I had to consult Dr. Herrenschwand about Madame d’Urfe, so I stopped at Morat, where he lived, and which is only four leagues from Berne. The doctor made me dine with him that I might try the fish of the lake, which I found delicious. I had intended to go on directly after dinner, but I was delayed by a curiosity of which I shall inform the reader.
After I had given the doctor a fee of two Louis for his advice, in writing, on a case of tapeworm, he made me walk with him by the Avanches road, and we went as far as the famous mortuary of Morat.
“This mortuary,” said the doctor, “was constructed with part of the bones of the Burgundians, who perished here at the well-known battle lost by Charles the Bold.”
The Latin inscription made me laugh.
“This inscription,” said I, “contains an insulting jest; it is almost burlesque, for the gravity of an inscription should not allow of laughter.”
The doctor, like a patriotic Swiss, would not allow it, but I think it was false shame on his part. The inscription ran as follows, and the impartial reader can judge of its nature:
“Deo. opt. Max. Caroli incluti et fortissimi Burgundie duds exercitus Muratum obsidens, ab Helvetiis cesus, hoc sui monumentum reliquit anno MCDLXXVI.”
Till then I had had a great idea of Morat. Its fame of seven centuries, three sieges sustained and repulsed, all had given me a sublime notion of it; I expected to see something and saw nothing.
“Then Morat has been razed to the ground?” said I to the doctor.
“Not at all, it is as it always has been, or nearly so.”