The church itself was old--almost as old as Swiss freedom, and older
than the freedom of the Vaud. The Gothic interior, which had once, no
doubt, been idolatrously frescoed and furnished with statues, was now
naked and coldly Protestant; one window, partly stained, let in a little
colored light to mix with the wintry day that struck through the others.
The pulpit was in the centre of the church, and the clerk's desk
diagonally across from it. The floor was boarded over, but a chill
struck through from the stones below, and the people seemed to shiver
through the service that preceded the election. When the pasteur mounted
the pulpit they listened faithfully, but when the clerk led the psalm
they vented their suffering in the most dreadful groaning that ever
passed for singing outside of one of our country churches.
It was all very like home, and yet unlike it, for there is much more
government in Switzerland than with us, and much less play of
individuality. In small communes, for example, like Villeneuve, there
are features of practical socialism, which have existed apparently from
the earliest times. Certain things are held in common, as mountain
pasturage and the forests, from which each family has a provision of
fuel. These and other possessions of the commune are "confided to the
public faith," and trespass is punished with signal severity. The trees
are felled under government inspection, and the woods are never cut off
wholesale. When a tree is chopped down a tree is planted, and the floods
that ravage Italy from the mountains denuded of their forests are
unknown to the wiser Swiss. Throughout Switzerland the State insures
against fire, and inflicts penalties for neglect and carelessness from
which fires may result. Education is compulsory, and there is a rigid
military service, and a show of public force everywhere which is quite
unknown to our unneighbored, easy-going republic. I should say, upon the
whole, that the likeness was more in social than in political things,
strange as that may appear. There seemed to be much the same freedom
among young people, and democratic institutions had produced a kindred
type of manners in both countries. But I will not be very confident
about all this, for I might easily be mistaken. The Swiss make their
social distinctions as we do; and in Geneva and Lausanne I understood
that a more than American exclusivism prevailed in families that held
themselves to be peculiarly good, and believed themselves very old.
Our excursions into society at Villeneuve were confined to a single tea
at the pasteur's, where we went with mademoiselle one evening. He lived
in a certain Villa Garibaldi, which had belonged to an Italian refugee,
now long repatriated, and which stood at the foot of the nearest
mountain. To reach the front door we passed through the vineyard to the
back of the house, where a huge dog leaped the length of his chain at
us, and a maid let us in. The pasteur, in a coat of unclerical cut, and
his wife, in black silk, received us in the parlor, which was heated by
a handsome porcelain stove, and simply furnished, much like such a room
at home. Madame P----, who was musical, played a tempestuously
representative composition called "L'Orage" on the upright piano, and
joined from time to time in her husband's talk about Swiss affairs,
which I have already allowed the reader to profit by. They offered us
tea, wine, grapes, and cake, and we came away at eleven, lighted home
through the vineyards by Louis, the farm boy, with his lantern.
[Illustration: _The Market, Vevay--A Bargain before the Notary_]
Another day mademoiselle did us the pleasure to take us to her sister,
married, and living at Aigle--a clean, many-hotelled, prosperous town, a
few miles off, which had also the merit of a very fine old castle. We
found our friends in an apartment of a former convent, behind which
stretched a pretty lawn, with flowers and a fountain, and then vineyards
to the foot of the mountains and far up their sides. We entered the
court by a great stone-paved carriage-way, as in Italy, and we found the
drawing-room furnished with Italian simplicity, and abounding in
souvenirs of the hostess's long Florentine sojourn; but it was fortified
against the Swiss winter by the tall Swiss stove. The whole family
received us, including the young lady daughter, the niece, the
well-mannered boys and their father openly proud of them, and the
pleasant young English girl who was living in the family, according to a
common custom, to perfect her French. This part of Switzerland is full
of English people, who come not always for the French, but often for the
cheapness which they find equally there.
