Rollo in Geneva Part 5

"They are both very good reasons," said Mr. Holiday. "Then, besides, when you get tired of riding there you can come inside."

Accordingly, when the carriage came to the door, Rollo, after seeing his father and mother safely seated inside, mounted on the top with the postilion, and so they rode away.

They repa.s.sed the bridge by which they had entered Geneva, and then turned to the right by a road which led along the margin of the lake, at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e.

The road was very smooth and hard, and the country was beautiful.

Sometimes the road was bordered on each side by high walls, which formed the enclosures of gardens or pleasure grounds. Sometimes it was open, and afforded most enchanting views of the lake and of the ranges of mountains beyond. But what chiefly amused and occupied Rollo's mind was the novelties which he observed in the form and structure of every thing he saw by the wayside. Such queer-looking carts and wheelbarrows, such odd dresses, such groups of children at play, such gates, such farmyards, such pumps and fountains by the roadside--every thing, indeed, was new and strange.

After the party had been riding about an hour and a half, they pa.s.sed through a village which consisted, like those which Rollo had seen on the road from Lyons, of compact rows of old and quaint-looking stone houses, close to the roadside. The postilion stopped at this village to give the horses a little drink.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. Holiday, "I wish you would get down, and come inside a little while."

Rollo obeyed; and when the carriage began to go on again, his father addressed him as follows:

"We are going to see the residence of Madame de Stael. She was one of the most celebrated ladies that ever lived. She was distinguished as an auth.o.r.ess. You don't know any thing about her now, and I suppose you don't care much about her."

"No, sir," said Rollo; "I do not."

"But then," continued his father, "in a few years more you will very probably read some of her writings; and at any rate you will often hear of them. One of the most celebrated of her works is a tale called Corinne."

"Ah, yes," said Rollo; "I have heard of Corinne. The first cla.s.s in French studied it at school."

"Very likely," said Mr. Holiday. "It is a very good text book for studying French. At any rate it is a famous book, and Madame de Stael is a very celebrated author. She was a lady, too, while she lived, of great personal distinction. Her rank and position in society were very exalted. She a.s.sociated with kings and princes, and was closely connected with many of the great political transactions of the day in which she lived. This, of course, added greatly to her renown.

"Her father was a very distinguished man, too. His name was Monsieur Necker. He was a great statesman and financier. The King of France got his money affairs in the greatest confusion and difficulty, and he appointed Monsieur Necker his minister of finance, to try to put them in order."

"And did he succeed?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. Holiday; "it was too late. The disorder was hopeless, and it ended in the great French revolution. But Necker became a very celebrated character in history. We are going to see the chateau where he lived. We shall see the room where his daughter wrote Corinne. I wish you to observe carefully all that you see, and remember it.

Hereafter, when you come to read the history of France and the writings of Madame de Stael, you will look back with great pleasure to the visit you made when a boy to the chateau of Necker, near Geneva."

"Yes, sir," said Rollo, "I will."

A short time after this the carriage stopped in a shady place under some trees, near the entrance to a village. The postilion descended and opened the carriage door, and then pointed up an avenue of trees, which he said led to the chateau. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday got out of the carriage and walked up the avenue. Rollo followed them.

They came at length to the chateau. There was a large portal, closed by an iron gate. On one side of the portal was a lodge. A porter came out of the lodge, and Mr. Holiday asked him if they could see the chateau.

He answered very politely that they could; and immediately opening the iron gate, he ushered the whole party into the court yard.

The court yard was a very pleasant place. It was surrounded on three sides by the buildings of the chateau, which were quite imposing in their character, like a palace. The fourth side was formed by a handsome wall, with a large ornamented gateway in the centre of it, leading into a garden.

The entrance to the chateau was at a large door in the middle of one side of the yard. The porter ascended the steps, and rang the bell. He said to Mr. Holiday that some one would come to conduct the party over the chateau, and then went back to his lodge.

Presently a well-dressed man came to the door. He received the party in a very polite and friendly manner, and invited them in.

The first apartment that they entered was a hall. The hall was very large, and was finished and furnished like a room, with chairs, sofas, and a great fireplace. On one side was a broad stone staircase, ornamented with a ma.s.sive bal.u.s.trade. The concierge led the way up this staircase to a sort of gallery on the second story. From this gallery a door opened, leading to the suite of apartments which Monsieur Necker and his distinguished daughter had occupied.

