Near Montreux is the Castle of Chillon, which Byron made famous in his "Prisoner of Chillon" with more regard for sentimentality than for truth. His Prisoner of Chillon was in truth no stainless patriot imprisoned by a tyrant's rage, but a rather rowdy layman prior, François Bonivard. He conspired against the Duke of Savoy, entered into a rather undignified kind of civil war, and was imprisoned in the Castle of Chillon. For some time he was treated fairly well, but afterwards thrust into a dungeon below the level of the lake where he was kept four years. In 1536 he was released, and was appointed Historian to the Genevan Republic. He did not get on well with Calvin and was frequently before the Genevan Consistory on various charges of moral wrongdoing. (That argues nothing serious against his character.) He seems to have been an average human man. But Byron's poem thrust him on to a pedestal which he did not deserve. The Castle of Chillon did not end its history as a prison with Bonivard's release. It was used as a jail in the days of the French Revolution, and its last notable prisoners were some members of the Salvation Army, accused of causing street disorders by their ministrations. It was a picturesque incident this "persecution" by Calvin's Lake of Leman of a new form of Protestantism. But the persecution was not savage. The Salvationists (English lasses chiefly) were very well treated in Chillon.
To mingle a study of modern Swiss history with worship of the Alps, Berne would be the best centre for the tourist. Berne dates its foundation back to Berchtold V., who in the year 1191 erected a stronghold on a rocky promontory on the Aare, which was to serve as a rampart against the attacks of the Burgundian nobles. The town takes its name from a bear which was killed whilst the building was in course of construction. To safeguard the western part of the city, Agrippa d'Aubigné, the Huguenot leader, commenced the erection of a circle of ramparts, completed in 1646, parts of which still remain and are known as the "greater" and "lesser" ramparts. In 1218, after the Zaeringer dynasty had died out, Berne became independent, subject only to the German Emperor, and remained faithful to the House of Hohenstaufen. During the Interregnum, Berne was forced to place herself under the protection of the Duke of Savoy, in order to be able to resist her numerous enemies. In the Burgundian war of 1474-77, Berne was victorious at Grandson, Morat, and Nancy, and obtained a strong foothold in Vaud, which entered entirely into her possession in 1536, so that her dominion extended from the Lake of Geneva to the Reuss, and from the source of the Aare up to its juncture with the Rhine. The upheaval caused by the French Revolution brought about the fall of the Bernese Republic. In 1798, after the battles of Neuenegg and Grauholz, the French entered the town under General Schauenburg, and Berne lost her independence.
Since the Constitution of 1848, Berne has been the capital of the new Confederation, the seat of the Federal Council and of Parliament. It is also the headquarters of many international organisations. Switzerland excites no jealousy among the European Powers and is usually chosen as the summoning nation for conferences in which international agreements are discussed.
Berne has some fine old monuments; and its medieval fountains are particularly interesting. The bear-pit, which has been kept up for centuries in record of the city's ancient association with the bear, is worth a visit. From the Bernese public gardens and from the Gurten (2800 feet high—reached by a funicular railway) there are marvellous views of the Alps. There "soul of man has fronting him earth's utmost majesty."
Lucerne, Geneva, Berne—these are the three centres I would recommend to the traveller with but a short time available for a Swiss tour and seeking to get a general impression of the country: and of the three Lucerne is the best centre. But with a month to spare all three may be visited and a very good idea of Switzerland obtained. The best time for such a sight-seeing trip is the late spring or the summer, preferably the spring, for with the summer often come dust and flies.
CASTLE OF CHILLON.