We passed under it, but could see its stately castle crowned with a multitude of spiry towers. From its terrace there is a splendid view across to the pearly pyramid of Mont Blanc. The castle has walls ten feet thick, but is now used as a museum. Next we catch a glimpse of the Château de Prangins, where Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s oldest brother, lived, caring more for a scholarly and agricultural life than to be king of turbulent Spaniards. The two torrents rushing down from the Jura, the Promenthoux and the Aubonne, have thrust their cones out into the lake and given room for pretty villages.

Byron, returning from a walking expedition, stopped at Aubonne “which,” he says, “commands by far the fairest view of the Lake of Geneva; twilight; the Moon on the Lake; a grove on the height, and of very noble trees. Here Tavernier (the Eastern traveler) bought (or built) the Château, because the site resembled and equalled that of Erivan (a frontier city of Persia); and here he finished his voyages.”

There is a lovely bay between the two “cones” and the shore bears the distinctive name of La Côte; it is famous for its delicious grapes and excellent white wine. The now distant shore of Savoy swims in a delicate haze; over the water, just ruffled by a gentle breeze, curl those curious smooth-looking streaks which are called “fontaines” and are supposed to be caused by minute particles of oil, though some attribute them to subterranean springs.

It was growing late in the afternoon and the shores of the lake are not so interesting, that is not so bold, after passing Rolle and its precious island, and we cut across from Saint-Prex to Saint Sulpice, leaving Morges for another time, though its old castle looked enticing from the distance.

It was pleasant to get home again.

CHAPTER XVI
THE ASCENT OF THE DÔLE

I CAN see the importance of a knowledge of geology as a basis for the study of history. How do valleys run—north and south or east and west? This inclination conditions sunlight. Where the rocks are hard and impervious there are many small streams; but in a fissured district of chalky rock as in the Jura there are few torrents. There is almost no water in the regions of the upper Jurassic rocks and no temptations for settlers. But the lower and middle Jura, rich in marl, offers excellent pasturage. The grass grows sparse but sweet where the cretaceous rocks have crumbled. Where the sun shines bright and warm and there is shelter from cold winds the vine is cultivated.

Poor ignorant man, wandering up into valleys where the limestone of the hard water will give all his descendants the goître, or building his habitation under a precipice where the whole side of the mountain will slide down on him and overwhelm him, as happened at Val Bregaglia in 1618 when Monte Conto wiped out most of the 2,000 inhabitants of Piuro! How can a country like Switzerland, made up of so many scores of valleys each different in characteristic and each conditioning the inhabitants,—here making them taciturn, there gay and thoughtless, here again honest and religious, there sly and untrustworthy,—how can it have any real political unity?

The next morning, after breakfast, I went into the library and picked up a copy of Addison’s “Travels through Switzerland.” One sentence begins:—“I made a little voyage round the lake and touched on the several towns that lie on its coasts, which took up near five days, though the wind was pretty fair for us all the while.” He was referring to the Lake of Geneva. As usual with me, I copied a few paragraphs into my diary. I like to do that with letters or books. Often one can find just the description one wants and save making an original one. I was amused at one thing in Addison. He introduces classical poems whenever he can with his own translations and sometimes he forgets to put them à propos, so he adds them at the end of his chapter.

“Near St. Julian in Savoy the Alps begin to enlarge themselves on all sides and open into a vast circuit of ground, which, in respect of the other parts of the Alps, may pass for a plain champagne country. This extent of lands, with the Leman Lake, would make one of the prettiest and most defensible dominions in Europe, was it all thrown into a single state and had Geneva for its metropolis. But there are three powerful neighbors who divide among them the greatest part of this fruitful country. The Duke of Savoy has the Chablais and all the fields that lie beyond the Arve as far as to the Ecluse. The King of France is master of the whole country of Gex; and the Canton of Bern comes in for that of Vaud.

“Geneva and its little territories lie in the heart of these three states. The greatest part of the town stands upon a hill and has its view bounded on all sides by several ranges of mountains, which are, however, at so great a distance that they leave open a wonderful variety of beautiful prospects. The situation of these mountains has some particular effects on the country which they inclose. At first they cover it from all winds except the south and north. It is to the last of these winds that the inhabitants of Geneva ascribe the healthfulness of their air; for as the Alps surround them on all sides they form a vast kind of bason, where there would be a constant stagnation of vapors, the country being so well watered, did not the north wind put them in motion and scatter them from time to time.

