The Spell of Switzerland
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She has been called “the Bride of Mont Blanc” and it is said of her that “her name shines with fiery brilliancy in the firmament of Alpinism.”
Undoubtedly, if she were living now, she would be the first woman to cross the Alps in an aeroplane, for in 1838 she proposed to go to London to make an ascension in Charles Green’s balloon.
In the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris are three volumes containing fourteen narratives by those travellers who successfully reached the summit between 1786 and 1838, including an account of the supposed discovery of the valley of Chamonix and a history of the Priory, accompanied by a series of pictures, portraits and original letters, collected by Markham Sherwill, who was the first to put an end to the legend of the discovery of the valley by Windham and Pococke.
The sight of Coppet of course instantly brought to mind Gibbon’s early love and her later residence with her unhappy husband (“the past, the present and the future all odious to him”) and their strong-minded daughter, Madame de Staël. In one of Gibbon’s letters he tells of the report that the Necker had purchased the barony of “Copet” and had found the buildings in great disrepair. He added: – “They have now a very troublesome charge … the disposal of a Baroness. Mademoiselle Necker, one of the greatest heiresses in Europe, is now about eighteen, wild, vain but good-natured and with a much larger provision of wit than beauty; what encreases their difficulties is their religious obstinacy of marrying her only to a Protestant.”
She had chance to display her wit, for their house, whether at Paris or in Switzerland, was always frequented by distinguished public men and writers. In one of her youthful essays speaking of “La Nouvelle Héloïse” she criticizes Julie for continually lecturing Saint-Preux: “A guilty woman may love virtue,” she says, “but she should not prate about it.”
She might have been the wife of William Pitt; the Comte de Guibert (to whom Mademoiselle de l’Espinasse wrote such glowing love-letters and whose marriage to another lady broke her heart) was also regarded as a possibility. But finally the choice fell on the Swedish Baron de Staël-Holstein, who was, in consequence of her dowry, raised to the rank of ambassador, but was more heavily laden with debts than with intellect.
At Coppet, while in exile from her beloved Paris, she wrote her romance “Corinne,” and at Coppet she managed to gather about her that circle of wits and admirers which was so essential to her happiness. The German poet and romanticist, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, lived at Madame de Staël’s château for about fourteen years. Byron visited her there; so did George Ticknor of Boston. But Switzerland exercised no spell on Madame de Staël and interesting as her love-affairs are, especially her long liaison with Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, whose cant name was “La Fausseté,” just as Madame de Montolieu’s was “Le Tourbillon” and Gibbon’s was “Neptune” or her secret marriage with the handsome youth Albert de Rocca, she was only, as it were, a prisoner in sight of the Alps and yearning for her beloved Paris.
Sainte-Beuve, who was for a time a professor at Lausanne, gives a brilliant account of the society which gathered in her salon. He says: —
“What the sojourn at Ferney was for Voltaire, the life at Coppet was for Madame de Staël, but with a more romantic halo round her, it seems to us, more of the grandeur and pomp of life. Both reigned in their exile; Voltaire, in his low flat plain, his secluded, poverty-stricken castle, with a view of despoiled, unshaded gardens, scorned and derided. The influence of Coppet is quite different; it is that of Jean-Jacques continued, ennobled, installed, and reigning amid the same associations as his rival. Coppet counterbalances Ferney, half dethrones it.
“We also, of this younger generation, judge Ferney by comparing it with Coppet, coming down from Coppet. The beauty of its site, the woods which shadow it, the sex of its poet, the air of enthusiasm we breathe there, the elegant company, the glorious names, the walks by the lake, the mornings in the park, the mysteries and the inevitable storms which we surmise, all contribute to idealize the place for us. Coppet is the Elysium which every disciple of Jean-Jacques would gladly give to the mistress of his dreams…
“The literary and philosophical conversations, always high-toned, clever and witty, began as early as eleven in the morning, when all met at breakfast; and were carried on again at dinner, and in the interval between dinner and supper, which was at eleven at night, and often as late as midnight. Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël engrossed the conversation… Their intellects were in accord; they always understood each other.
