History and Nature in the Enlightenment

Edward Gibbon spent more than sixteen years of his life in Switzerland. His first stay began in June 1753 and lasted five years, inaugurated by his conversion to Catholicism and his father’s desire to put him in a place where he would return to the Protestant faith; this happened at Lausanne, on Christmas Day 1754. For a year, from May 1763, Gibbon returned to Switzerland as part of his Grand Tour. Finally, from September 1783 to May 1793, he settled in Lausanne after leaving London and his career as a Member of Parliament. In Lausanne, Gibbon fell for Suzanne Curchod, met his life-long friends, Jacques Georges Deyverdun and John Holroyd, Lord Sheffield, associated with Voltaire and other Enlightenment luminaries, composed the Essai sur l’étude de la littérature (1761), his first published work, and finished Volumes Three to Six of The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–89). Whether Swiss life made Gibbon the historian is questionable, but one of the conclusions he defended to the end of his life was that the cantons were a special part of Europe, contributed greatly to contemporary civilisation, and helped to foster the virtues of moderation, liberty, toleration and peace

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