Travels in Switzerland, in 1817, 1818, and 1819, etc

Front matter

SWITZERLAND. SWITZERLAND ; Ob, A JOURNAL OF A TOUR AND RESIDENCE IN THAT COUNTRY, IN THE YEARS 1817, 1818, AND 1819: FOLLOWED BY AN HISTORICAL SKETCH ON THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HELVETIA, IN WHICH THE EVENTS OF OUR OWN TIME ARE FULLY DETAILED; TOGETHER WITH THE CAUSES TO WHICH THEY MAY BE REFERRED. By L. SIMOND, AOTHOR OP JOURNAL OF A TOUR AND RESIDENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN. DURING THE YEARS 1B10 AND 1811. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. MDCCCXX1I. LONDON PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, Northumberland-court.

Preface

. The Author published, a few years ago, a work on England, which was favourably re ceived by the Public ; and on the occasion of a late tour and residence in Switzerland, he continued the practice, followed before, of daily recording his first impressions, and draw ing from nature the objects which passed under his eye. Such cursory reflections as they had suggested were matured at leisure, as well as facts verified, by consulting the historians of Switzerland, its antiquaries, its naturalists, and the living witnesses of recent events ; but he soon found that an inconsiderable part only of the information thus obtained could be introduced in a Journal of Travels, and that it would be necessary to VI

PREFACE.

. separate the historical part of his work from the descriptive : in doing so the Author has endeavoured to give the history of the people rather than that of its rulers ; the moral rather than the diplomatic history. Ancient chro nicles were most sparing of details on men and manners; and subsequent historians, in selecting among them, have generally neglected, as unimportant, or beneath the dig nity of their subject, the very facts which would have conveyed some idea of the state of society, and exhibited a sort of likeness of our species in ancient times. The authen tic and judicious Chronicle of Tschudi was the principal guide of Muller. It embraces a period of nearly six centuries, from 1000 to 1559 ; but was published only as far as the year 1470, and Muller s history likewise does not go farther than the fifteenth cen tury.

Mallet's continuation, more regular, clearer, and in better taste, (for the eloquence of the learned Muller appears too often common-place and declamatory,) is,

PREFACE.

. VII nevertheless, rather uninteresting, and it stops at the beginning of the Revolution. A con nected narrative of events, for the last thirty, or even forty years, is now attempted for the first time, and if too soon for history, which seems to require the sanction of years, the Author hopes it may, at least, be offered to the Public as Memoirs of our own time, and that as such it will be found to be im partial, as well as faithful. ERRATA. Page. line. S 14 for around, read beyond. 6 io „ of their white, read of white. 9 7 „ revolution prevailed, read which prevailed. 10 10 „ worse, read waste. 13 12 ,, disposition, read despotism. — 20 „ Avaton, read Avalon. 14 5 „ peasants, read peasants' cottages. — 12 „ r£gne vegetal, read vegetable reign. — 21 „ balanced, read ballasted. 17 9 „ And the, read tbe additional. — 26 „ less tbau 12, read less 12. — 19 "f R'0Qllue> f^ad Jougne. 24 2 ',, gallery in the roof, read gallery and roof. — 13 „ house, read houses.

And no new paragraph. 25 note „ on, read or. 36 2 ,, Vienne, like the mirrors, read Bienne, like mirrors. 27 2 dele met. 28 9 for Gioo, read Giez. 29 6 ,, Moitietra vers, read Mo tiers -travers* 31 10 „ Creus-du-Var, read Van. 33 4 dele unseen. — 24 for equilibrium or in a point, read equilibrium on a point. 37 3 „ inundations, read inundation. 42 note Chap. 39, Vol. II. 51 note for interesting acts, read facts. 54 note Vol. II. chap. 23. 68 2 for hours, while, read hours and while. — ii „ Qretingen, read Orelingen. — 17 ,, apparent, read appears rent. 101 9 for be old, read be deemed old. ill 17 „ millions, or, read millions sterling, or. — 19 „ the market, read the English market. 120 17 „ Am-atofs, read Am-atogs. 137 $ „ head, on, read head. On. — 8 „ Switzerland. On, read Switzerland, on. 138 15 „ lifting to seize, read lifting his hand to Beize. 145 25 ,, mountain rises, rtad mountains rise. 146 25 No new paragraph. 153 note Chap. 39, Vol. II. 157 note Chap, ii.

