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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #50738 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50738)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Geneva, by Francis Gribble
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Geneva
- Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.
- Described by Francis Gribble.
-
-Author: Francis Gribble
-
-Release Date: December 21, 2015 [EBook #50738]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENEVA ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Shaun Pinder, Charlie Howard, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note: Boldface is indicated by =equals signs=, italics by
-_underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-GENEVA
-
-
-
-
-OTHER BOOKS ON SWITZERLAND
-
-
-THE ALPS
-
- PAINTED BY A. D. M’CORMICK
- DESCRIBED BY SIR MARTIN CONWAY
-
- Containing 62 full-page Illustrations in Colour
-
- =Price 20/- net=
- (_Post free, price 20/6_)
-
-
-MONTREUX
-
- PAINTED BY J. HARDWICKE LEWIS AND
- MAY HARDWICKE LEWIS
- DESCRIBED BY FRANCIS H. GRIBBLE
-
- Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour and a
- Sketch-Map
-
- =Price 7/6 net=
- (_Post free, price 7/11_)
-
-
-OUR LIFE IN THE SWISS HIGHLANDS
-
- BY JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
- AND HIS DAUGHTER MARGARET
-
- With 16 full-page Illustrations in Colour by
- J. HARDWICKE LEWIS
-
- =Price 7/6 net=
- (_Post free, price 7/11_)
-
-
-THE UPPER ENGADINE
-
- PAINTED BY J. HARDWICKE LEWIS
- DESCRIBED BY S. C. MUSSON
-
- Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour
-
- =Price 6/- net=
- (_Post free, price 6/4_)
-
-
-A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: SUNSET ON MONT BLANC FROM ABOVE GENEVA]
-
-
-
-
- GENEVA
-
- PAINTED BY
- J. HARDWICKE LEWIS &
- MAY HARDWICKE LEWIS
- DESCRIBED BY
- FRANCIS GRIBBLE
-
- [Illustration]
-
- LONDON
- ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
- 1908
-
-
-
-
-Contents
-
-
- CHAPTER I
- PAGE
- OLD GENEVA 1
-
-
- CHAPTER II
-
- THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 9
-
-
- CHAPTER III
-
- THE REFORMATION 13
-
-
- CHAPTER IV
-
- THE EXPULSION OF THE NUNS 17
-
-
- CHAPTER V
-
- THE RULE OF CALVIN 23
-
-
- CHAPTER VI
-
- THE TRIUMPH OF THE THEOCRACY 29
-
-
- CHAPTER VII
-
- THE UNIVERSITY 33
-
-
- CHAPTER VIII
-
- PROFESSOR ANDREW MELVILL 39
-
-
- CHAPTER IX
-
- THÉODORE DE BÈZE 43
-
-
- CHAPTER X
-
- WAR WITH SAVOY 51
-
-
- CHAPTER XI
-
- THE ESCALADE 53
-
-
- CHAPTER XII
-
- AN INTERVAL OF QUIET 61
-
-
- CHAPTER XIII
-
- REVOLUTIONS 65
-
-
- CHAPTER XIV
-
- LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 71
-
-
- CHAPTER XV
-
- SAUSSURE 77
-
-
- CHAPTER XVI
-
- MEN OF LETTERS 89
-
-
- CHAPTER XVII
-
- SONGS AND SQUIBS 93
-
-
- CHAPTER XVIII
-
- RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 95
-
-
- CHAPTER XIX
-
- ROMANTICISM 99
-
-
- CHAPTER XX
-
- LATER MEN OF LETTERS 105
-
-
- CHAPTER XXI
-
- VOLTAIRE 107
-
-
- CHAPTER XXII
-
- VOLTAIRE AND THE THEATRE 111
-
-
- CHAPTER XXIII
-
- VISITORS TO FERNEY 119
-
-
- CHAPTER XXIV
-
- COPPET 123
-
-
-
-
-List of Illustrations
-
-
- 1. Sunset on Mont Blanc from above Geneva. J. H. L. _Frontispiece_
-
- FACING PAGE
- 2. L’Église de la Madeleine, Geneva. M. H. L. 6
-
- 3. The Last Snow on the Wooded slopes. M. H. L. 10
-
- 4. Geneva from the Arve. M. H. L. 20
-
- 5. The Bay of Meillerie. J. H. L. 26
-
- 6. Evian les Bains, Hte. Savoie. M. H. L. 34
-
- 7. The Glaciers des Bossons, Chamonix. J. H. L. 38
-
- 8. Yvoire, Hte. Savoie. M. H. L. 44
-
- 9. La Roche, Hte. Savoie. J. H. L. 50
-
- 10. The Castle of Etrembières, Hte. Savoie. J. H. L. 56
-
- 11. Nyon Castle, looking across the Lake to Mont Blanc. J. H. L. 62
-
- 12. Montenvers and Aiguilles Verte and Dru. J. H. L. 68
-
- 13. The Jura Range from Thonon, Hte. Savoie. J. H. L. 74
-
- 14. The Aiguille and Dôme du Goûter, Mont Blanc. M. H. L. 80
-
- 15. The Statue of Jean Jacques Rousseau on the Island in the
- Rhone, Geneva, from Hôtel des Bergues. J. H. L. 90
-
- 16. The Head of Lake Annecy, Hte. Savoie. J. H. L. 96
-
- 17. Nernier, Hte. Savoie. M. H. L. 100
-
- 18. The Chateau de Prangins. M. H. L. 110
-
- 19. A Vaudoise: Summer. M. H. L. 120
-
- 20. The Tricoteuse: Winter. M. H. L. 128
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-OLD GENEVA
-
-
-Towns which expand too fast and become too prosperous tend to lose
-their individuality. Geneva has enjoyed that fortune, and has paid that
-price for it.
-
-Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the bluest lake in the
-world, looking out upon green meadows and wooded hills, backed by the
-dark ridge of the Salève, with the ‘great white mountain’ visible in
-the distance, it has the advantage of an incomparable site; and it
-is, from a town surveyor’s point of view, well built. It has wide
-thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public monuments and
-well-kept public gardens; handsome theatres and museums; long rows
-of palatial hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations, and a
-casino. But all this is merely the façade--all of it quite modern;
-hardly any of it more than half a century old. The real historical
-Geneva--the little of it that remains--is hidden away in the
-background, where not every tourist troubles to look for it.
-
-It is disappearing fast. Italian stonemasons are constantly engaged
-in driving lines through it. They have rebuilt, for instance, the old
-Corraterie, which is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous for its
-confectioners’ and booksellers’ shops; they have destroyed, and are
-still destroying, other ancient slums, setting up white buildings of
-uniform ugliness in place of the picturesque but insanitary dwellings
-of the past. It is, no doubt, a very necessary reform, though one may
-think that it is being executed in too utilitarian a spirit. The old
-Geneva was malodorous, and its death-rate was high. They had more than
-one Great Plague there, and their Great Fires have always left some of
-the worst of their slums untouched. These could not be allowed to stand
-in an age which studies the science and practises the art of hygiene.
-Yet the traveller who wants to know what the old Geneva was really like
-must spend a morning or two rambling among them before they are pulled
-down.
-
-The old Geneva, like Jerusalem, was set upon a hill, and it is towards
-the top of the hill that the few buildings of historical interest are
-to be found. There is the cathedral--a striking object from a distance,
-though the interior is hideously bare. There is the Town Hall, in
-which, for the convenience of notables carried in litters, the upper
-stories were reached by an inclined plane instead of a staircase.
-There is Calvin’s old Academy, bearing more than a slight resemblance
-to certain of the smaller colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. There,
-too, are to be seen a few mural tablets, indicating the residences of
-past celebrities. In such a house Rousseau was born; in such another
-house--or in an older house, now demolished, on the same site--Calvin
-died. And towards these central points the steep and narrow, mean
-streets--in many cases streets of stairs--converge.
-
-As one plunges into these streets one seems to pass back from the
-twentieth century to the fifteenth, and need not exercise one’s
-imagination very severely in order to picture the town as it appeared
-in the old days before the Reformation. The present writer may claim
-permission to borrow his own description from the pages of ‘Lake Geneva
-and its Literary Landmarks’:
-
-‘Narrow streets predominated, though there were also a certain number
-of open spaces--notably at the markets, and in front of the Cathedral,
-where there was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which Geneva was
-presently to repudiate with virtuous indignation. One can form an idea
-of the appearance of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest houses
-that one has seen in Switzerland all closely packed together--houses at
-the most three stories high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or
-two below the level of the roadway, and huge arched doors studded with
-great iron nails, and looking strong enough to resist a battering-ram.
-Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted
-escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned
-on the window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns,
-flaunted gaudy sign-boards with ingenious devices. The Good Vinegar,
-the Hot Knife, the Crowned Ox, were the names of some of these; their
-tariff is said to have been fivepence a day for man and beast.
-
-‘The streets, being narrow, were also very generally crowded, and were
-particularly crowded in the evenings. From the stuffy houses--and even
-in these days of sanitation a really old Swiss house is sometimes
-stuffy enough to make the stranger gasp for breath--the citizens of
-high as well as low degree sallied to take their pleasure in the
-street. The street was their drawing-room. They stood and gossiped
-there; they sat about on benches underneath their windows. Or some
-musician would strike up a lively tune, and ladies of the highest
-position in society--the daughters and wives of Councillors and
-Syndics--attired in velvets and silks and satins, would dance
-round-dances in the open air. For all their political anxieties, these
-early Genevans were, on the whole, a merry people.
-
-‘But--let there be no mistake about it--they made merry in the midst of
-filth and evil smells. On this point we have unimpeachable information
-in the shape of a rescript issued by the Chapter of the Cathedral after
-conference with the Vidomne and the Syndics. The Chapter complains that
-too many citizens dispose of their slops by carelessly throwing them
-out of window, and establish refuse-heaps outside their front-doors--a
-noisome practice which still prevails in many of the Swiss villages,
-though no longer in any of the Swiss towns. It is also complained
-that nearly every man has a pig-sty, and lets his pigs run loose in
-the streets for exercise, and that there is an undue prevalence of
-such unsavoury industries as the melting of tallow and the burning
-of the horns of cattle. One can imagine the net result of this great
-combination of nuisances. In a city of magnificent distances it might
-have passed. Bayswater, at the present day, lives in ignorance of the
-smells of Bermondsey. But in Geneva, when Geneva was almost as small
-as Sandwich, one can understand that the consequences were appalling
-to the nostrils of the polite. The fact that the city was so overrun
-with lepers and beggars that two lazar-houses and seven _hôpitaux_--or
-casual wards, as one might say--had to be provided for their reception,
-adds something, though not perhaps very much, to this unpleasant side
-of the picture.
-
-[Illustration: L’ÉGLISE DE LA MADELEINE, GENEVA]
-
-‘Our ecclesiastical rescript further proves that while the Genevans
-were a merry and a dirty, they were also an immoral, people. It records
-that they are unduly addicted to the game of dice, and that the outcome
-of this pastime is “fraud, deception, theft, rapine, lies, fights,
-brawls, and insults, to say nothing of damnable blasphemy”; and it
-ordains that any man who “swears without necessity” shall “take off his
-hat and kneel down in the place of his offence, and clasp his hands,
-and kiss the earth”--or pay a fine of three halfpence if he fail to do
-so. Then it proceeds to propound an elaborate scheme for the State
-regulation of immorality, forbidding certain indulgences “to clergymen
-as well as laymen”; and requiring the Social Evil to wear something in
-the nature of a Scarlet Letter to distinguish her from other women.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
-
-
-In the first half of the sixteenth century occurred the two events
-which shaped the future of Geneva: Reformation theology was accepted;
-political independence was achieved.
-
-Geneva, it should be explained, was a fief of the duchy of Savoy; or
-so, at all events, the Dukes of Savoy maintained, though the citizens
-were of the contrary opinion. Their view was that they owed allegiance
-only to their Bishops, who were the Viceroys of the Holy Roman Emperor;
-and even that allegiance was limited by the terms of a Charter granted
-in the Holy Roman Emperor’s name by Bishop Adhémar de Fabri. All
-went fairly well until the Bishops began to play into the hands of
-the Dukes; but then there was friction, which rapidly became acute.
-A revolutionary party--the Eidgenossen, or Confederates--was formed.
-There was a Declaration of Independence and a civil war.
-
-So long as the Genevans stood alone, the Duke was too strong for them.
-He marched into the town in the style of a conqueror, and wreaked his
-vengeance on as many of his enemies as he could catch. He cut off the
-head of Philibert Berthelier, to whom there stands a memorial on the
-island in the Rhone; he caused Jean Pecolat to be hung up in an absurd
-posture in his banqueting-hall, in order that he might mock at his
-discomfort while he dined; he executed, with or without preliminary
-torture, several less conspicuous patriots. Happily, however, some of
-the patriots--notably Besançon Hugues--got safely away, and succeeded
-in concluding treaties of alliance between Geneva and the cantons of
-Berne and Fribourg. The men of Fribourg marched to Geneva, and the
-Duke retired. The citizens passed a resolution that he should never
-be allowed to enter the town again, seeing that he ‘never came there
-without playing the citizens some dirty trick or other’; and, the more
-effectually to prevent him from coming, they pulled down their suburbs
-and repaired their ramparts, one member of every household being
-required to lend a hand for the purpose.
-
-[Illustration: THE LAST SNOW ON THE WOODED SLOPES]
-
-Presently, owing to religious dissensions, Fribourg withdrew from the
-alliance. Berne, however, adhered to it, and, in due course,
-responded to the appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand
-men in motion. The route of the seven thousand lay through the canton
-of Vaud, then a portion of the Duke’s dominions, governed from the
-Castle of Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at Yverdon, they
-annexed the territory, placing governors (or _baillis_) of their own
-in its various strongholds. The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving his
-garrison to surrender; and in its deepest dungeon was found the famous
-prisoner of Chillon, François de Bonivard. From that time forward
-Geneva was a free republic, owing allegiance to no higher power.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-THE REFORMATION
-
-
-The Reformation occurred simultaneously with the political revolution;
-and the informal historian, who is under no compulsion to take a side,
-is inevitably impressed less by the piety of the Reformers than by
-their uproarious behaviour. Their leader--the ringleader in their
-disturbances--was Farel, a hot-headed Frenchman from Gap, in Dauphiné.
-He hounded the people on to wreck the churches; he invaded the pulpits
-of other preachers without invitation, and confuted them therefrom; he
-once broke up an ecclesiastical procession, and, snatching an image
-out of the priest’s hand, threw it over the bridge into the river.
-Moreover, as was natural, he included among his devoted followers many
-evangelists whose zeal was, like his own, conspicuously in excess of
-their discretion. Of one of them, Pastor Malingre of Yverdon, it is
-recorded by a contemporary chronicler that ‘his methods were not very
-evangelical--he used to crown the Roman Catholic priests with cow-dung.’
-
-Reform was already in the air when Farel came to Geneva to preach. The
-new doctrine had been bruited abroad by pedlars from Nuremberg, who ate
-meat on Fridays, and expressed the opinion that ‘the members of the
-religious Orders ought to be set to work in the fields, that the saints
-were dead and done for, and that it was nonsense to pray to them,
-seeing that they could render no assistance.’ So we read in Bonivard’s
-‘Chronicle’; but, even so, Geneva was not quite prepared to receive
-Farel with open arms. He was haled before an ecclesiastical court,
-and accused of preaching the Gospel in an inappropriate costume--‘got
-up like a gendarme or a brigand.’ One burly monk gave him a ‘coup de
-pied, quelque part,’ and the monks collectively proposed to throw him
-into the Rhone; and, though the laity protected him from clerical
-violence, the Syndic ordered him to quit the town within six hours, as
-an alternative to being burnt alive. He went, and three years passed
-before he returned and triumphed in a theological disputation held in
-the great hall of the Couvent de la Rive.
-
-The result of that disputation was, as has been written, that
-‘religious liberty was taken away from the Roman Catholics and given
-to the Protestants.’ The celebration of the Mass, so recently a solemn
-duty, now became a high crime and misdemeanour; and the victorious
-Reformers proceeded, like the French anti-clericals of our own day, to
-the expulsion of monks and nuns. The first to go were the Sisters of
-the Convent of Sainte-Claire, founded in 1476 by Yolande, wife of Duke
-Amadeus IX. of Savoy and sister of Louis XI. of France. We have a full
-account of their ejection from the pen of one of them, Sister Jeanne de
-Jussie, afterwards Lady Superior of a convent at Annecy.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-THE EXPULSIONS OF THE NUNS
-
-
-The Sisters had long been exposed to annoyance by Reformers of the
-baser sort. One such Reformer, having occasion to call at the convent
-on some municipal business, had insisted on washing his hands in the
-holy water, and had boasted, when he got outside, that he had been
-privileged to kiss the nuns all round--‘a foul lie,’ says Sister
-Jeanne, ‘for he did not even attempt to kiss any one of us.’ Another
-Reformer had preached against them, declaring that they ought to be
-‘turned out and compelled to marry in accordance with the commandment
-of God’; and the congregation had been so impressed by the discourse
-that the younger men among the worshippers had climbed up on to the
-convent wall, and sat there singing amorous songs for the edification
-of the inmates.
-
-No official action was taken, however, until after the conclusion of
-the disputation above referred to, though then it followed quickly.
-Fifteen Reformers, including Farel and Viret, called at the convent,
-declined the invitation to say what they had to say through the
-grating, but threatened to force the door if they were not admitted.
-The door was opened to them, therefore, and all the Sisters being
-summoned before them in the chapter-house, Farel ‘spoke in terms of
-vituperation of the holy cloister, of religion, of chastity, and of
-virginity, in a way that went to the hearts of the poor Sisters.’ The
-others kept silence, but Mère Vicaire protested, interrupted, and
-screamed. Our narrative proceeds:
-
-‘She stationed herself between the Sisters and the young men, saying:
-
-‘“Since your preacher is such a holy man, why don’t you treat him with
-respect and obedience? You’re a pack of young rascals, but you won’t
-make any progress here.”
-
-‘Whereat they were all indignant, and exclaimed:
-
-‘“What the devil is the matter with the woman? Are you mad? Go back to
-your place.”
-
-‘“I won’t,” she said, “until these young men leave the Sisters alone!”’
-
-So Mère Vicaire was put out of the room; and the preacher resumed his
-discourse on the institution of matrimony. We read that ‘when he
-referred to the corruption of the flesh, the Sisters began to scream’;
-and that when he spoke of the advantages of married life, the Mère
-Vicaire, who was listening at the key-hole, began to batter at the
-panels, exclaiming: ‘Don’t you listen to him, my sisters; don’t you
-listen to him.’ So, after labouring at the conversion of the Sisters
-from ten o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon,
-the Reformers retired discomfited. A crowd of three hundred persons was
-waiting for them outside the gate, prepared to offer marriage to any
-nun whom they might have persuaded to accompany them; but they came
-forth alone, the last to leave being thumped on the back by a nun who
-desired to hurry his departure.
-
-It transpired, however, that one of the Sisters--‘the ill-advised
-Sister Blasine’--had been converted by the Reformers’ arguments.
-The other nuns tried to detain her, but the citizens broke into the
-convent and fetched her out in triumph, and also insisted that the
-convent should provide her with a dowry and pay her damages for the
-disciplinary whippings inflicted upon her during her membership of
-the Order. It was the culminating outrage. The nuns decided to leave
-Geneva, and the Lady Superior applied to the Syndic for an armed
-escort. The request was granted, and the ‘dolorous departure’ began.
-Three hundred soldiers were turned out to see the Sisters safely across
-the bridge over the Arve, where the territory of Geneva ended. It
-was the first time since their taking of the veil that they had been
-outside the convent walls, and some of them had spent all their lives
-in the cloister and grown old there, so that they were in no fit state
-to travel thus on foot. Let Sister Jeanne tell us what befell them:
-
-[Illustration: GENEVA FROM THE ARVE]
-
-‘Truly it was a pitiful thing to see this holy company in such
-condition, so overcome by pain and toil that several of them broke down
-and fainted by the way--and that on a rainy day and in a muddy road,
-and with no means of getting out of their trouble, for they were all on
-foot, except four invalids who were in a cart. There were six poor aged
-Sisters, who had been for sixteen years members of the Order, and two
-who for sixty-six years had never been outside the convent gate. The
-fresh air was too much for them. They fainted away; and when they saw
-the beasts of the fields, they were terrified, thinking that the cows
-were bears, and that the sheep were ravening wolves. Those who met them
-could not find words to express their compassion for them; and,
-though the Mère Vicaire had given each Sister a stout pair of boots to
-keep her feet dry, the greater number of them would not walk in boots,
-but carried them tied to their girdles, and in this way it took them
-from five o’clock in the morning until nearly nightfall to reach Saint
-Julien, though the distance is less than a league.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-THE RULE OF CALVIN
-
-
-Stories such as those related above make it clear that rowdyism was
-likely to be the note of the Reformation at Geneva so long as Farel
-remained at the head of ecclesiastical affairs. With all his fiery
-zeal for Gospel truth, he was no better than a theological demagogue;
-and what Geneva wanted at the moment was not a demagogue, but a
-disciplinarian. Calvin supplied that need. He was a Protestant wanderer
-over the face of the earth, and he came to Geneva on his way from Italy
-to Strassburg. Farel, who had come to know his own limitations, called
-upon him in his inn, and prevailed upon him to stay and help him to
-keep order in the town, and, in particular, to help him to suppress
-certain Libertines, or Friends of Liberty, who had been protesting that
-the Reformers had no right to ‘require the citizens to attend sermons
-against their will,’ and demanding ‘liberty to live as they chose
-without reference to what was said by the preachers.’ Calvin, after
-much hesitation, consented, and so a new era began.
-
-It was not the work of a day. Calvin began energetically enough,
-admonishing Bonivard for undue familiarity with his servant-maid,
-standing a gambler in the pillory with a pack of cards hung round his
-neck, imprisoning a hairdresser for making a client look too beautiful,
-and endeavouring to throw ridicule upon conjugal infidelity by obliging
-an offender to ride round the town on a donkey. But the recalcitrants
-fought stubbornly for the right of living as they chose. The people
-who wanted to live dissolute lives allied themselves with the people
-who wanted unleavened bread to be used for the Holy Communion; and the
-coalition was powerful enough to get Calvin and Farel first forbidden
-to meddle with politics, and then ordered to leave the town within
-three days.
-
-They were no sooner gone, however, than they began to be missed. The
-disorders, rampant during their absence, became intolerable, and there
-was some danger that the Duke of Savoy might see his way to take
-advantage of them. A majority of the citizens came to the conclusion
-that strict regulations were to be preferred to insecurity, and they
-sent ambassadors to Calvin, inviting him to return, and to ‘stay
-with them for ever because of his great learning.’ He agreed to do
-so, and they voted him a small but sufficient salary, and gave him a
-strip of cloth to make him a new gown. In return, he drafted for their
-acceptance a new and original constitution, whereby the morals, and
-even the manners, of the community were placed under ecclesiastical
-supervision. That was the famous Theocracy, established in 1541, which
-seemed to John Knox to make Geneva ‘the most perfect school of Christ
-that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles.’ A recital
-of a few of the enactments, taken from a contemporary translation
-entitled ‘The Laws and Statutes of Geneva,’ will be the most simple
-means of presenting the picture of the social life of the town under
-the regime:
-
-
-‘THE LAWS AND STATUTES OF GENEVA.
-
-‘Item, that none shall play or run idly in the streets during the time
-of Sermons on Sundays, nor days of prayer, nor to open their shops
-during the sermon time under pain without any favour.’
-
-‘Item, that no man, of what estate, quality, or condition soever he
-be, dareth be so hardy to make, or cause to be made, or wear hosen or
-doublets, cut, jagged, embroidered, or lined with silk, upon pain to
-forfeit.’
-
-‘Item, that no Citizen, Burger, or Inhabitant of this City dareth be so
-hardy to go from henceforth to eat or drink in any Tavern.’
-
-‘Item, that none be so hardy to walk by night in the Town after nine of
-the clock, without candle-light and also a lawful cause.’
-
-‘Item, that no manner of person, of what estate, quality or condition
-soever they be, shall wear any chains of gold or silver, but those
-which have been accustomed to wear them shall put them off, and wear
-them no more upon pain of three score shillings for every time.’
-
-‘Item, that no women, of what quality or condition soever they be,
-shall wear any verdingales, gold upon her head, quoises of gold,
-billiments or such like, neither any manner of embroidery upon her
-sleeves.’
-
-[Illustration: THE BAY OF MEILLERIE]
-
-‘Item, that no manner of person, whatsoever they be, making bride-ales,
-banquets, or feasts shall have above three courses or services to the
-said feasts, and to every course or service not above four dishes, and
-yet not excessive, upon pain of three score shillings for every time,
-fruit excepted.’
-
-‘Item, that no manner of men shall go to the baths appointed for women,
-and also women not to go to those that be appointed for men.’
-
-‘Item, that no manner of person do sing any vain, dishonest or
-ribaldry songs, neither do dance, nor make masques, mummeries, or any
-disguisings in no manner or sort whatsoever it be, upon pain to be put
-three days in prison with bread and water.’
-
-‘Item, that all Hosts and Hostesses shall advertise their guests, and
-expressly forbid them not to be out of their lodging after the Trumpet
-sound to the Watch or ringing of the Bell (which is at nine of the
-clock), upon pain of the indignation of the Lords.’
-
-‘Item, that all Hosts and others shall make their prayers to God, and
-give thanks before meat and after upon pain of forty shillings and for
-every time being found or proved, and if the Hosts or Hostesses be
-found negligent and not doing it, to be punished further as the case
-requireth.’
-
-‘Item, that none do enterprise to do, say, nor contract anything out
-of this City that he dare not do or say within the same concerning the
-Law of God and Reformation of the Gospel, upon pain to be punished
-according as the case requireth.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-THE TRIUMPH OF THE THEOCRACY
-
-
-Such was the constitution in theory; and, if we want to see it at work,
-we have only to turn to the Register of the Consistory, in which we
-may read how the citizens were punished for peccadilloes. One woman,
-we find, got into trouble for saying her prayers in Latin, and another
-for wearing her hair hanging down her back. One man was punished for
-wearing baggy knickerbockers in the street; a second for offering his
-snuff-box to a friend during the sermon; a third for talking business
-to a neighbour as he was coming out of church; a fourth for calling his
-cow by the Scriptural name Rebecca; a fifth for likening the braying
-of his donkey to the chanting of a psalm. There was also the case of
-a workman whose property was confiscated because he did not relieve
-the indigence of his aged parents; of a child stood in the pillory
-and publicly whipped for throwing a stone at its mother; of a mother
-imprisoned for carelessly dropping her baby on the floor; and of a
-young lady solemnly arraigned on the charge of casting amorous glances
-at a minister of the Word.
-
-Not everybody, of course, approved of such elaborate interference with
-liberty. The Friends of Liberty resisted it as long as they could,
-and their methods of resistance were not passive. They set their dogs
-at Calvin; they openly ridiculed him; they came drunk to church and
-brawled. But Calvin was a match for them. Pierre Amaulx, who said of
-him that he ‘thought as much of himself as if he were a Bishop,’ was
-compelled to apologize, bareheaded, in public; and all those who tried,
-as Calvin put it, to ‘throw off the yoke of the Gospel’ came to a bad
-end. One of them, Raoul Monnet, was beheaded for inviting young men
-to look at indecorous pictures; and the party was ultimately broken
-up as the result of a row in the streets. They were very drunk, and
-were threatening certain of the Reformers with violence, when Syndic
-Aubert, hearing their noise, came out and faced them in his nightgown,
-carrying his staff of office in one hand and a lighted candle in the
-other. Thus attired and equipped, he placed himself at the head of the
-watch, summoned the soldiers to his aid, and put the rioters to rout.
-Some of them were killed in the scuffle; others were captured, tried,
-and executed; while the remnant escaped into the country, where, for
-a period, they eked out a precarious existence by means of highway
-robbery.
-
-From that time forward Calvin’s supremacy was undisputed. The principal
-use which he made of it was to burn Servetus; but that is a thorny
-branch of the subject into which it is better not to enter. Our modern
-Calvinists do not, indeed, hold that Servetus deserved to be burnt, but
-they do sometimes maintain that Calvin did no great harm in burning
-him. There might be some risk of putting them to confusion if the
-topic were pursued; and this is not a controversial work. We shall be
-on safer ground if we turn aside to consider Calvin’s services to the
-State as an educationist.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-THE UNIVERSITY
-
-
-In Old Geneva education had been neglected. Emperor Charles IV. had
-offered the citizens a University in the fourteenth century, and the
-offer had been rejected for fear, it was alleged, lest the students
-should behave uproariously. The first public school was not opened
-in the town until 1429. It lasted for about a hundred years, and
-then fell upon evil times during an epidemic of the plague. The head
-master ran away from the contagion, and the City Council ordered the
-building to be closed, on the ground that the children were knocking it
-to pieces. Then, in 1535, after the Protestants had gained the upper
-hand, the École de la Rive was established in the convent from which
-the Cordeliers had been expelled. The first head-master was Antoine
-Saulnier, a Dauphiné Reformer, and his prospectus ran as follows:
-
-‘In our school the lectures begin at five o’clock in the morning and
-continue until ten, which is our usual dinner hour. The ordinary
-curriculum consists of instruction in the three most excellent
-languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, not to mention the French
-language, which, in the opinion of the learned, is by no means to be
-despised. We hope that, the Lord helping us, the time will come when we
-shall also teach rhetoric and dialectic.’
-
-[Illustration: EVIAN LES BAINS, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-Calvin, however, wanted something better than the École de la Rive.
-He found a means, therefore, of founding a University, and placed
-Théodore de Bèze (of whom more presently) at the head of it as Rector.
-It was, at first, as Mark Pattison clearly proved in his ‘Life of
-Isaac Casaubon,’ little more than a grammar school, culminating in a
-theological college; but it soon expanded, and is still expanding.
-Nowadays, indeed, housed in commodious new buildings, it furnishes
-instruction in almost every imaginable branch of knowledge, and
-specially favours studies of a utilitarian character; but the original
-programme was confined to the humane letters, the funds for the
-maintenance of the institution being raised with difficulty, and
-by means of ingenious fiscal devices, hardly to be held up to the
-imitation of modern fiscal reformers.
-
-One device was to ear-mark for the University chest all the fines
-imposed upon law-breakers. Those who gave short measure in the market,
-and those who spoke evil of the magistrates, were alike mulcted in
-the interests of learning; the heaviest contribution was that exacted
-from a bookseller convicted of having charged an excessive price for
-a copy of the Psalms of David. A second method consisted in summoning
-all the notaries of the town before the Council, and instructing them,
-when any citizen called them in to make his will, to impress upon the
-testator the desirability of bequeathing something to the University;
-the result was a total gain of 1,074 florins, including 312 florins
-from Robert Estienne, the printer, and 5 sous from a poor woman in the
-baking business. A third contrivance was to suppress a public banquet,
-and require the cost, estimated at 100 florins, to be handed to the
-University authorities.