“Another effect the Alps have on Geneva is that the sun here rises later and sets sooner than it does to other places of the same latitude. I have often observed that the tops of the neighboring mountains have been covered with light above half an hour after the sun is down in respect of those who live at Geneva.

“These mountains likewise very much increase their summer heats and make up an horizon that has something in it very singular and agreeable. On one side you have the long tract of hills that goes under the name of Mount Jura, covered with vineyards and pasturage, and on the other huge precipices of naked rocks rising up in a thousand odd figures and cleft in some places so as to discover high mountains of snow that lie several leagues behind them. Toward the south the hills rise more insensibly and leave the eye a vast uninterrupted prospect of many miles. But the most beautiful view of all is the lake and the borders of it that lie north of the town.

“This lake resembles a sea in the color of its waters, the storms that are raised on it and the ravages it makes on its banks. It receives too a different name from the coast it washes and in summer has something like an ebb and flow which arises from the melting of the snows that fall into it more copiously at noon than at other times of the day. It has four different states bordering on it: the Kingdom of France, the Duchy of Savoy, the Canton of Bern and the Republic of Geneva.”

Addison spent a day at Lausanne, which he calls the greatest town on the lake after Geneva, and he saw “the wall of the cathedral church that was opened by an earthquake and shut again some years after by a second.” But Addison adds:—“The crack can but be just discerned at present though there are several in the town still living who have formerly passed through it.”

Addison’s compliment to the Almighty in letting the Rhône run as it does is quite amusing. He says: “As I have seen the great part of the course of this river I cannot but think it has been guided by the particular hand of Providence.... Had such a river as this been left to itself to have found its way out from among the Alps, whatever windings it had made it must have formed several little seas and have laid many countries under water before it had come to the end of its course.”

Addison went to Nyon, where he says he observed in the walls of several houses the fragments of the vast Corinthian pillars with several other pieces of architecture which must have formerly belonged to some very noble pile of building.

Will and I went to Nyon a few days after our return from Geneva and we went into the château, where there is now an interesting museum of antiquities. The walls of the building are at least three meters in thickness.

From Nyon we drove in the car through Trélex, Saint-Cergue, as far as the Château de Vuarnen; from there we walked to the summit of La Dôle. We chose our day and our time and had as perfect a view as one could desire. It stands about twelve hundred and forty meters above the sea but it might be rather lonely for a continued residence; for that I should perhaps choose the Château de Monnetier, within jumping distance of Geneva.

Here is Goethe’s account of his ascent of La Dôle. It was a more unusual exploit in his day, and it is interesting as showing what an effect the spell of the Alps had on the great German poet. I translated it for my diary, but, of course, I left out a few unessential passages:—

“The weather was very clear; when we looked around we had a view of the Lake of Geneva, the mountains of Savoy and of Valais; we could make out Lausanne and, through a faint mist, also the region of Geneva. Mont Blanc, which towers above all the mountains of the Faucigni, grew ever more and more distinct. The sun was sinking undimmed; it was such a great prospect that a human eye cannot grasp it. The moon, almost full, arose and we also kept mounting. Through forest of fir-trees we climbed up toward the Jura and saw the lake in the vaporous atmosphere and the moon reflected in it. It grew brighter and brighter. The road is a well-constructed chaussée only built to facilitate the transportation of wood from the mountains down into the country.

“We had been climbing a good three hours when it gradually began to descend again. We thought that we were looking down on a large lake below us, because a thick mist filled the whole valley over which we could look. At last we came quite near it and saw the white bow which the moon made in it and then we were wholly enveloped in it.”

They spent the night in a comfortable house and the next day continued their journey into the Jura, which he explains is a word from a local term, joux, meaning a crag or mountain. The next day they proceeded on their way. It was the twenty-fourth of October, 1779.

“It was a clear, cool morning; there was hoar frost on the meadows; here and there light mist-wreaths were drifting over; we could see fairly well over the lower part of the valley; our house lay at the foot of the Western Noir Mont. About eight o’clock we set forth on horseback, and in order to enjoy the sun at once we rode toward the west. The part of the valley where we were proceeding consists of fenced meadows which toward the lake become rather swampy. The Orbe flows through the center of it. The inhabitants have established themselves in single houses partly on its banks, partly in clustering villages which bear simple names suggested by their situation. The first one which we passed through was Le Sentier. From afar we saw La Dent de Baulion smiling across a fog bank which hung over the lake. The valley widened; we came behind a crag which hid the lake from us and entered another village called Le Lieu; the fog was rising and then settling down again before the sun.