Vol. SWITZERLAND, Sfc. Fontainebleau, May 30, 1817. iHIS place, as well as Versailles, presents the sad picture of grandeur in decay ; grass grows in the streets, and the pavement remains unsullied from one rainy day to another. This forlorn state, which began at Versailles with the Revolution, only commenced here with its close ; for Fontainebleau was an Imperial villa under Buonaparte. The palace has an imposing appearance, from its size, and the antique style of its architecture ; it recalls to the memory two great princes, Francis I. and Henry IV. The people of France may be said to owe much of their national character to the former. The peculiar elegance of the premier gentilhomme de so7i royaume, his valour, and his wit, made him the model of an age yet rude and barbarous ; his Vol. I. E FONTAINEBLEAU. 2 contemporaries saw in him the beau idtal of good manners, which every one was desirous of imitating, and although it is, certainly, a long while since Francis I. has been nearly forgotten, yet the national bias remains ; a certain mixture of chivalry and of vanity, a showy, ostentatious, dramatic turn, leading to brilliant successes and lamentable reverses, and, upon the whole, to transitory results.

Louis XIV. 's personal character gave dignity and weight to the vanity bequeathed to us by Francis I., and Buona parte gave it strength. Strangers who visit Fontainebleau are shewn the stairs by which the Emperor came down to the great court, to review, for the last time, the remnants of an army with which he was going to part, and the small table upon which he signed his abdication, as well as the mark of an angry kick he gave to that table ! an antechamber anecdote, for the correctness of which I do not vouch. Here is another : the pen with which the Emperor had signed his abdication became, as may be supposed, an object of great in terest to curious or idle travellers visiting this palace, that is, to the English, who form the great majority of these travellers ! One of them bought this valuable pen for much more than its weight in gold, to the great disappointment of those who followed ; but the good-nature of the domestic who shews the OBJECTS OF CURIOSITY. 3 apartment, suggested to him the expedient of sup plying another pen ; it soon found another amateur, who would have it to himself.

Matters could not stop there, and no English traveller since has been disappointed of the true pen of the abdication. There is a stone bench, in the private garden, where his Imperial Majesty used frequently to sit or recline, in a melancholy mood, beating the sand mechanically with his stick, and often dozing, du ring the three weeks which preceded his departure for Elba. At first he appeared pale and dejected, but he soon recovered. Our guide occupying a room which looked upon the garden, he had every opportunity of observation. Another object of curiosity is the apartment his holiness the Pope occupied. He staid here nineteen months without going out once, although pro vided with carriages, wishing, no doubt, to mark his situation as a prisoner. His couch occupies still a corner of the vast bed-chamber, and the small table, upon which he took his frugal repasts, occupies an other corner.

His prison was otherwise comfortable enough, and sufficiently spacious for a walk, from one end of the suite of apartments to another ; it looks over a large piece of water, and a beautiful garden beyond. The Pope gave daily, from a window, his benediction to the gold and silver fish B FONTAINEBLEAU. 4 below*, and a few good Catholics on the high road, a quarter of a mile off, partook of it occasionally. Buonaparte treated the Roman Pontiff alternately with great respect and much insolence ; oppressing him at one time with his visits, and at another time remaining months without seeing him. One day, after an angry conversation, which went the length of threats on his part, he tried what soothing would do, to obtain his purpose : " Tragedia," observed the old man calmly, " poi Commedia!" The last curiosity I shall mention is the apartment of Christina, Queen of Sweden, and the spot where she caused Monaldesche to be assassinated under her eyes, and at her feet.