-
-In this way the University--such as it was--was started, with
-class-rooms for the scholars and apartments for the professors, who
-were allowed to supplement their incomes by taking boarders. Everything
-was poorly done, however, and nobody appears to have been comfortable.
-Complaints of one sort and another are recorded, in large numbers,
-in the Register of the Council. For one thing, there was no heating
-apparatus, but ‘the teachers used to keep up charcoal fires at their
-own expense, and require every pupil to pay something towards them.’
-For another thing, there was no glass in the windows, and we read that
-‘as to the request of the Principal that glass windows shall be placed
-in the class-rooms, it is decided that this shall not be done, but that
-the scholars may, if they like, fill up the apertures with paper.’ The
-teachers, too, were constantly expressing dissatisfaction with the
-accommodation provided for them. As early as 1559 we have one of them
-applying for a more commodious lodging, on the ground that ‘God has
-called him to the estate of matrimony.’ A little later we come upon
-this note:
-
-‘Claude Bridet requested permission to lodge above the Tower, where
-M. Chevalier, lecturer in Hebrew, used to live, for the sake of his
-health, and because the lower ground is damp. Decided that he must be
-satisfied with his present apartment, and that the place to which he
-refers shall be kept for someone else.’
-
-In spite of discomfort, however, hard work was the order of the
-day. A letter has been preserved from M. de Bèze, the Rector of the
-University, to the parent of a pupil, in which he says: ‘I fear
-I shall be able to make nothing of your son, for, in spite of my
-entreaties, he refuses to work more than fourteen hours a day.’ The
-ordinary curriculum did not call for quite such persistent application
-as that, but was, none the less, sufficiently severe.
-
-The day began, at 7 a.m., with prayers, roll-call, and lessons. At 8.30
-there was half an hour’s rest, during which the pupils were instructed
-to ‘eat bread, praying while they did so, without making a noise.’ From
-9 to 10 there were more lessons, terminating with more prayers; from
-10 to 11 the scholars dined; from 11 to 12 they sang psalms; from 12
-to 1 there were further lessons, inaugurated by prayer; from 1 to 2
-there was a quiet time devoted to eating, writing, and informal study;
-from 2 to 4 there was a final instalment of lessons; and at 4 there was
-punishment parade in the great college hall.
-
-The punishments were mainly corporal, and were inflicted so frequently
-that the milder professors protested. ‘The daily fustigations,’ said
-Mathurin Cordier, ‘disgust the children with the study of the humane
-letters; moreover, their skins get hardened like the donkeys’, and
-they no longer feel the stripes.’ It should be added, however, that
-the stripes were not so often inflicted for neglect of the humane
-letters as for misbehaviour in church. The children had to attend three
-services every Sunday and one every Wednesday, in addition to the
-frequent daily prayers at school. They talked and played, as children
-will, to the scandal of their elders, and they played truant whenever
-they saw a chance. It must be admitted to be an indication of imperfect
-discipline that these peccadilloes were often solemnly reviewed before
-the Town Council, instead of being summarily dealt with at a Court of
-First Instance in the head-master’s study. The Councillors, however,
-showed no sentimental tendency to spare the rod. They might fine
-offenders whom their police caught in the streets when they ought to
-have been availing themselves of the means of grace; but they also very
-generally turned them over to the scholastic authorities to be whipped.
-A typical case is that of two lads who were caught playing quoits on
-the ramparts during the hours of Divine service on a Sunday morning.
-
-[Illustration: THE GLACIERS DES BOSSONS, CHAMONIX]
-
-‘Resolved,’ runs the entry, ‘to hand them over to M. de Bèze, that he
-may cause them to be given such a fustigation as will prevent them from
-doing it again.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-PROFESSOR ANDREW MELVILL
-
-
-It does not appear that the fustigations at first formed brilliant
-scholars. The University was, for a long time, more famous for its
-professors than for its pupils. Few learned men, at that period, were
-regarded as prophets in their own countries; and a goodly proportion of
-those who were so regarded had to emigrate for fear of being stoned.
-Many of the fugitives settled at Geneva, and taught there; and the
-readiness of the welcome accorded to the men who were considered
-suitable may be illustrated from the career of Andrew Melvill, the
-Scottish scholar, who subsequently reformed the Scottish Universities,
-and went to profess theology at Sedan. Andrew Melvill had been teaching
-in a college at Poictiers, and the town had been besieged by the
-Huguenots. Then--
-
-‘The siege of the town being raised, he left Poictiers, and accompanied
-by a Frenchman, he took journey to Geneva, leaving books and all
-there, and carried nothing with him but a little Hebrew Bible in his
-belt. So he came to Geneva, all upon foot, and as he had done before
-from Dieppe to Paris, and from that to Poictiers; for he was small
-and light of body, but full of spirits, vigorous, and courageous.
-His companions of the way, when they came to the inn, would lie down
-like tired dogs, but he would out and sight the towns and villages,
-whithersoever they came. The ports of Geneva were carefully kept,
-because of the troubles of France, and the multitude of strangers that
-came. Being therefore inquired what they were, the Frenchman, his
-companion, answered:
-
-‘“We are poor scholars.”
-
-‘But Mr. Andrew, perceiving that they had no wish for poor folks, being
-already overlaid therewith, said:
-
-‘“No, no; we are not poor! We have as much as will pay for all we take
-as long as we tarry. We have letters from his acquaintance to Monsieur
-de Bèze; let us deliver those, we crave no further.”
-
-‘And so, being convoyed to Beza and then to their lodging, Beza
-perceiving him a scholar, and they having need of a Professor of
-Humanity in the College, put him within two or three days to trial
-in Virgil and Homer; wherein he could acquit himself so well that
-without further ado, he is placed in that room of profession; and at
-his first entry a quarter’s fee is paid him in hand. So that howbeit
-there was but a crown to the fore betwixt them both, and the Frenchman
-weak-spirited and wist not what to do, yet he found God’s providence to
-relieve both himself and help his companion till he was provided.’
-
-There follows a picture of Melvill’s life in the city:
-
-‘In Geneva he abode five years; during the which time his chief study
-was Divinity, whereon he heard Beza’s daily lessons and preachings;
-Cornelius Bonaventura, Professor of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac
-languages; Portus, a Greek born, Professor of the Greek tongue, with
-whom he would reason about the right pronunciation thereof; for the
-Greek pronounced it after the common form, keeping the accents; the
-which Mr. Andrew controlled by precepts and reason, till the Greek
-would grow angry and cry out:
-
-‘“_Vos Scoti, vos barbari! docebitis nos Græcos pronunciationem linguæ
-nostræ, scilicet?_”
-
-‘He heard there also Francis Hotman, the renownedst lawyer in his time.
-There he was well acquainted with my uncle, Mr. Henry Scrymgeour,
-who, by his learning in the laws and policy and service of many noble
-princes, had attained to great riches, acquired a pretty plot of ground
-within a league of Geneva, and built thereon a trim house called “the
-Vilet,” and a fair lodging within the town, all which, with a daughter,
-his only born, he left to the Syndics of the town.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-THÉODORE DE BÈZE
-
-
-Calvin died and was buried with his fathers--not before it was time,
-in the opinion of a good many of his critics--and was succeeded in the
-dictatorship by Théodore de Bèze, whose name is commonly latinized as
-Beza.
-
-The two men had always worked well together; but they differed
-widely both in their antecedents and in their dispositions. Calvin,
-a theologian from his earliest years, had had no hot youth, no
-unregenerate days. Monsieur de Bèze, born of a good old Burgundian
-family, had been a man of the world before he became a man of God;
-before he versified the Psalms he had written verses which his enemies
-described as indecorous; when he enrolled himself among the Reformers,
-the first person whom he had to reform was himself; for, though there
-does not seem to be any truth in the statement of the Jesuit Maimbourg
-that he had a love-affair with the wife of a tailor, there is no
-denying that he had betrayed a young woman of humble birth under
-promise of marriage, and had allowed four years to elapse before
-fulfilling his promise. Moreover, he kept his high spirits when he
-settled down to virtuous courses; and his fellow-citizens were so
-delighted with his jollity that it became a saying in Geneva that it
-would be better to go to hell with Beza than to heaven with Calvin.
-
-[Illustration: YVOIRE, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-As a man of letters M. de Bèze was principally occupied with
-theological controversy, and, as has been said, with the production of
-his metrical version of the Psalms of David; but his contributions to
-religious disputation sometimes took the form of farce and burlesque.
-He was part author of a satire entitled _Cuisine Papale_, and devoted
-his great gifts to the composition of a rollicking drinking song, in
-which a certain burner of heretics thus bewails the loss of his nose:
-
- ‘O nose that must with drink be dyed!
- O nose, my glory and my pride!
- O nose, that didst enjoy a-right--
- Nose, my alembic of delight!
- My bibulous big bottle-nose,
- As highly coloured as the rose,
- ‘It was my hope that thou wouldst share
- My shifting fortunes everywhere.
- A Churchman’s nose thou wast indeed--
- The partner of his prayers and creed;
- Proof against all doctrinal shocks,
- And never aught but orthodox.’
-
-Let that suffice. It is rather vulgar fooling; but to have omitted
-all mention of it would have been to give an imperfect impression of
-the Reformer. He owed some of his influence with the vulgar to the
-fact that he knew how to descend to their level; and he needed all his
-influence, for he had to guide Geneva through perilous times. There
-was a terrible epidemic of the plague; innumerable fugitives from the
-Massacre of St. Bartholomew took refuge in the town; there was a long
-war with Savoy.
-
-In the case of the plague the difficulty was, as it always had been
-at Geneva, to compel the doctors and the clergy to do their duty to
-the sick. A note in the Register of the Council shows us how, in the
-days before the Reform, the monks had envisaged their obligations.
-The canons of the cathedral, it there appears, passed the following
-resolution:
-
-‘In view of the fact that the plague is suspected to exist in the town,
-the reverend fathers vote themselves a month’s holiday from the duty
-of residing there and attending to the services; their stipends, in the
-meantime, to continue to be paid.’
-
-The month’s holiday, we also gather, was subsequently extended to a
-year, with the same liberal stipulation as to emoluments; and after the
-Reformation we find the Protestant clergy displaying an equal timidity
-in the presence of the disease. The entry concerning them runs thus:
-
-‘The ministers appeared before the Council confessing that it was their
-duty to go and offer consolation to the sufferers from the plague,
-but that not one of them had the courage to do so. They begged the
-Council to overlook their weakness, seeing that God had not given
-them the grace to brave and overcome the peril with the intrepidity
-required--always excepting Matthew Geneston, who is quite willing to
-go, if the lot should fall upon him.’
-
-M. de Bèze, one is glad to know, was made of sterner stuff than these
-weak brethren. Not only were the sick properly visited during his term
-of office. Precautions--fatuous, but well meant--were taken against
-the propagation of the disorder. The Register of the Council is full
-of references to them. Sufferers were ordered not to open their
-windows; convalescents were enjoined to carry white sticks when they
-went abroad, in order that they might be recognized and avoided; it was
-forbidden to eat fruit or to take a bath, as this was believed to be
-a means of catching the infection. We have a note on hospital reform.
-It was ordered that male and female patients should be treated in
-separate wards, in order that certain scandals might be prevented. We
-find a doctor reprimanded for doing his duty negligently. ‘The Sieur
-Bauhin, plague-doctor, is ordered to see his patients in their houses
-instead of being satisfied with having them brought to the window for
-a consultation.’ Finally, we read that ‘the Council, at the request of
-the Ministers, orders all the citizens to frequent the sermons with
-assiduity, in order to turn away the wrath of God which would appear,
-from the continuance of the plague, to be violently aroused against the
-town.’
-
-Then, while the plague was still lingering, came the news of the
-dreadful doings of St. Bartholomew’s Day. Merchants from Lyons brought
-the tidings, predicting the speedy arrival of the victims who had
-escaped the butchery; and preparations were made to entertain them
-hospitably. M. de Bèze dispatched pastors to greet them at the
-frontier, and preached a sermon on the situation, bidding the citizens
-decree a special day of prayer and fasting--the _Jeûne Genevois_, which
-is still observed, though as an occasion of junketing rather than of
-abstinence.
-
-On that occasion, however, the Genevans were very far from junketing.
-They did indeed fast and pray; and on the first day of September the
-arrival of the long train of fugitives began. They were truly fugitives
-rather than immigrants; that is to say, they had fled empty-handed,
-travelled in hourly terror of their lives, and arrived in a state of
-utter destitution. Let it be added that there were 2,300 of them, and
-that contemporary statistics show that there were in Geneva, at that
-period, only 1,200 householders. Imagining the sudden influx of 2,300
-paupers into a town of the size of Sandwich, one begins to realize the
-economic situation thus created. To realize it completely one must
-further remember that Geneva was already on the verge of bankruptcy;
-and that a collection, for the benefit of the fugitives, which realized
-4,000 livres, so exhausted the resources of the town that the proposal
-to make a second collection had to be abandoned.
-
-Severe economy was naturally the order of the day. The only recorded
-example of public extravagance during this period is an order that,
-as the chairs in the Council Chamber were too hard for the comfort of
-the Councillors, they should be padded; and even this outlay may have
-been due to a desire to find work for those who needed it. On the other
-hand, the indications of distress are numerous and startling.
-
-One such indication is furnished by the report of a debate of the
-Venerable Company of Pastors. It was proposed that a deputation should
-wait upon the magistrates ‘to inform them how scantily they provide for
-their clergy in times when everything is dear, the fact being that even
-ministers with no families but only wives to support are absolutely
-unable to live upon their salaries.’ But the proposal was rejected on
-the ground that the magistrates were already aware of the distress
-of the clergy, and could do little to help them, and that it would
-never do for it to be said that the clergy had applied for increased
-emoluments at a time of general impoverishment. ‘It is better,’ the
-resolution continued, ‘to endure our sufferings, leaving it to God to
-relieve them when it seems good to Him; but if any of our brethren are
-too hard pressed, they may declare their condition to the magistrates,
-and ask assistance from them privately.’
-
-Still more sorrowful was the case of the immigrant pastors from France,
-who had no wages. The magistrates distributed a certain amount of
-money among them, and advised them that, as no more was likely to be
-forthcoming, they would be wise to lay out a part of it in learning a
-business or a trade. Their reply is worth preserving:
-
-‘For several weeks,’ they said, ‘their position had been very painful;
-they felt their indebtedness to the Genevans the more acutely because
-no one reminded them of it; and they had decided to do with as little
-as possible to eat until the spring, when they hoped to have better
-news from their own country.’
-
-[Illustration: LA ROCHE, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-WAR WITH SAVOY
-
-
-The situation righted itself by degrees, with the help of subscriptions
-from other Swiss cities; but then there was another deadly peril to be
-faced. The pretensions of Savoy were not yet extinguished. The Duke was
-still determined to capture Geneva, whether by violence or by stealth,
-believing that the act would be equally advantageous to the Church and
-to himself. Two attempts to ‘rush’ the town in time of peace--once by
-means of soldiers who were to enter concealed in barges laden with
-wood, and once by means of armed men disguised as muleteers--induced
-the Council to meet and resolve to ‘ask the advice of God and M. de
-Bèze’; and, from 1589 onwards, there was open war, in which 2,186
-Genevans held their own against 18,000 Savoyards.
-
-The atrocities committed by the Savoyard soldiers were numerous and
-terrible. We read of one prisoner of war being skinned alive; of
-another who, with his feet amputated, was driven about on a donkey with
-his face to the tail, and then flung on a dunghill to die. We also read
-of peasants being hung up to be roasted alive over the fire-places in
-their own cottages. It is not wonderful that the Genevan soldiers held
-that this sort of thing gave them the right to retaliate, at least by
-pillaging, when they gained the upper hand. The wonderful thing is
-that, when they did pillage, M. de Bèze called them to order, and was
-listened to. He told them that they were degrading Geneva to the level
-of a brigand’s cave, and bade them make instant restitution of the
-plunder which they had taken from the peasantry. It is recorded that
-they obeyed him, and there could be no better proof that M. de Bèze was
-a strong man.
-
-These hostilities came to an end in 1589, owing to the intervention of
-Henri IV. of France; but the peril was not conjured. Baffled in the
-field, Duke Charles Emmanuel fell back upon treachery, and planned the
-adventure known to history as the Escalade. It is the most notable
-episode in all the Genevan annals. Fragments of scaling-ladders, kept
-as memorials of the ignominious failure of the enterprise, are still
-proudly exhibited in one of the town museums. The story must be told at
-length.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-THE ESCALADE
-
-
-The time was December, 1602. Duke Charles Emmanuel had secretly crossed
-the mountains, and established his head-quarters at Etrembières; a
-sufficient army had been quietly mobilized; there were 800 Savoyards,
-1,000 Spaniards, 400 Neapolitans, and 4,000 Piedmontese at Bonne, La
-Roche, Bonneville, and other places near Geneva. The Duke had also
-been at pains to allay suspicion by assuring the Genevans, through his
-agents, that he desired nothing more than to be on friendly terms with
-them. But at midnight of December 12 he set his troops in motion.
-
-A storming-party of some two hundred men led the way, under the
-command of M. Berlonière, who had extreme unction administered to
-him ostentatiously before he started. The main body of 4,000 men was
-to follow under Lieutenant-General d’Albigni. Acting on information
-received, the storming-party struck the Corraterie rampart at a point
-where there was no sentinel on the look-out for them. They carried with
-them faggots and hurdles to help them over the moat, ladders that could
-be dovetailed together to scale the rampart with, and axes and crowbars
-for breaking down or forcing gates. A Scotch Jesuit, named Alexander,
-gave them his benediction as they climbed, and handed to every man an
-amulet which purported to guarantee him in the first instance against
-being killed, and in the second instance against being damned eternally
-if he were killed.
-
-Fortune at first smiled upon their efforts. They succeeded in attaining
-the rampart unobserved, and kept quiet, waiting for d’Albigni and
-the dawn. A single sentinel whom they met was slain in silence. But
-presently a small company of the watch passed by upon its rounds.
-Upon these, too, the soldiers flung themselves, and most of them were
-quickly pitched over into the moat. One gun went off, however, and
-one man managed to escape. He was the drummer, and he ran along the
-rampart, drumming as he went, as far as the Porte de la Monnaie. It
-was enough. The alarm was given. The invaders saw that they must fight
-in the dark, instead of waiting for the dawn. ‘_Vive Espagne!_’ they
-shouted. ‘_Ville gagnée! Tue, Tue!_’ and dashed down into the streets,
-expecting d’Albigni and his 4,000 men to follow them.
-
-But this was what d’Albigni and his 4,000 men could not do. Chance--or
-the hand of Providence--had interfered to save Geneva. A message to say
-that the city was as good as captured had already been sent off to the
-Duke of Savoy at Etrembières; and the Duke was dispatching couriers
-to announce his victory at all the Courts of Europe. But it happened
-that the Genevans at the Porte Neuve loaded a cannon to the muzzle
-with chains, and any other old iron that came to hand, and fired it in
-a direction parallel with the rampart. Had the aim been bad, Geneva
-would have fallen that night beyond a doubt. But the aim was good, and
-the shot broke the ladders into pieces, so that no one could climb by
-them any more; and there was Lieutenant-General d’Albigni with his
-army helpless in the moat, while the storming party was caught in a
-trap within the walls. The citizens snatched up their weapons, and
-hurried down, half dressed, to give them battle in the dark. Their
-pastor, Simon Goulart,[A] who wrote a jubilant description of the
-episode, declared that he himself would have been delighted to join in
-the affray if only he had had a coat of mail. A worthy woman, who was
-making soup for an early breakfast, flung the scalding fluid, saucepan
-and all, out of window on to the heads of the intruders. Other missiles
-were showered upon them from other windows; while the number of armed
-men who faced them in the open steadily increased. In the end, after
-inflicting upon the Genevans a loss of seventeen killed and twenty
-wounded, they were swept back into the moat, leaving many dead and
-thirteen prisoners behind them.
-
- [A] Simon Goulart (1543-1628) was a Frenchman, who accepted the
- Reformation in 1565, and came to Geneva in 1566. In 1572 he
- was made pastor of the Church of St. Gervais. After the death
- of M. de Bèze he became President of the Venerable Company.
- He wrote more than fifty books on various subjects.
-
-[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF ETREMBIÈRES, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-‘_Misérable butor, vous avez fait une belle cacade_’--‘Blockhead, you
-have made a pretty mess of it’--was Charles Emmanuel’s greeting to
-d’Albigni when he heard the truth; and with that he mounted his horse
-and rode away to Turin, without even troubling to hear the fate of his
-prisoners. These, it should be added, were all beheaded in the course
-of the next day; while the heads of those who had been killed were
-collected and spiked, as an ornament to the ramparts and a terror
-to evil-doers.
-
-M. de Bèze, who was now an old man and very deaf, had slept through the
-fighting undisturbed, and knew nothing of it until his friends told
-him the story the next morning. Though he had now retired from the
-active duties of the pastorate, he dressed himself and went down to the
-Cathedral of St. Pierre, where he mounted the pulpit stairs and called
-upon the congregation to sing Psalm cxxiv.--the Psalm which begins:
-
- ‘If the Lord Himself had not been on our side, now may Israel say:
- if the Lord Himself had not been on our side, when men rose up
- against us.’
-
-The Psalm which ends:
-
- ‘Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the
- fowler: the snare is broken, and we are delivered.
-
- ‘Our help standeth in the name of the Lord: who hath made heaven
- and earth.’
-
-It was the old Reformer’s last public appearance--and a fitting one,
-giving as it does the last dramatic touch to the most dramatic incident
-in Genevan annals. He lived until 1605, but he was growing feebler
-and feebler. He suffered from no actual malady, but it was obvious to
-all that the light was flickering out. His intellect, however, was
-clear until the last, and the picture of his last days, drawn by his
-biographer, Antoine La Faye, recalls Bunyan’s picture of the Christian
-pilgrims waiting in the Land of Beulah for their summons to cross the
-river to the shining city.
-
-The Venerable Company of Pastors in conclave resolved that no day
-should be allowed to pass without at least two of their number paying
-him a visit. For the rest he found his pleasure in reading grave and
-pious colloquies and sermons, and particularly in those words of
-Augustine: ‘Long have I lived; long have I sinned. Blessed be the name
-of the Lord!’ And, at the last, ‘without pain, and without a struggle,
-all his senses, as it seemed, failing him simultaneously, in one single
-instant, he gave back his soul to God, his bodily pilgrimage having
-lasted eighty-six years, three months, and nine days, and forty of his
-years having been spent in the holy office of the ministry.’
-
-‘M. de Bèze,’ La Faye continues, ‘was a man of sturdy build,
-conspicuous beauty, and health so vigorous that he often said that he
-did not know the meaning of a headache. He displayed high talents,
-accurate judgment, a tenacious memory, and remarkable eloquence, while
-in courtesy of manner he was second to no one. In view of the great
-gifts thus recited, and his great age (though these are things less to
-be regarded than his learning and his piety), many used to speak of M.
-de Bèze as the Phœnix of his time.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-AN INTERVAL OF QUIET
-
-
-M. de Bèze was succeeded in the Presidency of the Venerable Company
-of Pastors by Simon Goulart--the warrior whom we have seen excusing
-himself for not fighting against the Duke of Savoy on the ground that
-he had no coat of mail. In his new office, however, Simon needed no
-armour, for the period from the Escalade of 1603 to the Revocation of
-the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was quiet and uneventful. The great name
-of the epoch was that of Jean Diodati, Milton’s friend, the theologian
-who pulverized the Arminians at the Synod of Dordrecht. Other names
-are those of Trembley, Tronchin, Turretini, and Calendrini; and
-there is not a name among them which need detain us. The town was at
-peace with its neighbours; commerce and industry flourished; and the
-ecclesiastical discipline gradually lost its grip upon the city, or
-was, at least, restricted to a narrower field of usefulness. We hear of
-a good many new sumptuary laws, but we also gather that many of them
-were only a means of accentuating class distinctions, and that there
-was a growing difficulty in enforcing them. We find persons burnt alive
-for witchcraft at the beginning of the period, but not towards the end
-of it; we hear of doubts diffusing themselves as to the efficacy of
-torture in extracting the truth from witnesses; and we find even heresy
-dealt with less rigorously than of old. A heretic who was sentenced
-to be ‘strangled in the usual manner’ had the sentence, without
-difficulty, commuted into one of ten years’ banishment.
-
-[Illustration: NYON CASTLE, LOOKING ACROSS THE LAKE TO MONT BLANC]
-
-The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes inevitably brought a fresh flood
-of immigrants--1,450 in a single week, 800 in a single day--but Geneva
-was by no means disposed to welcome them so hospitably as in the time
-of M. de Bèze. Seventy years of prosperity had sapped some of the
-primitive virtues of the people; they had conceived a dread of foreign
-competition, and of the pauper alien, even though the pauper alien was
-an exile for conscience’ sake. Their disposition was rather to seek
-excuses for passing the pauper aliens on, and make them chargeable upon
-the hospitality of their Swiss allies, or of the Germans or the Dutch.
-To some extent they succeeded; but a considerable number of the
-immigrants settled in the town in spite of the political disabilities
-imposed upon them, and soon became a source of trouble. All through the
-eighteenth century--or at all events from 1707 until 1794--there was
-intermittent political turmoil. A detailed account of the agitations
-and disturbances hardly falls within the scope of such a work as the
-present; but it may be as well to sum them up, and describe their
-general character.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-REVOLUTIONS
-
-
-The Transvaal troubles which culminated in the South African War
-may furnish an analogy which will help to make the situation clear;
-the story being, in fact, a long story of acrimonious relations
-between Burghers and Uitlanders. The Burghers were, in the main,
-the descendants of the families already possessed of the rights
-of citizenship in the half-century following the Reformation; the
-Uitlanders were the descendants of immigrants who had settled in the
-city since that period. The Burghers enjoyed political rights, and
-the Uitlanders did not; the gulf between the two classes was only
-occasionally passed by an exceptional Uitlander whom the Burghers
-considered ‘fit.’ By degrees, however, the Uitlanders became more
-numerous than the Burghers, and a form of government which had been a
-democracy became an oligarchy, in which many of the most intelligent
-and reputable citizens had no voice.
-
-For a time the system worked well enough, or at all events worked
-without any outward signs of friction; but throughout the eighteenth
-century friction was constantly occurring, and insurrections, described
-by some historians as revolutions, broke out at intervals. There were
-revolutions of sorts in 1707, in 1737, in 1766, in 1782, and in 1789,
-with minor revolutions intervening. The recognized mode of composing
-the troubles was to invite the mediation of foreign Powers, and
-more particularly of France. The first step of the French mediator
-was generally, as we shall see, to demand that a theatre should be
-opened and a company of comedians installed in it for his diversion.
-But he also mediated, the result of his mediation being to arrange a
-compromise between the rival claims. Each compromise did something
-to improve the position of the Uitlanders; but no compromise really
-removed their grievances or satisfied their claims.
-
-This brings us to the date of the French Revolution, which, as was
-inevitable in the circumstances, had its very audible repercussion
-at Geneva. The doctrine that ‘all men are equal before the law, and
-ought to enjoy the same political rights,’ was seed which fell there
-upon a fruitful soil. As might have been expected, French methods of
-propagandism were imitated, and Jacobinical clubs were formed--the
-Sans-culottes, the Montagnards, the Marseillais, the Égalité. The
-clubmen constituted a party known as the Égaliseurs, or Equalitarians,
-and demanded a new constitution, based upon the principle of the
-sovereignty of the people, and the admission of all Uitlanders to the
-full rights of citizenship. On the night of September 4, 1792, there
-was a rising. The gates of the town were seized; the members of the
-Government were arrested; a Provisional Government was proclaimed, with
-the mission of drafting a new constitution on the approved democratic
-lines.
-
-So far, so good. But the account of what follows reads like a burlesque
-of the revolutionary proceedings across the frontier. The workmen left
-their work, and paraded the streets in red caps, singing revolutionary
-songs. The extremists banded themselves into a society styled ‘the
-Tanners,’ pledged to ‘tan,’ or assault and batter, the aristocrats,
-whom they called Englués, or Stick-in-the-muds, whenever and wherever
-they met them taking their walks abroad. Nor did such informal acts
-of violence suffice. The next step was to arrest all the aristocrats
-who had not fled from the town, lock them up in the Grenier de
-Chantepoulet, and improvise a revolutionary tribunal to judge them.
-
-[Illustration: MONTENVERS AND AIGUILLES VERTE AND DRU]
-
-The proceedings of the tribunal were conducted with true republican
-_sans-gêne_. The judges sat on the bench in their shirt-sleeves, with
-their pipes in their mouths and their pistols in their belts. Happily,
-however, as if they were half conscious that their proceedings were
-farcical, they were less murderous in their sentences than their
-French models. Though 600 aristocrats were condemned, the majority
-of them escaped with sentences of fines, imprisonment, or exile, and
-the death sentence was only passed upon seven of them. The seven were
-shot by torch-light at the Bastions; and then the people began to be
-horrified by the atrocities which they had perpetrated. There was a
-reaction, a counter-revolution, and a great ceremony of reconciliation
-in the cathedral. The leaders of the rival factions shook hands in the
-presence of the assembled populace, and swore to forgive and forget and
-work together thenceforward for the good of their common country. They
-kept their oaths, and all promised well until the French Directorate
-cast covetous eyes upon Geneva, found a pretext for its annexation, and
-made it the capital of the new department of Leman. It remained
-French until the last day of the year 1813, when Napoleon’s misfortunes
-gave the citizens the opportunity of throwing off the yoke, and they
-sought and obtained admission to the Swiss Confederation.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
-
-
-It has been remarked as curious that the Age of Revolution at Geneva
-was also the Golden Age--if not of Genevan literature, which has never
-really had any Golden Age, at least of Genevan science, which was of
-world-wide renown. The explanation probably is that these Genevan
-revolutions, over which the Genevan historians have spilt such a
-quantity of ink, were not such very important matters after all. So far
-as one can make out, the graver of them were hardly more grave than the
-Peterloo massacre, while the less grave hardly attain to the gravity of
-the Bloody Sunday Riots. A man of letters who took part in one of them
-on the losing side might suffer unpleasant consequences. He might have
-his writings burnt by the common hangman, as Bérenger’s were; he might
-be driven into exile, as were de Lolme, who went to London, where he
-wrote his famous work on the British Constitution, and d’Ivernois, who
-went to Paris and became one of the most pungent critics of republican
-administration and finance. Such things might happen, and in many cases
-did. But there were no such violent or such continual disturbances as
-need take up the whole of a literary man’s time, or prevent him from
-getting on with his work.
