Neuchâtel

“ LEGENDS OF NEUCHÂTEL A younger son of one the Counts of Neuchâtel, wishing to found a family of his own, went to settle in 1155 in the picturesque Val de Ruz in the Jura mountains. Here he selected a tall and jagged rock, washed by the Seyon, as the site of his new stronghold, the Castle of Vallangin. Owing to its position, it was almost impregnable; but it was a very dismal abode, for the heights of Chaumont at the south overshadowed it, cutting off much sunlight, while the dense pine forests around it did not tend to lessen the gloom. ”

“ Among natives of the town are the theologians J. F. Ostervald (1663–1747) and Frédéric Godet (1812–1900) , the geologist E. Desor (1811–1882) , the local historian G. A. Matile (1807–1881) and the politicians A. M. Piaget (1802–1870) and Numa Droz (1844–1899) . Neuchâtel (partly because very good French is spoken there) attracts many foreign students, while the town is a literary centre. In 1900 Neuchâtel numbered 20,843 inhabitants (in 1850 only 7727 and in 1870, 12,683) , 15,277 being French-speaking and 4553 German-speaking; there were 17,237 Protestants, 3459 Romanists and 80 Jews. ”

“ It mainly manufactures watches, jewelry and lace, but not the Neufchâtel cream-cheese; this comes from a small Norman town called Neufchâtelen-Bray. Population 23,505. The canton of Neuchâtel has an area of 312 square miles, and in 1910 had a population of 132,184. ”

“ Only a dull echo responds to the noise of the feet. These interesting caves form a perfect network all along the sides of the Jura, and the intricate windings that thread the hills round Neuchâtel we have often explored and wandered, not infrequently giving ourselves up for lost. ”

“ In the neighbourhood of Neuchâtel there is a famous stream that will well repay us to follow its windings for some distance into the mountain home and source. The Areuse is a wild mountain torrent, that varies from a quiet, though never a clear, stream, to a rushing, foaming river. We suddenly plunge into the jaws of a defile so dark and gloomy that we almost imagine it to be the entrance to an enormous cavern. The little path we follow is fixed to the side of the weathered walls like windowsills to the wall of a house. The defile deepens and darkens at every step ”

“ Basel city joined the Catholic League formed at Sarnen, in November, 1832, as a counterblast to the Siebner-Concordat. Uri, Inner-Schwyz, Unterwalden, Valais, and Freiburg also joined this league. The inhabitants of Neuchâtel had a double object, the reformation of their constitution, and their separation, if possible, from Prussia, the double régime being greatly disliked. An attempt was made on the castle, but it failed, and the Federation re-established order, and the old status quo. The royalist party in Neuchâtel now aimed at a severance from Switzerland. ”

“ From Geneva, Berne, and perhaps from Versailles, the effervescence quickly passed to Neuchatel, and especially to Val de Travers, where, before even the ministers had taken any apparent steps, an attempt was secretly made to stir up the people. ”

“ Neuchatel, “and on the high road to a bishopric.”
“That is what we want, Lady Montfort,” said Mr. Neuchatel; “we want a few practical men. If we had a practical man as Chancellor of the Exchequer, we should not be in the scrape in which we now are.”
“It is not likely that Penruddock will leave the Church with a change of government possibly impending. We could do nothing for him with his views, but he will wait for Peel.”
“Oh! Peel will never stand those high-fliers. He put the Church into a Lay Commission during his last government.” ”

“ Despite strenuous opposition by the monastic orders, he obtained in 1528 a licence from the authorities to preach anywhere within the canton of Bern. He extended his labours to the cantons of Neuchâtel and Vaud. His vehement missionary addresses were met by mob violence, but he persevered with undaunted zeal. In October 1530 he broke into the church of Neuchâtel with an iconoclastic mob, thus planting the Reformation in that city. In 1532 he visited the Waldenses. On the return journey he halted at Geneva, then at a crisis of political and religious strife. ”

“ Many of the people of the Canton of Neuchâtel having turned Protestant, Wilhelmine of Bergy, grandmother of one of the lords of Vallangin, a stanch Catholic, sadly forsook the castle which she had entered as a happy young bride, to go and live like a hermit in the village of Gezard, which was her dowry. ”

