Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

LAKE LEMAN IN WINTER.

Bt Edith Seablz Gho^smaxn.

L— LAUSANNE

A black London fog, a mirky night that has already lasted 30 hours. It almost annihilates the sense of time a.-.d the divisions of dajs and hours. There is no dawn, no noon, no sunset — only blackness, a yellow -tinged sickly blackness in the streets, and inside the grimy houses dim and ineffectual gas- light, with blackness lurking in out-of-the-way corners and passages. And lour weeks ago we were in Athens, and there was eternal, summer, a sky of flaming blue, a eun s-c- hot it struck off heat from the pavement and the walls of the -white city, and all the lovely hills of Attica were sunburnt and brown, and we were afraid to go out before 3 in the afternoon, when the sunlight flickered in the 6ea breezes and ceased to burn. Three weeks ago, and it was warm, rich, gracious autumn in Corfu. fortnight, and we weie slowly steaming up the blue- Adriatic- The Italian coast shone on us, cloud-like white and sky-blue, and the dolphins raced the ship. Loretto stood poised ecstatically on its rock, ac if it might fly off again. We swept Ln a fine curve round the white cliffs, and came into the port of Ancona — Aneona with its old half-Florentine houses rising terrace above^ terrace up the hill to the high plateau where the cathedral stands. A week ago to-day, ar.d I was wandering Tound Lake Lemar. It was winter there, but it was the winter of an Alpine Valley. Even the gloom was clear and pure. The higher Alps were lost in mists, but the supreme beauty of th^ mountains was everywhere, and the air was clean, ficsh, vital. Lake Leman is a large lake, but its shores a?e worthy o' its extent, and grand mountains lise straight from its waters, tipped with the first snows of the year. They 6wcep d-csvnward to the lake at one end, parting to disclose the eternal snows of the Dent di. Midi, struggling through the tempestuous gloom, wh.te, lovely, cloudlike. Switzerland is certcunly the tomists' pai-adlse. Thr-ie is st'rely no other coumrv in ihe world with such grand and be?utuul scenery combined "with comfort and luxury indoors. You f ee\ the i:icomfort as e-con as you chpng-e c iom a crumped, dirty, unwarmed Italian tram to a neH-cushioned Swiss carriage, so well warmed that one is in danger of being over-heated, and even while the air is keen with snow outside, the window may be left a little open for the breath ol the mountains, and the sound of the cataracts, and the froetv biightnefs of the stars. Venice hod been ghastly r old, damp, and funereal. We lodged in a real Italian albergo on a back canal, and every t-me I ent-?ied on the giound floor it struck me with a chill, and the hall li.id a subterranean or subaqueous smell of mould. There never vr.is a fire in that hou&a, so the nai-d explarwed, when I acked hei ; tbeie w\ib a gas stove somewhere, that was all. Its walls rose out of sluggish water. The Alps can send cold blasts down into Venice, and gicy damp fogs can creep up from the Adriatic. It is certainly one of the pleasures of travelling in "Switzerland that whether snows or rains fall your hotel is well aired, well warmed, your meals aie as good as you can wish ; your bedroom is never chilly ; you have only to turn the handle of the fwater if it is not warm enough. And if you aie a colonial woman or an Enghbhvoman. it is a joy to have good jJfArivwvn. tea. d^Ucwuifi afternoon tea,

