of chemistry. She had been intimately connected with the
celebrated Boerhaave, and she shewed me a plate of gold he had transmuted
in her presence from copper. I believed as much as I liked of this, but
she assured me that Boerhaave possessed the philosopher's stone, but that
he had not discovered the secret of prolonging life many years beyond the
century. Boerhaave, however, was not able to apply this knowledge to
himself, as he died of a polypus on the heart before he had attained the
age of perfect maturity, which Hypocrates fixes at between sixty and
seventy years. The four millions he left to his daughter, if they do not
prove that he could make gold, certainly prove that he could save it. The
worthy old woman told me he had given her a manuscript in which the whole
process was explained, but that she found it very obscure.

"You should publish it," said I.

"God forbid!"

"Burn it, then."

"I can't make up my mind to do so."

M. de Muralt took me to see the military evolutions gone through by the
citizens of Berne, who are all soldiers, and I asked him the meaning of
the bear to be seen above the gate of the town. The German for bear is
'bar', 'bern', and the animal has given its name to the town and canton
which rank second in the Republic, although it is in the first place for
its wealth and culture. It is a peninsula formed by the Aar, which rises
near the Rhine. The mayor spoke to me of the power of the canton, its
lordships and bailiwicks, and explained his own powers; he then described
the public policy, and told me of the different systems of government
which compose the Helvetic Union.

"I understand perfectly well," I said, "that each of the thirteen cantons
has its own government."

"I daresay you do," he replied, "but what you don't understand any more
than I do is, that there is a canton which has four separate
governments."

I had an excellent supper with fourteen or fifteen senators. There were
no jokes, no frivolous conversation, and no literature; but law, the
commonweal, commerce, political economy, speculation, love of country,
and the duty of preferring liberty to life, in abundance.

I felt as if I were in a new element, but I enjoyed the privilege of
being a man amidst men who were all in honour to our common humanity. But
as the supper went on, these rigid republicans began to expand, the
discourse became less measured, there were even some bursts of laughter,
owing to the wine.