A vain Stork—A German coachmaker—Coppet—Ferney—Voltaire’s
Church—His habitation—Crockery Cenotaph—Shoe-blacking in his
study—The old Gardener—The morning rehearsals in tragic
costume—The story of Gibbon—Voltaire catching his pet
mare—Gibbon’s opinion of Voltaire’s beauty—Their
reconciliation—The tree which shaded Franklin—The increase of his
village—The marble pyramid broken—The gardener’s petites antiquités
and cross wife—Voltaire’s opinions of his correspondents—His
remains the property of a maimed Englishman—Denial to a visitor—His
heart in the larder—Genevese pride—Swiss troops—Swiss
penitentiaries—Genevese smuggling—The Directeur Général des
Douaness an unwilling accomplice—D’Aubigné interred in the
cathedral—The Cardinal de Brogny—A swineherd—Shoes bestowed in
charity—The boy become a cardinal—The poor shoemaker rewarded—His
compassion for John Huss—Courageous death of the latter—De Brogny’s
charity—A modest genius and tolerant cardinal.
20th June.
We are still here; detained by the charm of the place and the heat,
which exceeds any I ever felt in Paris. It has been impossible to go
out except during the very brief time the twilight lasts, when we have
made excursions on horseback in the environs to Voltaire’s Ferney;
Madame de Staël’s Coppet; and though last, not least, to Lord Byron’s
villa Diodati at Cologny; the green heights on the opposite side of the
lake, and which must be visited if you would duly appreciate its
beauty. From among its trees you look to the right far along its clear
expanse; to the left on Geneva, by which it is closed and terminated;
while the range of the Jura stretches opposite. A few evenings since I
saw this view in the red light of a stormy sunset, which a poet should
have described.
We have had time to become familiar with the whole establishment, even
to learn that the grave stork has a sense of ridicule more exquisite
than I believed possible in a bird. He has the ungraceful walk of his
species, and D——, aware of his self-love, one day presumed to imitate
his hopping stride, whereupon he flew at him in fury indescribable. I
too insulted his dignity, and was glad to summon the German coachmaker
to my assistance. Since then the stork, who bears malice, when we cross
the yard, advances with most warlike demeanour, and when we are put to
flight, triumphantly throws his long bill backwards, and claps it eight
or ten times in token of victory.
Certainly the Germans of the lower class are strangely civilized, and
the working coachmaker and head waiters of the Secheron fair specimens
of it. The two latter are from the German cantons on the Swiss
frontier; they speak French, Italian, and English fluently as their own
language, and one of them passes his leisure hours in playing on the
flute, which he does skilfully. The coachmaker toils early and late,
almost his only time for rest being on the Sunday, and spent by him in
long walks into the country, of whose beauty he is an enthusiastic
admirer, or in reading on the lake shore, where we have found him
several times. Last night his workmen were in the boat, singing in
parts and splendidly; he was standing at the edge in meditation,
listening to their fine voices borne along it, and watching the faint
summer lightning which flashed at intervals, muttering in the pauses of
their song a poem by Kotzebue, which the scene recalled to him. When he
saw us, he was anxious that we too should acknowledge its beauty, and
tried as he went on to translate it into his imperfect French. He then
began to criticize Goethe and Schiller, and Madame de Staël,—he had
read them all.
This morning he passed in anxiety. In the coach-house roof a swallow
has built a nest, in which the gentle creature takes great interest,
watching with solicitude the young ones, who are just fledged, and
trying their wings. One of these was to-day too adventurous, and
alighted on the floor, whence he wanted strength to reascend. The
German was absent, and D——, who found the stray swallow, deposited
him on a beam near his abode, but not, to his patron’s dismay, within
it. When he returned, he ascended the ladder to count his birds, and
found that one was wanting. He carried it round and round, examined
every hole and corner, peeped into all parts of the roof, and went
sadly to work, saying, “Du moins je n’ai rien à me reprocher;” but he
could not fix his attention, and every ten minutes left his occupation
to remount his ladder.
This evening, as we passed him on our way to the park, his good-natured
face had brightened; his last pilgrimage was satisfactory, the fugitive
had returned to the nest.
