Le pays vaudois, son âme et son visage*
by Pierre de Coubertin
Vaud, one of the cantons of the Swiss approaching sun, a town draped in green- But the traveller has no time to contem-
Confederation, situated on the shores of ery and decked out in festival fashion. It plate these things. The traveller is in great
Lake Léman; has greenery at its feet and at its head; haste. He will see neither the exquisite
Vaudois, inhabitants of the canton de and peace seems to stroll around its point of Saint Sulpice with its bell-tower
Vaud...that is more or less what the dictio- streets. surrounded by pensive poplars, nor the
naries, those distributors of a dry and A similar vision must have greeted Greek deep wooded groves of Sauvabelin with
angular science. have to say; and how sailors as they approached the islands of their Druid-like air. For him, Lausanne is
many people must there be who know the ancient archipelago... And is it not, in one of the major crossroads of Europe.
no more than that about this land of sun, reality, an entrance to an archipelago that The principal concern of the traveller in
balance and freedom known as the can- appears in outline in the direction of his haste is to secure a sleeping berth in
ton of Vaud! Geneva? One might imagine it a kind of the next luxury train.
The Evian boat, as it left the Savoy shore, sound that slides its well pleased waters And the Vaudois looks upon his haste
began by plunging into the mother-of- between a multitude of land formations. with a slight air of amusement. He is not
pearl mist characteristic of fine summer This evening, when the setting sun in a hurry...With his charming accent.
mornings. But as the lake is not wide and enchants the horizon with its glow. the quaint and lilting, he says with a slight
the mist was not thick, the shore of Vaud illusion will be still more complete. Molten shrug of the shoulders: there is plenty of
with its welcoming hills soon came into gold will fall from the sky on to the time!
view. A town emerged, stretched out waters and the promontories will take on
along the slopes of these hills in an the rich magenta tones that. in the eastern * “The country of Vaud, its soul and its
adorable gesture of nonchalance: a town Mediterranean, seem, as the night face”, brochure published in Lausanne by
all white with its houses prettily terraced approaches, like a delayed reflection of Librarie F. Rouge, 1919. Translated from
as if to receive the tributes of the the opulence of Byzantium. the French.
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