"Richard's Notes from Vevey.
"Montreux, January 10th, 1889.
"I noticed, like all tourists, two inscriptions, public and modern, and was informed by my hospitable Veveysan friends that both are based upon erroneous 'Factology.'
"No. 1, placed behind the Halle aux Blés, to the north of the Place du Marché, runs:—
'Ici
Jean Jacques Rousseau logea en 1732.'"No. 2, which has more interest for Englishmen, runs thus:—
"'Ici habitait
Edmund Ludlow,
Lieut.-Général, Membre du Parlement Anglais,
Défenseur des Libertés de son Pays.
L'illustre Proscrit avait fait placer
cette Inscription sur la Porte de sa Demeure,
"omne solum forti patria quia patris."
Energiquement protégé par les Autorités
et accueilli avec sympathie par les habitants
de Vevey, Edmund Ludlow a vécu
dans cette ville de 1662 à 1693,
année de sa mort.'"The place pointed out to me is No. 49, Rue du Lac, occupied by the Imprimérie Loertscher et Fils, which still prints the famous Messager Noiteux, an almanack dating from 1707. The alley setting off to the north, and called 'Ruelle des Anciens Fossés de la Ville,' shows that the exiles were then lodged outside the town, and consequently a strict guard was necessary for their safety. Lausanne failing in this matter, Mr. John Lisle, M.P., another of the gallant band, was there shot in the back by a hired assassin.
"Ludlow returned to England in 1689, before the accession of Charles II., risked his life for nearly two years, and finally hurried back to Vevey in 1690, or three years before his death (aged seventy-two). Possibly he may then have lodged at the place noted by the epigraph. There is a local legend known to all—even to the guide-books—that early in the present century an English couple introduced themselves as 'Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow' to M. Grenier, who had bought the house from M. Cottier, the successor of M. Dubois. While the lady remained pleasantly chatting with the ancient proprietor, the gentleman slipped out of the room and carried off the wooden tablet bearing the epigraph, 'Omne solum,' etc.
"Vevey behaved with characteristic hospitality and the true Switzer's love of liberty in protecting the 'regicides' against the bravos of Savoy, paid with English gold by the Merry (and most unchivalrous) Monarch. She should take more pride in this one heroic action than in having harboured a host of royalties and quasi-royalties—the Empress Maria Federowna, the Kings of Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and the Netherlands, Princes Alexander and George of Prussia, Princess de Lignitz, the Grand-Duchess Anne of Russia, and many a minor star. She also, at the instance of Mistress Ludlow, gave to her guests their last homes under her most honoured roof—the church of St. Martin (built in A.D. 1498). The five rest side by side in the northern aisle—Andrew Boughton and John Phelps (clerks to the Court, who read out the death-sentence), Gawler, Love, and Ludlow. The latter has a memorial tablet on the northern wall over his grave, surmounted by a most un-Puritan crest—a lion rampant—and (therein) he 'winged his way to the eternal mansions.' Phelps has also a brand-new slab of black marble facing eastwards, set up by two Anglo-American kinsmen of the same name. Broughton, who 'slept in the Lord,' was placed under the aisle-pavement, and all the other gravestones are hidden by a boarding which we hope to see removed as soon as the fine old pile, whose massive masonry is splitting, and whose western portal and huge belfry with turreted angles are palpably sloping northwards, shall have found certain funds for repairs now necessary. The view from the church terrace is inimitable. Here no art can equal nature, and it is a sufficient illustration of Mendelssohn's dictum (Lady Wallace, p. 96), 'The Swiss can paint no beautiful scenery, precisely because they have it the whole day before their eyes.'
"R. F. Burton.
"P.S.—In reading Ludlow's memoirs we must beware of his truly British cacography—e.g. Baron de Chatteler (for Chattelard, vol. iii. p. 153), Tunno (for Thonon, in Chablais, p. 157), and Ouches (for Ouchy, port of Lausanne, p. 158).
"Correction (which he notes in journal).—Several correspondents have written to point out some manifest errors of date in Sir R. F. Burton's 'Notes from Vevey,' in the Academy of last week. In the Ludlow inscription, the date of his arrival at Vevey should clearly be '1662,' and not 1642; and the passage, 'Ludlow returned to England in 1689, before the accession of Charles II.,' should apparently run—'Ludlow returned to England in 1688, before the accession of William and Mary.'"
