Wild weather latterly; the extreme heat having suddenly changed to storms and north-east winds, the bise blowing a tempest, and the waves of the lake dashing over the walls, they till now have peaceably lain many feet below. We have been agreeably surprised by finding that friends, whom we believed far away in the shade of their quiet park, are on the continent also, and will soon join us here. The immediate environs of Geneva so closely resemble England, with their good macadamized roads, bordered by park palings and neat cottages with turf and flowers, and no apparent poverty, that with my back turned to Mont Blanc, I could have believed myself in my own country. The common people are remarkably industrious and certainly know the value of time,—for I constantly see young girls and old men also walking along with a load on their backs of fruit and vegetables to be sold in the town, perseveringly knitting the whole way. The Genevese are proud in their own country: though when they emigrate, to make their fortunes, they will toil without murmur. The more abject and severe labour here is performed by bands of poor Savoyards, who arrive for the lessive and the haymaking and harvest, ragged and cheerful and untiring, like the troops of Irish who flock yearly to England. They are a more gentle and amiable people than the money-making Genevese; but so wretched where their unproductive territory touches that of Geneva, that, passing the frontier and the cross with its artificial flowers, the contrast from the clean comfort of the Swiss to their squalid misery is striking and sad.
The Swiss troops, with the exception of the few on permanent service, receive no pay, and perform their duty without murmur. Every year they pass three months encamped; so that Switzerland might, in case of necessity, find ready at her call an army of 180,000 men. No citizen can marry unless he possesses bible, arms, and uniform. Each citizen is an elector, and the elections take place in the churches. Their penitentiaries (for Switzerland has no punishment answering to the English hulks or the French galères) are conducted with a view to future amelioration; some have a small library, reading being allowed in their hours of recreation. It is their rule, that each man condemned to reclusion, and not knowing a trade, shall learn one, the trade itself resting on the prisoner’s choice, and the two-thirds of the produce of his labour, during his detention, belonging to himself: of these two shares he is permitted to transmit one to his family. The following notes are copied from the register of one of these houses:—
“B——, born at Bellerive in 1807, miller’s man, poor, stole three measures of grain; condemned for two years. At the end of this time his benefice, over and above the money sent his family, amounted to a hundred francs. Left a skilful weaver.”
Under these lines the pastor of the village, to which B—— had returned, had written the following:—
“On his return to Bellerive, this young man, suffering from extreme humiliation, concealed himself in his father’s house. His former companions, assembling in a body, went to seek him on the Sunday, and conducted him to church in the midst of them.”
The French custom-houses are extremely severe on the article of Genevese jewellery; but notwithstanding all the preventive measures adopted, the importation of smuggled goods into France is considerable, and the cleverness of the Genevese smugglers outwits even the sharp French douaniers. It is an amusing fact, that when the Comte de St. Cricq was Directeur Général des Douaness, he went to Geneva, and there purchased of Monsieur Beautte, one of the principal jewellers, 30,000 francs’ worth of jewels, on condition of their being smuggled into his hotel in Paris. Monsieur Beautte made no objection, only presenting the buyer with a paper for signature, by which he obliged himself to pay the usual five per cent. on the sum due. The directeur smiled, took a pen and signed St. Cricq, directeur des douanes. Beautte merely bowed, and said, “Monsieur le Directeur, the jewels you have purchased will be arrived as soon as yourself.”
At the frontier, the Comte de St. Cricq left strict charges of surveillance, and the promise of a reward of fifty louis to the employé who should seize the jewels; but arrived in Paris he entered his chamber to change his dress, and the first object he saw there was an elegantly shaped box bearing his name engraved on a silver plate; he opened it and found the jewels. Beautte had come to an understanding with a waiter of the inn, who, while assisting the directeur’s people to pack the carriage of their master, slipped the aforesaid box among the baggage; and the valet, on reaching Paris, noticing it for the first time, and supposing it to contain some recent purchase of value, immediately carried it to the count’s private apartment. Thus, while triple attention examined and tormented the unoffending travellers who crossed the frontier, Mons. de St. Cricq’s carriage unmolested smuggled his own contraband purchase to his own hotel.
The exterior of the cathedral (St. Pierre) is simple to plainness, saving the Corinthian portico, which forms on its surface a very inappropriate patch. Within are interred D’Aubigné, Henry the Fourth’s friend; and the Comte de Rohan, a Protestant leader of Louis the Thirteenth’s time. The Cardinal de Brogny, who died in 1426, was buried by his own command in the chapel of the Maccabees, which he founded. Its carvings and paintings had been at his desire executed to commemorate his low origin and remarkable history, and some of them are still preserved in the public library of Geneva. There were a child keeping pigs! wreaths of oak leaves and acorns, and in another place a pair of shoes. His name was Jean Allarmet, and he was born at the village of Brogny in the year 1342, his parents being peasants. Brogny lies on the road from Annecy to Geneva, and he was occupied keeping his flock of pigs, when, some monks bound to Geneva, and uncertain of the way, stopped to question him. Struck by his intelligent eye and prompt answers, they proposed to him to follow themselves, promising to afford him means of study, which the delighted boy eagerly accepted, and his father consenting to his departure he repaired to Geneva, and soon so far distinguished himself by his premature talent, as to draw upon him the attention of a cardinal, who proposed in turn that he should seek him at Avignon and prosecute more serious studies under his protection. He consented with the same ardour as before, and prepared to set forward on his journey on foot; but he had no shoes, and he counted the contents of his light purse in vain, he had not enough to pay for a pair. A friendly shoemaker, aware of his embarrassment, supplied him with the necessary article, and said laughing, “You shall pay me when you are a cardinal.” At Avignon the youth made rapid progress, and rose to honour and reputation, becoming vicar general of the archbishop of Vienne, and charged by Pope Clement the Seventh with the education of his nephew; and in consequence of the manner in which he fulfilled this last trust, created by him archbishop of Arles and cardinal. It was then, when many years had passed, and the shoemaker had grown old and sunk into poverty, that his humble dwelling was sought out by some richly attired domestics, who addressed him by name, and asked him whether he recollected the present he had made a poor student, who would otherwise have been reduced to perform barefoot his journey to Avignon.
“Very well,” answered the shoemaker; “he was a fine fearless boy. I could afford to be charitable in those days, and I trust I may receive my reward in heaven, for I have had none on earth.” “You are wrong,” said the domestics; “that boy is become a cardinal, and sends to seek you that you may fill the place of maître d’hôtel in his household.”
The poor man was overjoyed, and, abandoning his deserted stall, lived and died in the cardinal’s service.