At Mr. J[omini] there were, besides his daughter, his son and his son's wife. All the ministres (for such is the word in use to designate Protestant clergymen and you would give great offence were you to call them prêtres) have a fixed salary of 100£ sterling per annum, with a house and ground attached to the cure; so that by farming a little they can maintain then? families creditably. M. Jomini lost his wife some time ago, and still remains a widower.
I left Payerne on the fifth of July and walked to the campagne of M. de T[reytorre]us,[107] situated on the banks of the lake Morat. It is a very pretty country house, spacious and roomy, and I was received with the utmost cordiality by M. de T[reytorrens] and his amiable family. He is a very opulent proprietor in this part of the country, and has spent part of his life in England. He is a dignified looking man, a little too much perhaps of the old school and no friend to the innovations and changes arising from the French Revolution. Having lived much among the Tory nobility of England, he has imbibed their ideas and views of things. His son is now employed in one of the public offices in London. His wife and three daughters, one of whom is married to a ministre, dwell with him. With this family I passed three days in the most agreeable manner. I find the style and manner of living of the noblesse (or country gentlemen, as we should style them) of Switzerland very comfortable, in every sense of the word. I wish my friends the French would take more to a country life, it would essentially benefit the nation. The way of living in M. de T[reytorre]us family is as follows. A breakfast of coffee and bread and butter is served up to each person separately in their own room, or in the Salle à manger, Before dinner every one follows his own avocation or amusement. At one, the family assemble to dinner which generally consist of soup, bouilli, entrées of fish, flesh and fowl, entremets of vegetables, a rôti of butcher's meat, fowl or game, pastry and desert. The wine of the country is drunk at dinner as a table wine, and old wines of the country or wines of foreign growth are handed round to each guest during the desert. After dinner coffee and liqueurs are served. After an hour's conversation or repose, promenades are proposed which occupy the time till dusk. Music, cards or reading plays fill up the rest of the evening, till supper is announced at nine o'clock, which is generally as substantial as the dinner.
On taking leave of Mr. de T[reytorre]ns' family I walked to the banks of the lake Neufchâtel, having a stout fellow with me to carry my sac-de nuit. On arrival at the lake I crossed over in a boat to Neufchâtel, which lies on the other side. I remained there the whole of the day. It is a very pretty neat little city, in a romantic position. Its government is a complete anomaly. Neufchâtel forms a component part of the Helvetic confederacy, and yet the inhabitants are vassals of the King of Prussia, and the aristocracy are proud of this badge of servitude. The King of Prussia however does not at all interfere with its internal government, and his supremacy is in no other respects useful to him than in giving him a slight revenue. French is the language spoken in the canton. There is a marked distinction of rank all over Switzerland, except in Geneva, Vaud and the small democratic cantons such as Zug and Schwytz, where it is merely nominal. In short, tranquillity is the order of the day. Each rank respects the privileges of the other and the peasant, however rich, is not at all disposed to vary from his usual mode of life or to ape the noble; and hence, tho' sumptuary laws are no longer in force, they continue so virtually and the peasantry in all the German cantons adhere strictly to the national costume.
BERN, 14 July.
I put myself in the diligence that plies between Neufchatel and Bern at nine p.m., on the 12 July, and the following morning put up at the Crown Inn in the city of Bern, in the Pays Allemand, whereas the French cantons are termed the Pays Romand. Bern is a remarkably elegant city as much so as any in Italy, and much cleaner withal. The streets are broad, and in most of them are trottoirs under arcades. There are a great number of book-sellers here, and the best editions of the German authors are to be procured very cheap. Bern is situated on an eminence forming almost an island as it were in the middle of the river Aar; steep ravines are on all sides of it; and there is a bridge over the Aar to keep up the communication; and as the borders of the island, on which the city stands, are very steep, a zig-zag road, winding along the ravines, brings you to the city gates. These gates are very superb. On each side of the gates are two enormous white stone bears, the emblems of the tutelary genius of this city. The houses are very lofty and solidly built. The promenades in the environs of Bern are the finest I have seen anywhere, and the grounds allotted to this purpose are very tastefully laid out. These promenades are paved with gravel and cut thro' the forests, that lie on the coteaux and ravines on the other side of the Aar. There are several neat villas in the neighbourhood of these promenades, and there are cafés and restaurants for those who chuse to refresh themselves. Such is the beauty of these walks, that one feels inclined to pass the whole day among them. They are laid out in such variety, and are so multiplied, that you often lose your way; you are sure however to be brought up by a point de vue at one or other of the angles of the zig-zag; and this serves as a guide pour vous orienter, as the French say. Another favorite promenade is a garden, in the town itself, that environs the whole city from which and from the superb terrace of the Cathedral you have a magnificent view of the glaciers that tower above the Grindelwald and Lauterbrunn. The immense forests that are in the neighbourhood of Bern form a striking contrast with the cornfields in the vallies and on the coteaw. There are but few vineyards in the neighbourhood of Bern.
BERN, 16 July.
The Diet is held this year in Bern and it is now sitting. I have met with the two Deputies of the Canton de Vaud, MM. P——- and M——-. I am glad to hear from them that the animosity existing between the two cantons of Bern and Vaud is beginning to subside. M. P——— has made a most able and conciliating speech at the Diet. Still there is a good deal of jealousy rankling in the breast of the Bern noblesse and the avulsumimperium is a very sore subject with them. I recollect once at Lausanne meeting with a young man of one of the principal families of Bern, who had been hi the English service. The conversation happened to turn on the emancipation of the Canton de Vaud from the domination of Bern, when the young man became perfectly furious and insisted that the Vaudois had no right whatever to their liberty, for that the Canton of Bern had purchased the province of Vaud from the Dukes of Savoy. "En un mot" (said he), "ils sont nos esclaves, nos ilotes et ils sont aussi clairement notre propriété que les nègres de la Jamaïque le sont de leurs maîtres"
A very harsh measure has lately been passed in the Diet, evidently suggested by the aristocracy of Bern, which tended to fine and punish those Swiss officers who remained in Prance to serve under Napoleon after his return from Elba, and who did not obey the order of the Diet which recalled them. A very able objection has been made to this measure in a brochure, wherein it is stated that many of these officers had no means of living out of France and that, on a former occasion, when a number of Swiss officers were serving the English Government and were employed in America in the war against the United States in 1812 and 1818, the Diet, then under Napoleon's influence, issued a decree recalling them and commanding them to quit the English service forthwith. This they refused to do and continued to serve. No notice whatever was taken of this act of disobedience, when they returned to their native country on being disbanded in 1814, and they were very favourably received. Why then, says the author of this pamphlet, is a similar act of disobedience to pass unnoticed in one instance and to be so severely punished in another? Or do you wish to prove that your vengeance is directed only against those who remained in France, to fight for its liberties, when invaded by a foreign foe, while those who remained in America to fight against the liberties and existence of the American Republic you have received with applause and congratulation? Is such conduct worthy of Republicans? O, fie!
Such an argument is in my opinion convincing for all the world except for an English Tory, a French Ultra or a Bern Oligarch.
The Arsenal here is well worth seeing; here is a superb collection of ancient armour, much of which were the spoils of the Austrian and Burgundian chivalry, who fell in their attempts to crush Helvetic liberty.