The Cemetery
Our way to the Protestant cemetery—a spot sadly familiar to Miss Brontë, and the usual termination of her walks—lay past the site of the Porte de Louvain and out to the hills beyond the old city limits. From our path we saw more than one tree-shrouded farm-house which might have been the place of Paul's breakfast with his school, and at least one quaint mansion, with green-tufted and terraced lawns, which might have served Miss Brontë as the model for La Terrasse, the suburban home of the Brettons and the temporary abode of the Taylor sisters whom she visited here. From the cemetery we beheld vistas of farther lines of hills, of intervening valleys, of farms and villas, andof the great city lying below. Miss Brontë has well described this place: "Here, on pages of stone and of brass, are written names, dates, last tributes of pomp or love, in English, French, German, and Latin." There are stone crosses all about, and great thickets of roses and yews; "cypresses that stand straight and mute, and willows that hang low and still;" and there are "dim garlands of everlasting flowers." Here "The Professor" found his long-sought sweetheart kneeling at a new-made grave under the overhanging trees. And here we found the shrine of poor Charlotte Brontë's many pilgrimages hither,—the burial-place of her friend and school-mate, the Jessy Yorke of "Shirley;" the spot where, under "green sod and a gray marble head-stone, cold, coffined, solitary, Jessy sleeps below."
LEMAN'S SHRINES
Beloved of Littérateurs—Gibbon—D'Aubigné—Rousseau—Byron—Shelley—Dickens, etc.—Scenes of Childe Harold—Nouvelle Heloïse—Prisoner of Chillon—Land of Byron.
A PILGRIMAGE in the track of Childe Harold brings us from the shores of Albion, by Belgium's capital and deadly Waterloo, along the castled Rhine and over mountain-pass to "Italia, home and grave of empires," and to the sublimer scenery of "Manfred," "Chillon," and the third canto of the pilgrim-poet's masterpiece; to his "silver-sheeted Staubbach" and "arrowy Rhone," "soaring Jungfrau" and "bleak Mont Blanc." We linger with especial pleasure on the shores of "placid Leman," in an enchanting region which teems with literary shrines and is pervaded with memories and associations—often so thrilling and vivid that they seem like veritable and sensible presences—of the brilliant number who have here had their haunts.Haunts of LittérateursHere Calvin wrought his Commentaries; here Voltaire polished his darts; here Rousseau laid the scenes of his impassioned tale; here Dickens, Byron, and Shelley loitered and wrote; here Gibbon and de Staël, Schlegel and Constant, and many another scarcely less famous, lived and wrought the treasures of their knowledge and fancy into the literature of theworld. A lingering voyage round the lake, like that of Byron and Shelley, is a delight to be remembered through a lifetime, and affords opportunity to visit the spots consecrated by genius upon these shores. At Geneva we find the inn where Byron lodged and first met the author of "Queen Mab," the house in which Rousseau was born, the place where d'Aubigné wrote his history, the sometime home of John Calvin. Near by, in a house presented by the Genevese after his release from the long imprisonment suffered on their account, dwelt Bonnivard, Byron's immortal "Prisoner of Chillon," and here he suffered from his procession of wives and finally died. Just beyond the site of the fortifications, on the east side of the city, is an eminence whose slopes are tastefully laid out with walks that wind, amid sward and shrub, to the observatory which crowns the summit and marks the site of Bonnivard's Priory of St. Victor, lost to him by his devotion to Genevan independence. Not far away is the public library, founded by his bequest of his modest collection of books and MSS. which we see here carefully preserved. Here also is an old portrait of the prisoner, which represents him as a reckless and jolly "good fellow" rather than a saintly hero, and accords better with his character as described by late writers than with the common conception of him.
Byron at Villa Diodati
Byron loved this Leman lake, and it is said his discontented sprite still walks its margins; certain it is he remains its poetic genius; his melody seems to wake in every breeze that stirs its surface. The Villa Diodati, a plain, quadrangular, three-storied mansion of moderate dimensions, standing on the shore a few miles from Geneva, was the handsome "Giaour's" first home after his separation from Lady Byron and his exile from England. It had been the residence of the Genevan Professor Diodati and the sojourn of his friend the poet Milton. Pleasant vineyards surround the place and slope away to the water, but there is little in the spot or its near environment to commend it to the fancy of a poet. Byron's study here was a sombre room at the back from which neither the lake nor the snowy peaks were visible, and here he wrote, besides many minor poems, "Manfred," "Prometheus," "Darkness," "Dream," and the third canto of "Childe Harold." Here also he wrote "Marriage of Belphegor," a tale setting forth his version of his own infelicitous marriage; but hearing that his wife was seriously ill, he burned it in his study fire. From here, by instigation of de Stael, he sent to Lady Byron ineffectual overtures for a reconciliation. His companion at the villa was an eccentric Italian physician, Polidori, who was uncle to the poetRossetti, and who here quarrelled with Byron's guests and wrote "The Vampire," a weird production afterward attributed to Byron. Lovers of Byron owe much to his sojourn on Leman; he found in the inspiring landscapes here, especially in the environment of mountains, a power that profoundly stirred what his wife called "the angel in him." His letters recognize an afflatus breathed upon him by the "majesty around and above," and the quality of the poems here produced shows his yielding and response to that benign influence; many a gem of poetic thought was here begotten of lake and mount and cataract, which otherwise had never been. The insincere stanzas of some of his later poems would scarcely have been written on Leman. As we muse in the spots he frequented—wandering on the entrancing margins or floating on the crystal waters—and look thence upon the snow-crowned peaks, resplendent in the sunshine or roseate in the after-glow, we aspire to not only partake of his rapture in this sublime beauty, but to appreciate the deeper feelings to which it moved him.
Shelley
A villa near Byron's, and reached by a path through his grounds,—Maison Chapuis, of Mont Allegra,—was occupied that summer by the "impassioned Ariel of English verse," with Mary Shelley and her brunette relative Jane Clermont(the Claire of Shelley's journal), who after bore to Byron a daughter called Alba by the Shelleys, but later named by Byron Allegra, for the place where he had known the mother. At Mont Allegra "Bridge of Arve," "Intellectual Beauty," and Mrs. Shelley's weird "Frankenstein" were penned. Here Byron was a daily visitant, and the Shelleys were the usual companions of his excursions upon the lake of beauty, in a picturesque lateen-rigged boat which was the property of the poets and the counterpart of which we see moored by the Diodati shore, looking like a bit of the Levant transported to this tramontane water. The "white phantom" observed by telescopists on the opposite shore to sometimes embark with Byron, and which he gravely told Madame de Staël was his dog, was doubtless the frail Claire. The admonitions of de Staël anent his mode of life provoked Byron to take sure revenge by being attentive to her husband, which the overshadowing wife always resented as an affront upon herself. It is said the poet's observation of this pair prompted the couplet of "Don Juan:"
Passing for the present the shrines of Ferney and Coppet, we find in picturesque Lausanne thequaint house in which VoltaireVoltairelived several winters, and not far away the place where Secretan died a few months ago. Gibbon's dwelling has been demolished, but we find the place of his summer-house where the great history was completed, and of his famous rose-tree where Byron gathered roses long ago. Madame de Genlis narrates this incident of the great "Decliner and Faller" at Lausanne: he was enamoured of the comely Madame Crousaz, and, finding her alone, he knelt at her feet and besought her love. He received an unfavorable reply, but remained in his humble posture until the lady, after repeatedly requesting him to arise, discovered that his weight made it impossible, and summoned a servant to assist him to regain his feet. His obesity seems to have been a standing jest among his acquaintances: a sufferer from indigestion, due to lack of exercise, was advised by a witty friend to "walk twice around GibbonGibbonbefore breakfast." Several decades later another illustrious English man of letters sojourned in Lausanne. A pretty cottage-villa, with embowered walls and flower-shaded porticos which look from a mild eminence across the crescentic lake, was, in 1846, the dwelling of Dickens,Dickenswho here wrote one of the matchless Christmas stories and a part of "Dombey and Son." From the magnificent slope of Lausannethe whole lake region is visible, with the dark Juras rising to the western horizon, the Alps of Savoy, and "the monarch of mountains with a diadem of snow" upholding the sky away in the south. At the foot of this slope is the port-town of Ouchy, a resort of Byron's in his sailing excursions; at the plain little Anchor inn near thequai(Byron called it a "wretched inn") he lodged, and here, being detained two days (June 26 and 27, 1816) by a storm which overtook him on his return from Chillon and Clarens, he wrote the touching "Prisoner of Chillon." In a parsonage not far from Lausanne was reared sweet Suzanne Curchod, erstfiancéeof Gibbon, and later the mother of de Staël.
Eastward is "Clarens, birthplace of deep love," whose "air is the breath of passionate thought, whose trees take root in love;" about it lies the charming region which RousseauRousseauchose for his fiction and peopled with affections, and where Byron, Houghton, and Shelley loved to linger. Here the latter first read "Nouvelle Héloïse" amid the settings of its scenes; here Byron wrote many glowing lines, inspired by the beauty and romantic associations around him. From the vine-clad terraces which cling to the heights we behold the view which enraptured the poet,—a broad expanse of lacustrine beauty and Alpine sublimity, embracing theLeman shores from the Rhone to the Juras of Gex, the entire width of the "bleu impossible" lake and Alp piled on Alp beyond. Back of Clarens we find the spot of Rousseau's "Bosquet de Julie," and, at a little distance among embowering trees, the birthplace of a woman stranger than any fancied character of his fiction, the Madame de Warens of his "Confessions."
