The place appointed for the duel was Bourg en Bresse, chosen by the guardians of Amedée the Eighth, who was still a minor, and was there present with his statesmen and chief nobles. The quarrel had excited an interest which brought crowds from all countries to witness its issue. The adversaries were matched in hatred; unequal in strength and age, for Otho had been ill, though he disdained on that account to refuse the challenge or defer the combat. Arrived in the lists, he spoke aloud to the assembly; recalling to the memories of all there that the particulars of the Red Count’s death had already been brought before them in the course of a solemn trial, which had in no manner stained his own honour.
“Nobles of Savoy,” he exclaimed, “relatives and vassals of the reigning house, if I have done this deed, why have you left retribution to Gerard of Estavayér? he is a false liar; be it the worse for him as it is well for me.” The young Count of Savoy rose and made the sign of the cross. “In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” he said, “let the signal be given, and God show the right!”
It was the 7th of August, 1397: the two champions met in the lists, each armed with a lance, two swords and a dagger, and a terrible fight ensued, till Otho, weak from his sickness and advancing in years, fell beneath the strokes of his young and vigorous adversary. According to the justice of the time, he was declared guilty, and the castle and lands of Grandson seized by Amedée of Savoy. His marble tomb is in the cathedral of Lausanne. The armed figure lies couched on it, but the hands are cut off; for thus were represented those vanquished in judicial combat.
This same Amedée, whose life had been a series of successes, and who, according to Olivier de la Marche, his contemporary, so ruled his states, that in the midst of those which were a prey to foreign war and civil dissensions, there only were found safety, wealth, and happiness; Amedée, for whose sake the Emperor Sigismund had created the county of Savoy duchy, abdicated in the year 1434. The causes assigned for this weariness of the world’s honours, in whose pursuit he had been ardent heretofore, were the loss of a wife to whom he was tenderly attached, Mary of Burgundy, who died at Turin of the plague, and an attempt made on his life by a nobleman who had been his friend. He had founded some years before an Augustine monastery at Ripaille, half hidden in the forest which covers the tongue of land advancing into the lake near Thonon. Repairing thither in the year 1434, he summoned the principal prelates and nobles of those dominions which called him master, and seated on a throne, his sons Louis and Philip at his side, and Humbert bastard of Savoy at his feet, and the two marshals of the duchy present, he spoke at length concerning all that had been done since his accession to the dukedom, and concluded by informing them of the resolution which was to wake the wonder of Europe. Calling Prince Louis near, he bade him kneel down and conferred on him the order of knighthood. Binding on his sword and embracing him according to the custom of the time, he formally created him Prince of Piedmont and viceroy over his dominions, exhorting him to protect the church, preserve friendship with relative and ally, to administer impartial justice, and, above all, to keep faith inviolably.
It was his express command that, in all important negotiations, Louis should resort to himself for counsel. He next bestowed on Philip the title of Count of Geneva, which was that his brother had held before, and dismissing the illustrious assembly, he retired to his apartments with six knights—men in the decline of life, who had heretofore shared with him the cares of government, and now chose to be companions of his solitary life. The day following, he and they in the church of Ripaille took the hermit’s garb from the hands of the Augustine prior. They neither shaved their heads nor beards, their dress was a tunic of fine grey cloth, and a scarlet cap, above which, like the antique hermits, they wore a cloak with a cowl. They carried the pilgrim’s staff, and the only tokens of their primitive grandeur were golden belts and crosses. Thus was instituted the knightly order of St. Maurice: the necessary requisites were noble birth and an exemplary life, and the number of its votaries could not exceed seven, including the president; it is believed that of those he selected thus, Amedée determined to form the secret council of his states during his own life. They remained five years in the quiet of a retirement, which some thought more devoted to politics than religion; while others attributed his abdication to the prediction of an astrologer which promised him the tiara.
Be this as it may, Amedée retained the ducal power beneath the hermit’s cowl. He was author of the famous peace of Arras and its mediator; freeing France from the presence of the English, and closing their long discords. In 1439, the fathers of the council of Bâle, who had deposed Pope Eugenius the Fourth, elected in his place the retired sovereign; twenty-four prelates, at whose head was the Cardinal of Arles, bore their decree to Ripaille. Unwilling to create a schism in the church, it is said that Amedée refused and burst into tears, and that his resolution was changed by the eloquence of the messengers, who proved to him, that on his acceptance depended the reform of the church and the well-being of the faithful. In the same chapel of Ripaille they clothed him in the papal robes and saluted the first duke of Savoy as Felix the Fifth. Thonon and Ripaille barely sufficed to lodge the ambassadors who came from all parts to tender him homage. He held his court in Geneva, but in 1447, Eugenius the Fourth being dead, Nicolo the Fifth, elected by the cardinals then in Rome, sat undisturbed in the papal chair, and Felix, anxious to put a stop to the divisions which brought dishonour on the church, dissolved the council at Bâle and publicly renounced the tiara at Lausanne which he had worn nine years, and returned to his solitude at Ripaille, and the six knights still living there.
He survived his abdication but eighteen months, and died in Geneva; he was buried at Ripaille, and a noble mausoleum raised above his ashes, which in 1538 the Bernese soldiery broke in search of plunder. His bones were then transferred to the cathedral of Turin, where they lie beside those of Emmanuel Philibert and Christine of France. The duke’s tower and those of four of his knights are still standing; the convent, surrounded by a deep ditch and strong walls, resembles an antique castle seen from the lake, and rising above the oak forest. We returned by the rue de Boigne, a handsome street whose arcades form a shady walk. Part of the high castle terrace terminates it at one extremity, and at the other is a fountain which forms a monument in honour of General de Boigne. His statue stands on the column which four demi-elephants support, and though it is not in the best taste or most perfect proportion, it has altogether a picturesque effect. A boulevard of most fragrant lime-trees leads from it to the Champ de Mars and promenade of the Verney.
June 2nd.
Fanchette just now called me to see the procession of the Fête Dieu, this being the first Sunday following the festival; for processions are observed here as rigorously as they once were in France, though, if I may judge from what I saw to-day, they inspire small devotion. A number of little girls walked first, each troop headed by a nun in her monastic habit. The children were dressed in white frocks and veils and crowns of flowers; the youngest held a crucifix under a tiny arbour of artificial roses. Long lines of women followed in white robes and cowls, the foremost bearing banners and the rest lighted torches: a bevy of young boys, decked out like the girls, and of men attired like the women, came next; and then the priests preceding the host which their superior bore beneath the dais. Two of the former carried each a pole, at the top of which was a lantern; four others threw up their censers, perfuming the street (not superfluously), and each time their office ended, performed a strange movement towards the host, not a curtsey or a bow, but a bob; and a fifth, whenever the priest beneath the dais elevated the host, opened and clapped close a wooden book to warn the people.
When the dais was stopped at the end of the street that the benediction might be given, it would have been an imposing sight to see the white robed figures who lined it, and the people before their doors all kneeling, if one could for a moment have supposed them more attentive than absolutely necessary to the show; but they were talking and looking about and thrusting their torches in the faces of their acquaintances. These white ladies and gentlemen belong to no religious order, but merely to a society; they are mostly peasants, and when a procession takes place, their services are required. At one time, the seeming penitents left an undue space between their companies, and the priest who marshalled them came up in loud anger scolding and driving. The alarm disconcerted the poor women, and running to make up for lost time, they broke their ranks and could not form them again, and there was a thorough rout.