GENEVA—FREYBURG—BERNE.
BY a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask you to follow me,
I came to Switzerland, on my way to the north of Europe.
When I was a boy of nine, I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “Extremum
oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva,” and
rendered it into English, “the farthest town of the Allobroges, and
nearest to the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva.” Out of the lake
flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem to have been
colored with indigo, and Sir Humphrey Davy, who died here, attributed
the deep color to the presence of iodine. The outlet of the lake is
crossed by several bridges, and the city stands on both sides. The old
wall on the left bank was originally built by the men of Julius Cæsar,
as is attested by coins and other remains of those days, to this day
occasionally found. Its antiquity, its remarkable history, its past
greatness, and its present beauty, the many eminent men who have here
spent their lives, and more than all its situation on this lake, give
the city of Geneva an attraction that no other place in Switzerland
possesses.
The cathedral here in Geneva is the venerable edifice in which John
Calvin and his peers in the Reformation preached the doctrines that are
now working their way into the minds of the entire Christian world, as
the real basis for civil and religious liberty and progress.
[Illustration: GENEVA AND THE RHONE.]
As we entered it, we trode upon the nearly worn-out epitaphs in the
stones of the floor, to the memory of Roman Catholic dignitaries, who
ruled here before the Reformation, for the edifice is more than five
hundred years old. A chapel of the Virgin Mary, no longer needed for her
worship, holds the tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan, 1638, and in
another part of the church is the monument to the memory of Agrippa
d’Aubigny.
[Illustration: Portrait of Merle d’Aubigné]
In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many interesting
manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of his sermons, twelve of
letters written to him, his own letter to Lady Jane Grey while she was a
prisoner in the Tower of London, and 394 other letters by his own hand.
Besides these, there is nothing more than the severe simplicity and
solidity of the edifice, with its remarkable history and associations,
to make it interesting.
It appears like a slow old town. But the names of good great men, and
great bad men, are so identified with Geneva, that it is never spoken of
without being associated with their works and influence. Calvin came
here three hundred years ago and more,—the three hundredth anniversary
of his death was commemorated a few years ago,—Rousseau was born here,
Voltaire and Madame de Stael and Lord Byron have resided here; and a
long list could easily be made longer, of illustrious men, some of them
flying from religious persecution, some from the reach of the sword of
justice, some hiding from themselves, for it has been, and still is, an
asylum for all, of every name, faith, and aim, who would be free to
think and speak, while they yield wholesome obedience to the laws. I was
quite surprised to-day when the excellent United States consul at this
place showed me in one of the infidel Rousseau’s works a note in which
that brilliant writer speaks in the highest terms of John Calvin, not
only as a theologian, but a statesman whose views, he says, will be
always held in reverence.
[Illustration: D’AUBIGNE’S BIRTHPLACE AND RESIDENCE.]
At the foot of the lake, and near the city, are many beautiful villas,
with the water in front of them, the Jura mountains on the north to be
seen by those on one side, and the mountains of Savoy on the south-east
in full view from the other. Mont Blanc towers above them, “the monarch
of mountains,” his white head and shoulders seen above the dark ranges
in front of him, like the bare form of a giant among the hills. Rev. Dr.
Merle d’Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, Sir Robert Peel, and
other eminent men, have had their residences on the south-east side, and
Baron Rothschild has a splendid palace on the opposite shore. Voltaire’s
house, and the residence of the Empress Josephine, are also there. The
shores, as we go up the lake, are covered with vineyards, and every
village that we pass is marked with some features of historical
interest. Madame de Stael formerly resided at Coppet, a little village
where is a Roman tombstone with this inscription, “Vixi ut vivis:
morieris ut sum mortuus: sic vita traditur, vale viator et abi in rem
tuam.” Ninon is an old town that boasts of Julius Cæsar as its founder,
and under its castle are those gloomy dungeons which are the terrible
witnesses of the cruel customs of past ages. On the left shore as we
advance we notice a village on the extremity of a cape, which is called
St. Protais; this saint was the Bishop of Avenches, the Roman Aventicum,
who died in 530, and was buried here, tradition says, because “his body
did not seem inclined to go any further.” And in 1400, nearly a thousand
years after his burial, it was proposed to remove him to Lausanne, but
he showed such signs of repugnance, that it was deemed improper to
disturb him any more. Near this was once a town named Lisus, which was
destroyed in 563 by a sudden rise of the lake occasioned by the fall
into its waters of an entire mountain on the Savoy side. It was an
important place, as the remains of vases, statuary, and mosaics attest
to this day. As we reach the town of Morges the scenery of the lake has
opened upon us with grandeur and beauty which is impossible to describe.
