This Castle of Chillon, about which the P. C. A. had never for two days ceased to discourse to his dear Alpinists, and in which, by the irony of fate, he found himself suddenly incarcerated without knowing why, is one of the most frequented historical monuments in Switzerland. After having served as a summer residence to the Dukes of Savoie, then as a state-prison, afterwards as an arsenal for arms and munitions, it is to-day the mere pretext for an excursion, like the Rigi and the Tellsplatte. It still contains, however, a post of gendarmerie and a “violon,” that is, a cell for drunkards and the naughty boys of the neighbourhood; but they are so rare in the peaceable Canton of Vaud that the “violon” is always empty and the concierge uses it as a receptacle to store his wood for winter. Therefore the arrival of all these prisoners had put him out of temper, especially at the thought that he could no longer take visitors to see the famous dungeon, which at this season of the year is the chief profit of the place.
Furious, he showed the way to Tartarin, who followed him without the courage to make the slightest resistance. A few crumbling steps, a damp corridor smelling like a cellar, a door thick as a wall with enormous hinges, and there they were, in a vast subterranean vault, with earthen floor and heavy Roman pillars in which were still the iron rings to which prisoners of state had been chained. A dim light fell, tremulous with the shimmer of the lake, through narrow slits in the wall, which scarcely showed more than a scrap of the sky.
“Here you are at home,” said the jailer. “Be careful you don’t go to the farther end: the pit is there...”
Tartarin recoiled, horrified:—
“The pit! Boudiou!”
“What do you expect, my lad? I am ordered to put you in Bonnivard’s dungeon... I have put you in Bonnivard’s dungeon... Now, if you have the means, you can be furnished with certain comforts, for instance, a mattress and coverlet for the night.”
“Something to eat, in the first place,” said Tartarin, from whom, very luckily, they had not taken his purse.
The concierge returned with a fresh roll, beer, and a sausage, greedily devoured by the new prisoner of Chillon, fasting since the night before and hollow with fatigue and emotion. While he ate on his stone bench in the gleam of his vent-hole window, the jailer examined him with a good-natured eye.
“Faith,” said he, “I don’t know what you have done, nor why they should treat you so severely...”
“Nor I either, coquin de sort! I know nothing about it,” said Tartarin, with his mouth full.