THE CITY OF ROUSSEAU AND CALVIN
Apparently Geneva is prouder of being the Mother of Rousseau than of
having adopted Calvin. Both were exiled--Calvin by his enemies;
Rousseau by his worst enemy, himself. Calvin, having settled the basis
of his theology, built himself on it, never shaken; Rousseau canted
and recanted and rerecanted. He was a Protestant; he was a Catholic;
he was a free-thinker; he was a deist.
Once, at Madame d’Epinay’s, Saint Lambert avowed himself an atheist.
Rousseau exclaimed:--“If it is cowardice to allow anyone to say ill
about an absent friend, then it is a crime to allow anyone to say evil
of his God who is present, and, gentlemen, I believe in God.”
Saint Lambert indulged in still another sneering remark and Rousseau
threatened to leave if anything more of the kind were said.
Curiously enough, Rousseau, who was a stickler for free speech, sided
against Voltaire in his battle against Calvinism. He saw that the
great scoffer wanted to upset the habits and customs of Calvin’s city,
to introduce a love of pleasure and of luxury and especially of the
theatre. He wrote:--
“So Voltaire’s weapons are satire, black falsehood, and libels. Thus
he repays the hospitality which Geneva by a fatal indulgence has shown
him. This fanfaron of impiety, this lofty genius and this low soul,
this man so great through his talents, so base (_vil_) in his use of
them, will leave long and cruel memories among us. Ridicule, that
poison of good sense and of uprightness, satire, enemy of the public
peace, flabbiness, arrogant pomp will henceforth make a people of
trivialities, of buffoons, of wits, of commerce, who in place of the
consideration once enjoyed by our literary men will put Geneva on the
level of the Academies of Marseilles and of Angers.”
This letter was widely circulated. Voltaire, who might have been more
offended by its lack of style than by its attack on him, henceforth
used every opportunity to injure and insult Rousseau.
When “Emile” appeared it shocked the theologians. The City ordered it
to be burned by the official hangman. The Church said to him:--“You
extol the excellence of the Gospel yet you destroy its dogmas. You
paint the beauty of the virtues yet you snuff them out in the souls of
your readers.” He was even condemned by Parliament to be imprisoned.
The pious Jacob Vernet, Pastor Mouton and Pastor Vernes wrote him
letters expressing their admiration of his talents but criticizing
some of his views. After he published his “Lettres de la Montagne,”
which caused a terrible hubbub, Vernes, Chapuis and Claparède publicly
attacked him.
Voltaire wrote:--“Grand and edifying spectacle presented by the
venerable Company of Pastors at Geneva! While the Government is
burning Rousseau’s books, the clergy approves of them and finds itself
very happy to be reduced to a natural religion which proves nothing
and asks little.”
And those that stoned the prophets raise monuments to them. Calvin,
whom Rousseau called “_esprit dur et farouche_,” has no monument,
unless a street named after him may be considered as one; but Rousseau
has a whole island with a big bronze statue on it and a street
besides.
This is the substance of our breakfast-table conversation. When we had
finished our coffee and rolls we started out for a long walk. Ruth,
like a woman, wanted to look at the shops; Will and I would go hunting
for Rousseau and Calvin.
For a long time a house in Geneva bore the inscription:--
ICI EST NE
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
LE 28 JUIN
1712.
But that was a mistake. It is now known that he was born in his
father’s house, Number 2, Grand’ Rue, and there he lived till 1719.
Then he went to live at 73, Rue de Constance. His father, Isaac
Rousseau, though of a family which had emigrated from Paris, where
they had been booksellers, and had for two hundred years enjoyed a
highly respectable position in the bourgeoisie of Geneva, was regarded
as rather frivolous. Probably that was because he varied his trade of
watch-making by giving dancing-lessons. Dancing in the city of Calvin,
in spite of the illustrious example of King David before the Ark of
the Tabernacle, was regarded with little favour. He engaged in a
quarrel with the retired Captain Goutier and they fought a duel
contrary to the law. Goutier was wounded. On investigation Isaac was
found guilty and condemned to beg pardon on his two knees. He chose to
expatriate himself, and Jean Jacques went to live with his Uncle
Bernard at 19, Grand’ Rue, and at Bossey with Pastor Lambercie. His
education was not wholly neglected. He himself says:--
“At the age of seven I used to read books of history with my father.
Plutarch became my favourite study. Agesilaus, Brutus, Aristotle were
my heroes; from the discussions which these readings caused between my
father and me, grew that free and republican spirit, that proud
indomitable character, impatient of any yoke or servitude, which has
so tormented me all the days of my life. Born a citizen of a republic,
son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest passion, I took
fire by his example; constantly occupied with Athens and Rome, I
became the very person whose life I was reading; the story of the acts
of constancy and bravery which struck me, made my eyes sparkle, my
voice grow strong.”