The snow-clad summits of the Grand Muveran, the rocks of the Diablerets,
and the tapering jagged peaks that are appropriately called teeth, and
have their several names, which one is scarcely expected to remember,
now rise in full view, and the excitement of the voyage is fairly begun.
Away in the distance is Mont Combin, one of the stupendous Mont Rosa
group, and there are the mountains of Abondance and the cragged peaks of
Meillerie, while in the background, overlooking all, glows and blazes in
the splendors of this summer sun the everlasting snow-crown of Mont
Blanc.
That square tower in Morges is the old donjon of Wufflens. It rises 170
feet, and towers above a group of turrets, all of brick. It was built in
the tenth century by Bertha, whose memory is so sacred, the good queen
of the Burgundians, who visited every part of her kingdom on horseback
once a year, with a distaff in her hand, to set her subjects an example
of industry.
[Illustration: LAUSANNE, AND THE LAKE OF GENEVA.]
The most picturesque in its situation, and the most famous city on the
lake, except Geneva, is _Lausanne_, the capital of the canton of Vaud,
built on three hills, along the slope of the Jorat, and dating back to
the year 563. And then, oh wonderful to relate! it became in 580 the see
of a bishop, the prelate Marius bringing hither the relics of St. Anne,
from whom the town is named, _Laus Annæ_, and a part of the true cross,
and some of the Virgin Mary’s hair, and, more than all, a _rat_,—a
veritable rat, which had devoured some of the bread after it was
consecrated, and was thus converted into the body of our Lord! These
valuable possessions drew immense numbers of pilgrims, and raised the
celebrity of the place, which afterwards had a remarkable history, civil
and religious. Its cathedral was consecrated by the Pope himself. In
1479 the whole region was overrun with a species of beetles like
locusts, devouring every green thing. The invaders were _excommunicated_
by the bishop, but the sentence had no effect! Farel and Viret and
Calvin, with other reformers, were here in convention in 1536. Here
Gibbon finished his work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,”
and the principal hotel bears his name, while the house he lived in and
the terrace where he often walked, are pointed out as objects of
interest to travellers. We rode through the quaint old place, and then
continued our journey.
But if we pause even to mention the places on the northern shore of the
lake, and allude to the events that have made them classic, we shall not
get over the ground or the water to-day. We have now reached the upper
section of the lake, and the mountains round about it have been rising
in sublimity and beauty as we advance. The water is a thousand feet
deep. On the right hand the mountains rise precipitously from the
water’s edge, and on the left vineyards cover the sloping hills:
sometimes walls sixty and eighty feet high have been built to support
the soil, and on the terraces so formed luxurious vines are flourishing,
and in the days of the old Romans a temple to Bacchus, the god of wine,
was standing here, the ruins remaining to this day. The view from Vevey
is regarded by many as the most delightful on the lake, and the
situation of the town is so picturesque and healthful, so cool in summer
and so warm in winter, that it is sought for as a residence by strangers
all the year round, and in this strangely ordered region, in sight of
everlasting snows, the pomegranate and the rose-laurel and myrtle
blossom in the open air, as in the south of France. And now we come to
the upper end of the lake, and such an amphitheatre of mountains, rocks,
and hills, sure no other lake in the wide world presents. The sun was
low in the west as we approached this eastern end, and a flood of golden
light was poured in upon the bosom of the waters, and covered the
stupendous battlements on either side with a living glory.
