Part 9 (2/2)

They took their measures accordingly; the whole Canton Sew to arms; the Bernois and the Allies were alarmed and consultations held; the Count de Bubna, the Austrian General, being consulted, thought the attempt so hazardous and so pregnant with mischief that he had the good sense to recommend to the Allied Powers and to the Canton of Bern to desist from their project and not to make or propose any alteration in the Helvetic Const.i.tution, as guaranteed in 1814. His advice was of great weight and was adopted, and thus the Vaudois by their firmness preserved their independence. They met with great support likewise on this trying occasion from General La Harpe, preceptor to the Emperor of Russia, and a relation to the gentleman of the same name who was so instrumental in the emanc.i.p.ation of Vaud. La Harpe, who enjoyed the confidence of his pupil, exerted himself greatly in procuring his good offices in favour of the Vaudois his countrymen, and this was no small weight in the scale.

Lausanne is an irregularly built city, and not very agreeable to pedestrians, for its continual steep ascents and descents make it extremely fatiguing, and there is a part of the town to which you ascend by a flight of stairs; the houses in Lausanne have been humorously enough compared to musical notes. The country in the environs is beautiful beyond description and has at all times elicited the admiration of travellers. There is an agreeable promenade just outside the town, on the left hand side of the road which leads to Geneva, called _Montbenon_, which is the fas.h.i.+onable promenade and commands a fine view of the lake. On the left hand side is a Casino and garden used for the _tir de l'arc_, of which the Vaudois, in common with the other Helvetic people, are extremely fond. On the right hand side of the road is a deep ravine planted in the style of an English garden, with serpentine gravel walks, and on the other side of the ravine stands the upper part of the city, the Cathedral, _Hotel de Ville_, and the _Chateau du Bailli_, which is the seat of Government. From the terrace of the Cathedral you enjoy a fine view, but a still finer and far more comprehensive one is from the Signal house, or _Belvedere_ near the forest of Sauvabelin (_Silva Bellonae_ in Pagan times)[57]. In this wood fairs, dances and other public festivals are held, and it is the favourite spot for parties of pleasure to dine _al fresco_; it is a pity, however, that the edifice called the _Belvedere_ was not conceived in a better taste; it has an uncouth and barbarous appearance.

Lausanne is situated about a quarter of a mile (in a right line) from the lake, and you descend continually in going from the city to the Lake Leman by a good carriage road, until you arrive on the borders of the lake, where stands a neat little town called Ouchy, or as it is sometimes termed _le port de Lausanne_. There is a good quai and pier. The pa.s.sage across the lake from Ouchy to the Savoy side requires four hours with oars.

I have made several pleasant acquaintances here, viz., M. Pidon the Landamman, a litterato of the first order; Genl La Harpe, the tutor of the Emperor of Russia; but the most agreeable of all is the Baron de F[alkenskiold], an old gentleman of whose talents, merits and delightful disposition I cannot speak too highly. He has the most liberal and enlightened views and opinions, and is extremely well versed in English, French and German litterature. He is a Dane by birth and was exiled early in life from his own country, on account of an accusation of being implicated in the affair of Struensee; and it is generally supposed that he was one of Queen Matilda's favoured lovers, which supposition is not improbable, as in his youth, to judge from his present dignified and majestic appearance, he must have been an uncommonly handsome man. He has lived ever since at Lausanne, and tho' near seventy-four years of age and tormented with the gout, he never loses his cheerfulness, and pa.s.ses his time mostly with his books. He gives dinner parties two or three times a week, which are exceedingly pleasant, and one is sure to meet there a small, but well informed society of natives and foreigners. Most German travellers of rank and litterary attainments, who pa.s.s thro' Lausanne, bring letters of introduction and recommendation to the Baron and are sure to meet with the utmost hospitality and attention.

The women of the Canton de Vaud are in general very handsome, well shaped and graceful; litterature, music, dancing and drawing are cultivated by them with success; and among the men, tho' one does not meet perhaps with quite as much instruction as at Geneva (I mean that it is not so general), yet no pedantry whatever prevails as in Geneva. At Lausanne they have sincere and solid republican principles and they do not pay that servile court to the English that the Genevese do; nor have they as yet adopted the phrase ”_Dieu me d.a.m.ne_.”

PARIS, Dec. 5th.

I returned to Paris by Geneva and crossing the Jura chain of mountains pa.s.sed thro' Dole, Auxonne and Dijon. At Geneva, where I stopped three days, I met, at a musical party given by M. Picot the banker, the celebrated cantatrice Gra.s.sini, who looked as beautiful as ever, and sung in the most fascinating style several airs, particularly ”_Quelle pupille tenere_” in the opera of the _Orazj e Curiazi_. To my taste her style of singing is far preferable to that of Catalani; there is much more pathos and feeling in the singing of Gra.s.sini; it is completely and truly the ”_cantar che nell'anima si sente_.” Catalani is very powerful, wonderful, if you will, in execution; but she does not touch my heart as Gra.s.sini does.

