I left Payerne on the fifth of July and walked to the campagne of M. de T[reytorre]us,[107] situated on the banks of the lake Morat.  It is a very pretty country house, spacious and roomy, and I was received with the utmost cordiality by M. de T[reytorrens] and his amiable family.  He is a very opulent proprietor in this part of the country, and has spent part of his life in England.  He is a dignified looking man, a little too much perhaps of the old school and no friend to the innovations and changes arising from the French Revolution.  Having lived much among the Tory nobility of England, he has imbibed their ideas and views of things.  His son is now employed in one of the public offices in London.  His wife and three daughters, one of whom is married to a ministre, dwell with him.  With this family I passed three days in the most agreeable manner.  I find the style and manner of living of the noblesse (or country gentlemen, as we should style them) of Switzerland very comfortable, in every sense of the word.  I wish my friends the French would take more to a country life, it would essentially benefit the nation.  The way of living in M. de T[reytorre]us family is as follows.  A breakfast of coffee and bread and butter is served up to each person separately in their own room, or in the Salle a manger, Before dinner every one follows his own avocation or amusement.  At one, the family assemble to dinner which generally consist of soup, bouilli, entrees of fish, flesh and fowl, entremets of vegetables, a roti of butcher’s meat, fowl or game, pastry and desert.  The wine of the country is drunk at dinner as a table wine, and old wines of the country or wines of foreign growth are handed round to each guest during the desert.  After dinner coffee and liqueurs are served.  After an hour’s conversation or repose, promenades are proposed which occupy the time till dusk.  Music, cards or reading plays fill up the rest of the evening, till supper is announced at nine o’clock, which is generally as substantial as the dinner.

On taking leave of Mr. de T[reytorre]ns’ family I walked to the banks of the lake Neufchatel, having a stout fellow with me to carry my sac-de nuit.  On arrival at the lake I crossed over in a boat to Neufchatel, which lies on the other side.  I remained there the whole of the day.  It is a very pretty neat little city, in a romantic position.  Its government is a complete anomaly.  Neufchatel forms a component part of the Helvetic confederacy, and yet the inhabitants are vassals of the King of Prussia, and the aristocracy are proud of this badge of servitude.  The King of Prussia however does not at all interfere with its internal government, and his supremacy is in no other respects useful to him than in giving him a slight revenue.  French is the language spoken in the canton.  There is a marked distinction of rank all over Switzerland, except in Geneva, Vaud and the small democratic cantons