Whatever his training really was, for he is not always a reliable
chronicler of his own actions, he contrasts what he considered the
ideal up-bringing of children as conducted in Switzerland with that
of the French children. His words were destined to bear fruit:--
“Is it not supremely ridiculous to educate boys like young girls? Ah,
it is truly fine to see these little twelve-year-old fops, walking
out, their hands plump, their voices delicate (_flutées_), with pretty
green parasols to protect them from the sun. They were less finical in
my country: children, brought up in rustic fashion, had no complexions
to preserve; they feared no harm from the air. Their fathers took them
out hunting and gave them all kinds of exercise. They were reserved
and modest in the presence of their elders; they were bold, proud,
even quarrelsome, among themselves; they were rivals in wrestling,
running, boxing; they were skilled in fencing. They came home rugged;
they were genuine little rascals; but they grew into men whose hearts
were full of zeal in their country’s service and ready to give their
lives for her.”
In April, 1725, he was apprenticed to an engraver, named Abel
Ducommun, Rue des Etuves, Number 96, third floor. He liked the trade,
for, as he says, he had a lively taste for drawing; but his master was
brutal, and at last, on a Sunday evening in March, 1728, having been
locked out of the city through returning too late from a long walk
beyond the walls and having spent the night wretchedly on the glacis
“in a transport of despair” he suddenly swore never to return to his
master’s. Rogers, in one of his poems, thus refers to this
inhospitality on the part of Geneva, which, of course, was possible
only in a small city surrounded with walls:--
“On my way I went.
Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily,
Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut;
As on that Sabbath-eve when He arrived,
Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee
Such virtue dwells in those small syllables,
Inscribed to consecrate the narrow street.
His birth-place,--when but one short step too late,
In his despair, as though the die were cast,
He flung him down to weep and wept till dawn;
Then rose to go, a wanderer through the world.”
He wandered away till he came to the little Catholic town of
Confignon, two leagues from Geneva, and became the guest and protégé
of the vicar M. de Pontverre, who gave him delicious Frangi wine and
attempted to convince him that the heresy of Geneva was ruinous to
hopes of salvation.
“Though M. de Pontverre was a religious man,” says Rousseau, “he was
not a virtuous man, but rather a bigot, who knew no virtue except
worshiping images and telling his beads; in a word, a kind of
missionary who thought it a supreme merit to compose libels against
the ministers of Geneva. Far from wishing to send me back, he
endeavoured to favour my escape and put it out of my power to return,
even if I had been so disposed. There were a thousand chances to one
that he was going to let me perish of starvation or become a rascal;
all this was apart from his purpose: he saw a soul snatched from
heresy and restored to the bosom of the Church: whether I were an
honest man or a knave was immaterial, provided I went to mass.”
At Annecy was living Madame de Warens, who had robbed her husband of
his forks, knives and spoons, involved him in debts, and deserted him
for the sake of embracing Catholicism. She was earning a pension of
two thousand francs a year from the King of Sardinia by using her new
and fervent zeal in the work of propaganda. M. de Pontverre gave
Rousseau a letter to the fair and frail baroness. This is what the
vicar said:--
“I send you Jean Jacques Rousseau, a youth who has abandoned his
country; he seems to me of a happy character. He spent a day with me;
and God summons him to Annecy.
“Try to encourage him to embrace Catholicism. It is a triumph to bring
about conversion. You will understand as well as I do that for this
great work he must be kept at Annecy, for fear he may receive evil
instructions elsewhere. Be careful to intercept all letters that might
be written from his country, for if he thinks he is abandoned he will
the sooner abjure. I put the whole matter into the hands of the
Almighty and yours, which I kiss.”
“Madame de Warens at that time,” says Rousseau, “was young and
charming; she was rich and noble; she had a naturally lively wit; she
liked reading and pondering over what she read, devoting herself now
to works of piety, now to the works of the learned Bayle, the Voltaire
of his day; she was of a sweet disposition and her society was much
sought; she had a good husband and they led an easy life together; her
days were cast in a peaceful and prosperous epoch; she spent her best
years in those enchanting scenes in the Pays de Vaud, where Lake Leman
spreads its limpid waves, at the foot of the lofty mountains of Savoy,
in a country fertile and productive.”
Not in too great a hurry to get there, sauntering along, stopping to
earn a bite by singing under château windows, he finally, on Palm
Sunday, met that paragon.
Years afterwards he asked himself why he could not enclose with a
golden balustrade the happy spot where first he saw her and render it
the object of universal veneration.
To many much of the spell of Switzerland comes from the magic of
Rousseau’s love for the fair and facile deserter and from the immortal
romance in which as Saint-Preux and Julie their idealized amour lived
again. She must not escape us thus: we shall learn more of her in
another place.
