His search for them is related in his letter to Longfellow, September 15.
2 Sumner lodged at the Hotel Royal, now Hotel d'aix, and had room 47. In May, 1879, the writer met at Aix M. Paul Guibert, son of the proprietor of the hotel when Sumner was there, and also met Dr. Davat.
3 Christopher Pearce Cranch, an American artist, came for a day to sketch while Sumner was there.
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