CHAPTER XV.
GENEVA—FREYBURG—BERNE.
BY a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask you to follow me, I came to Switzerland, on my way to the north of Europe.
When I was a boy of nine, I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “Extremum oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva,” and rendered it into English, “the farthest town of the Allobroges, and nearest to the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva.” Out of the lake flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem to have been colored with indigo, and Sir Humphrey Davy, who died here, attributed the deep color to the presence of iodine. The outlet of the lake is crossed by several bridges, and the city stands on both sides. The old wall on the left bank was originally built by the men of Julius Cæsar, as is attested by coins and other remains of those days, to this day occasionally found. Its antiquity, its remarkable history, its past greatness, and its present beauty, the many eminent men who have here spent their lives, and more than all its situation on this lake, give the city of Geneva an attraction that no other place in Switzerland possesses.
The cathedral here in Geneva is the venerable edifice in which John Calvin and his peers in the Reformation preached the doctrines that are now working their way into the minds of the entire Christian world, as the real basis for civil and religious liberty and progress.
GENEVA AND THE RHONE.
As we entered it, we trode upon the nearly worn-out epitaphs in the stones of the floor, to the memory of Roman Catholic dignitaries, who ruled here before the Reformation, for the edifice is more than five hundred years old. A chapel of the Virgin Mary, no longer needed for her worship, holds the tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan, 1638, and in another part of the church is the monument to the memory of Agrippa d’Aubigny.
In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many interesting manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of his sermons, twelve of letters written to him, his own letter to Lady Jane Grey while she was a prisoner in the Tower of London, and 394 other letters by his own hand. Besides these, there is nothing more than the severe simplicity and solidity of the edifice, with its remarkable history and associations, to make it interesting.
It appears like a slow old town. But the names of good great men, and great bad men, are so identified with Geneva, that it is never spoken of without being associated with their works and influence. Calvin came here three hundred years ago and more,—the three hundredth anniversary of his death was commemorated a few years ago,—Rousseau was born here, Voltaire and Madame de Stael and Lord Byron have resided here; and a long list could easily be made longer, of illustrious men, some of them flying from religious persecution, some from the reach of the sword of justice, some hiding from themselves, for it has been, and still is, an asylum for all, of every name, faith, and aim, who would be free to think and speak, while they yield wholesome obedience to the laws. I was quite surprised to-day when the excellent United States consul at this place showed me in one of the infidel Rousseau’s works a note in which that brilliant writer speaks in the highest terms of John Calvin, not only as a theologian, but a statesman whose views, he says, will be always held in reverence.