One may come from Geneva by boat; that indeed is the ideal way to make one’s entrance to Haute Savoie, unless one rolls in over the superb roads comfortably ensconced on the soft cushions of a luxurious automobile, a procedure which is commonly thought to be unromantic, but which, it is the belief of the writer, is the only way of knowing well the highways and byways of a beloved land, always excepting, of course, the ideal method of walking. Not many will undertake the latter, least of all the stranger tourist, who, perforce, is hurried on his way by insistent conditions over which he really has but little control. Walking tours have been made with pleasure and profit in Switzerland before now; the suggestion is made that the thing be attempted on the “Côte de la Savoie” sometime and see what happens.
One should leave the Geneva boat at Hermance, the last Swiss station on the west. After that, one is on French soil. Touges is a simple landing place, but rising high above the greenswarded banks are the donjon and imposing gables of the Chateau de Beauregard belonging to the Marquis Leon Costa. It is in a perfect state of conservation. It was here that was born, in 1752, Marquis Joseph Costa, a celebrated historian, whose fame rests principally on a work entitled “Comment l’Education des Femmes Peut-elle Rendre les Hommes Meilleurs?” This is considered an all-absorbing question even to-day.
At Nernier is a charming souvenir of Lamartine. It was here he lodged in 1815, in a humble thatched cottage—one of the few in France, one fancies, as they are seldom seen—at a franc a day, “la table et le couvert compris.” There are some artists and literary folk living cheaply in France to-day, but the pension is not nearly as bon marché as that.
A little farther on, beyond the green hillside of Boisy, is the tiny Savoyan city of Yvoire, with a great square mass of an old chateau, now moss-grown and more or less crumbled with age.
Near-by are Excevenex, Sciez and the magnificently environed Chateau de Coudrée, surrounded by a leafy park, a veritable royal domain in aspect.
Back a few kilometres from the shore of the lake is Douvaine, about midway between Geneva and Thonon. Here is the ancient Chateau de Troches, on the very limits of the Comté de Genevois, to the seigneurs of which house it formerly belonged. It served many times as the meeting place of the Princes of Savoy, and has been frequently cited in the historical chronicles.
In 1682 Victor Amadée II made Troches and Douvaine a barony in favour of François Marie Antoine Passerat, whose family were originally of Lucca in Italy. The descendants of the same family have held the property until very recent times, perhaps hold it to-day.
Throughout this region of the Chablais, as it is known, on towards Thonon, and beyond, are numerous well preserved chateaux (chateaux debout the French appropriately call them in distinction to the ruined chateaux which abound in even greater numbers), and others, here and there arising a crumbled wall or tower above the dense foliage of the hillsides round about. Certain of these old manors and chateaux of the Genevois, the Chablais and Faucigny have, in recent years, after centuries of comparative ruin, taken on new life as country houses and “villas” of commoners—as sad a fall for a proud chateau as to become a barracks or a poorhouse if the transformations have not been undertaken in good taste. Still others remain at least as undefiled memories of the chateaux orgueilleux of other days. A remodelled, restored chateau of the middle ages may be sympathetic and appealing, but the work must be well done and all art nouveau instincts suppressed.
There are other examples which have been allowed to tumble to actual ruin, mere heaps of stones without form or outline, and others, like Allinges, La Rochette, De la Roche and Faucigny, possessing only a crumbling tower perched upon a height which dominates the valley and the plain below and tell only the story of their former greatness by suggestion. Chiefly however these can be classed as nothing more pretentious than ruins.
Thonon-les-Bains, midway along the extent of the French shore, is renowned as a “ville d’eau.” In all ways it quite rivals many of the Swiss stations on the opposite shore. It sits high on a sheaf of rock, the first buttresses of the Alps, and enjoys a wide-spread view extending to the other shore, and beyond to the Swiss Jura and the Bernese Oberland.