Close down on the edge of the lake is the old Castle of Chillon, more
than six hundred years of age, where the Dukes of Savoy ruled with
terrible power. Down into its dungeons we were led, to one where on a
flat rock the condemned prisoners spent the last nights of their lives;
to another where, on a cross-beam still here, they were hung; to the
stone column, one of the supports of the castle, where for seven long
years the Prior of St. Victor, Francis Bonnivard, for his heroic defence
of the liberty of Geneva, was chained to a ring yet remaining in the
pillar, the chain passing around his body, and allowing him space only
to walk around it, year after year, or to lie down and sleep by its
side. In this dungeon many of the reformers were imprisoned.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.]
In an upper room we found the chamber of torture, in which was a wooden
column, to which prisoners were put to the _question_, chained, and
tormented with fire, or drawn and stretched with rings and pulleys; and
in another room a trap-door is open, and a spiral stone staircase leads
downward,—the prisoner, unconscious of what was before him, steps down
three steps into the darkness, and the fourth is eighty feet below,
where he is dashed to pieces on the rocks. Yet in this castle, and near
to these horrid places, are the bed-chambers and parlors and
dining-rooms of dukes and duchesses, men and women like ourselves, who
could eat, drink, and be merry under the same roof with all this cruelty
and misery.
And this is at the head of the Lake of Geneva. Within ten minutes’ walk
is the Hotel Byron, one of the best places to stop at in all Europe. It
is in the centre of a semi-circular sweep of beetling crags, and
snow-peaked mountains, and wine-growing hill-sides; it looks away down
the lake, and not another house, not a sound disturbs its deep
tranquillity, while nature, history, poetry, and art invite us to
repose.
Leaving Chillon in the morning _by rail_ gave us a new idea of the way
that Switzerland is now explored by tourists. When I was here, a dozen
years ago, it was to be seen only by footing it through the passes, or
riding on horseback, with now and then a lift in the _diligence_, or
antiquated stage-coach. Now railroads have been made to connect so many
of the principal places and points of interest, that only the younger
and more vigorous of travellers strike out into the mountain fastnesses,
and toil over the hills where as yet no roads have been made. I inquired
of the porter this morning how to get across from Martigny to the Vale
of Chamouny. “You takes von leetel hoss,” he said, from which I knew
that the ponies still do the work through that finest of all the day’s
rides in Switzerland. There are hundreds of interesting tours yet to be
made where no rail or coach will ever intrude, and no other locomotive,
unless Professor Andrews makes his air-ship a success: in which case it
would be admirably adapted to travel in this country. One of the last
places in the world I should have thought practicable for a railroad is
the border of this lake, and yet here it is entering the valley where
the Rhone empties, and so extending to Martigny and to Sion.
[Illustration: THE LAKE AND CITY OF GENEVA.]
Penetrating secluded regions where frost has been king since the world
began, the rail has made even the everlasting glaciers, these frozen
cataracts, articles of merchandise. As the quarries in the mountains are
worked by the art and spirit of man, so the icebergs that here grow from
age to age, and scarcely seem to melt at all, are cut into blocks, and
transported by the rail to Paris. The glacier of the Grindelwald is
drank in brandy punches at the Grand Hotel and the Louvre. To get the
ice, these mighty frozen seas are excavated in galleries and chambers,
and magnificent saloons. The depths of snow on the surface exclude the
sunbeams, but calcium lights shed a brilliant lustre, reflected as from
a thousand mirrors of glass, and in small apartments fitted up for the
purpose, the furniture of a well appointed parlor, sofas, chairs, and
cushions, invite to cold but not inhospitable repose. When the Mer de
Glace is taken by rail down into Italy, and thence by ship to the East
Indies, ice will be reasonably cheap in Calcutta. And this will be more
readily done than to tow an iceberg from the North Pole.
