The Seigneurie gratuitously lodged not only the professors and pastors but also such needy citizens as had been of public service. In 1561 François Bonivard petitioned to be granted quarters in the city logis where he might have a stove, and his petition was allowed. Then, as now (in other lands more particularly), self-defence was an expensive luxury. The erection, maintenance and strengthening of the city walls cost enormously, and the Council proposed to sell the houses of the Regents, but violent opposition arose and they were maintained until the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Then the ramshackly old buildings were sold and the fine houses on the Rue Verdaine were built. The gardens were alienated in 1725 for twenty-five thousand florins; the purchaser agreeing not to erect any high building that would cut off the fine view. They at least appreciated their greatest asset. The purchaser was Jean Gallatin, whose house is still shown at Number Seven.
I was, of course, interested in the name Gallatin, for I remembered how Albert Gallatin, a graduate of Geneva University, came to America and taught French at Harvard College, and then entering politics, was elected Senator, though he was excluded; became Secretary of the Treasury and signed the Treaty of Ghent and was United States Minister first at Paris and then at London. Several towns in our country were named after him.
When the professors’ houses were taken from them, they were granted three écus d’or extra salary.
The so-called Ordre du Collège—a term still in use—was worked out by Calvin himself, who would not have disdained regulating the size of mouse-traps. Fortunately he had associated with him the gentle, benevolent Theodore de Bèze, who was the oil to the vinegar of Calvin’s stern, uncompromising wisdom. Calvin wrote it in Latin; De Bèze in French. It is a document well worthy of study by all educators.
It was promulgated on the fifth of June, 1559, with impressive ceremonies. The venerable Company of Pastors, the Regents, the professors and a body of six hundred students, together with an immense throng of citizens, went to the cathedral where Calvin made an immensely long supplication. Then the secretary of the Council, Michel Roset, read the document. De Bèze, appointed rector of the Academy and principal of the College, made an impressive “harangue” in Latin, dwelling on the usefulness of schools and of “superior wisdom” and ending by thanking the Council for having permitted Geneva to receive instruction purged of all Papal superstitions. De Bèze having thanked the Council, Calvin thanked God for the same blessings. The next day the regular exercises of the new curriculum began. They were kept up without essential change for three centuries. The chief function of the College was practically the same as that of the primitive Harvard—to provide ministers: my nephew declared it was a “regular parson-factory.”
During Calvin’s life no theatrical representations were allowed; but just forty years after his death, in 1604, some of the students of one of the professors with his authorization learned a comedy by Garnier and proposed to enact it before a select company of guests. When the authorities heard of it they were in a panic and hastened to forbid it “for fear the students might take occasion for debauchery and waste time and lessons.” In 1681 “The Cid” was presented with scenery at the house of M. Perdriau. The performance ended with a farce. About three hundred spectators were present. Several students took part. It caused a terrible scandal. It was declared that if such a thing happened again the culprits should be whipped. They had the means to inflict this punishment. Discipline in those days was severe. The Regents were ordered to provide themselves with a sort of cat-o’-nine-tails, and they used it sometimes brutally. In 1676 a Sieur de Rochemont ordered his valet to thrash one of the Regents for having too severely punished his nephew. The valet carried out his orders with good will but was haled into court and condemned to languish in jail for a week, while his master, in spite of his rank, was punished even more severely—he was sent to jail for three weeks and had to pay a fine of two hundred crowns, after having begged pardon on his knees.
The University of Geneva, as at present constituted, is the outgrowth of that remarkable school. Its modern regeneration began in 1886. Many new buildings have been erected. It would take pages to give the names of the celebrated professors who have from the beginning helped to spread its fame and have attracted students from all over the world, especially from Russia. Out of the twelve hundred or more students registered a large proportion come from the empire of the Tsars. The institution is divided into a Collège inférieur and a Collège supérieur, the latter having four departments: the classic, the réal, the technical and the pedagogical.
We went with our guide into the Library, which, of course, we could only glance at; but later, when I spent a fortnight in Geneva, I found it most useful. We went to the Salle Lutin and looked at the fine portraits of Geneva celebrities, including those of many distinguished visitors, notably George Eliot’s. Here are also many fascinating manuscripts and books which would fill the heart of a bibliophile with hopeless envy. I had just time to look at the curious old map made in 1588 by a Genevan magistrate, the noble Duvillard, who was wounded in a battle and during his convalescence amused himself in tracing on paper “ce beau lac génévois,” to which he said Christians flock without cessation:—
“Pour louer Dieu, maugré princes et rois,