“Near here is a little lake which seems to have neither inflow nor outflow. The weather became perfectly clear and as we reached the foot of the Dent de Baulion we found here the northerly end of a large lake which, as it turns toward the west, has its outlet into the little one through a dam over which is built a bridge. The village above it is called Le Pont. The lay of the little lake is, as it were, in its own little valley, which one might call a very neat arrangement. At the western end is a noteworthy mill constructed in a cleft of the rock which once the little lake filled. Now it is dammed away and the mill is built over the chasm. The water runs through sluices to the millwheels and from there dashes down into the clefts of the rocks, where it is swallowed up, and a mile away joins the Valorbe, where it once more takes the name of the upper stream.

“These sluices (entonniers) have to be kept clear, else the water would rise and fill up the cleft again and drown the mill, as has happened more than once. Men were busy at work, some removing the decomposed limestone, some strengthening the structure.

“We rode back over the bridge to Le Pont and took a guide to La Dent. As we mounted we had a fine view of the large lake below us in its whole extent. To the eastward Le Noir Mont forms its boundary; behind that the bald head of the Dôle comes into sight; to the westward the precipitous crags, quite naked toward the lake, confine it.

“The sun grew hot; it was between eleven and noon. Gradually we began to get a prospect over the whole valley and could recognize in the distance Le Lac des Rousses, and coming up to our feet the region through which we had been riding and the road which still remained for us to accomplish. As we mounted higher we talked about the vast extent of land and of the rulers which could be distinguished from that height and with such thoughts we attained the summit; but another drama was there prepared for us. Only the lofty mountain chains were visible under a clear and cheerful sky; all the regions below were bedecked with a white woolly sea of fog which stretched from Geneva northward to the very horizon and gleamed in the sun. Out of this to the east arose the whole unbroken range of snow and ice-covered mountains, without respect to the names of the nations and princes who lay claim to the possession of them, subjected only to one great Overlord and to the glance of the sun, which painted them a lovely rosy hue.

“Mont Blanc over opposite to us was evidently the highest; the ice-mountains of Valais and of the Oberland came next and finally closed in the lower mountain of the Canton of Bern. Toward the west in one place the sea of fog was unbounded; to the left in the farthest distance the mountains of Solothurn showed themselves; nearer still those of Neuchâtel; directly before us a few of the lower peaks of the Jura; below us lay some of the houses of Baulion whereto La Dent belongs and whence it gets the name. Toward the west the whole horizon is shut off by the Franche-Comté with a stretch of low wooded mountains, one of which stood out quite alone by itself toward the northwest. In front was a lovely view.

“Here is the sharp point which gives this peak the name of a tooth. It slopes down steeply and, if anything, bends inward a little; in the depths a little fir-wood valley with fine grassy meadows is shut in; directly beyond lies the valley called Valorbe, where one can see the Orbe springing from the rocks and follow in imagination its downward course under the ground to the little lake.

“The village of Valorbe also lies in this valley.

“Reluctantly we turned to descend. If we could have waited a few hours longer, until the fog in accordance with its custom should have entirely dissipated, we should have been able to distinguish the country still farther down the lake; but in order that enjoyment may be perfect there must still be something left to be desired. Looking down we had the whole valley in all distinctness before us; at Pont we mounted our horses, rode along the easterly side of the lake, came through l’Abbaye de Joux, which is now a village, but was formerly the seat of the monks to whom the whole valley belonged. About four o’clock we reached our quarters and found a meal which our hostess assured us had been good at midday but which we found tasted remarkably good.”

For their return they decided to make the ascent of the second highest peak of the Jura, the Dôle, though it was then supposed to be the highest.

“We packed a luncheon of cheese, butter, bread and wine and started away about eight o’clock. Our route took us now through the upper part of the valley under the shadow of Le Noir Mont. It was very cold; there had been a hoar frost and it had frozen; we had still an hour to ride in the Bernese territory where the chaussée, which has just been completed, comes to an end. We entered French territory, passing through a small fir forest. Here the scene abruptly changes. What first struck our attention was the bad roads. The ground is very stony; great heaps of rocks lay all about; then again for a space it is very swampy and full of springs; the forests all about are in bad condition; the houses and inhabitants have the appearance not exactly of destitution but still of very straitened circumstances. They are almost in the condition of serfs to the Canonici of Saint Claude; they are bound to the soil; many imposts are laid upon them....