-
-The period, at any rate, is one in which notable names meet us at
-every turn. There were exiled Genevans, like de Lolme, holding their
-own in foreign political and intellectual circles; there were emigrant
-Genevan pastors holding aloft the lamps of culture and piety in many
-cities of England, France, Russia, Germany, and Denmark; there were
-Genevans, like François Lefort, holding the highest offices in the
-service of foreign rulers; and there were numbers of Genevans at Geneva
-of whom the cultivated grand tourist wrote in the tone of a disciple
-writing of his master. One cannot glance at the history of the period
-without lighting upon names of note in almost all departments of
-endeavour. The period is that of de Saussure, Bourrit, the de Lucs,
-the two Hubers, great authorities respectively on bees and birds; Le
-Sage, who was one of Gibbon’s rivals for the heart of Mademoiselle
-Suzanne Curchod; Senebier, the librarian who wrote the first literary
-history of Geneva; St. Ours and Arlaud, the painters; Charles Bonnet,
-the entomologist; Bérenger and Picot, the historians; Tronchin,
-the physician; Trembley and Jallabert, the mathematicians; Dentan,
-minister and Alpine explorer; Pictet, the editor of the _Bibliothèque
-Universelle_, still the leading Swiss literary review; and Odier, who
-taught Geneva the virtue of vaccination.
-
-It is obviously impossible to dwell at length upon the careers of
-all these eminent men. As well might one attempt, in a survey on the
-same scale of English literature, to discuss in detail the careers of
-all the celebrities of the age of Anne. One can do little more than
-remark that the list is marvellously strong for a town of some 30,000
-inhabitants, and that many of the names included in it are not only
-eminent, but interesting. Jean André de Luc, for example, has a double
-claim upon our attention as the inventor of the hygrometer and as the
-pioneer of the snow-peaks. He climbed the Buet as early as 1770, and
-wrote an account of his adventures on its summit and its slopes which
-has the true charm of Arcadian simplicity. He came to England, was
-appointed reader to Queen Charlotte, and lived in the enjoyment of that
-office, and in the gratifying knowledge that Her Majesty kept his
-presentation hygrometer in her private apartments, to the venerable age
-of ninety.
-
-Bourrit is another interesting character--being, in fact, the spiritual
-ancestor of the modern Alpine Clubman. By profession he was Precentor
-of the Cathedral; but his heart was in the mountains. In the summer
-he climbed them, and in the winter he wrote books about them. One of
-his books was translated into English; and the list of subscribers,
-published with the translation, shows that the public which Bourrit
-addressed included Edmund Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Bartolozzi, Fanny
-Burney, Angelica Kauffman, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, George
-Augustus Selwyn, Jonas Hanway, and Dr. Johnson. His writings earned
-him the honourable title of Historian (or Historiographer) of the
-Alps. Men of science wrote him letters; princes engaged upon the grand
-tour called to see him; princesses sent him presents as tokens of
-their admiration and regard for the man who had taught them how the
-contemplation of mountain scenery might exalt the sentiments of the
-human mind.
-
-[Illustration: THE JURA RANGE FROM THONON, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-Tronchin, too, is interesting; he was the first physician who
-recognized the therapeutic use of fresh air and exercise, hygienic
-boots, and open windows. And so is Charles Bonnet, who was not afraid
-to stand up for orthodoxy against Voltaire; and so is Mallet, who
-travelled as far as Lapland. But space forbids any long examination
-of their achievements. The most that one can do is to illustrate the
-epoch by narrating the events of one career; and the career selected
-must of necessity be that of the man of whom his contemporaries always
-spoke, with the reverence of hero-worshippers, as ‘the illustrious de
-Saussure.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-SAUSSURE
-
-
-Horace Benedict de Saussure, who, like so many eminent Genevans,
-was of French extraction, was born in 1740. Nominally, his work in
-life, entered upon at the age of twenty-two, was that of Professor
-of Philosophy at the Geneva University; but his real work, continued
-almost until his death, was that of the explorer, student, and exponent
-of the mountains. Some time before the end he was able to boast that
-he had crossed the Alps by eight different passes, made sixteen other
-excursions to the centre of the range, and travelled in the Jura,
-the Vosges, and the mountains of Dauphiné. His marriage--he married
-young--by no means hindered him from climbing. Madame de Saussure
-indeed objected, quite failing to understand his readiness to forsake
-the comforts of the hearth in order to revolutionize the science of
-geology. But he put his foot down in a letter which may perhaps be
-read with profit by other ladies besides her to whom it was addressed:
-
-‘In this valley, which I had not previously visited, I have made
-observations of the greatest importance, surpassing my highest hopes;
-but that is not what you care about. You would sooner--God forgive me
-for saying so--see me growing fat like a friar, and snoring every day
-in the chimney-corner after a big dinner, than that I should achieve
-immortal fame by the most sublime discoveries, at the cost of reducing
-my weight by a few ounces and spending a few weeks away from you. If,
-then, I continue to undertake these journeys in spite of the annoyance
-they cause you, the reason is that I feel myself pledged in honour to
-go on with them, and that I think it necessary to extend my knowledge
-of this subject, and make my works as nearly perfect as possible. I say
-to myself: Just as an officer goes out to assault the fortress when the
-order is given, and just as a merchant goes to market on market-day, so
-must I go to the mountain when there are observations to be made.’
-
-Nor was it only in the domestic circle that de Saussure could put his
-foot down if required. In one of the Genevan revolutions--that of
-1782--he also showed his mettle in an energetic fashion. He was a
-magistrate at the time, and one day, when he came down to the Hôtel
-de Ville, he found that the popular party had risen in revolt, and
-seized the building. The rioters requested him to take his place, and
-exercise magisterial functions on lines which they would dictate. When
-he refused, they arrested him, but released him on the following day.
-Then, hearing that they proposed to search his house for arms, he
-decided to resist. He, Trembley, the mathematician, his family, his
-servants, and his dog, constituted the tiny garrison. They barricaded
-the doors, stationed themselves at the windows armed with muskets, and
-successfully defied a gang of revolutionists who came to blow them
-up with hand-grenades. His assailants were reduced to threatening to
-murder his friends if he did not surrender; and it was only this final
-menace that brought about the capitulation of the Genevan Fort Chabrol.
-
-Our business here, however, is not with the politician, but with the
-traveller and the man of science. His widest celebrity is no doubt due
-to his famous ascent of Mont Blanc. If he was not the first man to
-climb that mountain, he was, at any rate, the first to believe that
-it could be climbed. Bourrit, as late as 1773, had written of ‘the
-absolute impossibility of attaining to its summit.’ De Saussure, as
-early as 1760, had offered a reward to anyone who could find a way to
-the top, and undertaken to pay a day’s wages to anyone who tried and
-failed. The reward was not claimed until twenty-six years later, when
-Jacques Balmat got it. When the way was found, de Saussure, though
-now forty-seven years of age, at once made haste to follow it. His
-ascent--the third--was accomplished on August 3, 1787; he published a
-short pamphlet, giving an account of it, in the course of the same year.
-
-[Illustration: THE AIGUILLE AND DÔME DU GOÛTER, MONT BLANC]
-
-The climb was, beyond question, a great feat for a philosopher of
-forty-seven, and it brought the name of de Saussure under the notice
-of thousands of people who would never otherwise have heard of him. A
-still greater feat, accomplished a little later, was the camping out,
-for something over a fortnight, on the Col du Géant. But it is not
-upon either of these feats that de Saussure’s real fame reposes. He is
-reckoned among great men partly because he was the first student of
-geology who knew his business, and partly because he is the only Alpine
-writer of his period whose works have stood the test of time.
-
-The geologists who preceded him fall into two classes. There were the
-mere fossilizers, who had about as much claim to be considered men of
-science as have the stamp-collectors of the present day; there were
-the theorists who geologized, so to say, in the air, threw out hasty
-generalizations from their studies, and thought it beneath their
-dignity as philosophers to correct these hypotheses by the further
-observation of phenomena. De Saussure combined their methods. His life
-was one long, patient study of geological phenomena. But he collected
-in order to collate; his aim was always to see the part in its relation
-to the whole, the particular in its relation to the general; and he
-had a fine contempt for the amateurs who collected fossils in the same
-spirit in which they might have collected pottery or bric-à-brac.
-
-‘The one aim,’ he wrote, ‘of most of the travellers who call
-themselves naturalists is the collection of curiosities. They walk,
-or rather they creep about, with their eyes fixed upon the earth,
-picking up a specimen here and a specimen there, without any eye to a
-generalization. They remind me of an antiquary scratching the ground
-at Rome, in the midst of the Pantheon or the Coliseum, looking for
-fragments of coloured glass, without ever turning to look at the
-architecture of these magnificent edifices.’
-
-The most remarkable thing, however, is that de Saussure, being a
-geologist, should have been a stylist. He certainly never meant to
-be one. He would never have written a book merely to show his skill
-in word-painting; his one purpose in writing was to communicate
-discoveries of importance. At the time when Bourrit was making himself
-famous by his picturesque descriptions of the Alps, the greater man
-wrote to him modestly: ‘I too have an idea of publishing something
-on the natural history of these mountains. It is with that end in
-view that I have been studying them for so many years.’ And in the
-introduction of his great work, he apologizes for what seems to him
-the baldness of his style: ‘More practised in climbing rocks than in
-polishing phrases, I have attempted nothing more than to render clearly
-the objects which I have seen, and the impressions which I have felt.’
-
-It was an apology offered without affectation or false modesty. It
-announced a departure from the literary fashion of the day, which was
-to write of the mountains in the language of high-flown sentiment.
-Rousseau had set the fashion; Ramond de Carbonnière, the philosopher
-of the Pyrenees, was ready to carry it on; de Luc and Bourrit were
-doing what they could. De Saussure wished to announce himself as the
-disciple of none of these, but as the plain man who had made a careful
-study of his subject, and wished to be heard because of what he had to
-say and not because of his manner of saying it. He hardly understood
-that he was, in the full sense of the word, a man of letters--a
-literary artist. That is a point which has since been settled in his
-favour by his readers.
-
-He might easily have written a treatise that would have been invaluable
-to specialists and intolerable to everyone else. Guided by a sure
-instinct, he preferred to write the narrative of his journeys, taking
-the reader, as it were, by the hand, making him his confidant, showing
-him his discoveries in the order in which he makes them, and so luring
-him on to take an interest in a subject generally accounted dull.
-And, though his first care was always to observe, and to collate his
-observations, with a view to the advancement of learning, there always
-was in him something of the poet, which must out from time to time,
-temporarily giving the go-by to the man of science.
-
-One finds this vein of poetry in the writings of most men of
-science--naturally, seeing that they used gifts of imagination
-differing from those of the poet only in being disciplined and
-chastened, and ready to submit to the thraldom of the established fact.
-Sometimes, indeed, the vein of poetry has interfered with business,
-as in the case of the ingenious Scheuchzer, who laid himself out to
-prove that there were dragons in the Alps, or, in a less degree, in
-the case of Buffon. But, whether it interferes with business or not,
-there the vein of poetry almost always is. Such old men of science as
-Conrad Gesner, and such modern men of science as Huxley and Tyndall,
-have shown us with what striking effect it can be worked. It is because
-de Saussure worked it so well that his writings still live, though,
-regarded merely as textbooks, they have long since been superseded.
-
-The humanity of the man is continually flashing out at us in the
-reflections and anecdotes with which he illustrates the manners of the
-strange peoples in the strange places which he visited. Sometimes it is
-a flash of humour, as when he inquires the motives that impel men to
-be chamois-hunters, a trade that never pays. ‘It is the dangers,’ he
-concludes; ‘the constant alternation of hopes and fears, the continual
-emotion thus engendered, which excite the hunter, just as they excite
-the gambler, the soldier, the navigator, and even, to a certain extent,
-the naturalist of the Alps.’
-
-Sometimes it is a touch of pathos, as in the story of the old woman of
-Argentière whose father, husband, and brothers had all perished, within
-a few days, from an epidemic:
-
-‘After she had given me some milk, she asked me where I came from, and
-what I was doing there at that season of the year. When she knew that
-I was from Geneva, she told me that she could not believe that all
-the Protestants were to be damned; that God was too good and too just
-to condemn us all without distinction. Then, after reflecting for a
-moment, she shook her head and added: “But what is so strange to me is
-that of all those who have been taken away from us, not one has ever
-come back. I,” she went on, with a look of pain “have wept so for my
-husband and my brothers, and have never ceased to think of them, and
-every night I implore them to tell me where they are, and whether they
-are happy. Surely, if they existed anywhere, they would not leave me in
-this doubt. But perhaps,” she went on, “it is because I am not worthy
-of this favour. Perhaps the pure and innocent souls of those children
-there”--she pointed to the cradle as she spoke--“are conscious of their
-presence, and enjoy a happiness that is denied to me.”’
-
-Truly a wonderful passage to find embedded in a valuable and solid
-treatise on geology. Ramond never surpassed it though he laid himself
-out to do so, and--in his earlier works, at all events--never allowed
-geological considerations to stand in the way of sentiment.
-
-It is sad to relate that, after having made himself known to all Europe
-as ‘the illustrious de Saussure,’ the pioneer of geological discovery
-fell upon evil days. But so it was. His health broke down; in 1794
-he began to have paralytic strokes. His fortune--the greater part of
-it, at all events--was lost through the collapse of securities during
-the French Revolution. He was on the side that suffered most in the
-political disturbances which the Revolution engendered at Geneva.
-
-In the midst of those disturbances, his father-in-law, Charles Bonnet,
-died, and de Saussure, himself almost to be reckoned a dying man, was
-called upon to pronounce his public eulogium. But the disturbances made
-it necessary for the ceremony to be postponed. A letter in which Madame
-de Saussure narrates the incident gives us a clear impression not only
-of the day, but also of the times of which the day was representative.
-
-‘Yesterday,’ she writes, ‘I spent one of those days of emotion which do
-not affect us the less because we ought to be getting used to them. The
-people took up arms by order of the Committees of the Clubs. The gates
-were shut, the cannon rumbled along the streets, screaming women leant
-out of their windows to look. In the evening the town had that military
-air which you have sometimes seen in it--the streets full of armed
-citizens with flaming torches, patrols challenging the passers-by--and
-all this lasted till two or three in the morning; whereas to-day,
-everyone is at his shop, his café, or his office. And this tumultuous
-day had been selected for the celebration of the memory of the most
-peaceable of citizens--your uncle, Charles Bonnet.’
-
-And so, amid such sorry scenes, the end approached. De Saussure sought
-relief and health in travel. He took the waters at Plombières, but
-without any good result, and died early in 1799, the great Cuvier
-pronouncing his eulogy before the Institut de France.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-MEN OF LETTERS
-
-
-We have spoken of the literature of science. In the literature which is
-an art, and an end in itself, Geneva never excelled; and if we look for
-reasons, we can find several.
-
-The first difficulty was with the language. French came to the
-Genevans as a foreign tongue at a time when their men of learning
-wrote Latin and their populace spoke a Savoyard patois; and, even to
-the present day, few of them avoid a certain provincial awkwardness
-in the handling of it. Anyone who wishes to see the proof has only to
-compare the _Journal de Genève_ with the _Gil Blas_ or the _Figaro_.
-The few stylists whom Geneva can claim have generally been of French
-extraction, like Marc Monnier, or have lived abroad, like Rousseau
-and Madame de Staël. A far more typical Genevan writer was Charles
-Bonnet whose perplexing circumlocutions swamp his elevated sentiments
-and effectively prevent his books from being read. There is also, of
-course, Amiel; but even ‘Roulez, tambours’ is tolerably obvious; while
-the trail of the _cliché_ lies even over that famous ‘Journal Intime’
-which Mrs. Humphry Ward translated.
-
-Another difficulty was the vexatious censorship exercised by Town
-Councillors, whose views of literature were parochial. Even Agrippa
-d’Aubigné, with all his fame and merit, was pursued by their suspicions
-both during his lifetime and after his death. The printer of one
-of his works was imprisoned and fined for issuing from his press a
-book alleged to contain ‘much impious and blasphemous matter which
-scandalizes well-conducted persons’; while, after his decease, his
-papers were sent for, to be inspected by public officials. ‘Anything
-composed by the defunct,’ it was decided, ‘during his residence in this
-State must be suppressed, but anything composed on other territory may
-be restored to his heirs.’ Literary decorum may have been insured by
-such measures; but they were not calculated to encourage originality,
-and it is not surprising that we search Genevan annals in vain for
-distinguished literary names.
-
-[Illustration: THE STATUE OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU ON THE ISLAND IN THE
-RHONE, GENEVA, FROM HOTEL DES BERGUES]
-
-The name of which the Genevans are proudest is probably that of
-Rousseau, who has sometimes been spoken of as ‘the austere citizen of
-Geneva.’ But ‘austere’ is a strange epithet to apply to the philosopher
-who endowed the Foundling Hospital with five illegitimate children;
-and Geneva cannot claim a great share in a citizen who ran away from
-the town in his boyhood to avoid being thrashed for stealing apples.
-It was, indeed, at Geneva that Jean Jacques received from his aunt the
-disciplinary chastisement of which he gives such an exciting account
-in his ‘Confessions’; and he once returned to the city and received
-the Holy Communion there in later life. But that is all. Jean Jacques
-was not educated at Geneva, but in Savoy--at Annecy, at Turin, and at
-Chambéry; his books were not printed at Geneva, though one of them was
-publicly burnt there, but in Paris and Amsterdam; it is not to Genevan
-but to French literature that he belongs. And when Jean Jacques has
-been named, there remains no other Genevan citizen of letters worthy to
-be mentioned in the same paragraph. So that branch of the subject may
-be left.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-SONGS AND SQUIBS
-
-
-Perhaps it is in song and satire that Geneva has done best. ‘Roulez,
-tambours,’ is not the only Genevan song that has passed the Genevan
-frontier; and Geneva, in fact, has always been ready to burst into
-song, whether serious or sarcastic, in connection with the topics of
-the day. The Reformation itself was heralded by satirical verses.
-A species of burlesque entitled a ‘sottie’ was, in those days, a
-favourite form of entertainment. The general character of these
-compositions may be gathered from the following scrap of dialogue,
-contained in one of them, between the _Physician_ and the _World_:
-
- ‘_Physician._ So that is what upsets your mind,
- And you are not upset to find
- Church benefices bought and sold
- By hungry thieves in quest of gold?
- Or babies on their mothers’ knee
- Appointed to a Bishop’s See?
- While haughty Churchmen, as they please,
- The goods of any neighbour seize,
- And go to war on small pretext--
- Whereby all Christian men are vext.
- _The World._ From Luther’s land these plaints arise;
- We’re told they are a pack of lies.
- _Physician._ Whatever the abuse you ban,
- They call you, now, a Lutheran.’
-
-The flood-gates of poetry were opened afresh by the failure of the
-Escalade. Even the octogenarian M. de Bèze composed a song on that
-occasion:
-
- ‘Peuple Genevois,
- Elève ta voix
- Pour psalmodier
- De Dieu, l’assistance,
- Et la délivrance
- Que vit avant-hier!’
-
-Other poets followed the pastor’s example by the score. For years--for
-decades even--they mocked in verse at the enemy whom they had put to
-shame. When, at last, they were silent, the revolutionary movement of
-the eighteenth century produced its harvest of squibs; and then we come
-to the Restoration, and the religious revival known as the Réveil,
-which also produced considerable literary repercussions.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
-
-
-‘Réveil’ is Swiss for Revivalism. The movement was the Genevan analogue
-of our Wesleyan Methodism, though it did not begin till more than
-five-and-twenty years after John Wesley’s death. The originator of it
-was the Scotch evangelist, Robert Haldane. He came to Geneva, made the
-acquaintance of the theological students, and was surprised and shocked.
-
-‘Had they been trained,’ he writes, ‘in the schools of Socrates or
-Plato, and enjoyed no other means of instruction, they could scarcely
-have been more ignorant of the doctrines of the Gospel. To the
-Bible and its contents their studies had never been directed. After
-some conversation, they became convinced of their ignorance of the
-Scriptures, and of the way of salvation, and exceedingly desirous of
-information.’
-
-The young men fell into a habit of dropping in upon Mr. Haldane, at all
-hours of the day and night, to talk over the mysteries of revealed
-religion. He decided to organize his efforts for their evangelization,
-take them in classes three nights a week, and expound the Epistle to
-the Romans. His influence over them was the more remarkable because
-he was, at first, obliged to converse with them by means of an
-interpreter. And he had remarkable men among his pupils: Adolphe Monod,
-of Paris; Félix Neff, the Alpine missionary; and Merle d’Aubigné, the
-historian of the Reformation. A friend, too old to be his pupil, and
-already of his way of thinking, was Cæsar Malan, the hymnodist.
-
-[Illustration: THE HEAD OF LAKE ANNECY HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-The movement thus inaugurated was, it may be presumed, neither wholly
-good nor wholly bad. No doubt it was well for the old-fashioned
-Calvinists to be shaken out of their old-fashioned formalism, and
-taught to regard religion, not as the placid and docile acceptance of
-a theological code, but as the special experience of the individual
-soul. The history of religion is the history of such reactions against
-formalism; and, on the whole, they make for progress. But revivalists,
-being only human after all, have, like other people, their besetting
-sins. They are prone to hypocrisy, to spiritual pride, to sour
-austerity, to the passing of uncharitable judgments on their
-neighbours, and to the unwarranted assumption of the right to cast the
-first stone at sinners.
-
-These vices of the revivalists attracted the attention of that
-section of young Geneva which was not absorbed in the contemplation
-of their virtues. They disliked to see them stand at the corners of
-the market-place and, for a pretence, make long prayers. They took the
-same line towards them as was taken towards Calvin and Farel by those
-earlier Friends of Liberty who demanded permission to ‘live as they
-chose without reference to what was said by the preachers’; and they
-chiefly expressed themselves in verse. They formed a club--the Caveau
-Genevois; and though the waters of oblivion have swept over most of
-their writings, they were the choice spirits of the Geneva of their
-time, and one of them has left us a graphic word-picture of their
-meetings:
-
-‘Our gathering, to which every member was expected to contribute a
-new song or a new air, took place irregularly, and in various places.
-Sometimes we met on the beautiful banks of our lake, at Cologny, on the
-terrace of the Hotel du Lion d’Or. We used to come home arm-in-arm,
-larking and singing, good friends and jolly fellows, ready to begin
-again those charming scenes which politics never troubled, and in
-which music, poetry, and joy--those crowns of harmony and loyal
-friendship--reigned alone.’
-
-And one at least of their songs still lives--the song written by J. F.
-Chaponnière, which opens thus:
-
- ‘Qu’il est beau ce mandement
- De monsieur le grand Vicaire;
- Sa pastorale, vraiment
- A tout bon dévot doit plaire,
- Car il dit à son troupeau:
- “S’il est du mal sur la terre,
- _C’est la faute de Voltaire,
- C’est la faute de Rousseau_.”’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-ROMANTICISM
-
-
-About 1830 the Caveau Genevois broke up. Some of its members were dead,
-some had left Geneva, some were growing too old for poetry, and some
-were going in for politics. But as the old school faded away, a new
-school--the Romantic School--was dawning. Poets arose who acknowledged
-Lamartine for their father and Victor Hugo for their elder brother.
-They are not really important, but Marc Monnier, in ‘Genève et ses
-Poètes,’ has made them intensely interesting. The greatest poet among
-them was Etienne Gide, Professor of Law at the University. Most
-students of French poetry have by heart that song of his which runs:
-
- ‘C’est un frais sentier plein d’une ombre amoureuse,
- L’on n’y passait que deux en se tenant la main;
- Nous le suivions ensemble en la saison heureuse,
- Mais je n’ai plus dès lors retrouvé ce chemin.
-
- ‘C’est qu’il faut être deux pour ce pélérinage;
- C’est que le frais sentier n’a d’aspect enchanteur,
- De gazon et de fleurs, de parfum et d’ombrage,
- Qu’alors que sur son cœur on presse un autre cœur.
-
- ‘J’ai vu bien des beaux lieus, de bien riantes plages,
- Les bords où croît l’olive, où fleurit l’oranger,
- Des lacs unis et purs ou passent les nuages,
- Des sites merveilleux, charme de l’étranger.
-
- ‘Mais en vain j’ai cherché sur cette heureuse terre,
- A travers ses vallons, ses bois et ses sentiers;
- Je ne l’ai plus revu ce sentier solitaire
- Ou deux amants passaient le long des églantiers.
-
- ‘C’est que le beaux sentier n’est plus q’une chimère,
- Un songe, une ombre vaine, un souvenir chéri;
- C’est qu’après le bonheur vient la douleur amère,
- Que la source était vive et que l’onde a tari.
-
- ‘C’est que la feuille tombe et que la flamme baisse,
- Qu’aux roses sur nos fronts succède le linceul,
- Que notre cœur s’attache et qu’après il delaisse,
- C’est que l’on était deux et que l’on reste seul.
-
- ‘Qui de nous, du passé refaisant le voyage,
- Ne voit en souvenir, à travers le chemin,
- Quelque désert fleuri, quelque paisible ombrage.
- Ou le bonheur s’assit auprès du pélerin.
-
- ‘Au désert de la vie, oasis fortunées,
- Deux souvenirs épars dans l’ombre de nos jours,
- Astres qui vont baissant au déclin des années,
- Mais dont l’éclat lointain nous enchante toujours.’
-
-[Illustration: NERNIER, HTE. SAVOIE]
-
-Another notable man--more notable as a man than a poet--was Petit-Senn,
-who lived to a patriarchal age and was a member of all the
-literary groups in succession. He is sometimes spoken of as a Genevan
-Voltaire; and he resembled Voltaire in living a little way out of
-the town, yet in touch with its intellectual life, and receiving
-the homage of a constant stream of admiring pilgrims; but he is
-even better entitled to be styled the Genevan Mæcænas. Possessed of
-something more than a modest competence, he opened his purse freely
-to the poorer poets, not only relieving their necessities, but paying
-for the publication of their works. His ‘Miliciade’--a satire on the
-amateurishness of the Genevan army--had an immense success when he gave
-a reading of it in a concert-hall; and his ‘Bluettes et Boutades’ are
-short sentences generally worthy of being ranked with epigrams. We may
-cull a few of them:
-
- ‘In the eyes of the world, however one may have made one’s money,
- one has done better than if one had lost it.
-
- ‘The egoist weeps over the story of a shipwreck at the reflection
- that he might himself have been on board.
-
- ‘We are more ready to do justice to the dead than to the absent.
-
- ‘Some of the sins of youth are so agreeable that age repents of
- them only in order to have an excuse for recalling them.
-
- ‘When a friend asks you for money, consider which of the two you
- would rather lose.
-
- ‘The most lucrative kind of commerce would be to buy men at their
- real value, and sell them at their own valuation.
-
- ‘If hypocrisy were to die, modesty would, at least, have to go into
- half-mourning.
-
- ‘Let us respect white hairs ... especially our own.’
-
-Petit-Senn and Etienne Gide were the poets who remained in their city.
-It is characteristic of Genevan literary history that the others sought
-their fortune abroad. _Trop grand poisson pour notre petit lac_ was
-presumably their motto, though they were not fish who cut any very
-striking figure in the lakes to which they repaired. Charles Didier
-was the one of them who succeeded best. He took long walking tours in
-Italy, glorified the carbonari, pictured the meetings of their secret
-societies in the style of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ and ultimately
-acquired something of a literary position in Paris, where he was
-numbered among the friends of George Sand. Imbert Galloix also went
-to Paris, but fell into destitution there. Nodier helped him. ‘I send
-you,’ he wrote, ‘the half of what I have in the house. It is the first
-time that I blush for my poverty.’ Petit-Senn also sent him money, for
-which he appealed in a very pathetic letter; but he died--a pitiful
-figure, reminding one of Chatterton--at the age of twenty-one. Others
-of the company were Henri Blanvalet, who for twenty years was private
-tutor to the Frankfort Rothschilds--truly a sorry position for a poet;
-and André Verre, who went to Russia to teach in a girls’ school, and
-ultimately edited a newspaper in Buenos Ayres. None of them count. They
-were merely echoes of the louder voices heard in the French _cénacle_.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-LATER MEN OF LETTERS
-
-
-One would be tempted, if space permitted, to say something of the
-later literary luminaries of Geneva: of Amiel, the ‘virtuous Don
-Juan,’ as his friends called him, who, after living rather a futile
-life, acquired posthumous fame through his ‘Journal’; of Cherbuliez,
-the novelist, once very popular, though now somewhat out of fashion;
-of Marc Monnier, the sparkling and versatile father of Dr. Philippe
-Monnier who has inherited his wit; of Toepfer, author of ‘Nouvelles
-Genevoises,’ described by one critic as ‘a sort of Swiss Ally Sloper,’
-and by another as ‘a sort of Swiss Max O’Rell, with just a dash of
-Mr. Barlow’; of Emile Javelle, who climbed the Alps diligently and
-wrote of them poetically; of MM. Eugène Ritter and Albert de Montet,
-the pillars of historical research in French Switzerland. But space
-does not permit. What little space remains is claimed by certain
-distinguished strangers who have shed lustre upon Geneva by living in
-the neighbourhood. We must visit Voltaire at Ferney, and Madame de
-Staël at Coppet. Let the patriarch come first.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-VOLTAIRE
-
-
-Voltaire was sixty years of age when he settled on the shores of the
-lake, where he was to remain for another four-and-twenty years; and he
-did not go there for his pleasure. He would have preferred to live in
-Paris, but was afraid of being locked up in the Bastille. As the great
-majority of the men of letters of the reign of Louis XV. were, at one
-time or another, locked up in the Bastille, his fears were probably
-well founded. Moreover, notes of warning had reached his ears. ‘I dare
-not ask you to dine,’ a relative said to him, ‘because you are in bad
-odour at Court.’ So he betook himself to Geneva, as so many Frenchmen,
-illustrious and otherwise, had done before, and acquired various
-properties--at Prangins, at Lausanne, at Saint-Jean (near Geneva), at
-Ferney, at Tournay, and elsewhere.
-
-He was welcomed cordially. Dr. Tronchin, the eminent physician,
-co-operated in the legal fictions necessary to enable him to become a
-landowner in the republic. Cramer, the publisher, made a proposal for
-the issue of a complete and authorized edition of his works. All the
-best people called. ‘It is very pleasant,’ he was able to write, ‘to
-live in a country where rulers borrow your carriage to come to dinner
-with you.’ Yet his desire to ‘score off’ the ministers of religion, who
-no doubt struck him as pretentious persons of sluggish intellect, soon
-set him at loggerheads with his hosts.
-
-The first trouble arose in connection with the article on Geneva
-published in the encyclopædia edited by Diderot and d’Alembert. It was
-in the course of a short visit to Voltaire that d’Alembert gathered
-the materials for that article. He was encouraged, and afforded every
-facility for pursuing his researches, alike by the ministers and by
-the magistrates. ‘He is the curiosity of the town,’ a contemporary
-letter-writer declared, ‘and it is quite the fashion to go and call
-on him.’ In particular he was entertained by the clergy, and talked
-theology with them after dinner. Their views were broad, thanks to the
-influence of that eminent theologian, Turretini; probably their views
-were broader after dinner than before. At all events, the encyclopædist
-drew them out to his satisfaction, with the result that, when his
-article appeared, and the divines made haste to read it, it was
-found that their theological position was expounded in the following
-startling paragraph:
-
-‘There is less complaint of the advance of infidelity at Geneva than
-elsewhere; but that is not surprising. Religion there--unless it be
-among the common people--is reduced to the worship of one God; a
-certain respect for Jesus Christ and the Scriptures is, perhaps, the
-only thing that distinguishes the Christianity of Geneva from pure
-Deism.’