Prison of Chillon
Between Clarens and Villeneuve, on an isolated rock whose base is laved by Leman's waters, which "meet and flow a thousand feet in depth below," stands the grim prison of Chillon, the scene of Byron's poem. The fortress is an irregular pile of masonry, and, with its massive walls, loop-holed towers, and white battlements, is a picturesque object seen across wide reaches of the lake. The present structure is a hoary successor to a stronghold still more ancient: the prehistoric lake-dwellers here had a fortress and were succeeded by the Franks and Romans. Of the present structure, the Romanesque columns and the range of dungeons are known to have been in existence in 830, when Count Wala, a cousin of Charlemagne, for alluding to the wife of Louis the Debonair as "that adulterous woman," was incarcerated here. Thus Judith's reputation was vindicated and the earliest certain date of this fortress fixed. The present superstructure remains unchangedsince the thirteenth century. It is now connected with the shore by a wooden structure which spans the moat and replaces the ancient drawbridge. Through a massive gate-way we enter a roughly-paved court, whence a bluff Savoyard conducts us through the romantic pile. Among the apartments of the ducal family we see the banqueting-hall where the dukes held roistering wassail; the kitchen on whose great hearth oxen were roasted whole; the Chamber of Inquisition where hapless prisoners were tortured to extort confession, this room being near the chamber of the duchess, into which—despite its thick wall—the shrieks of the tortured must have sometimes penetrated and disturbed Her Serene Highness. Outside her door is a post to which the wretches were bound, and it is scored by marks of the irons which cauterized their flesh; in a near corner stood a rack which rent them limb from limb. The crypt beneath, with its low arched vaults and its graceful pillars rising out of the rock, is the most interesting portion of the fortress. Referring to their architectural perfection, Longfellow once said these were the "most delightful dungeons he ever saw," but as we stand in their twilight gloom the horrors of their history weigh heavily on the heart. During this century the castle has been used as an arsenal, but occasionally alsoas a prison, and Byron found some of these "chambers of sorrow" tenanted at the time of his visits. One contracted cell is that in which the condemned passed their last night of life chained upon a rock, near the beam upon which they were strangled and the opening through which their bodies were thrust into the lake. Another vault contains a pit or well, with a spiral stair down which poor dupes stepped into a yawning depth and—eternity. A third chamber, so dark that its grotesque carvings are scarcely discernible and no missal could be read by daylight, was the chapel of the fortress. Traversing the succession of dungeons, we come to the last and largest, and reverently stand beside the column where Byron's prisoner was chained. This "dungeon deep and old" lies not beneath the level of the lake, as Byron believed, yet it is sufficiently dank and dismal to be the appropriate scene of the touching and tragic story which he located here. It is a long, crypt-like apartment, whose vaulted roof of rock is upheld by the "seven pillars of Gothic mould" aligned along the middle. It is dimly lighted by loop-holes pierced in the ponderous walls for the feudal bowmen; through these narrow apertures, where the prisoner "felt the winter's spray wash through the bars when winds were high," we look out, as did he, upon thedistant town, "the lake with its white sails," the "mountains high," and the little Isle de Paix—"scarce broader than the dungeon floor"—gleaming like an emerald from a setting of amethyst. Here is Bonnivard's chain, scarce four feet long, and in the central pillar the ring which held it. The light, falling aslant "through the cleft of the thick wall" upon the floor, shows us the pathway worn in the rock by the pacing of the prisoner during the weary years, and reveals—graven on the column-stone by the poet's hand—the name Byron.
At Chillon we are in the midst of a region pervaded by the sentiment of the pilgrim-poet. The Byron path leads from the shore to the broad terraces of the Hôtel Byron, whence we behold as in a picture the romantic scene his poetry portrays,—the "mountains with their thousand years of snow," the shimmering water of "the wide long lake," the dark slopes of the Juras terraced to their summits, the "white-walled towns" upon the nearer hill-sides. Directly before us—bearing its three tall trees—"the little isle, the only one in view," smiles in our faces from the bosom of the water; on the right we see sweet Clarens and the picturesque battlements of Chillon; on the left, the glittering peaks of Dent du Midi and the Alps of Savoy, with the "Rhone in fullest flow"between the rocky heights; while from the farther shore rise the cliffs of Meillerie, at whose base Byron and Shelley, clinging to their frail boat, narrowly escaped a watery grave on the very spot where St. Preux and Julia of "Nouvelle Héloïse" were rescued from the same fate.
Rousseau and Byron scenes
Our farewell view of this Land of Byron is taken on a cloudless summer night, when the radiance of the harvest moon exalts and glorifies all the scene; the grim prison of Bonnivard is transformed into a snowy palace of peaceful delights, the white mountain-peaks gleam with the chaste lustre of pearls, the vine-embowered village on the shore seems an Aidenn of purity and light, and the sheen of the tremulous water is that of a sea of molten silver. Surely, on all her round, "Luna lights no spot more fair."
CHÂTEAUX OF FERNEY AND COPPET
Voltaire's Home, Church, Study, Garden, Relics—Literary Court of de Staël—Mementos—Famous Rooms, Guests—Schlegel—Shelley—Constant—Byron—Davy, etc.—De Staël's Tomb.
A LITERARY pilgrimage on Leman's shores that did not include Ferney among its shrines would be obviously incomplete. No matter how widely we may dissent from his opinions or how much we may deplore some of his utterances, the brilliant philosopher who for so many years inhabited that spot and made it the intellectual capital of the world commands a place in letters which we may neither gainsay nor ignore, and the Château Voltaire is to many visitors one of the chief objects of interest in the neighborhood of Geneva.
Beneath a summer sky a delightful jaunt of a few miles, among orchards and vineyards and past the ancestral home of Albert Gallatin, brings us to Voltaire's domain in Gex. The mansion and town of Ferney were alike the creation of thegenius loci; he was architect and builder of both. The town and its factories were erected to give shelter and employment to hundreds of artisans who appealed to himagainst oppressive employers at Geneva. The place has obviously degenerated since his time; an air of shabbiness and thriftlessness prevails, and ancient smells by no means suggestive of "the odors of Araby the blest" obtrude upon the pilgrim. At the public fountain stout-armed women were washing family linen manifestly long unused to such manipulation. Near by dwell descendants of Voltaire's secretary Wagnière. Upon a verdant plateau farther away, in the heart of one of the most beautiful regions of earth, "girdled by eighty leagues of mountains that pierce the sky," was Voltaire's last home. By its gate is the little churchVoltaire's Churchhe built, bearing upon its gable his inscription "Deo Erexit Voltaire." Here he attended mass with his niece, and, asseigneur, was always incensed by the priest; here he gave in marriage his adopted daughters; here he preached a homily against theft; and here he built for himself a tomb, projecting into the side of the church,—"neither within nor without," as he explained to a guest,—where he hoped to be buried. The church was long used as a tenement, later it has been a storage- and tool-house.MansionThe cháteau is a spacious and dignified three-storied structure of Italian style, attractive in appearance and well suited to one of Voltaire's tastes and occupations. The exterior has been somewhataltered, but the apartments of the philosopher are essentially unchanged. The late proprietor preserved the study and bedroom nearly as Voltaire left them when he started upon his fatal visit to Paris. They are small, with high ceilings, quaint carvings, faded tapestries, and are obviously planned to facilitate the work of the busiest author the world has known, who here, after the age of threescore, wrote a hundred and sixty works. Many of these assailed the church authorities, who had shown themselves capable of punishing mere difference of opinion by the rack and the stake, but "the religion of the Sermon on the Mount and the character of men of good and consistent lives" they did not attack: some of the books were cursed at Rome, some at Geneva, others were burned at both places.
His Rooms
Disposed in Voltaire's rooms we have seen his heavy furniture; his study-chair standing by the table upon which he wrote half of each day; his beautiful porcelain stove, a gift from Frederick the Great; a draped mausoleum bearing an inscription by Voltaire and designed by hisprotégéto contain his heart; many paintings presented by royal admirers,—Albani's "Toilet of Venus," Titian's "Venus and Love," a picture of Voltaire's chimney-sweep, portrait of Lekain who acted so many of Voltaire's tragedies, portraitsof that philosopher, a fanciful deification of him by Duplessis; on the same wall, coarse engravings of Washington and Franklin. Franklin was the firm friend of Voltaire, and it was his letters which first brought to Ferney news of the Declaration of Independence. TheFurniturediscolored embroidery of Voltaire's bed and arm-chair was wrought by his niece Madame Denis, "the little fat woman round as a ball." Habitually complaining of illness in his last years, he spent more than half his time in this quaint bed. He had a desk, containing writing materials, suspended above the bed so that he could write here day or night, and the amount of work he thus accomplished is astounding: in the last four years of feeble life he wrote thirty works varying in size from a pamphlet to a ponderous tome. His breakfast was served in bed, and here he habitually attended to his correspondence, which included most of the sovereigns of Europe and the learned and great of all climes. In this bed he once lay for weeks feigning mortal illness, and thus induced the priest to give him theviaticum. This bedroom, too, was the scene of many quarrels with his niece regarding her extravagances, but as we sit in his chair by his bedside we prefer to recall more pleasing incidents the room has witnessed; here he dictated to Marie Corneille the ardent words whichbrought reparation to many a cruelly wronged family; this was the scene of his many pleasantries with the house-keeper "Baba," and of the loving ministrations of his sweet ward "Belle et Bonne."
Many of Voltaire's belongings have been removed and his estate has been shorn of its vast dimensions, but much remains to remind us of the genius of the place. Here are the gardens, lawns, and shrubberies he planted; on this turf-grown terrace beneath his study windows he paced as he planned his compositions, and here, at the age of eighty-three, he evolved "Irene" and parts of "Agathocles;" near by are his fount, his arbored promenade, the shaded spot where he wrote in summer days, the place of the lightning-rod made for him by Franklin. Long reaches of the hedge were rooted by him, many of the trees are from the nursery he cultured, the cedars were raised from seeds sent to him by the Empress Catherine. A venerable tree in the park was planted by Voltaire's own hands: when we point to a blemish upon its trunk and ask our guide, whose family have dwelt on the estate since the time of Voltaire, if that is the effect of lightning, as has been averred, he indignantly declares the only damage the tree ever sustained has been from visitors who, to secure souvenirs of the illustrious philosopher,would destroy the whole tree were he not alert to protect it.
