instance the Cathedral here is R. P. N. plus a little more than one hundred and fifty-two meters. But the queer thing is that no two people who have tried to correct or verify General Dufour’s reckoning of the height of the plaque have been able to agree. General Dufour made it a fraction over three hundred and seventy-six meters and a half, which would give the level of the lake as three hundred and seventy-five meters; but it has since been corrected to a bit less than three hundred and seventy-three meters – a loss of almost ten feet.”
“What does that mean – that the scientists blundered?”
“It looks to me as if the whole level of the valley had perhaps settled. Every one knows that it is changing all the time – but come on, I want you to see the cathedral from the Place de Saint Laurent. It isn’t far from here.”
When we got there Will stopped and said:
“There! Isn’t that worth coming for? I wonder if there is any other cathedral in the world that has a more magnificent site.”
We paused for some time, looking up at its solid bulk, which seemed to touch the gathering clouds.
“I brought you here especially,” continued Will, “because one of Switzerland’s few poets praises its aspect from this spot. He says something like this: ‘It is a great crag fixt there. Contemplate it when heavy clouds are passing over. Standing below it and letting your eye follow the radiant field which creeps up to its flanks, you imagine that it grows larger amid the wild clouds which it tears as they fly over, leaving it unshaken. You might believe yourself in some Alpine valley, over which towers a solitary peak while around it cluster the mists driven by the wind.’ He grows still more enthusiastic at the beauty of it when the chestnut-trees are in bloom, contrasting with the violet roofs below and surrounded by the azure aureole of the lake and the mountains and he speaks of its ‘graceful energy’ against the golden background.”
“Who is the poet?” I asked.
“Oh, Juste Olivier. I will introduce you to him some day – I mean to his works. He himself died in 1876, if I am not mistaken. I have the two volumes which his friends edited as a sort of memorial to him.”
“I didn’t suppose there were any Swiss poets – I mean great Swiss poets. Of course I know Hebel – ”
“Yes, back in Gibbon’s time, the society founded by his friend Deyverdun discussed the question, ‘Why hasn’t the Pays de Vaud produced any poets?’ Juste Olivier deliberately set to work to fill the gap.”
“Did he succeed? He is not much known outside of Switzerland, is he?”
“Probably not; you shall see for yourself. But I remember one stanza on Liberty which has a fine swing to it —
“‘La Liberté depuis les anciens ages
Jusqu’à ceux où flottent nos destins
Aime à poser ses pieds nus et sauvages
Sur les gazons qu’ombragent nos sapins.
Là, sa voix forte éclate et s’associe
Avec la foudre et ses roulements sourds.
Nous qui t’aimons, Helvétie, Helvétie,
Nous qui t’aimons, nous t’aimerons toujours.’
“That is a fine figure – Liberty loving to set her foot on the soil shaded by the Swiss pines, – and so is that of Helvetia mingling her voice with the rolling of the thunder. That stanza has been praised as one of the finest of the century.”
As we leisurely strolled homeward my nephew called my attention to the northern slope of the Flon, just beyond the magnificent bridge, Chauderon-Montbénon. “That,” he remarked, “is called Boston.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know, unless to commemorate the fact that Lausanne is built on three hills. The north part was called La Cité, that to the south was le Bourg – the Rue du Bourg was the court end of the town, and had especial privileges – and the western side was called Saint-Laurent. It was only a little town when Gibbon came here to live; but it had unusually good society and there was a great deal of wealth, as you can imagine from the fine old houses.”
“Where did they get their money?”
“A good many of them through fortunate speculation. The men used to seek service in foreign countries. It is surprising how many of them became tutors to royal or princely families, or, if they were trained in the profession of arms, got commissions as officers in Russia, France, Spain and Holland. Some of them even went to India and America. A good many of them returned, if they returned at all, with handsome fortunes.”
“Isn’t it strange that a country which is always supposed to stand for liberty and patriotism should, next the Hessians, furnish the very best type of the mercenary! For a hundred years the French kings had to protect themselves with a Swiss guard, and the Pope’s fence of six-footers have been recruited from Lucerne and the Inner Cantons during more than four centuries.”
“Do you remember what Rousseau said about mercenary military service? It runs something like this: ‘I think every one owes his life to his country; but it is wrong to go over to princes who have no claim on you, and still worse to sell yourself and turn the noblest profession in the world into that of a vile mercenary.’ But Lausanne’s best contribution to foreign countries was education. The Academy, or college as they used to call it, attracted many people from abroad. Ever since it was founded – and the Protestants deserve that credit – it provided remarkably good professors and lecturers. The old families that had country estates got into the habit of spending their winters in town. They were wonderfully interrelated and many of them, through marriage, had several baronies. They were enormously proud of their titles and position. I have recently been reading Rousseau – especially his ‘Nouvelle Héloïse’ – you know about a year ago they were celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of his birth, – and I was struck with what he makes My Lord Edward Bomston say about the petty aristocracy of this Pays de Vaud: ‘Why does this noblesse of which you are so proud claim such honors? What does it do for the glory of the country or for the happiness of the human race? Mortal enemy of laws and of liberty, what has it ever produced except tyrannical power and the oppression of the people? Do you dare in a republic boast of a condition destructive of the virtues and of humanity, a condition which produces slavery and makes one blush at being a man?’”
“It seems to have been a regular feudalism.”
“It was. Gibbon was much struck by the unfairness of the régime which obtained in his day, and he speaks somewhere of three hundred families born to command and of a hundred thousand, of equally decent descent, doomed to subjection. They used to have a queer custom here, for a man, when he married, to add the wife’s name to his own…”
“Just as in Spain,” I interpolated.
“Yes, only hyphenated. They worked the particle de to death. As almost every one of the great families was related more or less closely to every other, and the estates were constantly passing from one branch to another, a man would at one time be Baron de Something-or-other, and the next year, perhaps, would appear with quite a different appellation. For instance, there was Madame Secretan, whose family name was taken from the Seigneurie d’Arnex-sur-Orbe. Antoine d’Arnay – he spelt his name phonetically – was Seigneur de Montagny-la-Corbe, co-seigneur de Luxurier, Seigneur de Saint-Martin-du-Chêne and Seigneur de Mollondin. And the husband of the famous Madame de Warens appears under several aliases. It is very confusing.
“When the nobles returned with hundreds of thousands of francs,” he added,