The rooms were constructed and arranged in the style common in French palaces. They were situated in the line of building which formed the front of the chateau; and on the front side of each of them were windows looking out upon the lake. Of course these windows formed the range of windows in the second story of the princ.i.p.al front of the edifice.

On the back side of each of these rooms was a door communicating with the gallery behind them, or with some subordinate apartments depending upon them.

Besides these doors, there were others which connected the different apartments of the suite with each other. These doors were all in a line, and they were near the side of the room where the windows were which looked out upon the lake. Thus one could pa.s.s through the whole suite of apartments by walking along from one to another through these doors, pa.s.sing thus just in front of the range of windows.

The rooms were all beautifully furnished in the French style. There were richly carved cabinets and book cases, and splendid mirrors, and sofas and chairs, and paintings and statues. One room was the library. Another was a bedroom. In one there were several portraits on the wall. Mr. and Mrs. Holiday seemed particularly interested in examining these portraits. One represented Madame de Stael herself; another, her father, Monsieur Necker; a third, her mother, Madame Necker. Besides these, there were some others of the family.

Rollo looked at all these portraits, as his father requested him to do; but he was more interested in two other objects which stood on a table in the same room. These objects were two little figures, one representing a horse and the other a lamb. These figures were under a gla.s.s. The horse was about a foot long, and the lamb about six inches.

The horse was of a very pretty form, and was covered with hair, like a living animal. The lamb in the same manner was covered with wool.

Indeed, they were both in all respects models of the animals they represented in miniature.

Rollo asked the concierge what they were.

"Ah," said he, "those are models of a favorite horse and a favorite lamb that belonged to Monsieur Necker. When they died he was very sorry; and he had these models of them made, to perpetuate the memory of them."

After this, in other rooms, the party were shown the table at which Madame de Stael sat in writing Corinne, and the inkstand that she used; and when they went down stairs, the concierge showed them into a large hall, which was situated directly below the rooms they had been visiting, where he said Madame de Stael used to have her dramas performed from time to time before an audience of friends and visitors from the neighborhood.

At length the concierge conducted the party to the door where they had come in. There Mr. Holiday, after giving him a franc, thanked him for his politeness, and bade him good bye. The party took a little walk in the garden, and then returned to the carriage and rode away.

The bodies of Monsieur Necker and of his daughter lie buried in a little grove of trees near the house. The party saw the grove, but visitors are not allowed to go to the graves.

On leaving the chateau, the carriage turned off from the lake, and took a road that led back more into the interior.

"What are we going to see next, father?" said Rollo.

"We are going to see the house where the famous philosopher, Voltaire, lived," replied Mr. Holiday; "though on the way we are going to see a fountain and cascade."

"Is there any thing very remarkable about the fountain?" asked Rollo.

"I don't know," said Mr. Holiday; "only it is mentioned in the guide books as worth being visited."

So the carriage drove on through a very beautiful country, with fields, and gardens, and country seats, and ancient chateaux bordering the way.

From time to time, Rollo, on looking back, obtained splendid views of the lake behind him, and of the gently-sloping and highly-cultivated sh.o.r.e on the opposite side, with the snowy range of the Alps beyond, s.h.i.+ning in the sun.

At length they arrived at a village, and stopped before an inn. The postilion said that they were to stop there with the carriage, and go to the fountain on foot.

"I will call some one to show you the way," said he.

So he went to one of the houses across the street, and called a woman of the village, and she said that she would go to the school and call her boy.

"But it is a pity," said Mr. Holiday, "to take the boy away from his school."

"O, no," said the woman; "that is nothing at all."

So she ran along the street of the village until she came to the school house, and presently she returned with the boy. He had a book in his hand. Rollo looked at the book, and found that it was a grammar. The covers of it were worn, and the leaves tumbled, and the beginning and end of it were filled with names scribbled on the blank pages, and rude drawings, which made it look exactly like the school books of idle boys, as Rollo had often seen them in America.

Rollo gave back the book to the boy, and the boy gave it to his mother, and then he began walking along the road, to show the party the way to the fountain.

He led them out of the village, and along the pleasant road, until at length they came to a place where there was an open gateway, through which they could see the beautiful grounds of a large country house, which appeared like a hotel. There were ladies and gentlemen walking about the grounds, along the margin of a large stream of water, or sitting in groups under the trees.

"What place is that?" said Rollo to the boy.