-
-This in the city of Calvin. It was as though the encyclopædist had
-stirred a hornets’ nest. To change the metaphor, the fat was in the
-fire, and the flame blazed up at once. The Consistory met and appointed
-a Commission ‘to consider what were the best steps to take in the
-matter.’ The Commission deputed Dr. Tronchin to try and obtain an
-apology and retraction from the offending author; and Dr. Tronchin
-applied to Voltaire for help. Seeing that Voltaire had already
-written to d’Alembert congratulating him on his success in arousing
-the ‘murmurs of the synagogue,’ this was not a very hopeful step.
-Voltaire, in fact, had inspired the statements which he was now asked
-to invite his collaborator to withdraw. He temporized, enjoyed the
-fun, and tampered with the truth, to keep it up. He protested that he
-knew nothing about the article; that he wanted nothing but a quiet
-life, for himself and for everybody else, including ‘Trinitarians,
-Unitarians, Quakers, Moravians, Turks, Jews, and Chinamen.’ He also, in
-the friendliest manner, warned his correspondent that, if d’Alembert
-were pressed too hard, he might, instead of apologizing, prove that the
-things which he had said were true.
-
-[Illustration: THE CHATEAU DE PRANGINS]
-
-‘Retractation,’ he wrote, ‘was all very well for St. Augustine; but it
-will not do for him. I know his character. If your complaints get too
-loud, he will quote a certain catechism by your Professor of Theology,
-wherein it is said that revelation is “a thing of some utility,” and
-wherein there is no single word about the holy, adorable, and invisible
-Trinity. When he establishes that he has not disclosed a secret, but
-has only publicly taken cognizance of an opinion publicly expressed,
-you will be slightly embarrassed.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-VOLTAIRE AND THE THEATRE
-
-
-Another bone of contention was found in Voltaire’s passionate devotion
-to the theatre. His tastes were shared by the ‘advanced’ set at Geneva;
-but the divines, in spite of their broad views on matters of dogmatic
-theology, still held narrow views on the subject of the drama. Dramatic
-performances, whether public or private, were not allowed upon Genevan
-soil; while performances given close to the frontier, on the territory
-of Savoy or France, caused the ministers many searchings of heart.
-
-There had been such performances shortly before Voltaire’s arrival--in
-1751--at Carouge and Chatelaine, and the Consistory had passed a
-resolution on the subject. It had decided to exhort the members of
-the Council to keep their wives away from the entertainments, and to
-exhort the professors to warn the students--and more particularly the
-candidates for Holy Orders--not to attend them. Afterwards, hearing
-that the daughters of some of the pastors had visited the theatre in
-defiance of their admonitions, they had passed a further resolution to
-the effect that this state of things gave ground for reflection--_qu’il
-y a lieu d’y réfléchir_.
-
-Such was the public opinion which Voltaire braved; and his first
-attempt to brave it was not very successful. Soon after his arrival he
-arranged a _salle de spectacle_ inside the city walls, and organized
-a performance of ‘L’Orphelin de la Chine.’ The Consistory growled out
-a hostile resolution, and he dropped the enterprise, but proceeded to
-educate opinion from a safe distance; that is to say, he set up his
-theatre at Lausanne, and wrote insinuating letters about its management
-to his friends among the Genevan pastors. We have Gibbon’s testimony
-to the fact that this theatre ‘refined in a visible degree the manners
-of Lausanne’; and we have a letter in which Voltaire gives the pastor,
-Vernés, sound reasons for coming to witness the performances.
-
-‘In your quality of minister of the Gospel,’ he writes, ‘you might
-very well be present at the rendering of a piece taken from the Gospel
-itself, and hear the word of God from the mouth of the Marquise de
-Gentil, Madame d’Aubonne, and Madame d’Hermenches, who are as worthy
-women as the three Magdalens, and more respectable.’ And he adds: ‘At
-the first representation we had all the ministers of the Holy Gospel in
-the Town, and all the candidates for Holy Orders.’
-
-It was a pretty good beginning; but there was still to be trouble and
-controversy before the educational process was completed. In this
-field, as in the field of theology, d’Alembert, with his encyclopædia
-article, stirred Camerina. He said that it was a pity that comedy
-should be neglected in such a centre of civilization, but added that
-the thing that the Genevans dreaded was not the demoralizing influence
-of plays, but the dissolute behaviour of players. And he suggested that
-this difficulty be got over by means of stringent regulations as to the
-conduct of comedians. By this means, he said, Geneva might have both
-good morals and good theatres, and derive as much advantage from the
-one as from the other.
-
-For the moment it looked as though this ingeniously ironical proposal
-would escape attention, the theologians being too excited about their
-impugned orthodoxy to notice anything else. Rousseau, however, saw it,
-and decided to reply to it, and in due course launched his ‘Lettre sur
-les Spectacles.’ Being himself a dramatic author of some note, he was
-not an ideal champion of the cause which he represented; but in the
-stir caused by his intervention no one seems to have thought of that.
-His rhetoric made just as lively an impression as though his actions
-had always been in keeping with it. The Genevans took sides; and
-Voltaire--as though for the express purpose of giving them something
-tangible to fight about--established a theatre close to their gates,
-outside the jurisdiction of their magistrates, at Tournay.
-
-The battle raged furiously. To this period of Voltaire’s sojourn belong
-most of his bitter sarcastic sayings about Geneva; his reference to
-‘the little church of Calvin, which makes virtue consist in usury and
-asceticism,’ and his famous epigram containing the lines:
-
- ‘On haït le bal, on haït la comédie;
- Pour tout plaisir Genève psalmodie
- Du bon David des antiques concerts,
- Croyant que Dieu se plaît aux mauvais vers.’
-
-Abuse of Jean Jacques also abounds in his letters at this period.
-Jean Jacques is a ‘blackguard’; Jean Jacques is in league with two
-rascally Calvinist priests, and ‘has the insolence’ to say this, that,
-and the other thing; Jean Jacques is ‘valet to Diogenes,’ who ‘has
-played in vain the part of an addle-pated idiot’; if Jean Jacques
-comes to Ferney, he shall be stuffed into a barrel, and presumably
-rolled downhill--which proves, even if it proves nothing else, that,
-when philosophers fall out, they are apt to wrangle in much the same
-language as less intellectual people.
-
-Yet, on the whole, Voltaire was steadily winning the victory. The
-Council, it is true, forbade the citizens to attend his theatre; but
-little attention was paid to the prohibition, and among those who
-disregarded it were included many of the Councillors themselves. ‘Being
-unable,’ as Petit-Senn wittily put it, ‘to remove the danger, they
-bravely set out to share it’; and the philosopher chuckled:
-
-‘I am civilizing the Allobroges as well as I can. Before I came here
-the Genevans had nothing to amuse them but bad sermons. I am corrupting
-all the youth of the pedantic city. I make play-actors of the sons of
-Syndics. The clergy are furious; but I crush them.’
-
-After a while, moreover, his evangelistic efforts received support
-from an unexpected quarter. In 1766 there were certain political
-disturbances in the city, and ambassadors were sent from Berne, Zurich,
-and Paris, to assist in composing them. Voltaire suggested to the
-French ambassador, M. de Beauteville, that he should request admission
-to the city for a company of comedians to amuse himself and his suite.
-Life at Geneva being duller than he liked, M. de Beauteville adopted
-the suggestion. The comedians were introduced; a theatre was arranged
-for them; and Voltaire could chuckle again. The divines thundered.
-‘Children,’ they declared, ‘will be badly brought up; domestic discords
-will trouble families more and more; young men and young women will
-occupy themselves with nothing but comedy and vainglorious display; the
-love of pleasure, vanity, and pride will be their favourite emotions;
-indecent familiarities and libertine behaviour will take the place of
-modesty and chastity.’
-
-But this warning was uttered in vain. Voltaire had triumphed; and
-though he was now an old man, nearing his eightieth birthday, he
-enjoyed his triumph to the full. A picture of the patriarch at the play
-is graphically drawn by a letter-writer of the period:
-
-‘Not the least interesting feature of the spectacle was Voltaire
-himself, leaning his back against the wings in full view of the
-audience, applauding like a man possessed; now beating the floor with
-his walking-stick, now interjecting exclamations such as “Couldn’t be
-better!” “By God, how good!” and now directing the flow of sentiment by
-lifting his handkerchief to his eyes. So little could he control his
-enthusiasm that, at the moment when Ninias quits the scene to brave
-Assue, he ran after Lekain without considering how he was breaking down
-the illusion, took him by the hand, and kissed him at the back of the
-stage. It would be difficult to imagine a more ridiculous burlesque;
-for Voltaire looked like an old man out of a farce, dressed in a bygone
-fashion, with his stockings rolled up over his knees, and only able to
-keep himself on his trembling legs with the help of his stick.’
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII
-
-VISITORS TO FERNEY
-
-
-While Voltaire was vexing the citizens of Geneva, he was also enjoying
-the veneration of all educated Europe, and even of educated America.
-He corresponded regularly with at least four reigning sovereigns, to
-say nothing of men of letters, Cardinals, and Marshals of France; and
-he kept open house for travellers of mark from every country in the
-world. Those of the travellers who wrote books never failed to devote a
-chapter to an account of a visit to Ferney; and from the mass of such
-descriptions we may select for quotation that written, in the stately
-style of the period, by Dr. John Moore, author of ‘Zeluco,’ then making
-the grand tour as tutor to the Duke of Hamilton.
-
-‘The most piercing eyes I ever beheld,’ the doctor writes, ‘are those
-of Voltaire, now in his eightieth year. His whole countenance is
-expressive of genius, observation, and extreme sensibility. In the
-morning he has a look of anxiety and discontent; but this gradually
-wears off, and after dinner he seems cheerful; yet an air of irony
-never entirely forsakes his face, but may always be observed lurking
-in his features whether he frowns or smiles.... Composition is his
-principal amusement. No author who writes for daily bread, no young
-poet ardent for distinction, is more assiduous with his pen, or more
-anxious for fresh fame, than the wealthy and applauded Seigneur of
-Ferney. He lives in a very hospitable manner, and takes care always to
-have a good cook. He generally has two or three visitors from Paris,
-who stay with him a month or six weeks at a time. When they go, their
-places are soon supplied, so that there is a constant rotation of
-society at Ferney. These, with Voltaire’s own family and his visitors
-from Geneva, compose a company of twelve or fourteen people, who
-dine daily at his table, whether he appears or not.... All who bring
-recommendations from his friends may depend upon being received, if he
-be not really indisposed. He often presents himself to the strangers
-who assemble every afternoon in his antechamber, although they bring no
-particular recommendation.’
-
-[Illustration: A VAUDOISE: SUMMER]
-
-It might have been added that, when an interesting stranger who carried
-no introduction was passing through the town, Voltaire sometimes
-sent for him; but this experiment was not always a success, and failed
-most ludicrously in the case of Claude Gay, the Philadelphian Quaker,
-author of some theological works now forgotten, but then of note.
-The meeting was only arranged with difficulty on the philosopher’s
-undertaking to put a bridle on his tongue, and say nothing flippant
-about holy things. He tried to keep his promise, but the temptation
-was too strong for him. After a while he entangled his guest in a
-controversy concerning the proceedings of the patriarchs and the
-evidences of Christianity, and lost his temper on finding that his
-sarcasms failed to make their usual impression. The member of the
-Society of Friends, however, was not disconcerted. He rose from his
-place at the dinner-table, and replied:
-
-‘Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayest come to understand these matters
-rightly; in the meantime, finding I can do thee no good, I leave thee,
-and so fare thee well.’
-
-And so saying, he walked out and walked back to Geneva, while Voltaire
-retired in dudgeon to his room, and the company sat expecting something
-terrible to happen.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV
-
-COPPETT
-
-
-A word, in conclusion, about Coppet!
-
-Necker bought the property from his old banking partner, Thelusson,
-for 500,000 livres in French money, and retired to live there when the
-French Revolution drove him out of politics. His daughter, Madame de
-Staël, inherited it from him, and made it famous.
-
-Not that she loved Switzerland; it would be more true to say that she
-detested Switzerland. Swiss scenery meant nothing to her. When she was
-taken for an excursion to the glaciers, she asked what the crime was
-that she had to expiate by such a punishment; and she could look out on
-the blue waters of Lake Leman, and sigh for ‘the gutter of the Rue du
-Bac.’ Even to this day, the Swiss have hardly forgiven her for that,
-or for speaking of the Canton of Vaud as the country in which she had
-been ‘so intensely bored for such a number of years.’
-
-What she wanted was to live in Paris, to be a leader--or, rather, to
-be _the_ leader--of Parisian society, to sit in a salon, the admired
-of all admirers, and to pull the wires of politics to the advantage
-of her friends. For a while she succeeded in doing this. It was she
-who persuaded Barras to give Talleyrand his political start in life.
-But whereas Barras was willing to act on her advice, Napoleon was by
-no means equally amenable to her influence. Almost from the first
-he regarded her as a mischief-maker; and when a spy brought him an
-intercepted letter in which Madame de Staël expressed her hope that
-none of the old aristocracy of France would condescend to accept
-appointments in the household of ‘the bourgeois of Corsica,’ he became
-her personal enemy, and, refusing her permission to live either in the
-capital or near it, practically compelled her to take refuge in her
-country seat. Her pleasaunce in that way became her gilded cage.
-
-Perhaps she was not quite so unhappy there as she sometimes
-represented. If she could not go to Paris, many distinguished and
-brilliant Parisians came to Coppet, and met there many brilliant and
-distinguished Germans, Genevans, Italians, and Danes. The Parisian
-salon, reconstituted, flourished on Swiss soil. There visited there,
-at one time or another, Madame Récamier and Madame Krüdner; Benjamin
-Constant, who was so long Madame de Staël’s lover; Bonstetten, the
-Voltairean philosopher; Frederika Brun, the Danish artist; Sismondi,
-the historian; Werner, the German poet; Karl Ritter, the German
-geographer; Baron de Voght; Monti, the Italian poet; Madame Vigée Le
-Brun; Cuvier; and Oelenschlaeger. From almost every one of them we have
-some pen-and-ink sketch of the life there.
-
-This, for instance, is the scene as it appeared to Madame Le Brun, who
-came to paint the hostess’s portrait:
-
-‘I paint her in antique costume. She is not beautiful, but the
-animation of her visage takes the place of beauty. To aid the
-expression I wished to give her, I entreated her to recite tragic
-verses while I painted. She declaimed passages from Corneille and
-Racine.... I find many persons established at Coppet: the beautiful
-Madame Récamier, the Comte de Sabran, a young English woman, Benjamin
-Constant, etc. Its society is continually renewed. They come to visit
-the illustrious exile who is pursued by the rancour of the Emperor.
-Her two sons are now with her, under the instruction of the German
-scholar Schlegel; her daughter is very beautiful, and has a passionate
-love of study; she leaves her company free all the morning, but they
-unite in the evening. It is only after dinner that they can converse
-with her. She then walks in her salon, holding in her hand a little
-green branch; and her words have an ardour quite peculiar to her: it
-is impossible to interrupt her. At these times she produces on one the
-effect of an improvisatrice.’
-
-And here is a still more graphic description, taken from a letter
-written to Madame Récamier by Baron de Voght:
-
-‘It is to you that I owe my most amiable reception at Coppet. It is no
-doubt to the favourable expectations aroused by your friendship that
-I owe my intimate acquaintance with this remarkable woman. I might
-have met her without your assistance--some casual acquaintance would
-no doubt have introduced me--but I should never have penetrated to the
-intimacy of this sublime and beautiful soul, and should never have
-known how much better she is than her reputation. _She is an angel sent
-from heaven to reveal the divine goodness upon earth._ To make her
-irresistible, a pure ray of celestial light embellishes her spirit and
-makes her amiable from every point of view.
-
-‘At once profound and light, whether she is discovering a mysterious
-secret of the soul or grasping the lightest shadow of a sentiment,
-her genius shines without dazzling, and when the orb of light has
-disappeared, it leaves a pleasant twilight to follow it.... No doubt
-a few faults, a few weaknesses, occasionally veil this celestial
-apparition; even the initiated must sometimes be troubled by these
-eclipses, which the Genevan astronomers in vain endeavour to predict.
-
-‘My travels so far have been limited to journeys to Lausanne and
-Coppet, where I often stay three or four days. The life there suits
-me perfectly; the company is even more to my taste. I like Constant’s
-wit, Schlegel’s learning, Sabran’s amiability, Sismondi’s talent and
-character, the simple truthful disposition and just intellectual
-perceptions of Auguste,[B] the wit and sweetness of Albertine[C]--I was
-forgetting Bonstetten, an excellent fellow, full of knowledge of all
-sorts, ready in wit, adaptable in character--in every way inspiring
-one’s respect and confidence.
-
- [B] Madame de Staël’s son, who afterwards edited the works of
- Madame de Staël and Madame Necker.
-
- [C] Madame de Staël’s daughter, afterwards Duchesse de Broglie.
-
-‘Your sublime friend looks and gives life to everything. She imparts
-intelligence to those around her. In every corner of the house some
-one is engaged in composing a great work.... Corinne is writing her
-delightful letters about Germany, which will no doubt prove to be the
-best thing she has ever done.
-
-‘The “Shunamitish Widow,” an Oriental melodrama which she has just
-finished, will be played in October; it is charming. Coppet will be
-flooded with tears. Constant and Auguste are both composing tragedies;
-Sabran is writing a comic opera, and Sismondi a history; Schlegel is
-translating something; Bonstetten is busy with philosophy, and I am
-busy with my letter to Juliette.’
-
-[Illustration: THE TRICOTEUSE: WINTER]
-
-Then, a month later:
-
-‘Since my last letter, Madame de Staël has read us several chapters of
-her work. Everywhere it bears the marks of her talent. I wish I could
-persuade her to cut out everything in it connected with politics, and
-all the metaphors which interfere with its clarity, simplicity and
-accuracy. What she needs to demonstrate is not her republicanism, but
-her wisdom.... Mlle. Jenner played in one of Werner’s tragedies which
-was given, last Friday, before an audience of twenty. She, Werner, and
-Schlegel played perfectly....
-
-‘The arrival in Switzerland of M. Cuvier has been a happy distraction
-for Madame de Staël; they spent two days together at Geneva, and
-were well pleased with each other. On her return to Coppet she found
-Middleton there, and in receiving his confidences forgot her troubles.
-Yesterday she resumed her work.
-
-‘The poet whose mystical and sombre genius has caused us such profound
-emotions starts, in a few days’ time, for Italy.
-
-‘I accompanied Corinne to Massot’s. To alleviate the tedium of the
-sitting, a Mlle. Romilly played pleasantly on the harp, and the studio
-was a veritable temple of the Muses....
-
-‘Bonstetten gave us two readings of a Memoir on the Northern Alps. It
-began very well, but afterwards it bored us.... Madame de Staël resumed
-her reading, and there was no longer any question of being bored. It is
-marvellous how much she must have read and thought over to be able to
-find the opportunity of saying so many good things. One may differ from
-her, but one cannot help delighting in her talent....
-
-‘And now here we are at Geneva, trying to reproduce Coppet at the Hôtel
-des Balances. I am delightfully situated with a wide view over the
-Valley of Savoy, between the Alps and the Jura.... Yesterday evening
-the illusion of Coppet was complete. I had been with Madame de Staël to
-call on Madame Rilliet, who is so charming at her own fireside. On my
-return I played chess with Sismondi. Madame de Staël, Mlle. Randall,
-and Mlle. Jenner sat on the sofa chatting with Bonstetten and young
-Barante. We were as we had always been--as we were in the days that I
-shall never cease regretting.’
-
-Other descriptions exist in great abundance, but these suffice to
-serve our purpose. They show us the Coppet salon as it was--pleasant,
-brilliant, unconventional; something like Holland House, but more
-Bohemian; something like Harley Street, but more select; something
-like Gad’s Hill--which it resembled in the fact that the members of
-the house-parties were expected to spend their mornings at their
-desks--but on a higher social plane; a centre at once of high thinking
-and frivolous behaviour; of hard work and desperate love-making, which
-sometimes paved the way to trouble.
-
-If only one had space to go into the details of that love-making! But
-that is a subject which would need a much larger book than this to do
-it justice.
-
-
-
-
-INDEX
-
-
- Academy of Calvin, 3
-
- Amadeus IX., Duke, 15
-
- Amaulx, Pierre, 30
-
- Amiel, 90, 105
-
- Annecy, 91
-
- Arlaud, 73
-
- Arve, The, 20
-
- Aubert, Syndic, 30
-
-
- Balmat, Jacques, 80
-
- Bauhin, Sieur, plague-doctor, 47
-
- Beauteville, M. de, 115
-
- Bérenger, 71, 73
-
- Berlonière, M., 53
-
- Berthelier, Philibert, 10
-
- Bèze, M. de, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48, 51, 52, 57, 58,
- 59, 61, 62, 94
-
- Blanvalet, Henri, 102
-
- Bonaventura, Cornelius, 41
-
- Bonivard, François de, 11, 24
-
- Bonivard’s Chronicle, 14
-
- Bonnet, Charles, 73, 75, 86, 87, 89
-
- Bonstetten, 125, 129, 130
-
- Bourrit, 72, 74, 80, 83
-
- Brun, Frederika, 125
-
-
- Calendrini, 61
-
- Calvin, 3, 23, 24, 30, 31, 34, 43, 97, 109
-
- Casaubon, Isaac, 34
-
- Caveau Genevois, 97
-
- Chaponnière, J. F., 98
-
- Charles Emanuel, Duke, 52, 53, 56
-
- Charles IV., Emperor, 33
-
- Cherbuliez, 105
-
- Chevalier, M., 36
-
- Chillon, 11
-
- Constant, Benjamin, 125, 127
-
- Coppet, 106, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, 130
-
- Cordier, Mathurin, 37
-
- Corraterie, 1, 2, 54
-
- Couvent de la Rive, 14
- de Sainte-Claire, 15
-
- Cuisine Papale, 44
-
- Curchod, Mademoiselle Suzanne, 72
-
- Cuvier, 125, 129
-
-
- D’Albigni, 53, 54, 55, 56
-
- D’Alembert, 108, 109, 113
-
- D’Aubigné, Agrippa, 90
- Merle, 96
-
- Dentan, 73
-
- Didier, Charles, 102
-
- Diodati, Jean, 61
-
- D’Ivernois, 71
-
-
- École de la Rive, 33, 34
-
- Égaliseurs, 67
-
- Eidgenossen, The, 9
-
- Englués, 67
-
- Escalade, The, 52, 61
-
- Estienne, Robert, 35
-
- Etrembières, 55
-
-
- Fabri, Bishop Adhémar de, 9
-
- Farel, 13, 14, 18, 23, 24, 97
-
- Ferney, 107, 115, 119, 120
-
-
- Galloix, Imbert, 102
-
- Gay, Claude, 121
-
- Geneston, Matthew, 46
-
- Genevan Revolutions, 78
-
- Gesner, 84
-
- Gibbon, 72, 112
-
- Gide, Etienne, 99, 102
-
- Goulart, Simon, 55, 61
-
-
- Haldane, Mr., 95, 96
-
- Henri IV., 52
-
- Hotman, Francis, 41
-
- Hubers, The Two, 72
-
- Hugues, Besançon, 10
-
-
- Jacobinical Clubs, 67
-
- Jallabert, 73
-
- Javelle, Emile, 105
-
- Jeanne de Jussie, 15, 17
-
- Jeûne Genevois, 48
-
-
- Knox, John, 25
-
- Krüdner, Madame de, 125
-
-
- La Faye, Antoine, 58
-
- Lamartine, 99
-
- Laws and Statutes of Geneva, The, 25
-
- Le Brun, Madame Vigée, 125
-
- Lefort, François, 72
-
- Le Sage, 72
-
- Libertines, 23
- Liberty, The Friends of, 30, 97
-
- Lolme, De, 71, 72
-
- Luc, Jean André de, 73, 83
-
- Lucs, The De, 72
-
-
- Maimbourg, 43
-
- Malan, Cæsar, 96
-
- Malingre, Pastor, 13
-
- Mallet, 75
-
- Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 45
-
- Melvill, Andrew, 39, 41
-
- Monnet, Raoul, 30
-
- Monnier, Dr. Philippe, 105
- Marc, 89, 99, 105
-
- Monod, Adolphe, 96
-
- Montet, Albert de, 105
-
- Monti, 125
-
- Moore, Dr. John, 119
-
-
- Necker, 123
-
- Neff, Félix, 96
-
-
- Odier, 73
-
- Oelenschlaeger, 125
-
-
- Pecolat, Jean, 10
-
- Petit-Senn, 100, 102
-
- Picot, 73
-
- Pictet, 73
-
- Portus, 41
-
- Prangins, 107
-
-
- Récamier, Madame, 125, 126
-
- Register of the Consistory, The, 29
-
- Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, The, 61, 62
-
- Revolution at Geneva, 86
- Age of, 71
-
- Revolutions, 65, 66
-
- Réveil, The, 94, 95
-
- Rilliet, Madame, 130
-
- Ritter, Karl, 125
- Eugène, 105
-
- Romantic School, The, 99
-
- Rousseau, 3, 82, 89, 91, 113
- Jean-Jaques, 91, 114
-
-
- Salève, 1
-
- Saulnier, Antoine, 33
-
- Saussure, De, 72, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87
-
- Scheuchzer, 84
-
- Schlegel, 127, 129
-
- Scrymgeour, Henry, 41
-
- Senebier, 72
-
- Servetus, 31
-
- Sismondi, 125, 127
-
- Social Evil, The, 7
-
- Staël, Madame de, 89, 106, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130
- Albertine de, 127
- Auguste de, 127
-
- St. Bartholomew’s Day, 47
-
- St. Ours, 73
-
-
- Tanners, 67
-
- Theocracy, The, 25
-
- Toepfer, 105
-
- Trembley, 61, 73, 79
-
- Tronchin, Dr., 61, 73, 74, 107, 109
-
- Turretini, 61, 108
-
-
- University, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39
-
-
- Vernés, 112
-
- Verre, André, 103
-
- Viret, 18
-
- Voght, Baron de, 125, 126
-
- Voltaire, 75, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119,
- 120, 121
-
-
- Werner, 125, 129
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-
-Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
-predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
-changed. The spelling of non-English words was not checked.
-
-Simple typographical errors were corrected.
-
-Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
-
-Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Geneva, by Francis Gribble
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Geneva, by Francis Gribble
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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-
-
-
-Title: Geneva
- Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.
- Described by Francis Gribble.
-
-Author: Francis Gribble
-
-Release Date: December 21, 2015 [EBook #50738]
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENEVA ***
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-
-
-<h1>GENEVA</h1>
-
-<div class="chapter center">
-<div id="ad" class="newpage p4 center-block">
-<h2 class="nobreak p1"><a id="OTHER_BOOKS_ON_SWITZERLAND"></a><span class="smaller">OTHER BOOKS ON SWITZERLAND</span></h2>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="larger bold">THE ALPS</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="smcap">Painted by A. D. M’Cormick<br />
-Described by Sir Martin Conway</span><br />
-<br />
-Containing 62 full-page Illustrations in Colour<br />
-<br />
-<b>Price 20/- net</b><br />
-(<i>Post free, price 20/6</i>)
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="larger bold">MONTREUX</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="smcap">Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis and<br />
-May Hardwicke Lewis<br />
-Described by Francis H. Gribble</span><br />
-<br />
-Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour and a Sketch-Map<br />
-<br />
-<b>Price 7/6 net</b><br />
-(<i>Post free, price 7/11</i>)
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="larger bold">OUR LIFE IN THE SWISS HIGHLANDS</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="smcap">By John Addington Symonds<br />
-and his daughter Margaret</span><br />
-<br />
-With 16 full-page Illustrations in Colour by<br />
-<span class="smcap">J. Hardwicke Lewis</span><br />
-<br />
-<b>Price 7/6 net</b><br />
-(<i>Post free, price 7/11</i>)
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="larger bold">THE UPPER ENGADINE</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="smcap">Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis<br />
-Described by S. C. Musson</span><br />
-<br />
-Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour<br />
-<br />
-<b>Price 6/- net</b><br />
-(<i>Post free, price 6/4</i>)
-</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="center smaller">A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON</p>
-
-<div id="i_frontis" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_004.jpg" width="600" height="433" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">SUNSET ON MONT BLANC FROM ABOVE GENEVA</div></div>
-
-<h2 class="newpage p4 gesperrt"><span class="xlarge">
-GENEVA</span></h2>
-
-<p class="p1 center vspace large wspace">PAINTED BY<br />
-J. HARDWICKE LEWIS &amp;<br />
-MAY HARDWICKE LEWIS<br />
-DESCRIBED BY<br />
-FRANCIS GRIBBLE</p>
-
-<div id="if_i_005" class="figcenter" style="width: 74px;">
- <img src="images/i_005.jpg" width="74" height="75" alt="" /></div>
-
-<p class="p2 center larger vspace wspace">LONDON<br />
-ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK<br />
-<span class="larger">1908</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v">v</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2><a id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table id="toc" summary="Contents">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td></tr>
- <tr class="small">
- <td> </td>
- <td class="tdr">PAGE</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Old Geneva</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The War of Independence</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">9</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Reformation</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">13</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Expulsion of the Nuns</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">17</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Rule of Calvin</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">23</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Triumph of the Theocracy</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">29</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The University</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">33</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">vi</a></span><span class="smcap">Professor Andrew Melvill</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">39</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Théodore de Bèze</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">43</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER X</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">War with Savoy</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">51</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Escalade</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">53</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Interval of Quiet</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">61</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Revolutions</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">65</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Literature and Science</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">71</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Saussure</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">77</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVI</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Men of Letters</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">89</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Songs and Squibs</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">93</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVIII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Religious Revival</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">95</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIX</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">vii</a></span><span class="smcap">Romanticism</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">99</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XX</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Later Men of Letters</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">105</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXI</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Voltaire</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">107</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Voltaire and the Theatre</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">111</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIII</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Visitors to Ferney</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">119</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdc chap" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIV</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Coppet</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">123</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix">ix</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2><a id="List_of_Illustrations"></a>List of Illustrations</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table id="loi" summary="List of Illustrations">
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">1.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Sunset on Mont Blanc from above Geneva.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
- <tr class="small">
- <td class="tdr" colspan="3">FACING PAGE</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">2.</td>
- <td class="tdl">L’Église de la Madeleine, Geneva.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_6">6</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">3.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Last Snow on the Wooded slopes.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_10">10</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">4.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Geneva from the Arve.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_20">20</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">5.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Bay of Meillerie.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_26">26</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">6.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Evian les Bains, Hte. Savoie.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_34">34</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">7.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Glaciers des Bossons, Chamonix.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_38">38</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">8.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Yvoire, Hte. Savoie.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_44">44</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">9.</td>
- <td class="tdl">La Roche, Hte. Savoie.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_50">50</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">10.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Castle of Etrembières, Hte. Savoie.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_56">56</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">11.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Nyon Castle, looking across the Lake to Mont Blanc.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_62">62</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">12.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Montenvers and Aiguilles Verte and Dru.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_68">68</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">13.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Jura Range from Thonon, Hte. Savoie.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_74">74</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">14.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Aiguille and Dôme du Goûter, Mont Blanc.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_80">80</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">15.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Statue of Jean Jacques Rousseau on the Island in the Rhone, Geneva, from Hôtel des Bergues.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_90">90</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x">x</a></span></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">16.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Head of Lake Annecy, Hte. Savoie.   J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_96">96</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">17.</td>
- <td class="tdl">Nernier, Hte. Savoie.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_100">100</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">18.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Chateau de Prangins.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_110">110</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">19.</td>
- <td class="tdl">A Vaudoise: Summer.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_120">120</a></td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr top">20.</td>
- <td class="tdl">The Tricoteuse: Winter.   M.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L.</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_128">128</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">OLD GENEVA</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Towns which expand too fast and become too
-prosperous tend to lose their individuality. Geneva
-has enjoyed that fortune, and has paid that price
-for it.</p>
-
-<p>Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the
-bluest lake in the world, looking out upon green
-meadows and wooded hills, backed by the dark
-ridge of the Salève, with the ‘great white mountain’
-visible in the distance, it has the advantage of an
-incomparable site; and it is, from a town surveyor’s
-point of view, well built. It has wide
-thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public
-monuments and well-kept public gardens; handsome
-theatres and museums; long rows of palatial
-hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations,
-and a casino. But all this is merely the façade&mdash;all
-of it quite modern; hardly any of it more than
-half a century old. The real historical Geneva&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2">2</a></span>the
-little of it that remains&mdash;is hidden away in the
-background, where not every tourist troubles to
-look for it.</p>
-
-<p>It is disappearing fast. Italian stonemasons are
-constantly engaged in driving lines through it.