To return to the road from Paris to this place. On leaving the capital, the eye of a traveller meets few objects worth notice ; dirty suburbs, high roads of great breadth, which appear deserted, beyond the immediate reach of the cabarets crowded together just out of the gates, to cheat the octroi. For the * As this might be deemed improper levity, I think necessary to observe, that animals receive the blessings of the church an nually at Rome. In the month of January, all sorts of creatures, from horses, to dogs, hogs, goats, &c, are brought to the door of the cathedral (Santa Maria Maggiore), and there receive publicly the benediction— not of the Pope, indeed, but of a priest in full dress; and the profanation would be the same, if attached to the proceedings. ENVIRONS OF PARIS. 5 first league or two you breathe an atmosphere tainted with the effluvia of street manure ; you see a few hideous country-houses, and gardens between four walls, where the citizens of Paris come to take the air, but not a creditable farm-house.

The Chateau de Vincennes, although wanting accompaniments, relieves the landscape. Several large houses, or modern chateaux, some on the right side of the road, and others on the left, display their wide and shallow fronts full of windows. These edifices are stuck up between architectural plantations, of a bad growth, in straight walks, regularly arched inside, and squared outside, where not a twig, not so much as a leaf, projecting around its neighbour, ever escapes the busy shears. If the ground slopes at all, terraces appear one above the other, like stairs, each with its parterre of box borders and sand walks, lattice-work, jets d'eau, and statues. Woods, where there are any, are always cut down every fifteen or twenty years. The same person who spends a million of francs in mason-work, lead pipes, flower-pots, and hot-houses, speculates on a few acres of faggots, and puts his park (as they call their pleasure-grounds) en coupe reglee to the very door of the chateau, without suffering a single plant to preserve, or even attain, the form nature intended.

A few people, having pretensions to modern taste. ENVIRONS OF PARIS allow themselves a bit of lawn, but the grass is only rank weeds, too scanty and poor for a meadow, too high for pasture; one quarter of the labour be stowed, and the expense incurred, in pruning the trees, would keep this grass in good order. The walks are strewed over with river sand, which never binds, and it is brought from a distance at great expense, while the earth on the spot, coarsely sifted, would yield very good gravel. All their residences, with their esplanades of their white sand before and of street pavements behind, which dazzle your eyes in summer, and feel uncomforta ble to your feet at all times, banish all thoughts of the country. You do not meet with any well-grown trees in the environs of Paris ; those of the lower part of St. Cloud are indeed magnificent, and some in the Tuileries may be called fine, but their style of beauty is that of a forest.

The effect of a full grown single tree, or group of trees, balancing their horizontal limbs and vast masses of foliage with graceful majesty over the velvet lawn is quite un known in France ; I have not seen any, except in lithographic prints in the shop windows along the quays, or at the opera. The trees of the forest of Fontainebleau have often picturesque forms, but they are thin and stunted ; the hillocks of sand-stone, ENVIRONS OF PARIS. 7 rising in regular cubical masses out of the sands, are singular, rather than fine. The reader may possibly be inclined to ask, how, travelling post from Paris to Fontainebleau, I could see thus minutely all the defects of the country houses or chateaux on the road ? The fact is, I did not see them, but only guessed ; and if I guessed right, as I am inclined to think I did, from previous observation elsewhere, I shall then have shewn how general bad taste is in this respect, since the description thus made at random happens to fit.

I shall only add a few observations on the subject of an English garden in the French ideas — it must have its ruin, its bridge, its rock, and, if possible, its cas cade. The Empress Josephine has put some of these things in the Jardins Anglais of Fontainebleau, which she made. The plantations are well enough for the bad taste*, but they are yet too recent for effect on such an extent of ground. As we admired some fine horse-chesnuts, the man in a bag and sword, who did the honours of the place to us for two francs, observed that the old garden was for merly covered with such trees as these, which had all been cut down — we expressed our regret, and inquired why they had been sacrificed. Dame ! Je * The gardens of Rambouillet and Trianon are due to the good taste of the illustrious and unfortunate daughter of Maria Theresa.