I have amused myself by painting from the water’s edge a view of the
lake, and its opposite green shore, and distant mountains. The
coachmaker in ten minutes made me an easel, and D—— particularly
desires me to tell you that I wash my brushes in the _lake_! At first
sight it disappointed me, for I had grown accustomed to the cliffs
overhanging Chambéry, and the country round Geneva wants the boldness
which Mont Blanc is too distant to supply; but I have altered my
opinion. Seen from this spot it has a soft beauty which grows upon you;
it is clear as a mountain rivulet, and to view it in all its charm you
must sit here on a sunny evening when it is sufficiently agitated to
come murmuring in small waves to your feet, and there are just so many
clouds in the sky as to vary its water’s blue with a thousand tints of
green, and gold, and pale violet, changing like a chameleon, while its
surface is dotted with boats sweeping along with their elegant peculiar
sails like the outspread wings of a bird, and those shaded by bright
coloured awnings, in which the Genevese are rowed out to catch the
evening air, and pass singing and laughing in the distance, the voices
floating to us over the expanse as if they were at our side. The
mountain, which grows higher as it nears Geneva, is the Salive; the
blue hill of a conical form, the Mole; between which and the Salive
towers Mont Blanc; and beyond the Mole, stretches along the shore the
wooded Voiron. The most beautiful effect possible is produced by a
rainbow across this range of hills. Yesterday, anxious to insert a
threatening thundercloud in my little picture, I hurried to the shore
for the purpose, forgetting that the same cloud I admired might
inopportunely discharge itself on my head. It did not fail, and I had
only time to run to the boat-house, which is close by, whence I peeped
through the arch at a most splendid rainbow: during which time the
violent shower floated my palette, and made the oil a set of useless
globules.
The weather has been constantly broken by storms, the finest and most
terrific I ever witnessed. Last night, during two hours, the thunder,
repeated by its echoes, rolled without a pause, and the Jura was
constantly illuminated with the lightnings, sheeted, forked, or like
circles of fire, which, blazing above the heads of the mountain range,
made it resemble a line of volcanoes. This evening we rode again to
Coppet; the opposite shore, at each step we advanced, becoming bolder;
and when we returned, the full red moon was just risen above Mont
Blanc, and the yellow glitter danced on the water in a long line,
interrupted only by the dark boughs of the Secheron trees, advancing on
a little promontory.
The finest view of Mont Blanc is from the hilly road which leads to
Ferney Voltaire, and the best hour to see it when the snow looks rosy
in the evening. Ferney is on the road from Paris to Gex, and distant
but a league from Geneva. We visited it to see Voltaire’s château. On
the left, at the extremity of the village, is the avenue which leads up
the gentle ascent to the gates; without them, on a mound, stands the
church, which once bore the inscription, “Deo erexit Voltaire;” its
stones, dark with time, quietly going to ruin under its old trees. It
was for some time the parish church, but being no longer large enough
to contain the increased numbers, its ornaments have been transferred
to the new building which glares with fresh whitewash in the village
below, and it is itself converted into a receptacle for firewood. A
white-headed villager came to hold the horses in the shade, and we
followed our guide, who walked slowly from his dwelling behind the
church to the iron gates. He was seventy-six himself, and had served
Voltaire the two last years of his life, being his gardener’s son.
On entering the house, we were sorry to be consigned to the care of a
most unintelligent lout, who exhibits the drawing-room and bed-chamber,
illustrating, by his strange replies to all queries, the proverb of
“Ask no questions and you will be told no lies.” These two rooms remain
in their original state, furnished with the same tapestry chairs as
when he occupied them. In the former are the pictures so often
described, the two bad copies of Albano, and the production of an
itinerant painter, which immortalizes Voltaire’s vanity; a strange
medley of nymphs and garlands, an awkward Glory, the temple of Fame,
Apollo, and the author; and in the corner the latter’s enemies, whose
name seems to have been Legion, crowded under the weight of their
unsold works and the whips of various furies. Whether in jest or
earnest, Voltaire persisted in praising this production, and exalting
its composer as a worthy successor of Michael Angelo.
The windows of this room, and of the next in which his bed stands in
its old place, look on the grounds he planted himself. The narrow
bedstead is of rough common wood, and the author’s curtains have been
so shortened by the thefts of tourists, that their remnant is at last
above the reach of collectors. Against the wall is erected a kind of
cenotaph in crockery, surmounted by a bad bust, with the inscription,
“Son esprit est partout, mais son cœur est ici;” above is written, “Mes
mânes sont consolés, puisque mon cœur est au milieu de vous.” You know
the intention was frustrated, as his heart is at the Pantheon in Paris.