Mr. K---- was a business man, well-to-do, well educated, agreeable, and
interesting; his house and his table, where we sat down to the mid-day
dinner of the country, were witness to his prosperity. I hope it is no
harm, in the interest of statistics, to say that this good Swiss dinner
consisted of soup, cold ham put up like sausage, stuffed roast beef
which had first been boiled, cauliflower, salad, corn-starch pudding,
and apples stewed whole and stuck full of pine pips. There was abundance
of the several kinds of excellent wine made upon the estate, both white
and red, and it was freely given to the children. Mr. K---- seemed
surprised when we refused it for ours; and probably he could have given
us good reason for his custom. His boys were strong, robust, handsome
fellows; he had a charming pride in showing us the prizes they had taken
at school; and on the lawn they were equally proud to show the gymnastic
feats they had learned there. I believe we are coming to think now that
the American schools are better than the Swiss; but till we have
organized something like the Swiss school excursions, and have learned
to mix more open air with our instruction, I doubt if the Swiss would
agree with us.
After dinner we went to the _vente_, or charitable fair, which the young
ladies of the town were holding in one of the public buildings. It was
bewilderingly like the church fair of an American country town, socially
and materially. The young ladies had made all sorts of pretty
knick-knacks, and were selling them at the little tables set about the
room; they also presided, more or less alluringly, at fruit, coffee, and
ice-cream stands; and--I will not be sure, but I _think_--some of them
seemed to be flirting with the youth of the other sex. There was an
auction going on, and the place was full of tobacco smoke, which the
women appeared not to mind. A booth for the sale of wine and beer was
set off, and there was a good deal of amiable drinking. This was not
like our fairs quite; and I am bound to say that the people of Aigle had
more polished manners, if not better, than our country-town average.
To quit this scene for the castle of Aigle was to plunge from the
present into my favorite Middle Ages. We were directly in the times when
the Lords of Berne held the Vaud by the strong hand, and forced
Protestant convictions upon its people by the same vigorous methods. The
castle was far older than their occupation, but it is chiefly memorable
as the residence of their bailiffs before the independence of the Vaud
was established after the French Revolution. They were hard masters, but
they left political and religious freedom behind them, where perhaps
neither would have existed without them. The castle, though eminently
picturesque and delightfully Gothic, is very rudely finished and
decorated, and could never have been a luxurious seat for the bailiffs.
It is now used by the local courts of law; a solitary, pale, unshaven
old prisoner, who seemed very glad of our tribute-money, inhabited its
tower, and there was an old woman carding wool in the baronial kitchen.
Her little grandson lighted a candle and showed us the _oubliettes_,
which are subterranean dungeons, one above the other, and barred by
mighty doors of wood and iron. The outer one bore an inscription, which
I copied:
"Doubles grilles a gros cloux,
Triples portes, fortes Verroux,
Aux âmes vraiment méchantes
Vous représentez l'Enfer;
Mais aux âmes innocentes
Vous n'êtes que du bois, de la pierre, & du fer!"
[Illustration: _Germans at Montreux_]
But these doors, thus branded as representing the gates of hell to
guilty souls, and to the innocent being merely wood, stone, and iron,
sufficed equally to shut the blameless in, and I doubt if the reflection
suggested was ever of any real comfort to them. For one thing, the
captives could not read the inscription; it seems to have been intended
rather for the edification of the public.
We visited the castle a second time, to let the children sketch it; and
even I, who could not draw a line, became with them the centre of
popular interest. Half a dozen little people who had been playing
"snap-the-whip" left off and crowded round, and one of the boys profited
by the occasion to lock into the barn, near which we sat, a peasant who
had gone in to fodder his cattle. When he got out he criticised the
pictures, and insisted that one of the artists should put in a certain
window which he had left out of the tower. Upon the whole, we liked him
better as a prisoner.
"What would you do," I asked the children, "if I gave you a piece of
twenty-five centimes?"
They reflected, and then evidently determined to pose as good children.
"We would give it to our mamma."
"Now don't you think," I pursued, "that it would be better to spend it
for little cakes?"