FONTAINEBLEAU. ne suis pas moi, he answered, c'etait necessaire, voyez vous, pour faire un jardin Anglais. This inveterate good taste remains the same under the empire of legitimacy, for the present architecte en chef had just cut down three magnificent trees, on a small island in the middle of a large piece of water ; two of the victims were pines eighty or a hundred feet high, which two centuries could not restore, and the third a very large weeping willow. They all three lie prostrate, withering on their ancient seat of glory, which looks now an insignificant little heap of mud, instead of the graceful island it used to be. The architect means, no doubt, to adorn it with a statue, a latticed arbour, or some other pretty thing, which may not intercept the view of a long line of cut trees on the other side of the water, as this venerable clump used to do.

The English garden is about to be decorated with statues ; we were shewn the pedestals. Auxerre, 3\st May. Postilions in France are in the habit of changing horses on the road. It is clear gain for the horses and men, and humane travellers are generally disposed to sacrifice a few minutes for that purpose. Between Fontainebleau and Sens, one of these exchanges placed us alono-- RIOT AT SENS. 9 side a Berline, as two ships at sea bring-to for the purpose of speaking. This was a Russian from Italy bound to Paris ; we learnt the yellow fever was not in Italy, as had been reported, and on our part informed him, there was not any revolution actually impending at Paris, although apprehended each week for the next : the fear of a revolution prevailed so generally implying that few were for it. The riot these travellers had just witnessed at Sens alarmed them for the state of France in general.

We found, indeed, Sens much agitated, the national guard under arms, and a detachment of hussars coming in. The people, irritated by the dearness of provisions, and not aware of the good forestalling does, are bent upon inflicting summary punishment, by plundering the stores, at least, of some unfortunate speculator, obnoxious for this very unpopular offence. The national guard, not being sufficiently strong to prevent it, or perhaps not being sufficiently grounded in the true theory on the subject, and in clined accordingly to side with the mob, had made it necessary to call in these hussars, who caring little about any theory, decide the question by force, en attendant, that it may be so one day by good sense and reason. Let us suppose one hundred thousand quarters of wheat to be the quantity requisite for the yearly ON THE SCARCITY 10 supply of any given country, and the crops to have fallen so far short as to yield seventy -five quarters only, while a similar deficiency abroad precludes foreign assistance ; it is evident that, if consumption went on as usual, in the nine months immediately fol lowing the bad crop, a famine would be the in evitable consequence in the three succeeding months ; and the obvious remedy is an early check on con sumption — an endeavour to provide auxiliary means of subsistence, and prevent worse.

The only warn ing the great bulk of the people will take, is the dearness of food ; if there were no speculators (fore stallers) farmers would become so themselves, that is, would lay up their produce, and refuse to sell it without an advance in the price ; but not perceiving so soon, or so accurately, the real state of the mar ket, they would make it too high or too low : most probably they would begin too late, and accumulate on the latter part of the year that rise which should have been equally divided on the whole course of it. The people would undergo the same loss of money by the rise of prices, probably a greater one, and would at any rate feel it much more severely, be cause this rise would be accumulated on a few months instead of bearing on the whole twelve, and because the rate of wages of labour would have had less time to accommodate itself to this state of things.

OF PROVISIONS. 11 The warning of dearness, coming so late, would be a gratuitous evil inflicted on the people, whereas speculation makes it useful. Forestalling rarely operates a fictitious rise, not born out of a real deficiency of crop, and which would not have taken place otherwise. If it was possible for speculators to understand each other from one end of the country to another, or rather from one end of Europe and of the world to another, and to be all partners in the same adventure, directed by the same hand, they might create a fictitious rise, but even then they must go the length of destroying a part of the produce, object of this speculation, as the Dutch were said to burn cinnamon or cloves to prevent any but a certain quantity coming into the market, for sooner or later this surplus would occasion a fall of prices, whenever it came into the market.

As soon as purchases made with a view to a rise begin to operate, proprietors unconnected with the purchasing specu lators never fail pouring in their supplies, and reap the benefit the contrivers of the rise intended for themselves. Some of the speculators themselves will defeat the scheme of the others by early sales ; in short, no speculation, no forestalling, can be pro fitable to the forestaller generally, unless it has a real deficiency of the article for its base, and then it is useful to the public likewise • for it saves them CROWDS OF BEGGARS. 12 from a public dearth, and wards off absolute famine at less cost of money. If the speculation be good, it is so for every one, those concerned in it, and those who are not ; if it be bad, it is so for the specu lator alone, and nugatory in its results for the pub lic at large.

