previous next

[37] Necker, by Tieck. The family portraits, Necker and Mad. Necker, the Baron and Mad. de Stael, Auguste, and a bust of Mad. de Broglie, made in 1815, are in another room, and Auguste's cabinet is just as he left it. The whole was very sad to me, the more so, perhaps, because the concierge recollected me, and showed the desolation of the place, and its melancholy memorials, with a good deal of feeling.

The door of the monument in which rest the remains of Necker and his wife, with Mad. de Stael at their feet, has been walled up. Auguste is buried on the outside, and round the whole is a high wall, the gate to which is not opened at all, as both Necker and Mad. de Stael desired their cemetery might never be made a show. Whenever she herself arrived at Coppet she took the key and visited it quite alone, but otherwise the enclosure was never opened.

Geneva, September 6.—. . . . Geneva is extremely changed in all respects, and bears everywhere the marks of its increased wealth. . . . . Society is no less changed. Sismondi is in Italy. . . . . Bonstetten, the head of all that was literary and agreeable, died two years ago, about ninety years old. Prevost, one of the coterie of Frederic the Great; both the Pictets; Simond, the traveller; the President de la Rive; Dumont, etc., etc., are all gone. . . . . Indeed, it is apparent that Geneva is becoming almost entirely a place of commerce, and its prosperity will every day increase its commercial tendencies.

September 8.—I have renewed my acquaintance with Mad. Rilliet, Huber, and M. Hess, the first of whom is the most intimate friend of the De Staels remaining in Geneva, and the last, a man of letters attached to her household. They are all that survive of the delightful circle in which I passed some time, most happily, nineteen years ago.


At Geneva, having met Mr. Horace Binney of Philadelphia, travelling with a daughter and niece, the two parties crossed the Simplon in company, and agreed to proceed southward, and to undergo, together, the quarantine that had now been made inevitable for all persons wishing to reach Rome from the north.

Turin, September 29.—We have not been out to-day, except just to look about a little; but the square before our windows, with the royal guards constantly called out to salute some personage of consequence coming from the palace, the fine military music at noon, the show of military in some form or other passing in all directions, and the necessary thronging and bustling of the passengers, has amused


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Geneva (Switzerland) (5)
Turin (Italy) (1)
Coppet (Switzerland) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
De Stael (3)
Ludwig Tieck (1)
Simonde De Sismondi (1)
Simond (1)
Rilliet (1)
Prevost (1)
Francois Huber (1)
M. Hess (1)
M. Dumont (1)
De Broglie (1)
De Bonstetten (1)
Horace Binney (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1815 AD (1)
September 29th (1)
September 8th (1)
September 6th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: