length, by much persuasion, she agreed
to make us a dinner of some kin d ; it consisted
of a miserable cold trout and an
omelet. Though Moutiers is the capital
of the Tarentaise, there are only two inns
in the place for travellers. The fact is,
few strangers pass this way into Italy, to
encourage improvement in the inns, and
the Savoyards are contented with their
present accommodations.
This town contains about two thousand
inhabitants. Before the French Revolution
it was the seat of the archbishop : the last
archbishop died there, when the French
took possession of Moutiers in 1793. The
episcopal palace still remains, but the fine
cathedral was destoyed, all but the eastern
window. According to the chronicles of
Savoy there had been, during thirteen centuries,
eighteen bishops of Moutiers, and
fifty-seven archbishops. There are some
very ancient churches in the town, and a
few handsome houses. At what period
Moutiers became the capital of the province
is not exactly known. The Ostrogoths,
in the seventh century, and the
Saracens in the ninth, having penetrated
into this part of the Alps, so completely
devastated the Tarentaise, and destroyed
or put to flight all the inhabitants, that no
vestige remains of the ancient Darentasia,
nor is the date of its destruction accurately
ascertained. Some of the particulars of
this desolation are alluded to in the deed
of donation, which Bodolphus, the third
Duke of Burgundy, made of the Tarentaise
to Amazzon, archbishop of the Grecian
Alps, in the year 996. The counts of
Savoy soon began to interfere with the
temporal power of the archbishops, and
after Savoy became a dukedom, the sovereignty
of the archbishops was finally
yielded to the dukes by treaty.
Moutiers is badly supplied with water;
the inhabitants are obliged to make use of
the water of the Isere, which, by passing
over gypsum and limestone, is generally
white and turbid. I have before mentioned
that in the lower part of the valley, where
the river runs over slate, the water is black.
We were shown a handsome house, which
had been built on an eminence above the
town, but which remained uninhabited on
account of the difficulty of getting water,
as there were no springs. There are two
stone bridges at Moutiers over the Isere.
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