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[153]

After dinner, he carried me to Prof. Pictet's, the worthy successor of De Saussure in the University, and the chief man in the Bibliotheque Britannique. We stayed only a little while, and then went a mile out of town, to M. Favre Bertrand's, where I was introduced by Auguste Schlegel, and where we passed a delightful evening. Here again I found a fine specimen of Genevan character. M. Favre is the richest, or one of the richest, citizens of Geneva, and lives here in a beautiful establishment on the borders of the lake, but it is as simple as it is beautiful; there is no appearance of luxury, no pretension in his manners, and it would be difficult to find any indication of a large fortune, except in his fine library, and in the leisure it has given him, through which he has gained an elegant and scientific cultivation.

September 12.—I went to-day with Sir Francis d'ivernois, to dine at his country-place, a few miles from town. He is the man who was famous in Russia, who was knighted in England, and who has been one of the prominent citizens of Geneva since the fall of Bonaparte has permitted him to return from exile, and he is now one of the important members of the Council of State. There were several other members of the Council there, and the President de la Rive; so that the dinner was very pleasant, and I heard many things which I have not time to write down, but which I should be sorry to forget.

Sir Francis, with a kind of hospitality which I begin to think belongs to the republican character, carried me to tea at M. Pictet Deodati's, brother of Prof. Pictet, and chief-justice of the canton: a plain, sensible gentleman, who reminded me of the same class of persons in America. I passed a couple of hours happily at his house, and then, with the same sort of hospitality which had brought me to him, he ordered his carriage and took me to Geneva, to a ball at Mad. de Saussure's, a distant relation of the famous De Saussure who first ascended Mont Blanc. I found there many English, and much of the fashionable and respectable society of the city; and I observed that the ladies were handsomer than at Paris, but not so graceful; and seemingly more genuinely and simply kind and amiable, but not so ostentatiously gracious.

Among other strangers, I found Simond, author of the Travels in England, a man of fifty, talking little, but in such a manner as to make others talk to him; with few apparent prejudices, and yet in all respects a decisive way of thinking and judging.

September 13.—The Baron de Bonstetten, formerly in the government of Berne, but a Genevan, and the author of several metaphysical and political works, has been uncommonly kind to me ever since I have


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