An Intellectual Capital
For twenty years this home of Voltaire was the centre and pharos of the intellectual world. To this court kings sent couriers with proffers of honors and assurances of esteem; hither came legions oflittérateurs, academicians, politicians, eager to hail the savant or to secure his commendation. "All roads then led to Ferney as they once did to Rome," and the hospitalities of the château were so taxed that Voltaire declared he was innkeeper for all Europe. He habitually complained of the climate here, "Lapland in winter, Naples in summer;" during some seasons "thirty leagues of snow were visible from his windows;" but on the July day of our visit the atmosphere is exquisitely delightful and Voltaire's "desert" seems a paradise. Behind us rise the vine-clad slopes of Jura, below lies the lake like an amethystine sea, afar gleam the snow-crowned peaks, and about us in the old gardens are the golden sunshine, the incense of flowers, the twitter of birds, and all the charm of sweet summer-time. As we linger in the spots he loved it is pleasant to recallReminiscencesthe good that mingled in the oddly composite nature of the daring old man who inhabited this beautiful scene and created much of its beauty; to remember that dumb creatures loved him and fed from his hand;that the destitute and oppressed never vainly applied to him for succor or protection; that in varying phrase he solemnly averred, in letters of counsel to youthful admirers in his own and other lands, "We are in the world only for the good we can do."
Of the galaxy oflittérateurswho had home or haunt by Leman's margins Madame de Staël, by her long residence and many incidents of her career, seems most closely associated with this region of delights. The château of Coppet has for two centuries belonged to her family; here some portion of her girlhood was passed; here she found asylum from the horrors of the French Revolution and residence when Napoleon banished her from his capital. Later her son Auguste dwelt here, and the place is now the property of her great-granddaughter. Literary and social associations render this mediæval château one of the most interesting spots on earth. Exiled from the society of Paris, de Staël erected here a court which became the centre of intellectual Europe. Coppet was in itself a lustrous microcosm whose attraction was the conversation of its hostess and queen, which allured the wit and wisdom of a continent, making this court not only a literary centre, but a political power of which Napoleon, by his proscriptions, proclaimed hisfear. The great number of illustrious courtiers who came to Coppet caused the priestess of its hospitalities to aver she needed "a cook whose heels were winged."
Home of de Staël
The darkly-verdured terraces of Jura on the one hand, the blue waters and the farther snowy peaks on the other, fitly environ the enchanting scene in the midst of which was set the abode of the greatest woman of her time. From Geneva a charming sail along the lake conveys us to her home and sepulchre. We approach the château between rows of venerable trees beneath which de Staël loitered with her guests. The stately edifice rises from three sides of a court, whence we are admitted to a large hall on the lower floor which she used as a theatre. These walls, which give back only the echo of our foot-falls, have resounded with the applause of fastidious auditors when the queen of Coppet, with her children and Récamier, de Sabran, Werner, Jenner, Constant, Von Vought, or Ida Brun acted upon a stage at yonder end of the room. The composition of plays for this theatre was sometime de Staël's principal recreation: these have been published as "Essais Dramatiques." But more ambitious dramas were presented; the matchless Juliette acted here with Sabran and de Staël in "Semiramis;" Werner assisted in the first presentationof "Attila," which was written here; Constant's "Wallenstein" was composed here and first produced on this stage, as was also Oehlenschläger's "Hakon Jarl." De Staël was an efficient actress, her lustrous eyes, superb arms, and strong and flexible voice compensating for deficiencies of training. A broad stair leads from the silent theatre to the principal apartments, among which we find the library where Necker wrote his "Politics and Finance," the grand salon and reception-rooms,—all of imposing dimensions and having parquetted floors. Arranged in these rooms are many mementos of the daughter of genius who once inhabited them,—hangings of tapestry; antique spindle-legged furniture carved and gilded in quaint fashion; the cherub-bedecked clock that stood above her desk; her books and inkstand; the desk upon which "Necker," "Ten Years of Exile," "Allemagne," and many minor treatises were written. Upon the wall is her portrait, by David, which pictures her with bare arms and shoulders, her head crowned by a nimbus of yellow turban which she wore when costumed as "Corinne:" the features are not classical, but the brunette face, with its splendid dark eyes, is comely as well as intellectual, and obviously contradicts Byron's declaration, "She is so ugly I wonder how the best intellect of France couldhave taken up such a residence." Schäffer's portrait of her daughter hangs near by, displaying a face of striking beauty, and a picture of Madame Necker, de Staël's mother, represents a sweet-faced woman who smiles upon the visitor despite the discomfort of a painfully tight-fitting dress of white satin. Here also are portraits of Necker, of de Staël's first husband, of her son Auguste, of Schlegel, and of other literaryconfrères, a statue of her father, by Tieck, and a bust of Rocca, her youthful second husband. The latter represents a finely-shaped head and a winning face. Byron thought Rocca notably handsome, and Frederica Brun testified, "he had the most magnificent head I ever saw." He was so slender that one of de Staël's courtiers wondered "how his many wounds found a place upon him:" these wounds, received in the Peninsula, won for him the sympathy of de Staël, which deepened into love.
