Part 11 (1/2)
[59] Virgil, _Georg._, I, 35.--ED.
[60] Colonel Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle was the celebrated exposer of the scandal in 1808-9, when the mistress of the Duke of York was found to be trafficking in Commissions. He had retired from active service in 1802, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Financial reasons obliged him, after 1815, to live on the Continent; he died in Florence, 1833.--ED.
[61] Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (1779-1849), author of _The History of the British Expedition to Egypt_, 1802; a French translation of that work elicited a protest from Napoleon.--ED.
[62] Vanderberg had made a fortune as a contractor to the French army; he is mentioned in Ida Saint Elme's _Memoires d'une contemporaine_ and elsewhere.--ED.
[63] Abbe Sicard (Rooh Ambroise) was director of the Inst.i.tution of Sourds-Muets from 1790 to 1797 and from 1800 to 1822.--ED.
[64] Paul Didier (1758-1816) took part in a Bonapartist conspiracy at Lyons in 1816, raised an insurrection in the Isere and fled to Piedmont, whence he was surrendered to the French authorities, condemned to death and executed at Gren.o.ble.--ED.
[65] The King's brother, afterwards Charles X.--ED.
[66] The N.E. pavilion of the Tuileries.--ED.
CHAPTER VII
Journey from Paris to Lausanne--Besancon--French refugees in Lausanne--Francois Lamarque--General Espina.s.sy--Bordas--Gautier--Michau-- M. de Laharpe--Mlle Michaud--Levade, a Protestant minister--Chambery--Aix-- Details about M. de Boigne's career in India--English Toryism and intolerance--Valley of Maurienne--Pa.s.sage across Mont Cenis and arrival at Suza--Turin.
LAUSANNE, July 8th.
Departing from Paris on the 24th June, 1816, I varied my journey into Switzerland this time, for instead of travelling thro' Lyons or Dole, I took the route of Besangon, Pontarlier, Jougne and Orbe. The country between Dijon and Besancon is a rich and fertile plain. At Besancon the mountainous country begins; it is a strong fortress, and the last considerable town of the French frontier. It lies in a very picturesque situation, being nearly environed by the Doubs, which meanders under its walls, and by very lofty mountains; on the other side of the Doubs stands the citadel, its chief strength. The town of Besangon is exceedingly handsome and well built, and there are several agreeable promenades, two of which I must particularize, viz., the promenade de Chamarre and the garden of the Palace of Granvelle. There are besides several Roman antiquities and the remains of a large amphitheatre. I amused myself very well for a couple of days at Besancon, and met with some agreeable society at the _Hotel de France_ where I lodged. I left Besancon at eight in the morning of the 30th June, and arrived at Pontarlier at six the same evening. Pontarlier is a dreary, melancholy looking place, consisting of a very long street and several offsets of streets, situated in the midst of mountains, eternally covered with snow. Winter reigns here during nine months of the year. At Pontarlier the whole garrison were under arms, when I arrived, to pay the last duties to a most respectable and respected officer, whose death was occasioned by falling into the river, while at the _necessary_, by the under board giving way. This officer had served in almost all the campaigns of Napoleon and had greatly distinguished himself. What a cruel death for a warrior who had been in fifty battles! That death should have shunned him in the field of battle, to make him fall in a manner at once inglorious and ridiculous! yet such is destiny. Pyrrhus fell by a tile flung from a house by an old woman, and I am acquainted with a gallant captain in the British Navy who lost his leg by amputation, having broken it (oh horror!) by a fall from the top of a stage coach.