Rousseau declared that he expected to find a devout and forbidding old
woman; instead he “saw a face beaming with charms, fine blue eyes full
of sweetness, a complexion which dazzled the sight, the lovely lines
of an enchanting bosom” and he was henceforth hers. She put him
immediately at his ease and sent him a little later to Turin, where he
felt himself constrained to sell his religion: it was at the price of
his self-respect, but he did many things at that price first and last.
More important in his development was his acquaintance with the Abbé
Gaime, who, like so many abbés, was a deist and did not believe in
supernatural revelation or in the miracles; but he seems to have been
a man of high character whose principles often kept Rousseau from
regrettable acts.
After his disappointing experiences in Turin, as draughtsman, footman,
clerk, beggarman, thief, he returned to Annecy. Madame de Warens asked
her cousin, M. d’Aubonne, “a man of great understanding and
cleverness,” but an adventurer, to examine Rousseau as to whether it
were best for him to be a merchant or an abbé or an engineer. Rousseau
says: “The result of his observations was that, notwithstanding the
animation of my countenance and promising exterior, I was, if not
absolutely silly, at least a lad of very little sense and wholly
lacking original ideas or learning.”
Later M. d’Aubonne lost his position through having paid too violent
attention to the wife of the intendant, and out of revenge he wrote a
comedy which he sent to Madame de Warens. “Let us see if I am as
stupid as M. d’Aubonne insists I am,” cried Rousseau. “I am going to
make a play like his.”
He did so. It was entitled, “Narcisse ou l’Amour de Lui-même.”
Eighteen years later he had it played at Paris but it fell flat.
Rousseau left the theatre, went to the Café Procope, the rendezvous
of all the wits, and exclaimed--“The new piece has failed; it deserved
to fail; it bored me; it is by Rousseau of Geneva and I am Rousseau.”
[Illustration: FRIBOURG.]
Perhaps, after all, the most comical episode in Rousseau’s life took
place in Lausanne.
It was in 1732. He had been on a trip to Fribourg, on foot, for he was
fond of walking, even when he was so troubled with corns that he had
to step on his heels. Instead of returning by way of Nyon he proceeded
along the north shore, wishing to revel in the view of the lake, which
is seen in its greatest extent at Lausanne. Then the brilliant idea
seized him to pass himself off for a music-teacher, just as his friend
Venture had done on arriving at Annecy. He describes the adventure at
some length in his memoirs as follows:--
“I became so much excited with this idea that, without thinking that I
had neither his grace nor his talents, I took it into my head to play
at Lausanne the part of a little Venture, to teach music, which I did
not know how to do, and to say that I was from Paris, where I had
never been.... I endeavoured to approach as near as possible to my
great model. He called himself Venture de Villeneuve; I by an anagram
converted the name of Rousseau into that of Vaussore, and I called
myself Vaussore de Villeneuve. Venture understood composition,
although he had said nothing about it; I, without understanding it,
boasted of my knowledge of it to everybody, and although I did not
know how to note down the simplest ballad, gave myself out as a
composer. This is not all. Having been presented to M. de Treytorens,
professor of law, who was fond of music, and had concerts at his
house, and being anxious to give him a specimen of my talents, I set
myself to composing a piece for his concert with as much effrontery as
if I had known how to go about it. I had the perseverance to work for
a fortnight at this precious composition, to make a fair copy of it,
to write out the different parts, and to distribute them with as much
assurance as if it had been a masterpiece of harmony.”
Imagine the discords! But his “executioners” made him beat time to the
end, though they could see that sweat-drops of agony were pearling on
his brow. That he escaped with his life is a wonder. I read somewhere
that the house where this contretemps took place is still standing,
but I could not find any one who might point it out to me. The fame
which he thus won as a composer and kapellmeister did not bring him
any pupils and he went on to Vevey of which he says:--
“I conceived for that town an affection which has followed me in all
my travels, and caused me at length to place there the characters of
my novel. I would gladly say to those who possess taste and
sensibility, Go to Vevey, visit the adjacent country, examine the
localities, go about upon the lake, and say if nature has not made
this beautiful region for a Julie, for a Claire, and for a
Saint-Preux; but do not look for them there.”
Rousseau returned to Geneva in 1739 to secure the inheritance which
was due him from his mother’s estate. The City might have gobbled it
up, since he had abjured the Protestant religion; perhaps it was too
small to attract the attention of the authorities; he secured it,
spent some of it on books and gave the rest to Madame de Warens. He
met his father there, who also was unmolested, although the judgment
against him, from the consequences of which he had escaped, was still
on the black book. Rousseau intended to return to live in Geneva. He
had become famous, and when he renounced the Catholic faith he was
reinstated in his rights of citizenship, but once more his conflict
with orthodoxy rendered it an unsafe place for him. There seemed to
be no room for him anywhere. The peasants drove him out of Neuchâtel,
though Marshal Keith, who represented Frederick the Great there, made
him welcome. Bern sought him out in his island home in the Lake of
Bienne to lay heavy hand upon him. He was unhappy in England, and even
his last home at Ermenonville witnessed his violent death, as it is
now believed by some, at the hands of the ignorant and jealous
Thérèse.