Memorable Rooms—Mementos
As we wander through the rooms, waking the echoes and viewing the souvenirs of the illustrious dead, as we ponder their lives, their aims, their works, it seems, amid the vivid associations of the place, to require no supernal effort of the fancy to repeople it with the brilliant company who were wont to assemble here. Of these apartments, the salon, from whose wall looks down the portrait of Corinna, will longest holdthe pilgrim. It was the throne-room of this court: here resorted a throng of the best and noblest minds,littérateurs, scientists, men of largest thought, of highest rank. Here Récamier was a frequent guest: yonder mirror, with its multipanes framed in gilt metal, often reflected her lovely face. In this room she danced for the delight of de Staël her famous gavotte, which had transported thebeau mondeof Paris, and was rewarded by its celebration in "Corinne." Some who came to this court remained as residential guests: for fifteen years Sismondi worked here upon his "Literature of Southern Europe," etc.; here the sage Bonstetten wrote many of his twenty-five volumes; here Schlegel, the great critic of his age, who is commemorated in "Corinne" as Castel-Forte, was installed for twelve years and prepared his works on dramatic literature; here Werner, author of "Luther," "Wanda," etc., wrote much of his mystic poetry; here the Danish national poet composed his noblest tragedies, "Correggio" being a souvenir of Coppet; here Constant penned many dramas. Among the frequenters of this salon were Madame de Saussure, famous for her books on education; Frederica Brun, with her daughter Ida who is imaged in "Allemagne;" Sir Humphry and Lady Davy, the latter being the realization of "Corinne;" Madame de Krüdener,author of "Valérie," from whom Delphine was mainly drawn; Barante the critic; Dumont, editor of Jeremy Bentham. Of those who came less often were Cuvier, Gibbon, Ritter, Lacretelle, Mirabeau, Houghton, Brougham, Ampère, Byron, Shelley, Montmorency, Wynona, Tieck, Müller, Candolle, de Sergey, Prince Augustus, and scores of others.
Literary Court and Courtiers
This room, where that galaxy assembled, has witnessed the most wonderful intellectualséancesof the century. We may imagine something of the brilliancy of an assembly of such minds presided over by de Staël,—what gayety, what coruscations of wit, what displays of wisdom, what keenness of discussion were not possible to such a circle! For some time religious tenets were frequently under consideration. Every shade of belief, doubt, and agnosticism had its defenders in the company. Sismondi was corresponding with Channing of Boston, whose views he espoused, and the arrival of each letter caused the renewal of the argument in which de Staël was the principal advocate of the spiritual motive of Christianity as against a system of mere well-doing. All questions of literature, art, ethics, philosophy, politics, were considered here by the most capable minds of the age, the discussions being oft prolonged into the night. But that there may be too mucheven of a good thing is naïvely confessed by Bonstetten, one of the lights of theseséances, in his letters: "I feel tired by surfeit of intellect: there is more mind expended at Coppet in a day than in many countries in a year, but I am half dead." Scintillant converse was interspersed with music from the old harpsichord in yonder corner,—touched by fingers that now are dust,—with recitations and reading of MSS. It was the habit of de Staël to read to the circle, for their criticism, what she had written during the morning, and to discuss the subsequent chapters. Guests who were writing at the château then read their compositions—Bonstetten's "Latium" often put the company to sleep—and eagerly sought de Staël's suggestions; "the lesser lights were glad to borrow warmth and lustre from the central sun." Châteauvieux declares, "She formed my mental character; for twenty years my sentiments were founded upon hers." Sismondi says, "She determined my literary career; her good sense guided my pen." Bonstetten, Schlegel, Werner, and others bear similar testimony to the value of her counsel.
Byron, Shelley, etc.
The place was never more animated than in the last summer of her life, when Byron and Shelley used to cross the lake to join the circle in this room. De Staël had met Byron in Londonduring the ephemeral "Byron-madness," and now, in his social exile, her doors were freely open to him: his letters testify "she made Coppet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth." Here he first saw "Glenarvon," a venomous attack upon him which seems to have served no purpose save to illustrate the aphorism about "a woman scorned," its authoress having been notoriously importunate for Byron's favor, even attempting, it was said, to enter his apartments in male attire. In this salon Mrs. Hervey, the novelist, feigned to faint at Byron's approach: from the balcony outside these windows, where de Staël and her father stood and saw Napoleon's army cross the Swiss frontier, Byron looked upon the scene which inspired some of his divinest stanzas. The château was a busy place in those years: a guest writes from here, "In every corner one is at a literary task; de Staël is writing 'Exile,' Auguste and Constant a tragedy, Sabran an opera, Sismondi his 'Republics,' Bonstetten a philosophy, and Rocca his 'Spanish War.'"
