After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819Frye, William Edward
History
After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819
Frye, William Edward
Europe -- Description and travel
I left Payerne on the fifth of July and walked to the _campagne_ of M. de
T[reytorre]us,[107] situated on the banks of the lake Morat. It is a very
pretty country house, spacious and roomy, and I was received with the
utmost cordiality by M. de T[reytorrens] and his amiable family. He is a
very opulent proprietor in this part of the country, and has spent part of
his life in England. He is a dignified looking man, a little too much
perhaps of the old school and no friend to the innovations and changes
arising from the French Revolution. Having lived much among the Tory
nobility of England, he has imbibed their ideas and views of things. His
son is now employed in one of the public offices in London. His wife and
three daughters, one of whom is married to a _ministre_, dwell with him.
With this family I passed three days in the most agreeable manner. I find
the style and manner of living of the _noblesse_ (or country gentlemen, as
we should style them) of Switzerland very comfortable, in every sense of
the word. I wish my friends the French would take more to a country life,
it would essentially benefit the nation. The way of living in M. de
T[reytorre]us family is as follows. A breakfast of coffee and bread and
butter is served up to each person separately in their own room, or in the
_Salle à manger_, Before dinner every one follows his own avocation or
amusement. At one, the family assemble to dinner which generally consist of
soup, _bouilli, entrées_ of fish, flesh and fowl, _entremets_ of
vegetables, a _rôti_ of butcher's meat, fowl or game, pastry and desert.
The wine of the country is drunk at dinner as a table wine, and _old_ wines
of the country or wines of foreign growth are handed round to each guest
during the desert. After dinner coffee and liqueurs are served. After an
hour's conversation or repose, promenades are proposed which occupy the
time till dusk. Music, cards or reading plays fill up the rest of the
evening, till supper is announced at nine o'clock, which is generally as
substantial as the dinner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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