Voltaire himself lived there for a little while before he settled down at Ferney, and encountered no theological objection to the theatrical performances which he organized. Gibbon, who was there at the time, living in the house of Pastor Pavilliard, declared that the entertainments, to which he was sometimes invited, 'refined in a visible degree the manners of Lausanne';[1] and the philosopher himself paid a tribute to those manners in a letter to D'Alembert, in which he wrote: 'All the amenities of society and sound philosophy have found their way into the part of Switzerland in which the climate is most agreeable and wealth abounds. The people here have succeeded in grafting the politeness of Athens upon the simplicity of Sparta.' FOOTNOTE: [1] Gibbon's acquaintance with Voltaire was only slight. _Vidi tantum_, he writes. CHAPTER III GIBBON Voltaire belongs to Geneva rather than to Lausanne. The most distinguished of the strangers upon whom Lausanne has an exclusive claim is Gibbon. He was sent there, in the first instance, as a punishment for having embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and was lodged in the house of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinistic minister, whose instructions were to educate his pupil if possible, but to convert him at all costs. The desired conversion was effected, though it was more thorough than had been intended. Gibbon was persuaded to receive the Sacrament from a Protestant pastor, but never troubled himself with religion afterwards except in the capacity of historian. But, though he was at first treated like a schoolboy, and consoled himself for the loss of his liberty by getting drunk, he soon fell in love with the town--'Fanny Lausanne,' as he called it in a letter--and also fell in love with Mademoiselle Suzanne Curchod. That is one of the most famous of all literary love-stories, and one may properly pause here to relate it at length. Mademoiselle Curchod was the daughter of a country clergyman--very well educated, very beautiful, and very generally admired. Her earliest admirers were, naturally, the rising young ministers of the Gospel.[2] It amused her to invite them to sign documents, composed in playful imitation of legal contracts, binding themselves 'to come and preach at Crassier as often as she required, without waiting to be solicited, pressed, or entreated, seeing that the greatest of their pleasures was to oblige her on every possible occasion.' Her female friends, hearing of this, wrote to her expressing their disapproval, and strongly advising her to turn the preachers out of the house as soon as they had finished their sermons; but there is no evidence that she acted on their advice. [Illustration: THE SPIRES OF ST. FRANÇOIS, LAUSANNE]