One noble chamber hung with dim tapestries is that erst occupied by Récamier: it had before been the sick-room of Madame Necker and the scene of her husband's loving care of her, which de Staël so touchingly records. The chamber of de Staël is near by, its windows overlookingher sepulchre: here she wrote the books which made her fame; here she instructed her children, their Sabbath lessons being from the devout treatises of her father and à Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," the book she read in her own dying hours. A smaller room, looking out upon the park, the terraces of Jura, and the white walls of Lausanne, was shared by Constant and Bonstetten. In the tower above have been found letters written by Gibbon to hisfiancée, who became the mother of de Staël: they have been published by the grandson of de Staël, and show that the conduct of the great "Decliner and Faller" toward the then poor girl was thoroughly selfish and unscrupulous.
The rooms are renovated and the place is offered for rent, but nothing is destroyed. The formal park at the side of the château is little changed: along yonder wooded aisle and upon thisalléebetween prim patches of sward the de Staël walked with her guests in the summers of long ago; upon the seat beneath this coppice, beside this placid pool, or on the margin of yonder brooklet from the top of Jura, they lingered in brilliant converse till the stars came out one by one above the darkening mountains. These—the mute, soulless inanimates—remain, while the illustrious company that quickened and glorified them all has vanished from human ken.Some rods distant from the château, shaded by a sombre grove and bounded by a hoary wall, is the picturesque chapel in which Necker is laidTomb of Necker and de Staëlwith his wife, to whose tomb he, for many years, daily came to pray. In the same crypt the mortal part of de Staël rests at his feet; the portal was walled up at her burial and eye hath not since seen her sepulchre. A stone which marks the grave of her son Auguste, and lies on the threshold of that sealed portal, is fittingly inscribed, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"
Beyond the closed gate we pause for a parting view of the scene, now flooded with sunshine, and as we leave the place we carry thence that resplendent vision embalmed in a memory that will abide with us forever. As I write these closing lines I see again that summer sky, cloudless save for the fleece floating above Jura like that which the bereaved Necker fancied was bearing the soul of his wife to paradise. I see again the glimmering water; the mountains with their tiaras of snow, sending back the sunbeams from their shining peaks like reflections from the pearly gates that enclose the Celestial City; and, amid this sublime beauty, the gleaming sycamores that sway above the tomb of "the incomparable Corinna."
INDEX
Abbotsford,—Scott,—161.Addison,15,19,30,36,91.Akenside,16,25.Andersen, Hans Christian,55,57.Annesley Hall and Park,71-77.Aram, Eugene;Scenes,111,144-147.Arbuthnot,16,36.Arnold, Dr. and Matthew,92.Astell, Mary,30.Bacon,21.Baillie, Joanna,15.Barbauld, Mrs.,14,16.Besant,15,18.Bolingbroke,37.Bolton Abbey,143.Bonnivard, Francis,227.Bowes, Dotheboys,106.Braddon, Miss,38.Brontës, The,68;Brussels,134,207;Haworth,121;Scenes and Characters of Tales,121,124,126,127,129,135,207-225.Brown, Oliver Madox,32.Brussels,—Villette,—Brontë Scenes,207.Bulwer,—Eugene Aram,—144-147.Burns;Alloway,181;Dumfries,164;Ellisland,171;Grave,165;Haunts,—Scenes of Poems,—164,165,166,170,171,178,181,196,200,205;Heroines,185,190,194;Niece,183.Butler, Samuel,91.Byron;Annesley,71;Coppet,250;Harrow,69;Newstead,80;Leman,226-237;London,62;Scenes of Poems,69,72-77,80-90,226,232,233,251;Tomb,70.Caine, Hall, mentioned,32.Campbell,66,68.Canning,64.Carlyle, Birthplace,162;Homes,33,162,167;Sepulchre,163.Chaucer,24,25,50.Chaworth, Mary