With some trouble, and a good deal of inquiring, they found a private collection of art and _bric-à-brac_, historical relics, furniture, delft, and china, that was well worth seeing. Then, having regaled their eyes upon this to the uttermost, they scampered off to the public museum, where the only objects of thrilling interest were the manuscripts and letters of dead and gone celebrities, from Calvin downwards. They found that famous reformer’s penmanship as angular as his character; they found Bossuet a careless and sprawling writer; Fénelon careful, neat, and fine; the Duc de Richelieu a fop even in the use of his pen, his writing exquisitely clear, minute, and regular; while De Maintenon’s hand was large, bold, angular, and eminently readable—the natural indication of an unscrupulous managing temper, a woman born to govern, by fair means or foul. Daphne lingered a little over Rousseau’s manuscript of ‘Julie,’ a work of delicate neatness, evidently copied from the rough draft. ‘Is not “Julie” one of the novels which one mustn’t read?’ asked Daphne, when she had perused half a page. ‘It looks uncommonly dull. I thought wicked stories were always interesting.’ Edgar had never heard of ‘Julie.’ It was doubtful if he had ever heard of Rousseau; but at this remark he hurried Daphne away from the manuscript, lest some snaky little bit of immorality should uncurl itself on the page, and lift up its evil head before her. It was time for them to get back to the hotel, so they gave but a cursory glance at the pictures and other treasures of the museum, and hastened into the glare of the broad white street, where Edgar insisted upon putting his betrothed into a fly. They found Madoline and Gerald waiting for them in the porch of the Beau Rivage, and a smart open carriage with a pair of horses ready to take them to Ferney. ‘Thank goodness we are going away from Geneva,’ said Daphne, as the carriage rattled through the wide clean streets towards the country; ‘and now I suppose we shall see something really Swiss.’ ‘You will see the home of a great man of letters,’ answered Gerald, looking at her lazily with those languid dreamy eyes whose shifting hue had so puzzled her in the forest of Fontainebleau, ‘and as you are such a hero-worshipper, that ought to satisfy you.’ ‘I don’t care a straw for Voltaire,’ said Daphne. ‘Indeed! And pray how much do you know about him?’ ‘Everything. I have read Carlyle’s description of him in “Frederick the Great.” He was a horrid man; cringed to his goat-faced eminence Dubois; allowed himself to be caned by the Duc de Rohan’s hired bravoes, the Duc looking on out of a hackney coach window all the time.’ ‘Don’t say allowed himself. I don’t suppose he could help it.’ ‘He ought to have prevented it. Imagine a great man beginning his career by being beaten in the public streets.’