MORGES AND THE LAKE FROM THE ROAD TO VUFFLENS
Such was the régime, and though, in externals, it resembled the régime at Geneva, there was one very significant difference. The Genevan discipline was self-imposed, and at least expressed the will of a working majority of the people. The Lausanne discipline represented the will of a conqueror imposed upon a subject race, and the conqueror had a rough and heavy hand, and rigorously excluded the subject people from participation in public affairs. The consequences can be traced in their history, habits, and manners.
There was one poor feeble attempt at revolt. A certain Major Davel, after whom one of the steamboats on the lake is called—a Pietist, and perhaps a religious maniac—a soldier of fortune, whose merits had attracted the attention of such good judges as the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugène, mustered the militia of Cully and marched into Lausanne, declaring that he had come to set the Canton free. Asked for explanations, he replied that he had been guided by direct inspiration from on high. The defence did not save him, and he perished on the scaffold in 1723. The revolution at which he aimed was not to be accomplished for another eighty years, and the event constitutes almost the whole of the political history of Lausanne during the period under review.
[CHAPTER II]
EMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS
Forbidden to seek careers at home, most of the aristocracy of Vaud went abroad to pursue fortune in the service of some foreign Power. There was always a good opening for them, whether as mercenary soldiers or as instructors of the young, and many of them achieved distinction and rose to high positions. Haldimand of Yverdon became a Lieutenant-General in the British Army and Governor of Canada. Réverdil of Nyon was first tutor to Christian VII. of Denmark, and afterwards his secretary. Amédée de Laharpe was one of Napoleon's generals; the only General, it is said, in the Army of Italy, who was not guilty of rapacity and extortion. Frédéric César de Laharpe held high office under Alexander I. of Russia; Dupuget of Yverdon was the tutor of the Russian Grand Dukes Nicolas and Michael; J. J. Cart was with Admiral Hood in America; Glayre became Polish Minister at St. Petersburg; Pache became Mayor of Paris; the list could be almost indefinitely extended.
Most of these emigrants, moreover, suffered from the nostalgia which is characteristic of the Swiss. It was not enough for them to come home to die; they liked to return in middle age, and spend at home the money which they had earned abroad. And when they did return, they had, of course, no longer the homely wits of the home-keeping youths. They were men of experience, men of the world, men of polished manners and cosmopolitan culture. Their presence gave a new and a broader tone to Lausanne society. They were not to be driven to church like a flock of sheep, or forbidden to go to the theatre like a pack of schoolboys, or stood in the pillory for playing cards, or told by the preachers what they should eat or wherewithal they should be clothed. So far as they were concerned the discipline of the Consistory broke down, and the Sumptuary Laws did not apply to them. Their example liberalized even the clergy. They insisted upon making Lausanne a pleasant place to live in. Strangers found out that it was pleasant, and came to settle there in large numbers. There was already a foreign colony in Lausanne from quite an early date in the eighteenth century.