JEAN GUILLAUME DE LA FLECHÈRE was a descendant of one of the most respectable families in Switzerland; a family, in fact, which was a branch of an earldom of Savoy. After his marriage, Fletcher’s wife found in his desk a seal. “Is this yours?” she asked. “Yes,” replied the poor country parson; “but I have not used it for many years.” “Why?” “Because it bears a coronet, nearly such as is the insignia of your English dukes. Were I to use that seal, it might lead to frivolous inquiries about my family, and subject me to the censure of valuing myself on such distinctions.”[2]
For some time the father of John Fletcher was a general officer in the French army, but, on his marriage, he retired from the service. Later in life, he accepted a colonelcy in the militia of Switzerland.
John, his father’s youngest son, was born at Nyon, on September 12th, 1729. His birthplace was a fine old mansion, that had withstood the storms of centuries, and, like many of the ancient houses in Switzerland, was entered by a spiral stone staircase, which opened into a spacious hall. “The house where I was born,” said Fletcher, “has one of the finest prospects in the world. We have a shady wood, near the lake, where I can ride in the cool all the day, and enjoy the singing of a multitude of birds.” From one of the windows of Fletcher’s ancestral home, there was a magnificent view of hill and dale, vineyards and pastures, stretching right away to the distant Jura mountains. At a few paces from the château, there was a terrace overlooking Lake Leman, with its clear blue waters and its gracefully-curved and richly-wooded bays. On the right hand, at a distance of fifteen miles, was Geneva, the cradle of the Reformation; on the left, Lausanne and the celebrated castle of Chillon. High up in the heavens were Alpine peaks, embosoming scenes the most beautiful; and, not far away, was Mont Blanc, robed in perpetual and unsullied snow.
Not much is known of the early life of Fletcher. A few anecdotes concerning him have been preserved by his biographers, and these shall be given in as brief a form as possible.
Wesley relates that Fletcher, “in his early childhood, had much of the fear of God, and great tenderness of conscience.” One day, when he was about seven years of age, his nurse, who had occasion to reprove him, said, “You are a naughty boy. Do you not know that the devil is to take away all naughty children?” The maid’s remark troubled him. He fell upon his knees and began to pray, and did not cease till he believed God had forgiven him.
His filial obedience was exemplary, but, on one occasion, he, undesignedly, offended his mother, whom he dearly loved. The good lady was speaking in too warm a manner to one of the family. Young Fletcher turned a reproving eye upon her. She was much displeased with what she conceived to be unfilial forwardness, and punished him. With a look of tender affection, he meekly replied, “When I am smitten on one cheek, and especially by a hand I love so well, I am taught to turn the other also.” The mother’s indignation was instantly turned into admiration of her boy.[3]
While yet a youth, he had several near escapes from an untimely death. Once, when walking upon a high wall enclosing his father’s garden, his foot slipped, and he must have been killed had he not fallen into “a large quantity of fresh-made mortar.”
At another time, when swimming by himself in deep water, a strong ribbon, which bound his hair, became loose, twisted about his leg, and tied him “as it were neck and heels.” “I strove,” said he, “with all my strength to disengage myself, but to no purpose. No person being within call, I gave myself up for lost; but when I had ceased struggling, the ribbon loosed itself.”
On another occasion, he and four other young gentlemen agreed to swim to a rocky island, five miles from the shore. Young Fletcher and one of his adventurous friends succeeded in reaching the island, but the cliff was so steep and smooth that they found it impossible to scale its heights. After swimming round the islet again and again, they concluded that their being drowned was inevitable. Immediately after, however, they discovered a place of safety; and, in due time, a boat arrived and took them home. The other three, when only half way to the island, were rescued by a boat just as they were sinking.
A still more remarkable deliverance from a watery grave was the following: Fletcher was a practised swimmer, and once plunged into a river broader than the Thames at London Bridge, and very rapid. “The water was extremely rough, and poured along like a galloping horse.” He endeavoured to swim against it, but in vain, and was hurried far from home. When almost exhausted, he looked for a resting-place, feeling he must either escape from the water or sink. With great difficulty, he approached the shore, but found it “so ragged and sharp that he saw, if he attempted to land there, he would be torn to pieces.” In his direful plight, he recommenced swimming. “At last,” says he, “despairing of life, I was cheered by the sight of a fine smooth creek, into which I was swiftly carried by a violent stream. A building stood directly across it, which I then did not know to be a powder-mill. The last thing I can remember was the striking of my breast against one of the piles whereon it stood. I then lost my senses, and knew nothing more till I rose on the other side of the mill. When I came to myself, I was in a calm, safe place, perfectly well, without any soreness or weariness at all. Nothing was amiss but the distance of my clothes, the stream having driven me five miles from the place where I left them. Many persons gladly welcomed me on shore; one gentleman in particular, who said, ‘I looked at my watch when you went under the mill, and again when you rose on the other side, and the time of your being immerged among the piles was exactly twenty minutes.’”
