Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/342

306 hills are covered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods; one of these was named the "Bosquet de Julie;" and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St. Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground might be enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation of the "local habitations" he has given to "airy nothings." The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent one; but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that "La route vaut mieux que les souvenirs."

22.

Voltaire and Gibbon.

[François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) lived on his estate at Fernex, five miles north of Geneva, from 1759 to 1777. "In the garden at Fernex is a long berceau walk, closely arched over with clipped horn-beam—a verdant cloister, with gaps cut here and there, admitting a glimpse of the prospect. Here Voltaire used to walk up and down, and dictate to his secretary."—Handbook for Switzerland, p. 174.

Previous to this he had lived for some time at Lausanne, at "Monrepos, a country house at the end of a suburb," at Monrion, "a square building of two storeys, and a high garret, with wings, each fashioned like the letter L," and