-They have rebuilt, for instance, the old Corraterie,
-which is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous
-for its confectioners’ and booksellers’ shops; they
-have destroyed, and are still destroying, other
-ancient slums, setting up white buildings of
-uniform ugliness in place of the picturesque but
-insanitary dwellings of the past. It is, no doubt,
-a very necessary reform, though one may think
-that it is being executed in too utilitarian a spirit.
-The old Geneva was malodorous, and its death-rate
-was high. They had more than one Great
-Plague there, and their Great Fires have always
-left some of the worst of their slums untouched.
-These could not be allowed to stand in an age
-which studies the science and practises the art of
-hygiene. Yet the traveller who wants to know
-what the old Geneva was really like must spend a
-morning or two rambling among them before they
-are pulled down.</p>
-
-<p>The old Geneva, like Jerusalem, was set upon a
-hill, and it is towards the top of the hill that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3">3</a></span>
-few buildings of historical interest are to be found.
-There is the cathedral&mdash;a striking object from a
-distance, though the interior is hideously bare.
-There is the Town Hall, in which, for the convenience
-of notables carried in litters, the upper
-stories were reached by an inclined plane instead of
-a staircase. There is Calvin’s old Academy, bearing
-more than a slight resemblance to certain of the
-smaller colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. There,
-too, are to be seen a few mural tablets, indicating
-the residences of past celebrities. In such a house
-Rousseau was born; in such another house&mdash;or in
-an older house, now demolished, on the same site&mdash;Calvin
-died. And towards these central points the
-steep and narrow, mean streets&mdash;in many cases
-streets of stairs&mdash;converge.</p>
-
-<p>As one plunges into these streets one seems
-to pass back from the twentieth century to the
-fifteenth, and need not exercise one’s imagination
-very severely in order to picture the town as it
-appeared in the old days before the Reformation.
-The present writer may claim permission to borrow
-his own description from the pages of ‘Lake
-Geneva and its Literary Landmarks’:</p>
-
-<p>‘Narrow streets predominated, though there were
-also a certain number of open spaces&mdash;notably at the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4">4</a></span>
-markets, and in front of the Cathedral, where there
-was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which
-Geneva was presently to repudiate with virtuous
-indignation. One can form an idea of the appearance
-of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest
-houses that one has seen in Switzerland all closely
-packed together&mdash;houses at the most three stories
-high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or two
-below the level of the roadway, and huge arched
-doors studded with great iron nails, and looking
-strong enough to resist a battering-ram. Above
-the doors, in the case of the better houses, were
-the painted escutcheons of the residents, and crests
-were also often blazoned on the window-panes.
-The shops, too, and more especially the inns,
-flaunted gaudy sign-boards with ingenious devices.
-The Good Vinegar, the Hot Knife, the Crowned
-Ox, were the names of some of these; their tariff
-is said to have been fivepence a day for man and
-beast.</p>
-
-<p>‘The streets, being narrow, were also very
-generally crowded, and were particularly crowded
-in the evenings. From the stuffy houses&mdash;and
-even in these days of sanitation a really old Swiss
-house is sometimes stuffy enough to make the
-stranger gasp for breath&mdash;the citizens of high as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5">5</a></span>
-well as low degree sallied to take their pleasure in
-the street. The street was their drawing-room.
-They stood and gossiped there; they sat about
-on benches underneath their windows. Or some
-musician would strike up a lively tune, and ladies
-of the highest position in society&mdash;the daughters
-and wives of Councillors and Syndics&mdash;attired in
-velvets and silks and satins, would dance round-dances
-in the open air. For all their political
-anxieties, these early Genevans were, on the whole,
-a merry people.</p>
-
-<p>‘But&mdash;let there be no mistake about it&mdash;they
-made merry in the midst of filth and evil smells.
-On this point we have unimpeachable information
-in the shape of a rescript issued by the Chapter of
-the Cathedral after conference with the Vidomne
-and the Syndics. The Chapter complains that too
-many citizens dispose of their slops by carelessly
-throwing them out of window, and establish refuse-heaps
-outside their front-doors&mdash;a noisome practice
-which still prevails in many of the Swiss villages,
-though no longer in any of the Swiss towns. It is
-also complained that nearly every man has a pig-sty,
-and lets his pigs run loose in the streets for
-exercise, and that there is an undue prevalence of
-such unsavoury industries as the melting of tallow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6">6</a></span>
-and the burning of the horns of cattle. One can
-imagine the net result of this great combination of
-nuisances. In a city of magnificent distances it
-might have passed. Bayswater, at the present day,
-lives in ignorance of the smells of Bermondsey.
-But in Geneva, when Geneva was almost as small
-as Sandwich, one can understand that the consequences
-were appalling to the nostrils of the polite.
-The fact that the city was so overrun with lepers
-and beggars that two lazar-houses and seven
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">hôpitaux</i>&mdash;or casual wards, as one might say&mdash;had
-to be provided for their reception, adds something,
-though not perhaps very much, to this unpleasant
-side of the picture.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_6" class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;">
- <img src="images/i_023.jpg" width="389" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">L’ÉGLISE DE LA MADELEINE, GENEVA</div></div>
-
-<p>‘Our ecclesiastical rescript further proves that
-while the Genevans were a merry and a dirty, they
-were also an immoral, people. It records that they
-are unduly addicted to the game of dice, and that
-the outcome of this pastime is “fraud, deception,
-theft, rapine, lies, fights, brawls, and insults, to say
-nothing of damnable blasphemy”; and it ordains
-that any man who “swears without necessity” shall
-“take off his hat and kneel down in the place of
-his offence, and clasp his hands, and kiss the earth”&mdash;or
-pay a fine of three halfpence if he fail to do so.
-Then it proceeds to propound an elaborate scheme<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7">7</a></span>
-for the State regulation of immorality, forbidding
-certain indulgences “to clergymen as well as
-laymen”; and requiring the Social Evil to wear
-something in the nature of a Scarlet Letter to
-distinguish her from other women.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="hidev" id="Page_8">8</a><a id="Page_9">9</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>In the first half of the sixteenth century occurred
-the two events which shaped the future of Geneva:
-Reformation theology was accepted; political
-independence was achieved.</p>
-
-<p>Geneva, it should be explained, was a fief of the
-duchy of Savoy; or so, at all events, the Dukes
-of Savoy maintained, though the citizens were of
-the contrary opinion. Their view was that they
-owed allegiance only to their Bishops, who were
-the Viceroys of the Holy Roman Emperor; and
-even that allegiance was limited by the terms of a
-Charter granted in the Holy Roman Emperor’s
-name by Bishop Adhémar de Fabri. All went
-fairly well until the Bishops began to play into the
-hands of the Dukes; but then there was friction,
-which rapidly became acute. A revolutionary
-party&mdash;the Eidgenossen, or Confederates&mdash;was
-formed. There was a Declaration of Independence
-and a civil war.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10">10</a></span>
-So long as the Genevans stood alone, the Duke
-was too strong for them. He marched into the
-town in the style of a conqueror, and wreaked his
-vengeance on as many of his enemies as he could
-catch. He cut off the head of Philibert Berthelier,
-to whom there stands a memorial on the island in the
-Rhone; he caused Jean Pecolat to be hung up in
-an absurd posture in his banqueting-hall, in order
-that he might mock at his discomfort while he
-dined; he executed, with or without preliminary
-torture, several less conspicuous patriots. Happily,
-however, some of the patriots&mdash;notably Besançon
-Hugues&mdash;got safely away, and succeeded in concluding
-treaties of alliance between Geneva and
-the cantons of Berne and Fribourg. The men of
-Fribourg marched to Geneva, and the Duke
-retired. The citizens passed a resolution that he
-should never be allowed to enter the town again,
-seeing that he ‘never came there without playing
-the citizens some dirty trick or other’; and, the
-more effectually to prevent him from coming, they
-pulled down their suburbs and repaired their
-ramparts, one member of every household being
-required to lend a hand for the purpose.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_10" class="figcenter" style="width: 453px;">
- <img src="images/i_031.jpg" width="453" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE LAST SNOW ON THE WOODED SLOPES</div></div>
-
-<p>Presently, owing to religious dissensions, Fribourg
-withdrew from the alliance. Berne, however,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11">11</a></span>
-adhered to it, and, in due course, responded to the
-appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand
-men in motion. The route of the seven thousand
-lay through the canton of Vaud, then a portion of
-the Duke’s dominions, governed from the Castle
-of Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at
-Yverdon, they annexed the territory, placing
-governors (or <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">baillis</i>) of their own in its various
-strongholds. The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving
-his garrison to surrender; and in its deepest
-dungeon was found the famous prisoner of Chillon,
-François de Bonivard. From that time forward
-Geneva was a free republic, owing allegiance to no
-higher power.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">13</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE REFORMATION</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Reformation occurred simultaneously with the
-political revolution; and the informal historian, who
-is under no compulsion to take a side, is inevitably
-impressed less by the piety of the Reformers than
-by their uproarious behaviour. Their leader&mdash;the
-ringleader in their disturbances&mdash;was Farel, a hot-headed
-Frenchman from Gap, in Dauphiné. He
-hounded the people on to wreck the churches;
-he invaded the pulpits of other preachers without
-invitation, and confuted them therefrom; he once
-broke up an ecclesiastical procession, and, snatching
-an image out of the priest’s hand, threw it over the
-bridge into the river. Moreover, as was natural,
-he included among his devoted followers many
-evangelists whose zeal was, like his own, conspicuously
-in excess of their discretion. Of one of
-them, Pastor Malingre of Yverdon, it is recorded
-by a contemporary chronicler that ‘his methods<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14">14</a></span>
-were not very evangelical&mdash;he used to crown the
-Roman Catholic priests with cow-dung.’</p>
-
-<p>Reform was already in the air when Farel came
-to Geneva to preach. The new doctrine had been
-bruited abroad by pedlars from Nuremberg, who
-ate meat on Fridays, and expressed the opinion
-that ‘the members of the religious Orders ought to
-be set to work in the fields, that the saints were
-dead and done for, and that it was nonsense to pray
-to them, seeing that they could render no assistance.’
-So we read in Bonivard’s ‘Chronicle’; but, even so,
-Geneva was not quite prepared to receive Farel
-with open arms. He was haled before an ecclesiastical
-court, and accused of preaching the Gospel
-in an inappropriate costume&mdash;‘got up like a
-gendarme or a brigand.’ One burly monk gave
-him a ‘coup de pied, quelque part,’ and the monks
-collectively proposed to throw him into the Rhone;
-and, though the laity protected him from clerical
-violence, the Syndic ordered him to quit the town
-within six hours, as an alternative to being burnt
-alive. He went, and three years passed before he
-returned and triumphed in a theological disputation
-held in the great hall of the Couvent de la Rive.</p>
-
-<p>The result of that disputation was, as has been
-written, that ‘religious liberty was taken away<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">15</a></span>
-from the Roman Catholics and given to the
-Protestants.’ The celebration of the Mass, so
-recently a solemn duty, now became a high crime
-and misdemeanour; and the victorious Reformers
-proceeded, like the French anti-clericals of our
-own day, to the expulsion of monks and nuns.
-The first to go were the Sisters of the Convent of
-Sainte-Claire, founded in 1476 by Yolande, wife
-of Duke Amadeus IX. of Savoy and sister of
-Louis XI. of France. We have a full account
-of their ejection from the pen of one of them,
-Sister Jeanne de Jussie, afterwards Lady Superior
-of a convent at Annecy.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">17</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE EXPULSIONS OF THE NUNS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Sisters had long been exposed to annoyance
-by Reformers of the baser sort. One such
-Reformer, having occasion to call at the convent
-on some municipal business, had insisted on
-washing his hands in the holy water, and had boasted,
-when he got outside, that he had been privileged
-to kiss the nuns all round&mdash;‘a foul lie,’ says Sister
-Jeanne, ‘for he did not even attempt to kiss any
-one of us.’ Another Reformer had preached
-against them, declaring that they ought to be
-‘turned out and compelled to marry in accordance
-with the commandment of God’; and the congregation
-had been so impressed by the discourse
-that the younger men among the worshippers had
-climbed up on to the convent wall, and sat there
-singing amorous songs for the edification of the
-inmates.</p>
-
-<p>No official action was taken, however, until after
-the conclusion of the disputation above referred to,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">18</a></span>
-though then it followed quickly. Fifteen Reformers,
-including Farel and Viret, called at the convent,
-declined the invitation to say what they had to say
-through the grating, but threatened to force the
-door if they were not admitted. The door was
-opened to them, therefore, and all the Sisters being
-summoned before them in the chapter-house,
-Farel ‘spoke in terms of vituperation of the holy
-cloister, of religion, of chastity, and of virginity, in
-a way that went to the hearts of the poor Sisters.’
-The others kept silence, but Mère Vicaire protested,
-interrupted, and screamed. Our narrative proceeds:</p>
-
-<p>‘She stationed herself between the Sisters and
-the young men, saying:</p>
-
-<p>‘“Since your preacher is such a holy man, why
-don’t you treat him with respect and obedience?
-You’re a pack of young rascals, but you won’t
-make any progress here.”</p>
-
-<p>‘Whereat they were all indignant, and exclaimed:</p>
-
-<p>‘“What the devil is the matter with the woman?
-Are you mad? Go back to your place.”</p>
-
-<p>‘“I won’t,” she said, “until these young men
-leave the Sisters alone!”’</p>
-
-<p>So Mère Vicaire was put out of the room; and
-the preacher resumed his discourse on the institution
-of matrimony. We read that ‘when he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">19</a></span>
-referred to the corruption of the flesh, the Sisters
-began to scream’; and that when he spoke of the
-advantages of married life, the Mère Vicaire, who
-was listening at the key-hole, began to batter at
-the panels, exclaiming: ‘Don’t you listen to him,
-my sisters; don’t you listen to him.’ So, after
-labouring at the conversion of the Sisters from ten
-o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the
-afternoon, the Reformers retired discomfited. A
-crowd of three hundred persons was waiting for
-them outside the gate, prepared to offer marriage
-to any nun whom they might have persuaded to
-accompany them; but they came forth alone, the
-last to leave being thumped on the back by a nun
-who desired to hurry his departure.</p>
-
-<p>It transpired, however, that one of the Sisters&mdash;‘the
-ill-advised Sister Blasine’&mdash;had been converted
-by the Reformers’ arguments. The other nuns
-tried to detain her, but the citizens broke into the
-convent and fetched her out in triumph, and also
-insisted that the convent should provide her with
-a dowry and pay her damages for the disciplinary
-whippings inflicted upon her during her membership
-of the Order. It was the culminating outrage.
-The nuns decided to leave Geneva, and the Lady
-Superior applied to the Syndic for an armed escort.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">20</a></span>
-The request was granted, and the ‘dolorous
-departure’ began. Three hundred soldiers were
-turned out to see the Sisters safely across the bridge
-over the Arve, where the territory of Geneva
-ended. It was the first time since their taking of
-the veil that they had been outside the convent
-walls, and some of them had spent all their lives in
-the cloister and grown old there, so that they were
-in no fit state to travel thus on foot. Let Sister
-Jeanne tell us what befell them:</p>
-
-<div id="ip_20" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_045.jpg" width="600" height="437" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">GENEVA FROM THE ARVE</div></div>
-
-<p>‘Truly it was a pitiful thing to see this holy
-company in such condition, so overcome by pain
-and toil that several of them broke down and
-fainted by the way&mdash;and that on a rainy day and
-in a muddy road, and with no means of getting out
-of their trouble, for they were all on foot, except
-four invalids who were in a cart. There were six
-poor aged Sisters, who had been for sixteen years
-members of the Order, and two who for sixty-six
-years had never been outside the convent gate.
-The fresh air was too much for them. They
-fainted away; and when they saw the beasts of
-the fields, they were terrified, thinking that the
-cows were bears, and that the sheep were ravening
-wolves. Those who met them could not find
-words to express their compassion for them; and,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">21</a></span>
-though the Mère Vicaire had given each Sister a
-stout pair of boots to keep her feet dry, the greater
-number of them would not walk in boots, but
-carried them tied to their girdles, and in this way it
-took them from five o’clock in the morning until
-nearly nightfall to reach Saint Julien, though the
-distance is less than a league.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">23</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE RULE OF CALVIN</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Stories such as those related above make it clear
-that rowdyism was likely to be the note of the
-Reformation at Geneva so long as Farel remained
-at the head of ecclesiastical affairs. With all his
-fiery zeal for Gospel truth, he was no better than
-a theological demagogue; and what Geneva wanted
-at the moment was not a demagogue, but a disciplinarian.
-Calvin supplied that need. He was
-a Protestant wanderer over the face of the earth,
-and he came to Geneva on his way from Italy
-to Strassburg. Farel, who had come to know
-his own limitations, called upon him in his inn,
-and prevailed upon him to stay and help him to
-keep order in the town, and, in particular, to help
-him to suppress certain Libertines, or Friends of
-Liberty, who had been protesting that the Reformers
-had no right to ‘require the citizens to attend
-sermons against their will,’ and demanding ‘liberty
-to live as they chose without reference to what was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">24</a></span>
-said by the preachers.’ Calvin, after much hesitation,
-consented, and so a new era began.</p>
-
-<p>It was not the work of a day. Calvin began
-energetically enough, admonishing Bonivard for
-undue familiarity with his servant-maid, standing
-a gambler in the pillory with a pack of cards hung
-round his neck, imprisoning a hairdresser for making
-a client look too beautiful, and endeavouring to
-throw ridicule upon conjugal infidelity by obliging
-an offender to ride round the town on a donkey.
-But the recalcitrants fought stubbornly for the
-right of living as they chose. The people who
-wanted to live dissolute lives allied themselves
-with the people who wanted unleavened bread to
-be used for the Holy Communion; and the coalition
-was powerful enough to get Calvin and Farel
-first forbidden to meddle with politics, and then
-ordered to leave the town within three days.</p>
-
-<p>They were no sooner gone, however, than they
-began to be missed. The disorders, rampant during
-their absence, became intolerable, and there was
-some danger that the Duke of Savoy might see
-his way to take advantage of them. A majority
-of the citizens came to the conclusion that strict
-regulations were to be preferred to insecurity, and
-they sent ambassadors to Calvin, inviting him to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">25</a></span>
-return, and to ‘stay with them for ever because
-of his great learning.’ He agreed to do so, and
-they voted him a small but sufficient salary, and
-gave him a strip of cloth to make him a new gown.
-In return, he drafted for their acceptance a new
-and original constitution, whereby the morals, and
-even the manners, of the community were placed
-under ecclesiastical supervision. That was the
-famous Theocracy, established in 1541, which
-seemed to John Knox to make Geneva ‘the most
-perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth
-since the days of the Apostles.’ A recital of a few
-of the enactments, taken from a contemporary
-translation entitled ‘The Laws and Statutes of
-Geneva,’ will be the most simple means of presenting
-the picture of the social life of the town
-under the regime:</p>
-
-<h3>‘<span class="smcap">The Laws and Statutes of Geneva.</span></h3>
-
-<p>‘Item, that none shall play or run idly in the
-streets during the time of Sermons on Sundays,
-nor days of prayer, nor to open their shops during
-the sermon time under pain without any favour.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no man, of what estate, quality, or
-condition soever he be, dareth be so hardy to make,
-or cause to be made, or wear hosen or doublets,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">26</a></span>
-cut, jagged, embroidered, or lined with silk, upon
-pain to forfeit.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no Citizen, Burger, or Inhabitant
-of this City dareth be so hardy to go from henceforth
-to eat or drink in any Tavern.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that none be so hardy to walk by night
-in the Town after nine of the clock, without candle-light
-and also a lawful cause.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no manner of person, of what estate,
-quality or condition soever they be, shall wear any
-chains of gold or silver, but those which have been
-accustomed to wear them shall put them off, and
-wear them no more upon pain of three score
-shillings for every time.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no women, of what quality or condition
-soever they be, shall wear any verdingales,
-gold upon her head, quoises of gold, billiments or
-such like, neither any manner of embroidery upon
-her sleeves.’</p>
-
-<div id="ip_26" class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;">
- <img src="images/i_055.jpg" width="432" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE BAY OF MEILLERIE</div></div>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no manner of person, whatsoever
-they be, making bride-ales, banquets, or feasts
-shall have above three courses or services to the
-said feasts, and to every course or service not
-above four dishes, and yet not excessive, upon
-pain of three score shillings for every time, fruit
-excepted.’</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">27</a></span>
-‘Item, that no manner of men shall go to the
-baths appointed for women, and also women not
-to go to those that be appointed for men.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that no manner of person do sing any
-vain, dishonest or ribaldry songs, neither do dance,
-nor make masques, mummeries, or any disguisings
-in no manner or sort whatsoever it be, upon pain
-to be put three days in prison with bread and
-water.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that all Hosts and Hostesses shall advertise
-their guests, and expressly forbid them not
-to be out of their lodging after the Trumpet sound
-to the Watch or ringing of the Bell (which is at
-nine of the clock), upon pain of the indignation of
-the Lords.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that all Hosts and others shall make their
-prayers to God, and give thanks before meat and
-after upon pain of forty shillings and for every
-time being found or proved, and if the Hosts
-or Hostesses be found negligent and not doing it,
-to be punished further as the case requireth.’</p>
-
-<p>‘Item, that none do enterprise to do, say, nor
-contract anything out of this City that he dare not
-do or say within the same concerning the Law
-of God and Reformation of the Gospel, upon pain
-to be punished according as the case requireth.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">29</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE TRIUMPH OF THE THEOCRACY</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Such was the constitution in theory; and, if we
-want to see it at work, we have only to turn to the
-Register of the Consistory, in which we may read
-how the citizens were punished for peccadilloes.
-One woman, we find, got into trouble for saying
-her prayers in Latin, and another for wearing
-her hair hanging down her back. One man was
-punished for wearing baggy knickerbockers in the
-street; a second for offering his snuff-box to a
-friend during the sermon; a third for talking
-business to a neighbour as he was coming out of
-church; a fourth for calling his cow by the
-Scriptural name Rebecca; a fifth for likening the
-braying of his donkey to the chanting of a psalm.
-There was also the case of a workman whose
-property was confiscated because he did not relieve
-the indigence of his aged parents; of a child stood
-in the pillory and publicly whipped for throwing
-a stone at its mother; of a mother imprisoned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">30</a></span>
-for carelessly dropping her baby on the floor; and
-of a young lady solemnly arraigned on the charge
-of casting amorous glances at a minister of the
-Word.</p>
-
-<p>Not everybody, of course, approved of such
-elaborate interference with liberty. The Friends
-of Liberty resisted it as long as they could, and
-their methods of resistance were not passive.
-They set their dogs at Calvin; they openly
-ridiculed him; they came drunk to church and
-brawled. But Calvin was a match for them.
-Pierre Amaulx, who said of him that he ‘thought
-as much of himself as if he were a Bishop,’ was
-compelled to apologize, bareheaded, in public;
-and all those who tried, as Calvin put it, to ‘throw
-off the yoke of the Gospel’ came to a bad end.
-One of them, Raoul Monnet, was beheaded for
-inviting young men to look at indecorous pictures;
-and the party was ultimately broken up as the
-result of a row in the streets. They were very
-drunk, and were threatening certain of the
-Reformers with violence, when Syndic Aubert,
-hearing their noise, came out and faced them in
-his nightgown, carrying his staff of office in one
-hand and a lighted candle in the other. Thus
-attired and equipped, he placed himself at the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">31</a></span>
-head of the watch, summoned the soldiers to his
-aid, and put the rioters to rout. Some of them
-were killed in the scuffle; others were captured,
-tried, and executed; while the remnant escaped
-into the country, where, for a period, they eked
-out a precarious existence by means of highway
-robbery.</p>
-
-<p>From that time forward Calvin’s supremacy was
-undisputed. The principal use which he made of
-it was to burn Servetus; but that is a thorny
-branch of the subject into which it is better not to
-enter. Our modern Calvinists do not, indeed, hold
-that Servetus deserved to be burnt, but they do
-sometimes maintain that Calvin did no great harm
-in burning him. There might be some risk of
-putting them to confusion if the topic were
-pursued; and this is not a controversial work.
-We shall be on safer ground if we turn aside to
-consider Calvin’s services to the State as an educationist.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">33</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE UNIVERSITY</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>In Old Geneva education had been neglected.
-Emperor Charles IV. had offered the citizens a
-University in the fourteenth century, and the offer
-had been rejected for fear, it was alleged, lest the
-students should behave uproariously. The first
-public school was not opened in the town until
-1429. It lasted for about a hundred years, and
-then fell upon evil times during an epidemic of the
-plague. The head master ran away from the contagion,
-and the City Council ordered the building
-to be closed, on the ground that the children were
-knocking it to pieces. Then, in 1535, after the
-Protestants had gained the upper hand, the École
-de la Rive was established in the convent from
-which the Cordeliers had been expelled. The first
-head-master was Antoine Saulnier, a Dauphiné
-Reformer, and his prospectus ran as follows:</p>
-
-<p>‘In our school the lectures begin at five o’clock
-in the morning and continue until ten, which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">34</a></span>
-our usual dinner hour. The ordinary curriculum
-consists of instruction in the three most excellent
-languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, not to
-mention the French language, which, in the
-opinion of the learned, is by no means to be
-despised. We hope that, the Lord helping us, the
-time will come when we shall also teach rhetoric
-and dialectic.’</p>
-
-<div id="ip_34" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_067.jpg" width="600" height="444" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">EVIAN LES BAINS, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>Calvin, however, wanted something better than
-the École de la Rive. He found a means, therefore,
-of founding a University, and placed Théodore
-de Bèze (of whom more presently) at the head of
-it as Rector. It was, at first, as Mark Pattison
-clearly proved in his ‘Life of Isaac Casaubon,’
-little more than a grammar school, culminating in
-a theological college; but it soon expanded, and
-is still expanding. Nowadays, indeed, housed in
-commodious new buildings, it furnishes instruction
-in almost every imaginable branch of knowledge,
-and specially favours studies of a utilitarian
-character; but the original programme was confined
-to the humane letters, the funds for the
-maintenance of the institution being raised with
-difficulty, and by means of ingenious fiscal devices,
-hardly to be held up to the imitation of modern
-fiscal reformers.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">35</a></span>
-One device was to ear-mark for the University
-chest all the fines imposed upon law-breakers.
-Those who gave short measure in the market, and
-those who spoke evil of the magistrates, were alike
-mulcted in the interests of learning; the heaviest
-contribution was that exacted from a bookseller
-convicted of having charged an excessive price for a
-copy of the Psalms of David. A second method
-consisted in summoning all the notaries of the town
-before the Council, and instructing them, when any
-citizen called them in to make his will, to impress
-upon the testator the desirability of bequeathing
-something to the University; the result was a
-total gain of 1,074 florins, including 312 florins from
-Robert Estienne, the printer, and 5 sous from a
-poor woman in the baking business. A third
-contrivance was to suppress a public banquet, and
-require the cost, estimated at 100 florins, to be
-handed to the University authorities.</p>
-
-<p>In this way the University&mdash;such as it was&mdash;was
-started, with class-rooms for the scholars and
-apartments for the professors, who were allowed
-to supplement their incomes by taking boarders.
-Everything was poorly done, however, and nobody
-appears to have been comfortable. Complaints of
-one sort and another are recorded, in large numbers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">36</a></span>
-in the Register of the Council. For one thing,
-there was no heating apparatus, but ‘the teachers
-used to keep up charcoal fires at their own expense,
-and require every pupil to pay something towards
-them.’ For another thing, there was no glass in
-the windows, and we read that ‘as to the request
-of the Principal that glass windows shall be placed
-in the class-rooms, it is decided that this shall not
-be done, but that the scholars may, if they like, fill
-up the apertures with paper.’ The teachers, too,
-were constantly expressing dissatisfaction with the
-accommodation provided for them. As early as
-1559 we have one of them applying for a more
-commodious lodging, on the ground that ‘God has
-called him to the estate of matrimony.’ A little
-later we come upon this note:</p>
-
-<p>‘Claude Bridet requested permission to lodge
-above the Tower, where M. Chevalier, lecturer in
-Hebrew, used to live, for the sake of his health, and
-because the lower ground is damp. Decided that
-he must be satisfied with his present apartment, and
-that the place to which he refers shall be kept for
-someone else.’</p>
-
-<p>In spite of discomfort, however, hard work was
-the order of the day. A letter has been preserved
-from M. de Bèze, the Rector of the University, to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">37</a></span>
-the parent of a pupil, in which he says: ‘I fear I
-shall be able to make nothing of your son, for, in
-spite of my entreaties, he refuses to work more than
-fourteen hours a day.’ The ordinary curriculum
-did not call for quite such persistent application as
-that, but was, none the less, sufficiently severe.</p>
-
-<p>The day began, at 7 a.m., with prayers, roll-call,
-and lessons. At 8.30 there was half an hour’s rest,
-during which the pupils were instructed to ‘eat
-bread, praying while they did so, without making a
-noise.’ From 9 to 10 there were more lessons,
-terminating with more prayers; from 10 to 11 the
-scholars dined; from 11 to 12 they sang psalms;
-from 12 to 1 there were further lessons, inaugurated
-by prayer; from 1 to 2 there was a quiet time
-devoted to eating, writing, and informal study;
-from 2 to 4 there was a final instalment of lessons;
-and at 4 there was punishment parade in the great
-college hall.</p>
-
-<p>The punishments were mainly corporal, and were
-inflicted so frequently that the milder professors
-protested. ‘The daily fustigations,’ said Mathurin
-Cordier, ‘disgust the children with the study of the
-humane letters; moreover, their skins get hardened
-like the donkeys’, and they no longer feel the
-stripes.’ It should be added, however, that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">38</a></span>
-stripes were not so often inflicted for neglect of
-the humane letters as for misbehaviour in church.
