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.