When Belloc left Undervelier, he walked towards isolation. He could speak French, but no German, and he was now entering the German speaking part of Switzerland.

He probably didn’t help his chances of getting on with anyone by deciding that the man who refused to give him a coffee was a heretic. But still, it inspired a funny song, which he kindly records in the book.

.. Catholic men that live upon wine
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
Benedicamus Domino

Hilaire Belloc The Path to Rome (Ignatius Press 2003), p.165

This is one of the things that I like about Belloc – his absurdist humour. It comes out again when he says,

I… thought what a fine fellow I was, and how pleasant were my friends when I agreed with them.

Ibid

Belloc may have been a staunch Catholic but he had friends far beyond the walls of Rome. I wonder if we can see this in the final verse of his song. He writes,

… as everything ends in death, and as that is just what Heretics least like to be reminded of, I ended thus –

“To my poor self on my deathbed,
And all my dear companions dead,
Because of the love that I bore them,
Dona Eis Requiem

The Path to Rome, p.166

Within the context of the song, which is a celebration of Belloc’s Catholic faith, the companions are no doubt meant to be fellow Catholics. But perhaps by not specifically naming them as such, Belloc is creating a space for his non-Catholic friends who might read the book to see themselves as his deceased friends. Belloc was too generous a man to see good in Catholics and no one else.

Not that he always saw good in Catholics. Belloc is the man, after all, who is quoted as saying,

‘The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.’

Wikiquote

But, I digress. Belloc kept walking. He ate and drank in Moutier, and then took a rest under a tree.

By midday he was on the move again, and passing a hamlet named Gansbrunnen. He stopped at an inn there for some inn. The inn keeper was an old lady, witch like in appearance. Belloc says he ‘made the sign of the evil eye’ (The Path to Rome, p.175) to protect himself against her. He really isn’t trying at all now to make friends.

On leaving the inn Belloc walked up a hill. From the ridge at its peak he saw a plain, and beyond it, the Alps. They made a profound impact on him.

To what emotion shall I compare this astonishment? So, in first love one finds that this can belong to me.

The Path to Rome, p.180

He goes further,

… from the height of the Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean, humility, the fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion, and my confidence in the duel destiny.

Ibid

There is a fly in the ointment, though, for Belloc concludes,

That it is also which leads some men to climb mountain-tops, but not me, for I am afraid of slipping down.

The Path to Rome, p.181

Belloc is being too modest. He loved Elodie Hogan so much, he walked across America to ask her to marry him. For love of God he undertook this pilgrimage. In a few days, he will climb the Alps. He may have been afraid, but he did not let his fear get the better of him. There’s a lesson for us in that.

Belloc walked today until it was dark. He was heading towards Burgdorf but was still a little way from it when he called time and entered an inn. There, he ate, and would have been the butt of the peasants’ jokes there had he not learnt a few words of German along the way. This cut Belloc to the quick as they were fellow Catholics and so shared a great bond with him. He retired to his room, disappointed. Things would not get better tomorrow.