-The children had to attend three services every
-Sunday and one every Wednesday, in addition to
-the frequent daily prayers at school. They talked
-and played, as children will, to the scandal of their
-elders, and they played truant whenever they saw a
-chance. It must be admitted to be an indication
-of imperfect discipline that these peccadilloes were
-often solemnly reviewed before the Town Council,
-instead of being summarily dealt with at a Court of
-First Instance in the head-master’s study. The
-Councillors, however, showed no sentimental
-tendency to spare the rod. They might fine
-offenders whom their police caught in the streets
-when they ought to have been availing themselves
-of the means of grace; but they also very generally
-turned them over to the scholastic authorities to be
-whipped. A typical case is that of two lads who
-were caught playing quoits on the ramparts during
-the hours of Divine service on a Sunday morning.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_38" class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;">
- <img src="images/i_075.jpg" width="383" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE GLACIERS DES BOSSONS, CHAMONIX</div></div>
-
-<p>‘Resolved,’ runs the entry, ‘to hand them over
-to M. de Bèze, that he may cause them to be given
-such a fustigation as will prevent them from doing
-it again.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">39</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">PROFESSOR ANDREW MELVILL</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>It does not appear that the fustigations at first
-formed brilliant scholars. The University was, for
-a long time, more famous for its professors than for
-its pupils. Few learned men, at that period, were
-regarded as prophets in their own countries; and a
-goodly proportion of those who were so regarded
-had to emigrate for fear of being stoned. Many of
-the fugitives settled at Geneva, and taught there;
-and the readiness of the welcome accorded to the
-men who were considered suitable may be illustrated
-from the career of Andrew Melvill, the
-Scottish scholar, who subsequently reformed the
-Scottish Universities, and went to profess theology
-at Sedan. Andrew Melvill had been teaching in
-a college at Poictiers, and the town had been
-besieged by the Huguenots. <span class="locked">Then&mdash;</span></p>
-
-<p>‘The siege of the town being raised, he left
-Poictiers, and accompanied by a Frenchman, he
-took journey to Geneva, leaving books and all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">40</a></span>
-there, and carried nothing with him but a little
-Hebrew Bible in his belt. So he came to Geneva,
-all upon foot, and as he had done before from
-Dieppe to Paris, and from that to Poictiers; for
-he was small and light of body, but full of spirits,
-vigorous, and courageous. His companions of the
-way, when they came to the inn, would lie down
-like tired dogs, but he would out and sight the
-towns and villages, whithersoever they came. The
-ports of Geneva were carefully kept, because of the
-troubles of France, and the multitude of strangers
-that came. Being therefore inquired what they
-were, the Frenchman, his companion, answered:</p>
-
-<p>‘“We are poor scholars.”</p>
-
-<p>‘But Mr. Andrew, perceiving that they had no
-wish for poor folks, being already overlaid therewith,
-said:</p>
-
-<p>‘“No, no; we are not poor! We have as much
-as will pay for all we take as long as we tarry.
-We have letters from his acquaintance to Monsieur
-de Bèze; let us deliver those, we crave no further.”</p>
-
-<p>‘And so, being convoyed to Beza and then to
-their lodging, Beza perceiving him a scholar, and
-they having need of a Professor of Humanity in the
-College, put him within two or three days to trial
-in Virgil and Homer; wherein he could acquit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">41</a></span>
-himself so well that without further ado, he is
-placed in that room of profession; and at his first
-entry a quarter’s fee is paid him in hand. So that
-howbeit there was but a crown to the fore betwixt
-them both, and the Frenchman weak-spirited and
-wist not what to do, yet he found God’s providence
-to relieve both himself and help his companion till
-he was provided.’</p>
-
-<p>There follows a picture of Melvill’s life in the
-city:</p>
-
-<p>‘In Geneva he abode five years; during the
-which time his chief study was Divinity, whereon
-he heard Beza’s daily lessons and preachings;
-Cornelius Bonaventura, Professor of the Hebrew,
-Chaldaic, and Syriac languages; Portus, a Greek
-born, Professor of the Greek tongue, with whom
-he would reason about the right pronunciation
-thereof; for the Greek pronounced it after the
-common form, keeping the accents; the which
-Mr. Andrew controlled by precepts and reason, till
-the Greek would grow angry and cry out:</p>
-
-<p>‘“<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Vos Scoti, vos barbari! docebitis nos Græcos
-pronunciationem linguæ nostræ, scilicet?</i>”</p>
-
-<p>‘He heard there also Francis Hotman, the
-renownedst lawyer in his time. There he was
-well acquainted with my uncle, Mr. Henry Scrymgeour,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">42</a></span>
-who, by his learning in the laws and policy
-and service of many noble princes, had attained to
-great riches, acquired a pretty plot of ground
-within a league of Geneva, and built thereon a
-trim house called “the Vilet,” and a fair lodging
-within the town, all which, with a daughter, his
-only born, he left to the Syndics of the town.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">43</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THÉODORE DE BÈZE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Calvin died and was buried with his fathers&mdash;not
-before it was time, in the opinion of a good many
-of his critics&mdash;and was succeeded in the dictatorship
-by Théodore de Bèze, whose name is commonly
-latinized as Beza.</p>
-
-<p>The two men had always worked well together;
-but they differed widely both in their antecedents
-and in their dispositions. Calvin, a theologian
-from his earliest years, had had no hot youth, no
-unregenerate days. Monsieur de Bèze, born of a
-good old Burgundian family, had been a man of
-the world before he became a man of God; before
-he versified the Psalms he had written verses
-which his enemies described as indecorous; when
-he enrolled himself among the Reformers, the first
-person whom he had to reform was himself; for,
-though there does not seem to be any truth in the
-statement of the Jesuit Maimbourg that he had a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">44</a></span>
-love-affair with the wife of a tailor, there is no
-denying that he had betrayed a young woman of
-humble birth under promise of marriage, and had
-allowed four years to elapse before fulfilling his
-promise. Moreover, he kept his high spirits when
-he settled down to virtuous courses; and his
-fellow-citizens were so delighted with his jollity
-that it became a saying in Geneva that it would be
-better to go to hell with Beza than to heaven with
-Calvin.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_44" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_085.jpg" width="600" height="446" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">YVOIRE, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>As a man of letters M. de Bèze was principally
-occupied with theological controversy, and, as
-has been said, with the production of his metrical
-version of the Psalms of David; but his contributions
-to religious disputation sometimes took the
-form of farce and burlesque. He was part author
-of a satire entitled <cite>Cuisine Papale</cite>, and devoted his
-great gifts to the composition of a rollicking drinking
-song, in which a certain burner of heretics thus
-bewails the loss of his nose:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">45</a></span></p><div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘O nose that must with drink be dyed!<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">O nose, my glory and my pride!<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">O nose, that didst enjoy a-right&mdash;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Nose, my alembic of delight!<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">My bibulous big bottle-nose,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">As highly coloured as the rose,<br /></span>
-<span class="iq">‘It was my hope that thou wouldst share<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">My shifting fortunes everywhere.<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">A Churchman’s nose thou wast indeed&mdash;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">The partner of his prayers and creed;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Proof against all doctrinal shocks,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">And never aught but orthodox.’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Let that suffice. It is rather vulgar fooling;
-but to have omitted all mention of it would have
-been to give an imperfect impression of the
-Reformer. He owed some of his influence with
-the vulgar to the fact that he knew how to descend
-to their level; and he needed all his influence, for
-he had to guide Geneva through perilous times.
-There was a terrible epidemic of the plague;
-innumerable fugitives from the Massacre of St.
-Bartholomew took refuge in the town; there was
-a long war with Savoy.</p>
-
-<p>In the case of the plague the difficulty was, as it
-always had been at Geneva, to compel the doctors
-and the clergy to do their duty to the sick. A
-note in the Register of the Council shows us how,
-in the days before the Reform, the monks had
-envisaged their obligations. The canons of the
-cathedral, it there appears, passed the following
-resolution:</p>
-
-<p>‘In view of the fact that the plague is suspected
-to exist in the town, the reverend fathers vote<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">46</a></span>
-themselves a month’s holiday from the duty of
-residing there and attending to the services; their
-stipends, in the meantime, to continue to be
-paid.’</p>
-
-<p>The month’s holiday, we also gather, was subsequently
-extended to a year, with the same liberal
-stipulation as to emoluments; and after the
-Reformation we find the Protestant clergy displaying
-an equal timidity in the presence of the
-disease. The entry concerning them runs thus:</p>
-
-<p>‘The ministers appeared before the Council confessing
-that it was their duty to go and offer consolation
-to the sufferers from the plague, but that
-not one of them had the courage to do so. They
-begged the Council to overlook their weakness,
-seeing that God had not given them the grace to
-brave and overcome the peril with the intrepidity
-required&mdash;always excepting Matthew Geneston,
-who is quite willing to go, if the lot should fall
-upon him.’</p>
-
-<p>M. de Bèze, one is glad to know, was made of
-sterner stuff than these weak brethren. Not only
-were the sick properly visited during his term of
-office. Precautions&mdash;fatuous, but well meant&mdash;were
-taken against the propagation of the disorder.
-The Register of the Council is full of references to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">47</a></span>
-them. Sufferers were ordered not to open their
-windows; convalescents were enjoined to carry
-white sticks when they went abroad, in order that
-they might be recognized and avoided; it was forbidden
-to eat fruit or to take a bath, as this was
-believed to be a means of catching the infection.
-We have a note on hospital reform. It was
-ordered that male and female patients should be
-treated in separate wards, in order that certain
-scandals might be prevented. We find a doctor
-reprimanded for doing his duty negligently. ‘The
-Sieur Bauhin, plague-doctor, is ordered to see his
-patients in their houses instead of being satisfied
-with having them brought to the window for a
-consultation.’ Finally, we read that ‘the Council,
-at the request of the Ministers, orders all the
-citizens to frequent the sermons with assiduity, in
-order to turn away the wrath of God which would
-appear, from the continuance of the plague, to be
-violently aroused against the town.’</p>
-
-<p>Then, while the plague was still lingering, came
-the news of the dreadful doings of St. Bartholomew’s
-Day. Merchants from Lyons brought the
-tidings, predicting the speedy arrival of the victims
-who had escaped the butchery; and preparations
-were made to entertain them hospitably. M. de<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">48</a></span>
-Bèze dispatched pastors to greet them at the
-frontier, and preached a sermon on the situation,
-bidding the citizens decree a special day of prayer
-and fasting&mdash;the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Jeûne Genevois</i>, which is still
-observed, though as an occasion of junketing rather
-than of abstinence.</p>
-
-<p>On that occasion, however, the Genevans were
-very far from junketing. They did indeed fast and
-pray; and on the first day of September the
-arrival of the long train of fugitives began. They
-were truly fugitives rather than immigrants; that
-is to say, they had fled empty-handed, travelled in
-hourly terror of their lives, and arrived in a state of
-utter destitution. Let it be added that there were
-2,300 of them, and that contemporary statistics
-show that there were in Geneva, at that period,
-only 1,200 householders. Imagining the sudden
-influx of 2,300 paupers into a town of the size of
-Sandwich, one begins to realize the economic situation
-thus created. To realize it completely one
-must further remember that Geneva was already
-on the verge of bankruptcy; and that a collection,
-for the benefit of the fugitives, which realized 4,000
-livres, so exhausted the resources of the town that
-the proposal to make a second collection had to be
-abandoned.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">49</a></span>
-Severe economy was naturally the order of the
-day. The only recorded example of public extravagance
-during this period is an order that, as
-the chairs in the Council Chamber were too hard
-for the comfort of the Councillors, they should be
-padded; and even this outlay may have been due
-to a desire to find work for those who needed it.
-On the other hand, the indications of distress are
-numerous and startling.</p>
-
-<p>One such indication is furnished by the report of
-a debate of the Venerable Company of Pastors. It
-was proposed that a deputation should wait upon
-the magistrates ‘to inform them how scantily they
-provide for their clergy in times when everything is
-dear, the fact being that even ministers with no
-families but only wives to support are absolutely
-unable to live upon their salaries.’ But the proposal
-was rejected on the ground that the magistrates
-were already aware of the distress of the
-clergy, and could do little to help them, and that
-it would never do for it to be said that the clergy
-had applied for increased emoluments at a time of
-general impoverishment. ‘It is better,’ the resolution
-continued, ‘to endure our sufferings, leaving it
-to God to relieve them when it seems good to Him;
-but if any of our brethren are too hard pressed, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">50</a></span>
-may declare their condition to the magistrates, and
-ask assistance from them privately.’</p>
-
-<p>Still more sorrowful was the case of the immigrant
-pastors from France, who had no wages.
-The magistrates distributed a certain amount of
-money among them, and advised them that, as no
-more was likely to be forthcoming, they would be
-wise to lay out a part of it in learning a business or
-a trade. Their reply is worth preserving:</p>
-
-<p>‘For several weeks,’ they said, ‘their position had
-been very painful; they felt their indebtedness to
-the Genevans the more acutely because no one
-reminded them of it; and they had decided to do
-with as little as possible to eat until the spring,
-when they hoped to have better news from their
-own country.’</p>
-
-<div id="ip_50" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_095.jpg" width="600" height="447" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">LA ROCHE, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">WAR WITH SAVOY</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The situation righted itself by degrees, with the
-help of subscriptions from other Swiss cities; but
-then there was another deadly peril to be faced.
-The pretensions of Savoy were not yet extinguished.
-The Duke was still determined to capture Geneva,
-whether by violence or by stealth, believing that
-the act would be equally advantageous to the
-Church and to himself. Two attempts to ‘rush’
-the town in time of peace&mdash;once by means of
-soldiers who were to enter concealed in barges
-laden with wood, and once by means of armed men
-disguised as muleteers&mdash;induced the Council to
-meet and resolve to ‘ask the advice of God and
-M. de Bèze’; and, from 1589 onwards, there was
-open war, in which 2,186 Genevans held their
-own against 18,000 Savoyards.</p>
-
-<p>The atrocities committed by the Savoyard
-soldiers were numerous and terrible. We read
-of one prisoner of war being skinned alive; of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">52</a></span>
-another who, with his feet amputated, was driven
-about on a donkey with his face to the tail, and
-then flung on a dunghill to die. We also read of
-peasants being hung up to be roasted alive over
-the fire-places in their own cottages. It is not
-wonderful that the Genevan soldiers held that this
-sort of thing gave them the right to retaliate, at
-least by pillaging, when they gained the upper hand.
-The wonderful thing is that, when they did pillage,
-M. de Bèze called them to order, and was listened
-to. He told them that they were degrading
-Geneva to the level of a brigand’s cave, and bade
-them make instant restitution of the plunder which
-they had taken from the peasantry. It is recorded
-that they obeyed him, and there could be no better
-proof that M. de Bèze was a strong man.</p>
-
-<p>These hostilities came to an end in 1589, owing
-to the intervention of Henri IV. of France; but
-the peril was not conjured. Baffled in the field,
-Duke Charles Emmanuel fell back upon treachery,
-and planned the adventure known to history as the
-Escalade. It is the most notable episode in all the
-Genevan annals. Fragments of scaling-ladders,
-kept as memorials of the ignominious failure of the
-enterprise, are still proudly exhibited in one of the
-town museums. The story must be told at length.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">53</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE ESCALADE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The time was December, 1602. Duke Charles
-Emmanuel had secretly crossed the mountains, and
-established his head-quarters at Etrembières; a
-sufficient army had been quietly mobilized; there
-were 800 Savoyards, 1,000 Spaniards, 400 Neapolitans,
-and 4,000 Piedmontese at Bonne, La
-Roche, Bonneville, and other places near Geneva.
-The Duke had also been at pains to allay suspicion
-by assuring the Genevans, through his agents, that
-he desired nothing more than to be on friendly
-terms with them. But at midnight of December
-12 he set his troops in motion.</p>
-
-<p>A storming-party of some two hundred men
-led the way, under the command of M. Berlonière,
-who had extreme unction administered to him
-ostentatiously before he started. The main body
-of 4,000 men was to follow under Lieutenant-General
-d’Albigni. Acting on information received,
-the storming-party struck the Corraterie<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">54</a></span>
-rampart at a point where there was no sentinel on
-the look-out for them. They carried with them
-faggots and hurdles to help them over the moat,
-ladders that could be dovetailed together to scale
-the rampart with, and axes and crowbars for breaking
-down or forcing gates. A Scotch Jesuit, named
-Alexander, gave them his benediction as they
-climbed, and handed to every man an amulet
-which purported to guarantee him in the first
-instance against being killed, and in the second
-instance against being damned eternally if he were
-killed.</p>
-
-<p>Fortune at first smiled upon their efforts. They
-succeeded in attaining the rampart unobserved, and
-kept quiet, waiting for d’Albigni and the dawn.
-A single sentinel whom they met was slain in
-silence. But presently a small company of the
-watch passed by upon its rounds. Upon these, too,
-the soldiers flung themselves, and most of them
-were quickly pitched over into the moat. One
-gun went off, however, and one man managed to
-escape. He was the drummer, and he ran along
-the rampart, drumming as he went, as far as the
-Porte de la Monnaie. It was enough. The alarm
-was given. The invaders saw that they must fight
-in the dark, instead of waiting for the dawn. ‘<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Vive<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">55</a></span>
-Espagne!</i>’ they shouted. ‘<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Ville gagnée! Tue, Tue!</i>’
-and dashed down into the streets, expecting
-d’Albigni and his 4,000 men to follow them.</p>
-
-<p>But this was what d’Albigni and his 4,000 men
-could not do. Chance&mdash;or the hand of Providence&mdash;had
-interfered to save Geneva. A message to
-say that the city was as good as captured had
-already been sent off to the Duke of Savoy at
-Etrembières; and the Duke was dispatching
-couriers to announce his victory at all the Courts
-of Europe. But it happened that the Genevans at
-the Porte Neuve loaded a cannon to the muzzle
-with chains, and any other old iron that came to
-hand, and fired it in a direction parallel with the
-rampart. Had the aim been bad, Geneva would
-have fallen that night beyond a doubt. But the
-aim was good, and the shot broke the ladders into
-pieces, so that no one could climb by them any
-more; and there was Lieutenant-General d’Albigni
-with his army helpless in the moat, while the storming
-party was caught in a trap within the walls.
-The citizens snatched up their weapons, and hurried
-down, half dressed, to give them battle in the dark.
-Their pastor, Simon Goulart,<a id="FNanchor_A" href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">A</a> who wrote a jubilant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">56</a></span>
-description of the episode, declared that he himself
-would have been delighted to join in the affray if
-only he had had a coat of mail. A worthy woman,
-who was making soup for an early breakfast, flung
-the scalding fluid, saucepan and all, out of window
-on to the heads of the intruders. Other missiles were
-showered upon them from other windows; while
-the number of armed men who faced them in the
-open steadily increased. In the end, after inflicting
-upon the Genevans a loss of seventeen killed
-and twenty wounded, they were swept back into
-the moat, leaving many dead and thirteen prisoners
-behind them.</p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_A" href="#FNanchor_A" class="fnanchor">A</a> Simon Goulart (1543&ndash;1628) was a Frenchman, who
-accepted the Reformation in 1565, and came to Geneva in
-1566. In 1572 he was made pastor of the Church of St.
-Gervais. After the death of M. de Bèze he became President
-of the Venerable Company. He wrote more than fifty books
-on various subjects.</p></div>
-
-<div id="ip_56" class="figcenter" style="width: 459px;">
- <img src="images/i_105.jpg" width="459" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE CASTLE OF ETREMBIÈRES, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>‘<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Misérable butor, vous avez fait une belle cacade</i>’&mdash;‘Blockhead,
-you have made a pretty mess of it’&mdash;was
-Charles Emmanuel’s greeting to d’Albigni
-when he heard the truth; and with that he
-mounted his horse and rode away to Turin, without
-even troubling to hear the fate of his prisoners.
-These, it should be added, were all beheaded in the
-course of the next day; while the heads of those
-who had been killed were collected and spiked, as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">57</a></span>
-an ornament to the ramparts and a terror to evil-doers.</p>
-
-<p>M. de Bèze, who was now an old man and very
-deaf, had slept through the fighting undisturbed,
-and knew nothing of it until his friends told him
-the story the next morning. Though he had
-now retired from the active duties of the pastorate,
-he dressed himself and went down to the Cathedral
-of St. Pierre, where he mounted the pulpit stairs
-and called upon the congregation to sing Psalm
-cxxiv.&mdash;the Psalm which begins:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘If the Lord Himself had not been on our side, now may
-Israel say: if the Lord Himself had not been on our side,
-when men rose up against us.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p class="in0">The Psalm which ends:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the
-fowler: the snare is broken, and we are delivered.</p>
-
-<p>‘Our help standeth in the name of the Lord: who hath
-made heaven and earth.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>It was the old Reformer’s last public appearance&mdash;and
-a fitting one, giving as it does the last
-dramatic touch to the most dramatic incident in
-Genevan annals. He lived until 1605, but he
-was growing feebler and feebler. He suffered from
-no actual malady, but it was obvious to all that the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">58</a></span>
-light was flickering out. His intellect, however,
-was clear until the last, and the picture of his last
-days, drawn by his biographer, Antoine La Faye,
-recalls Bunyan’s picture of the Christian pilgrims
-waiting in the Land of Beulah for their summons
-to cross the river to the shining city.</p>
-
-<p>The Venerable Company of Pastors in conclave
-resolved that no day should be allowed to pass
-without at least two of their number paying him a
-visit. For the rest he found his pleasure in reading
-grave and pious colloquies and sermons, and particularly
-in those words of Augustine: ‘Long have
-I lived; long have I sinned. Blessed be the name
-of the Lord!’ And, at the last, ‘without pain, and
-without a struggle, all his senses, as it seemed, failing
-him simultaneously, in one single instant, he
-gave back his soul to God, his bodily pilgrimage
-having lasted eighty-six years, three months, and
-nine days, and forty of his years having been spent
-in the holy office of the ministry.’</p>
-
-<p>‘M. de Bèze,’ La Faye continues, ‘was a man of
-sturdy build, conspicuous beauty, and health so
-vigorous that he often said that he did not know
-the meaning of a headache. He displayed high
-talents, accurate judgment, a tenacious memory,
-and remarkable eloquence, while in courtesy of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">59</a></span>
-manner he was second to no one. In view of the
-great gifts thus recited, and his great age (though
-these are things less to be regarded than his learning
-and his piety), many used to speak of M. de Bèze
-as the Phœnix of his time.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">61</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">AN INTERVAL OF QUIET</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>M. de Bèze was succeeded in the Presidency of
-the Venerable Company of Pastors by Simon
-Goulart&mdash;the warrior whom we have seen excusing
-himself for not fighting against the Duke of Savoy
-on the ground that he had no coat of mail. In his
-new office, however, Simon needed no armour,
-for the period from the Escalade of 1603 to the
-Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was
-quiet and uneventful. The great name of the
-epoch was that of Jean Diodati, Milton’s friend,
-the theologian who pulverized the Arminians at
-the Synod of Dordrecht. Other names are those
-of Trembley, Tronchin, Turretini, and Calendrini;
-and there is not a name among them which need
-detain us. The town was at peace with its neighbours;
-commerce and industry flourished; and the
-ecclesiastical discipline gradually lost its grip upon
-the city, or was, at least, restricted to a narrower
-field of usefulness. We hear of a good many new<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62">62</a></span>
-sumptuary laws, but we also gather that many of
-them were only a means of accentuating class
-distinctions, and that there was a growing difficulty
-in enforcing them. We find persons burnt alive
-for witchcraft at the beginning of the period, but
-not towards the end of it; we hear of doubts
-diffusing themselves as to the efficacy of torture
-in extracting the truth from witnesses; and we find
-even heresy dealt with less rigorously than of old.
-A heretic who was sentenced to be ‘strangled in
-the usual manner’ had the sentence, without difficulty,
-commuted into one of ten years’ banishment.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_62" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_115.jpg" width="600" height="476" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">NYON CASTLE, LOOKING ACROSS THE LAKE TO MONT BLANC</div></div>
-
-<p>The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes inevitably
-brought a fresh flood of immigrants&mdash;1,450 in a
-single week, 800 in a single day&mdash;but Geneva was
-by no means disposed to welcome them so hospitably
-as in the time of M. de Bèze. Seventy years of
-prosperity had sapped some of the primitive virtues
-of the people; they had conceived a dread of
-foreign competition, and of the pauper alien, even
-though the pauper alien was an exile for conscience’
-sake. Their disposition was rather to seek excuses
-for passing the pauper aliens on, and make them
-chargeable upon the hospitality of their Swiss allies,
-or of the Germans or the Dutch. To some extent
-they succeeded; but a considerable number of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">63</a></span>
-immigrants settled in the town in spite of the
-political disabilities imposed upon them, and soon
-became a source of trouble. All through the
-eighteenth century&mdash;or at all events from 1707
-until 1794&mdash;there was intermittent political turmoil.
-A detailed account of the agitations and disturbances
-hardly falls within the scope of such a work
-as the present; but it may be as well to sum them
-up, and describe their general character.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">65</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">REVOLUTIONS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Transvaal troubles which culminated in the
-South African War may furnish an analogy which
-will help to make the situation clear; the story
-being, in fact, a long story of acrimonious relations
-between Burghers and Uitlanders. The Burghers
-were, in the main, the descendants of the families
-already possessed of the rights of citizenship in the
-half-century following the Reformation; the Uitlanders
-were the descendants of immigrants who
-had settled in the city since that period. The
-Burghers enjoyed political rights, and the Uitlanders
-did not; the gulf between the two classes
-was only occasionally passed by an exceptional
-Uitlander whom the Burghers considered ‘fit.’
-By degrees, however, the Uitlanders became more
-numerous than the Burghers, and a form of government
-which had been a democracy became an
-oligarchy, in which many of the most intelligent
-and reputable citizens had no voice.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">66</a></span>
-For a time the system worked well enough, or
-at all events worked without any outward signs of
-friction; but throughout the eighteenth century
-friction was constantly occurring, and insurrections,
-described by some historians as revolutions, broke
-out at intervals. There were revolutions of sorts
-in 1707, in 1737, in 1766, in 1782, and in 1789, with
-minor revolutions intervening. The recognized
-mode of composing the troubles was to invite the
-mediation of foreign Powers, and more particularly
-of France. The first step of the French mediator
-was generally, as we shall see, to demand that a
-theatre should be opened and a company of
-comedians installed in it for his diversion. But he
-also mediated, the result of his mediation being to
-arrange a compromise between the rival claims.
-Each compromise did something to improve the
-position of the Uitlanders; but no compromise
-really removed their grievances or satisfied their
-claims.</p>
-
-<p>This brings us to the date of the French Revolution,
-which, as was inevitable in the circumstances,
-had its very audible repercussion at Geneva. The
-doctrine that ‘all men are equal before the law, and
-ought to enjoy the same political rights,’ was seed
-which fell there upon a fruitful soil. As might<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">67</a></span>
-have been expected, French methods of propagandism
-were imitated, and Jacobinical clubs
-were formed&mdash;the Sans-culottes, the Montagnards,
-the Marseillais, the Égalité. The clubmen constituted
-a party known as the Égaliseurs, or
-Equalitarians, and demanded a new constitution,
-based upon the principle of the sovereignty of the
-people, and the admission of all Uitlanders to the
-full rights of citizenship. On the night of September
-4, 1792, there was a rising. The gates of the
-town were seized; the members of the Government
-were arrested; a Provisional Government was
-proclaimed, with the mission of drafting a new
-constitution on the approved democratic lines.</p>
-
-<p>So far, so good. But the account of what
-follows reads like a burlesque of the revolutionary
-proceedings across the frontier. The workmen left
-their work, and paraded the streets in red caps,
-singing revolutionary songs. The extremists
-banded themselves into a society styled ‘the
-Tanners,’ pledged to ‘tan,’ or assault and batter,
-the aristocrats, whom they called Englués, or Stick-in-the-muds,
-whenever and wherever they met them
-taking their walks abroad. Nor did such informal
-acts of violence suffice. The next step was to
-arrest all the aristocrats who had not fled from the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">68</a></span>
-town, lock them up in the Grenier de Chantepoulet,
-and improvise a revolutionary tribunal to
-judge them.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_68" class="figcenter" style="width: 416px;">
- <img src="images/i_125.jpg" width="416" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">MONTENVERS AND AIGUILLES VERTE AND DRU</div></div>
-
-<p>The proceedings of the tribunal were conducted
-with true republican <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">sans-gêne</i>. The judges sat
-on the bench in their shirt-sleeves, with their pipes
-in their mouths and their pistols in their belts.
-Happily, however, as if they were half conscious
-that their proceedings were farcical, they were
-less murderous in their sentences than their
-French models. Though 600 aristocrats were
-condemned, the majority of them escaped with
-sentences of fines, imprisonment, or exile, and the
-death sentence was only passed upon seven of them.
-The seven were shot by torch-light at the Bastions;
-and then the people began to be horrified by the
-atrocities which they had perpetrated. There was
-a reaction, a counter-revolution, and a great
-ceremony of reconciliation in the cathedral. The
-leaders of the rival factions shook hands in the
-presence of the assembled populace, and swore to
-forgive and forget and work together thenceforward
-for the good of their common country. They kept
-their oaths, and all promised well until the French
-Directorate cast covetous eyes upon Geneva, found
-a pretext for its annexation, and made it the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">69</a></span>
-capital of the new department of Leman. It
-remained French until the last day of the year
-1813, when Napoleon’s misfortunes gave the citizens
-the opportunity of throwing off the yoke, and
-they sought and obtained admission to the Swiss
-Confederation.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">71</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">LITERATURE AND SCIENCE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>It has been remarked as curious that the Age of
-Revolution at Geneva was also the Golden Age&mdash;if
-not of Genevan literature, which has never
-really had any Golden Age, at least of Genevan
-science, which was of world-wide renown. The
-explanation probably is that these Genevan revolutions,
-over which the Genevan historians have spilt
-such a quantity of ink, were not such very important
-matters after all. So far as one can make out,
-the graver of them were hardly more grave than the
-Peterloo massacre, while the less grave hardly attain
-to the gravity of the Bloody Sunday Riots. A
-man of letters who took part in one of them on the
-losing side might suffer unpleasant consequences.
