NYON
Lausanne, for the purposes of this volume, must be taken to include
such neighbouring lake-side towns as Morges, and Rolle, and Nyon.
Morges we have already seen distinguishing itself by refusing, on
principle, to pay for the mending of the roads, and so paving the
way for the subsequent insurrection. Nowadays it is the seat of an
arsenal, and is said to have an aristocratic population, interested
in literature. Rolle was the home of the Laharpes, and boasts a
statue of César de Laharpe by Pradier. A colony of French and Genevan
political exiles once flourished there, and Madame de Staël was a
frequent visitor. Voltaire once proposed to buy an estate in the
neighbourhood--the Château des Menthon--but the Bernese would not
let him do so, alleging the curious reason that the philosopher was
a Roman Catholic. Nyon is the dirtiest town on the Lake--or would
be if Villeneuve were not dirtier. But it is also one of the most
picturesque--the castle being nobly situated and in a fine state of
preservation--and it has its interesting memories.
One of its interesting associations is with the Waldenses. These
persecuted Protestants had fled, or been driven out, from their
mountain home above Turin. Switzerland received them hospitably, but
they were homesick. They resolved to go back; not to slink back in
twos and threes, but to march back, with their flags flying, like
courageous Christian soldiers. They mustered at Nyon, and thence
crossed the lake under the leadership of the fighting pastor,
Henri Arnaud, and marched across the mountains to effect their
'glorious re-entry.' It was a great military feat, and no less a
judge than Napoleon has paid his tribute to the military genius of
the commander. The returning exiles defeated the soldiers of Savoy
in more than one pitched battle. One thinks of them generally as
the 'slaughtered saints, whose bones' inspired one of the finest of
Milton's sonnets, but theirs were not the only bones that whitened
the valleys during that notable expedition.
Nyon again recalls the memory of Bonstetten, who governed it for a
season on behalf of Berne. If all the Bernese Governors had been
like him, Vaud would have been a contented country, though he is
chiefly remembered as a wit and a man of culture, who lived to be
eighty-seven without ever seeming to grow old. In his youth he
travelled in England, and was the friend of Gray; in his old age
he lived at Geneva, and was the friend of Byron. In the meantime
he had been the friend of Madame de Staël, and a pillar of the
cosmopolitan society at Coppet. He wrote some books, but they are
dead and buried. What lives is the recollection of the genial old
gentleman whom everybody liked, and who proved--what needed a great
deal of proving--that it was possible for a Bernese to be gracious
and frivolous, and to have a sense of humour. He detested the society
of his native city, and wrote a delightfully sarcastic description of
its daily life in a letter to one of the Hallers:
'We are living here, as we always do. We sleep, we breakfast, we
yawn, we drag through the morning, and we digest our food. And then
we dine, and then we dress, and then we swagger in the Arcades, and
say to ourselves: "I am charming and clever, for the spelling of
my name makes me capable of governing and illuminating two hundred
thousand souls." And then we accost a lady with a pretty figure
decently enveloped in a mantle, and then we go to a party and circle
round a dozen turtle-doves, and deliver ourselves of platitudes with
the air of saying something clever. Then we have something to eat,
and, finding our intellectual resources exhausted, amuse ourselves
with paper games; and then we go to bed, feeling satisfied with
ourselves--for we have been delightful.'
Out of sympathy with Berne, Bonstetten had a good deal more sympathy
than Berne liked with the revolutionary party. It is said that
his sympathies lost him his post; but before that happened he had
time to render a useful service to one of the most eminent of the
revolutionists. He was at supper one day with a considerable number
of guests when his servant whispered in his ear that a mysterious
stranger was without, asking to speak with him. He stepped into the
garden, where a man, miserably dressed, was waiting for him in the
summer-house. He inquired his errand, and the answer was: 'I am
Carnot, and I am perishing from hunger. I implore you to give me
shelter for the night.' Bonstetten not only gave him shelter for
the night, but, on the following morning, gave him a passport under
an assumed name. One can understand that his superiors at Berne did
not regard him as a model functionary, but Carnot never forgot his
kindness. When he became Napoleon's War Minister, he invited him
to Paris, introduced him to the Emperor, and heaped proofs of his
gratitude upon him.
[Illustration: CULLY FROM EPESSE: AUTUMN]
Perhaps it is also worth noting that, in the days before the
railways, Nyon was on the highroad from France to Switzerland. The
track descended there from Saint-Cergues, where it crossed the Jura;
and by it travelled Madame de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, and
Voltaire, and many another whom we have met in the course of this
rambling narrative. There is a new road now, with wide, sweeping
curves, and a gentle gradient; but enough of the old road remains to
show us how shamefully bad it was--a narrow road, of uneven surface,
plunging headlong through the pine-forest. The lumbering old coaches,
with their six horses, must have had a very bad time there, and it is
no wonder that Napoleon ordered a road to be made over the Col de la
Faucille to supersede it.
But enough of Nyon and the Canton de Vaud! We must cross the lake
to the French shore; and, as first impressions are always the most
graphic, permission has been obtained to print here the writer's own
first impressions, contributed a few years since, to the columns of
the _Pall Mall Gazette_.