of Great Britain were styled Galles or Wales by the conquering Anglo-Saxon. Gibbon, under the date of March, 1755, says: 'I have encountered in the Irish tongue many words of the language of the Pays de Vaud, which I have not found in the dictionaries of the other three dialects-viz. of the Welsh, of the Bas Breton, and of the Basque, nor of the Germanic.' If Gibbon had written in our day, he would have benefited largely by the extensive information of my friend Count Nigra, Italian Ambassador at Vienna, the learned editor and critic of the marginal notes in Gaelic at St. Gall and Turin, who has also made large original collections of words in use among the Irish peasantry at the present time.' Lausanne, the capital of the Canton of Vaud, took its name from the Roman Lousonne,2 founded in the first century of our era, four kilometres south-west from the present city, on the banks of the Flon, anciently the Laus, whence the name. Lausanne was apparently destroyed by fire about the sixth century in the course of a barbarian invasion. Charred wood, calcined stones, capitals of columns, mosaic pavements, bronze statues, amphoræ and medals, found from time to time beneath the soil, alone remain to attest the splendours of a place which figured in the Itinerary of Antoninus.3 Thus Gibbon sat down to his 'History of the Decline and Fall' in a spot whose early misfortunes illustrated his theme. He was well aware of this fact from the writings of his predecessor in La Grotte; for immediately after his first arrival at Lausanne as a boy we find him studying the Memoirs on Ancient Switzerland, by De Loys de Bochat.1 It is a harmonious fact that the historian of Rome elected to live in the Pays Romand-the Roman country. It is true that the Greeks of Marseilles made known ancient Helvetia; that they penetrated to the banks of Lake Leman, 'Glossa Hibernica Veteres Codicis Taurinensis (Paris, 1869), and Reliquie Celtiche, raccolte da Constantino Nigra (Torino, 1872). This form is found in a Vow addressed to the Sun by Claudius, the first Roman curator of the town. Lausanne dès les Temps Anciens (Blanchet). Charles Guillaume de Loys de Bochat, Mémoires sur la Suisse Ancienne. Gibbon was an attentive student of his works; see Extracts from his Journal and Commonplace Book, Misc. Works, v., beginning in 1775. which they called the Lake of the Desert; that gradually their musical language seized the popular ear; and that many of the inhabitants flocked to the Mediterranean city, which was then the point of reunion between Greek and Gaul. But desire for luxury and ambitious views followed upon the footsteps of knowledge, and eventuated in an attempt to measure their arms with the Gauls and Romans.1 The final results were easily to be foreseen. They fell beneath the power which had subjugated the civilised world; and, as the distinguished Swiss historian, M. Vulliemin, has well said, the Romans ended by giving to the Helvetians their language and their civilisation. The indigenous race mingled with their conquerors, adopting the usages, customs, and manners of Rome, and becoming Roman citizens.2 The highest class constituted an aristocracy, with the title of Senator. Others filled municipal functions. The free labourers in the country, and the workmen in the cities, formed the plebeians. Finally, there was a fourth class— the slaves.3 Rome, appreciating the influence of language upon the spirit of her conquered populations, imposed the Latin tongue throughout her provinces, and, to assist the propagation of Roman ideas, established a system of permanent roads. One of these, descending from the Alps, branched at Vevey, one line continuing along the lake, the other going on to rejoin at Orbe a road running from Geneva to the Lake of Constance. The great routes of the Empire starting from the golden milestone placed in the centre of the Forum at Rome traversed in all directions its entire dominions. The roadway was ordinarily twenty feet in width. At intervals of a thousand paces there 4 1 Pellis, Histoire de l'Ancienne Helvétie et du Canton de Vaud, i. 2 Le Rhin, p. 254. The all-embracing genius of M. Victor Hugo, while looking through a curious copy of Caesar's Commentaries in the Library at Basle, first remarked the significance of a passage saying they found in the camp of the Helvetians tablets inscribed with Greek characters. 3 Gibbon, writing on this subject, says in his Journal, under date November 1, 1763: I write in the Pays de Vaud. Its inhabitants ought to be contented with their condition, yet it will not gain by a comparison with that of the people of Italy. I know that some advantages were withholden from that people by the pride of the Romans as to the concerns of private life-marriages, testaments, &c.'