“But we must not suppose that everyone there was always either sentimental or solemn; very often they were simply gay; Corinne had days of abandon, when she resembled the signora Fantastici. Plays were often acted at Coppet, dramas and tragedies, or the chivalric pieces of Voltaire, ‘Zaïre’ and ‘Tancrède,’ favourites of Madame de Staël’s; or plays composed expressly by her or her friends. These latter were sometimes printed at Paris, so that the parts might more easily be learned; the interest taken in such messages was very keen; and when in the interval some important correction was thought of, a courier was hurried off, and sometimes a second to catch him up, and modify the correction already en route. The poetry of Europe was represented at Coppet by many celebrated men. Zacharias Werner, one of the originators of that court, whose ‘Attila’ and other dramas were played with a considerable addition of German ladies, wrote about this time (1809) to Counsellor Schneffer: —
“‘Madame de Staël is a queen, and all the intelligent men who live in her circle are unable to leave it, for she holds them by a magic spell. They are not all, as is foolishly believed in Germany, occupied in forming her literary character; on the contrary, they receive a social education at her hands. She possesses to admiration the secret of uniting the most unlikely elements, and all who come near her, however different their opinions may be, agree in adoring this idol. Madame de Staël is of middling height, and, without possessing the elegance of a nymph, is of noble proportions… She is healthy, a brunette, and her face is not exactly beautiful; but this is not observed, for at sight of her eyes all else is forgotten; they are superb; a great soul not only shines in them, but shoots forth flame and fire. And when, as so often happens, she speaks straight from her heart, we see how this noble heart is hedged round by all that is great and profound in her mind, and then one must adore her, as do my friends A. W. Schlegel and Benjamin Constant.’
“It is not difficult to imagine to oneself the sprightly author of this picture. Werner, in his uncouth dress, purposely besmeared with snuff, furnished as he was with an enormous snuff-box, which he used plentifully during his long, erotic, and platonic digressions on androgyne; his fate was, he said, to be dragged hither and thither in fruitless search for that other half of himself, and from one attempt to another, from divorce after divorce, he never despaired of, in the end, reconstituting his original self.
“As for portraits of Madame de Staël, we see how all who try to limn her agree in the chief points, from M. de Guibert to [OE]hlenschlæger and Werner. Two faithful and trustworthy portraits from the brush allow us to dispense with literary word-painting, – the portrait painted by Madame Lebrun in 1807, which presents Madame de Staël to us as Corinne, bare-headed, her hair in curls, a lyre in her hand; and the picture by Gérard, painted after her death, but from perfect, unerring remembrance. However, in collecting together several sketches from various contemporaneous pens, we think we have not done a useless thing; one is never weary of harmonizing many reminiscences of those beloved and admired ones who are no more.
“English poetry, which, during the Continental wars, was unrepresented at this long congress of thought of which Coppet was the abiding-place, appeared there in 1816, in the persons of Lewis and Byron. The latter has spoken of Madame de Staël in his Memoirs in an affectionate and admiring manner, despite a certain levity the oracle indulges in. Blasé as he is, he admits that she has made Coppet the most pleasant place in the world, through the society she chooses to receive there, and which her own talent animates. On her side, she pronounced him to be the most seductive man in England, always adding: ‘I credit him with just sufficient tenderness to destroy the happiness of a woman.’”
Higher and higher grow the shores of the lake. We left Coppet and its memories of that brilliant and unhappy genius behind and were soon skirting Nyon, which the Romans knew as Noviodunum. Now that name is most interesting. It contains in it the noun dun which as a Saxon word means a hill and is seen in its simplest form in the expression, sand-dunes; it also appears as “downs;” but it is also a Keltic word and means a fortified hill; both Saxon and Keltic words are etymologically the same as ton or town. Cæsar made it a garrison forty-five years before Christ and called it Colonia Equestris.