“Yet this part of the valley is also a good deal built up. The natives work hard to support themselves and yet they love their country; they are in the habit of stealing the wood from the Bernese peasants and of selling it again in the country. The first district is called Le Bois d’Amont and we passed through this into the parish of Les Rousses, where we saw lying before us the little Lake des Rousses and Les Sept Moncels—seven little connected hills of varied forms, the southern boundary of the valley. We soon came to the new road which leads from the Pays de Vaud toward Paris. We followed it for a while downwards and were soon out of our valley. The bald head of La Dôle lay before us. We dismounted; our horses proceeded along the road to Saint-Cergues, and we kept on our way up La Dôle.

“It was about noon; the sun seemed hot but a cool midday wind was blowing. When, in order to get breath, we turned around to look, we had Les Sept Moncels behind us; we could still see a part of Le Lac des Rousses and built around it the scattered houses of the parish. Le Noir Mont hid from us all the rest of the valley; mounting higher we once more saw the same prospect over La Franche-Comté and nearer to us the last mountains and valleys of the Jura toward the south. We took great pains to avoid allowing some turn in the ascent to give us a prospect of the region for the sake of which we were actually climbing the mountain. I was somewhat troubled by the fog; yet I made favorable prognostications from the aspect of the sky above.

“At last we attained the topmost peak and beheld with the greatest delight that what had been denied us the day before was now vouchsafed to us. The whole Pays de Vaud and Pays de Gex lay before us like a map; all the landed estates with green hedges marked off like the beds of a parterre. We were so high that the heights and depressions of the country in the foreground did not appear. Villages, towns, châteaux, vineyards, and higher up, where forest and Alps begin, châlets, for the most part painted white and bright, shone in the sun. The fog had lifted entirely from Lake Leman; we could see the nearer shore clearly; we entirely looked over the so-called Petit Lac, where the great lake narrows and draws toward Geneva, which lay directly opposite us, and the country beyond, shutting it in, began to disclose itself. Above all, however, the prospect of the ice and snow-mountains asserted its rights.

“We protected ourselves from the cold blast by the shelter of the rocks and let the sun pour down directly upon us; food and drink tasted excellently good! We looked down on the fog as it gradually dispersed; each of us discovered something, or claimed to discover something. Gradually Lausanne began to show with all its châteaux; Vevey and the Castle of Chillon came out distinctly; the mountains that shut us off from sight of the entrance to Valais, sloping down into the lake; from there along the Savoy coast—Evian, Ripaille, Thonon; villages and châteaux, all clustered together; Geneva came finally out of the fog at the right; but farther toward the south, toward Le Mont Crédo and Mont Vuache, where the Fort l’Ecluse lies hidden, it still lingered.

“When we turned to the left again, then the whole country from Lausanne as far as Solothurn lay in a faint haze. The nearer mountains and heights, wherever there were white houses, could be easily recognized; some one pointed out to us the Castle of Chanvan as it lay gleaming at the left by the Lake of Neuburg, and we could make out its situation, but the castle itself we could not distinguish in the blue haze.

“Words fail to describe the magnitude and beauty of this view; at such a moment one is scarcely conscious of gazing; one only calls out the names and lofty forms of well-known cities and places and rejoices in an intoxicating recognition that those white spots before one’s eyes are the places themselves.

“And the ranges of gleaming ice-mountains kept attracting the eye and the soul. The sun turned more toward the west and illuminated their mighty sides. What black shoulders of rock, teeth, towers and walls in multifold ranks swept up from the lake before them! forming wild, monstrous, impenetrable vestibules! As they lie there in their purity and clarity, manifold in the free air, one willingly yields all pretentions to the infinite, since one can never be done with the finite in contemplation and thought (Anschauen und Gedanken).

“Before us we saw a fruitful inhabited land; the soil on which we were standing, a high, bald mountain, still bears grass, fodder for cattle, from which man draws sustenance. This the conceited Lord of the World can claim as his own; but those mountains yonder are like a holy array of virgins whom the Spirit of Heaven cherishes in inaccessible regions for himself alone in everlasting chastity.

