Voltaire was a Swiss by adoption and not by birth. He did not settle down at Ferney near Geneva until he was sixty years of age (1751): but that left him twenty-four years of life to spend there. Fear of the French Court sent him out of France. He seemed to have carried no fear with him. He braved the Consistory of Geneva—then still upholding much of the Calvinist tradition—and actually established a theatre in the gloomy city. Apart from the crowds of distinguished visitors whom Voltaire's reputation brought to Geneva, he was a useful citizen. He was the sponsor of two important local industries. On his estate at Ferney he bred silkworms, and presently he had weavers from Geneva to weave stockings of silk. The first pair was sent to the Duchesse de Choiseul. His correspondence with the Duchesse would turn a modern advertiser green with envy. Voltaire also started a watch manufactory, and again he advertised his watches in cunning letters and circulars to such people as Catherine the Great. In a short time the Ferney watchmaker's export trade spread everywhere, even to China and to North Africa.
Voltaire, Rousseau—these two names kept all eyes on Switzerland for a generation, and brought to Switzerland practically all the serious thinkers of the day. There was one notable exception. Boswell records a vain pilgrimage that he made to Ferney. His mission was to reconcile Voltaire and Johnson. Voltaire described Johnson as a "superstitious dog." Johnson, asked by Boswell if he thought Rousseau as bad a man as Voltaire, said, "Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them." Dr. Johnson never went to Geneva. He would have paid as little homage to Calvinism as to Voltairism.
L'ÉGLISE DE LA MADELEINE, GENEVA.
[CHAPTER VII]
THE SWISS PEOPLE TO-DAY
The Swiss people to-day preserve that element of the paradoxical which in the Middle Ages produced an Arnold Winkelried, courageous to gather the spears of a foe into his bosom for the sake of his country, and thousands of other heroes willing to give almost as great service to any cause for the sake of steady pay. The Switzer of the twentieth century is intensely patriotic, and to keep his country secure makes cheerful joys of the tasks of universal training for military service. But he is a willing exile wherever there is money to be made. He cherishes a deep national pride: but he has no objection to servile occupation in a foreign land if it is profitable. Often he shows himself greedy and rapacious. Yet he is markedly hospitable and charitable. He is eager for liberty, but surrounds his life with a host of petty tyrannies of regulation, being more under the shadow of the official verboten than even the German. He loves the wild natural beauty of his mountains, but will spoil any Alp with a staring hotel and a funicular railway for the sake of tourist gold.
A nation of heroes and hotel-keepers, of patriots and mercenaries, a nation that produced the Swiss Guard which defended the Tuileries, and the suisse who will carry anybody's bag anywhere in Europe for a tip—the Swiss mingle in a curious way the sublime and the paltry.