He gives dinner parties two or three times a
week, which are exceedingly pleasant, and one is sure to meet there a
small, but well informed society of natives and foreigners. Most German
travellers of rank and litterary attainments, who pass thro' Lausanne,
bring letters of introduction and recommendation to the Baron and are sure
to meet with the utmost hospitality and attention.
The women of the Canton de Vaud are in general very handsome, well shaped
and graceful; litterature, music, dancing and drawing are cultivated by
them with success; and among the men, tho' one does not meet perhaps with
quite as much instruction as at Geneva (I mean that it is not so general),
yet no pedantry whatever prevails as in Geneva. At Lausanne they have
sincere and solid republican principles and they do not pay that servile
court to the English that the Genevese do; nor have they as yet adopted the
phrase "_Dieu me damne_."
PARIS, Dec. 5th.
I returned to Paris by Geneva and crossing the Jura chain of mountains
passed thro' Dole, Auxonne and Dijon. At Geneva, where I stopped three
days, I met, at a musical party given by M. Picot the banker, the
celebrated cantatrice Grassini, who looked as beautiful as ever, and sung
in the most fascinating style several airs, particularly "_Quelle pupille
tenere_" in the opera of the _Orazj e Curiazi_.
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