“We stayed there, in eager rivalry, striving now with the naked eye, now with the telescope, to make out cities, mountains and localities, and we did not start to descend until the sun in its waning again allowed the fog to spread its evening breath over the lake. Just at sunset we came to the ruins of Le Fort de Saint-Cergues. Even down below in the valley our eyes were still fastened upon the ice-mountains far across. The farthest away, at the left in the Oberland, seemed to be melting in a thin fiery vapor; those nearest still stood with well-marked red sides facing us; gradually they grew white, green, grey. It looked almost disquieting. As a mighty body dies from without in toward the heart, so all of them slowly grew pale up toward Mont Blanc, whose broad bosom still glowed rosy and seemed to preserve for us a reddish glow.

“At last reluctantly now we had to take our departure. We found the horses at Saint-Cergues and, in order that there might be nothing lacking, the moon rose and gave us light on our way to Nyon, while, as we rode, our excited senses once more grew calm and assumed their wonted tone, so that we were able with fresh enjoyment to find pleasure in looking out of the windows of our inn on the wide spreading reflection of the moon in the perfectly unruffled lake.”

It makes one realize the flight of time to read a little farther on of Goethe’s visit to the illustrious De Saussure, through whose initiative the ascent of Mont Blanc was accomplished nearly seven years later. Goethe wanted to assure himself that it was feasible so late in the season to go from Geneva by way of Cluse and Salanches into the Valley of Chamonix and from there by way of Valorsine and Trient into Martinach in the Valais. De Chaussure encouraged him to do so, and in company still with the Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar he made his famous trip which included a visit to Sion and the peak of the Saint-Gothard.

Just a hundred years after Gray and sixty years after Goethe penetrated these mountains still another great poet enriched his imagination by experiences in the Alps. Curiously enough all three of them related their adventures and their sensations in the form of letters. Victor Hugo was at Geneva and at Lausanne in September. He had been at Lucerne, at Bern and upon the Rigi. He, too, was impressed by the wonders of the Alpine mists. He, too, describes a sunset:—

“At this moment the abyss was growing magnificent. The sun was going down behind the notched crest of Pilatus. Its rays rested only on the highest summits of all the mountains and its level rays lay across these monstrous pyramids like golden architraves.

“All the mighty valleys of the Alps were filling with mists; it was the hour when eagles and Lämmergeier seek their eyries.

“I had stepped forward to the edge of the precipice above which rises the cross and from which Goldau is visible. I was alone, with my back turned toward the sunset. I know not what the others were looking at; what I saw was sublime enough for me.

“The immense cone of shadow projected by the Rigi, clearly outlined by its edges and, because of the distance, free from any visible penumbra, gradually mounted, rock by rock, tree by tree, the steep side of the Rossberg. The shadow mountain was devouring the sunlight mountain. This vast dark triangle, the base of which was lost beneath the Rigi and the apex of which was each instant coming nearer and nearer the summit of the Rossberg, has already embraced Art, Goldau, ten valleys, ten villages, half of the Lake of Zug and the whole Lake of Lowerz. Clouds of reddish copper color floated across it and changed into pewter. In the depths of the ravine Art floated in a twilight glow starred here and there by lighted windows. Already poor women were sewing down there by their lighted lamps. Art lives in the night; the sun sets for its inhabitants at two o’clock.

“A moment later the sun had disappeared, the wind blew cold, the mountains were grey. Not a cloud was in the sky. The Rigi had become solitary once more, with a boundless blue sky arching above.

“In one of my earlier letters I spoke of ‘these granite waves called Alps.’ I had no idea I had hit it so accurately. The image which came into my mind appeared to me in all its vividness on the summit of the Rigi after the sun had gone down. These mountains are really billows, but giant billows. They have all the forms of the sea; there are green, dark swells, which are the crests covered with evergreens; blond and earthy seas, which are the granite slopes gilded with lichens; on the loftiest undulations the snow is torn off and falls in masses into black ravines as the foam does. You might think you saw a mighty ocean solidified in the midst of a tempest by the breath of Jehovah.

“What would become of the horizon and the mind of man should these enormous billows be suddenly set in motion again?”

CHAPTER XVII
A FORMER WORKER OF SPELLS

A SMALL boulder rolling down into a river may quite change its course. The sand begins immediately to bank up against it; the current is insensibly turned away toward the other side, and from where the boulder began to build a whole new area of intervale may in time spread its bright green pasturage.