There is often a wonderful germ of history hidden away in proper names. Who would ever dream that the little town of Gstaad which, of course, is the same as Gestade, meaning shore or bank, represents its ancient Latin name of Ripa Barbarorum? In the same way the Roman Mons Saccarum was pronounced by the Germans Masox or Meysachs, the Rhetii called it Misanc and from that came the name of the Barons of Misaucus who inhabited a magnificent castle built before the middle of the Tenth Century. The Germans call the Italian the Wälsche, which is the same as calling them Welch, meaning strangers; that name is seen in the town of Wahlenstadt and in the people Walloons. Vaud itself means Valli, which is Walli, the same as Welch. So Montigl is monticulus, a little mountain; Rinegg is Rheni angulum, a bend of the Rhine; Gräppelen comes from c zappa longa, meaning long rocks.
There is a pretty little French characterization of Nyon in four lines. It reads: —
“A Nyon, la riante villeQui se dresse sur son coteau,Avec ses murs, son vieux château,Le lac est bleu d’un bleu tranquille.”We passed under it, but could see its stately castle crowned with a multitude of spiry towers. From its terrace there is a splendid view across to the pearly pyramid of Mont Blanc. The castle has walls ten feet thick, but is now used as a museum. Next we catch a glimpse of the Château de Prangins, where Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s oldest brother, lived, caring more for a scholarly and agricultural life than to be king of turbulent Spaniards. The two torrents rushing down from the Jura, the Promenthoux and the Aubonne, have thrust their cones out into the lake and given room for pretty villages.
Byron, returning from a walking expedition, stopped at Aubonne “which,” he says, “commands by far the fairest view of the Lake of Geneva; twilight; the Moon on the Lake; a grove on the height, and of very noble trees. Here Tavernier (the Eastern traveler) bought (or built) the Château, because the site resembled and equalled that of Erivan (a frontier city of Persia); and here he finished his voyages.”
There is a lovely bay between the two “cones” and the shore bears the distinctive name of La Côte; it is famous for its delicious grapes and excellent white wine. The now distant shore of Savoy swims in a delicate haze; over the water, just ruffled by a gentle breeze, curl those curious smooth-looking streaks which are called “fontaines” and are supposed to be caused by minute particles of oil, though some attribute them to subterranean springs.
It was growing late in the afternoon and the shores of the lake are not so interesting, that is not so bold, after passing Rolle and its precious island, and we cut across from Saint-Prex to Saint Sulpice, leaving Morges for another time, though its old castle looked enticing from the distance.
It was pleasant to get home again.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ASCENT OF THE DÔLE
I CAN see the importance of a knowledge of geology as a basis for the study of history. How do valleys run – north and south or east and west? This inclination conditions sunlight. Where the rocks are hard and impervious there are many small streams; but in a fissured district of chalky rock as in the Jura there are few torrents. There is almost no water in the regions of the upper Jurassic rocks and no temptations for settlers. But the lower and middle Jura, rich in marl, offers excellent pasturage. The grass grows sparse but sweet where the cretaceous rocks have crumbled. Where the sun shines bright and warm and there is shelter from cold winds the vine is cultivated.
Poor ignorant man, wandering up into valleys where the limestone of the hard water will give all his descendants the goître, or building his habitation under a precipice where the whole side of the mountain will slide down on him and overwhelm him, as happened at Val Bregaglia in 1618 when Monte Conto wiped out most of the 2,000 inhabitants of Piuro! How can a country like Switzerland, made up of so many scores of valleys each different in characteristic and each conditioning the inhabitants, – here making them taciturn, there gay and thoughtless, here again honest and religious, there sly and untrustworthy, – how can it have any real political unity?
The next morning, after breakfast, I went into the library and picked up a copy of Addison’s “Travels through Switzerland.” One sentence begins: – “I made a little voyage round the lake and touched on the several towns that lie on its coasts, which took up near five days, though the wind was pretty fair for us all the while.” He was referring to the Lake of Geneva. As usual with me, I copied a few paragraphs into my diary. I like to do that with letters or books. Often one can find just the description one wants and save making an original one. I was amused at one thing in Addison. He introduces classical poems whenever he can with his own translations and sometimes he forgets to put them à propos, so he adds them at the end of his chapter.
