GENEVA.
A good House--Prisoner of Chillon--Calvin--Dr. Malan--Dr. Gaussen--Col.
Tronchin--The Cemetery.
The _Hotel des Bergues_ stands on the Lake of Geneva, just where the
"arrowy Rhone" shoots out from its bosom. This is one of the finest
hotels in Europe, and with the _Trois Couronnes_ at Vevay, may fairly
challenge comparison with any other. I brought up at this house from the
Vale of Chamouni. The dismal rain through which I had been riding on a
chill autumn day, had increased to a storm, and the old town, that is
gloomy enough at any time, was peculiarly uninviting on its first
appearance. But this city I had longed to visit, even from the time that
I read in Cæsar's Commentaries, "the farthest town of the Allobroges and
the nearest to the frontier of the Helvetii, is Geneva." Julius Cæsar
took possession of it, and the remains of his erections are to be seen
at the present day.
The Christian religion was introduced in the fifth century, and bishops
appointed by the Pope by degrees became lords temporal as well as
spiritual, which they are very apt to do as fast and as far as they can
get the power. The right of naming the Bishops, about the year 1400,
fell into the hands of the ducal house of Savoy, and their creatures
became despots of the reddest dye. Their oppressions grew to be so
intolerable that the citizens rebelled. A bloody persecution ensued. The
chapter of its history is among the darkest of the records of popery.
The deeds of patriotic heroism which were brought out have scarcely a
parallel. One citizen cut his own tongue out with a razor, lest the
torture should compel him to betray his friends. Bonnivard became the
chained prisoner of Chillon. But his story is not to be passed over
without being told.
"In 1530, _Francois Bonnivard, Prior of Saint Victor_, was seized on
the Jorat by a band of marauders, whose chief was the Sieur de
Beaufort, Governor of Chillon, for his bitter enemy, the Duke of
Savoy. As a punishment for his heroic defence of the liberty of
Geneva, he was condemned by the petty tyrant to perpetual captivity
in the castle. Here he remained during seven years, buried alive in
a dungeon on a level with the waters of the lake, and fastened by a
chain round his body to a ring still remaining on one of the
pillars. Irritated to agony by sad reflections on his own and his
adopted country's slavery, he wore away the stone floor beneath his
feet, by constantly pacing to and fro, like a wild beast, from end
to end of its cage. At length, in 1536, the Bernese, with their
allies of Geneva, effected the conquest of the Pays du Vaud. Chillon
was the last place which held out for Duke Charles V. of Savoy, but
the Bernese having laid siege to it by land, while the Genevese gave
an assault by water, the garrison was forced to a surrender, and
Bonnivard, with several other prisoners, was restored to liberty. He
had left Geneva a Roman Catholic state, under the domination of the
House of Savoy, he found her a free republic, openly professing the
reformed religion. The citizens were by no means backward in
recompensing him for past sufferings; in June, 1536, he was admitted
to the highest privileges of the State, and presented with the house
previously inhabited by the Roman Catholic Vice-General, besides an
annual pension of two hundred crowns of gold, so long as he chose to
dwell there."
Then came the Reformation. The people, long sick of Roman despotism and
disgusted with Romish wickedness, embraced the doctrines of the
Reformers, and Geneva became doubly free. John Calvin came in 1536, and
Protestants from other countries fled to Geneva as an asylum from
persecution. His genius and austere morals, contrasted with the
dissoluteness of the Romish Clergy, gave him unbounded influence in the
state. He was called the Pope, and Geneva the Rome of Protestantism.
John Knox was here with him, and hundreds of distinguished men whose
principles made it necessary for them to fly from England, France, Spain
and Italy. Through the seventeenth century the city had rest, and made
great progress in arts and science; the resort of men of learning, and
distinguished for the industry and thrift of its inhabitants. The
eighteenth century was marked with insurrections, distractions, civil
wars and revolution. The scenes of Paris were performed in Geneva. The
blood of her best citizens was shed by the hands of the mob, in the name
of liberty. Then the city was grafted upon France, and so remained till
1813, when with the aid of Austria, it became once more a Genevan
Republic. The next year it became one of the Cantons of Switzerland, but
the city held on to its aristocratic constitution. Still it flourished
in peace and progress, till the contest between the radical and
conservative parties broke out in 1841, and resulted in the revision of
the constitution, but not in the establishment of confidence and quiet.