In the same room are engravings of celebrated men, remarkable only for
having been selected and hung there by Voltaire; a tapestry portrait of
the Empress of Russia, worked by herself, a bad specimen of art and
nature; one of Le Kain, the actor, crowned with bays, hangs over the
bed, and on either side that of Voltaire in his youth, and Frederick
the Great. Voltaire’s is a more agreeable picture than I had yet seen
of him, for the sarcastic expression, though perceptible, is not so
forcibly marked as in later years.
That of the king of Prussia was a present from himself, and the hard
blue eye and inflexible features tell his character as well as volumes.
There are besides likenesses of Madame Denis, Voltaire’s niece, and
Madame du Châtelet, who was, tradition says, the only woman he ever
loved; her appearance is by no means striking; and also those of his
sweep and laundress; (an arch-looking boy, and a girl with the face of
a Madonna,) in coloured crayons, and beautifully executed. The books of
the library marked with his own notes were purchased by the Empress
Catherine: and the little study which adjoined his bedroom is closed to
his admirer’s eyes, being transformed to a shoe-blacking laboratory. We
did not remain long, our before-mentioned lout being perfectly ignorant
of all which regarded his show, and only anxious to force us to buy
some wretched lithographic drawings of this small room, and its
bedstead, and cenotaph, in which it looks as large as a reception
chamber at Versailles.
Outside the house the old gardener’s part recommences; it would be
difficult to feel no interest in the faithful servant, whose life seems
to hang on the memory of his master’s. He smiles and looks happy when
encouraged to talk of him, and is very downcast when he finds his
visitors less curious about Monseigneur.
He led the way to the terrace, which commands the fine view of the
glaciers and the lake shores. At some distance is a little wood, where
he was fond of walking, and an avenue, planted by his orders, leads to
it from the park. “The terrace was his place for study,” the old man
said; “here he often came in the morning to rehearse the part he was to
act at night on the stage of his own theatre, and (dressed for it, to
save the trouble of a second toilet) he used to march backwards and
forwards, gesticulating and declaiming with great vehemence, and giving
doubts of his sanity to men less tragically minded.” At the extremity
of the terrace is a long shady walk, a most charming berceau, for the
hornbeam is completely met over head. “Here,” said the gardener,
stopping almost at its entrance, “is the very spot where Monsieur
Gibbon played the trick to Monseigneur; you recollect the story?”
We begged him to tell it. “It would do him an honour,” he said, “but
his asthma impeded his doing so while he walked by our side; he would
stand by the bench while we sate there.” A great deal of entreaty
induced him to sit also, but not to cover his white head; that remained
bare, partly in reverence to his listeners, but more to his subject,
Monseigneur:—
“Monsieur Gibbon was at Lausanne, and Monseigneur and he, though they
had never met, were very good friends, till Monsieur Gibbon presumed to
criticize some work of my master’s, who was very angry and bought a
caricature of Gibbon, and sent it to him at Lausanne. I have often had
the honour of brushing Monsieur Gibbon’s coat, and he was a very short,
corpulent man, with large head and flat nose. When he received his
picture by the post, he said he must go to Ferney, and judge by his own
eyes whether Monseigneur was not his match for ugliness. Here then he
came. Monseigneur had not forgiven the criticism, and desiring Madame
Denis to receive him, he refused to see his visitor himself. Monsieur
Gibbon said he had come to look at Voltaire, and till he could do so,
he would stay. So Monseigneur shut himself up in his study, and
Monsieur Gibbon seated himself in the drawing-room. He staid two days;
but the third Voltaire grew tired, and wrote him a note to say, that
Don Quixote and he were the reverse of one another, as the Don took
inns for châteaux, while he mistook châteaux for inns. Gibbon read the
note and went away.
“Monseigneur had a little favourite mare, who ate bread from his hand,
and allowed him to catch her when she would suffer no other person to
approach. Monsieur Gibbon spoke to the groom before he went, and said
he intended to buy her, and would not forget him if he would lead her
round when he came next morning, and let her loose beneath
Monseigneur’s windows.
“The following morning at five Voltaire heard a horse gallop, and
looking from his window saw the mare, and called angrily to the groom,
who said she had broken from him; and out came Monseigneur with a piece
of bread in his hand to catch the favourite, while Monseigneur Gibbon
hid behind the hazel foliage of the terrace walk, and as Monseigneur
passed jumped out on him.
“‘Ah,’ said he, ‘Voltaire, I have seen you now, and you are not
handsome neither;’ and turned his back on my master, who was foaming
with rage: ‘Run after him,’ he called to his secretary: ‘and tell him
to give you twelve sous for having seen the wonderful beast.’
