) from the
lake, and you descend continually in going from the city to the Lake Leman
by a good carriage road, until you arrive on the borders of the lake, where
stands a neat little town called Ouchy, or as it is sometimes termed _le
port de Lausanne_. There is a good quai and pier. The passage across the
lake from Ouchy to the Savoy side requires four hours with oars.

I have made several pleasant acquaintances here, viz., M. Pidon the
Landamman, a litterato of the first order; Genl La Harpe, the tutor of the
Emperor of Russia; but the most agreeable of all is the Baron de
F[alkenskiold], an old gentleman of whose talents, merits and delightful
disposition I cannot speak too highly. He has the most liberal and
enlightened views and opinions, and is extremely well versed in English,
French and German litterature. He is a Dane by birth and was exiled early
in life from his own country, on account of an accusation of being
implicated in the affair of Struensee; and it is generally supposed that he
was one of Queen Matilda's favoured lovers, which supposition is not
improbable, as in his youth, to judge from his present dignified and
majestic appearance, he must have been an uncommonly handsome man. He has
lived ever since at Lausanne, and tho' near seventy-four years of age and
tormented with the gout, he never loses his cheerfulness, and passes his
time mostly with his books. He gives dinner parties two or three times a
week, which are exceedingly pleasant, and one is sure to meet there a
small, but well informed society of natives and foreigners. Most German
travellers of rank and litterary attainments, who pass thro' Lausanne,
bring letters of introduction and recommendation to the Baron and are sure
to meet with the utmost hospitality and attention.

The women of the Canton de Vaud are in general very handsome, well shaped
and graceful; litterature, music, dancing and drawing are cultivated by
them with success; and among the men, tho' one does not meet perhaps with
quite as much instruction as at Geneva (I mean that it is not so general),
yet no pedantry whatever prevails as in Geneva. At Lausanne they have
sincere and solid republican principles and they do not pay that servile
court to the English that the Genevese do; nor have they as yet adopted the
phrase "_Dieu me damne_."

PARIS, Dec. 5th.

I returned to Paris by Geneva and crossing the Jura chain of mountains
passed thro' Dole, Auxonne and Dijon. At Gen