I Have No
Doubt That In This Petition More Is Meant Than Meets The Ear; That The
Oligarchs Of Bern,
As well as the Ultras of France, have a share in it, and
that it may be considered not so
Much as an attempt to compel the Canton to
refuse asylum to these exiles, as to excite the Great Powers to enforce the
abolition of the independence of Vaud, and to replace it under the dominion
and authority of the Canton of Bern.
Everybody here, however, sees thro' the drift of this petition, and many
persons whose names are put down as having signed it, have written to their
friends at Lausanne, to declare not only that they never signed such a
petition, but their entire ignorance even of the agitation of the question
till they saw the petition itself in print. The French government, however,
has not ventured to act any further upon it, than to make a pompous display
of the royalist zeal and bon esprit that pervades the Department of the
Doubs.
I see a good deal of Mlle Michaud. I find her conversation extremely
agreeable. She had lent to me an Italian work by Verri entitled Le notti
Romane al sepolcro di Stipione. She is a very rigid Catholic, having been
educated by a priest of very strict ideas. Her devotion however does not
render her less cheerful or less amiable. She having expressed a wish to
hear the Protestant church service, I offered to accompany her and we went
together one Sunday to the Cathedral Church at Lausanne. But it
unfortunately happened that on that day a sermon was preached which must
have given a great deal of pain to her filial feelings. Mr Levade, the
minister, took it into his head to give a political sermon, in which, after
a great deal of commonplace abuse of Voltaire, Rousseau and the French
Revolution, and very fulsome adulation towards the English government (a
subject which was brought in by the head and shoulders), of that island
(as he termed it) surrounded by the Ocean, he lavished a great deal of
still more fulsome adulation on the Bourbons; and then most wantonly and
unnecessarily began a furious declamation against the regicides as he
termed them, who had taken refuge in the Canton, and intimated pretty
plainly how pleasing it would be to God Almighty that they should be
expelled from it. This intolerant discourse, more worthy of a raving Jesuit
than of a Protestant minister, was deservedly scouted by the inhabitants of
Lausanne; but this did not hinder poor Mlle Michaud from being much
affected at the opprobrious tirade directed against a set of men, among
whom her father bore a conspicuous part, and who acted from patriotic
motives. I must not omit to state that in this discourse M. Levade
interwove some hyperbolical compliments towards the young Prince of Sweden,
who attended the service that morning. He told him that the eyes of all
Europe were fixed upon him, and that Providence had him under his especial
care.
Now the following is the character of M. Levade.[72] He is a time-serving,
meddling priest, and a most flagrant adulator of the powers that be. He
thinks that by declaiming against the French Revolution, and against
Voltaire and Rousseau, that he will get into favor with the great people
who pass thro' Lausanne, with the French and English Government adherents,
and with the great Tory families of England. No considerable personage ever
passes through Lausanne, but Mr Levade is the first to make him a visit;
and no rich or noble English family arrives with whom he does not
ingratiate himself, and he is not sparing of his adulations. This mode of
procedure has been a very profitable concern to him, as he has received a
vast number of presents, and several valuable legacies, besides securing a
number of pupils among the English families, that come or that have been
here. He is in short a thorough parasite and time server, in every sense of
the word. This adulation of the Bourbon family in his sermon, besides the
meanness of it, was highly misplaced, coming from the mouth of a Protestant
minister, and somebody exclaimed on leaving the Church: "Que doit-on
penser d'un ministre protestant du Canton de Vaud, qui prodigue des
louanges a une famille qui a ete l'ennemie acharnee de l'Elise reformee, et
qui a persecute les protestants d'une maniere si atroce?" But Mr Levade
(tho' to the honor of the clergymen of the Canton de Vaud he is singular
among them), yet he has many persons who perfectly resemble him among the
members of the Church of England, and who are as eager to support despotism
and to crush liberty as any disciple of Loyola or any Janissary of the
Grand Signor. The other Protestant ministers of this Canton were highly
indignant at this sermon; in fact, it was the first time in this city that
the House of God had been profaned by the introduction of political
subjects into a religious discourse. This sermon was the common topic of
conversation for many days after.
CHAMBERY, 2d August.
I left Lausanne for Geneva on 28 July. I stopped at Nyon to pay a visit to
Mme Duthon, with whom I became acquainted at Paris. I dined with her and
passed a most agreeable day. Her talents are of the first order, and she is
as great an enthusiast for the German language and litterature as myself,
besides being well versed in Italian. She had a female relation with her.
We took a boat after dinner to navigate the lake, and we visited the
Chateau and domains of Joseph Napoleon. The next day I proceeded to Geneva.
I determined on making the journey into Italy this time by Mont-Cenis, and
to make it on foot as far as the foot of Mont-Cenis on the Italian side,
intending to profit of the opportunity of the first conveyance I should
meet with at Suza to proceed to Turin.
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