: The Love Affairs of Lord Byron by Gribble Francis Henry - Poets English 19th century Biography; Byron George Gordon Byron Baron 1788-1824 Relations with women

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LIFE OF ALBERT GALLATIN.

YOUTH. 1761-1790.

After the elevation of Geneva to the rank of a sovereign republic in 1535, the history of the Gallatins is the history of the city. The family, if not the first in the state, was second to none. Government was aristocratic in this small republic, and of the eleven families into whose hands it fell at the time of the Reformation, the Gallatins furnished syndics and counsellors, with that regularity and frequency which characterized the mode of selection, in a more liberal measure than any of the other ten. Five Gallatins held the position of first syndic, and as such were the chief magistrates of the republic. Many were in the Church; some were professors and rectors of the University. They counted at least one political martyr among their number,--a Gallatin who, charged with the crime of being head of a party which aimed at popular reforms in the constitution, was seized and imprisoned in 1698, and died in 1719, after twenty-one years of close confinement. They overflowed into foreign countries. Pierre, the elder son of Jean, was the source of four distinct branches of the family, which spread and multiplied in every direction, although of them all no male representative now exists except among the descendants of Albert Gallatin. One was in the last century a celebrated physician in Paris, chief of the hospital established by Mme. Necker; another was Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Duke of Brunswick, who, when mortally wounded at the battle of Jena, in 1806, commended his minister to the King of W?rtemberg as his best and dearest friend. The King respected this dying injunction, and Count Gallatin, in 1819, was, as will be seen, the W?rtemberg minister at Paris.

That the Gallatins did not restrict their activity to civil life is a matter of course. There were few great battle-fields in Europe where some of them had not fought, and not very many where some of them had not fallen. Voltaire testifies to this fact in the following letter to Count d'Argental, which contains a half-serious, half-satirical account of their military career:

VOLTAIRE TO THE COUNT D'ARGENTAL.

Voici la plus belle occasion, mon cher ange, d'exercer votre minist?re c?leste. Il s'agit du meilleur office que je puisse recevoir de vos bont?s.

Je vous conjure, mon cher et respectable ami, d'employer tout votre cr?dit aupr?s de M. le Duc de Choiseul; aupr?s de ses amis; s'il le faut, aupr?s de sa ma?tresse, &c., &c. Et pourquoi os?-je vous demander tant d'appui, tant de z?le, tant de vivacit?, et surtout un prompt succ?s? Pour le bien du service, mon cher ange; pour battre le Duc de Brunsvick. M. Galatin, officier aux gardes suisses, qui vous pr?sentera ma tr?s-humble requ?te, est de la plus ancienne famille de Gen?ve; ils se font tuer pour nous de p?re en fils depuis Henri Quatre. L'oncle de celui-ci a ?t? tu? devant Ostende; son fr?re l'a ?t? ? la malheureuse et abominable journ?e de Rosbach, ? ce que je crois; journ?e o? les r?giments suisses firent seuls leur devoir. Si ce n'est pas ? Rosbach, c'est ailleurs; le fait est qu'il a ?t? tu?; celui-ci a ?t? bless?. Il sert depuis dix ans; il a ?t? aide-major; il veut l'?tre. Il faut des aides-major qui parlent bien allemand, qui soient actifs, intelligens; il est tout cela. Enfin vous saurez de lui pr?cis?ment ce qu'il lui faut; c'est en g?n?ral la permission d'aller vite chercher la mort ? votre service. Faites-lui cette gr?ce, et qu'il ne soit point tu?, car il est fort aimable et il est neveu de cette Mme. Calendrin que vous avez vue ?tant enfant. Mme. sa m?re est bien aussi aimable que Mme. Calendrin.

One Gallatin fell in 1602 at the Escalade, famous in Genevan history; another at the siege of Ostend, in 1745; another at the battle of Marburg, in 1760; another, the ninth of his name who had served in the Swiss regiment of Aubonne, fell in 1788, acting as a volunteer at the siege of Octzakow; still another, in 1797, at the passage of the Rhine. One commanded a battalion under Rochambeau at the siege of Yorktown. But while these scattered members of the family were serving with credit and success half the princes of Christendom, the main stock was always Genevan to the core and pre-eminently distinguished in civil life.

One of the four branches of this extensive family was represented in the middle of the eighteenth century by Abraham Gallatin, who lived on his estate at Pregny, one of the most beautiful spots on the west shore of the lake, near Geneva, and who is therefore known as Abraham Gallatin of Pregny. His wife, whom he had married in 1732, was Susanne Vaudenet, commonly addressed as Mme. Gallatin-Vaudenet. They were, if not positively wealthy, at least sufficiently so to maintain their position among the best of Genevese society, and Mme. Gallatin appears to have been a woman of more than ordinary character, intelligence, and ambition. The world knows almost every detail about the society of Geneva at that time; for, apart from a very distinguished circle of native Genevans, it was the society in which Voltaire lived, and to which the attention of much that was most cultivated in Europe was for that reason, if for no other, directed. Voltaire was a near neighbor of the Gallatins at Pregny. Notes and messages were constantly passing between the two houses. Dozens of these little billets in Voltaire's hand are still preserved. Some are written on the back of ordinary playing-cards. The deuce of clubs says:

"Nous sommes aux ordres de Mme. Galatin. Nous t?cherons d'employer ferblantier. Parlement Paris refuse tout ?dit et veut que le roi demande pardon ? Parlement Bezan?on. Anglais ont voulu rebombarder H?vre. N'ont r?ussi. Carosse ? une heure 1/2. Respects."

There is no date; but this is not necessary, for the contents seem to fix the date for the year 1756. A note endorsed "Des D?lices" is in the same tone:

Another, of the year 1759, is on business:

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