France Tramp: Day By Day

May 6 Tuesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Clemens “on this sweetest May morning…I greet you. I have no news to tell, but you are in my thoughts.” Joe warned against being fooled by rum and repeated that he was to teach at Cornell next week [MTP]. Note: clipping enclosed from the Hartford Times ca. late April, 1879, “Julia Smith’s Wedding Reception.” Twichell attached a sheet above the article and wrote, “Read this—the whole of it. It is full of dainty bits.

May 7 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:

“I wish this eternal winter would come to an end. Snow flakes fell to-day, & also about a week ago. Have had rain almost without intermission for 2 months & one week. Have had a fire every day since Sept. 10, & have now just lighted one” [MTNJ 2: 308].

May 8 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

“Called on Tourgènieff [Turgenev] with Boyesen & had cup of tea out of his Samovar” [MTNJ 2: 308].

September 10 Tuesday – Sam wanted to show Livy some of the best scenery of his latest excursion with Joe. His notebook: “Started to Chamonix with 2 horse-wagon, 9.30 [AM]” [MTNJ 2: 177]. They may have stopped in Chambéry, France. “As soon as you strike French territory out of Geneva you find the road strewn with crosses & beggars” [177].

September 11 Wednesday – Sam and Livy spent a day in Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc, a recent goal of Sam and Joe’s tramps.

September 12 Thursday – Sam’s notebook: “Saw 3 people far up on the forhead of M B [Mont Blanc] through the glass waved hdkf [handkerchief]” [MTNJ 2: 179]. “Started back to Geneva at 9” [180]. Sam and Livy returned to Geneva. Sam wrote on Sept. 13 that it was nine hours each way [MTLE 3: 90].

The Clemens family left Chambéry for Turin by the fast express train, which Sam noted “makes  4 miles an hour—the other trains make only 3 1/4 . By 11 we were out of sight  of Chambery.” Three hours from Turin, the train barely won a race with a  team of oxen, Sam wrote [MTNJ  2:185]. It took  eight more hours to arrive in Turin, at about 7 PM. They took rooms in the Hotel  d’Europe, which Sam noted  had “wonderful rooms” [186].  They went to supper and drank Barolo wine.

September 5 Thursday – The two “tramps” left Martigny on foot at 8 AM, bound for Chamonix, nineteen uphill miles in the hot sun. They skirted the Tête Noir Mountain. Sam noted the beauty of Argientiere as they approached [MTNJ 2: 171, 173]. They dined at Argientiere and hired a wagon for the last six miles into Chamonix [Rodney 109; MTNJ 2: 172]. In his notebook, Sam wrote:

September 6 Friday – Sam and Joe took the one-day excursion recommended by the Baedecker travel guide, and climbed the Montanvert. From there they “crossed the Mer de Glace & ascended the confounded moraine.” Sam noted that the most delicious water he had in Europe was from the glacier [MTNJ 2: 185]. Sam’s smooth shoes made him uncomfortable on the ice and had a touch of acrophobia 70 feet above the glacier.

September 7 Saturday – Sam and Joe returned by rail to Geneva, where the family waited [MTNJ 2: 154]

September 15 Sunday Sam’s notebook: