The Spell of Switzerland

Talking about these early days, we had reached the Palais Rumine, that monument of Russian generosity – a new building – one might call it almost a parvenu building – compared with the old Gothic cathedral, only a few steps farther on.

In a way, however, the cathedral is even later than the palace, because its restoration, in accordance with plans designed by the famous French architect, Viollet-le-Duc, was not completed until 1906, two years after the other building was dedicated to its present uses. The palace, which was built from the fifteen hundred thousand francs left by Gavriil Riumin (to spell the name in the Russian way), contains the various offices of the University, as well as picture galleries and museums.

“So this is the famous University of Lausanne,” I exclaimed, as we entered the learned portal.

“It has been a University for only about a quarter of a century,” remarked Will. “Gibbon and others wanted the Academy raised to a University more than a hundred years ago; but there seemed to be some prejudice against it. Its various schools were added at intervals. There has been a Special Industrial School ‘of Public Works and Constructions’ for about sixty years. In 1873 a school of pharmacy was started, and in 1888, when the Academy became a full-fledged University, it established a medical school. Theology still stands first; then come the schools of letters, of law, of science, of pedagogy, and of chemistry. Instruction is given in design, fencing, riding and gymnastics, and the University grants three degrees, the baccalaureate, the licentiate and the doctorate. It has an excellent library.”

“My errand will take me only a moment,” he added. “It is too fine a day to waste indoors; we shall have plenty of times when the atmosphere is not so clear, for the museums and the cathedral. I propose we stretch our legs by walking up to the Signal. Are you fit for such a climb?”

“What do you take me for?” I asked, with a fine show of indignation. “It is only about four hundred feet above where we are now.”

I had not studied the guide-book for nothing.

There may be a great exhilaration and excitement and delight in climbing to the top of lofty mountains, but, when one has achieved the summit, even if the view be not cut off by clouds, the distances are so enormous that for poor mortal eyes the result is most unsatisfactory. Huddled together, peak with peak, an indistinguishable mass, lie other mountains and ranges of mountains, with bottomless valleys; the effect is as unsatisfactory as the air is rare. One can see nothing clearly; one is out of one’s element, so to speak; one can hardly breathe.

But from a height of a thousand feet, or so, one gets a comprehensive view of the world; one can distinguish the habitations of men; their farms and fields are marked off with fences; the rivers and brooks are not voiceless. It is a satisfying experience. Such is the impression that I got from the top of the Signal. The city is fascinating, seen from above. There is the great bulk of the cathedral with its massive tower and the tall slender spire; the red roofs of innumerable houses; chimneys of factories in the lower town; then the exquisite lake; and, beyond it, the singularly silent and solemn masses of Les Diablerets, Le Grand Muveran and the jagged teeth of the Savoy Mountains, biting into the sky. They are so high that they shut off the grand bulk of Mont Blanc. It was certainly most thoughtful of my Lord Rhône to pause in the great valley and make a sky-blue lake for the delectation of mortals! Like swans with raised wings are the sail-boats. How far the wake made by that excursion steamboat extends across the placid water; it is curved like a scimetar of damascened steel!

“What a host of hotels!” I exclaimed. “I wonder how many foreigners are staying at Lausanne.”

“There must be five or six thousand regular residents from other parts of the world, besides the multitude of transients; Lausanne is a convenient stopping-place for several routes, to say nothing of the Simplon Tunnel line to Italy. There are probably fourteen hundred students at the University, and half of that number are Germans, Russians and Poles. The German Minister of Public Instruction permits students of the Empire to spend the first three semesters at certain of the Swiss universities. But a suspicion arose in some Vaterland circles that these young men were being corrupted by Russian radicalism and Vaudois democracy – undermining their monarchical principles. There was also some jealousy, especially in the Law School. Herr Kuhlenbeck and Herr Vleuten were the so-called treaty professors, and the fees were not equally distributed. The Rundschau charged that young men learned socialism.

“It has always seemed to me an excellent notion to exchange students, just as we are beginning to exchange professors. It might serve to undermine narrow, sectional patriotism, but it would teach a broader, world patriotism.”

The view back of Lausanne also claimed my attention.