As I said, we left Chillon in the morning, and retraced our course a
part of the way by the railroad which passes on the hill-sides, away
above the lake, through luxuriant vineyards, and over stupendous gorges,
spanned by stone bridges, and arrived before noon at Lausanne. Here we
struck out into the interior of Switzerland. And I was at once impressed
with the great progress, even in this stationary country, made in the
last thirteen years. Then we traversed this wild and wonderful country
mainly over paths that no wheel had ever marked, and sometimes by ways
that only the footstep of the most cautious traveller might tread. Now,
we take the _coupé_, or front compartment of an elegantly fitted up
rail-car. It has seats for four persons only, with rests for the head
and the feet, and a table before you, and windows in front and sides, so
that you can see all that is around you, or write of what you see and
feel. Before us are the peaks of untrodden hills, all covered deep in
perpetual snows, the pink color on the white like the hues of roses, as
the sun shines on but never melts them; here, on the right, I see the
lake that yesterday we sailed through from end to end; now it is smooth
as a silver sea, and as beautiful; reflecting majestic mountains, and
cities and villages where wealth and art and letters and taste have for
ages delighted to dwell. And on the other hand, and sometimes on both
sides of us, we see Swiss valleys teeming with a busy, peaceful, happy
people, whose homes suggest to me the thought of contentment, and
therefore happiness. The old city of Romont we pass below, as it stands
on a hill with an ancient wall and towers surrounding it; good enough in
those old times when bows and spears and stones were the weapons of war,
but of no account in these times of Columbiads and Paixhan guns. At the
foot of the hill on which it stands, the fields are laid off with walks
and garnished with groves, showing that the people of these regions
delight in those enjoyments that indicate culture and taste.
The city of Freyburg, where we passed the night, is remarkable as being
the seat of the chief power of Romanism in Switzerland. It has as many
as ten convents and monasteries and high seminaries of learning. The
suspension bridge is said to be the longest in the world, nine hundred
feet: it is not so beautiful as the one at Niagara, but may be longer.
The organ of Freyburg has been long celebrated as one of the best
instruments in the world, and there is probably but one superior to it.
Yet the performances upon it are so unequal, varying with the skill or
the humor of the organist, that very different reports are made of it by
parties hearing it at different times. Perhaps it was my good fortune to
hear it under circumstances the most favorable. Certainly the music was
the most effective of any that I have ever heard, more so than any I
expect to hear till the “nobler, sweeter strains” of the divine melodies
break on the spirit’s ear among the harmonies of heaven.
The cathedral dates back to 1285. Over the front entrance is a queer old
bas-relief, representing the last judgment. The Father, God himself,
done in stone, sits aloft, with angels blowing trumpets around him. At
his feet, on the right, the righteous are led off in triumph to their
places in glory, and on the left a devil is weighing souls in a pair of
scales; another devil, with the head of a pig, is carrying a lot of poor
sinners in a basket on his back, and is about to cast them into a great
kettle where others are boiling, while little imps are blowing the fires
with bellows, and hell itself, represented by the jaws of a monster,
yawns near, and Satan sits on his throne above. We studied this strange
device until the evening shades were too dense to permit us to see it,
and then entered the portals. Darkness and silence reigned within. Two
candles on the columns near the altar gave all the “dim religious
light,” that only served to deepen the gloomy grandeur of the venerable
pile. A few persons had already been admitted, and were conversing in
whispers, invisible and scarcely audible in the distance. We sat as far
away from the organ as we could, and where it was probable it could be
heard to the best advantage. As the hour approached (it is played from
half-past eight to half-past nine every evening), the strangers, who
pause here on their travels, entered in little groups, and then a large
crowd of gentlemen, who, as I learned the next day, were the teachers,
professors, and other literary men of Switzerland, came in together,
filling every available place. They were in Freyburg in convention, and
by invitation were now present to enjoy the musical feast. It may be
that owing to this unusual attendance of the learned and cultivated men
of the country, we had the highest possible development of the powers of
the instrument and the ability of the organist.
