Nor is it surprising that he should have chosen the charming borders of Lake Leman, to place his Elysium, where Nature's mingled beauties and sublimities had elevated his thoughts to the highest flights of rapturous contemplation. But did he not reside in other parts of Switzerland ? “Yes, at Neuchatel, and at Fleurier, in the Val-deTravers. At the latter place (added our friend) I have many times run about his poor little dwelling, where he took it into his head that the inhabitants were conspiring against his life; because some low-bred wags had amused themselves with throwing stones into his gallery. It was at that period, that he became so suspicious as to imagine himself a burthen to his friends, and an object of public persecution. The place where he lived the most peacefully was Yverdun.”

It does appear that poor Jean Jacques was rather harshly dealt with, by the authorities of some of the different towns in Switzerland; where now however there seems to be a prevailing disposition, among persons of all ranks, to exalt his merit and to honour his memory. My own opinion of his character and conduct is that they deserve

"Ni cette indignité, ni cet excès d'honneur."

But pray on what ground do you consider Rousseau most entitled to public commendation and gratitude?

"Le plus grand bien (answered Madame H.) dont nous lui sommes redevables, c'est d'avoir aboli la mauvaise habitude de baloter les petits enfans, pour les endormir; et d'avoir engagé les jeunes mères à les nourrir de leur lait."

This Canton was for a long time subject to Berne, which, holding sovereignty over it by right of conquest, is accused by the Vaudois of having ruled them with a rod of iron. The feeling of animosity, as well among communities as individuals, is often found to survive the causes which first excited it. It is thus, after twentyeight years have elapsed since the Bernese authorities retired from the Pays-de-Vaud, that some of its most respectable and intelligent inhabitants occasionally talk of them with marked asperity. "Les Bernois (they say) sont les plus fameux Aristocrates existans. Nous les détestons bien

* The canton of Vaud is situated in the most western part of Switzerland. It is bounded on the north by the cantons of Neuchatel and Fribourg; on the east, by that of Berne and the Valais; on the south, by the Rhone and Lake Leman; and on the west, by La Franche Comté, Geneva, and the Pays-de-Gex. It has a surface of 120 square leagues. The air is generally pure and wholesome. The coteaux are perfectly cultivated, and the numerous vallies covered with verdure, flowers, and trees loaded with delicious fruit, excite the admiration of every traveller. To crown this picture it offers to view three kinds of mountains. The Alps, together with a branch of the Jura to the extent of about twelve leagues, occupy the eastern part of the canton; then the Jorat, which is a succession of hills, less elevated, extending themselves from the Alps to the Jura, along Lake Lemanus, from Vevay, and passing La Suraz, they prolong themselves as far as the Lake of Neuchatel. This last mentioned sheet of water has four States of Switzerland bordering upon it, viz. Vaud, Neuchatel, Fribourg, and Berne. Its length is nine leagues, to about one and a half in breadth. Although the Pays-de-Vaud is traversed by no remarkable rivers, such as the Rhone and Rhine, yet it is watered by numerous streams and brooks, and can boast of its mineral springs, its glaciers, and its curious natural grottoes. This canton presents the greatest variety of productions of any in Switzerland. Every species of fruits and plants, and with the exception of rice, all sorts of nutritive grain are to be found in it. But it is its vineyards which are the source of the greatest profit to the cultivators, and which furnish employment during the most considerable portion of the year to thousands of hands in the husbandry of them. The population amounts to 145,500 souls.

cordialement, comme ayant été nos tyrans avant la Révolution Française." And, although experience has in this very instance proved, that the emancipation of a country from domestic grievances may be purchased at much too dear a rate, if, to obtain it, recourse is had to the perilous aid and overwhelming power of foreigners; yet are there still those (friends too of liberty, and lovers of their country), who refer with the strongest expressions of satisfaction to that epocha, when the Vaudois introduced a French army: an army which gave them indeed the nominal advantage of "political rights," but which stopped not in its unhallowed career until it had destroyed the sacred peace, the real freedom, and the true happiness of Switzerland.

Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to give the substance of what a Bonne Patriote Vaudoise related to me respecting those events:

"In consequence of our people having manifested a desire to recover their independence, the Bernois so early as 1792 overran the country with an army of five thousand men, who proceeded to acts of the most arbitrary description, such as arrests and confiscations. They went so far as to subject the Magistrates of Lausanne to the humiliation of walking between two ranks of soldiers to the castle, where the Bailiff resided, a personage who in every principal town of the Pays-de-Vaud, represented the Bernese Government. They deprived the Vaudois of the means of resistance, by emptying the public coffers and taking away all the arms, ammunition, and stores, which they carried to Berne, thus totally destroying our military organization. At this crisis many men of great merit united for the preservation of our independence. They

appealed to the Volunteers. The Bailiffs were obliged to withdraw. Troops were sent to oppose the Bernese. But the spirit of freedom was carried to a culpable extreme. Our people were indeed too near neighbours of the French to escape being led away by the revolutionary watch-words of liberty and equality. Many popular excesses were committed, and the utmost firmness and energy of the native magistracy were required to repress them. The peasants, for the declared purpose of abolishing the feudal system, rose en masse, assumed the name of Brulepapiers, took forcible possession of the public archives, and made a bonfire of all the patents of nobility, which they could find in the different chateaux, taking care to destroy all coats of arms (armoiries). The jacobin clubs were indefatigably at work to excite commotion and disunion. It was in this manner that the country became a prey to anarchy and to civil war. M. Henri Monod de Morges, Prefect of the Government, as well as M. César la Harpe, and the Landamman, M. Auguste Pidou, greatly contributed, by their talents and characteristic decision, to the restoration of order; and they were all three afterwards among the deputies sent to Paris as the Representatives of the Nation. The emancipation of the country, however, was not accomplished until 1798, when the French General Menard, established his head-quarters at Lausanne. Then the independent sovereignty of the canton was proclaimed; and the Tree of Liberty, surmounted by the hat of William Tell, was every where planted, amidst testimonies of universal joy. Of all the countries which Buonaparte ever visited or interfered with, none had less reason to complain of his despotic conduct than the canton of Vaud; passing through which on his return

from Italy in 1797, he was very popular, and seemed to enjoy the society of our people, who even in the act of sometimes resisting his will, gave him brilliant fêtes and styled him the Protector of their Liberties. In 1802, Napoleon, then First Consul, sent his Aid-de-Camp, Gen. Rapp, as the bearer of a proclamation announcing his intention to mediate between the contending parties in Switzerland. The 14th of April, 1803, was the day, when Deputies freely chosen by the people, assembled with solemnity to govern them, and to make them experience the blessings of national independence. The Vaudois (added my worthy informant), now enjoy peace and sweet liberty, secured by ties that connect them with the other cantons, in like manner freed from the yoke of Les Fiers Bernois."

Yes, now they do, my good friend; and I rejoice to be even thus transiently a witness of the fact. Yet surely, for this happier state of things, your sublime and beautiful country is not indebted to its connection with the French; but rather may be said to enjoy it in spite of all the consequences of that connection. The invasion of Switzerland by the Gallic Republicans, was one of the most odious acts of unprovoked and atrocious aggression; and the conduct of the First Consul, although not marked by the same bad policy and the same dreadful excesses,

• It appears, however, that Buonaparte had a double score of guilt to answer for, under the head of betrayed and outraged Switzerland. The Baroness de Staël, in her posthumous work on the French Revolution, observes, "There was no money to transport an army to Egypt; and the severest censure is due to Buonaparte's conduct in exciting the Directory to invade Switzerland, with a view to seize the treasury of Berne, which two hundred years of wisdom and economy had accumulated.” (Vol. 2, p. 207.) The truth of this tremendous charge against Napoleon has lately met with