“Near St. Julian in Savoy the Alps begin to enlarge themselves on all sides and open into a vast circuit of ground, which, in respect of the other parts of the Alps, may pass for a plain champagne country. This extent of lands, with the Leman Lake, would make one of the prettiest and most defensible dominions in Europe, was it all thrown into a single state and had Geneva for its metropolis. But there are three powerful neighbors who divide among them the greatest part of this fruitful country. The Duke of Savoy has the Chablais and all the fields that lie beyond the Arve as far as to the Ecluse. The King of France is master of the whole country of Gex; and the Canton of Bern comes in for that of Vaud.
“Geneva and its little territories lie in the heart of these three states. The greatest part of the town stands upon a hill and has its view bounded on all sides by several ranges of mountains, which are, however, at so great a distance that they leave open a wonderful variety of beautiful prospects. The situation of these mountains has some particular effects on the country which they inclose. At first they cover it from all winds except the south and north. It is to the last of these winds that the inhabitants of Geneva ascribe the healthfulness of their air; for as the Alps surround them on all sides they form a vast kind of bason, where there would be a constant stagnation of vapors, the country being so well watered, did not the north wind put them in motion and scatter them from time to time.
“Another effect the Alps have on Geneva is that the sun here rises later and sets sooner than it does to other places of the same latitude. I have often observed that the tops of the neighboring mountains have been covered with light above half an hour after the sun is down in respect of those who live at Geneva.
“These mountains likewise very much increase their summer heats and make up an horizon that has something in it very singular and agreeable. On one side you have the long tract of hills that goes under the name of Mount Jura, covered with vineyards and pasturage, and on the other huge precipices of naked rocks rising up in a thousand odd figures and cleft in some places so as to discover high mountains of snow that lie several leagues behind them. Toward the south the hills rise more insensibly and leave the eye a vast uninterrupted prospect of many miles. But the most beautiful view of all is the lake and the borders of it that lie north of the town.
“This lake resembles a sea in the color of its waters, the storms that are raised on it and the ravages it makes on its banks. It receives too a different name from the coast it washes and in summer has something like an ebb and flow which arises from the melting of the snows that fall into it more copiously at noon than at other times of the day. It has four different states bordering on it: the Kingdom of France, the Duchy of Savoy, the Canton of Bern and the Republic of Geneva.”
Addison spent a day at Lausanne, which he calls the greatest town on the lake after Geneva, and he saw “the wall of the cathedral church that was opened by an earthquake and shut again some years after by a second.” But Addison adds: – “The crack can but be just discerned at present though there are several in the town still living who have formerly passed through it.”
Addison’s compliment to the Almighty in letting the Rhône run as it does is quite amusing. He says: “As I have seen the great part of the course of this river I cannot but think it has been guided by the particular hand of Providence… Had such a river as this been left to itself to have found its way out from among the Alps, whatever windings it had made it must have formed several little seas and have laid many countries under water before it had come to the end of its course.”
Addison went to Nyon, where he says he observed in the walls of several houses the fragments of the vast Corinthian pillars with several other pieces of architecture which must have formerly belonged to some very noble pile of building.
Will and I went to Nyon a few days after our return from Geneva and we went into the château, where there is now an interesting museum of antiquities. The walls of the building are at least three meters in thickness.
From Nyon we drove in the car through Trélex, Saint-Cergue, as far as the Château de Vuarnen; from there we walked to the summit of La Dôle. We chose our day and our time and had as perfect a view as one could desire. It stands about twelve hundred and forty meters above the sea but it might be rather lonely for a continued residence; for that I should perhaps choose the Château de Monnetier, within jumping distance of Geneva.
Here is Goethe’s account of his ascent of La Dôle. It was a more unusual exploit in his day, and it is interesting as showing what an effect the spell of the Alps had on the great German poet. I translated it for my diary, but, of course, I left out a few unessential passages: —
“The weather was very clear; when we looked around we had a view of the Lake of Geneva, the mountains of Savoy and of Valais; we could make out Lausanne and, through a faint mist, also the region of Geneva. Mont Blanc, which towers above all the mountains of the Faucigni, grew ever more and more distinct. The sun was sinking undimmed; it was such a great prospect that a human eye cannot grasp it. The moon, almost full, arose and we also kept mounting. Through forest of fir-trees we climbed up toward the Jura and saw the lake in the vaporous atmosphere and the moon reflected in it. It grew brighter and brighter. The road is a well-constructed chaussée only built to facilitate the transportation of wood from the mountains down into the country.