Such a boulder was Dr. Tissot in Swiss life. He was not by any means the first Lausanne physician to attract patients from abroad. In the Sixteenth Century a Jean Volat de Chambéry, after having been a Protestant minister at Lonay, practised medicine and became famous, and in 1543 Jacques Blécheret was named médecin to the city. But all before or since were insignificant compared to the great Dr. Tissot, whom a well-known lady of his day in her enthusiasm called the god of medicine. My nephew declared that his very name carried with it a sound of infallibility—which was certainly subtle. He brought me a copy of Tissot’s famous book: “Avis au Peuple sur sa Santé.” The first edition came out in August, 1761, and it was soon translated into German, Dutch, Flemish, English, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Hungarian, Russian, Spanish and Polish. It was dedicated “Aux très-illustres, très-nobles, et magnifiques Seigneurs les Seigneurs Presidens et Conseilers de la Chambre de Santé de la Ville et Republique de Berne.”

It was a vade mecum for people who lived far from doctors. “Il faut seigner” was one of his prescriptions: in those days they resorted to heroic measures; vésicatoires—whether made with Spanish flies or not does not appear—were recommended for sore eyes; Hofmann’s drops for catarrhal fevers, stomach-cramps, colds and bronchitis. Every one talked about Tissot and his remedies. He had them drink mineral waters, especially recommending those of Rolle which he said had a styptic taste and were “bonne pour obstructions du foie et de rate, les galles, dartres, et autres maux de la peau.” He gave excellent advice about cleanliness and fresh air.

It was needed in those days, for if quackery is rampant in this our day of grace, how much more flagrant was it then. Some of the remedies were amazing. Here is a decoction warranted to restore the vital forces and animate the mind: It is made up of aloes from the island of Socotora, a gross of Zodoaire, a gross each of gentian, safran, fine rhubarb, thériaque de Venise; all which when compounded was to be powdered, sifted through a parchment sieve; then when it should have fermented nine days in the shade, shaken night and morning, it was to be put into a pint of brandy. Another doctor claimed to cure the stone by a dose of tartines de miel for breakfast and supper; that sounds more appetizing than a decoction of Italian scorpions. Madame de Sévery had an attack of nerves: Dr. Tissot gave her for this unpleasant malady a bitter bouillon made of dandelion, chicory and soapwort. But his chief recommendation was to eat slowly and chew carefully—an anticipation of Fletcherism.

Auguste Tissot, of an old Italian family which came to Vaud in 1400, was born at Grancy in March, 1728. He was educated at l’Isle by his uncle, a Protestant pastor. Then he studied medicine at Montpellier, and early won a reputation by his skill in curing smallpox. He was a pronounced advocate of inoculation and wrote a book about it. He became a professor at Lausanne in 1766 and both the King of Poland and Maria Theresa tried in vain to woo him away to be their court physician. George III wanted him in England. Napoleon wrote him about his gouty uncle. He attended Frederic the Great in his last illness. Venice offered him a chair in the University of Padua. Finally, through the friendly offices of the Emperor Joseph II, whom he had cured, he was induced to become a professor in Pavia, where he gave lectures in Latin for two years and then resigned to return to his beloved Lausanne. After his death in 1797 the Pavians erected a monument to him. Angelica Kauffman at Rome painted the portrait of him which is still at the Château de Crissier. The picture portrays him with gallooned buttons; he holds a pen in his hand and his mouth is slightly parted. Under an engraved portrait of him is this stanza:—

He married a daughter of the learned Professor d’Apples de Charrière, who brought him only four thousand livres.

Tissot was the magnet that attracted the magnates. They came from all lands and were of every rank:—“the Englishes” came, haughty lords and ladies of high degree; French financiers, to say nothing of ducs and vicomtes; German princes and kings and emperors in state or incog. The streets, narrow, and not at that time well fitted for carriages, were often blocked, and lively scenes took place; postilions would be swearing in every known tongue, children squealing, horses falling and threatening to roll down to Ouchy, whips cracking, and, as always, the small boy taking great delight in the excitement. One day an Irish prelate came in an equipage of three six-horse coaches, preceded by many lackeys; then arrived a Russian princess with hard face, witty and cultivated, speaking all languages. Some one tried to point out to her the beauty of the view; elle méprisait tout.

Another of his patients was la Comtesse de Brionne, widow of the Prince Louis de Lorraine, beloved by the Duc de Choiseul; she stayed in Lausanne a long time with her son, the Prince de Lambesc. Another was the Countess Potocka, regarded as the loveliest woman in the world and rousing wonder and admiration by her extraordinary head-dresses, one of which was compared to the beautiful city of Lausanne—with its three hills, la cité en aigrette, La Rue du Pré represented by the parting in the middle, the Faubourgs de Saint-François and d’Estraz by the two papillons or butterfly arrangements and the Rue de Bourg by a ribbon.