“These heights of Jorat,” said Will, “are rather interesting geologically. It seems to be a sort of subsidiary wave, filling the space between the Jura and the Alps; but it has an individuality of its own. It was always covered with great sombre forests which gave it a melancholy aspect. The basis of the soil is sandstone, covered with pudding-stone. The ridge is all cut up with deep valleys. I have heard it said that the inhabitants had quite distinguishing characteristics and I don’t know why the people who live on some particular soil should not develop in their own way, just as the trees and plants and even the animals do. The stature diminishes as men inhabit higher and higher altitudes. The Swiss of the plains are generally rather heavy and slow, serious and solid. In the same way the people who live along the Jorat ought to be self-contained, close-mouthed, rather sad in temperament, perhaps uncertain in their movements, like the brook, the Nozon, which can’t quite make up its mind whether to flow to the Mediterranean by way of the Rhône or to the German Ocean by way of the Rhine.”

“It used to be a pretty important region, I should judge,” said I, “from all I have read of Swiss history. One flood of invasion after another dashed up against its walls and poured through its valleys.”

“It was, indeed. Some day I will show you the old tower which was called the Eye of Helvetia because it looked down and guarded the chief routes south and north, which crossed at its feet. It can be seen on a clear day from the top of Mont Pélerin. Then there is the tower of Gourze, where Queen Berthe took refuge when the Huns came sweeping over this land. Lausanne itself, as it is now, is a proof of the old invasions; it used to stand on the very shores of the lake, but, when the Allemanni came, the inhabitants took refuge in the heights.”

“I think this is a charming view, but, do you know, to me its greatest charm is in the signs of a flourishing population. See the church spires picturesquely rising above clumps of trees, and, here and there, the tiled roofs of some old château – of course I do not know them from one another, but I know the names of several – Moléson, Corcelles, Ropraz, Ussières, Chatélard, Hermenches.”

Several of these my nephew and I afterwards visited. I recall with delight our trip to the Château de Ropraz, where once lived the wonderfully gifted Renée de Marsens. It now belongs to the family of Desmeules. Near it, on a hill, lies the little village, the church of which was reconstructed in 1761, though its interior still preserves its venerable, archaic appearance. A grille surmounted by the Clavel arms separates the nave from the choir. There are tombs with Latin inscriptions, and on the walls are escutcheons painted with the arms of the old seigneurs. They still show the benches reserved for the masters of the château, flanked by two chairs with copper plates signifying that they are the “Place du Commandant” and the “Place du Chef de la Justice.” Seats were provided for visiting strangers and also for the domestics of the château. On the front of the pulpit is a panneau of carved wood bearing the words Soli Deo Gloria.

Renée, after her father’s fortune was lost, failed to make a suitable marriage, but she lived in Lausanne until 1848, and people used to go to call on her. They loved her for the brilliancy of her mind and her exquisite old-fashioned politeness. She knew Voltaire and all the great men of his time.

Another of the châteaux which we mentioned but were not certain that we could see was that of l’Isle, situated at the base of Mont Tendre in the valley of the Venoge. To this, also, we made an excursion one afternoon. It must have been splendid in its first equipment. It was built for Lieutenant Charles de Chandieu on plans furnished by the great French architect, François Mansard, whose memory is preserved in thousands of American roofs. In its day it was surrounded by a fine park. One room was furnished with Gobelin tapestries, brilliant with classic designs. Other rooms had tapestries with panels of verdure in the style of the Seventeenth Century. The salon was floored with marble (“the marble halls” which one might dream of dwelling in) and hung with crimson damask, setting forth the family portraits and the painted panels. On the mantels were round clocks of gilt bronze, while huge mirrors, resting on carved consoles, reflected the brilliant companies that gathered there to dance or play. There was an abundance of high-backed armchairs and sofas, or as they called them, canapés, upholstered in velvet, commodes in ebony adorned with copper, and marquetry secretaries.

On the ground floor there was a great ballroom hung with splendid Cordovan leather. As it had a large organ it was probably used as a chapel, for the family was musical and several of the ladies of the Chandieu family composed psalms – Will called them chants-Dieu, which was not bad.

