At Thoun we breakfasted, and, taking a return carriage, trotted up to Berne, by the valley of which you have already heard so much.  Francois was in waiting for us, and we got comfortable rooms at the Crown.

Our tastes are certainly altering, whether there be any improvement or not.  We are beginning to feel it is vulgar to be astonished, and even in scenery, I think we rather look for the features that fill up the keeping, and make the finish, than those which excite wonder.  We have seen too much to be any longer taken in, by your natural clap-traps; a step in advance, that I attribute to a long residence in Italy, a country in which the sublime is so exquisitely blended with the soft, as to create a taste which tells us they ought to be inseparable.

In this little excursion to the Oberland, while many, perhaps most, of our old impressions are confirmed, its relative beauties have not appeared to be entitled to as high praises as we should have given them, had they not been seen a second time.  We had fine weather, were all in good spirits and happy, and the impression being so general, I am inclined to think, it is no more than the natural effect which is produced by more experience and greater knowledge.  I now speak of the valleys, however, for the high Alps are as superior to the caprices of taste, as their magnificent dimensions and faultless outline are beyond change.

LETTER XVI.

Conspiracy discovered.—­The Austrian Government and the French Carlists.—­Walk to La Lorraine.—­Our old friend “Turc.”—­Conversation with M. W——.—­View of the Upper Alps.—­Jerome Bonaparte at La Lorraine.—­The Bears of Berne.—­Scene on the Plateforme.

Dear ——­,

Soon after we reached Berne, Francois came to me in a mysterious manner, to inquire if I had heard any news of importance.  I had heard nothing; and he then told me that many arrests had just taken place, and that a conspiracy of the old aristocracy had been discovered, which had a counter-revolution for its object.  I say a counter-revolution, for you ought to have heard that great political changes have occurred in Switzerland since 1830, France always giving an impulse to the cantons.  Democracy is in the ascendant, and divers old opinions, laws, and institutions have been the sacrifice.  This, in the land of the Burgerschaft, has necessarily involved great changes, and the threatened plot is supposed to be an effort of the old privileged party to regain their power.  As Francois, notwithstanding he has seen divers charges of cavalry against the people, and has witnessed two or three revolutions, is not very clear-headed in such matters, I walked out immediately to seek information from rather better authority.