{"product_id":"2940015795271","title":"Crossing the St Bernard Mountain Swiss Alps","description":"kindle version of vintage monograph originally published in 1913.  Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 100 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNice history of St Bernard Hospice and Monastery up to 1900.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRead excerpt -\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was with the object of offering shelter to the weary and of rescuing those who succumbed to the in clemencies of these forbidding heights that in the year 962 a pious monk, Bernard, Count of Menthon, whose home was in Savoy, near Annecy, resolved to devote his life and fortune to the founding of a hospice on the summit of the pass. He succeeded in persuading other monks to share with him the dreary life, and thus founded a holy order, named to-day \"Les Chanoines reguliers de St. Augustin.\" Bernard of Menthon himself, afterward canonized by the pope, was elected first prior, and lived forty years at the hospice. His tomb is still standing in the Italian town of Novara. According to the keeper of the royal archives at Turin, whom I consulted on the history of the hospice, it is first mentioned in a document in the year 1108.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the Middle Ages the hospice, being of great importance in the intercourse be¬tween the north and south of Europe, enjoyed the powerful support and protection of the great rulers of that period, notably the German emperors. In return for valuable services, the order was richly endowed, and became in time exceedingly wealthy and prosperous. At the beginning of the sixteenth century it possessed no fewer than ninety-eight livings. The Reformation, however, ended this prosperity, and since then various misfortunes have carried away most of its once very large revenues. Its total income is now about eight thousand dollars, and without the aid received from the Italian and Swiss governments it would be impossible to offer hospitality to the large number of tourists that come every year. As many as five hundred have received free board and lodging in a single day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is to be regretted that so few visitors take notice of the collection-box in the pretty little church. Many well able to pay for the hospitality they receive do not give even so much as they would pay for their entertainment in a third-rate inn. The total amount given by tourists is only a small fraction of the actual expense incurred in entertaining them. The present King of England, who visited the hospice when Prince of Wales, sent a piano, and I could not help wondering how this bulky instrument was brought up the steep mountains. Emperor Frederick of Germany, with his consort, came in 1883, and the prior showed me one of their valuable gifts—a volume of Thomas a Kempis, bearing their signatures.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne must bear in mind that provisions, wood, and all other necessities of life have to be brought up eight thousand feet from the valleys below. For miles about the hospice there is not a tree, not a bush or a single blade of grass, and the view from my window offered nothing but barren rocks, bleak mountains, glaciers, and snow-fields. The mean annual temperature is below the freezing-point, being about the same as Spitzbergen, within the Arctic Ocean! One cannot help admiring the little group of monks, about twelve in number, who, with an equal number of lay brothers and servants, live here, in this highest human habitation of Europe, summer and winter, year after year, till they die. They do not wear the monk's capouch, but the ordinary black sacerdotal robe, with a white cord falling from the neck as a special distinction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir sufferings are sometimes intense. The climate is so severe, and their duties are so arduous, that their constitutions would soon be broken down if they were not allowed to recuperate temporarily at their house in Martigny, their places being taken by other members of this brave and devoted brotherhood.","brand":"history-bytes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069688234224,"sku":"2940015795271","price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015795271_p0.jpg?v=1763632978","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015795271","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}