Really, Geneva has little to show directly connected with Rousseau
beyond the mislabelled place of his birth. Yet the whole Lake of
Geneva is redolent of his glory. Not far from the haunts of his youth
lived Calvin, who would have probably been as ready to burn Rousseau
as he was to burn Servetus. La Grand’ Rue runs between the cathedral
and the University, and almost parallel is La Rue Calvin where the
great theocrat abode. Of course we went there and did our _hommages_
to the shades of the departed.
There is a deal of individuality in the names of city streets--that
is, there may be. One would expect monotony of architecture in those
simply numbered or lettered. But Geneva has charming names, suggesting
romance, theology and history. If it has its Rue des Eaux Vives,
which might well suggest heaven, it has also its Rue de l’Enfer and
its Rue du Purgatoire. Of course there is a Rue Voltaire. Pleasant
things are suggested by the Rue du Montchoisy, or that of Beaulieu.
But as cities change, once respectable or even fashionable
thoroughfares lose their vogue and even become slums.
From Calvin’s old residence we went to the Hôtel de Ville, which has a
commanding situation. It was interesting not alone because of its
elegant Renaissance architecture, its ramp whereby an equestrian mayor
might ride up to the third story--it was built between the sixth and
seventh decades of the Sixteenth Century--or because of the ancient
frescoes in the Council Chamber, but perhaps most of all, to an
American or an Englishman, because in one of its rooms sat the
epoch-making commission which settled for fifteen and a half millions,
awarded to the United States the Alabama claims, and thus made the
longest stride since the beginning of the world toward the sensible
and feasible way of settling questions which would be likely to lead
to war.
England was represented by her Lord Chief Justice, Sir Alexander James
Edward Cockburn, with Sir Roundel Palmer as counsel; the United
States sent Charles Francis Adams with William M. Evarts, Caleb
Cushing and Morrison R. Waite; Switzerland’s arbitrator was her
one-time president, Jacob Stamepfli; the other two judges were the
Brazilian Minister to France and Count Federigo Sclopis of Italy, who
was the chairman. The arbitrators sat from December, 1871, until
September 14, 1872. Such vital interests were at stake that the world
almost held its breath; for had both parties not honourably held by
the decision--ignoring the dissatisfied extremists who would have
preferred to fight rather than yield--there would have befallen the
worst war of the ages. Where such enormous financial interests were at
issue the fact that a question involving so many untried questions of
international law could be settled peaceably was a triumph of
civilization. Sacred then for ever be that upper room; it should be
regarded as more worthy of pious pilgrimage than almost any other spot
in this round world, for, if its precedent should be carried out, it
would spell the emancipation of the world from the terrible incubus of
militarism, from the needless crushing burden of enormous armies and
wasteful navies.
From the City Hall we proceeded to the University. We were fortunate
enough to fall in with a genial professor who, as soon as he learned
that we were Americans, not only took the greatest pains to point out
to us all the notable buildings but also told us a good deal about the
history of the institution.
It seems that as far back as the middle of the Fourteenth Century the
Emperor Charles IV proposed to found a university, but other affairs
choked the good seed. The idea was revived by Cardinal Jean de Brogny,
Bishop of Geneva, who died in 1462. Two years after his death the
Conseil Général passed an order for establishing a public school on
the Place below the Monastery of the Frères Mineurs de Rive. There
happened to be living at that time a rich and generous old merchant of
a noble family, named François de Versonnex. He had already founded
two hospitals, but the plan of a public school appealed to him, and,
in January, 1429, he built an edifice ninety-four feet long and
thirty-four feet wide, near the church of those Frères Mineurs and
presented it to the city. Instructions in grammar, logic, rhetoric and
the other liberal arts--philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy
and music--was to be gratuitous: his only condition was that the
pupils should every morning kneel before the altar and repeat an Ave
Maria and a Pater Noster for the repose of the donor’s soul.
This became known as the “Grande Eschole.” It had an ample garden,
stretching down to the lake, with plenty of room for the boys to play.
After more than a century, in spite of repairs, it became
uninhabitable, and in 1535, the year before Bonivard returned to
Geneva, the Council ordered the school to be removed to the Couvent
des Cordeliers de Rive (now commemorated in the Rue des Cordeliers), a
building which since the Thirteenth Century had occupied a site on the
shore. It was torn down in 1769 to make room for a granary.