“ The people of Valangin embraced the Gospel. The affrighted lieutenant ran to Neuchatel, thence to Berne, and on the 11th February 1521 laid his complaint before the council; but all was useless. "Why," said their excellencies of Berne to him, "why should you disturb the water of the river? let it flow freely on."
Farel immediately turned to the parishes on the slopes between the lake and Mount Jura. At Corcelles a fanatic crowd, well armed and led on by the curate of Neuchatel, rushed into the church where the minister was preaching, and he did not escape without a wound. ”

“ Geneva refused asylum to the proscribed philosopher; he was warned of hostile intentions on the part of the magnific signiors of Berne. Neuchatel and the King of Prussia’s protection alone were left; thither he went for refuge. Received with open arms by the governor, my lord Marshal (Keith) , he wrote thence to the premier syndic Favre a letter abdicating his rights of burghership and citizenship in the town of Geneva. “I have neglected nothing,” he said, “to gain the love of my compatriots; nobody could have had worse success. I desire to indulge them even in their hate ”

“ Gaudot, the vice-governor, Frederick's devoted minister, was shot in the fray (1768) . Yet, thanks to the monarch's wise moderation, and the intervention of the Swiss Confederation, the storm was calmed, and Neuchâtel continued in her peaceful and happy condition. It is clear that there was in Switzerland plenty of combustible matter, needing only the French Revolution to raise a conflagration. ”

“ The Chasseron (5286 ft.) is the central point of the eastern face, commanding the two great railways which join Neuchâtel and Pontarlier. This ridge is in a certain sense parallel to the valley of the Loue on the west face, which flows into the Doubs a little to the south of Dôle, the only important town of the central portion of the Saône basin. ”

“ The Swiss have reason to fear the designs of Prussia. As late as 1856, Prussia and Switzerland were on the edge of war. Prior to 1815 Neuchâtel acknowledged the King of Prussia as its overlord; the Congress of Vienna, however, included this territory in the Swiss Confederation as one of the Swiss Cantons. ”

“ The lords of the house of Neuchâtel, the counts of Kibourg, and Pierre of Gruyères and others, assembled in the castle of Nidau, whither, notwithstanding her alliance with Berne, came ambassadors from Fribourg, to say that the injuries they all suffered had a common origin, that Berne strove to level the nobles to the condition of the populace, and it being vain to essay by 33 partial attacks to set bounds to her audacity, it would be well that united forces should raze her city to the ground. ”

“ Romanist theologians did not muster in anything like the same strength. The men of the four Forest cantons stood sullenly aloof; the authorities in French-speaking Switzerland had no liking for the Disputation, and the strongly Romanist canton of Freiburg did its best to prevent the theologians of Neuchâtel, Morat, and Grandson from appearing at Bern ”

“ This town is thus marked out by nature as a great military and industrial centre, just as is Besançon on the west, which has besides to defend the route from Belfort down the Doubs. These easy means of communicating with the Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comté account for the fact that the dialect of Neuchâtel is Burgundian, and that it was held generally by Burgundian nobles, though most of the country near it was in the hands of the house of Savoy until gradually annexed by Bern. ”

“ In 1806, Napoleon seized it and erected it into a principality for Marshal Berthier; in 1815, it returned to Prussia, while remaining a Swiss canton. Neuchâtel declared its independence in 1848; this independence was recognised by Prussia in 1857.—T.
[245] Isabelle Agnès de Sainte-Hyacinthe de Charrière (1745-1805) , née van Tuyll, author, under the pseudonym of the Abbé de La Tour, of the Lettres Neuchâteloises (1784) , Caliste, ou Lettres écrites de Lausanne (1786) , etc.—T.
[246] Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) , the eminent French critic. ”

“ They were an hundred miles distant, but reach so high in the heavens, that they look like those accumulated clouds of dazzling white that arrange themselves on the horizon during summer. Their immensity staggers the imagination, and so far surpasses all conception, that it requires an effort of the understanding to believe that they indeed form a part of the earth.
From this point we descended to Neufchâtel, which is situated in a narrow plain, between the mountains and its immense lake, and presents no additional aspect of peculiar interest. ”

