The little party—five in all—Francis and Robert, and M. Marcombes, with their two French servants, “took post for Rye in Sussex; and there, though the sea was rather rough, they hired a ship,” and “a prosperous puff of wind did safely, by next morning, blow them into France.”[78] They were a day and night at sea, and “a little tossed att night”; they had escaped the perils of the deep and of “yᵉ Donkirks”; and after stopping for a short refreshment at Dieppe, they set off towards Rouen and Paris.[79] They enjoyed the company of several French gentlemen on the road, of which they were glad; for a robbery had been “freshly committed in a wood” between Rouen and Paris, through which the travellers would be obliged to pass by night. Marcombes sensibly observed that the very next day after the robbery would be the very safest time to ride through the wood; and accordingly they continued their journey. At Rouen, Robyn was fascinated by the great floating bridge, which rose and fell with the tide water; and in one of his “pretty conceits,” such as had so amused Sir Henry Wotton at Eton, the boy compared this bridge at Rouen to the “vain amorists of outward greatnesse, whose spirits resent” (i.e. rise and fall with) “all the flouds and ebbs of that fortune it is built on.” And this so soon after Frank’s gay wedding in Whitehall!
Arrived in Paris on November 4, unmolested by brigands on their journey, Marcombes and the two boys spent some days in “that vast chaos of a city,” where they were shown most of the “varieties,” and met several English friends—among them one whom M. Marcombes heartily disliked, Frank’s new brother-in-law, Tom Killigrew, with the honeyed tongue, brother of the little bride who had been left behind in the House of the Savoy. They also called on the English Ambassador; but the great event of their visit to Paris has been described in Marcombes’s first letter to the Earl.[80]
Mr. Francis, he says, had been so troubled at the moment of his departure from the Savoy on account of his father’s anger against him, that he had quite forgotten where he had put his own sword and the case of pistols which the Earl had given the boys; and Marcombes had been obliged, when they arrived at Paris, to buy them “a kaise of pistolles a piece”, not only because of the dangerous state of the roads in France (witness the robbery freshly committed in a wood), but because it was “yᵉ mode” in France for every gentleman to ride with pistols; and people would “Laugh att” the Earl’s hopeful sons if they were without them. A sword also had been bought for Mr. Francis, and “when Mr. Robert saw it he did so earnestly desire me to buy him one, because his was out of fashion, that I could not refuse him that small request.”
They left Paris, with their new swords and pistols, a little company, “all well-horsed,” numbering some twenty altogether, and including two delightful “Polonian” Princes, who were “Princes by virtue and education as well as birth.” It was a nine days’ journey to Lyons, and on the way they rested, among other places, at Moulins, which the future experimentalist remembered for its “fine tweezes.” But romance was at this time nearer to the boy’s heart than chemistry; their way had lain through a part of the French Arcadia, “the pleasant Pays de Forest, where the Marquis d’Urfé had laid the scene of the adventures and amours of that Astrea with whom so many gallants are still in love, long after both his and her decease.”[81]
Lyons itself, where they stayed for a time, seemed to Robert Boyle “a town of great resort and trading, but fitter for the residence of merchants than of gentlemen.” They crossed the mountains that had formerly belonged to the Duke of Savoy, but were now in the territory of the French king, and they saw the Rhone in its narrowest part, between the rocks, “where it is no such large stride to stand on both his banks”; and after three days’ journey from Lyons, they reached Geneva, a little Commonwealth whose quick and steady prosperity under the “reformed religion” had made it the theme “not only of discourse but of some degree of wonder.” There, for nearly two years, the boys were to board with M. Marcombes and his wife and family, and to find themselves in a little ready-made circle of friends; for Barrymore and Kynalmeaky had been there together, and boarded at the Villa Diodati. Philip Burlamachy, the former Lord Mayor of London, who did so much business with the Earl of Cork, and who, it will be remembered, had recommended Marcombes to the Earl, belonged to Geneva, and was related by marriage to the Diodati family there; and Mr. Diodato Diodati, the banker, and Dr. John Diodati, the famous Italian Protestant preacher, were among the chief Genevan residents. “The church government,” wrote John Evelyn about Geneva, only a year or two later, “is severely Presbyterian, after the discipline of Calvin and Beza, who set it up; but nothing so rigid as either our Scots or English sectaries of that denomination.”
Geneva was, as Marcombes had pointed out to the Earl when he took the boys there, not only a very convenient place for himself—for his home and family were there—but “by reason of the pure air and the notable Strangers always passing through it, and the conveniences for all kinds of Learning there, a very good place for the two boys to be educated in.” They would be among those who though “farr from puritanisme” were very orthodox and religious men, and they would be in no danger from conversation with “Jesuits, friars, priests, or any persons ill-affected to their religion, king or state.” In a word, Frank and Robyn were to be bred in a commonwealth of educated toleration; and its fine influences were to remain with Robert Boyle—who lived there a little longer than his brother—all through his life.
From time to time, Marcombes wrote comfortable letters to the Earl in London. Supplies of money had, so far, come regularly; but as yet no letters had arrived from the Earl of Cork, who was, as will be seen later, beset by family cares and public anxieties. Marcombes and the boys had settled down to regular lessons at set hours. The lessons were to include rhetoric and logic, arithmetic and Euclid, geography, the doctrine of the spheres and globe, and fortification. They were to take lessons with a fencing-master and a dancing-master, and they played at mall and tennis—this last a sport that Robert Boyle “ever passionately loved.” And they read together in a “voluminous but excellent work” called Le Monde; but above all Robyn, if not Frank, was indulged in the reading of romances, which not only “extreamely diverted” him, but also taught him French. And as they talked no English, but “all and allwayes French,” Robert became very soon “perfect” in the French tongue, while Frank could “express himself in all companies.”[82]
Marcombes was evidently very proud of having a second batch of the Earl of Cork’s sons put under his care; and Frank and Robyn proved pupils more to his taste than Kynalmeaky and Broghill had been. For one thing, they had come to him fresh from school; and he found the very young bridegroom and the younger philosopher, “noble, virtuous, discreet and disciplinable.” “I think”, he wrote to the Earl, “I neede not much Rhetorike for to persuade your Lordship that Mr. Robert Loves his booke with all his heart.” And Robert also danced extremely well; and so anxious was he to excel in fencing, that the good-natured Marcombes was “almost afraid yᵗ he should have left a quarell unperfect in England.” As for Frank, he was taking to his lessons with a “facilitie and passion” that surprised Marcombes, seeing that the boy had “tasted a little drope of yᵉ Libertinage of yᵉ Court.” Francis had been well provided with clothes in London; but Master Robert had been furnished in Geneva with a complete black satin suit, the cloak lined with plush; and Marcombes gave the boys every month “a piece yᵉ value of very neare two pounds sterlings for their passe time.”
That first winter in Geneva was an exceptionally cold one, and a great deal of snow had fallen “on yᵉ grounde.” The Governour’s letters to the Earl reported the boys to be growing apace. Mr. Francis’s legs and arms were considerably bigger than when he left England. The mountain air and the dancing and fencing were doing both boys good, though Mr. Robert still preferred sitting by himself, “with some book of history or other”—the romances are not mentioned—and required some persuasion “to playe at tennisse and to goe about.” He was, however, in excellent health. “I never saw him handsomer,” wrote Marcombes to the Earl; “for although he growes so much, yet he is very fatt and his cheeks as red as vermilion.” The frosty air had brought them “to such a stomacke that your Lordship should take a great pleasure to see them feed.