There must have been much cultivation in those days in Geneva.
Bonivard speaks about the learned men he knew personally or by
reputation. He, himself, was versed in Latin, Italian and German. He
was the founder of the University Library, which now contains more
than one hundred thousand books and fifteen hundred or more
manuscripts. Under Antoine Saulnier or Sonier, who was appointed to
direct the school in 1536, at a salary of one hundred écus d’or sol,
equivalent to four hundred and forty florins, it made rapid progress
and began to attract pupils from abroad. But Sonier was Calvin’s
appointee and Calvin’s enemies were then in power; about that time
they succeeded in banishing both Calvin and Farel, and they robbed
Sonier of his two best assistants. Then Sonier summoned the famous
Mathurin Cordier of Bordeaux, the author of a Latin book still in use.
The Council went on heckling Sonier and he resigned and went to
Lausanne. He helped found the University there.
Of course the school then degenerated. Some of the masters whipped
children so brutally that it drew blood. When Calvin was recalled and
again took command, he engaged Sébastien Chatillon of Nantua, an
elegant Latinist and possessed also of Greek and Hebrew, but soon
quarrelled with him, causing him to resign. Chatillon afterwards
taught Latin at Bâle but almost starved there.
In 1550, Calvin discovered Louis Enoch of Issoudun, in Berri. He was
Regent for seven years. He was made a bourgeois and installed as a
minister. When the school was reorganized as a college in 1559 he
became its Regent. The buildings were deathly, however, and even Enoch
could not live in them. Finally, when the Perrinists, Calvin’s
bitterest enemies, were defeated, he saw his chance. At the top of the
Rue Verdaine was the Hospital of the Bourg-de-Four, which as the
_domus hospitalis de foro veteri_ had been founded in the Thirteenth
Century by a member of an ancient and noble family. Attached to it was
a garden. Above the Hospital on the hill rising steeply from Rive to
Saint-Antoine there were what were called Hutins Bolomier,--or
hillocks,--on which the vines were cultivated. This was to be the new
site. But just then war broke out between France and Spain. Geneva was
in a panic, expecting to be attacked, because Philippe II had vowed
that he would exterminate the heretics. Public prayers were offered
and the citizens were encouraged to defend themselves to the last
gasp. Bern, which had been unwilling to renew its alliance with Geneva
at this common danger, hastened to join forces. Geneva was safe.
In 1558, at Calvin’s demand, a commission was empowered to study the
question, and, after due deliberation, it was decided to make the
change. The preliminary work consisted in reducing the height of the
hill. The soil was carted down to the Pré de Rive. But to get the
buildings finished was a heart-breaking undertaking. There were all
kinds of delays. They even had a strike among the workmen: the
carpenters demanded eight sous a day! But the Council refused to grant
the increase, which they considered exorbitant, since victuals were
cheap. There was lack of money. In 1559 the Republic had a revenue all
told of only two hundred thousand florins. They decided that the
product of all fines should be handed over to the College. A woman
convicted of _faux aunage_ (probably in measuring cloth of her
weaving) was obliged to pay twenty-five crowns. The venerable former
syndic Phillipin for having spoken evil of the Seigneurie had to pay
twenty-five crowns. Jean Roche, for having printed at Lyon Calvin’s
Institution contrary to the privileges granted to Antoine Calvin, was
fined a hundred crowns. People were urged to remember the institution
in their wills. In 1561 the Council by an act of heroic renunciation
resolved to forego the annual banquet and devote to the fund the
hundred florins it would cost. Just as happens now, materials were not
forthcoming on time. One day tiles were lacking and there was great
danger that the rains would come before the roof was covered. But it
was finished in 1562, and four years later a fountain was installed as
much to embellish the College as to furnish drinking-water. In 1569
elms and linden-trees were set out to shade the grounds.
The two big buildings, arranged as it was called _à la mode de
potence_, that is at right angles, and surmounted by a big roof, all
in Italian Renaissance style of architecture, were the pride of the
City, and still not much changed reflect credit on the old Reformers.
Our friend the professor took us to the front of the main building and
pointed out to us the peristyle colonnade, with its three massive
pillars supporting the four arches in pure Roman style, and he called
our attention to the ancient inscriptions over the principal entrance:
the first in Hebrew, which he said meant “The Fear of the Lord is the
Beginning of Wisdom;” the second in Greek, which I could almost make
out myself though the letters were queer:--“Christ has become for us
Wisdom by the Will of the Father;” the third indecipherable, but he
said that it read originally “For the Wisdom that comes from on high
is pure, peaceable and full of mercy.”