I left Pontarlier on the 2d July, and arrived at Lausanne the same evening at five o'clock. On my return to Lausanne I had the pleasure to form an acquaintance with several eminent Frenchmen proscribed and banished from France, on account of having voted the death of Louis XVI, as members of the National Convention, which tried him, and for having voted, after the return of Napoleon from Elba, the _Acte additionnel_, which excluded the Bourbons for ever from the throne of France, Among them are, 1st, Monsieur Lamarque, who was one of the commissioners sent by the Convention to arrest Dumouriez, but being seized by him, and delivered over to the Austrians, he pa.s.sed some time in captivity and was at length released, by being exchanged with some others against the d.u.c.h.ess d'Angouleme.[67] He is a very able man and seems to have far more political talent than any of the other _Conventionnels_ who are here. On Napoleon's return from Elba he voted for him, but made strong objections against the formation of a peerage, which he said was perfectly useless in France, and pregnant with mischief to boot, as it would only serve as an _appui_ to despotism. He wrote a pamphlet with some excellent remarks on this, subject. He therein points out the evils of an hereditary Chamber, and of a priviledged aristocracy, who have nothing to expect from the people, but all from the Prince; and in its stead he proposes an additional elective Chamber, something on the plan of the Senate in America, but he decidedly reprobates an hereditary peerage.
The next is General Espina.s.sy, a very good cla.s.sical scholar and a most upright and amiable man.[68] In his vote he was solely influenced by strong but conscienscious republican principles; he resides here with his wife and two sons; he was considered as one of the best engineer officers in France and he opposed the nomination of Napoleon to the Imperial dignity in 1804.
Another, M. Bordas,[69] opposed Napoleon's a.s.sumption of the Consuls.h.i.+p on the 18th Brumaire, and was proscribed by him for a short time, but afterwards amnestied and received into favour. He gave his vote for Napoleon on the _Champ de Mai_ in 1815, but accompanied this vote by a bold speech towards Napoleon wherein he found fault with his former despotic practises, and reminded him of the solemnity of his promise to govern in future paternally and nationally, as became the sovereign of a free people.
M. Bordas is a very cheerful, lively, companionable man and tho' seventy years of age, he has an uncommon share of vivacity, with something of the _ci-devant jeune homme_ about him, and He is pleased to be considered still as a man _a bonnes fortunes_.
The next to him is M. Gauthier, who had been a lawyer, and held a considerable post as a magistrate in the time of the Republic and under the Empire.[70] He possesses a good deal of talent, close logical reasoning, and has determined public principle.
The next, M. Michaud, had been also an advocate, and is possessor of considerable property in the department of the Doubs;[71] he is a most rigid unbending republican, something in the style of Verrina in Schiller's _Fiesco_; he opposed the a.s.sumption of the supreme power by Buonaparte on the 18th Brumaire; he voted against the Consuls.h.i.+p for life, as well as against the a.s.sumption of the Imperial dignity. He is a very good cla.s.sical scholar. He is a widower and has with him here Mlle Elisa, his only daughter, who follows her father's fortunes. She is a very amiable and accomplished young lady; she has a thorough knowledge of music and of painting in oils, and is cla.s.sically versed in the Italian language. I soon became acquainted with the whole of these ill.u.s.trious exiles, and I find great delight and instruction from their conversation; and this is a great relief to me, for the life one leads in a Swiss town is rather monotonous.
LAUSANNE.
I dine very often with my neighbour the Baron de Falkenskioeld, and at his house I became acquainted with M. de Laharpe, who was preceptor to the present Emperor of Russia. He is a native of this Canton, and has returned here to pa.s.s the remainder of his life. He is married to a very amiable Russian lady, and having acquired a pretty good fortune in Russia, he lives here very happily and comfortably; but notwithstanding this, he is often tempted to visit Paris, Milan and other great cities, and when there, sighs to return to his native mountains.
As the Ultras of France bear a great hatred towards the inhabitants of the Canton de Vaud, on account of the asylum given and sympathy shown to the _proscrits_, they have been at the pains of trumping up and printing a pretended pet.i.tion from the inhabitants of the department of the Doubs, praying that the French Government would endeavor to obtain the removal of these _proscrits_ from the Canton de Vaud, and stating that the said Canton was the _foyer_ of Jacobinical principles, and the place where Napoleon's return from Elba was planned and accelerated, and thro' which the conveyance of intelligence backwards and forwards was conducted. I have no doubt that in this pet.i.tion more is meant than meets the ear; that the Oligarchs of Bern, as well as the Ultras of France, have a share in it, and that it may be considered not so much as an attempt to compel the Canton to refuse asylum to these exiles, as to excite the Great Powers to enforce the abolition of the independence of Vaud, and to replace it under the dominion and authority of the Canton of Bern.