In 1792 the Princess Alexander Liubomirska came. Her maître d’hôtel was overheard uttering some impertinences about the government and the bailiff had him arrested and put into jail. The princess was wrathful and uttered worse impertinences, declaring that the country was governed by tyrants. M. d’Erlach, who was really a great wit and quite broad-minded, remarked that in a tête-à-tête he could bear any sort of reproaches from a pretty woman but devant le monde—that was another matter.

He gave the princess orders to leave town within twenty-four hours. She hastened to Paris vowing that she would raise an army and come back to avenge herself and her outraged maître d’hôtel.

Prince Gregory Orlof, the favourite of Catharine the Great, came with a suite of twenty-one, and his wife, the Princess Orlova-Zinovieva, who in spite of the doctor’s remedies died there and was buried in the Cathedral. In 1782 the Duke of Gloucester, brother to George III, came with a numerous suite and the asthma. He swore he would give an arm or a leg to be free of it. He was very ill-favoured but good-natured. His morganatic wife was with him—a tall, handsome, cold-looking lady—also a little girl of nine and as a companion to her a Lady Carpenter who was also haughty and handsome, with a mouthful of superb teeth which she liked to show when she laughed. The Grand Duke Paul of Russia came as Comte du Nord and put up at the Lion d’Or Inn with his wife Marya Feodorovna, Princesse de Würtemberg. As a special favour it was permitted to see them eat. That was a part of the menagerie of royalty. They went up to Le Signal where they had luncheon like ordinary mortals, and they slept at Vevey. In 1782 the Princesse de Courland, first wife of the much married Pierre de Courland, died at Mon Repos, much regretted for her charity and the lavish expenditure in which she indulged. She, too, was buried in the Cathedral. Another of Dr. Tissot’s patients was the terrible dandy Baron Auget de Montyon, intendant to the Duc d’Auvergne. Years afterwards he founded the Montyon prizes for a virtue which he did not possess. Of course Dr. Tissot was frequently called in to assuage the discomforts caused by Gibbon’s “ebullitions” of the gout.

In Eynard’s “Life of Tissot” there is an amusing account of Gibbon’s dancing the minuet:—

“A German highly educated, but naturally ardent and enthusiastic, presented himself, furnished with excellent letters of recommendation, to one of our professors at Lausanne, and expressed to him his desire to make the acquaintance of the immortal author of the ‘Avis au Peuple.’ The professor was going that evening to visit Madame de Chavrière, who received the most agreeable people of Lausanne. He proposed to the gentleman to introduce him there; it was in the country.

“At the moment when they arrived at Madame de Chavrière’s the company had just been playing games and were paying the forfeits. One of the company was playing on a violin, while a gentleman of remarkable corpulence appeared to be searching the room for something he could not find. At length the violin gave forth louder sounds, and the stout gentleman—it was no less a personage than the illustrious Gibbon—came and took the hand of M. Tissot, whose figure, tall, dignified, and cold, formed the most complete contrast with his own. But this was not enough; the violin continued to play, and they were both obliged to dance several figures of a minuet, to the great delight of the whole assemblage. It was the payment of a forfeit due from Gibbon, whose jovial temperament readily lent itself to this form of pleasantry.

“But the German whose sensibility and emotion at this spectacle had been plainly visible did not realize what it meant. The following year there was great astonishment at Lausanne to learn that he had taken it all seriously and that in the account of his travels which he had just printed, he cited as one of the most remarkable of his experiences the advantage of having seen the celebrated historian of Rome and the illustrious philanthropist, the benefactor of humanity, intertwining dances and harmonious steps, thus recalling the beautiful days of Arcadia, all whose antique virtues and simplicity they possessed.”

It is evident that Tissot was not only the physician to all these great people; they were proud to own him as a friend. And since most of his friends and patients were rich his rivals charged him with being a charlatan and occupied only in making money. He did make money, and some of his titled patients sent him splendid presents.

Among the most interesting of M. Tissot’s fair consultants was the lively and piquante Madame de Genlis who arrived at Lausanne with her father-in-law. She spent nearly a fortnight under his care, but the fêtes, the balls, the concerts at which she displayed her charming voice, and played the harp, the sails on the lake, the trips across to La Meillerie, and a multitude of other dissipations might well have undone all the doctor’s prescriptions. But they were for her mother not for her. Madame de Genlis had long sworn by his medical book. She tells in her memoirs how she practised, in an amateur way, on or among the villagers. M. Racine, the barber, always came to consult with her whenever any one was ill.