“The secretary made haste and came up with Gibbon, who was walking down
the avenue to the village, where he had left his carriage. ‘Very
right,’ he said, when he heard the message; ‘twelve sous for seeing the
beast: there are twenty-four, and say I have paid for twice, and will
come back to get the worth of my money.’ Monseigneur stamped with his
foot, and exclaimed that some future trick would be played him. ‘We had
better be friends,’ he said to the secretary; ‘go and ask him to
dinner.’ And so, madame,” added the old gardener, rising from the bench
with a bow, “as I told you, I have often since had the honour of
brushing Monseigneur Gibbon’s coat.” He next stopped at a splendid
tree: “This,” he said, “was planted by Monseigneur’s own hand, and
under it he received Franklin. My father dug the hole, and he held the
sapling, the very spring I was born, seventy-six years ago. Almost all
these trees were planted by my father, for the village stood here when
Monseigneur bought the property; it was then only of twelve miserable
huts, and he rebuilt them lower down: when he died there were eighty.
Ah!” said the old man, sighing, “but for his attacks on religion”—A
little further he stopped in a pretty green glade:—“Here was
Monseigneur’s summer study; he built it here to free himself from the
importunity of visitors.” When it fell into decay, the present
proprietor raised in its place a black marble pyramid, bearing, among
other inscriptions, in his honour, one recording Voltaire’s horror of
the massacre of St. Barthelemy. One night, during the year 1819, it was
broken, and its pieces scattered about by persons unknown, and nothing
now marks the spot but the regrets of the white-headed gardener, soon
likely to be silent also. He was often employed, he said, to carry the
author’s portfolio up and down these walks when he paced them, as was
his custom during composition. Every now and then he signed to his
attendant to approach; wrote his notes rapidly in the portfolio,
returned it to his hands, and recommenced the promenade. We left the
park, passing the basin full of gold and silver fish, which come
shooting to the surface at the old man’s whistle, and passed the church
on our way to his house, which was the priest’s, and where he said he
had some “_petites antiquités_” to show us, if we would honour him by
entering. He pointed out the tomb built against the church wall, in the
form of a pyramid. Voltaire had intended it should contain his bones;
but, like his heart, they have had a different destination. The theatre
was within the park wall, but a few yards from this intended grave and
just opposite; it has been taken down.
The gardener’s abode was scrupulously clean, but guarded by a dame of
vinegar aspect. Her ire was excited by the arrival of other visitors,
as she feared, from her husband’s lingering with us, that he might miss
the coming harvest. She had lost her keys and her memory when he
demanded the various boxes which contained his treasures; but his
positiveness conquered, and, one after the other, she produced
Monseigneur’s cane, and his full-bottomed wig, and a soiled silk cap,
embroidered and folded in five envelopes. The most interesting appeared
last, in the form of a book, whose leaves were stuck all over with
seals, and a line in Voltaire’s handwriting under each. He had found
means of abridging the trouble of his extensive correspondence, for
these were the correspondents’ seals, taken from their letters, and his
remarks (concisely affording a comprehensive view of character) spared
him often the trouble of looking farther: one was _Fou de Genève_; I
saw little or no commendation.
Ferney is now again the property of the same family from whom it was
purchased by Voltaire; that it has once, since his death, belonged to
an Englishman, or rather been rented by one, is recorded in Monsieur de
Laborde’s journey to Switzerland. He mentions, that in the year 1781 he
went to the château of Ferney; he was an enthusiastic admirer of
Voltaire, and the following are his own words:—
“I descended from my carriage; I approached, impatient to exist in the
same place where the great man lived. I rang—the gate opened—I rushed
in—I was pushed back, and entrance refused me, because the master had
given orders to admit no one.
“‘What do you mean?’ I exclaimed hastily. ‘What kind of a master is
this who refuses to see Frenchmen? Is the château no longer the
property of Monsieur de la Villette?’
“‘Sir, he has let it.’
“‘Let it! let the remains of Voltaire?’
“‘Only for a year.’
“‘And who is the successor of our great genius?’
“‘An Englishman.’
“‘Robertson, no doubt.’
“‘No, a London shopkeeper with one leg, one arm, and one eye.’
“‘Never mind, I must speak with him.’
“‘He is not at home.’
“‘Will he soon be back?’
“‘I do not know.’
“‘And where is Voltaire’s heart?’
“‘On a shelf in the larder.’
“‘Is it possible? let me see it for only a moment; I will give you
whatever you please.’
“‘Sir, I should be turned away.’
