Oxford University Society Swiss Branch
From Branch President
1st May 2005
ND-05/03
Dear Members,
As always, this Report on the 2005 OUSSB Spring Fixture has much to cover besides our Meeting a week ago,
on April 23rd, St. George's Day, at Coppet in the Château, a small mediaeval castle, rebuilt as a residential
mansion in the XVIIth century and again restored and adapted to the needs of the times by Jacques Necker,
Finance Minister to Louis XVI, who bought both the building and the Coppet Baronnie that went with it in 1784.
Once dismissed from his post and quickly recalled, he left Paris quietly of his own accord on the eve of the
Revolution. Our regrets go to one or two Oxonians, who could not face the risk of being unable to get inside one
of the small rooms on the first floor that was kindly lent to the Society by Geneva's University European Institute,
Monsieur Necker's private apartments until his death in 1804. These premises were our lure to entice Professor
Marilyn Butler, Oxford's Chair of English Language and Literature since 1998, away from the hubbub of changing
activity that has followed her retirement last year as Rector of Exeter College.
1. Professor Butler, elegantly introduced by one Exonian, Peter Walters, and thanked by another Claudia Jans
Strasky, whose Coleridge Thesis she had supervised, centred her Lecture on Maria Edgeworth, stressing the
themes and trends that carry early XIXth century literature so far from what is frequently understood as
Romanticism - the "rainy evening" when Byron and the Shelleys "sat telling each other German Ghost-Stories"
and then making up their own. The years of Coppet, "le salon de l'Europe" are the years of Napoleon. Germaine,
Madame de Stael, was born in 1766 in Paris and died there in 1817; her travel years produced De l'Allemagne in
1810; her house reflects the thought of the times and personal action reflects what is written, there is no
hesitation in committing ones means and one's person to rescue victims of persecution or support a rebellion with
weaponry or fighting men. If one looks at what people were still reading, as well as writing themselves, the
Romantic period may well have its place, as does our present groping in the web of globalisation, among the
hazardous paths to a long-sought road. it may be that the specific gift of our Lecturer last week is less that of
public speaking than of the tutorial - the passing reference to a single date, a place, a presence, that can trigger
off some new, unsuspected line of research. We thank her warmly of coming, as we do her husband, who
interrupted a busy period to escort here; neither would have been able to come alone.
2. As always, let us thank one another! Jean-Marc Fracheboud took me with him to the airport and gave OUSSB
the whole of the morning from 10h40 onwards, for the Butlers' flight had an hour's delay. In the same context,
Peter Arengo-Jones was prepared to change his flight London - Geneva to fly with the visitors, had the latter flight
not been fully booked. Peter Slessor collected cash. Graham Simons gave the Butlers a glimpse of Geneva
before they caught their return plane. We had to register - sadly - two cases of inevitable absence - for illness, for
family grief. We welcomed newcomers to the Branch: Dr. Anthony Ozturk (Exeter 1979), Sarah Heery (Wadham
1999), another Romanticist; Julien Dusonchet (Teddy Hall, 2000); two Lincoln people, who had missed
welcoming the Ambassador last year, Barbara Jecklin (2002) and Philippe Huber (2003); the LMH party; - Jenny
Scheck (1977) and family, Valerie Mitchell (1971), Thomas Burkhalter and Mathias Schaeli (1998) Eva Rehfuess
(1998). Everyone joined in messages to Gail Featherstone (LMH), ill in bed and unable to come. We appreciated
it - very much - that H.E. should have been with us throughout, giving us his time and being "on" non-stop,
however long, late and official the day before may have been. Wherever the Branch meets, the lie of the land is
such that some of us always have a long way to go to join the rest. I was thinking of such distances as Binningen
to Chur, or Lugano to Neuchâtel, but then Nigel Cave spent two years in Queenstown, N.Z., Karsten von Kleist at
least as long in Mexico. We are all so glad to see everybody back.
3. The date of the 2005 Autumn Fixture is confirmed 17 to 18 September next. Peter Gallwey, whose offer to
organise it was warmly accepted at our St. Gallen Meeting last year, intends to put the finalised programme in
Jane's hands to e-mail to us in the next weeks. Again, puncutal, firm bookings will be essential; it is proposed to
use a small bus for transfers and individual cost becomes a function of the number carried. For our comfort,
surface communications appear to be progressing. Inter-Cantonal connections have improved since the
Millennium, while, from one century to another, the development is almost visibly positive. When Charles Pictetde-Rochmont, brother of Professor Auguste-Marc Pictet, whose travels and "English Library" Mrs. Butler was
discussing last week, returned from the Peace Negotiations in Paris in May 1814, he was very well-pleased with
what he had obtained there for the Geneva Enclave: recognition of its independence and direct surface access to
the Confederation in the shape of a right of way along the Versoix Road.
With many greetings,
Nancy