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.
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