He showed us the external stairway leading to what was formerly the
rooms of the principal and of some of the professors, and the
admirable balustrade of wrought iron, and pointed with pardonable
pride to the bas relief in yellow marble over the first floor door. He
said it was attributed to the famous French sculptor Jean Goujon, who
belonged to the Reformed Church and was in Geneva in 1560. It
represents two winged women, one the Genius of Study, the other the
Genius of War and between them the escutcheon of the City. During the
French occupation it was mutilated, but the eagle and the key can be
made out.
The professor took us up to the second floor of the main building,
which offers a superb view of the lake, the Jura with their
rock-ribbed summits, the snowy Alps of Savoy. In those days they did
not much believe in light, physically or theologically; the windows
are small and the big rooms seemed rather gloomy. He told us that at
first the City was too poor or too penurious to furnish glass for
them, and when the students petitioned for glass they were recommended
to fit them out themselves with oiled paper panes. Neither was there
any way of heating them, and the professors had to bring braziers
filled with hot coals to melt out their lectures. Finally a violent
_bise_ came down the lake and blew the rooms inside out; it did so
much damage that the Council, in self-defence, ordered glass put in.
The Seigneurie gratuitously lodged not only the professors and pastors
but also such needy citizens as had been of public service. In 1561
François Bonivard petitioned to be granted quarters in the city
_logis_ where he might have a stove, and his petition was allowed.
Then, as now (in other lands more particularly), self-defence was an
expensive luxury. The erection, maintenance and strengthening of the
city walls cost enormously, and the Council proposed to sell the
houses of the Regents, but violent opposition arose and they were
maintained until the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Then the
ramshackly old buildings were sold and the fine houses on the Rue
Verdaine were built. The gardens were alienated in 1725 for
twenty-five thousand florins; the purchaser agreeing not to erect any
high building that would cut off the fine view. They at least
appreciated their greatest asset. The purchaser was Jean Gallatin,
whose house is still shown at Number Seven.
I was, of course, interested in the name Gallatin, for I remembered
how Albert Gallatin, a graduate of Geneva University, came to America
and taught French at Harvard College, and then entering politics, was
elected Senator, though he was excluded; became Secretary of the
Treasury and signed the Treaty of Ghent and was United States Minister
first at Paris and then at London. Several towns in our country were
named after him.
When the professors’ houses were taken from them, they were granted
three écus d’or extra salary.
The so-called Ordre du Collège--a term still in use--was worked out by
Calvin himself, who would not have disdained regulating the size of
mouse-traps. Fortunately he had associated with him the gentle,
benevolent Theodore de Bèze, who was the oil to the vinegar of
Calvin’s stern, uncompromising wisdom. Calvin wrote it in Latin; De
Bèze in French. It is a document well worthy of study by all
educators.
It was promulgated on the fifth of June, 1559, with impressive
ceremonies. The venerable Company of Pastors, the Regents, the
professors and a body of six hundred students, together with an
immense throng of citizens, went to the cathedral where Calvin made an
immensely long supplication. Then the secretary of the Council, Michel
Roset, read the document. De Bèze, appointed rector of the Academy and
principal of the College, made an impressive “harangue” in Latin,
dwelling on the usefulness of schools and of “superior wisdom” and
ending by thanking the Council for having permitted Geneva to receive
instruction purged of all Papal superstitions. De Bèze having thanked
the Council, Calvin thanked God for the same blessings. The next day
the regular exercises of the new curriculum began. They were kept up
without essential change for three centuries. The chief function of
the College was practically the same as that of the primitive
Harvard--to provide ministers: my nephew declared it was a “regular
parson-factory.”
During Calvin’s life no theatrical representations were allowed; but
just forty years after his death, in 1604, some of the students of one
of the professors with his authorization learned a comedy by Garnier
and proposed to enact it before a select company of guests. When the
authorities heard of it they were in a panic and hastened to forbid it
“for fear the students might take occasion for debauchery and waste
time and lessons.” In 1681 “The Cid” was presented with scenery at the
house of M. Perdriau. The performance ended with a farce. About three
hundred spectators were present. Several students took part. It caused
a terrible scandal. It was declared that if such a thing happened
again the culprits should be whipped. They had the means to inflict
this punishment. Discipline in those days was severe. The Regents were
ordered to provide themselves with a sort of cat-o’-nine-tails, and
they used it sometimes brutally. In 1676 a Sieur de Rochemont ordered
his valet to thrash one of the Regents for having too severely
punished his nephew. The valet carried out his orders with good will
but was haled into court and condemned to languish in jail for a week,
while his master, in spite of his rank, was punished even more
severely--he was sent to jail for three weeks and had to pay a fine of
two hundred crowns, after having begged pardon on his knees.