-He might have his writings burnt by the common
-hangman, as Bérenger’s were; he might be driven
-into exile, as were de Lolme, who went to London,
-where he wrote his famous work on the British
-Constitution, and d’Ivernois, who went to Paris<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">72</a></span>
-and became one of the most pungent critics of
-republican administration and finance. Such
-things might happen, and in many cases did.
-But there were no such violent or such continual
-disturbances as need take up the whole of a literary
-man’s time, or prevent him from getting on with
-his work.</p>
-
-<p>The period, at any rate, is one in which notable
-names meet us at every turn. There were exiled
-Genevans, like de Lolme, holding their own in
-foreign political and intellectual circles; there were
-emigrant Genevan pastors holding aloft the lamps
-of culture and piety in many cities of England,
-France, Russia, Germany, and Denmark; there
-were Genevans, like François Lefort, holding the
-highest offices in the service of foreign rulers; and
-there were numbers of Genevans at Geneva of
-whom the cultivated grand tourist wrote in the
-tone of a disciple writing of his master. One
-cannot glance at the history of the period without
-lighting upon names of note in almost all departments
-of endeavour. The period is that of de
-Saussure, Bourrit, the de Lucs, the two Hubers,
-great authorities respectively on bees and birds; Le
-Sage, who was one of Gibbon’s rivals for the heart
-of Mademoiselle Suzanne Curchod; Senebier, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">73</a></span>
-librarian who wrote the first literary history of
-Geneva; St. Ours and Arlaud, the painters;
-Charles Bonnet, the entomologist; Bérenger and
-Picot, the historians; Tronchin, the physician;
-Trembley and Jallabert, the mathematicians;
-Dentan, minister and Alpine explorer; Pictet,
-the editor of the <cite>Bibliothèque Universelle</cite>, still the
-leading Swiss literary review; and Odier, who
-taught Geneva the virtue of vaccination.</p>
-
-<p>It is obviously impossible to dwell at length upon
-the careers of all these eminent men. As well might
-one attempt, in a survey on the same scale of English
-literature, to discuss in detail the careers of all the
-celebrities of the age of Anne. One can do little
-more than remark that the list is marvellously
-strong for a town of some 30,000 inhabitants, and
-that many of the names included in it are not only
-eminent, but interesting. Jean André de Luc, for
-example, has a double claim upon our attention as
-the inventor of the hygrometer and as the pioneer
-of the snow-peaks. He climbed the Buet as early
-as 1770, and wrote an account of his adventures on
-its summit and its slopes which has the true charm
-of Arcadian simplicity. He came to England, was
-appointed reader to Queen Charlotte, and lived in
-the enjoyment of that office, and in the gratifying<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">74</a></span>
-knowledge that Her Majesty kept his presentation
-hygrometer in her private apartments, to the
-venerable age of ninety.</p>
-
-<p>Bourrit is another interesting character&mdash;being,
-in fact, the spiritual ancestor of the modern Alpine
-Clubman. By profession he was Precentor of the
-Cathedral; but his heart was in the mountains.
-In the summer he climbed them, and in the winter
-he wrote books about them. One of his books
-was translated into English; and the list of subscribers,
-published with the translation, shows
-that the public which Bourrit addressed included
-Edmund Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Bartolozzi,
-Fanny Burney, Angelica Kauffman, David Garrick,
-Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Augustus Selwyn,
-Jonas Hanway, and Dr. Johnson. His writings
-earned him the honourable title of Historian
-(or Historiographer) of the Alps. Men of science
-wrote him letters; princes engaged upon the
-grand tour called to see him; princesses sent
-him presents as tokens of their admiration and
-regard for the man who had taught them how the
-contemplation of mountain scenery might exalt
-the sentiments of the human mind.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_74" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_135.jpg" width="600" height="491" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE JURA RANGE FROM THONON, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>Tronchin, too, is interesting; he was the first
-physician who recognized the therapeutic use of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">75</a></span>
-fresh air and exercise, hygienic boots, and open
-windows. And so is Charles Bonnet, who was not
-afraid to stand up for orthodoxy against Voltaire;
-and so is Mallet, who travelled as far as Lapland.
-But space forbids any long examination of their
-achievements. The most that one can do is to
-illustrate the epoch by narrating the events of one
-career; and the career selected must of necessity
-be that of the man of whom his contemporaries
-always spoke, with the reverence of hero-worshippers,
-as ‘the illustrious de Saussure.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">77</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">SAUSSURE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Horace Benedict de Saussure, who, like so many
-eminent Genevans, was of French extraction, was
-born in 1740. Nominally, his work in life, entered
-upon at the age of twenty-two, was that of Professor
-of Philosophy at the Geneva University;
-but his real work, continued almost until his death,
-was that of the explorer, student, and exponent of
-the mountains. Some time before the end he was
-able to boast that he had crossed the Alps by eight
-different passes, made sixteen other excursions to
-the centre of the range, and travelled in the Jura,
-the Vosges, and the mountains of Dauphiné. His
-marriage&mdash;he married young&mdash;by no means hindered
-him from climbing. Madame de Saussure indeed
-objected, quite failing to understand his readiness
-to forsake the comforts of the hearth in order to
-revolutionize the science of geology. But he put
-his foot down in a letter which may perhaps be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">78</a></span>
-read with profit by other ladies besides her to
-whom it was addressed:</p>
-
-<p>‘In this valley, which I had not previously
-visited, I have made observations of the greatest
-importance, surpassing my highest hopes; but that
-is not what you care about. You would sooner&mdash;God
-forgive me for saying so&mdash;see me growing
-fat like a friar, and snoring every day in the
-chimney-corner after a big dinner, than that I
-should achieve immortal fame by the most
-sublime discoveries, at the cost of reducing my
-weight by a few ounces and spending a few weeks
-away from you. If, then, I continue to undertake
-these journeys in spite of the annoyance they cause
-you, the reason is that I feel myself pledged in
-honour to go on with them, and that I think it
-necessary to extend my knowledge of this subject,
-and make my works as nearly perfect as possible.
-I say to myself: Just as an officer goes out to
-assault the fortress when the order is given, and
-just as a merchant goes to market on market-day,
-so must I go to the mountain when there are
-observations to be made.’</p>
-
-<p>Nor was it only in the domestic circle that de
-Saussure could put his foot down if required.
-In one of the Genevan revolutions&mdash;that of 1782&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">79</a></span>he
-also showed his mettle in an energetic fashion.
-He was a magistrate at the time, and one day,
-when he came down to the Hôtel de Ville, he
-found that the popular party had risen in revolt,
-and seized the building. The rioters requested
-him to take his place, and exercise magisterial
-functions on lines which they would dictate.
-When he refused, they arrested him, but released
-him on the following day. Then, hearing that they
-proposed to search his house for arms, he decided
-to resist. He, Trembley, the mathematician, his
-family, his servants, and his dog, constituted the
-tiny garrison. They barricaded the doors, stationed
-themselves at the windows armed with muskets,
-and successfully defied a gang of revolutionists who
-came to blow them up with hand-grenades. His
-assailants were reduced to threatening to murder
-his friends if he did not surrender; and it was only
-this final menace that brought about the capitulation
-of the Genevan Fort Chabrol.</p>
-
-<p>Our business here, however, is not with the
-politician, but with the traveller and the man of
-science. His widest celebrity is no doubt due to
-his famous ascent of Mont Blanc. If he was not
-the first man to climb that mountain, he was, at
-any rate, the first to believe that it could be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80">80</a></span>
-climbed. Bourrit, as late as 1773, had written of
-‘the absolute impossibility of attaining to its
-summit.’ De Saussure, as early as 1760, had
-offered a reward to anyone who could find a way
-to the top, and undertaken to pay a day’s wages to
-anyone who tried and failed. The reward was not
-claimed until twenty-six years later, when Jacques
-Balmat got it. When the way was found, de
-Saussure, though now forty-seven years of age, at
-once made haste to follow it. His ascent&mdash;the
-third&mdash;was accomplished on August 3, 1787; he
-published a short pamphlet, giving an account of
-it, in the course of the same year.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_80" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_145.jpg" width="600" height="409" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE AIGUILLE AND DÔME DU GOÛTER, MONT BLANC</div></div>
-
-<p>The climb was, beyond question, a great feat for
-a philosopher of forty-seven, and it brought the
-name of de Saussure under the notice of thousands
-of people who would never otherwise have heard of
-him. A still greater feat, accomplished a little
-later, was the camping out, for something over a
-fortnight, on the Col du Géant. But it is not
-upon either of these feats that de Saussure’s real
-fame reposes. He is reckoned among great men
-partly because he was the first student of geology
-who knew his business, and partly because he is
-the only Alpine writer of his period whose works
-have stood the test of time.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">81</a></span>
-The geologists who preceded him fall into two
-classes. There were the mere fossilizers, who had
-about as much claim to be considered men of
-science as have the stamp-collectors of the present
-day; there were the theorists who geologized, so to
-say, in the air, threw out hasty generalizations from
-their studies, and thought it beneath their dignity
-as philosophers to correct these hypotheses by the
-further observation of phenomena. De Saussure
-combined their methods. His life was one long,
-patient study of geological phenomena. But he
-collected in order to collate; his aim was always
-to see the part in its relation to the whole, the
-particular in its relation to the general; and he had
-a fine contempt for the amateurs who collected
-fossils in the same spirit in which they might have
-collected pottery or bric-à-brac.</p>
-
-<p>‘The one aim,’ he wrote, ‘of most of the travellers
-who call themselves naturalists is the collection of
-curiosities. They walk, or rather they creep about,
-with their eyes fixed upon the earth, picking up a
-specimen here and a specimen there, without any
-eye to a generalization. They remind me of an
-antiquary scratching the ground at Rome, in the
-midst of the Pantheon or the Coliseum, looking for
-fragments of coloured glass, without ever turning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">82</a></span>
-to look at the architecture of these magnificent
-edifices.’</p>
-
-<p>The most remarkable thing, however, is that
-de Saussure, being a geologist, should have been a
-stylist. He certainly never meant to be one. He
-would never have written a book merely to show
-his skill in word-painting; his one purpose in
-writing was to communicate discoveries of importance.
-At the time when Bourrit was making
-himself famous by his picturesque descriptions of
-the Alps, the greater man wrote to him modestly:
-‘I too have an idea of publishing something on the
-natural history of these mountains. It is with that
-end in view that I have been studying them for so
-many years.’ And in the introduction of his great
-work, he apologizes for what seems to him the
-baldness of his style: ‘More practised in climbing
-rocks than in polishing phrases, I have attempted
-nothing more than to render clearly the objects
-which I have seen, and the impressions which I
-have felt.’</p>
-
-<p>It was an apology offered without affectation
-or false modesty. It announced a departure from
-the literary fashion of the day, which was to write
-of the mountains in the language of high-flown
-sentiment. Rousseau had set the fashion; Ramond<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">83</a></span>
-de Carbonnière, the philosopher of the Pyrenees,
-was ready to carry it on; de Luc and Bourrit were
-doing what they could. De Saussure wished to
-announce himself as the disciple of none of these,
-but as the plain man who had made a careful study
-of his subject, and wished to be heard because of
-what he had to say and not because of his manner
-of saying it. He hardly understood that he was,
-in the full sense of the word, a man of letters&mdash;a
-literary artist. That is a point which has since
-been settled in his favour by his readers.</p>
-
-<p>He might easily have written a treatise that
-would have been invaluable to specialists and
-intolerable to everyone else. Guided by a sure
-instinct, he preferred to write the narrative of his
-journeys, taking the reader, as it were, by the hand,
-making him his confidant, showing him his discoveries
-in the order in which he makes them, and
-so luring him on to take an interest in a subject
-generally accounted dull. And, though his first
-care was always to observe, and to collate his
-observations, with a view to the advancement of
-learning, there always was in him something of the
-poet, which must out from time to time, temporarily
-giving the go-by to the man of science.</p>
-
-<p>One finds this vein of poetry in the writings of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">84</a></span>
-most men of science&mdash;naturally, seeing that they
-used gifts of imagination differing from those of
-the poet only in being disciplined and chastened,
-and ready to submit to the thraldom of the
-established fact. Sometimes, indeed, the vein of
-poetry has interfered with business, as in the case
-of the ingenious Scheuchzer, who laid himself out
-to prove that there were dragons in the Alps, or,
-in a less degree, in the case of Buffon. But,
-whether it interferes with business or not, there
-the vein of poetry almost always is. Such old men
-of science as Conrad Gesner, and such modern men
-of science as Huxley and Tyndall, have shown us
-with what striking effect it can be worked. It is
-because de Saussure worked it so well that his
-writings still live, though, regarded merely as textbooks,
-they have long since been superseded.</p>
-
-<p>The humanity of the man is continually flashing
-out at us in the reflections and anecdotes with
-which he illustrates the manners of the strange
-peoples in the strange places which he visited.
-Sometimes it is a flash of humour, as when he
-inquires the motives that impel men to be chamois-hunters,
-a trade that never pays. ‘It is the
-dangers,’ he concludes; ‘the constant alternation
-of hopes and fears, the continual emotion thus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">85</a></span>
-engendered, which excite the hunter, just as they
-excite the gambler, the soldier, the navigator, and
-even, to a certain extent, the naturalist of the
-Alps.’</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes it is a touch of pathos, as in the story
-of the old woman of Argentière whose father,
-husband, and brothers had all perished, within a
-few days, from an epidemic:</p>
-
-<p>‘After she had given me some milk, she asked
-me where I came from, and what I was doing there
-at that season of the year. When she knew that I
-was from Geneva, she told me that she could not
-believe that all the Protestants were to be damned;
-that God was too good and too just to condemn us
-all without distinction. Then, after reflecting for
-a moment, she shook her head and added: “But
-what is so strange to me is that of all those who
-have been taken away from us, not one has ever
-come back. I,” she went on, with a look of pain
-“have wept so for my husband and my brothers,
-and have never ceased to think of them, and every
-night I implore them to tell me where they are, and
-whether they are happy. Surely, if they existed
-anywhere, they would not leave me in this doubt.
-But perhaps,” she went on, “it is because I am not
-worthy of this favour. Perhaps the pure and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">86</a></span>
-innocent souls of those children there”&mdash;she pointed
-to the cradle as she spoke&mdash;“are conscious of their
-presence, and enjoy a happiness that is denied
-to me.”’</p>
-
-<p>Truly a wonderful passage to find embedded in a
-valuable and solid treatise on geology. Ramond
-never surpassed it though he laid himself out to do
-so, and&mdash;in his earlier works, at all events&mdash;never
-allowed geological considerations to stand in the
-way of sentiment.</p>
-
-<p>It is sad to relate that, after having made himself
-known to all Europe as ‘the illustrious
-de Saussure,’ the pioneer of geological discovery fell
-upon evil days. But so it was. His health broke
-down; in 1794 he began to have paralytic strokes.
-His fortune&mdash;the greater part of it, at all events&mdash;was
-lost through the collapse of securities during
-the French Revolution. He was on the side that
-suffered most in the political disturbances which the
-Revolution engendered at Geneva.</p>
-
-<p>In the midst of those disturbances, his father-in-law,
-Charles Bonnet, died, and de Saussure, himself
-almost to be reckoned a dying man, was called
-upon to pronounce his public eulogium. But the
-disturbances made it necessary for the ceremony to
-be postponed. A letter in which Madame de<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">87</a></span>
-Saussure narrates the incident gives us a clear
-impression not only of the day, but also of the
-times of which the day was representative.</p>
-
-<p>‘Yesterday,’ she writes, ‘I spent one of those
-days of emotion which do not affect us the less
-because we ought to be getting used to them.
-The people took up arms by order of the Committees
-of the Clubs. The gates were shut, the
-cannon rumbled along the streets, screaming
-women leant out of their windows to look. In the
-evening the town had that military air which you
-have sometimes seen in it&mdash;the streets full of armed
-citizens with flaming torches, patrols challenging
-the passers-by&mdash;and all this lasted till two or three
-in the morning; whereas to-day, everyone is at his
-shop, his café, or his office. And this tumultuous
-day had been selected for the celebration of the
-memory of the most peaceable of citizens&mdash;your
-uncle, Charles Bonnet.’</p>
-
-<p>And so, amid such sorry scenes, the end
-approached. De Saussure sought relief and health
-in travel. He took the waters at Plombières, but
-without any good result, and died early in 1799,
-the great Cuvier pronouncing his eulogy before the
-Institut de France.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">89</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">MEN OF LETTERS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>We have spoken of the literature of science. In
-the literature which is an art, and an end in itself,
-Geneva never excelled; and if we look for reasons,
-we can find several.</p>
-
-<p>The first difficulty was with the language.
-French came to the Genevans as a foreign tongue
-at a time when their men of learning wrote Latin
-and their populace spoke a Savoyard patois; and,
-even to the present day, few of them avoid a certain
-provincial awkwardness in the handling of it. Anyone
-who wishes to see the proof has only to
-compare the <cite>Journal de Genève</cite> with the <cite>Gil
-Blas</cite> or the <cite>Figaro</cite>. The few stylists whom
-Geneva can claim have generally been of French
-extraction, like Marc Monnier, or have lived abroad,
-like Rousseau and Madame de Staël. A far more
-typical Genevan writer was Charles Bonnet whose
-perplexing circumlocutions swamp his elevated
-sentiments and effectively prevent his books from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">90</a></span>
-being read. There is also, of course, Amiel; but
-even ‘Roulez, tambours’ is tolerably obvious;
-while the trail of the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">cliché</i> lies even over that
-famous ‘Journal Intime’ which Mrs. Humphry
-Ward translated.</p>
-
-<p>Another difficulty was the vexatious censorship
-exercised by Town Councillors, whose views of
-literature were parochial. Even Agrippa d’Aubigné,
-with all his fame and merit, was pursued
-by their suspicions both during his lifetime and
-after his death. The printer of one of his works
-was imprisoned and fined for issuing from his press
-a book alleged to contain ‘much impious and
-blasphemous matter which scandalizes well-conducted
-persons’; while, after his decease, his papers
-were sent for, to be inspected by public officials.
-‘Anything composed by the defunct,’ it was
-decided, ‘during his residence in this State must
-be suppressed, but anything composed on other
-territory may be restored to his heirs.’ Literary
-decorum may have been insured by such measures;
-but they were not calculated to encourage originality,
-and it is not surprising that we search
-Genevan annals in vain for distinguished literary
-names.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_90" class="figcenter" style="width: 403px;">
- <img src="images/i_159.jpg" width="403" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE STATUE OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU ON THE ISLAND IN THE RHONE, GENEVA, FROM HOTEL DES BERGUES</div></div>
-
-<p>The name of which the Genevans are proudest is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">91</a></span>
-probably that of Rousseau, who has sometimes been
-spoken of as ‘the austere citizen of Geneva.’ But
-‘austere’ is a strange epithet to apply to the
-philosopher who endowed the Foundling Hospital
-with five illegitimate children; and Geneva cannot
-claim a great share in a citizen who ran away from
-the town in his boyhood to avoid being thrashed for
-stealing apples. It was, indeed, at Geneva that
-Jean Jacques received from his aunt the disciplinary
-chastisement of which he gives such an exciting
-account in his ‘Confessions’; and he once returned
-to the city and received the Holy Communion
-there in later life. But that is all. Jean Jacques
-was not educated at Geneva, but in Savoy&mdash;at
-Annecy, at Turin, and at Chambéry; his books
-were not printed at Geneva, though one of them
-was publicly burnt there, but in Paris and Amsterdam;
-it is not to Genevan but to French literature
-that he belongs. And when Jean Jacques has
-been named, there remains no other Genevan
-citizen of letters worthy to be mentioned in the
-same paragraph. So that branch of the subject
-may be left.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">93</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">SONGS AND SQUIBS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Perhaps it is in song and satire that Geneva has
-done best. ‘Roulez, tambours,’ is not the only
-Genevan song that has passed the Genevan frontier;
-and Geneva, in fact, has always been ready to burst
-into song, whether serious or sarcastic, in connection
-with the topics of the day. The Reformation
-itself was heralded by satirical verses. A species
-of burlesque entitled a ‘sottie’ was, in those days,
-a favourite form of entertainment. The general
-character of these compositions may be gathered
-from the following scrap of dialogue, contained
-in one of them, between the <em>Physician</em> and the
-<em>World</em>:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">94</a></span></p><div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i2">‘<em>Physician.</em> So that is what upsets your mind,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">And you are not upset to find<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Church benefices bought and sold<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">By hungry thieves in quest of gold?<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Or babies on their mothers’ knee<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Appointed to a Bishop’s See?<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">While haughty Churchmen, as they please,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">The goods of any neighbour seize,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">And go to war on small pretext&mdash;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Whereby all Christian men are vext.<br /></span>
-<span class="i2"><em>The World.</em> From Luther’s land these plaints arise;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">We’re told they are a pack of lies.<br /></span>
-<span class="i2"><em>Physician.</em> Whatever the abuse you ban,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">They call you, now, a Lutheran.’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The flood-gates of poetry were opened afresh by
-the failure of the Escalade. Even the octogenarian
-M. de Bèze composed a song on that occasion:</p>
-
-<div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘Peuple Genevois,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Elève ta voix<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Pour psalmodier<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">De Dieu, l’assistance,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Et la délivrance<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Que vit avant-hier!’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Other poets followed the pastor’s example by
-the score. For years&mdash;for decades even&mdash;they
-mocked in verse at the enemy whom they had put
-to shame. When, at last, they were silent, the
-revolutionary movement of the eighteenth century
-produced its harvest of squibs; and then we come
-to the Restoration, and the religious revival known
-as the Réveil, which also produced considerable
-literary repercussions.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">95</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">RELIGIOUS REVIVAL</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>‘Réveil’ is Swiss for Revivalism. The movement
-was the Genevan analogue of our Wesleyan
-Methodism, though it did not begin till more than
-five-and-twenty years after John Wesley’s death.
-The originator of it was the Scotch evangelist,
-Robert Haldane. He came to Geneva, made the
-acquaintance of the theological students, and was
-surprised and shocked.</p>
-
-<p>‘Had they been trained,’ he writes, ‘in the
-schools of Socrates or Plato, and enjoyed no other
-means of instruction, they could scarcely have
-been more ignorant of the doctrines of the Gospel.
-To the Bible and its contents their studies had
-never been directed. After some conversation,
-they became convinced of their ignorance of the
-Scriptures, and of the way of salvation, and exceedingly
-desirous of information.’</p>
-
-<p>The young men fell into a habit of dropping in
-upon Mr. Haldane, at all hours of the day and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">96</a></span>
-night, to talk over the mysteries of revealed
-religion. He decided to organize his efforts for
-their evangelization, take them in classes three
-nights a week, and expound the Epistle to the
-Romans. His influence over them was the more
-remarkable because he was, at first, obliged to
-converse with them by means of an interpreter.
-And he had remarkable men among his pupils:
-Adolphe Monod, of Paris; Félix Neff, the Alpine
-missionary; and Merle d’Aubigné, the historian of
-the Reformation. A friend, too old to be his
-pupil, and already of his way of thinking, was
-Cæsar Malan, the hymnodist.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_96" class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
- <img src="images/i_169.jpg" width="600" height="357" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE HEAD OF LAKE ANNECY HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>The movement thus inaugurated was, it may be
-presumed, neither wholly good nor wholly bad.
-No doubt it was well for the old-fashioned Calvinists
-to be shaken out of their old-fashioned
-formalism, and taught to regard religion, not as
-the placid and docile acceptance of a theological
-code, but as the special experience of the individual
-soul. The history of religion is the history of such
-reactions against formalism; and, on the whole,
-they make for progress. But revivalists, being
-only human after all, have, like other people, their
-besetting sins. They are prone to hypocrisy, to
-spiritual pride, to sour austerity, to the passing of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">97</a></span>
-uncharitable judgments on their neighbours, and
-to the unwarranted assumption of the right to cast
-the first stone at sinners.</p>
-
-<p>These vices of the revivalists attracted the attention
-of that section of young Geneva which was
-not absorbed in the contemplation of their virtues.
-They disliked to see them stand at the corners of
-the market-place and, for a pretence, make long
-prayers. They took the same line towards them
-as was taken towards Calvin and Farel by those
-earlier Friends of Liberty who demanded permission
-to ‘live as they chose without reference to
-what was said by the preachers’; and they chiefly
-expressed themselves in verse. They formed a
-club&mdash;the Caveau Genevois; and though the waters
-of oblivion have swept over most of their writings,
-they were the choice spirits of the Geneva of their
-time, and one of them has left us a graphic word-picture
-of their meetings:</p>
-
-<p>‘Our gathering, to which every member was
-expected to contribute a new song or a new air,
-took place irregularly, and in various places.
-Sometimes we met on the beautiful banks of our
-lake, at Cologny, on the terrace of the Hotel du
-Lion d’Or. We used to come home arm-in-arm,
-larking and singing, good friends and jolly fellows,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">98</a></span>
-ready to begin again those charming scenes which
-politics never troubled, and in which music, poetry,
-and joy&mdash;those crowns of harmony and loyal friendship&mdash;reigned
-alone.’</p>
-
-<p>And one at least of their songs still lives&mdash;the
-song written by J.&nbsp;F. Chaponnière, which opens
-thus:</p>
-
-<div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza" xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">
-<span class="iq">‘Qu’il est beau ce mandement<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">De monsieur le grand Vicaire;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Sa pastorale, vraiment<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">A tout bon dévot doit plaire,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Car il dit à son troupeau:<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">“S’il est du mal sur la terre,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0"><i>C’est la faute de Voltaire,</i><br /></span>
-<span class="i0"><i>C’est la faute de Rousseau</i>.”’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">99</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">ROMANTICISM</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>About 1830 the Caveau Genevois broke up. Some
-of its members were dead, some had left Geneva,
-some were growing too old for poetry, and some were
-going in for politics. But as the old school faded
-away, a new school&mdash;the Romantic School&mdash;was
-dawning. Poets arose who acknowledged Lamartine
-for their father and Victor Hugo for their
-elder brother. They are not really important, but
-Marc Monnier, in ‘Genève et ses Poètes,’ has
-made them intensely interesting. The greatest
-poet among them was Etienne Gide, Professor of
-Law at the University. Most students of French
-poetry have by heart that song of his which
-runs:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">100</a></span></p><div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘C’est un frais sentier plein d’une ombre amoureuse,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">L’on n’y passait que deux en se tenant la main;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Nous le suivions ensemble en la saison heureuse,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Mais je n’ai plus dès lors retrouvé ce chemin.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘C’est qu’il faut être deux pour ce pélérinage;<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">C’est que le frais sentier n’a d’aspect enchanteur,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">De gazon et de fleurs, de parfum et d’ombrage,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Qu’alors que sur son cœur on presse un autre cœur.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘J’ai vu bien des beaux lieus, de bien riantes plages,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Les bords où croît l’olive, où fleurit l’oranger,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Des lacs unis et purs ou passent les nuages,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Des sites merveilleux, charme de l’étranger.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘Mais en vain j’ai cherché sur cette heureuse terre,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">A travers ses vallons, ses bois et ses sentiers;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Je ne l’ai plus revu ce sentier solitaire<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Ou deux amants passaient le long des églantiers.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘C’est que le beaux sentier n’est plus q’une chimère,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Un songe, une ombre vaine, un souvenir chéri;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">C’est qu’après le bonheur vient la douleur amère,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Que la source était vive et que l’onde a tari.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘C’est que la feuille tombe et que la flamme baisse,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Qu’aux roses sur nos fronts succède le linceul,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Que notre cœur s’attache et qu’après il delaisse,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">C’est que l’on était deux et que l’on reste seul.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘Qui de nous, du passé refaisant le voyage,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Ne voit en souvenir, à travers le chemin,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Quelque désert fleuri, quelque paisible ombrage.<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Ou le bonheur s’assit auprès du pélerin.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘Au désert de la vie, oasis fortunées,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Deux souvenirs épars dans l’ombre de nos jours,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Astres qui vont baissant au déclin des années,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Mais dont l’éclat lointain nous enchante toujours.’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div id="ip_100" class="figcenter" style="width: 482px;">
- <img src="images/i_177.jpg" width="482" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">NERNIER, HTE. SAVOIE</div></div>
-
-<p>Another notable man&mdash;more notable as a man
-than a poet&mdash;was Petit-Senn, who lived to a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">101</a></span>
-patriarchal age and was a member of all the literary
-groups in succession. He is sometimes spoken of
-as a Genevan Voltaire; and he resembled Voltaire
-in living a little way out of the town, yet in touch
-with its intellectual life, and receiving the homage
-of a constant stream of admiring pilgrims; but he
-is even better entitled to be styled the Genevan
-Mæcænas. Possessed of something more than a
-modest competence, he opened his purse freely to
-the poorer poets, not only relieving their necessities,
-but paying for the publication of their works. His
-‘Miliciade’&mdash;a satire on the amateurishness of the
-Genevan army&mdash;had an immense success when he
-gave a reading of it in a concert-hall; and his
-‘Bluettes et Boutades’ are short sentences generally
-worthy of being ranked with epigrams. We may
-cull a few of them:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘In the eyes of the world, however one may have made
-one’s money, one has done better than if one had lost it.</p>
-
-<p>‘The egoist weeps over the story of a shipwreck at the
-reflection that he might himself have been on board.</p>
-
-<p>‘We are more ready to do justice to the dead than to the
-absent.</p>
-
-<p>‘Some of the sins of youth are so agreeable that age repents
-of them only in order to have an excuse for recalling them.</p>
-
-<p>‘When a friend asks you for money, consider which of the
-two you would rather lose.</p>
-
-<p>‘The most lucrative kind of commerce would be to buy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">102</a></span>
-men at their real value, and sell them at their own valuation.</p>
-
-<p>‘If hypocrisy were to die, modesty would, at least, have to
-go into half-mourning.</p>
-
-<p>‘Let us respect white hairs ... especially our own.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Petit-Senn and Etienne Gide were the poets who
-remained in their city. It is characteristic of
-Genevan literary history that the others sought
-their fortune abroad. <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Trop grand poisson pour
-notre petit lac</i> was presumably their motto, though
-they were not fish who cut any very striking figure
-in the lakes to which they repaired. Charles Didier
-was the one of them who succeeded best. He took
-long walking tours in Italy, glorified the carbonari,
-pictured the meetings of their secret societies in the
-style of ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ and ultimately
-acquired something of a literary position in Paris,
-where he was numbered among the friends of
-George Sand. Imbert Galloix also went to Paris,
-but fell into destitution there. Nodier helped him.
