Chalet under the Beech-trees.—A mountain Bridge.—Solemnity of the Night.—The Comedie.—Relaxation of Genevese Morality.
It began to rain just as we entered the chalet under the beech-trees, and one of the dirtiest I ever crept into—it would have been uncharitable not to have regretted the absence of swine, for here was mud and filth enough to have insured their felicity. A woman, whose teeth of a shining whiteness were the only clean objects I could discover, brought us foaming bowls of cream and milk, with which we regaled ourselves, and then got into our vehicle. We but too soon left the smooth herbage behind, and passed about an hour in rambling down the mountain pelted by the showers, from which we took shelter under the limes at Moneti.
Here we should have drunk our tea in peace and quietness, had it not been for the incursion of a gang of bandylegged watchmakers, smoking their pipes, and scraping their fiddles, and snapping their fingers, with all that insolent vulgarity so characteristic of the Rue-basse portion of the Genevese community. We got out of their way, you may easily imagine, as fast as we were able, and descending a rough road, most abominably strewn with rolling pebbles, arrived at the bridge d’Etrombieres just as it fell dark. The mouldering planks with which the bridge is awkwardly put together, sounded suspiciously hollow under the feet of our horses, and had it not been for the friendly light of a pine torch which a peasant brought forth, we might have been tumbled into the Arve.
It was a mild summer night, the rainy clouds were dissolving away with a murmur of distant thunder so faint as to be scarcely heard. From time to time a flash of summer lightning discovered the lonely tower of Moneti on the edge of the lesser Saleve. The ghostly tales, which the old curè of the mountains had told me at a period when I hungered and thirsted after supernatural narrations, recurred to my memory, in all their variety of horrors, and kept it fully employed till I found myself under the walls of Geneva. The gates were shut, but I knew they were to be opened again at ten o’clock for the convenience of those returning from the Comedie.
The Comedie is become of wonderful importance; but a few years ago the very name of a play was held in such abhorrence by the spiritual consistory of Geneva and its obsequious servants, which then included the best part of the republic, that the partakers and abettors of such diversions were esteemed on the high road to eternal perdition. Though, God knows, I am unconscious of any extreme partiality for Calvin, I cannot help thinking his severe discipline wisely adapted to the moral constitution of this starch bit of a republic which he took to his grim embraces. But these days of rigidity and plainness are completely gone by; the soft spirit of toleration, so eloquently insinuated by Voltaire, has removed all thorny fences, familiarized his numerous admirers with every innovation, and laughed scruples of every nature to scorn. Voltaire, indeed, may justly be styled the architect of that gay well-ornamented bridge, by which freethinking and immorality have been smuggled into the republic under the mask of philosophy and liberality and sentiment. These monsters, like the Sin and Death of Milton, have made speedy and irreparable havoc. To facilitate their operations, rose the genius of “Rentes Viagères” at his bidding, tawdry villas with their little pert groves of poplar and horse-chesnut start up—his power enables Madame C. D. the bookseller’s lady to amuse the D. of G. with assemblies, sets Parisian cabriolets and English phaetons rolling from one faro table to another, and launches innumerable pleasure parties with banners and popguns on the lake, drumming and trumpeting away their time from morn till evening. I recollect, not many years past, how seldom the echoes of the mountains were profaned by such noises, and how rarely the drones of Geneva, if any there were in that once industrious city, had opportunities of displaying their idleness; but now Dissipation reigns triumphant, and to pay the tribute she exacts, every fool runs headlong to throw his scrapings into the voracious whirlpool of annuities; little caring, provided he feeds high and lolls in his carriage, what becomes of his posterity. I had ample time to make these reflections, as the Comedie lasted longer than usual.
Luckily the night improved, the storms had rolled away, and the moon rising from behind the crags of the lesser Saleve cast a pleasant gleam on the smooth turf of plain-palais, where we walked to and fro above half an hour. We had this extensive level almost entirely to ourselves, no light glimmered in any window, no sound broke the general stillness, except a low murmur proceeding from a group of chesnut trees. There, snug under a garden wall on a sequestered bench, sat two or three Genevois of the old stamp, chewing the cud of sober sermons—men who receive not more than seven or eight per cent. for their money; there sat they waiting for their young ones, who had been seduced to the theatre.
A loud hubbub and glare of flambeaus proclaiming the end of the play, we left these good folks to their rumination, and regaining our carriage rattled furiously through the streets of Geneva, once so quiet, so silent at these hours, to the no small terror and annoyance of those whom Rentes Viagères had not yet provided with a speedier conveyance than their own legs, or a brighter satellite than an old cook-maid with a candle and lantern.
It was eleven o’clock before we reached home, and near two before I retired to rest, having sat down immediately to write this letter whilst the impressions of the day were fresh in my memory.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.