The University of Geneva, as at present constituted, is the outgrowth
of that remarkable school. Its modern regeneration began in 1886. Many
new buildings have been erected. It would take pages to give the names
of the celebrated professors who have from the beginning helped to
spread its fame and have attracted students from all over the world,
especially from Russia. Out of the twelve hundred or more students
registered a large proportion come from the empire of the Tsars. The
institution is divided into a _Collège inférieur_ and a _Collège
supérieur_, the latter having four departments: the classic, the
réal, the technical and the pedagogical.
We went with our guide into the Library, which, of course, we could
only glance at; but later, when I spent a fortnight in Geneva, I found
it most useful. We went to the Salle Lutin and looked at the fine
portraits of Geneva celebrities, including those of many distinguished
visitors, notably George Eliot’s. Here are also many fascinating
manuscripts and books which would fill the heart of a bibliophile with
hopeless envy. I had just time to look at the curious old map made in
1588 by a Genevan magistrate, the noble Duvillard, who was wounded in
a battle and during his convalescence amused himself in tracing on
paper “ce beau lac génévois,” to which he said Christians flock
without cessation:--
“Pour louer Dieu, maugré princes et rois,
Plumes, pinceaux, couleurs en tous entroits
J’ai fait passer par villes et châteaux,
Villages, bourgs, par montagnes et bois,
Par champs et près et vignobles si beaux
Rochers, forêts, rivières et ruisseaux.”
But the morning was passing, and we had to tear ourselves away. We had
not intended to go into any of the public buildings of Geneva,
tempting as they might be, but to walk across the Treille, along the
Promenade des Bastions and then take a tram for the Salève, from
which, on such a clear day, the view would have been superb. But it
was too late; we had to hurry back to the hotel for an early lunch and
then continue our journey around the lake.
As we went back I registered a vow to spend at least a fortnight in
Geneva, and I am happy to say it was not a vow in vain. I came to know
and love the fine old town with its splendid educational advantages,
its museums and libraries, its fascinating parks and its wealth of
glorious walks. More than once as we went down toward the lake I
turned around to look at the bold escarpments of the limestone cliff
against which the twin towers and the tall spire of the Cathedral
stood out so proudly.
I went one day to the Voirons and had perhaps the same view as James
Fenimore Cooper enjoyed so much, when on his journey southward he
suddenly emerged on their heights and got his first glimpse of Geneva
and the lake and all those parts of Vaud that lie between Geneva and
the Dôle. Of course, Geneva nearly eighty years ago was much smaller
than it is now. He describes it with enthusiasm, and his picture still
glows with colour:--
“A more ravishing view than that we now beheld can scarcely be
imagined. Nearly the whole of the lake was visible. The north shore
was studded with towns, towers, castles and villages for the distance
of thirty miles; the rampart--resembling rocks of Savoy--rose for
three or four thousand feet, like walls above the water, and solitary
villages were built against their bases in spots where there scarcely
appeared room to place a human foot. The solemn magnificent gorge
rather than valley of the Rhône and the river, glittering like silver
among its meadows, were in the distant front, while the immediate
foreground was composed of a shore which also had its wall of rocks,
its towns laved by the water, its castles, its hamlets half concealed
in fruit-trees, and its broad mountain bosom thrown carelessly into
terraces, to the elevation of two thousand feet on which reposed
nearly every object of rural art that can adorn a picture....
“The beauty of the panorama was singularly heightened by the presence
of some thirty or forty large barks with lateen sails, a rig
particularly Italian, and which, to my eye, was redolent of the
Mediterranean, a sea I had not beheld for twenty years. They were
lying lazily on the glassy lake as if placed there by Claude
himself to serve as models.
[Illustration: BARKS ON LAKE LEMAN.]
“I shall not affirm that this was the finest view we had yet seen in
Switzerland, but I do think it was the most exquisite. It was Goethe
compared to Schiller, Milton to Shakespeare, Racine to Corneille.”
Just about two centuries earlier Auguste de Sales in the life of his
uncle Saint Francis, showed that he too loved the same view. Here is
his picture, dated 1632:--
“Voiron is a very high mountain separating Le Chablais from Le
Faucigny, looking east from Geneva. Toward the north the view embraces
the great Lake Leman, and almost all the mountains of Burgundy and
those of Switzerland in the distance distinguished by blue shadows.
Nearer are the cities and lands of Geneva and Bern, an infinity of
villages, churches, castles, rivers, ponds, forests, meadows,
vineyards, hills, roads, and the like in such variety that the eye
receives from it a wonderful recreation and nothing in the world can
be seen more beautiful. Toward the south one sees with a sudden horror
the mountains of Le Faucigny and at their extremity the haughty
summits (_cimes sourcilleuses_) of Champmuni, covered with eternal ice
and snow, so that the eye of him who looks now one way now another,
receives an unequalled satisfaction.”
