Note E — Chapter X

A modern traveller thus graphically describes the place as he saw it in 1854:—"And now came in view the glorious Balsille, springing from the bed of the Germanasca, and its successive wooded aiguilles rising like pinnacles up the steep roof of a Gothic cathedral.... Around it gape fearful ravines, each with its headlong torrent, separating it from the grand heights of the d'Albergian on the north, and the mount Guignivert on the south; whilst it is attached to the summit of the Col du Pis on the west. The peaks of Balsille are fringed with pines, but the rocks themselves are so pointed and broken that they resemble tops of pines on a Titan scale. There are four principal peaks, and so the mountain has been named Quatre Dents." The term château, or castle, used in this narrative was applied to a kind of grassy platform at the top.