il parait que l’on en a fait un Seigneur feodal.”  “Oui, monsieur (she replied), et avec raison, car ils etaient bien les Ogres de ce temps la.”  I entered into a long conversation with my fair neighbour and found her well informed and well educated, with great good sense and knowledge of the world far beyond her years.  She told me that she had begun to study English and that her father was a miniature painter.  I took leave of her not without feeling much affected and my heart not a little “percosso dall’ amoroso strale.”

I must not forget to mention that there is a most spacious and magnificent building on the Quai du Rhone to the North of the bridge, which serves as a cafe and ridotto or assembly room for balls, etc.  I am afraid to say how many feet it has in length; but it is the most superb establishment of the kind I have ever met with.

Fortunately for the city of Lyons, the famous decree of Robespierre for its destruction, and the column with the inscription, “Lyon a porte les armes contre la liberte; Lyon n’est plus,” which was to occupy its place, was never put in execution and tho’ this city suffered much from revolutionary vandalism yet it soon recovered and has flourished ever since in a manner unheard of at any former period.  No people are more sensible than the Lyonnese of the great benefits produced by the Revolution, and no people more deprecate a return to the ancien regime.

Oct. 2nd, GENEVA.

I started in the diligence for Geneva on the 28th Sept. and found it exceedingly cold on ascending the mountain called the Cerdon; the scenery is savage and wild, and the road in many parts is on the brink of precipices.  We stopped at Nantua for supper and partook of some excellent trout.  There is a large lake near the town, and ’tis here that the Swiss landscape begins.  Commanding a narrow pass stands the fort of L’Ecluse.  The Austrians lost a great many men in attempting to force it.  From this place you have a noble view of the Alps and Mont-Blanc towering above them.  As this was the first time I beheld these celebrated mountains I was transported with delight and my mind was filled with a thousand classical and historical recollections!  The scenery, the whole way from Fort l’Ecluse to Geneva, is most magnificent and uncommonly varied.  Mountain and valley, winter and summer, on the same territory.  Descending, the city of Geneva opens gradually; you behold the lake Leman and the Rhone issuing from it.  We entered the city, which is fortified, and after crossing the double bridge across the Rhone, we arrived at the Hotel de l’Eau de Geneve at 12 o’clock.  The most striking thing in the city of Geneva to the traveller’s eye as he enters it, is the view of the arcades on each side of the street, excellent for pedestrians and for protection against sun and rain, but which give a heavy and gloomy appearance to the city.  An immense number of watch-makers is another distinguishing feature in this city.  The first thing shewn to me by my valet de place was the house where Jean Jacques Rousseau was born; I then desired him to shew me the spot where that barbarian Calvin caused to be burnt the unhappy Servetus for not having the same religious opinions as himself.