CHAPTER XV.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.

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 RomanCatholic 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.

Portrait of Merle d’Aubigné

In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many interesting manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of hissermons, 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.

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, andBaron 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 yearsafter 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.

Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva.

The most picturesque in its situation, and the most famous city on the lake, except Geneva, isLausanne, 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’shair, and, more than all, arat,—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 wereexcommunicatedby 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 theterrace 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.

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 thequestion, 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 therocks. 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 morningby railgave 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 thediligence, 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.

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 thecoupé, 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 thatyou 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 goodfortune 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 thatowing 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 theability 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 wasnotrendering 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 distinctlygiven, 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,”

“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 thesaints; 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.

Cathedral and Platform at Berne.

By stopping over from one train to another you will seeall that is worth seeing in the quaint old city ofBerne,—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-boundaryof the world stands up in its majesty, lighted as we saw it by a blazing noonday sun, it is sublime as well as beautiful.

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 ofadmiration, 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 “MyFathermade them all.”

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