I walked one morning to St. Julian, about two leagues from Geneva; it is pleasantly situated in that part of Savoy which is ceded to France, and which is in fact the most essential part of the country, as it is said this division materially interrupts the communication between those parts which remain with the King of Sardinia.  The object in visiting St. Julian, was principally to see the plain, where after a sharp contest, the Austrians were defeated by little more than half their number of French troops, but having received reinforcements, renewed the action and were victorious.  It must be confessed, that the Austrian troops are much inferior to the French; and the latter having so frequently defeated them, feel quite indignant against the Austrians for the part taken by their government in the invasion of France, and the restoration of the Bourbons.

Most of the French officers I have met with indulge the hope, that some differences at the Congress may occasion a fresh war with Austria.  The French in general join the officers in looking forward to the recovery of what they contend are their natural limits—­the Rhine and Belgium;—­and after so many years of war, are dissatisfied at having no conquests to boast of.

It cannot be however expected that the great bias given to the French in favour of war, by their late ruler, should speedily subside; but the restless and impatient spirit which at present prevails in France, and which would engage immediately in a fresh war, must be in some degree restrained by the exhausted state of their finances; and as it is, many of the taxes are much complained of.

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CHAP.  XII.

I remained at Geneva longer than I had at first intended, and at last quitted it with regret.  I shall ever recollect the time I spent there with pleasure; but the period allotted for my tour would not permit me to remain any longer stationary; and I therefore set off for the mountains of Jura, celebrated for the extensive and varied prospects which they afford of the Alps, &c.  I was much pleased with the scenery of the little lake and valley of Joux, shut out by mountains from the rest of the Canton of Vaud.  At Coponex I met two gentlemen, who were indebted to their horse for having escaped being robbed the evening before.  They were travelling slowly in an open carriage, when suddenly they were ordered to stop by several men of French appearance, who were thought to be disbanded soldiers.  This adventure made a great noise in a neighbourhood, where highway robbery is extremely unusual.  We breakfasted at a neat inn in the village of Lassera, and afterwards went to see the chief curiosity of the place, the separation of a rivulet into two branches, one of which falls into the Lake of Neufchatel, and eventually through the rivers Aar and Rhine into the German Ocean; the other runs into the Lake of Geneva, and by means