In 1846 a fierce struggle occurred, still fresh in every memory, which
ended in the establishment of the present constitution, on a democratic
basis, and in giving an impulse to the attempt to overturn the thrones
of despotism in Europe; a noble but abortive effort, which failed in
1848. Geneva, under John Calvin, called Europe to religious liberty in
1536, and the people heard the call. If another John Calvin had been in
Geneva in 1848, we should not have been compelled to deplore the
miscarriage of that struggle in Europe for Constitutional liberty, which
shook every government, but eventuated in giving a charter to the people
of but a single State.
I had been wandering a month among the mountains of Switzerland, and had
not had a line from home. The bankers closed their offices at four
o'clock and it was nearly five when we arrived. Disappointed and grieved
I returned to the Hotel, the more sad as to-morrow is to be the Sabbath,
and I shall not be able to get my letters till Monday. It occurred to me
that something might have been sent for me to the care of a venerable
and well-known clergyman of Geneva, whom I should not fail to see, and I
would therefore call at once upon him, without ceremony. I soon found
his gate. A woman at the lodge answered the bell and took my card up to
the house with a message to ask if anything had been left for me; for it
was late and Saturday evening, and I would not intrude upon the pastor
at such an hour. In a few moments the good man stood on the walk, under
the trees, with a lantern in his hand; a tall old man, with long grey
hair hanging in curls, and a countenance shining with love. He put out
his hands and throwing one arm around me drew me to him, as if I were
his only son, and kissed me. It was the Rev. Dr. Cæsar Malan, and a
welcome such as a pilgrim in a strange land can feel. Many pleasant
hours I had with his interesting family, now reduced by the frequent
inroads which my countrymen have made upon it. No less than three of
them have repaid this good man's hospitality by carrying off his
daughters; and the last but one had been taken but a few days before I
arrived. These deeds were done by clergymen from America, and when I was
asked in a social gathering of Genevan ladies, if my countrymen were
obliged to go abroad for their wives, I could only say that no one would
blame them for taking a wife at a venture when they come to Geneva.
The gentle Gaussen, author of an excellent work on the Inspiration of
the Scriptures, charmed me with his sweet Christian spirit, and his
broad-hearted charity, so happily in contrast with much of the foreign
half-reformed religion, which in England and France still abounds.
D'Aubigne was not at home.
Col. Tronchin has a lovely residence out of town and overlooking the
lake. He sustains at his own charges an asylum for convalescing
invalids, one of the most interesting charities I have ever seen. He
took me through the establishment, and I felt, as I never did before,
what a blessedness it is to have wealth and a heart to use it for the
sake of those who are suffering. A young woman sitting at the door and
enjoying the sunshine, pale and thin, but smiling with the prospect of
returning health, rose, when he stopped and asked her if she was getting
well, and blessed him for her comforts, with looks and words of
gratitude that must have been a rich reward. This home for the poor is
charmingly situated in the midst of shade-trees, with walks and beds of
flowers, and furnished with everything to promote the health and comfort
of the patients, who come here when discharged from the hospitals as no
longer requiring medical aid, and are yet unable to labor. In the pure
air of this rural abode, and surrounded with all the good things which
this benevolent man has provided, twenty-five invalids are supported at
his expense, and as soon as one departs, another is ready and waiting to
come in. Indeed it occurred to me that many of them would be slow to get
well if they must be banished from this lovely spot to a cellar or
garret in a crowded street, to toil and sicken again.
Begging in the streets is forbidden, and in the whole of Switzerland you
may distinguish between the Protestant and Catholic cantons, by the fact
that few beggars are in the former, compared with the crowds that infest
the latter, annoying and often disgusting the traveller. The morals of
the two religions are as strikingly contrasted. The Catholics accuse the
Genevese females of prudery, and Sismondi tells us that the young women
are "pious, well brought up, prudent and good managers."
In the cemetery I found the grave of Sir Humphrey Davy and Pictet and
other distinguished men, foreigners and citizens, but no man knows where
Calvin is buried. He forbade any monument to be erected to mark the
spot, and so it has passed from the knowledge of man. But in the old
cathedral, standing on the spot where once stood a pagan temple of
Apollo, is the pulpit in which Calvin and Knox and Beza, Farel and
Viret, and a long line of glorious men, have preached: and this noble
building, presenting many fine specimens of architecture and sculpture
of the middle ages, now wrested from the hands of Popery, is a fitting
monument to the memory of the Reformers. In the public library founded
by _Bonnivard_, the Prisoner of Chillon, I saw the manuscripts and
portraits of all the Genevan Reformers, four hundred of the MSS. being
Calvin's, and a collection of literary curiosities of unrivalled
interest. There is little else to see in Geneva. Its attraction lies in
its historic interest, its delightful situation, and good society. In
and around it, all along the borders of Lake Leman, are sites made
famous by the residence of men and women of taste and letters.