THE LAST TEN YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN LAUSANNE.
After the preliminary troubles which met him on his arrival at
Lausanne, Gibbon had four years of unbroken calm and steady work, of
which there is nothing to record beyond the fact that they were filled
with peaceful industry. "One day," he wrote, "glides by another in
tranquil uniformity." During the whole period he never stirred ten
miles out of Lausanne. He had nearly completed the fourth volume
before he left England. Then came an interruption of a year--consumed
in the break-up of his London establishment, his journey, the
transport of his library, the delay in getting settled at Lausanne.
Then he sat down in grim earnest to finish his task, and certainly the
speed he used, considering the quality of the work, left nothing to be
desired. He achieved the fifth volume in twenty-one months, and the
sixth in little more than a year. He had hoped to finish sooner, but
it is no wonder that he found his work grow under his hands when he
passed from design to execution. "A long while ago, when I
contemplated the distant prospect of my work," he writes to Lord
Sheffield, "I gave you and myself some hopes of landing in England
last autumn; but alas! when autumn grew near, hills began to rise on
hills, Alps on Alps, and I found my journey far more tedious and
toilsome than I had imagined. When I look back on the length of the
undertaking and the variety of materials, I cannot accuse or suffer
myself to be accused of idleness; yet it appeared that unless I
doubled my diligence, another year, and perhaps more, would elapse
before I could embark with my complete manuscript. Under these
circumstances I took, and am still executing, a bold and meritorious
resolution. The mornings in winter, and in a country of early dinners,
are very concise. To them, my usual period of study, I now frequently
add the evenings, renounce cards and society, refuse the most
agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my appearance at a late supper. By
this extraordinary industry, which I never practised before, and to
which I hope never to be again reduced, I see the last part of my
history growing apace under my hands." He was indeed, as he said, now
straining for the goal which was at last reached "on the day, or
rather the night, of the 27th of June, 1787. Between the hours of
eleven and twelve I wrote the last lines of the last page in a
summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several
turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a
prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was
temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was
reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not
dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and
perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled,
and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had
taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and
that whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of
the historian must be short and precarious."
A faint streak of poetry occasionally shoots across Gibbon's prose.
But both prose and poetry had now to yield to stern business. The
printing of three quarto volumes in those days of handpresses was a
formidable undertaking, and unless expedition were used the publishing
season of the ensuing year would be lost. A month had barely elapsed
before Gibbon with his precious cargo started for England. He went
straight to his printers. The printing of the fourth volume occupied
three months, and both author and publisher were warned that their
common interest required a quicker pace. Then Mr. Strahan "fulfilled
his engagement, which few printers could sustain, of delivering every
week three thousand copies of nine sheets." On the 8th of May, 1788,
the three concluding volumes were published, and Gibbon had discharged
his debt for the entertainment that he had had in this world.
He returned as speedily as he could to Lausanne, to rest from his
labours. But he had a painful greeting in the sadly altered look of
his friend Deyverdun. Soon an apoplectic seizure confirmed his
forebodings, and within a twelvemonth the friend of his youth, whom he
had loved for thirty-three years, was taken away by death (July 4,
1789).[14]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: The letter in which Gibbon communicated the sad news to
Lord Sheffield was written on the 14th July, 1789, the day of the
taking of the Bastille. So "that evening sun of July" sent its beams
on Gibbon mourning the dead friend, as well as on "reapers amid
peaceful woods and fields, on old women spinning in cottages, on ships
far out on the silent main, on balls at the Orangerie of Versailles,
where high-rouged dames of the palace are even now dancing with
double-jacketed Hussar officers."]
Gibbon never got over this loss. His staid and solid nature was not
given to transports of joy or grief. But his constant references to
"poor Deyverdun," and the vacancy caused by his loss, show the depth
of the wound. "I want to change the scene," he writes, "and, beautiful
as the garden and prospect must appear to every eye, I feel that the
state of my mind casts a gloom over them: every spot, every walk,
every bench recalls the memory of those hours, those conversations,
which will return no more.... I almost hesitate whether I shall run
over to England to consult with you on the spot, and to fly from poor
Deyverdun's shade, which meets me at every turn." Not that he lacked
attached friends, and of mere society and acquaintance he had more
than abundance. He occupied at Lausanne a position of almost
patriarchal dignity, "and may be said," writes Lord Sheffield, "to
have almost given the law to a set of as willing subjects as any man
ever presided over." Soon the troubles in France sent wave after wave
of emigrants over the frontiers, and Lausanne had its full share of
the exiles. After a brief approval of the reforms in France he passed
rapidly to doubt, disgust, and horror at the "new birth of time"
there. "You will allow me to be a tolerable historian," he wrote to
his step-mother, "yet on a fair review of ancient and modern times I
can find none that bear any affinity to the present." The last social
evolution was beyond his power of classification. The mingled
bewilderment and anger with which he looks out from Lausanne on the
revolutionary welter, form an almost amusing contrast to his usual
apathy on political matters. He is full of alarm lest England should
catch the revolutionary fever. He is delighted with Burke's
_Reflections_. "I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I
adore his chivalry, and I can forgive even his superstition." His
wrath waxes hotter at every post. "Poor France! The state is
dissolved! the nation is mad." At last nothing but vituperation can
express his feelings, and he roundly calls the members of the
Convention "devils," and discovers that "democratical principles lead
by a path of flowers into the abyss of hell."
In 1790 his friends the Neckers had fled to Switzerland, and on every
ground of duty and inclination he was called upon to show them the
warmest welcome, and he did so in a way that excited their liveliest
gratitude. Necker was cast down in utter despair, not only for the
loss of place and power, but on account of the strong animosity which
was shown to him by the exiled French, none of whom would set their
foot in his house. The Neckers were now Gibbon's chief intimates till
the end of his sojourn in Switzerland. They lived at Coppet, and
constant visits were exchanged there and at Lausanne. Madame Necker
wrote to him frequent letters, which prove that if she had ever had
any grievance to complain of in the past, it was not only forgiven,
but entirely forgotten. The letters, indeed, testify a warmth of
sentiment on her part which, coming from a lady of less spotless
propriety, would almost imply a revival of youthful affection for her
early lover. "You have always been dear to me," she writes, "but the
friendship you have shown to M. Necker adds to that which you inspire
me with on so many grounds, and I love you at present with a double
affection."--"Come to us when you are restored to health and to
yourself; that moment should always belong to your first and your
last friend (_amie_), and I do not know which of those titles is the
sweetest and dearest to my heart."--"Near you, the recollections you
recalled were pleasant to me, and you connected them easily with
present impressions; the chain of years seemed to link all times
together with electrical rapidity; you were at once twenty and fifty
years old for me. Away from you the different places, which I have
inhabited are only the milestones of my life telling me of the
distance I have come." With much more in the same strain. Of Madame de
Staël Gibbon does not speak in very warm praise. Her mother, who was
far from being contented with her, may perhaps have prejudiced him
against her. In one letter to him she complains of her daughter's
conduct in no measured terms. Yet Gibbon owns that Madame de Staël was
a "pleasant little woman;" and in another place says that she was
"wild, vain, but good-natured, with a much larger provision of wit
than of beauty." One wonders if he ever knew of her childish scheme of
marrying him in order that her parents might always have the pleasure
of his company and conversation.
These closing years of Gibbon's life were not happy, through no fault
of his. No man was less inclined by disposition to look at the dark
side of things. But heavy blows fell on him in quick succession. His
health was seriously impaired, and he was often laid up for months
with the gout. His neglect of exercise had produced its effect, and he
had become a prodigy of unwieldy corpulency. Unfortunately his
digestion seems to have continued only too good, and neither his own
observation nor the medical science of that day sufficed to warn him
against certain errors of regimen which were really fatal. All this
time, while the gout was constantly torturing him, he drank Madeira
freely. There is frequent question of a pipe of that sweet wine in his
correspondence with Lord Sheffield. He cannot bear the thought of
being without a sufficient supply, as "good Madeira is now become
essential to his health and reputation." The last three years of his
residence at Lausanne were agitated by perpetual anxiety and dread of
an invasion of French democratic principles, or even of French troops.
Reluctance to quit "his paradise" keeps him still, but he is always
wondering how soon he will have to fly, and often regrets that he has
not done so already. "For my part," he writes, "till Geneva falls, I
do not think of a retreat; but at all events I am provided with two
strong horses and a hundred louis in gold." Fate was hard on the
kindly epicurean, who after his long toil had made his bed in the sun,
on which he was preparing to lie down in genial content till the end
came. But he feels he must not think of rest; and that, heavy as he
is, and irksome to him as it is to move, he must before long be a
rover again. Still he is never peevish upon his fortune; he puts the
best face on things as long as they will bear it.
He was not so philosophical under the bereavements that he now
suffered. His aunt, Mrs. Porten, had died in 1786. He deplored her as
he was bound to do, and feelingly regrets and blames himself for not
having written to her as often as he might have done since their last
parting. Then came the irreparable loss of Deyverdun. Shortly, an old
Lausanne friend, M. de Severy, to whom he was much attached, died
after a long illness. Lastly and suddenly, came the death of Lady
Sheffield, the wife of his friend Holroyd, with whom he had long lived
on such intimate terms that he was in the habit of calling her his
sister. The Sheffields, father and mother and two daughters, had spent
the summer of 1791 with him at Lausanne. The visit was evidently an
occasion of real happiness and _épanchement de coeur_ to the two old
friends, and supplied Gibbon for nearly two years with tender regrets
and recollections. Then, without any warning, he heard of Lady
Sheffield's death. In a moment his mind was made up: he would go at
once to console his friend. All the fatigue and irksomeness of the
journey to one so ailing and feeble, all the dangers of the road lined
and perhaps barred by hostile armies, vanished on the spot. Within
twelve days he had made his preparations and started on his journey.
He was forced to travel through Germany, and in his ignorance of the
language he required an interpreter; young de Severy, the son of his
deceased friend, joyfully, and out of mere affection for him,
undertook the office of courier. "His attachment to me," wrote Gibbon,
"is the sole motive which prompts him to undertake this troublesome
journey." It is clear that he had the art of making himself loved. He
travelled through Frankfort, Cologne, Brussels, Ostend, and was by his
friend's side in little more than a month after he had received the
fatal tidings. Well might Lord Sheffield say, "I must ever regard it
as the most enduring proof of his sensibility, and of his possessing
the true spirit of friendship, that, after having relinquished the
thought of his intended visit, he hastened to England, in spite of
increasing impediments, to soothe me by the most generous sympathy,
and to alleviate my domestic affliction; neither his great corpulency
nor his extraordinary bodily infirmities, nor any other consideration,
could prevent him a moment from resolving on an undertaking that might
have deterred the most active young man. He almost immediately, with
an alertness by no means natural to him, undertook a great circuitous
journey along the frontier of an enemy worse than savage, within the
sound of their cannon, within the range of the light troops of the
different armies, and through roads ruined by the enormous machinery
of war."
In this public and private gloom he bade for ever farewell to
Lausanne. He was himself rapidly approaching
"The dark portal,
Goal of all mortal,"
but of this he knew not as yet. While he is in the house of mourning,
beside his bereaved friend, we will return for a short space to
consider the conclusion of his great work.