This view of the subject is not offered as new assuredly; but, as the prejudices against forestalling are far from dissipated, no opportunity of setting the matter in its true light should be neglected. Maison Neuve, 1st June. Beggars, very numerous yesterday, have increased greatly ; at every stage, a crowd of women and children, and of old men, gather round the carriage ; their cries, the eloquence of all these pale and ema ciated countenances, lifted up to us with imploring hands, are more than we can well bear. Many in dividuals have died, if not of hunger, at least of the insufficiency and bad quality of the food. A bag of small copper coin distributed along the road can go a very little way towards the support of this famished multitude, when bread is at nine sous a pound. It is a singular fact, that although the price of bread is three or four times higher than usual, meat has not risen much : a little of the latter boiled with such vegetables as grow wild in the fields at this ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 13 season might afford great relief; but the idea cf manger de I'herbe comme des betes appears dreadful to these people : we said to a poor woman, by way of comfort, that it would soon be crop time ; Yes, she answered, in a tone of despair, but in the mean time we must die !

Amidst all this distress, so loudly expressed, we hear no reflections against the government, nothing seditious, or of a revolutionary tendency ; these feel ings are very much confined to the capital, where, however, bread is kept as low as seven sous a pound, by a sort of timorous policy of disposition, artificial, troublesome, and costly, which bespeaks weakness, and provokes danger, instead of averting it ; for the hungry of the provinces come to Paris to be fed, and one hundred thousand souls have been added to its destitute population within a few months ! The aspect of the country, hitherto uninteresting, becomes much less so as you approach Avaton, which is beautifully situated, and continues agreeable and varied to Maison Neuve, a hamlet composed of new habitations, as the name indicates.

It would recall an American settlement, but for certain ruins of one thousand years standing, which crown the neighbouring height. This castle was a princely residence at the time of the kingdom of Burgundy. SEIGNIORIAL DUES. 14 A few comfortable residences, scattered about the country, have lately put us in mind how very rare they are in general : instead of them, you meet, not unfrequently, some ten or twenty miserable pea sants, crowded together round what was formerly the strong-hold of the lord of the manor ; a narrow, dark, prison-like building, with small grated win dows, embattled walls, and turrets peeping over thatched roofs ; the lonely cluster seems unconnected with the rest of the country, and may be said to represent the feudal system, as plants in a hortus siccus the regne vegetal.

Long before the revolution, chateaux had been forsaken by their seigneurs, for the nearest country town, where Monsieur le Comte, or Monsieur le Marquis, decorated with the cross of St. Louis, made shift to live on his paltry seigniorial dues and rent, ill paid by a starving peasantry ; spending his time in reminiscences of gallantry with the old dowagers of the place, who rouged and wore patches, dressed in hoops and high-heeled shoes, full four inches, and long pointed elbow-ruffles, balanced with lead. Not one individual of this good company knew any thing of what was passing in the world, or sus pected any change had taken place since the days of Louis XIV. No book found its way there ; no one read, not even a newspaper. When the revolu- ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 15 tion burst upon this inferior nobility of the pro vinces, it appeared to them like Attila and the Huns to the people of the fifth century — the Scourge of God, coming no body knew whence, for the mere purpose of destruction — a savage enemy, speaking an unknown language, with whom no compromise could be made.

Flights of pigeons are still seen hovering round the old feudal residence ; they spread over the neighbouring fields at their peril, for they may be shot any where but upon their own ground : every proprietor of land may keep pigeons on his pre mises, and exclude those of other people. There are no game laws now in France : the game belongs to the soil ; yet the right of carrying fire arms sport d'armesj requires a permission of the prefect, for which there is a small annual tax. Dijon, 2d June. A fine country : some attempts at enclosures, by means of thick set hedges, are observable. In general, the fields are all open ; and the few cattle and sheep, feeding in fallow lands, or along the road side, are watched, or even held by a rope. It is in France a matter of surprise and inquiry for a stranger, how cattle are fed, so few meadows being seen, and no pastures ; as in England, it might well DIJON 16 be asked, how bread is produced, green grass prevailing so much there over corn fields.

