I Walked Out One Morning To Ferney In Order To Visit The Chateau Of
Voltaire And To Do Hommage To The Memory Of That Great Man, The Benefactor
Of The Human Race.
It was he who gave the mortal blow to superstition and
to the power of the clergy.
It is the fashion for priests, Ultras and
Tories to rail against him, but I judge him by his works and the effect of
his works. His memory is held in reverence by the inhabitants of Ferney as
their father and benefactor. He spent his whole fortune in acts of the most
disinterested charity; he saved entire families from ruin and portioned off
many a young woman who was deprived of the gifts of fortune and enabled
them to form happy matrimonial connections; in short, doing good seems to
have been one of the most ardent passions of his soul. In three memorable
instances he shewed his hatred of cruelty and injustice, and unmasked
triumphantly ecclesiastical imposture and fanaticism. He has been
reproached with vanity, but surely that may be pardoned in a man who
received the hommage of the whole literary world, who was considered as an
oracle, and whose every sentence was recorded; whose talent was so
universal, that he excelled in every branch of litterature that he
undertook.
Ferney, which was only a miserable village when Voltaire first took up his
residence there, is now a large flourishing and opulent town.
I found Voltaire's Chateau occupied by a fat heavy Swiss Officer who was on
duty there, Ferney being at this moment occupied by the troops of the Swiss
confederation. He was at breakfast, but on my stating to him that I was
come to see the apartments of Voltaire he directed the housekeeper to shew
them to me. On the left hand side after ascending a flight of steps, before
you come into the Chateau, is a Chapel built by Voltaire with this simple
inscription: "Deo erexit Voltaire." In the apartment usually occupied by
him for the purpose of composition, are preserved his chair, table,
inkstand and bed as sacred relics; and in the Salon are to be seen the
portraits of several public characters, his contemporaries, and which were
constantly appended there in his life time. Among these portraits I
distinguished those of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine II of
Russia, Lekain, Diderot, Alembert, Franklin, Helvetius, Marmontel and
Washington, besides many others. There is nothing remarkable either in the
Chateau, or in the gardens appertaining to it; but as it stands on an
elevation, it commands a fine view, which is so well described in that ode
which begins:
O maison d'Aristippe, o jardins d'Epicure!
I returned to Geneva and dined with my friend M. Picot the banker, who
presented me to his brother's family, which I found a very amiable one, and
I was particularly delighted with his father, a fine venerable old man, who
is a pastor of the Church of Geneva and a great admirer of our poets
Thomson and Milton.
I have made acquaintance at the Ecu de Geneve with a very gallant and
accomplished officer, the Chevalier Zadera, a Pole by birth and a Colonel
in the French army.[51] He had been on the staff of the Prince d'Eckmuehl at
Hamburgh and had served previously in St Domingo, in Germany and in Italy.
He had just quitted the French service, having a great repugnance to serve
under the Bourbon dynasty, and he is about to go to Italy on private
business. He seems a very well informed man and well versed in French,
Italian and German litterature. He also understands well to read and write
English and speaks it, but not at all fluently. He acquired his English in
the United States of America, whither he went when he escaped from the
horrors of St Domingo. By the Americans he was received with open arms and
unbounded hospitality as the compatriot of Pulaski who fell gloriously
fighting in their cause, the cause of liberty, at the battle of Savannah.
He was liberally supplied with money by several individuals without the
smallest expectation or chance of repayment at the time, and was forwarded
in this manner from town to town and from state to state throughout the
whole Union; so that the tour he made and the time he passed in that land
of liberty, he reckons as far the most agreeable epoch of his life. One
evening at the Ecu de Geneve I found Zadera in altercation on political
subjects with two French Ultras who had been emigrants, a Genevois and a
Bernois, both anti-liberal. This was fearful odds for poor Zadera to be
alone against four acharnes. I sat down and espoused his cause and we
maintained our argument gloriously. The dispute began on the occasion of
Zadera condemning the harshness shewn by the government of Geneva towards
the Conventionnels and others who were banished from France on the second
restoration of Louis XVIII by a vote of the Chambre introuvable in
refusing them an asylum in the Republic and compelling them to depart
immediately in a very contumelious manner. I said it was inconsistent and
unworthy of the Genevese who called themselves republicans to persecute or
join in the persecution of the republicans of France in order to please
foreign despots. The others then began to be very violent with me. I
replied, "Messieurs, vous avez beau parler; les Genevois sont de tres bons
cambistes et les meilleurs banquiers de l'Europe, mais il ne sont pas bons
republicains."
Geneva has been so often described by tourists that I shall not attempt any
description except to remark that there are several good Cabinets and
collections of pictures belonging to individuals. There is a magnificent
public library. The manufactures are those of watches and models of the
Alps which are exceedingly ingenious. There are no theatrical amusements
here; and during divine service on Sunday the gates of the city are shut,
and neither ingress nor egress permitted; fortunately their liturgy (the
Calvinistic) is at least one hour shorter than the Anglican.
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