"Notes from Lausanne.
"Lausanne, February 24th, 1889.
"The Academy of February 2 contains two corrections of my 'Notes from Vevey,' one error being typographical, and the other an infelix culpa, the result of inordinate carelessness. As your correspondent remarks, 1642 should be 1662; and I find, by inspection, the date so recorded upon Ludlow's tablet. The second passage should be read, 'Ludlow returned to England about mid 1689, shortly after the accession of William and Mary.' Your correspondent proposes, 'Ludlow returned to England in 1688;' but the following official letter, kindly furnished by M. Albert de Montêt, shows this also to be an error. The General's report of his intended journey, addressed to their Excellencies the Seigneurs de Berne, with its queer French, quaintly Anglicized and Roundheaded, may perhaps interest some of your readers.
"'Lettre de Ludlow au Conseil de Vevey, du 2 Juin, 1689, "Manuaux de la Ville, L.," p. 103.
"'Mes très honnorés Seigneurs! Le Seigneur qui m'a pourveu (sic), avec plusieurs autres de mes compagnons en mes souffrances et exil pour la parolle et le témoignage de Jésus, d'un asile très favorable: en nous conduisant par la colonne de feu sous votre bénin et equitable government, m'appelant aujourd'huy pour faire un tour dans mon pays d'Etat pour y faire mon possible pour fortifier les mains de notre Gédéon, qui est miraculeusement suscité pour nous retirer de la maison de servitude et démolir l'autel de Baal contre ceux qui prennent la querelle pour luy (soi?) et choisissent plustôt de se mettre soubs l'arbre de l'Espine que soubs l'équitable domination du roy de la justice et du prince de paix. Ayant par la grande bonté de Dieu depuis plusieurs années, entre autres providences signalées et spéciales, amplement et pleinement expérimenté les effets de la très gracieuse réception à notre première arrivée en cette ville, qu'il vous a plu de nous signiffier par feu M. le Banderent De Montet de votre part, comme membre du même corps avec yous auquel Christ et (est?) le chef, je me trouve obligé devant que je parte pour l'Angleterre, ignorant les choses qui m'y doivent arriver, de vous en témoigner ma très humble recognoissance vous suppliant de l'accepter jusqu'à ce que l'occasion se présente pour le manifester plus réelement, vous asseurant que je ne manqueray pass de s'en (m'en?) préveloir pour vous faire voir à tous en général et à chacun en particulier que je seray tenu ma vie comme obligé d'estre, Très honnorés Seigneurs Votre très humble, très fidelle et très obéissant serviteur.
"'(Signed) EDM. LUDLOWE (sic).'
Richard's Remarks on Lausanne.
"To an Englishman at Lausanne, Gibbon is still the prime subject of local interest. I had also been assured that many imprinted autographs remain in private hands, despite the mass of correspondence published in the 'Life and Letters,' pp. 178-356, by Mr. W. J. Day, London, F. Warne (undated). But I repeat that the traveller must as often discover what there is not as determine what there is.
"An introduction to M. William de Charrière de Sévery (the grandson of M. Wilhelm de Sévery, Gibbon's familiar and legatee) convinced me that rumour had exaggerated. He has a few notes, a single bundle, mostly private, if not confidential; and the same is the case with Mdme. Grenier-Bourgeois. The 'relics' are most interesting. We were shown the favourite writing-paper, letter-sized, gilt-edged, and rough, fit only for the goose-quill, of which a few ink-stained specimens are preserved; the cards, playing and others, upon which notes to intimates were generally written in a schoolboy hand, stiff and tall; a long list of linen for bedding, etc., proving business habits; and the last will and testament (October 1, 1791), covering three pages foolscap-sized—of the latter Mr. Day (p. 176) prints an abstract. The cellar still contains a few bottles of the 'Malmsey-Madeira' which Gibbon sent for in 1789 (p. 123), and which he had probably to thank for a frightful attack of gout. We were favoured with a sight of the portraits: one the usual Kit-cat in pastels—Lausanne then containing sundry famous pastellistes—a cameo-bust on wedgwood (much idealized), and an aquarelle of 'The Historian' (hideous exceedingly), sitting before the façade of his house at Lausanne, afterwards removed to make way for the Hôtel Gibbon. This, by the way, is a fraud, boasting that its garden contains the identical chestnut tree under which the last lines of a twenty-years' work were written. Unfortunately, the oft-quoted passage describing that event (p. 103) assigns it to 'a summer-house in my garden,' near a berceau, or covered walk of acacias; all of which have long disappeared to make way for the Rue du Midi. Upon the strength of this being 'Gibbon Castle,' we are somewhat overcharged and underfed; and we are convinced that Lausanne wants an establishment, like the admirable 'National' of Geneva, half-way between the City and Ouchy, her port, and not far from 'Christ Church' Square.