“ The town of Neufchâtel contains between 4 and 5,000 inhabitants; it is partly built on a hill, where stand the church and castle, and partly on a plain near the lake, on the borders of which are handsome public walks and further improvements are carrying on. The elegant appearance of many of the private houses proves the wealth of their owners. ”

“ On arrival at the lake I crossed over in a boat to Neufchâtel, 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. Neufchâtel 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. ”

“ The lake is not deep, but seldom freezes, although it is thirty-one toises more elevated than that of Geneva.
The principalities of Neufchâtel and Vallingen are about twelve leagues long, by eight at the broadest part; the soil is far from fertile, but the industry of the inhabitants renders it astonishingly productive. Any person having a certificate of his general good conduct may settle here, and enjoy every essential privilege of the native subjects. This is perhaps the only country in Europe exempt from taxes ”

“ Before reaching Neumagen we pass a little chapel, erected at the spot where, according to tradition, the waters of the Moselle ceased to be tinged with the blood shed at Trèves in the massacre of Christian martyrs.
Neumagen enjoys a most agreeable site. Sheltered by the hills which rise at its back, it faces the bold cliffs that now have arisen on the left bank of our river. On ascending the hills at the back of the town we find ourselves on a level platform, with the Moselle on one side of us and the Drohn on the other ”

“ From the platform where we stood, the eye (overlooking the city, bridge, and the deep vale, to the point where the Neckar is concealed from view by its winding to the left) is carried across the plain to the dim stream of the Rhine, perceived under the distant hills. The pleasure-grounds are the most delightful I ever beheld; the happiest mixture of wildness, which no art could overcome, and formality, often necessary to conduct you along the ledge of a precipice—whence you may look down upon the river, enlivened by boats, and on the rich vale, or to the more distant scenes before mentioned. ”

“ Along the Rhine and Neckar,
No town like thee is found.
Thou town of merry fellows,
Of wisdom full and wine,
Clear flows thy placid river,
Blue eyes therein do shine.
When from the south is spreading
Spring's smile o'er hill and lea,
He out of blossoms weaveth
A bridal robe for thee.
Thee as a bride I fondly
Enshrine within my heart;
Like early love's sweet echoes,
Thy name doth joy impart.
Become life's cares too burning,
And all abroad looks bare,
I'll spur my good horse homeward
To the Neckar vale so fair. ”

“ We arrived late, after an exquisite drive; the castle grows on one, the more one looks at it; its vastness is surprising, and the beauty of its site, and trees, and gardens, and terraces, is striking; but the Neckar, though pretty, is not large enough for such an edifice, it should have been the Rhine. ”

“ They passed the ruined house where Martin Luther lay concealed after the Diet of Worms, and through the village of Handschuhsheimer, as old as the days of King Pepin the Short,--a hamlet, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms and green leaves. Close on the right rose the mountains of the mysterious Odenwald; and on the left lay the Neckar, like a steel bow in the meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky vapor betrayed the course of the Rhine; beyond which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue, billowy Alsatian hills. ”

“ For there are no “sights” here, the castle excepted. The quaint old town is friendly and genial, though not more so than many others of this comfortable German father-land; nor is the serene Neckar so exceptional as to occasion pilgrimage.
Heidelberg’s appeals are to the mind, the heart, and the senses: the mind is inspired by her impressive achievements in learning; the heart is touched by her tragic history; and the senses are spellbound by the exceptional charm of her natural beauty. She is never so fair as in the early evening. ”

“ A high-road bore off to the right, that we could trace a mile or two over the hills, and only a tangled path led toward the west. Leaving the company to await the result, I proceeded to explore the path, and soon came in view of the town lying in the plain below. I stood enchanted with the scene. A gently sloping country receded several miles to the Rhine; meandering all the way through fields and forests, the legend-consecrated Neckar glistened in the morning sun, and beyond, the vine-clad hills of France, the country of the Moselle, crowned the horizon. ”