“‘Abominable varlet; may heaven confound you and your master!’”
24th.
Wild weather latterly; the extreme heat having suddenly changed to
storms and north-east winds, the bise blowing a tempest, and the waves
of the lake dashing over the walls, they till now have peaceably lain
many feet below. We have been agreeably surprised by finding that
friends, whom we believed far away in the shade of their quiet park,
are on the continent also, and will soon join us here. The immediate
environs of Geneva so closely resemble England, with their good
macadamized roads, bordered by park palings and neat cottages with turf
and flowers, and no apparent poverty, that with my back turned to Mont
Blanc, I could have believed myself in my own country. The common
people are remarkably industrious and certainly know the value of
time,—for I constantly see young girls and old men also walking along
with a load on their backs of fruit and vegetables to be sold in the
town, perseveringly knitting the whole way. The Genevese are proud in
their own country: though when they emigrate, to make their fortunes,
they will toil without murmur. The more abject and severe labour here
is performed by bands of poor Savoyards, who arrive for the _lessive_
and the haymaking and harvest, ragged and cheerful and untiring, like
the troops of Irish who flock yearly to England. They are a more gentle
and amiable people than the money-making Genevese; but so wretched
where their unproductive territory touches that of Geneva, that,
passing the frontier and the cross with its artificial flowers, the
contrast from the clean comfort of the Swiss to their squalid misery is
striking and sad.
The Swiss troops, with the exception of the few on permanent service,
receive no pay, and perform their duty without murmur. Every year they
pass three months encamped; so that Switzerland might, in case of
necessity, find ready at her call an army of 180,000 men. No citizen
can marry unless he possesses bible, arms, and uniform. Each citizen is
an elector, and the elections take place in the churches. Their
penitentiaries (for Switzerland has no punishment answering to the
English hulks or the French galères) are conducted with a view to
future amelioration; some have a small library, reading being allowed
in their hours of recreation. It is their rule, that each man condemned
to reclusion, and not knowing a trade, shall learn one, the trade
itself resting on the prisoner’s choice, and the two-thirds of the
produce of his labour, during his detention, belonging to himself: of
these two shares he is permitted to transmit one to his family. The
following notes are copied from the register of one of these houses:—
“B——, born at Bellerive in 1807, miller’s man, poor, stole three
measures of grain; condemned for two years. At the end of this time his
benefice, over and above the money sent his family, amounted to a
hundred francs. Left a skilful weaver.”
Under these lines the pastor of the village, to which B—— had
returned, had written the following:—
“On his return to Bellerive, this young man, suffering from extreme
humiliation, concealed himself in his father’s house. His former
companions, assembling in a body, went to seek him on the Sunday, and
conducted him to church in the midst of them.”
The French custom-houses are extremely severe on the article of
Genevese jewellery; but notwithstanding all the preventive measures
adopted, the importation of smuggled goods into France is considerable,
and the cleverness of the Genevese smugglers outwits even the sharp
French douaniers. It is an amusing fact, that when the Comte de St.
Cricq was Directeur Général des Douaness, he went to Geneva, and there
purchased of Monsieur Beautte, one of the principal jewellers, 30,000
francs’ worth of jewels, on condition of their being smuggled into his
hotel in Paris. Monsieur Beautte made no objection, only presenting the
buyer with a paper for signature, by which he obliged himself to pay
the usual five per cent. on the sum due. The directeur smiled, took a
pen and signed St. Cricq, directeur des douanes. Beautte merely bowed,
and said, “Monsieur le Directeur, the jewels you have purchased will be
arrived as soon as yourself.”
At the frontier, the Comte de St. Cricq left strict charges of
surveillance, and the promise of a reward of fifty louis to the employé
who should seize the jewels; but arrived in Paris he entered his
chamber to change his dress, and the first object he saw there was an
elegantly shaped box bearing his name engraved on a silver plate; he
opened it and found the jewels. Beautte had come to an understanding
with a waiter of the inn, who, while assisting the directeur’s people
to pack the carriage of their master, slipped the aforesaid box among
the baggage; and the valet, on reaching Paris, noticing it for the
first time, and supposing it to contain some recent purchase of value,
immediately carried it to the count’s private apartment. Thus, while
triple attention examined and tormented the unoffending travellers who
crossed the frontier, Mons. de St. Cricq’s carriage unmolested smuggled
his own contraband purchase to his own hotel.
