My Third Voyage.
My third Voyage into Italy was again by the way of Paris and Lyons: but now by Geneva and Swisserland.
Parting then from Lyons I passed over the Grand Credo, a smart hill; through Nantua standing upon a Lake, and in two dayes came to Geneva.
Geneva.Geneva is built at the bottom of Savoy, France, and Germany.
The things which I saw in Geneva were these: 1. The great Church of S. Peter, the Cathedral antiently of the Bishop of this Town. The rarities.In the Quire I saw yet remaining the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side, and the pictures of the twelve Apostles on the other side, all engraven in wood. The pictures also of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and S. Peter, in one of the windows. Here also I saw the Tombe of the Duke of Bouillon General of the Army of Germans, called then in France the Reiters, who in the battle of Aulneau were beaten by the Duke of Guise and forced to fly to Geneva, having lost 1800 of their men upon the place, most of them with charmes about their necks, which they thought would have made them shot-free. Mounting up to the steeple, I saw a fair Bell with a Crucifix cast upon it, shewing whose it was; and four good pieces of Ordnance, that none may say, the Church of Geneva wants Ecclesiastical Cannons. And a little below in the Belfree, there live in several Chambers, three or four families of husbands and wives, and sucking children begotten there, contrary to the Canons of any other Church, except those of Geneva. From the top of this Church you have a fair prospect upon the lake and neighbouring Countryes; which makes them brag here, that they can see from their steeple, into six several principalities, to wit, their own, France, Savoye, Swisserland, the Valesians, and the Franchecounty: But I told them, it would be a greater brag, to say, that they could see into no other Country or Dominions but their own. 2. I saw the Arsenal, little, but well stored with defensive armes. They never forget to shew the Ladders of the Savoyards, who attempted to surprize this Town by scaling, but were themselves taken and beheaded a la chaude, least some Prince should have interceded for them. 3. The Town house with the Chamber where the Magistrates (something like the Hogen Mogens of Holland) sit in Counsel. 4. They shewd me here a Library but none of the best. 5. The admirable Treuts here, able to make them wish for their Lent again, were it not, that the Capons here are full as good in their kinde.
As for the Governent of this Town, it was anciently Monarchical, and the Bishop was Prince of it under the Duke of Savoy: but Farel and Calvin coming hither with their Anarchical Presbytery, drove the Bishop Peter de la Beaume out of the Town; and established there a kinde of Democraty, or rather a kind of Aristocraty, mingled of Laymen and Ministers. Yet the Bishop keeps still his Title, and the Chapter its Revenues and Lands, which happily lyes in Savoy out of the reach of the short jurisdiction of Geneva. Both the Bishop and Chapter reside in Anisy in Savoy, and officiate in the Cordeliers Church. Of this Seat was Bishop the late Canonized Saint, Petrus a' S Romualdo in Deario.S. Francis de Sales, a man of singular sweetness and piety, mingled with zeal and discretion. I have read of him, that in his life time, he made four thousand sermons to the people.
Having thus seen the little All of Geneva, I made towards Swisserland, leaving the Lake on my right hand;The Lake of Geneva. or rather taking it on my right hand; for it would needs accompany me to Lausanna, where it took leave of me, or I of it.
This Lake is absolutely the fairest I have seen: its fairer then either the Lake Major, the Lake of Como, the Lake of Zuric, the Lake of Walenstat, the Lake of Isee, the Lake of Murat, or the Lake of Garda, In some places this Lake of Geneva is eight miles broad, and well nigh fifty miles long. I have read of a stranger, who travelling that way alone in Winter, when the Lake was all frozen over and covered with Snow, took the Lake for a large plain, and rid upon it eight, or ten miles to the Town. Where lighting at his Inn, and commending the fine plain over which he had ridden, was given to understand, that he had ridden, if not in the Air, at least fiften Fathom above ground, at which, the poor man reflecting upon the danger he had been in, fell down dead with the conceit of it. Thus we are troubled not onely at evils to come but at evils past, and are never so near the danger of death as when we are newly past it. No animal but man, hath this folly.
LausannaLeaving then, as I said, the Lake, I came soon after, to Lausanna in Swisserland, belonging to the Canton of Berne. Here I saw an ancient Church of a noble structure, and once a Bishops Cathedral, but now possessed by Ministers of Calvins communion, and the man that shewed us the Church (though no Catholick) assured us, that the records of that Church bore, that Masse had been said in it thirteen hundred years ago,
Swisserland.From Lausanna I went towards Soleur, skirting through the Cantons, sometimes of Berne, sometimes of Fribourg, and sometimes in one dayes journey, I passed into a Catholick Canton, and by and by, into a Protestant Canton again: for here Catholick and Protestant Villages are mingled together, and make the Country look like the back side of a pair of tables, checquered with white and black. In one Village you have a Cross set up, to signify that it is Catholique belonging to the Canton of Friburge; by and by in another Village, a high flag with the picture of a Bear in it, Berne signifies as much as Bear.to signifie, that it belongs to the Canton of Berne, and is Protestant: and yet they live civilly and neighbourly together without quarreling about Religion.
Soleur.Passing thus along, I came to Soleur (Soloturnum in Latin) a neat Town and Head of a Canton. They are all Catholiks here: and here it is that the French Embassadours to the Swissers, alwayes reside, as the Spanish Embassadours do at Lucerna. Petrus Romualdus in Cronolog. Tresor. to. 1.pag.83.in fol.This Town is very ancient, as the Golden Letters upon the Clock testifie; for those words make Soleur to be onely yonger then her Sister Trevers, which, as Æneas Sylvius writes, was built 1300 years before Rome. As for Soleur, I find in good Cronologers that it was built 2030 years after the Creation of the world.