Fletcher passed the early part of his life at Nyon, where he began his education. With his two brothers, he was then removed to the university of Geneva, where he was distinguished equally by his superior abilities and his uncommon diligence. The two first prizes for which he stood a candidate he carried away from a number of competitors, several of whom were nearly related to the professors. He allowed himself but little time either for recreation, refreshment, or sleep. After confining himself closely to his studies all day, he would frequently consume the greater part of the night in making notes of what he had found in the course of his reading worthy of observation.
After quitting Geneva, he was sent by his father to Lentzburg, in the canton of Berne, where, besides pursuing his other studies, he acquired the German language. On his return to Nyon, he studied Hebrew, and improved his knowledge of mathematics.
From early childhood, Fletcher loved and served his Maker. He himself relates: “I think it was when I was seven years of age, that I first began to feel the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and that I resolved to give myself up to Him, and to the service of His Church, if ever I should be fit for it; but the corruption which is in the world, and that which was in my own heart, soon weakened, if not erased, those first characters which grace had written upon it.”
“From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures,” wrote St. Paul to Timothy. The same might have been said to Fletcher. His early acquaintance with inspired truth guarded him, on the one hand, from the snares of infidelity, and preserved him, on the other, from many of the vices peculiar to youth. It also qualified and emboldened him to reprove sin, and, with becoming modesty, to remonstrate with sinners. To illustrate this, his biographers relate an incident which occurred when he was only fourteen years of age. A lady and her three sons visited his sister, Madame de Botens. The sons quarrelled, and the mother uttered a hasty imprecation. Young Fletcher was shocked, and, instantly starting from his chair, began to expound and enforce the apostolic admonition, “Provoke not your children to wrath,” etc.; and then reminded his astonished auditress that her imprecation might be realized; a vaticination that soon became a fact; for, on the same day, the lady embarked upon the lake, was overtaken with a tremendous storm, and was brought to the point of perishing; and, soon after, two of her sons were drowned; and the third was crushed to death at one of the gates of Geneva.
Fletcher had wished to be a Christian minister, and his parents had wished the same concerning him; but, soon after the occurrence just related, his plans of life were entirely altered. He writes: “I went through my studies with a design of entering into orders; but, afterwards, upon serious reflection, feeling I was unequal to so great a burden, and disgusted by the necessity I should be under to subscribe the doctrine of predestination, I yielded to the desire of my friends, who would have me go into the army.”[4]
The friends here mentioned did not include his parents, for they were strongly opposed to his turning soldier; but now, nearly at the age of twenty, his theological reading gave place to the studying of the works of Cohorn and Vauban, the great military engineers. At this time, Portugal was sending troops to Brazil, to defend its interests there. Against the remonstrances of his parents, Fletcher went to Lisbon, there gathered a company of his own countrymen, accepted a captain’s commission, and engaged to serve the Portuguese on board a man-of-war, which was preparing with all speed to sail to the Brazilian coasts. Meanwhile, he wrote to his parents for a considerable sum of money, by means of which he expected to make a small fortune in the country he was about to visit. “They refused him roughly: unmoved by this, he determined to go without the cash.” Whilst waiting, however, for the ship to sail, the maid, attending him at breakfast, let the tea-kettle fall upon his leg, and so scalded him, that he had to keep his bed. “During that time,” says Wesley, “the ship sailed for Brazil; but it was observed that the ship was heard of no more.”
Wesley continues: “How is this reconcileable with the account which has been given of his piety when he was a child? Very easily: it only shows that his piety declined while he was at the university. And this is too often the case of other youths in our own universities.”
Fletcher returned to Nyon, but his military ardour was not abated; and, being informed that his uncle, then a colonel in the Dutch service, had procured a commission for him, he joyfully set out for Flanders. Here, however, he was again defeated in his purpose to become a soldier. Peace was concluded; his uncle died; his hopes were blasted; and the military profession was abandoned.
This, in substance, is all that is known of Fletcher, until he came to England, as Wesley says, in 1752.