“We had been climbing a good three hours when it gradually began to descend again. We thought that we were looking down on a large lake below us, because a thick mist filled the whole valley over which we could look. At last we came quite near it and saw the white bow which the moon made in it and then we were wholly enveloped in it.”
They spent the night in a comfortable house and the next day continued their journey into the Jura, which he explains is a word from a local term, joux, meaning a crag or mountain. The next day they proceeded on their way. It was the twenty-fourth of October, 1779.
“It was a clear, cool morning; there was hoar frost on the meadows; here and there light mist-wreaths were drifting over; we could see fairly well over the lower part of the valley; our house lay at the foot of the Western Noir Mont. About eight o’clock we set forth on horseback, and in order to enjoy the sun at once we rode toward the west. The part of the valley where we were proceeding consists of fenced meadows which toward the lake become rather swampy. The Orbe flows through the center of it. The inhabitants have established themselves in single houses partly on its banks, partly in clustering villages which bear simple names suggested by their situation. The first one which we passed through was Le Sentier. From afar we saw La Dent de Baulion smiling across a fog bank which hung over the lake. The valley widened; we came behind a crag which hid the lake from us and entered another village called Le Lieu; the fog was rising and then settling down again before the sun.
“Near here is a little lake which seems to have neither inflow nor outflow. The weather became perfectly clear and as we reached the foot of the Dent de Baulion we found here the northerly end of a large lake which, as it turns toward the west, has its outlet into the little one through a dam over which is built a bridge. The village above it is called Le Pont. The lay of the little lake is, as it were, in its own little valley, which one might call a very neat arrangement. At the western end is a noteworthy mill constructed in a cleft of the rock which once the little lake filled. Now it is dammed away and the mill is built over the chasm. The water runs through sluices to the millwheels and from there dashes down into the clefts of the rocks, where it is swallowed up, and a mile away joins the Valorbe, where it once more takes the name of the upper stream.
“These sluices (entonniers) have to be kept clear, else the water would rise and fill up the cleft again and drown the mill, as has happened more than once. Men were busy at work, some removing the decomposed limestone, some strengthening the structure.
“We rode back over the bridge to Le Pont and took a guide to La Dent. As we mounted we had a fine view of the large lake below us in its whole extent. To the eastward Le Noir Mont forms its boundary; behind that the bald head of the Dôle comes into sight; to the westward the precipitous crags, quite naked toward the lake, confine it.
“The sun grew hot; it was between eleven and noon. Gradually we began to get a prospect over the whole valley and could recognize in the distance Le Lac des Rousses, and coming up to our feet the region through which we had been riding and the road which still remained for us to accomplish. As we mounted higher we talked about the vast extent of land and of the rulers which could be distinguished from that height and with such thoughts we attained the summit; but another drama was there prepared for us. Only the lofty mountain chains were visible under a clear and cheerful sky; all the regions below were bedecked with a white woolly sea of fog which stretched from Geneva northward to the very horizon and gleamed in the sun. Out of this to the east arose the whole unbroken range of snow and ice-covered mountains, without respect to the names of the nations and princes who lay claim to the possession of them, subjected only to one great Overlord and to the glance of the sun, which painted them a lovely rosy hue.
“Mont Blanc over opposite to us was evidently the highest; the ice-mountains of Valais and of the Oberland came next and finally closed in the lower mountain of the Canton of Bern. Toward the west in one place the sea of fog was unbounded; to the left in the farthest distance the mountains of Solothurn showed themselves; nearer still those of Neuchâtel; directly before us a few of the lower peaks of the Jura; below us lay some of the houses of Baulion whereto La Dent belongs and whence it gets the name. Toward the west the whole horizon is shut off by the Franche-Comté with a stretch of low wooded mountains, one of which stood out quite alone by itself toward the northwest. In front was a lovely view.