“We went together to visit them,” she says. “My prescriptions were confined to simple teas and broths which I usually sent from the château. I was at least instrumental in moderating the zeal of M. Racine for the emetics which he prescribed for almost every ill. I had perfected myself in the art of bleeding; the peasants often came and asked me to bleed them which I did; but as it was known that I always gave them from twenty-four to thirty sous after a bleeding, I soon had a great number of patients and I suspected that they were attracted by the thirty sous.”

She gives an entertaining account of her arrival at Lausanne, where, as she was sitting in her carriage, wearily waiting for her servant to find lodgings, the young Prince of Holstein recognized her and introduced her to Madame de Crousaz, the authoress, who procured for her at the house of her father-in-law, M. de Crousaz, “charming rooms with an enchanting view of the Lake of Geneva.”

CHAPTER XVIII
TO CHAMONIX

WHILE I was reading about Madame de Genlis after breakfast one morning, Ruth came into the library and we talked about the advantage of foreign travel. Does the broadening effect come from seeing new scenes or does it proceed from the intercourse which it favours with men and women of entirely different habits and modes of thought?

I said that my belief was that a person living in an isolated country town, by reading books of travel, especially those furnished with illustrations, and by attending “moving-picture shows,” might attain to as complete a knowledge of any given foreign country as he would by merely travelling through it armed with a Baedecker. The generality of travellers carry with them the individual aura of their own conceit which is quite impermeable to new ideas, and what they have seen does not soak into their inner consciousness at all. But for the average person, if there be such a person, stay-at-home travel is more advantageous than actual peregrinations. Rushing from one country to another or from one place to another is not seeing a country.

Ruth called my attention to what Lord Bacon said about travel. In his day “the grand tour” was the culmination of a young nobleman’s education, and Italy was the goal. Switzerland was merely an obstacle on the way, to be crossed with more or less discomfort and with little thought of its picturesqueness. Ruth took down a handsome edition of the “Essays” and turned to the one which treats of this subject and read it aloud to me.

It was not in accordance with his scheme to fill the mind with pictures of beautiful scenery, though he realized that for young men it is a part of education and for their elders a part of experience. He says:—“He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school and not to travel.” He would not object for young men to travel provided they take a tutor who knows languages and “may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go, what acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth; for else young men shall go hooded and look abroad little.”

He believed in keeping diaries. He tells us that the things to be seen and observed are:—“the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of state and pleasure, near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers and the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets and rarities; and to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go, after all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions and such shows, men need not to be put in mind of them; yet they are not to be neglected.”

He did not believe in staying long in any one city or town; but “more or less as the place deserveth, but not long,” nor staying in any one part of a town: “Let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance.” And he advised “sequestering himself from the company of his countrymen and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth.” Acquaintance was the thing to cultivate, especially secretaries and attachés or, as Bacon called them, “employed men of ambassadors,” and the reason for this was that he might “suck the experience of many.”

“When a traveller returneth home,” he says in conclusion, “let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letter with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth; and let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture, and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories, and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.”

I remarked that Ralph Waldo Emerson found to his disappointment on his first trip abroad that he could not rid himself of himself. It was the same Emerson in Rome, in Paris and in London, as in Boston. How much would travel do for such a man? The great philosopher, Immanuel Kant, never ventured more than sixty miles from Königsberg and he was lost if varied from the daily routine of shuttle-like attendance on his lectures—back and forth, back and forth.

“Yet,” said I, “Kant wrote remarkably accurate descriptions of Switzerland in his Physical Geography. He could never have seen the Alps except in his imagination.

“What better description can you find than in his ‘Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good’ where he says:—‘Bold, overhanging and as it were threatening rocks; clouds up-piled in the heavens; moving along with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder; volcanoes in all their violence of destruction; tornadoes with their swath of devastation; the limitless ocean in a state of uproar and similar spectacles exhibit our power of resistance as insignificantly puny compared to their might. But the spectacle of them is the more fascinating, the more terrible it is and we are prone to call these objects sublime, because they raise the powers of the soul above their accustomed height and discover in us a power of resistance of an entirely different sort—one which gives us the courage to pit ourselves against the apparently infinite power of Nature.’”