From Soleur I went to Murat, a little town famous for a great battle fought hard by it, by the Duke of Burgundy, and the Swissers. For the Duke of Burgundy besieging Murat,Murat. the Swissers came upon him with a great Army, and defeated him. I was told here, that the Duke seeing his army defeated, and himself environed on one side by the Lake here; and on the other side, by the Enemies conquering army, chose rather to trust himself to the Lake, then to his Enemyes. The Lake of Murat.Whereupon spurring his Horse into the Lake, one of his Pages, to save himself also, leaped up behind him, as he took water. The Duke, out of fear either perceived him not at first, or dissembled it till he came to the other side of the Lake which is two miles broad: The stout horse tugged thrugh with them both, and saved them both from drowning, but not both from death. For the Duke seing in what danger his Page had put him, stabbed the Page with his Dagger. Poor Prince! thou mighst have given an other offering of Thanks-giving to God for thy escape then this; nay, thou might have been as civil as thy horse, and have spared him, whom beasts and waves had saved: At least by that means, thou mighst have saved thy own honour, by saving that poor Page, who offended, rather out of fear of death, then out of malice: and thereby thou mighst have truly said, that thou hadst not lost all thy men in that battle. But passion is a blind thing: Nothing is so dangerous to man, as man; and, as I observed above, we are never in greater danger, then when we think we are past danger. The bones of the Burgundians slain in this battle, are seen in a great Chappel, which stands a little distant from the Town, and upon the road, with an inscription upon it touching the time and circumstances of this defeat.
From Murat I made towards Zuric, a head Town also of a Canton. It stands most sweetly upon a Lake whose crystalline waters would delight any body else but Swissers. They are all here, Swinglians; and when Mareshal D'Estrée the French Embassadour to Rome, passed that way, and lodged at the great Inn of the Sword, as he was combing his head one morning in his combing cloth, with his chamber window open, some of the Townsmen, who saw him (from another opposite window) putting on that combing cloth, and thinking it had been a Priest putting on the Amice, and vesting himself for to say Mass before the Embassadour in his Chamber, began with a Dutch clamour to stirre up the people to a mutiny about the Embassadours house, and to call for the Priest, that was saying of Masse: The Embassadour at first, not understanding the cause of this uproar about his house, ran down with sword in hand, and in his combing cloth, to check the first man that should dare to enter his lodgings: but understanding at last, that his combing cloth had caused this jealousy, he laughed at their folly, and retired away contented.
The best things to be seen in Zuric are these. 1. The neat Arsenal furnished with store of fair Cannons and armes of all sorts. 2. The great Library, but in this much less esteemed by me, because a woman had the Key of it, and let us in to see it. This piece of false Latin at the entrance, disgusted me with all that I saw there, and made me hasten out quickly: Good Libraries should not fall en quenoüille.
3. The Wheels which draw up water from the Lake of themselves, and empty it into several Pipes, and so conveigh it all over the Town.
4. The publick great Drinking hall, where there are a world of little tables for men of several Corporations or Trades to meet at, and either talk there of their business, or make drinking their business, Over every Table hangs the sign of each Trade; as, a Last for Shoomakers, a Saddle for Sadlers, a Sword for Cutlers &c. There is a great Bell that rings to this Meeting-place every day at two a Clock, and when I heard so solemn a ringing, I thought it had been to some Church-devotion, not to a drinking assembly.
From Zuric I went by water, that is upon the Lake, a whole dayes journey, A long Bridge.and passed under a bridge of wood which crossed quite over the Lake for two miles. Its entertained at the cost of the King of Spain, to pass the Souldiers which he often raiseth in the adjacent Countryes.
Coire.From hence I went to Coire, or Cear, the head Town of the Grisons. The Bishop and the Clergy of the great Church, with some few others living within the precincts of the Cloister of the great Church, are Catholicks, and perform their Devotions in the Church without controll: the rest of the Inhabitants are Swinglians, and possess the Town, yet they suffer the Bishop and his Clergy to live quietly in the midst of them. They shewed me here in this Church, divers fine Reliques, S. Lucius the first Christian King.especially the Head (enchased in Silver) of our ancient British King Lucius, the first Christian King that ever made profession of Christian Religion, and the first who helpt to plant it here. The ancient Church Office here relates all this, as their Church Books shewed me.
The Valtaline.From the Grisons I went to the Country of the Valtaline; a Country subject to the Grisons and keeping its fidelity to them even when it would not have wanted assistance from Spain and Italy, if it would have been false to its Superiours the Grisons under the colour of Religion: those of the Valtaline being all Catholicks, and their Soveraigns the Grisons Calvinists. In a little town of the Grisons (called Herberga) I was shewed a Cheese (and given to taste of it too) by mine hoste, the Mayor of the Town, a Calvinist in Religion, and a Venerable old man, who assured me seriously, that that Cheese was an hundred years old: a Venerable Cheese indeed.
Mount Berlin.Between these two Countryes of the Grisons and the Valtaline, stands the great Hill Berlino: over which I passed; and fell from thence upon Posciavo a little bourg, and so to our Ladyes of Tirano a neat Church with a fair Inn hard by it.
Le Splug.Others, to avoid the Snow of Berlino, are forced now and then (as I was once) to pass over the mountain Splug, which is hill enough for any Traveller.
Mount Aurigo.From our Ladyes of Tirano I went up a smart hill called Mount The lakes of Wallinstade, & Isee.Aurigo, and so making towards the Lake of Wallinstade, I passed it over in boat; as I did also soon after, that of Isee; and so fell into the territories of Brescia in Italy belonging to the state of Venice.