On my return to Paris from Geneva I found that the conditions of peace had been made public. They are certainly hard, not so much on account of the cession of territory, which is trifling, as on account of the vast sums of money that Prance is obliged to pay, and the still more galling condition of having to pay and feed at her expense an army of occupation of 150,000 men, of the Allied troops, for a term of three or five years, and to cede during that period several important fortresses. The inhabitants of Paris look very gloomy and n.o.body seems to think that the peace will last half as long. Prussia and Austria strove hard to wrest Alsace and German Lorraine from France; hosts of German publicists had accompanied their armies into France and had written pamphlet upon pamphlet to prove that mountains and not rivers were the proper boundaries of nations and that wherever the German language prevails, the country ought to belong to the Germanic body.

Ergo, the Vosges mountains were the natural boundaries of France, and Alsace and German Lorraine should revert to Germany. Russia and England, however, opposed this, and insisted that these two provinces should remain with France; but I have no doubt that the first movements that may occur in France (and they will perhaps be secretly encouraged) will serve as a pretext for the Allies to separate these countries definitively from France.

The Louvre has been stripped of the princ.i.p.al statues and pictures which have been sent back to the places from whence they were taken, to the great mortification of the Parisians, most of whom would have consented to the cession of Alsace and Lorraine and half of France to boot on condition of keeping the statues and pictures. The English Bureaux are preparing to leave Paris and the troops will soon follow; a new French army is organizing and several Swiss battalions are raised. It is generally supposed that by the end of December France, with the exception of the fortresses and districts to be occupied by the Allied Powers, will be freed from the pressure of foreign troops.

The Chamber of Peers is occupied with the trial of Marshall Ney, the Conseil de Guerre, which was ordered to a.s.semble for that purpose having declared itself incompetent. The friends of Ney advised him to claim the protection of the 12th Article of the Capitulation of Paris, and Madame Ney, it is said, applied both to the Duke of Wellington and to the Emperor of Russia; both ungenerously refused; to the former Nature has not given a heart with much sensibility, and the latter bears a petty spite against Ney on account of his t.i.tle, _Prince de la Moskowa_. It is pretty generally antic.i.p.ated that poor Ney will be condemned and executed; for tho' at the representation of _Cinna_ a few nights ago, at the Theatre Francais, the allusions to clemency were loudly caught hold of and applauded by the audience, yet I suspect Louis XVIII is by no means of a relenting nature, and that he is as little inclined to pardon political trespa.s.ses as his ancestor Louis IX was disposed to pardon those against religion; for, according to Gibbon, his recommendation to his followers was: _”Si quelqu'un parle contre la foi chretienne dans votre presence, donnez lui l'epee ventre-dedans_.”

December 18th.

I met with an emigrant this day at the Palais Royal who was acquainted with my family in London. It was the Vicomte de B*****ye.[58] He had resided some time in England and also in Switzerland. He is an amiable man, but a most incorrigible Ultra. He displayed at once the ideas that prevail among the Ultras, which must render them eternally at variance with the ma.s.s of the French nation. In speaking of the state of France, he said: ”_Je n'ai jamais cesse et jamais je ne cesserai de regarder comme voleurs tous les acquereurs des biens des emigres. Il faudroit, pour le bonheur de la France, qu'elle fut places dans le meme etat ou elle etait avant la Revolution._” He would not listen to my reasons against the possibility of effecting such a plan, even were the plan just and reasonable in itself. I told him that for the emigrants to expect to get back their property was just as absurd as for the descendants of those Saxon families in England, whose ancestors were dispossessed of their estates by William the Conqueror, to think of regaining them, and to call upon the Duke of Northumberland, for instance, as a descendant of a Norman invader, to give up his property as unjustly acquired by his progenitors. We did not hold long converse after this; his ideas and mine diverged too much from each other.

The English are very much out of favour with the emigrants, as well on account of the stripping of the Louvre as on account of not having shot all the _liberaux_. They had the folly to believe that the Allied troops would merely make war for the emigrants' interests, and after having put to death a considerable quant.i.ty of those who should be designated as rebels and Jacobins by them (the emigrants), would replace France in the exact position she was in 1789, and then depart.

Poor Marshall Ney's fate is decided. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried into execution not on the _Place de Grenelle_ as was given out, but in the gardens of Luxemburgh at a very early hour. He met his fate with great firmness and composure. I leave Paris to-morrow for London.

[47] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, VI, 20, 7.

[48] Virgil, _Aen_., VI, 620 (temnere _divos_).--ED.

[49] Louis Wirion (1764-1810), an officer of _gendarmerie_, commander-general of the _place_ de Verdun since 1804, was accused in 1808 of having extorted money from certain English prisoners quartered in Verdun (Estwick, Morshead, Garland, etc.). Wirion shot himself before the end of the long proceedings, which do not seem to have established his guilt, but had reduced him to misery and despair.--ED.

[50] Richard Brinsley Sheridan's (1751-1816) _Pizarro_, produced at Drury Lane in 1799.--ED.

[51] Three brothers Zadera, all born in Warsaw, served in the Imperial army.--ED.

[52] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_ III, 2, i.--ED.

[53] These words mean, or are supposed to mean, in French and in Dutch: ”I don't understand” (_je n'entends pas_).--ED.

[54] Horace, _Carm._, IV, 2,39.--ED.

[55]John Chetwode Eustace (1762-1815), author of _A Tour through Italy_ (2 vol., London, 1813), the eighth edition of which appeared in 1841.--ED.

[56] Theodoric was a Goth, not a Lombard.--ED.

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