Ann,71-79.Chelsea,29-37.Chillon,233.Clarens,—Rousseau,—232.Coleridge,19,106;Grave,22;Home,21.Collyer, Robert, Early Haunts,136.Colwick Hall,—Chaworth-Musters,—78.Congreve, mentioned,15,30,37.Constant,245,246,248,251,252.Cooling,—Great Expectations,—57.Coppet,—Madame de Staël,—244.Coventry,—George Eliot,—102.Coxwold,—Sterne,—113.Crabbe, mentioned,19,66.Craigenputtock,—Carlyle,—167.Crockett, S. R.,178.Cunningham, Allan,164.Davy, Sir Humphry, mentioned,155,159,248.Denham, mentioned,40.De Quincey, mentioned,21,62.De Staël,159,228,230;Home and Sepulchre,244.Dickens,13,19,20,24,28,34,230;Gad's Hill,49;Scenes of Tales,18-20,22,24-28,54,57-61,64,106.Donne, John,35,36.Dorset,—Shaftesbury,—15,36.Dotheboys,—Nicholas Nickleby,—106.Douglas, Poet of Annie Laurie,175-179.Du Maurier,18,20.Dumfries,—Burns,—164.Dyer,91.Ecclefechan,—Carlyle,—162.Eliot, George,31,143;Birthplace, Early Homes,93;Grave,23;Scenes and Characters of Fiction,93,95-103.Emerson,34,104,169,170.Erasmus, mentioned,36.Fairfax, Edward,137,142.Falstaff,50,55,56,58.Ferney,—Voltaire,—238.Fields, James T.,55,59.Foston,—Sydney Smith,—149.Froude,33.Gad's Hill,—Dickens, Shakespeare,—49.Gaskell, Mrs.,101,130,131,215,223.Gay,15,30,33,34.Geneva,227.Gibbon,39,63;On Leman,231,232,249,252.Goldsmith, mentioned,18.Gray,—Scene of Elegy,—39.Hampstead, Literary,13.Harridan, Mrs.,15.Harrow,—Byron,—18,69.Haworth,—The Brontës,—121.Hawthorne,68,71,184.Hazlitt, mentioned,19,21,170.Herbert, George,36.Heslington,—Sydney Smith,—148.Highgate, Literary,21.Highland Mary,—Homes, Scenes, Grave,—195.Hogarth,19.Hogg, mentioned,161.Hood, mentioned,19,68.Hook, Theodore,26,37.Hunt, Leigh,18,19,21,34,68.Ilkley,—Collyer, etc.,—137.Irving, Edward, mentioned,164,170.Irving, Washington,66,71,72,76,83,86,89.Jackson, Helen Hunt, mentioned,184.Jeanie Deans,167.Jeffrey, Francis,149,154,155,170.Johnson, Dr.,15,18,25,34.Keats,15,16,19,25.Keighley,—Brontë, Collyer,—121,136.Kensal Green, Graves of Literati,68.Kingsley,35.Kit-Kat Club,15.Lake Leman,—Literary Shrines,—226-253.Lamb, mentioned,19,21.Landon, Letitia E.,30.Laurie, Annie, Birthplace and Homes,172,176;Grave,177;Song,180.Lausanne,—Gibbon, Dickens, etc.,—230.Livingstone,81,82,84,86.Loamshire of George Eliot,93.Locke,36.London,13,17,24,45,62,119,148.Longfellow, alluded to,55,142,234.Macaulay,64,155,158,159.Maclise,19,31,34,55.Marvell,21.Maxwelton,—Annie Laurie,—173.Melrose,—Scott,—161.Miller, Joaquin,71,83.Milton,39,228.Mitford, Miss, mentioned,30.Montagu, Mary Wortley,21,31,62.Moore,64,67.Mulock, Miss,—John Halifax Scenes,—92.Murray, John,—Drawing-Room,—66.Newburgh,—Sterne,—118.Newstead Abbey,—Byron,—80.Nidderdale,—Eugene Aram,—143.Niece of Burns,183;quoted,196,204.Nithsdale,—Burns, Scott, Carlyle,—164.Nuneaton,—Milby of Eliot,—101.Pepys,30,31.Pope,14,15,18,21,30,37,38.Porter, Jane,39.Ramsay, Allan,178.Richardson,16,37.Rochester,—Dickens,—54,60,61.Rogers, mentioned,15,143.Rokeby,—Scott,—109.Rossetti,23,229;Home and Friends,31,32.Rousseau,227;Scenes of Fiction,232,233,237.Rugby,—Hughes, Arnold,—92.Ruskin, mentioned,34.Schlegel,248.Scott;Abodes and Resorts,64,66,109,161,172;Scenes and Characters,109,161,167,172.Shakespeare,25,50,91,92,93.Shelley,19,21;Leman,227,229,232,237,250.Shepperton Church and Parsonage,98.Smith, Sydney,68;Yorkshire Homes and Church,148.Smollett,30,33,34.Somervile,91.Somerville, Mrs.,29.Southey, mentioned,21,106.Southwark,—Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens,—24.Stanley, H. M.,88,184.Steele,14,15,19,30,33,36.Sterne,34;Grave,120;Home and Study,112,113,115;Resorts,113,118.Stoke-Pogis,—Gray,—39.Swift,15,30,36,37.Swinburne,32,33.Tennyson,33,39.Thackeray,18,68,104,120.Turner,37,142,143.Voltaire, Château and Study,238.Waller,39,46.Walpole,15,30.Walton, mentioned,36.Watts, Theodore,32.Wilde, Oscar,35.Wordsworth,15,21,106,143,161.Wuthering Heights,129.York,—Sterne, etc.,—111.Yorkshire Shrines,106,111,121,136,148.