My journeys abroad were approaching an end when in 1882 my daughter and I spent a few weeks in Switzerland, on the shores of the Genevan lake, and in its neighbourhood. One memorable expedition we made was to Grenoble and the Grande Chartreuse. The monastery was difficult of access early in this century, but now there are well-appointed vehicles for conveying tourists from the railway to the gates of this romantic retreat. The ascent as far as Laurent du Pont is up a road lined with acacias, bordering barley fields, commanding glimpses of a magnificent valley, with bosky dells, cut in twain by the river Isere. The gorge to the right increases in grandeur as one ascends. Purple rocks rise from depths of massy verdure, sublimity succeeds beauty, and, after reaching a broad mountain-girdled plain, one arrives at a halting place called Laurent du Pont. Thence the road becomes more steep, winding along ledges of rock, whence, through openings, one looks down on pine woods, and sees the stream fighting its way, like our contested passage through this troublesome world. We reached a thick forest at the top of the pass, and came to the monastery—a pile, of buildings sheltered on green uplands. There were before us long walls, square towers, and steep roofs, dappled with dormer windows; here and there was a slender spire. The buildings stand 4268 feet above the level of the sea, and one of the corridors is 660 feet long. The original foundation dates far back; but little of what one now sees is older than the seventeenth century. The founder was the famous Bruno, who, with six companions, retreated to this spot so secluded and desolate. _Chartre_ signifies a prison, but it also expresses what we mean by the word _charter_. The buildings have been seven times destroyed, but in the seventeenth century the convent reached its meridian glory.