THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.
It has been the lot of more than one disreputable character to be glorified by great poets. From Spenser to Tennyson have the praises of “Gloriana” been sung, to the no small detriment of truth, and of far worthier personages than she who, although in some respects a great queen, was guilty of ferocities almost beyond the capabilities of man, and of prolonged and calculating cruelties contrary to the very nature bestowed by God on woman. Again, Satan himself is portrayed in Milton’s stately poem as a being more magnificent than malignant. He “hates well” certainly, but his own utter hatefulness, and the base ingratitude to his Creator of which he is the first example, is sufficiently veiled to incline one to feel something akin to admiration or pity for the arch-rebel against God, the crafty seducer and pitiless destroyer of the souls of men.
Passing over other instances of false renown, and undazzled by the halo of romance cast around the “Prisoner of Chillon” by Lord Byron’s melodious lines (it would be more plain-spoken than polite to write this word, as here it ought to be written, i.e., without the n), let us
examine, by the sober light of history, into the merits of this more-than-doubtful hero, rendered by his captivity a person of interest, although there is every proof that the story of his arrest, in violation of a safe-conduct granted him by the duke of Savoy, is an invention.[211] Still more, however, does Bonivard owe his celebrity to Lord Byron, who apparently knew nothing of the “Prisoner” whose imaginary sufferings he sang, beyond his name, his Protestantism, and the fact of his imprisonment. The poem opens with a string of fictions, among which it is amusing to read that Bonivard was loaded with chains for the religion of his father, and that the said father had died on the rack, a martyr to a creed he refused to abjure, etc.
But imagination has had the upper hand long enough. Certain of our contemporaries abroad having recently referred to the “Prisoner of Chillon” as a martyr for liberty of conscience, it is time to bring down from his pedestal this Calvinist apostate, pointed to by Protestants as one of their models of virtue,
and who, we readily allow, turns out to be a fitting companion to similar “models” even more famous in their annals.
The Bonivards were an old bourgeois family of Chambéry, who from the thirteenth century had possessed a certain extent of feudal property. Thus they were subjects of the princes of Savoy, whose worst enemies were then the Genevese and Swiss. Now, it was under the protection of these latter that Bonivard, himself a Savoyard, came, in the vain hope of preserving the rich revenues of his priory of Saint Victor, to plant his batteries against his native country. At Geneva, he took his place among the first promoters of the freedom of the future republic, but no sooner did the Reformation become a movement of importance, from the standing of some of its leaders, than Bonivard disappears from the front, and falls into a lower rank; since, although a writer of some power and possessed of real talents, he was utterly lacking in energy and dignity of character, as also in firmness and consistency of purpose. In proof of this, it is enough to observe the continual applications for money with which he harassed the council of Geneva, while he was at the same time playing fast and loose between Savoy and Geneva, in the first place, and afterwards between Geneva and Berne, according to the advancement of his own interests, self being apparently the sole object of his worship. This “vain and versatile beggar”[212] was called
by one of the chiefs of the republic, the “Stultus M. de Sans-Saint-Victor.”
Dr. Chapponnière, a Protestant, says that “Bonivard, exalted by some as a hero and a martyr for liberty, and by others charged with every vice, merited neither the excess of honor he received on the one hand, nor of condemnation on the other.” With regard, however, to this verdict, which would represent Bonivard as a man of simple mediocrity, we put the following questions: Was not François de Bonivard a traitor to his religion, which he abandoned? to his ecclesiastical character, which he violated? to his country, which he injured to the utmost of his power? to history, which he falsified? and lastly, to his wives, whom he deceived, and one of whom he abandoned to torture?
The “Prisoner of Chillon” had earned his detention in that fortress by fifteen years of open revolt against his lawful sovereign; and if, by reason of his six years of imprisonment he is to be accounted a great man, it is but just to allow his fourth wife, Catherine de Courtaronel, to share his greatness. Like him, she apostatized; like him, she quitted her convent and broke all her vows; like him, she was driven out of Geneva because of her evil life; like him, she was allowed to return thither on promising amendment; with him she lived, for some time unmarried, until the two were compelled by the Genevese authorities to submit to a marriage ceremony; like him, she was accused of adultery, and, more unfortunate than
he, was made, by the application of frightful tortures, to avow herself guilty of the crime (which, however, has not been proved), her husband making no attempt whatever to save her from the torture. In consequence of the confessions thus extorted, she was condemned to be drowned; the sentence being duly executed.
We have here a terrible pendant to the six years of prison, and one which, this time, can neither be imputed (to quote M. Fazg) to “an infamous duke of Savoy,” nor yet (to quote Bonivard himself) to “a rascally pope.”
This brief sketch, notwithstanding its incompleteness as to details, which would, however, only darkly shade the outline here given, is sufficient to portray the real Bonivard, the avaricious and time-serving apostate, stripped of the interesting fiction which envelopes the Prisoner of Chillon, and to prove his worthiness of a niche by the side of Cranmer, Luther, Calvin, Beza, John of Leyden, and the rest of the reforming race.
[211] See, especially, Spon, Histoire de Genève, tom. 1. pp. 203, 204.
[212] See notice in the Revue Catholique for June, 1876, by M. Leyret, to whom the present paper is largely indebted. Those who wish for full information on the subject will find it in the Notice sur François de Bonivard, Prieur de St. Victor et sur ses Ecrits, par M. le Dr. Chapponniere (Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, tome iv.), also in the Matériaux Historiques and the Notices Généalogiques of Galiffe (tome iii.), but above all in the remarkable work by Canon Magnin, now Bishop of Annecy, on Bonivard and the Chronicles of Geneva (Mémoires de l’Académie de Savoie, 2ème Séries, tome iii.) who by even his moderation, as well as the pitiless logic of facts, crushes the pseudo-confessor.