Perhaps the “magnificent monument” is the black marble sarcophagus, but the statue of the duke who was leader of the French Protestants and fell at the battle of Rheinfelden is modern—the work of Iguel.
His “Dutchess” was the daughter of the famous “reformer of finances,” the Duc de Sully, whose great scheme for an International Amphyctionic Council supplied by the fifteen Christian States of Europe seems to have fore-shadowed the modern Interparliamentary Union.
By rare good fortune some one was practising on the excellent organ. Whoever it was played a prelude and fugue of Bach and a brilliant piece which I recognized as by Saint-Saëns.
On our way back from the cathedral we swung round by the English Garden and the National Monument with its two figures representing symbolically Helvetia and Geneva. Like most such colossal sculptures the farther away one gets the better it looks: that may be carried to its logical extreme! Then we crossed the long Pont du Mont Blanc but his Majesty was wholly hidden in the clouds. There were people fishing, however, just as they have always fished from the beginning of time. What says Signior Seti?—“Fishing in the Lake of this City is very considerable both for the profit and pleasure; they commonly take trouts of four score pound weight at twelve ounces the pound and in the Middle of the River opposite it the Town preserve their fish alive for use on two little deal board houses made for that purpose. In the Summer time it is a very pleasant recreation to go a Fishing here and both strangers and Citizens mightily delight in it.”
Not then, but at another time, I amused myself watching the dozens of washerwomen by the riverside, in booths roofed over and closed at the ends—leaning forward on their bare arms and spending more time gossiping in their terrible dialect or watching the little boats flying by. The Billingsgate of a Genevan blanchisseuse is not so melodious as the notes of a Vallombrosan nightingale, but it has a picturesque quality all its own.
As it was still raining we decided not to go out after dinner. But in spite of the rain I confessed to myself that I liked my first sight of Geneva and cherished a sneaking regret in my heart that Will and Ruth had not chosen their residence there instead of locating at Lausanne. Any place that is cheerful in a rain-storm is the place for me, and I thought Geneva actually smiled through her tears, if I may so express myself.