GENEVA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 45 



men who first explored Chamonix is recorded at length in the Life 

 of Benjamin Stillingfleet, written by Archdeacon Coxe, the author 

 of the work on Switzerland already referred to. Stillingfleet 

 acted as tutor to young Mr. Windham of Felbrigg, who was 

 one of the gay party ; another was a Mr. Neville, who while at 

 Eton had taken a prominent part in school theatricals. These 

 young gentlemen actually persuaded the Venerable Company to 

 let them build a temporary theatre holding three hundred people. 

 They played to crowded audiences Shakespeare and pantomimes ! 

 Their natural style of acting was much admired. Mr. Hervey, 

 who in 1768 became Earl of Bristol, took female parts, playing 

 alternately as Lady Macbeth and Columbine, and was acclaimed 

 as only second to the famous Parisian actress of the day, Mile. 

 Clairon. Most surprising of all, the players invited the Venerable 

 Company, and offered free passes to the four Syndics, as well as 

 to the English students at the Academy. The city of Calvin was 

 obviously on the path of perdition ! After this sidelight on the 

 doings of 1741 even before the days of its arch-tempter Voltaire 

 we read with less surprise how, forty years later, Beckford, in 1782, 

 returning at night from an excursion to the Saleve, found the gates 

 reopened to allow theatre-goers to get to their country homes. 

 Beckford's reflections on this occasion, if forced and malicious, 

 go some way to explain the fluid state of Genevese society imme- 

 diately before the revolution. 



' The Comedie,' he writes, ' is become of wonderful importance. 

 The days of rigidity and plain living have completely gone by ; the 

 soft spirit of toleration, so eloquently insinuated by Voltaire, has 

 removed all thorny fences, familiarised his numerous admirers with 

 every innovation, and laughed scruples of every nature to scorn. 

 Voltaire, indeed, may justly be styled the architect of that gay, well- 

 ornamented bridge, by which free -thinking and immorality have been 

 smuggled into the Republic under the mask of philosophy and liberality 

 and sentiment. These monsters, like the Sin and Death of Milton, 

 have made speedy and irreparable havoc. To facilitate their operations 

 rose the genius of " Rentes viageres." At his bidding, tawdry villas, 

 with their little pert groves of poplar and horse-chestnut, start up his 

 power enables Madame C. D., the bookseller's lady, to amuse the 

 D. of G. with assemblies, sets Parisian cabriolets and English phaetons 

 rolling from one faro table to another, and launches innumerable plea- 

 sure parties with banners and popguns on the lake, drumming and 