I shall never forget the first expedition that I made to Les Treize
Arbres and the Crêt de Grange Tournier, the highest point of the
Salève, with their superb view up the lake and far into the valley of
the Rhône. Yet the Salève is not a part of Geneva; it is not even
Swiss; it belongs to France. If Switzerland and Savoy should at the
present time have a war it would be easy enough for big guns to be
mounted on those heights and batter down the helpless city; compared
with what war is now the most dramatic event in Genevan history seems
rather ludicrous; but the Fountain of the Escalade commemorates an
heroic achievement.
Quietly around the city were gathering the hostile armies. Duke
Charles Emmanuel of Savoy was planning to strike a final blow; he had
more than six thousand men--Savoyards, Spaniards, Neapolitans and
Piedmontese--collected in various places within convenient distance.
On the night of December 12, 1602, a storming party of two hundred men
marched up to the Corraterie rampart carrying fagots, hurdles,
ladders, and implements for breaking and smashing things. Each man
also had an amulet warranted to keep him from trouble in this world or
the world to come; it was given to each one by a Scotch Jesuit named
Father Alexander. They filled the moat with their hurdles and fagots;
they fastened their ladders to the walls. They killed the one sentinel
on guard, for the Genevans had no thought of such a treacherous attack
upon them, and they annihilated a small body of the watch, all except
one man, a drummer, who escaped and gave the alarm. The battle was on.
The Genevans at La Porte Neuve happened to fire off a gun loaded with
chains and iron scrap; the discharge smashed all the scaling ladders
and swept them off the walls; the army of four thousand men led by
General d’Albigni, who was expecting to follow up the success of the
two hundred, was helpless in the moat outside. All able-bodied
citizens got out their guns and swords and gave battle. Hot soup and
other scalding fluids and a rain of deadly missiles were flung down on
the unhappy invaders, who finally fled, leaving thirteen prisoners and
a large number of dead. The Genevans themselves had seventeen killed
and a score wounded. Duke Charles Emmanuel is said to have called his
defeated general a booby (_misérable butor_) and expressed himself in
somewhat the same kind of vulgar language as Victor Hugo attributed to
Marshal Ney in “Les Misérables.”
Geneva was saved, and the next morning the venerable Pastor de Bèze,
who had slept all through the tumult, having learned of the battle,
went to the cathedral and helped to conduct a thanksgiving
service--the last public appearance which his failing health permitted
him to make. And ever since the Genevans celebrate the day of the
Escalade.
Rousseau wrote of this rather grandiloquently:--“The generous nation
received its baptism of blood; this night put our ancestors beside the
men of Sempach and Morgarten; they defended their freedom like men who
could not understand how life could be separated from liberty.”
That very year the Landgrave of Hesse was visiting Geneva incognito
and he composed a Latin epigram beginning:--
“Quisquis amat vitam sobriam castamque tueri,”
which has been Englished in the quaint old style of long ago:--
“A strict and sober life if you’d embrace
Let chast Geneva be your dwelling-place;
Or would you lead a lawless life and free
The same Geneva your abode must be.
Convenience here for either life is found--
The Air, Land, Water and Religion sound!”
[Illustration: ALONG THE SHORE OF LAKE LEMAN.]
One more attempt was made to capture Geneva. On September 21, 1792,
without any declaration of war, the French entered Savoy, seized
Mont-Mélian and Chambéry and overran the whole duchy with the result
that it was incorporated with France as the Département du Mont Blanc.
Etienne Clavière, banished from Geneva in 1784 because of his
writings, had become one of the six Ministers of the French Republic,
and being full of animosity against Geneva urged his colleagues to
attack that city. Orders to that effect were issued by Servan,
Minister of War. Geneva appealed to Zürich and Bern for aid and
prepared for defence. But no attack was made. Clavière committed
suicide the following year.
Gibbon wrote to Lord Sheffield:--“The terrors which might have driven
me from hence have in great measure subsided. Our State prisoners are
forgot; the country begins to recover its old good humor and
unsuspecting confidence and the last revolution of Paris appears to
have convinced almost everybody of the fatal consequences of the
Democratical principles, which lead by a path of flowers into the
abyss of Hell.” After Savoy became a part of France Gibbon wrote:--“My
noble scenery is clouded by the Democratical aspect of twelve leagues
of the opposite coast which every morning obtrude themselves on my
view.” In February, 1793, he wrote again:--“The new Constitution of
Geneva is slowly forming without much noise or any bloodshed and the
Patriots who have staid in hopes of guiding and restraining the
multitude flatter themselves that they shall be able at least to
prevent their mad countrymen from giving themselves to France, the
only mischief that would be absolutely irretrievable.”
He predicted that the Emperor and the French would compound for the
neutrality of the Swiss. His prediction was very nearly fulfilled. But
the penchant of the Genevans for France may possibly be explained by
the fact that it is so Parisian in its modern brightness and gayety.
That is why I like it.