Cattle in France are, in general, not fine ; the race of sheep, and that of hogs particularly, are very indifferent : the latter, long-legged and gaunt, with a thin arched back and low head, seem to feel the pressure of the present scarcity, or rather, never to have known plenty ; from their hurried gait, ferocious looks, and threatening grunt, they might be taken for wild boars recently tamed by hunger, rather than animals born and bred in a state of domesticity. The whole rural population is at work in the fields ; women as well as men. The women wear very white caps, and immense straw hats ; bright red striped hand kerchiefs over their shoulders, wooden shoes, and no stockings. They are employed in weeding corn fields, which want it sadly, and use, for that purpose, a sort of double-edged bill-hook.

The men wear blue cotton smock-frocks, and many of them military cocked hats, preposterously large. They plough with all sorts of cattle : cows, oxen, horses, asses, often harnessed together ; we are told, that a woman has been yoked with a hog of the species just described, patiently ploughing together. Small proprietors husband their slender means how they may. All tools in general, and agricultural tools in particular, are here remarkably clumsy and awk- DIJON 17 ward ; the large hoe, or rather, mattock, used to dress vineyards, is extremely heavy, and the handle so short, that the unhappy labourers work absolutely bent double ; and vignerons are known by their ha bitual stoop and worn-out appearance. One half of the strength of the horse is employed in drawing the cart without a load, and the inertia of the plough is more difficult to overcome than that of the soil ; and the additional strength of wood and iron being injudiciously applied, adds nothing to the durability.

There are very few long leases, or any leases at all ; and the land is in general cultivated on shares by metayers, or sort of half farmers, employed by the year, who give a certain quantity of produce for a certain quantity of land ; six or seven measures of corn, weighing 25 or 28 each, for a journal mea suring 120 perches of 9| feet square, or 10,830 square feet. The metayer gives no produce on the fallow year ; but is bound to bestow the necessary labour on the land, to prepare it for a crop the following year. The price of good corn land is from 250 to 300 francs a journal. We had the offer of a small estate of 7 or 800 journaux, with a house upon it, besides the farming residence, renting on a short lease, at 6,000 francs a year ; less than 12 or 1,500 francs taxes, for 120,000 francs, which is Vol. I. c POSTING IN FRANCE. equal to about 4 per cent, interest.

The usual wages of a labourer are 20 sous a day, and his food ; or 35 to 40 sous without. By the year, 200 francs to men, and 100 francs to women ; but la bourers have been of late very willing to work for bread only. Observing occasionally crosses of wood or stone, by the road-side, looking evidently very old, we inquired how these monuments of Catholicism had escaped the fury of the revolution, and found they had been secreted, generally buried : the bigotry of irreligion has succeeded in making religious bigotry appear quite rational. Posting in France is a public establishment, under strict regulations, and the livre de poste is the code of the road, which every postilion knows by heart. These postilions are, in general, decent men, and tolerably well behaved ; they are entitled to a pro vision after a certain number of years of service.

Although their cattle are very rough, and mere cart horses, they are in flesh, and not galled ; but the rate of going exceeds rarely six miles an hour, or, stoppages included, five miles ; this is, for English travellers, accustomed to seven or eight, or even nine and ten, miles an hour, scarcely bearable ; yet when those who profess to travel for their pleasure, appear in such haste to reach their journey's end, SOCIETY IN DIJON. 19 we might well ask, why they began it at all? The tackle of post-horses has ever been a just subject of merriment to English travellers ; and, it must be admitted, that, except the ancient Irish method of making horses draw by the tail, nothing can be more elementary than the mode of harnessing a French attelage. You might naturally expect to see the straps of parched leather, which never knew oil or blacking, fastened by means of buckles without a tongue, and old ropes, broken and pieced again and again, give way altogether on the first hard pull, yet nothing of the sort really happens, notwithstanding the received jokes on the subject.