Something in the circumstances doubtless added to the dramatic effect of
the exhibition. The cathedral seemed to be full of people, but a few
only could be seen, and a sense of solemnity, devotion, awe, began to
steal upon me as I sat waiting for the first notes of the organ, which
was lighted only by a single candle, and that unseen, so that the
instrument seemed away among the stars. Some of its pipes are thirty-two
feet long. They are 7,800 in number, with sixty-four stops. As I looked
up expectant, I thought, “Oh, if it had only a soul!” And then, just
then, a breath of melody, so soft, so sweet, so soul-like, came along on
the still air, it might have been the first notes of the advent song of
peace that fell like this by night over Bethlehem. This gentle stream of
music rose and swelled into a river of melody that soon burst its banks
and became a rushing torrent of sound, mighty in its power, almost awful
in its expression. This was but the prelude. Then came, in successive
anthems, songs and passages of master-pieces of the great composers;
some of them familiar, all of them exquisite in their effect, to
illustrate the wondrous faculties of this uninspired, untenanted
mechanism, that was yet able to represent with such fidelity the deep
and lofty, the softest and strongest emotions of the soul.
Now, the imitation of the human voice was so perfect, it required an
effort of the mind to believe that a living being was _not_ rendering
those plaintive strains in some distant chamber of this vast hall; and
now, the ring of bells broke musically on the ear, and the far-away toll
of some solemn church-bell added its voice to the harmony. The Alpine
horn, the flute, and other instruments were so distinctly given, it was
hard to comprehend the truth that, in the midst of one grand
performance, on a single instrument, so many and so distinct and perfect
imitations of others could be introduced. Perhaps nothing was more
beautiful than the tinkling of water dropping into a fountain; yet, when
one effect had been enjoyed, as if the most complete, another soon
succeeded, so delicate and so touching, that it seemed as if the last
were more lovely than all which had been heard before.
It is quite impossible to speak of the closing performance without being
suspected, by those who have not heard it, of exaggeration. And, indeed,
so differently are we constituted, that some will be charmed with a
picture or statue, ravished with eloquence of oratory or music, and
delighted with a landscape or waterfall, while others exposed to the
same influences are as unmoved as the marble or the instrument. I know
that I am not one of them, thanks to him who made us to differ; and I
know, too, that they who sat near me, when the last grand movement of
this organ was made, are not of them. For when the strong wind began to
shake the walls of the old cathedral, the rain to pour in torrents on
the roof, the thunder rolling in terrific majesty,
“Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed,”
we bowed our heads, with such a sense of awe and adoration, as could
scarcely have been increased if the war of elements had indeed been
bursting on us, and the voice of the Almighty had suddenly filled his
temple.
I will not describe the effect of this music: how it soothed, subdued,
and melted the heart when its tenderest utterances fell like balm on a
wounded spirit; how it carried me away to other days, and far-away
lands, and lifted me again to thoughts of heaven and the harmonies of
the saints; and so pure, so holy were the strains and the associations
they brought with them, I wept that I had ever lived but in the hallowed
atmosphere of the Good, the Unseen, and Infinite! Nor was this a
transient sentiment, fading when the hour of such strange teaching was
ended, and the gothic temple ceased to tremble with these majestic
tones. It has followed me for days and nights among these stupendous
mountain fastnesses, over ice-clad plains, where “motionless torrents,
silent cataracts,” proclaim the power of him who “clothes them with
rainbows,” only less lustrous than the one around his throne. I hear the
voice of God everywhere, in this sublime and awful land. But if these
silent works of his are eloquent to speak his praise, how much more is
such a voice as that organ, the great achievement of a mind and hand
that God made, endowed, and guided in their work.