From the entrance-hall a splendid stairway, still well-preserved, with its wrought-iron railing led up to the sleeping-rooms, which were furnished with great beds à la duchesse with satin baldaquins. Among the treasures was a beautiful chest of marquetry bearing the coat-of-arms quartered; it was a marriage-gift. Another, dated 1622, came from the Seigneur de Bretigny.

In front was a terrace with steps at the left leading down to the water. On each side of the stately main entrance, which reached to the roof, well adorned with chimneys, were three generous windows on each floor. In front there was a wide and beautifully kept lawn. The property was sold in 1810 for one hundred and seventy thousand francs. It came into the hands of Jacques-Daniel Cornaz, who, in 1877, sold it again for two hundred thousand. It now belongs to the Commune and is used for the écoles séculaires. The wall that once surrounded it has disappeared and the prosperous farms once attached to it were sold.

There is nothing in the literature of domestic life more fascinating than the diary and letters of Catherine de Chandieu, who married Salomon de Charrière de Sévery. They inherited the charming estate of Mex with its châteaux, and one of them, with a queer-shaped apex at each corner and a fascinating piazza, became their summer home. Another of these fine old places was the Château de Saint-Barthélemy, which belonged to the Lessert family for three or four generations; then came into the possession of the famous Karl Viktor von Bonstetten, the author and diplomat, and was bought in 1909 by M. Gaston de Cerjat. In the hall hung pictures of several French kings, probably presented because of diplomatic services. Many of these old manor-houses on the shores of the Lakes of Geneva and of Neuchâtel have come into the possession of wealthy foreigners who have modernized them; others are now asylums, or schools, or boarding-houses.

But in those days they were filled with a cultivated and hospitable gentry who were always paying and receiving visits.

Really there is no end to the romance of these old houses; yet, curiously enough, most of them were carefully set down in little valleys which protected them from cold winds, but also from the magnificent views which they might have had. Even when they were on hills, trees were so planted as to hide the enchanting landscape, the lake and the gleaming mountains. Albrecht von Haller, the Bernese poet and novelist, Charles de Bonnet of Geneva, and Rousseau at Paris, “lifted the veil from the mountains” and made the world realize that the lake was something else than a trout-pond.

It was time for us to be getting back. While we were on Le Signal some aerial Penelope had woven a web of delicate cloud and spread it out half-way up the Savoy Mountains across the lake; everything had changed as everything will in a brief half-hour. There were different gorges catching sunbeams, and tossing out shadows; there was another tint of violet over the waters. I suggested a plan for describing mountain views. It was to gather together all the adjectives that would be appropriate – high, lofty, massive, portentous, frowning, cloud-capped, craggy, granitic, basaltic, snow-crowned, delectable and so on, just as Lord Timothy Dexter did with his punctuation-marks, delegating them to the end of his “Pickle for the Knowing Ones,” so that people might “pepper and salt” it as they pleased. If I wrote a book about Switzerland – that is, if I find that my impressions, jotted down like a diary, are worth publishing, I mean to add an appendix to contain a sort of armory of well-fitting adjectives and epithets for the use of travellers and sentimental young persons. In this way I may be recognized as a benefactor and philanthropist.

“Do you know what is the origin of the name, Lausanne?” asked Will, arousing me from a revery caused by the compelling beauty of those gem-like peaks, that rippling ridge of violet-edged magnificences that loomed above the glorious carpet of the lake. The pedigree of names is always interesting to me. Philology has always been a hobby of mine.

“Why, yes,” said I, “that is an easy one. It comes from the former name of the river, Flon. The Romans used to call the settlement here Lousonna. Almost all names of rivers have the primitive word meaning water, or flow, hidden in them. The Aa, the Awe, the Au, the Ouse, the Oise, the Aach and the English Avon, and a lot more, come from the Old High German aha, and that is nothing but the Latin aqua. The Greek hudor is seen in the Oder, the Adour, the Thur, the Dranse and even in the Portuguese Douro; and the Greek rheo, ‘I flow,’ is in the Rhine and the Rhône and the Reuss and in the Rye.”

“So I suppose you derive Lausanne from the French l’eau.”

As I passed in silent contempt such an atrocious joke as that, he seized the opportunity to tell me about the Frenchman who had some unpleasant associations with the inhabitants and declared it was derived from les ânes– the asses.

