L[ord] B[yron] went to town in pursuit of thieves who came to steal the anchors after having stolen my sail. Was refused permission to go out. I went to the Syndic Saladin, and told him I begged his pardon for our servants, who must have said something insulting, or else he could not have refused permission to leave the port. Thieves attempted to break into the house.
An apothecary sold some bad magnesia to L[ord] B[yron]. Found it bad by experiment of sulphuric acid colouring it red rose-colour. Servants spoke about it. Appointed Castan to see experiment; came; impudent; refused to go out; collared him, sent him out, broke spectacles. Laid himself on a wall for three hours; refused to see experiments. Saw L[ord] B[yron], told him his tale before two physicians. Brought me to trial before five judges; had an advocate to plead. I pleaded for myself; laughed at the advocate. Lost his cause on the plea of calumny; made me pay 12 florins for the broken spectacles and costs. Magnesia chiefly alumina, as proved by succenate[[11]] and carbonate of ammonia.
Dined twice at Madame de Staël's; visited there also; met Madame de Broglie and M[onsieur?]; Miss Randall; two Roccas; Schlegel; Monsignor Brema; Dumont; Bonstetten; Madame Bottini; Madame Mongelas; young de Staël.
[It will be observed that Dr. Polidori, although he details these various circumstances likely to create some soreness between Lord Byron and himself, does not here state in express terms that the poet had parted with him. At the end of this entry for September 5 he does, however, give a few words to the subject, confirmatory of Lord Byron's ensuing remarks. Byron, in a good-humoured spirit, gave a general explanation in a letter addressed to John Murray on January 24, 1817. He understood that Polidori was "about to return to England, to go to the Brazils on a medical speculation with the Danish Consul" (which, however, he did not actually do); and Byron asked Murray to get the Doctor any letters of recommendation. Then he adds: "He understands his profession well, and has no want of general talent: his faults are the faults of a pardonable vanity and youth. His remaining with me was out of the question. I have enough to do to manage my own scrapes; and, as precepts without example are not the most gracious homilies, I thought it better to give him his congé: but I know no great harm of him, and some good. He is clever and accomplished; knows his profession, by all accounts, well; and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent." In March 1820 Byron made a few other observations applicable to his intercourse with Polidori: "The sole companion of my journey was a young physician who had to make his way in the world, and, having seen very little of it, was naturally and laudably desirous of seeing more society than suited my present habits or my past experience. I therefore presented him to those gentlemen of Geneva for whom I had letters of introduction; and, having thus seen him in a situation to make his own way, retired for my own part entirely from society, with the exception of one English family"—i.e. Shelley and his two ladies. At times, however, Byron was less lenient to the Doctor. On June 17, 1817, he wrote to Murray: "I never was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense and tracasseries and emptiness and ill-humour and vanity of that young person: but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment in which he has been aided by a little subsequent experience, and may turn out well."
It may be hardly needful to state that "Madame de Broglie and Monsieur" (i.e. the Duc Victor de Broglie) were the daughter and son-in-law of Madame de Staël: they were now but very recently wedded, February 20, 1816. Byron thought the youthful wife devoted to her husband, and said "Nothing was more pleasing than to see the development of the domestic affections in a very young woman." Of the two Roccas, one is remembered as Madame de Staël's second husband. He was a very handsome officer of Swiss origin. They married privately in 1811, she being then aged about forty-five, and he twenty-two. He only survived his wife about six months, dying in 1818. August Wilhelm von Schlegel was at this date about forty-nine years old, celebrated as a translator of Shakespear and Calderon, and as a scholar of extensive range. He had travelled much with Madame de Staël, who drew on him for some of the ideas set forth in her book De l'Allemagne. Monsignor Brema is a good deal mentioned farther on: he was a son of the Marchese di Brema (or Brême), who had been a valuable Minister of the Interior under the Napoleonic régime in Italy. Dumont, who has been previously named by Polidori as the translator of Bentham, was also closely associated with the great Mirabeau.]
At Vaugeron, the Saladins, Auguste Mathould, Rossi, Jacques Naple [?], Brelaz, Clemann, Countess Mouskinpouskin, Breuss, Abate Gatelier, Toffettheim e figlio, Foncet, Saussure, Lord Breadalbane and family, a ball; Saladin of Maligny, Slaneys, two balls; Dr. and Mrs. Freckton White, Galstons (Miss etc. sisters), a ball; Lord Bingham, Lord F. Cunningham, Lord Belgray, a ball; Mr. Tillotson St. Aubyn, Mrs. Trevanion, Valence Meers, R. Simmons, Lloyd, Princess Jablonski, Lady Hamilton Dalrymple, Odiers, Lord Kinnoul, Somers, Lord Glenorchy, Mr. Evans, Coda (songstress), M. G. Lewis, Mrs. Davies, Mr. Pictet, Mr. Hobhouse, Dr. Gardner, Caravella, Shelleys, Sir John St. Aubyn.