"Voltaire is so forgotten by the general world at Lausanne, that even an educational professor ignored his 'philosophical' exile in Switzerland. He left Vaud after a dispute with the ecclesiastical authorities. Yet there are still three places that belong to him: Monrepos, a villa to the north-east, where tradition says the première of 'Zaire' was acted; Maison Gaulis, in the Grand Chêne Street; and Maison Mont-Riond (Round Hill) Dapples (Gibbon's 'D'Apples'). The latter rises east of the historic hillock, crowned with two trees, described in every guide-book. The house, whilom infamous for damp, was drained dry by the Funicular Railway, and is now let to Dr. Niven, whom we last met at Matharan (Bombay). The chief room in the two-storied block is traditionally the theatre. A few yards to the north-west there is also the half of a cottage under an inordinate tile roof, capping clay walls with wooden beams, three stories high at the Lake front. La Casquette, as the artists call their favourite, is, or rather was, a kind of snuggery, whereto Voltaire retired for study in solitude; and yet it is mistermed by sundry of the folk Laboratoire de Rousseau. It is now occupied by a gardener, whose family of twelve, despite overcrowding and bad air, shows signs of exceptional health and strength. I only hope that the Municipality will buy it and rail it round, and preserve it as a relic.
"Richard F Burton.
"N.B. to all who 'undigest'—Avoid any but distilled water at Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux, and throughout the limestone regions of Switzerland."
[CHAPTER XV.]
AT MONTREUX.
On the 2nd of January, 1889, we moved ourselves to the Hôtel des Alpes at Montreux. The journey is only an hour. It was bitterly cold, but the temperature rose fourteen degrees on the way. Here we had a delightful time, excursioning to the Château de Chillon, to Hôtel Biron, to Villeneuve, les Avants, three thousand feet high, Mont-Fleurie, Glion, etc. But our favourite place seemed to be St. Maurice, where we had several delightful days in the valley of the Rhone, but one particularly to be remembered. Abbé Stercky went with us. He is one of the monks, was Curé of Aigle, and Richard liked him. The little inn is cosy, with its good Dalmatian proprietor, who kept a cheerful room, a blazing wood fire, a capital good breakfast, and a good bottle of Dôle de Valais. We passed a good deal of time in the monastery.
It is the oldest Augustinian monastery in the world, and having Abbé Stercky with us, we saw all the treasures—gold, silver, gems, and onyx treasures from Charlemagne and St. Louis of France; they, and also manuscripts and old books, were shown to us by a gentlemanly and polished monk, Père Bourbord, otherwise they are generally shown by a surly monk, who does not let you see anything. There were a number of very charming people stopping at the hotel, which was crowded for the winter. We all fraternized, and we had extensive afternoon receptions and tea-fights, and in the evenings we all used to contribute something to the amusements—who could sing, sang; who could recite, recited; who could tell stories of foreign lands, did so, and also ghost-stories; and there was music and dancing and acting galore, also theatricals and a musical drill beautifully performed. It was a charming hotel, with every accommodation, plenty of places for smoking, and Richard used to enjoy it thoroughly, parties of men flocking around him.
On the 22nd, our wedding-day, everybody was so good to us; there were presents, and flowers, and little speeches. I got quite choky, and Richard ran away and locked himself up. The next day we gave a big tea-fight, and enjoyed it very much. Richard had now a little return of the gout attack, but it passed off in a few days. The evenings were lovely. I can remember one, nay, many evenings, with a clear sky, the mountain of snow standing out like a vision, lit by a lovely crescent moon and large evening star.
At Chillon we saw the room where Miss Sterling, of the Salvation Army, was imprisoned for talking religion to the children. She had written on the walls, and we often revisited the chapel where so many have suffered.
On the 28th (January) Richard got a letter announcing the death of one of our friends, Mr. Paul Bird; and on the 29th, Carlo Pellegrini.