... I almost hesitate whether I shall run
over to England to consult with you on the spot, and to fly from poor
Deyverdun's shade, which meets me at every turn." Not that he lacked
attached friends, and of mere society and acquaintance he had more
than abundance. He occupied at Lausanne a position of almost
patriarchal dignity, "and may be said," writes Lord Sheffield, "to
have almost given the law to a set of as willing subjects as any man
ever presided over." Soon the troubles in France sent wave after wave
of emigrants over the frontiers, and Lausanne had its full share of
the exiles. After a brief approval of the reforms in France he passed
rapidly to doubt, disgust, and horror at the "new birth of time"
there. "You will allow me to be a tolerable historian," he wrote to
his step-mother, "yet on a fair review of ancient and modern times I
can find none that bear any affinity to the present." The last social
evolution was beyond his power of classification. The mingled
bewilderment and anger with which he looks out from Lausanne on the
revolutionary welter, form an almost amusing contrast to his usual
apathy on political matters.
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