Everybody here, however, sees thro' the drift of this pet.i.tion, and many persons whose names are put down as having signed it, have written to their friends at Lausanne, to declare not only that they never signed such a pet.i.tion, but their entire ignorance even of the agitation of the question till they saw the pet.i.tion itself in print. The French government, however, has not ventured to act any further upon it, than to make a pompous display of the royalist zeal and _bon esprit_ that pervades the Department of the Doubs.
I see a good deal of Mlle Michaud. I find her conversation extremely agreeable. She had lent to me an Italian work by Verri ent.i.tled _Le notti Romane al sepolcro di Stipione_. She is a very rigid Catholic, having been educated by a priest of very strict ideas. Her devotion however does not render her less cheerful or less amiable. She having expressed a wish to hear the Protestant church service, I offered to accompany her and we went together one Sunday to the Cathedral Church at Lausanne. But it unfortunately happened that on that day a sermon was preached which must have given a great deal of pain to her filial feelings. Mr Levade, the minister, took it into his head to give a political sermon, in which, after a great deal of commonplace abuse of Voltaire, Rousseau and the French Revolution, and very fulsome adulation towards the English government (a subject which was brought in by the head and shoulders), of that _island_ (as he termed it) _surrounded by the Ocean_, he lavished a great deal of still more fulsome adulation on the Bourbons; and then most wantonly and unnecessarily began a furious declamation against the _regicides_ as he termed them, who had taken refuge in the Canton, and intimated pretty plainly how pleasing it would be to G.o.d Almighty that they should be expelled from it. This intolerant discourse, more worthy of a raving Jesuit than of a Protestant minister, was deservedly scouted by the inhabitants of Lausanne; but this did not hinder poor Mlle Michaud from being much affected at the opprobrious tirade directed against a set of men, among whom her father bore a conspicuous part, and who acted from patriotic motives. I must not omit to state that in this discourse M. Levade interwove some hyperbolical compliments towards the young Prince of Sweden, who attended the service that morning. He told him that the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon him, and that Providence had him under his especial care.
Now the following is the character of M. Levade.[72] He is a time-serving, meddling priest, and a most flagrant adulator of the powers that be. He thinks that by declaiming against the French Revolution, and against Voltaire and Rousseau, that he will get into favor with the great people who pa.s.s thro' Lausanne, with the French and English Government adherents, and with the great Tory families of England. No considerable personage ever pa.s.ses through Lausanne, but Mr Levade is the first to make him a visit; and no rich or n.o.ble English family arrives with whom he does not ingratiate himself, and he is not sparing of his adulations. This mode of procedure has been a very profitable concern to him, as he has received a vast number of presents, and several valuable legacies, besides securing a number of pupils among the English families, that come or that have been here. He is in short a thorough parasite and time server, in every sense of the word. This adulation of the Bourbon family in his sermon, besides the meanness of it, was highly misplaced, coming from the mouth of a Protestant minister, and somebody exclaimed on leaving the Church: ”_Que doit-on penser d'un ministre protestant du Canton de Vaud, qui prodigue des louanges a une famille qui a ete l'ennemie acharnee de l'Elise reformee, et qui a persecute les protestants d'une maniere si atroce?_” But Mr Levade (tho' to the honor of the clergymen of the Canton de Vaud he is singular among _them_), yet he has many persons who perfectly resemble him among the members of the Church of England, and who are as eager to support despotism and to crush liberty as any disciple of Loyola or any Janissary of the Grand Signor. The other Protestant ministers of this Canton were highly indignant at this sermon; in fact, it was the first time in this city that the House of G.o.d had been profaned by the introduction of political subjects into a religious discourse. This sermon was the common topic of conversation for many days after.
CHAMBeRY, 2d August.