with the cream of Lausanne, and at so moderate a price you do not feel guilty of ■wild extravagance in ordering it. Switzerland has adapted itself to the multitude of foreign visitois and resident foreigners in its midst, and has learned how to give them all they want. Especially it is ;.( nifctonipd to the . c <"mi-invn"bd (lass, and iinangos to accommodats them. It .« a ni stake to travel in mo'-t foreign cotui'ii's in v, inter, especially in southern countries like Italy, where the inhabitants, U). accustomed to cold weati er, ivver make any preparations for it, and are always taken unawares when imwsual cold d<<?F arrive. But Swit/erhmd is a good place to be in, even ip wmtpr, ,•>« tourists ri>-e fM-gmrung to find out However, it is in summer that the crowd comes, and that is an advantage for the tew who do choose winter.^ Ihe hotel teinis are considerably reduced in the off-^eaaon, and it is possible to stay jn a very gocd hotel at a inrdeiate price. Lausanne is by no means the most, picturesque town" on Lake Leman, and it has not much historical interest ; but it is nevertheless a very pleasant place to stay in, and it has good hotels and j many foreign visitors. I must mentio the Hotel de L'Europe, because the proprietor asked my favourable mention, and jh& deserves it. Of couTse, it has some | history too. A legend says it owes its name to a son of Paris, the lover of Helen. , There wae a Roman colony, or town of some sort, here' — Roman remains have been discovered, and one votive inscription cc tlie aun and the moon beaTs the name of IP. Clodius. Nothing else is really known 1 of it until the sixth century, when it became the .seat of a prince-bishop whoee diocese extended over a considerable part ;of Helvetia. One of the earliest of its famous visitors was St. Bernard of Cluny. 1 There are few events in the history of Lausanne. It was once pillaged by the Germans, and during the unsettled state ot affairs brought abou J by the Reformation, the city lost the supremacy ever the neighbouung towns -which it had held i for some centuries, and pa&sed under the I domination of Berne. In 1536 the Catholic religion was abolished, and the Cathedral was despoiled of its treasures by the Bernois. Its academy was still famous, and honoured by the names of such scholars as Theodore de Beze, Pierre Ramus, and later on of Alexandra Vinefc and Sainte-Beu-ie. At the beginning of the eighteenth century occurred the most touching episode in the history of the city. It was at that time still in subjection to Berne, and one of its citizens, 3lpjor Davel, inspired with a desire to ccc it free, collected a few companies of dragoons and infantry, entered Lausanne, and communicatd his plan to the civic council. But they treacherously gave information to the Bernois authorities, even while they pretended to welcome Davel; and the morning after his entry he was arrested and thrown into one of the dungeons of the Chateau Saint Maire and put to the torture. When in prison he related that in his childhood a beautiful unknown maiden had appeared to him and had told him the great deed that he was destined to perform, and said that he -would be guided by a higher power, and that in due time all the words of this prophecy would come back to his mind. On the scaffold Davel exclaimed : "Le que je fais nest pas l'ceuvre d'nn iour ; ma mort sera util a mon pays." ('What I have done is not the work of a day; my death will be of ase to my country.") , He wa6 an enthusiast and a martyr, of ' the same type as Joan of Arc. The old i chateau is " still standing to-day, an inI teresting specimen of the plain, 6trong, and yet quaint Swiss architecture. In front "of it is Davel's statue, inscribed with the simple and yet noble words he spoke before his execution, and behind, in the w-i 1 ! of the castle, is a relief of an attendant spirit hovering over him, the iii?ht hand stretched above his head, while he stands in a listening attitude. From the seventeenth century onward i Lausanne, like most Swiss cities, was a I home of refuge for persecuted people, i Amongst others, the judsres of Charles I came here, and one of them (Lisle) was treacherously assassinated at the gate of the Church of St. Francois. This must , have been the judge whose unfortunate widow (Alice Lisle) was beheaded by Jeffreys for givina: shelter to some of 1 Monniouth's men after the battle of S( deemoor. Numbers of Huguenots settled in Lausanne after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the eighteenth cen- , turr it became something of a literary i centre, and possessed a brilliant society, amongst them Rousseau, Voltaire. Gibbon, Madame Necker and Madame de Onhs, , Tissot. Raynal. Mercier. and a large assemblage of princes and nobles, \\lwn the French Revolution began thp Lausnnnois sympathised with the revolutionaries and held fetes to c^elirate their succeeds, but their own domestic tyrants. the Bprnois suppressed these manifestations, with the result thnt the sympathy was secretly stronger than ever. Napoleon was welcomed as a deliverer, and here and on the Place de Jfontbenon vouns; cirls wearing the tricolour areembled to offer him verses and flowers. In January. 1789 Lausanne the other V.-udois towns pioclaimed their own independence and constituted the Republic of Leman. In this wav the premature vision of Davel was fulfilled. Bern? was snnn afterwnrds taken by the French, and the Republic of Lemon was merged in the larger Helvetic Rpnublio. On the interior wall of th© Otherh'il is a large commemorative tablet in French referring to thesp facts: "On the 30th March, j.798. in this Cathedral, ihe representative assembly of the Pays de Vaud, having secured the independence and riahts of the Vaudois people, resigned the power which it held from the towns and commune 1 ?. The electoral body proclaimed thp first constitutional magistrates of the Canton Leman and its first representatives in the councils of the tribunal of the Helvetian Republic, one and indivisible." _ This date was the beginning of the Switzerland of our own date, but it had to nass through several faction fights »«A <3i*ord£rs and some changes from »

republic to a federation. Switzerland is one example amongst many of the great work of national emancipation brought about by the revolution which we call Fiencli. but which might well be called European. Not to know something of the Listen y of a town in Europe is to miss half its sights, or to see them without understanding them, and at the sanie time to lose the b?st means of <vi ins-ight into the character of the people.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19080219.2.312

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 86

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,766

LAKE LEMAN IN WINTER. Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 86

LAKE LEMAN IN WINTER. Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 86

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert