D’Aubigne’s Birthplace and Residence.
At the foot of the lake, and near the city, are many beautiful villas, with the water in front of them, the Jura mountains on the north to be seen by those on one side, and the mountains of Savoy on the south-east in full view from the other. Mont Blanc towers above them, “the monarch of mountains,” his white head and shoulders seen above the dark ranges in front of him, like the bare form of a giant among the hills. Rev. Dr. Merle d’Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, Sir Robert Peel, and other eminent men, have had their residences on the south-east side, and Baron Rothschild has a splendid palace on the opposite shore. Voltaire’s house, and the residence of the Empress Josephine, are also there. The shores, as we go up the lake, are covered with vineyards, and every village that we pass is marked with some features of historical interest. Madame de Stael formerly resided at Coppet, a little village where is a Roman tombstone with this inscription, “Vixi ut vivis: morieris ut sum mortuus: sic vita traditur, vale viator et abi in rem tuam.” Ninon is an old town that boasts of Julius Cæsar as its founder, and under its castle are those gloomy dungeons which are the terrible witnesses of the cruel customs of past ages. On the left shore as we advance we notice a village on the extremity of a cape, which is called St. Protais; this saint was the Bishop of Avenches, the Roman Aventicum, who died in 530, and was buried here, tradition says, because “his body did not seem inclined to go any further.” And in 1400, nearly a thousand years after his burial, it was proposed to remove him to Lausanne, but he showed such signs of repugnance, that it was deemed improper to disturb him any more. Near this was once a town named Lisus, which was destroyed in 563 by a sudden rise of the lake occasioned by the fall into its waters of an entire mountain on the Savoy side. It was an important place, as the remains of vases, statuary, and mosaics attest to this day. As we reach the town of Morges the scenery of the lake has opened upon us with grandeur and beauty which is impossible to describe. The snow-clad summits of the Grand Muveran, the rocks of the Diablerets, and the tapering jagged peaks that are appropriately called teeth, and have their several names, which one is scarcely expected to remember, now rise in full view, and the excitement of the voyage is fairly begun. Away in the distance is Mont Combin, one of the stupendous Mont Rosa group, and there are the mountains of Abondance and the cragged peaks of Meillerie, while in the background, overlooking all, glows and blazes in the splendors of this summer sun the everlasting snow-crown of Mont Blanc.
That square tower in Morges is the old donjon of Wufflens. It rises 170 feet, and towers above a group of turrets, all of brick. It was built in the tenth century by Bertha, whose memory is so sacred, the good queen of the Burgundians, who visited every part of her kingdom on horseback once a year, with a distaff in her hand, to set her subjects an example of industry.
Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva.
The most picturesque in its situation, and the most famous city on the lake, except Geneva, is Lausanne, the capital of the canton of Vaud, built on three hills, along the slope of the Jorat, and dating back to the year 563. And then, oh wonderful to relate! it became in 580 the see of a bishop, the prelate Marius bringing hither the relics of St. Anne, from whom the town is named, Laus Annæ, and a part of the true cross, and some of the Virgin Mary’s hair, and, more than all, a rat,—a veritable rat, which had devoured some of the bread after it was consecrated, and was thus converted into the body of our Lord! These valuable possessions drew immense numbers of pilgrims, and raised the celebrity of the place, which afterwards had a remarkable history, civil and religious. Its cathedral was consecrated by the Pope himself. In 1479 the whole region was overrun with a species of beetles like locusts, devouring every green thing. The invaders were excommunicated by the bishop, but the sentence had no effect! Farel and Viret and Calvin, with other reformers, were here in convention in 1536. Here Gibbon finished his work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and the principal hotel bears his name, while the house he lived in and the terrace where he often walked, are pointed out as objects of interest to travellers. We rode through the quaint old place, and then continued our journey.
But if we pause even to mention the places on the northern shore of the lake, and allude to the events that have made them classic, we shall not get over the ground or the water to-day. We have now reached the upper section of the lake, and the mountains round about it have been rising in sublimity and beauty as we advance. The water is a thousand feet deep. On the right hand the mountains rise precipitously from the water’s edge, and on the left vineyards cover the sloping hills: sometimes walls sixty and eighty feet high have been built to support the soil, and on the terraces so formed luxurious vines are flourishing, and in the days of the old Romans a temple to Bacchus, the god of wine, was standing here, the ruins remaining to this day. The view from Vevey is regarded by many as the most delightful on the lake, and the situation of the town is so picturesque and healthful, so cool in summer and so warm in winter, that it is sought for as a residence by strangers all the year round, and in this strangely ordered region, in sight of everlasting snows, the pomegranate and the rose-laurel and myrtle blossom in the open air, as in the south of France. And now we come to the upper end of the lake, and such an amphitheatre of mountains, rocks, and hills, sure no other lake in the wide world presents. The sun was low in the west as we approached this eastern end, and a flood of golden light was poured in upon the bosom of the waters, and covered the stupendous battlements on either side with a living glory.
Close down on the edge of the lake is the old Castle of Chillon, more than six hundred years of age, where the Dukes of Savoy ruled with terrible power. Down into its dungeons we were led, to one where on a flat rock the condemned prisoners spent the last nights of their lives; to another where, on a cross-beam still here, they were hung; to the stone column, one of the supports of the castle, where for seven long years the Prior of St. Victor, Francis Bonnivard, for his heroic defence of the liberty of Geneva, was chained to a ring yet remaining in the pillar, the chain passing around his body, and allowing him space only to walk around it, year after year, or to lie down and sleep by its side. In this dungeon many of the reformers were imprisoned.
