130 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, x 



pavilion, but was knocked down by a blow from a niusket. 

 The Syndic gave himself up, was marched off the premises, 

 and shot. 



In 1838 Louis Napoleon (afterwards Napoleon III.) was 

 in Geneva. Louis Philippe's government protested against 

 his being allowed to live there plotting against the French 

 monarchy. At this Switzerland was very wroth, and Gene- 

 van patriotism flamed up into a white heat of indignation. 

 Sismondi believed, probably with justice, that the French 

 government had right on its side, maintaining that Louis 

 Napoleon's claim to be a Swiss citizen was a mere pretence, 

 historical facts having made all Buonapartes irrevocably 

 Frenchmen. This attitude made him terribly unpopular, 

 and his friends feared the populace would set his house on 

 fire. The incident shewed his political foresight as well as 

 his courage, for at that time Louis Napoleon was thought 

 merely a conspirator pour rire. Sismondi perceived that 

 the man had capacities, and forces at his back, which were 

 not to be despised. 



A little anecdote is told illustrating his kindly nature. 

 He employed for many years a locksmith who was a wretch- 

 edly bad workman and did everything wrong. A friend 

 asked, " But why do you keep him on ?" The answer was : 

 ' 1 am his last customer." 1 



Sismondi had affectations and small vanities which were 

 distasteful to English ideas. I remember my mother's 

 describing how he would say 'petite Emma," as she was 

 coming into the room, in an affectedly caressing way. But 

 in all essentials he was worthy of Jessie, and he was bound- 

 lessly hospitable and kind to all his English connections. 

 His sister-in-law Fanny, in spite of her real regard for him, 

 behaved like a spoilt child, refusing to get out on the side 

 of the carriage where he stood for fear of having to take his 

 hand. That he made her welcome to his house for months 

 at a time shews true magnanimity of nature, and illustrates 

 his profound devotion to his wife. 



1 The above paragraphs were written by my husband. No com- 

 plete life of Sismondi, was I believe, ever published. Vol. 72 of 

 the Quarterly Review (1843) contains a long and interesting account 

 of him, and Edmond Scherer's Litterature Contemporaine du xvnime 

 siecle (2nd edn. 1876) has much about him and the Geneva-Coppet 

 literary people of the time. Virgile Rossel, in his Histoire Literaire 

 de la Suisse Romande, says of Madame Sismondi: " Sa femme, une 

 chr6tienne fervente, un peu mystique, le m6na insensiblement d'un 

 scepticisme pareeseux a une foi tres active, non point a la foi Iit6rale, 

 a 1'orthodoxie traditionelle, maie a une religion de devoir et 

 d' amour." 