“From all I have read about them,” I replied, “they must have been a pretty narrow-minded, bigoted set of people here. Way back in 1361 an old sow was tried and condemned to be hanged for killing a child; and about the middle of the next century a cock was publicly burned for having laid a basilisk’s egg. One of the worthy bishops of Lausanne, – did you ever hear? – went down to the shores of the lake and recited prayers against the bloodsuckers that were killing the salmon.”

“Was that any more superstitious than for present-day ministers to pray for rain?”

“I suppose not; only it seems more trivial,” I replied absently, as I gazed down upon the housetops. “I did not realize Lausanne was so large.”

“The city is growing, Uncle. Toward the south and the west you can see how it is spreading out. There is something tragic to me in the outstretch of a city. It is like the conquest of a lava-flow, such as I once saw on the side of Kilauea, in the Hawaiian Islands; it cuts off the trees, it sweeps away the natural beauties. Lausanne has trebled its population in fifty years. It must have been much more picturesque when Gibbon lived here. For almost eighty years they have been levelling off the hills. It took five years to build the big bridge which Adrien Pichard began, but did not live to finish. The bridge of Chauderon has been built less than ten years.”

“They must have had a tremendous lot of filling to do.”

“They certainly have, and they have given us fine streets and squares – especially those of La Riponne and Saint-François. It was too bad they destroyed the house of the good Deyverdun, where Gibbon spent the happiest days of his life. It had too many associations with the historic past of Lausanne. They ought to have kept the whole five acres as a city park. What is a post office or a hotel, even if it is named after a man, compared to the rooms in which he worked, the very roof that sheltered him?”

“We have still time enough,” said I, consulting the elevation of the sun; “let us go down by way of the cathedral. I should like to see it in the afternoon light.”

“We can take the funiculaire down; that will get us there quicker.”

We did so, and then the Rue l’Industrie brought us, by way of the Rue Menthon, to the edifice itself.

“I want you to notice the stone of which the cathedral is built,” said Will.

“Yes, it’s sandstone.”

“It is called Lausanne stone. A good many of the old houses are built of it, and it came from just one quarry, now exhausted, I believe. It seems to have run very unevenly. Some of the big columns are badly eaten by the tooth of time; in others the details are just as fresh as if they had been done yesterday. Notice those quaint little figures kneeling and flying in the ogives of the portal; some are intact, others look as if mice had gnawed them. It is just the same with some of the fine old houses; one will be shabby and dilapidated; the very next will be well-preserved.”

“I think it is a rather attractive colour – that greyish-green with the bluish shadows.”

We stood for a while outside and looked up at the mighty walls and the noble portal. We walked round on the terrace from which one gets such a glorious view.

There is something solemn and almost disquieting in a religious edifice which has witnessed so many changes during a thousand years. Its very existence is a curious and pathetic commentary on the superstitions of men. Westerners, interpreting literally the symbolism of the Orient, believed that the world would come to an end at the end of the first millennium. It was a terrible, crushing fear in many men’s minds. When the dreaded climacteric had passed and nothing happened, and the steady old world went on turning just as it had, the pious resolved to express their gratitude by erecting a shrine to the Virgin Mother of God. Before it was completed its founder was assassinated. In the thirteenth century it was thrice devastated by fires which were attributed by the superstitious to the anger of God at the sins of the clergy and of the people. The statue of the Virgin escaped destruction and the church was rebuilt between 1235 and 1275. When it was consecrated, in October, 1275, Pope Gregory X, with the Emperor, Rudolf of Hapsburg, his wife and their eight children, and a brilliant crowd of notables, cardinals, dukes, princes and vassals of every degree, were present. The great entrance on the west was completed in the fifteenth century. The nave is three hundred and fifty-two feet long; its width is one hundred and fifty feet and it is divided into eight aisles. There are seventy windows and about a thousand columns, many of them curiously carved.

The well-known Gate of the Apostles is in the south transept. It commemorates only seven of them, though why that invidious distinction should have been made no one knows. Old Testament characters fill up the quota. These worthies stand on bowed and cowed demons or other enemies of the Faith.