[Most of these numerous names must be left to themselves: several of them are hereafter commented, often caustically, by Polidori himself. Saussure is not the more celebrated naturalist and traveller, Horace Benedict, who died in 1799; but is his son, Nicolas Théodore, who coöperated largely with the father, and produced an important book of his own, Recherches sur la Végétation. Born in 1767, he lived on to 1845. Mrs. Trevanion may be supposed to have belonged to the same family as a certain Mr. Trevanion who figured very discreditably in the history of that Medora Leigh who was the daughter of the Honourable Mrs. Leigh (Byron's half sister) and ostensibly of her husband, but who is now said to have been in fact the daughter of Byron himself. Lady Hamilton Dalrymple ought seemingly to be Lady Dalrymple Hamilton: she was a daughter of Viscount Duncan, and wife of Sir Hew D. Hamilton. Somers is mentioned on p. 150: this is probably the correct spelling, not (as here) Summers. Matthew Gregory Lewis (whom I had occasion to name before) was the author of The Monk, which he wrote at the early age of nineteen, of the musical drama The Castle Spectre, and of other works whose celebrity has not survived into the present day. He was now near the end of his brief career, for he died in 1818, aged forty-two.]
The society I have been in may be divided into three sets: the canton of Genthoud, Coppet, and Geneva. The canton is an assemblage of a neighbourhood of about seven or eight families, meeting alternately on Sundays at each other's houses, and every Thursday at the Countess Breuss's. The Countess Breuss lives at Genthoud in a villa she has bought. She has two husbands, one in Russia, one at Venice; she acted plays at the Hermitage under Catherine. Not being able to get a divorce, she left Russia, went to Venice for six days, stayed as many years, married (it is said), bought villas etc. in the Venetian's name, and separated. Her family consists of Madame Gatelier, a humble friend, a great lover of medicaments etc., Abate ——, her Almoner, an excellent Brescian, great lover of religionists. A mania in the family for building summer-houses, porticoes, and baths; neatly planned; an island with a ditch round it; a Tower of Babel round the trunk of a chestnut; a summer-house by the roadside of a Moorish construction. The Countess is very good-natured, laughs where others calumniate and talk scandal with prudish airs, kind to all. The society is extremely pleasant; generally dancing or music. It was the birthday of Charles Saladin, who, having been four years in Nap[oleon]'s army, knew nothing of the matter. She asked to have the fêting of him. They acted first a charade on the canton of Genthoud. She acted with Mr. Massey junior, with others, and myself as a woman—the words to blind.[[12]] Then came a kind of farce, in which Charles was dressed as the C. B. [Countess Breuss?], Gatelier as the Abbé, and Miss Saladin as Gatelier: each took one another off. Written by C. B. When at last another of the society brought a letter announcing it to be Charles' birthday. Then they, while he was in his amazement, sang a song to him, presented him with a bouquet and purse. Then an elegant supper, and afterwards a ball on the arrival of Madame Toffettheim with her son. A great party was invited; and after tea two plays were acted—Le Pachà de Suresne and Les Ricochets. There was an immense number of spectators. The actors were, in Le Pachà de Suresne, Madame Dorsan, la Comtesse Breuss; Laure, Madlle. Brelaz; Aglaé, Clemann; Nathalie, M.; Madlle. Remy, Madame Gatelier; Perceval, Alexis Saladin; Flicflac, Polidori; Joseph, C. Saladin.—Les Ricochets—I do not remember the characters. The actors were Alexis, Charles, Auguste Saladin, Massey le jeune, La Comtesse Breuss, Madame Mathilde Saladin. The rehearsals before were frequent.
I got a discretion from the Countess, which I took in the shape of a Swiss,[[13]] in consequence of a wager that I could not go straight home.
La Toffettheim is a nice, unpretending, lady-like woman, pleasing and affectionate. Her son full of liberty-ideas. It was here, in consequence of Massey junior dancing extremely well, that, being defied, I danced a pantaloon-dance, by which I made enemies; for, upon my refusing it at the Saladins', they thought it was a personal refusal. Saladins of Vaugeron, father and mother. Father deaf, good-natured: said to me upon reading my thesis, "Mais, Monsieur, il n'y a pas de paradoxe." The mother pretended to play shy on account of Madame B.