-‘I send you,’ he wrote, ‘the half of what I have in
-the house. It is the first time that I blush for my
-poverty.’ Petit-Senn also sent him money, for
-which he appealed in a very pathetic letter; but he
-died&mdash;a pitiful figure, reminding one of Chatterton&mdash;at
-the age of twenty-one. Others of the company
-were Henri Blanvalet, who for twenty years was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">103</a></span>
-private tutor to the Frankfort Rothschilds&mdash;truly
-a sorry position for a poet; and André Verre, who
-went to Russia to teach in a girls’ school, and
-ultimately edited a newspaper in Buenos Ayres.
-None of them count. They were merely echoes of
-the louder voices heard in the French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">cénacle</i>.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">105</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">LATER MEN OF LETTERS</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>One would be tempted, if space permitted, to
-say something of the later literary luminaries of
-Geneva: of Amiel, the ‘virtuous Don Juan,’ as
-his friends called him, who, after living rather a
-futile life, acquired posthumous fame through his
-‘Journal’; of Cherbuliez, the novelist, once very
-popular, though now somewhat out of fashion; of
-Marc Monnier, the sparkling and versatile father of
-Dr. Philippe Monnier who has inherited his wit; of
-Toepfer, author of ‘Nouvelles Genevoises,’ described
-by one critic as ‘a sort of Swiss Ally Sloper,’ and
-by another as ‘a sort of Swiss Max O’Rell, with
-just a dash of Mr. Barlow’; of Emile Javelle, who
-climbed the Alps diligently and wrote of them
-poetically; of MM. Eugène Ritter and Albert de
-Montet, the pillars of historical research in French
-Switzerland. But space does not permit. What<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">106</a></span>
-little space remains is claimed by certain distinguished
-strangers who have shed lustre upon
-Geneva by living in the neighbourhood. We
-must visit Voltaire at Ferney, and Madame de
-Staël at Coppet. Let the patriarch come first.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">107</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">VOLTAIRE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Voltaire was sixty years of age when he settled
-on the shores of the lake, where he was to remain
-for another four-and-twenty years; and he did not
-go there for his pleasure. He would have preferred
-to live in Paris, but was afraid of being locked up
-in the Bastille. As the great majority of the men
-of letters of the reign of Louis XV. were, at one
-time or another, locked up in the Bastille, his fears
-were probably well founded. Moreover, notes of
-warning had reached his ears. ‘I dare not ask you
-to dine,’ a relative said to him, ‘because you are in
-bad odour at Court.’ So he betook himself to
-Geneva, as so many Frenchmen, illustrious and
-otherwise, had done before, and acquired various
-properties&mdash;at Prangins, at Lausanne, at Saint-Jean
-(near Geneva), at Ferney, at Tournay, and
-elsewhere.</p>
-
-<p>He was welcomed cordially. Dr. Tronchin, the
-eminent physician, co-operated in the legal fictions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">108</a></span>
-necessary to enable him to become a landowner in
-the republic. Cramer, the publisher, made a
-proposal for the issue of a complete and authorized
-edition of his works. All the best people called.
-‘It is very pleasant,’ he was able to write, ‘to live
-in a country where rulers borrow your carriage to
-come to dinner with you.’ Yet his desire to ‘score
-off’ the ministers of religion, who no doubt struck
-him as pretentious persons of sluggish intellect,
-soon set him at loggerheads with his hosts.</p>
-
-<p>The first trouble arose in connection with the
-article on Geneva published in the encyclopædia
-edited by Diderot and d’Alembert. It was in the
-course of a short visit to Voltaire that d’Alembert
-gathered the materials for that article. He was
-encouraged, and afforded every facility for pursuing
-his researches, alike by the ministers and by the
-magistrates. ‘He is the curiosity of the town,’ a
-contemporary letter-writer declared, ‘and it is quite
-the fashion to go and call on him.’ In particular
-he was entertained by the clergy, and talked
-theology with them after dinner. Their views
-were broad, thanks to the influence of that eminent
-theologian, Turretini; probably their views were
-broader after dinner than before. At all events,
-the encyclopædist drew them out to his satisfaction,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">109</a></span>
-with the result that, when his article appeared,
-and the divines made haste to read it, it was found
-that their theological position was expounded in
-the following startling paragraph:</p>
-
-<p>‘There is less complaint of the advance of infidelity
-at Geneva than elsewhere; but that is not
-surprising. Religion there&mdash;unless it be among
-the common people&mdash;is reduced to the worship of
-one God; a certain respect for Jesus Christ and
-the Scriptures is, perhaps, the only thing that
-distinguishes the Christianity of Geneva from pure
-Deism.’</p>
-
-<p>This in the city of Calvin. It was as though
-the encyclopædist had stirred a hornets’ nest. To
-change the metaphor, the fat was in the fire, and
-the flame blazed up at once. The Consistory met
-and appointed a Commission ‘to consider what
-were the best steps to take in the matter.’ The
-Commission deputed Dr. Tronchin to try and
-obtain an apology and retraction from the offending
-author; and Dr. Tronchin applied to Voltaire for
-help. Seeing that Voltaire had already written to
-d’Alembert congratulating him on his success in
-arousing the ‘murmurs of the synagogue,’ this was
-not a very hopeful step. Voltaire, in fact, had
-inspired the statements which he was now asked to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">110</a></span>
-invite his collaborator to withdraw. He temporized,
-enjoyed the fun, and tampered with the truth, to
-keep it up. He protested that he knew nothing
-about the article; that he wanted nothing but a
-quiet life, for himself and for everybody else, including
-‘Trinitarians, Unitarians, Quakers, Moravians,
-Turks, Jews, and Chinamen.’ He also, in the
-friendliest manner, warned his correspondent that,
-if d’Alembert were pressed too hard, he might,
-instead of apologizing, prove that the things which
-he had said were true.</p>
-
-<div id="ip_110" class="figcenter" style="width: 418px;">
- <img src="images/i_191.jpg" width="418" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE CHATEAU DE PRANGINS</div></div>
-
-<p>‘Retractation,’ he wrote, ‘was all very well for
-St. Augustine; but it will not do for him. I know
-his character. If your complaints get too loud, he
-will quote a certain catechism by your Professor of
-Theology, wherein it is said that revelation is “a
-thing of some utility,” and wherein there is no
-single word about the holy, adorable, and invisible
-Trinity. When he establishes that he has not
-disclosed a secret, but has only publicly taken
-cognizance of an opinion publicly expressed, you
-will be slightly embarrassed.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">111</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">VOLTAIRE AND THE THEATRE</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Another bone of contention was found in Voltaire’s
-passionate devotion to the theatre. His tastes were
-shared by the ‘advanced’ set at Geneva; but the
-divines, in spite of their broad views on matters of
-dogmatic theology, still held narrow views on the
-subject of the drama. Dramatic performances,
-whether public or private, were not allowed upon
-Genevan soil; while performances given close
-to the frontier, on the territory of Savoy or
-France, caused the ministers many searchings of
-heart.</p>
-
-<p>There had been such performances shortly before
-Voltaire’s arrival&mdash;in 1751&mdash;at Carouge and Chatelaine,
-and the Consistory had passed a resolution on
-the subject. It had decided to exhort the members
-of the Council to keep their wives away from the
-entertainments, and to exhort the professors to
-warn the students&mdash;and more particularly the
-candidates for Holy Orders&mdash;not to attend them.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">112</a></span>
-Afterwards, hearing that the daughters of some of
-the pastors had visited the theatre in defiance of
-their admonitions, they had passed a further resolution
-to the effect that this state of things gave
-ground for reflection&mdash;<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">qu’il y a lieu d’y réfléchir</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the public opinion which Voltaire
-braved; and his first attempt to brave it was not
-very successful. Soon after his arrival he arranged
-a <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">salle de spectacle</i> inside the city walls, and
-organized a performance of ‘L’Orphelin de la Chine.’
-The Consistory growled out a hostile resolution, and
-he dropped the enterprise, but proceeded to
-educate opinion from a safe distance; that is to
-say, he set up his theatre at Lausanne, and wrote
-insinuating letters about its management to his
-friends among the Genevan pastors. We have
-Gibbon’s testimony to the fact that this theatre
-‘refined in a visible degree the manners of
-Lausanne’; and we have a letter in which Voltaire
-gives the pastor, Vernés, sound reasons for coming
-to witness the performances.</p>
-
-<p>‘In your quality of minister of the Gospel,’ he
-writes, ‘you might very well be present at the
-rendering of a piece taken from the Gospel itself,
-and hear the word of God from the mouth of the
-Marquise de Gentil, Madame d’Aubonne, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">113</a></span>
-Madame d’Hermenches, who are as worthy women
-as the three Magdalens, and more respectable.’
-And he adds: ‘At the first representation we had
-all the ministers of the Holy Gospel in the Town,
-and all the candidates for Holy Orders.’</p>
-
-<p>It was a pretty good beginning; but there was
-still to be trouble and controversy before the
-educational process was completed. In this field,
-as in the field of theology, d’Alembert, with his
-encyclopædia article, stirred Camerina. He said
-that it was a pity that comedy should be neglected
-in such a centre of civilization, but added that the
-thing that the Genevans dreaded was not the
-demoralizing influence of plays, but the dissolute
-behaviour of players. And he suggested that this
-difficulty be got over by means of stringent regulations
-as to the conduct of comedians. By this
-means, he said, Geneva might have both good
-morals and good theatres, and derive as much
-advantage from the one as from the other.</p>
-
-<p>For the moment it looked as though this ingeniously
-ironical proposal would escape attention,
-the theologians being too excited about their
-impugned orthodoxy to notice anything else.
-Rousseau, however, saw it, and decided to reply to
-it, and in due course launched his ‘Lettre sur les<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">114</a></span>
-Spectacles.’ Being himself a dramatic author of
-some note, he was not an ideal champion of the
-cause which he represented; but in the stir caused
-by his intervention no one seems to have thought
-of that. His rhetoric made just as lively an
-impression as though his actions had always been
-in keeping with it. The Genevans took sides; and
-Voltaire&mdash;as though for the express purpose of
-giving them something tangible to fight about&mdash;established
-a theatre close to their gates, outside
-the jurisdiction of their magistrates, at Tournay.</p>
-
-<p>The battle raged furiously. To this period of
-Voltaire’s sojourn belong most of his bitter sarcastic
-sayings about Geneva; his reference to ‘the little
-church of Calvin, which makes virtue consist in
-usury and asceticism,’ and his famous epigram
-containing the lines:</p>
-
-<div class="poem-container">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="iq">‘On haït le bal, on haït la comédie;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Pour tout plaisir Genève psalmodie<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Du bon David des antiques concerts,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Croyant que Dieu se plaît aux mauvais vers.’<br /></span>
-</div></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Abuse of Jean Jacques also abounds in his letters
-at this period. Jean Jacques is a ‘blackguard’;
-Jean Jacques is in league with two rascally
-Calvinist priests, and ‘has the insolence’ to say
-this, that, and the other thing; Jean Jacques is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">115</a></span>
-‘valet to Diogenes,’ who ‘has played in vain the
-part of an addle-pated idiot’; if Jean Jacques comes
-to Ferney, he shall be stuffed into a barrel, and
-presumably rolled downhill&mdash;which proves, even if
-it proves nothing else, that, when philosophers fall
-out, they are apt to wrangle in much the same
-language as less intellectual people.</p>
-
-<p>Yet, on the whole, Voltaire was steadily winning
-the victory. The Council, it is true, forbade the
-citizens to attend his theatre; but little attention
-was paid to the prohibition, and among those who
-disregarded it were included many of the Councillors
-themselves. ‘Being unable,’ as Petit-Senn
-wittily put it, ‘to remove the danger, they bravely
-set out to share it’; and the philosopher chuckled:</p>
-
-<p>‘I am civilizing the Allobroges as well as I can.
-Before I came here the Genevans had nothing to
-amuse them but bad sermons. I am corrupting
-all the youth of the pedantic city. I make play-actors
-of the sons of Syndics. The clergy are
-furious; but I crush them.’</p>
-
-<p>After a while, moreover, his evangelistic efforts
-received support from an unexpected quarter. In
-1766 there were certain political disturbances in
-the city, and ambassadors were sent from Berne,
-Zurich, and Paris, to assist in composing them.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">116</a></span>
-Voltaire suggested to the French ambassador,
-M. de Beauteville, that he should request admission
-to the city for a company of comedians to amuse
-himself and his suite. Life at Geneva being duller
-than he liked, M. de Beauteville adopted the
-suggestion. The comedians were introduced; a
-theatre was arranged for them; and Voltaire could
-chuckle again. The divines thundered. ‘Children,’
-they declared, ‘will be badly brought up; domestic
-discords will trouble families more and more;
-young men and young women will occupy themselves
-with nothing but comedy and vainglorious
-display; the love of pleasure, vanity, and pride
-will be their favourite emotions; indecent familiarities
-and libertine behaviour will take the place of
-modesty and chastity.’</p>
-
-<p>But this warning was uttered in vain. Voltaire
-had triumphed; and though he was now an old
-man, nearing his eightieth birthday, he enjoyed his
-triumph to the full. A picture of the patriarch at
-the play is graphically drawn by a letter-writer of
-the period:</p>
-
-<p>‘Not the least interesting feature of the spectacle
-was Voltaire himself, leaning his back against the
-wings in full view of the audience, applauding like
-a man possessed; now beating the floor with his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">117</a></span>
-walking-stick, now interjecting exclamations such
-as “Couldn’t be better!” “By God, how good!”
-and now directing the flow of sentiment by lifting
-his handkerchief to his eyes. So little could he
-control his enthusiasm that, at the moment when
-Ninias quits the scene to brave Assue, he ran after
-Lekain without considering how he was breaking
-down the illusion, took him by the hand, and kissed
-him at the back of the stage. It would be difficult
-to imagine a more ridiculous burlesque; for Voltaire
-looked like an old man out of a farce, dressed in a
-bygone fashion, with his stockings rolled up over
-his knees, and only able to keep himself on his
-trembling legs with the help of his stick.’</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">119</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">VISITORS TO FERNEY</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>While Voltaire was vexing the citizens of Geneva,
-he was also enjoying the veneration of all educated
-Europe, and even of educated America. He
-corresponded regularly with at least four reigning
-sovereigns, to say nothing of men of letters,
-Cardinals, and Marshals of France; and he kept
-open house for travellers of mark from every
-country in the world. Those of the travellers who
-wrote books never failed to devote a chapter to an
-account of a visit to Ferney; and from the mass
-of such descriptions we may select for quotation
-that written, in the stately style of the period, by
-Dr. John Moore, author of ‘Zeluco,’ then making
-the grand tour as tutor to the Duke of Hamilton.</p>
-
-<p>‘The most piercing eyes I ever beheld,’ the
-doctor writes, ‘are those of Voltaire, now in his
-eightieth year. His whole countenance is expressive
-of genius, observation, and extreme sensibility. In
-the morning he has a look of anxiety and discontent;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">120</a></span>
-but this gradually wears off, and after dinner
-he seems cheerful; yet an air of irony never
-entirely forsakes his face, but may always be
-observed lurking in his features whether he frowns
-or smiles.... Composition is his principal
-amusement. No author who writes for daily bread,
-no young poet ardent for distinction, is more
-assiduous with his pen, or more anxious for fresh
-fame, than the wealthy and applauded Seigneur of
-Ferney. He lives in a very hospitable manner,
-and takes care always to have a good cook. He
-generally has two or three visitors from Paris, who
-stay with him a month or six weeks at a time.
-When they go, their places are soon supplied, so
-that there is a constant rotation of society at
-Ferney. These, with Voltaire’s own family and
-his visitors from Geneva, compose a company of
-twelve or fourteen people, who dine daily at his
-table, whether he appears or not.... All who
-bring recommendations from his friends may depend
-upon being received, if he be not really indisposed.
-He often presents himself to the strangers who
-assemble every afternoon in his antechamber,
-although they bring no particular recommendation.’</p>
-
-<div id="ip_120" class="figcenter" style="width: 475px;">
- <img src="images/i_205.jpg" width="475" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">A VAUDOISE: SUMMER</div></div>
-
-<p>It might have been added that, when an interesting
-stranger who carried no introduction was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">121</a></span>
-passing through the town, Voltaire sometimes
-sent for him; but this experiment was not
-always a success, and failed most ludicrously in
-the case of Claude Gay, the Philadelphian Quaker,
-author of some theological works now forgotten,
-but then of note. The meeting was only arranged
-with difficulty on the philosopher’s undertaking
-to put a bridle on his tongue, and say nothing
-flippant about holy things. He tried to keep his
-promise, but the temptation was too strong for
-him. After a while he entangled his guest in a
-controversy concerning the proceedings of the
-patriarchs and the evidences of Christianity, and
-lost his temper on finding that his sarcasms failed
-to make their usual impression. The member of
-the Society of Friends, however, was not disconcerted.
-He rose from his place at the dinner-table,
-and replied:</p>
-
-<p>‘Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayest come to
-understand these matters rightly; in the meantime,
-finding I can do thee no good, I leave thee, and so
-fare thee well.’</p>
-
-<p>And so saying, he walked out and walked back
-to Geneva, while Voltaire retired in dudgeon to
-his room, and the company sat expecting something
-terrible to happen.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">123</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="vspace"><a id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">COPPETT</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>A word, in conclusion, about Coppet!</p>
-
-<p>Necker bought the property from his old banking
-partner, Thelusson, for 500,000 livres in French
-money, and retired to live there when the French
-Revolution drove him out of politics. His daughter,
-Madame de Staël, inherited it from him, and made
-it famous.</p>
-
-<p>Not that she loved Switzerland; it would be
-more true to say that she detested Switzerland.
-Swiss scenery meant nothing to her. When she
-was taken for an excursion to the glaciers, she asked
-what the crime was that she had to expiate by such
-a punishment; and she could look out on the blue
-waters of Lake Leman, and sigh for ‘the gutter of
-the Rue du Bac.’ Even to this day, the Swiss
-have hardly forgiven her for that, or for speaking
-of the Canton of Vaud as the country in which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">124</a></span>
-she had been ‘so intensely bored for such a number
-of years.’</p>
-
-<p>What she wanted was to live in Paris, to be a
-leader&mdash;or, rather, to be <em>the</em> leader&mdash;of Parisian
-society, to sit in a salon, the admired of all
-admirers, and to pull the wires of politics to the
-advantage of her friends. For a while she
-succeeded in doing this. It was she who persuaded
-Barras to give Talleyrand his political start in life.
-But whereas Barras was willing to act on her
-advice, Napoleon was by no means equally
-amenable to her influence. Almost from the first
-he regarded her as a mischief-maker; and when a
-spy brought him an intercepted letter in which
-Madame de Staël expressed her hope that none of
-the old aristocracy of France would condescend to
-accept appointments in the household of ‘the
-bourgeois of Corsica,’ he became her personal
-enemy, and, refusing her permission to live either
-in the capital or near it, practically compelled her
-to take refuge in her country seat. Her pleasaunce
-in that way became her gilded cage.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps she was not quite so unhappy there as
-she sometimes represented. If she could not go to
-Paris, many distinguished and brilliant Parisians
-came to Coppet, and met there many brilliant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">125</a></span>
-and distinguished Germans, Genevans, Italians,
-and Danes. The Parisian salon, reconstituted,
-flourished on Swiss soil. There visited there, at one
-time or another, Madame Récamier and Madame
-Krüdner; Benjamin Constant, who was so long
-Madame de Staël’s lover; Bonstetten, the Voltairean
-philosopher; Frederika Brun, the Danish artist;
-Sismondi, the historian; Werner, the German poet;
-Karl Ritter, the German geographer; Baron de
-Voght; Monti, the Italian poet; Madame Vigée Le
-Brun; Cuvier; and Oelenschlaeger. From almost
-every one of them we have some pen-and-ink sketch
-of the life there.</p>
-
-<p>This, for instance, is the scene as it appeared to
-Madame Le Brun, who came to paint the hostess’s
-portrait:</p>
-
-<p>‘I paint her in antique costume. She is not
-beautiful, but the animation of her visage takes the
-place of beauty. To aid the expression I wished
-to give her, I entreated her to recite tragic verses
-while I painted. She declaimed passages from
-Corneille and Racine.... I find many persons
-established at Coppet: the beautiful Madame
-Récamier, the Comte de Sabran, a young English
-woman, Benjamin Constant, etc. Its society is
-continually renewed. They come to visit the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">126</a></span>
-illustrious exile who is pursued by the rancour of
-the Emperor. Her two sons are now with her,
-under the instruction of the German scholar
-Schlegel; her daughter is very beautiful, and has a
-passionate love of study; she leaves her company
-free all the morning, but they unite in the evening.
-It is only after dinner that they can converse with
-her. She then walks in her salon, holding in her
-hand a little green branch; and her words have an
-ardour quite peculiar to her: it is impossible to
-interrupt her. At these times she produces on one
-the effect of an improvisatrice.’</p>
-
-<p>And here is a still more graphic description,
-taken from a letter written to Madame Récamier
-by Baron de Voght:</p>
-
-<p>‘It is to you that I owe my most amiable
-reception at Coppet. It is no doubt to the favourable
-expectations aroused by your friendship that I
-owe my intimate acquaintance with this remarkable
-woman. I might have met her without your
-assistance&mdash;some casual acquaintance would no
-doubt have introduced me&mdash;but I should never
-have penetrated to the intimacy of this sublime and
-beautiful soul, and should never have known how
-much better she is than her reputation. <em>She is an
-angel sent from heaven to reveal the divine goodness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">127</a></span>
-upon earth.</em> To make her irresistible, a pure ray of
-celestial light embellishes her spirit and makes her
-amiable from every point of view.</p>
-
-<p>‘At once profound and light, whether she is
-discovering a mysterious secret of the soul or
-grasping the lightest shadow of a sentiment, her
-genius shines without dazzling, and when the orb of
-light has disappeared, it leaves a pleasant twilight to
-follow it.... No doubt a few faults, a few
-weaknesses, occasionally veil this celestial apparition;
-even the initiated must sometimes be
-troubled by these eclipses, which the Genevan
-astronomers in vain endeavour to predict.</p>
-
-<p>‘My travels so far have been limited to journeys
-to Lausanne and Coppet, where I often stay three
-or four days. The life there suits me perfectly;
-the company is even more to my taste. I like
-Constant’s wit, Schlegel’s learning, Sabran’s amiability,
-Sismondi’s talent and character, the simple
-truthful disposition and just intellectual perceptions
-of Auguste,<a id="FNanchor_B" href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">B</a> the wit and sweetness of Albertine<a id="FNanchor_C" href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">C</a>&mdash;I
-was forgetting Bonstetten, an excellent fellow,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">128</a></span>
-full of knowledge of all sorts, ready in wit,
-adaptable in character&mdash;in every way inspiring
-one’s respect and confidence.</p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_B" href="#FNanchor_B" class="fnanchor">B</a> Madame de Staël’s son, who afterwards edited the works
-of Madame de Staël and Madame Necker.</p>
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_C" href="#FNanchor_C" class="fnanchor">C</a> Madame de Staël’s daughter, afterwards Duchesse de
-Broglie.</p></div>
-
-<p>‘Your sublime friend looks and gives life to
-everything. She imparts intelligence to those
-around her. In every corner of the house some
-one is engaged in composing a great work....
-Corinne is writing her delightful letters about
-Germany, which will no doubt prove to be the best
-thing she has ever done.</p>
-
-<p>‘The “Shunamitish Widow,” an Oriental melodrama
-which she has just finished, will be played
-in October; it is charming. Coppet will be flooded
-with tears. Constant and Auguste are both composing
-tragedies; Sabran is writing a comic
-opera, and Sismondi a history; Schlegel is translating
-something; Bonstetten is busy with
-philosophy, and I am busy with my letter to
-Juliette.’</p>
-
-<div id="ip_128" class="figcenter" style="width: 460px;">
- <img src="images/i_217.jpg" width="460" height="600" alt="" />
- <div class="caption">THE TRICOTEUSE: WINTER</div></div>
-
-<p>Then, a month later:</p>
-
-<p>‘Since my last letter, Madame de Staël has
-read us several chapters of her work. Everywhere
-it bears the marks of her talent. I wish
-I could persuade her to cut out everything in
-it connected with politics, and all the metaphors
-which interfere with its clarity, simplicity and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">129</a></span>
-accuracy. What she needs to demonstrate is not
-her republicanism, but her wisdom.... Mlle.
-Jenner played in one of Werner’s tragedies
-which was given, last Friday, before an audience
-of twenty. She, Werner, and Schlegel played
-perfectly....</p>
-
-<p>‘The arrival in Switzerland of M. Cuvier has
-been a happy distraction for Madame de Staël;
-they spent two days together at Geneva, and were
-well pleased with each other. On her return to
-Coppet she found Middleton there, and in receiving
-his confidences forgot her troubles. Yesterday she
-resumed her work.</p>
-
-<p>‘The poet whose mystical and sombre genius has
-caused us such profound emotions starts, in a few
-days’ time, for Italy.</p>
-
-<p>‘I accompanied Corinne to Massot’s. To
-alleviate the tedium of the sitting, a Mlle.
-Romilly played pleasantly on the harp, and the
-studio was a veritable temple of the Muses....</p>
-
-<p>‘Bonstetten gave us two readings of a Memoir
-on the Northern Alps. It began very well, but
-afterwards it bored us.... Madame de Staël
-resumed her reading, and there was no longer any
-question of being bored. It is marvellous how
-much she must have read and thought over to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">130</a></span>
-able to find the opportunity of saying so many good
-things. One may differ from her, but one cannot
-help delighting in her talent....</p>
-
-<p>‘And now here we are at Geneva, trying to
-reproduce Coppet at the Hôtel des Balances. I
-am delightfully situated with a wide view over the
-Valley of Savoy, between the Alps and the Jura....
-Yesterday evening the illusion of Coppet was complete.
-I had been with Madame de Staël to call
-on Madame Rilliet, who is so charming at her own
-fireside. On my return I played chess with
-Sismondi. Madame de Staël, Mlle. Randall,
-and Mlle. Jenner sat on the sofa chatting with
-Bonstetten and young Barante. We were as we
-had always been&mdash;as we were in the days that I
-shall never cease regretting.’</p>
-
-<p>Other descriptions exist in great abundance, but
-these suffice to serve our purpose. They show us
-the Coppet salon as it was&mdash;pleasant, brilliant,
-unconventional; something like Holland House,
-but more Bohemian; something like Harley
-Street, but more select; something like Gad’s
-Hill&mdash;which it resembled in the fact that the
-members of the house-parties were expected to
-spend their mornings at their desks&mdash;but on a
-higher social plane; a centre at once of high thinking<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">131</a></span>
-and frivolous behaviour; of hard work and
-desperate love-making, which sometimes paved the
-way to trouble.</p>
-
-<p>If only one had space to go into the details of
-that love-making! But that is a subject which
-would need a much larger book than this to do it
-justice.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">133</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="index">
-<h2 class="nobreak p1"><a id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
-
-<ul class="index">
-<li class="ifrst">Academy of Calvin, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Amadeus IX., Duke, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Amaulx, Pierre, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Amiel, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Annecy, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Arlaud, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Arve, The, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Aubert, Syndic, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Balmat, Jacques, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bauhin, Sieur, plague-doctor, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Beauteville, M. de, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bérenger, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Berlonière, M., <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Berthelier, Philibert, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bèze, M. de, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Blanvalet, Henri, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bonaventura, Cornelius, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bonivard, François de, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bonivard’s Chronicle, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bonnet, Charles, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bonstetten, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Bourrit, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Brun, Frederika, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Calendrini, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Calvin, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Casaubon, Isaac, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Caveau Genevois, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Chaponnière, J.&nbsp;F., <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Charles Emanuel, Duke, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Charles IV., Emperor, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Cherbuliez, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Chevalier, M., <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Chillon, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Constant, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Coppet, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Cordier, Mathurin, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Corraterie, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Couvent de la Rive, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">de Sainte-Claire, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Cuisine Papale, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Curchod, Mademoiselle Suzanne, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Cuvier, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">D’Albigni, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">D’Alembert, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">D’Aubigné, Agrippa, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Merle, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Dentan, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Didier, Charles, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Diodati, Jean, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">D’Ivernois, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">École de la Rive, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Égaliseurs, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Eidgenossen, The, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Englués, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Escalade, The, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Estienne, Robert, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Etrembières, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Fabri, Bishop Adhémar de, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Farel, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Ferney, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Galloix, Imbert, <a href="#Page_102">102</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">134</a></span></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Gay, Claude, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Geneston, Matthew, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Genevan Revolutions, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Gesner, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Gibbon, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Gide, Etienne, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Goulart, Simon, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Haldane, Mr., <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Henri IV., <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Hotman, Francis, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Hubers, The Two, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Hugues, Besançon, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Jacobinical Clubs, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Jallabert, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Javelle, Emile, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Jeanne de Jussie, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Jeûne Genevois, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Knox, John, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Krüdner, Madame de, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">La Faye, Antoine, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Lamartine, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Laws and Statutes of Geneva, The, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Le Brun, Madame Vigée, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Lefort, François, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Le Sage, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Libertines, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Liberty, The Friends of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Lolme, De, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Luc, Jean André de, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Lucs, The De, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Maimbourg, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Malan, Cæsar, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Malingre, Pastor, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Mallet, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Massacre of St. Bartholomew, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Melvill, Andrew, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Monnet, Raoul, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Monnier, Dr. Philippe, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Marc, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Monod, Adolphe, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Montet, Albert de, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Monti, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Moore, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Necker, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Neff, Félix, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Odier, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Oelenschlaeger, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Pecolat, Jean, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Petit-Senn, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Picot, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Pictet, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Portus, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Prangins, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Récamier, Madame, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Register of the Consistory, The, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, The, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Revolution at Geneva, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Age of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Revolutions, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Réveil, The, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Rilliet, Madame, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Ritter, Karl, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Eugène, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Romantic School, The, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Rousseau, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Jean-Jaques, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Salève, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Saulnier, Antoine, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Saussure, De, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Scheuchzer, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Schlegel, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Scrymgeour, Henry, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Senebier, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Servetus, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Sismondi, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Social Evil, The, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Staël, Madame de, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Albertine de, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
-<li class="isub1">Auguste de, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">St. Bartholomew’s Day, <a href="#Page_47">47</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">135</a></span></li>
-
-<li class="indx">St. Ours, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Tanners, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Theocracy, The, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Toepfer, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Trembley, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Tronchin, Dr., <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Turretini, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">University, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Vernés, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Verre, André, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Viret, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Voght, Baron de, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">Voltaire, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Werner, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
-</ul>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="p2 center smaller">THE END</p>
-
-<p class="p2 center small">BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD</p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="transnote">
-<h2 class="nobreak p1"><a id="Transcribers_Notes"></a>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
-
-<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
-preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. The
-spelling of non-English words was not checked.</p>
-
-<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected.</p>
-
-<p>Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.</p>
-
-<p>Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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