Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Byron's Switzerland
- Part One
- 1 Heading for Geneva
- 2 The Shelley Party
- 3 On the Road
- 4 First Meetings
- 5 Diodati
- 6 Frightening Tales
- 7 A Narrow Escape
- 8 Chillon, Clarens and Ouchy
- Part Two
- Afterwords
- 1 Lewis, de Staël and ‘Poor Polidori’
- 2 The Shelley Party and Allegra
- 3 The Road to Greece
- 4 Last Rites
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Heading for Geneva
from Part One
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Byron's Switzerland
- Part One
- 1 Heading for Geneva
- 2 The Shelley Party
- 3 On the Road
- 4 First Meetings
- 5 Diodati
- 6 Frightening Tales
- 7 A Narrow Escape
- 8 Chillon, Clarens and Ouchy
- Part Two
- Afterwords
- 1 Lewis, de Staël and ‘Poor Polidori’
- 2 The Shelley Party and Allegra
- 3 The Road to Greece
- 4 Last Rites
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the early morning of Friday 26 April 1816, after a Channel crossing which had lasted sixteen hours, Lord Byron landed in Ostend. He was heading for Switzerland, and more particularly for Geneva. For many of us now, Geneva is where the United Nations meet or where the very rich, who prefer not too much scrutiny into their financial affairs, keep their bank accounts. In 1816 its reputation was rather different. Although the town had only very recently become an official member of the Swiss confederation, it benefited from the warm feeling which had existed in Britain towards Switzerland in the late eighteenth century. Here was a conglomeration of small states, none of them very wealthy and all of them poorly resourced, which had fought for their independence and then heroically defended it against much more powerful neighbours. What made this feat seem especially impressive was that it had been achieved while those states (or cantons) continued to maintain a limited system of representative democracy. For the British, Switzerland was the only other country in Europe whose government was non-autocratic. This was why its invasion by the French revolutionary forces in 1798 had been such a shock to the liberal-minded. Looking back on that event, both Wordsworth and Coleridge identified it as the moment when their faith in the French Revolution finally collapsed. Byron was still then a boy, and he would never totally abjure revolutionary principles, but for him too Switzerland had high symbolic value.
However much they might admire Switzerland in general, the reason that many of Byron's compatriots had a special feeling for Geneva had little to do with politics. This was after all the town which had in the past established a sober, puritanical mode of living that served as both a model and an inspiration for many others. Thanks to John Calvin, it had become a Mecca of the Protestant world, a beacon in a surrounding sea of idol-worshipping Catholics and a place where respectable British tourists could take their wives and daughters without misgiving. Visiting Geneva in 1817, Stendhal declared it was a town where one met fewer cuckolds than anywhere else, although he then added that, were he married, no amount of money would persuade him to live there. This was because its respectability could make it seem rather dull and self-satisfied.
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- Byron in GenevaThat Summer of 1816, pp. 1 - 9Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011