The stage house, where I am, is kept by Mr. GEORGE WISE, and it is the best in the city. As such I take pleasure in recommending it to travellers.
I cannot conclude my remarks on Alexandria better, than by introducing to the reader Mr. A. C. CAZENOVE, a native of Geneva, Switzerland, but now and for many years past an enterprising merchant and importer of foreign goods. Mr. Cazenove is as stirring a man, as there is in Alexandria. At my request he drew up a short memoir of his life, which, in his own words, I present to the reader. Gen. ARCHIBALD HENDERSON married Mr. Cazenove’s eldest daughter and Colonel Fowle his youngest one.
The cradle of the Cazenove family was Nismes in France, though it is probable, from their name and coat of arms, that they were originally from Italy or Spain, where you find some Casanovas and Casanuovas.
Being protestants, they had to fly at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and took refuge in Geneva, in Switzerland, from whence some of them afterwards branched off to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to Holland, England, France, and lastly to the United States. This last event took place during the summer of 1794, when the leaders of the dreadful French revolution fomented one of a similar character, only on a smaller scale, in the little republic of Geneva, then not one of the cantons of Switzerland, but in close alliance with that ancient and admirable confederation. The object of the French being the geographical situation of Geneva, being fortified and by nature one of the gate-ways into France, Switzerland and Italy, besides its great wealth for an inland city, and the high state of information possessed by the generality of its inhabitants, being acknowledged to be one of the luminaries of the world.
Although France had succeeded in overturning their old form of government, and substituting in a population, then amounting to about 25,000 souls in the city and about 15,000 in the surrounding villages and country, a national assembly as democratic as it could well be. They were attached to their independence and desirous so to remain. It therefore became necessary for Roberspierre and the leading jacobins of France, to find some pretext for taking possession of Geneva, for which purpose they surrounded it (being then in possession of Savoy and having military posts close by) with the worst of their jacobins, and such Genevans as had been banished from it for any cause, and in one night, with the help of their sattelites in Geneva and their own people which they had introduced into the city, took possession of the three gates of the city, arsenal and powder magazines. They armed the most desperate amongst them, to intimidate others, and early next day went and dragged the heads of our best families and distinguished citizens, into two large warehouses, used before that for public granneries, to the number of about 400 persons, and established a national tribune, before which they brought several of the best, most virtuous and patriotic citizens of Geneva, but ranked by them as aristocrats, which they pretended to have conspired against the independence of the republic; the very thing they had themselves in view, and were aiming at. Nor could they have had the reign one single day, but for the knowledge that France was ready to pounce upon Geneva, if any thing like a scuffle had taken place, to avoid which the people of Geneva thought it best to submit for a while to the tyranny of their own jacobins. As it was impossible to substantiate any charge against such men, however depraved their revolutionary tribunal was, they were necessarily acquitted and sent to the common jail for safe keeping. This however so enraged their blood-thirsty Marseillois, (the worst of jacobins) that they forced the jail during the night, and by torch light shot sixteen of the best men Geneva ever possessed, and so overawed the revolutionary tribunal itself, as to compel it to take on itself the responsibility of so atrocious a deed.