I have thought in years past that words are not essential to a train of
thought: we think in words, always and only in words. But now I know
that we need no words to make us feel, and words are not made that are
capable of expressing what we feel. As we sat in silence beneath the
majestic harmonies of this surpassing instrument, even so it were better
that I had made no attempt to portray with pen what is not in the
compass of words to utter. It is to be heard and felt and enjoyed.
Just beyond Freyburg, as we go to Berne, is the battle-field of Morat,
which battle was fought four hundred years ago, but is famous to this
day: for the bones of the slain were gathered into a heap, and some of
them are still to be seen. It was formerly the custom for every
Burgundian who passed to carry a bone home with him to bury in his own
country, and Lord Byron said that he took away enough to make a quarter
of a man. But they are mostly gone now, and an obelisk is set up to mark
the field.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AND PLATFORM AT BERNE.]
By stopping over from one train to another you will see all that is
worth seeing in the quaint old city of _Berne_,—the German for Bear,—the
city of Bears, so called because it is built on the spot where its
founder, Berchthold, of Zahringen, slew a bear long time ago. So the
people keep three or four of them in a stone pit, at the public expense,
for the idle and youthful to look at and feed and see them climb a tree.
It is amusing to see a city worshipping bears. Therefore go to see the
bears, when you go to Berne. Do not fall over the parapet, for if you
do, the bears will tear you to bits, as they did an unfortunate
Englishman on the 3d of March, 1861. If you happen to be at the old
clock tower when it is striking the hour, you will see a curious
procession, which presents a very striking appearance; and, indeed,
every fountain and statue and mountain is deformed with ugly bears, till
you cannot bear to see them. You will be quite willing to leave the city
after walking through its principal streets, where the second story of
the houses projects over the sidewalks, making a covered promenade, and
the shops are half-way in the street, and the market-women sit all along
the way with their baskets of vegetables, and the chicken vendors are
ready to cut off the heads of the fowls over a drain that carries off
the blood, and so forth.
Besides the hotels, the only notable edifice is the Federal Palace, a
new and truly beautiful building. Here the National Diet, or Congress of
Switzerland, meets annually in July. There are twenty-two cantons, or
states, in the Swiss Confederation, and they are severally independent,
but unite in this council for purposes of mutual protection and support.
Each canton has a dialect, or patois, peculiar to itself, and sometimes
unintelligible to its neighbors; and the French, the German, and the
Italian languages are so generally spoken in distinct cantons, that they
are obliged to have an interpreter in Congress to redeliver a speech, or
restate an argument in two other languages after a member has made it
first in the only one that he understands. What a blessed thing it is
that our congressmen understand, at least, each other’s language, for if
their speeches had to be repeated three times, when would the assembly
ever break up?
The grandest sight in Berne is the range of Bernese Alps, and a grander
spectacle, perhaps, the country itself cannot present. When that long,
white, rifted, mountain-boundary of the world stands up in its majesty,
lighted as we saw it by a blazing noonday sun, it is sublime as well as
beautiful.
[Illustration: ON THE LAKE OF THUN.]
It is only an hour by rail to Thun, and then we are on a lovely little
lake ten miles long, with lofty mountains on each side of it; so lovely
indeed is this lake, that days after we had left it, when other views
were spoken of, Thun always had its admiring advocates, who claimed for
it the pre-eminence in beauty over all that we had seen. And so in this
land of glorious natural scenery, where every valley is a subject for a
picture, every mountain a study, and every lake a gem, it is easy to
exhaust the words of admiration, and then fail to convey any adequate
idea of the constant succession of splendors that greet the traveller’s
never-wearied eye.
Writing these last words, I look up, and before me is the Jungfrau,
clothed in white raiment from crown to foot. The sky kisses her cold
brow. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so are the everlasting
hills about her now and ever. But no words can give to you, beyond the
sea, the faintest conception of what one feels who exposes his soul to
these visions of grandeur and beauty, and rejoices as he thinks “My
_Father_ made them all.”