In the south wall is the famous rose-window, containing representations of the sun and the moon, the seasons and the months, the signs of the zodiac and the sacred rivers of Paradise, and quaint and curious wild beasts which probably are visual traditions of the antidiluvian monsters that once inhabited the earth, and were still supposed to dwell in unexplored places.

The vaulting of the nave is sixty-two feet high. It gave plenty of room for the two galleries which once surmounted the elaborately carved façade. One of them was called the Monks’ Garden, because it was covered with soil and filled with brilliant flowers.

Back of the choir is a semicircular colonnade. The amount of detail lavished on the various columns is a silent witness of the cheapness of skilled labour and of the time people had to spend. The carved choir stalls, completed in 1506, were somehow spared by the vandal iconoclasts of the Reformation; but thirty years later Bern, when taking possession of Lausanne, carried off eighteen wagon-loads of paintings, solid gold and silver statues, rich vestments, tapestries, and all the enormous wealth contributed to the treasures of the church.

We were fortunate to find the cathedral still open, and in the golden afternoon light we slowly strolled through the silent fane – the word fane always sounds well. We paused in front of the various historic tombs. Especially interesting was that dedicated to the memory of Otho de Grandson, who, having been charged with having instigated the murder of Amadée VII, was obliged to enter into a judicial duel with Gérard d’Estavayer, the brother of the fair Catherine d’Estavayer whom he expected to marry.

Gérard apparently stirred up great hatred against him. Otho had in his favour the Colombiers, the Lasarraz, the Corsonex, and the Rougemonts; while with Gérard were the Barons de Bussy, de Bonvillar, de Bellens, de Wuisternens, de Blonay and, especially, representatives of the powerful family of d’Illens whose great, square castle is still pointed out, beetling over the Sarine opposite Arconciel. These men were probably jealous of Otho. His friends wore a knot of ribbons on the tip of their pointed shoes, while his enemies carried a little rake over their shoulders.

Otho shouted out his challenge to Gérard: “You lie and have lied every time you have accused me. I swear it by God, by Saint Anne and by the Holy Rood. But come on! I will defend myself and I will so press forward that my honour will be splendidly preserved. But you shall be esteemed as a liar.”

So Otho made the sign of the Cross and threw down the battle-gage. But, although he was undoubtedly innocent, the battle went against him. His effigy is still to be seen in the cathedral. The hands resting on a stone cushion are missing but this probably was due to some accident and not to any symbolism. This all happened about a hundred years before Columbus discovered America – in 1398.

Here, too, lies buried, under a monument by Bartolini, Henrietta, the first wife of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, minister from England to Switzerland. She died in 1818.

There are monuments also commemorating the Princess Orlova, who was poisoned by Catharine II of Russia, and Duc Amadée VIII, who caused Savoy to be erected into a duchy and became Pope Felix V in 1439, after he had lived for a while in a hermitage on the other shore of the lake. He is not buried in the cathedral but his intimate connection with the history of Lausanne is properly memorialized by his monument.

A city is like an iceberg. Its pinnacles and buttresses tower aloft and glitter in the sun; it seems built to last for ever. But it is not so; its walls melt and flow away and are put to other uses. A temple changes into a palace, and a fortification is torn down to make a park. Where are the fifty chapels that once flanked Notre Dame de Lausanne? Where is the fortified monastery of Saint Francis? Where is the lofty tower of La Grotte, and the moat in which it was reflected?

A great pageant took place in the cathedral in 1476. After Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had been defeated at Grandson, he collected what remained of his army of 50,000 men, and encamped in the plains of Le Loup. Then on Easter Sunday, he attended high mass. The cathedral was lavishly decorated and a brilliant throng “assisted” at the ceremonies. The Duchess Yolande of Savoy came from Geneva, bringing her whole court and an escort of three thousand horsemen. The Pope’s legate and the emperor’s ambassadors brought their followers, while representatives of other courts were on hand, for the occasion was made memorable by the proclamation of peace between the duke and the emperor. There was a great clanging of bells and fanfare of trumpets and the whole city was overrun with soldiers. The commissary department was strained to feed such multitudes. It is said that an English knight, serving in the duke’s army, was reduced to eating gold; at any rate his skull was found some years ago with a rose noble tightly clenched between its teeth!