The exterior of the cathedral (St. Pierre) is simple to plainness,
saving the Corinthian portico, which forms on its surface a very
inappropriate patch. Within are interred D’Aubigné, Henry the Fourth’s
friend; and the Comte de Rohan, a Protestant leader of Louis the
Thirteenth’s time. The Cardinal de Brogny, who died in 1426, was buried
by his own command in the chapel of the Maccabees, which he founded.
Its carvings and paintings had been at his desire executed to
commemorate his low origin and remarkable history, and some of them are
still preserved in the public library of Geneva. There were a child
keeping pigs! wreaths of oak leaves and acorns, and in another place a
pair of shoes. His name was Jean Allarmet, and he was born at the
village of Brogny in the year 1342, his parents being peasants. Brogny
lies on the road from Annecy to Geneva, and he was occupied keeping his
flock of pigs, when, some monks bound to Geneva, and uncertain of the
way, stopped to question him. Struck by his intelligent eye and prompt
answers, they proposed to him to follow themselves, promising to afford
him means of study, which the delighted boy eagerly accepted, and his
father consenting to his departure he repaired to Geneva, and soon so
far distinguished himself by his premature talent, as to draw upon him
the attention of a cardinal, who proposed in turn that he should seek
him at Avignon and prosecute more serious studies under his protection.
He consented with the same ardour as before, and prepared to set
forward on his journey on foot; but he had no shoes, and he counted the
contents of his light purse in vain, he had not enough to pay for a
pair. A friendly shoemaker, aware of his embarrassment, supplied him
with the necessary article, and said laughing, “You shall pay me when
you are a cardinal.” At Avignon the youth made rapid progress, and rose
to honour and reputation, becoming vicar general of the archbishop of
Vienne, and charged by Pope Clement the Seventh with the education of
his nephew; and in consequence of the manner in which he fulfilled this
last trust, created by him archbishop of Arles and cardinal. It was
then, when many years had passed, and the shoemaker had grown old and
sunk into poverty, that his humble dwelling was sought out by some
richly attired domestics, who addressed him by name, and asked him
whether he recollected the present he had made a poor student, who
would otherwise have been reduced to perform barefoot his journey to
Avignon.
“Very well,” answered the shoemaker; “he was a fine fearless boy. I
could afford to be charitable in those days, and I trust I may receive
my reward in heaven, for I have had none on earth.” “You are wrong,”
said the domestics; “that boy is become a cardinal, and sends to seek
you that you may fill the place of maître d’hôtel in his household.”
The poor man was overjoyed, and, abandoning his deserted stall, lived
and died in the cardinal’s service.
In 1414, notwithstanding De Brogny’s advanced age, he repaired to
Constance, at the period when John Huss had been deluded thither by the
faithless Emperor Sigismund’s safe-conduct, to defend his doctrine
before the assembled council. He presided it several times, had daily
and nightly conferences with Sigismund, and when Huss had been cast
into a dungeon and doomed to recant what were termed his errors, or to
die at the stake, the cardinal, compassionating his misfortunes,
visited him often in his cell, and implored as well as reasoned with
him. It was in vain, for the reformer’s firmness was not to be shaken.
Conducted to the place of his torture, (which is still shown at
Constance,) and seeing a female fanatic hurrying forward to cast her
faggot on the pile, he exclaimed with the calmness of a philosophical
spectator, “Oh sancta simplicitas!” and when he had ascended it, and
the executioner, to spare him the sight, applied his torch to that part
to which his back was turned, he said, “You may light it before my
eyes; if I had feared fire, I should not be here now.” Even when the
flames closed round his tall figure, his voice was heard from the midst
of them chanting a psalm.
It would be too long to tell you what monasteries the Cardinal De
Brogny founded, and what churches received his donations. You will be
more interested in hearing that he bequeathed four hundred golden
florins as marriage portions to poor maidens in the county of Geneva; a
larger sum to the widows and orphans of Annecy; and that, possessor of
forty benefices, he spent their revenues on public works and the care
of the poor. A rule of his house fed thirty mendicants daily, and a
codicil of his will ordered that this custom should be continued an
entire year after his death. On his return from Constance, he visited
his birthplace, the village of Brogny, and, assembling in his father’s
cottage all the old men of the district, mostly companions of his
boyhood, he dined in their company, and, inquiring into their affairs,
provided for their future comfort.
He died at Rome, aged 84, and was buried at Geneva. Bonnivard saw his
statue on the tomb, afterwards thrown down by the Reformers; and a
later writer says it is a pity they did so, as one would have rejoiced
to see the features of a “modest man of genius and a tolerant cardinal.”