-Misc. Works, v. 396. Gibbon, Misc. Works, iv. 326. They were sometimes as much as sixty feet wide. Verdeil says that the width of these roads was from eight to sixteen feet, but Gibbon says: 'Le règlement qui défendoit de donner aux chemins were stones placed indicating the distances between the towns. At every tenth stone there was a posting station, each containing forty horses for relays. Itineraries were prepared, indicating the distances of the towns and the stations. One of these, the Table of Theodosius, was executed at Constantinople towards the end of the fourth century, under the Emperor Theodosius the Great. Another, the Itinerarium of Antoninus, is generally attributed to the Emperor Antoninus the Pious. The latter, in speaking of the route from Milan to Strasburg by the Little St. Bernard, gives the following figures: From Bautas (Annecy) to Geneva, 18,000 paces; to Equestres (Nyon), 17,000; to Lausonium (Lausanne), 20,000; to Vesontio (Besançon), 16,000. Researches in modern times have shown that the Roman causeways were constructed upon the remains of the ancient Helvetian paths.' The Roman type is still distinctly visible after eighteen centuries in the Pays Romand. One is from time to time struck by the traces of Roman beauty displayed by the women. The aquiline nose, the straight forehead, the almond-shaped brown or black eyes, the well-marked chin with its attendant dimple, the harmonious lines of the whole face-all belong to ancient Rome. Some of the dialects around Lausanne betray the predominating influence of the Latin tongue. I have found this especially the case at Montreux. The manners of the people during the transition period and the Middle Ages were simple and rude. The first laws in the Pays de Vaud were the Lois Gombettes, the mildest up to that time. They deposited among the people the germ of equality by ordering a distribution of the patrimonial estate among all the children, and they encouraged hospitality by fining everyone who refused a stranger a place at his fireside; but they did not promote personal dignity in decreeing that whoever stole a dog 'devait lui baiser le derrière devant l'assemblée du peuple.' 2 plus de huit pieds ne pouvoit point regarder les voies militaires.' (Lord Sheffield's edition of 1814 is the one used throughout this work.) 1 Verdeil, i. and Blanchet, p. 11. • Vulliemin, Canton de Vaud, pp. 160–162. CHAPTER III LAUSANNE has such a peculiar history that it is difficult to understand, without study, some of the customs that still prevailed in the society in which Gibbon moved. To comprehend the birth and subsequent fortunes of La Grotte, also, it is essential to ascertain the peculiar ecclesiastical origin and conditions of Lausanne; and nothing is more curious than to see how religious was the rise and progress of the place which the historian selected as his home. In pursuit of this task, I took up my residence on the borders of the lake, and advanced from point to point as my researches progressed. I made the acquaintance of all those persons who could afford me information either in Savoy or in the Pays de Vaud, and moved from one historical point to another, examining the archives and exhausting the family traditions until my field of investigation was fairly covered. The materials for my work eventually embraced one hundred and twenty volumes of unpublished manuscripts-including the writings of some of the most celebrated personages of the last century. To these were added a large number of journals containing notes of my conversation with people of every class, and descriptions of interesting monuments and customs; also an especial collection of more than two thousand five hundred volumes, the greater part of which relate entirely to Lake Leman and its surroundings, and are so completely out of print as to render them almost as valuable as unpublished papers. To this list I must add the results of my own studies of churches, cathedrals, castles, roads, and other mediæval monuments, together with the many portraits, views, and silhouettes, which I have exhumed. After the ruin of the classic Lousonne, the surviving inhabitants retired from the immediate neighbourhood of the lakecalled the Lake of Lousonne by Antoninus-and took up their residence about three miles from the shore, on the site of the present city, beneath the forest-clad summits of Sauva-belin, |