Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy

by M. F. Mansfield

Montmélian’s chateau-fort played a very important role in the history of Savoy. It was one of the finest fortresses of the States of Savoy, and was the chief point of attack of François Premier, who, in 1535, succeeded finally in taking it, but by treason from within. The French from the moment of their occupation gave it a heavy garrison, and Henri II still further strengthened its massive walls, as did also Henri IV later on. He called it “a marvellously strong place; a stronger one has never yet been seen.”

In Montmélian’s proud fortress-chateau, also, were born Amadée III and Amadée IV, Princes of Savoy. Once it was considered, and with reason apparently, the strongest fortress of Savoy, and was for ages the wall against which the Viennois Dauphins battled vainly. Treason opened its doors to François Premier and treason delivered it to Henri IV. This last giving over of the chateau was brought about by the wife of Sully, who by “sweet insinuations” got into the good graces of the wife of Brandes, the governor, and between them planned to win him over.

In 1690 it was again attacked and taken by the French, costing them the bagatelle of eight thousand men, for lives were cheap in those days compared to castles. It was a hollow victory, too, for the French, for they marched out again after the Peace of Ryswick.

In the early years of the eighteenth century the French again came into possession and immediately began the work of demolishing the defensive walls, leaving only the residential chateau, that which in its emasculated form exists to-day. Thus disappeared from the scene, said the celebrated historian, Leon Menabrea, a fortress to whose annals are attached the names most grand and the events most important in Savoyan history.

The Montmayeurs, the feudal family which first made Montmélian its stronghold, have left a vivid and imperishable memory in the annals of Savoy. They were a warlike race to begin with, and bore the eagle and the motto Unguibus et Rostro in their family arms.

Legend recounts that the last of the seigneurs, having lost a case at law, invited the president of the court, one Fésigny, to dinner. Either before, or after, he cut off the judge’s head, enclosed it in a sack bearing a label which read: “Here is a new piece of evidence for the court to digest,” and deposited it on the public highway circling below the rocky foundations of Montmélian. This episode took place in 1465, and the ignoble seigneur naturally fled the country immediately. His reputation has ever lived after him in the region where the historic fact, or legend, of the “Dernier des Montmayeurs” is still current.

Near the rock-cradled chateau of Montmélian is La Rochette; there one sees the vast remains of a chateau which was overthrown by Louis XIII. This chateau, called also the Chateau des Hulls, occupies one of the most strikingly imposing sites imaginable, and only in a lesser degree than Montmélian presents all the qualities which one would naturally suppose to be necessary in order to make such a work impregnable. It was heroically defended by Pierre de la Chambre, but the defence availed nothing, and now what is left has been built up into—of all things—a silk-mill. Its outlines might well be that of a mediæval chateau even now; site and silhouette each have this stamp, and it will take little exercise of the imagination to picture the smoke from its chimneys as coming from the fires which may have been lighted at some epoch before the invention of the steam engine. There is nothing, from a distant point of view, to suggest that the old Chateau des Hulls is the murky, work-a-day hive of industry that it is.

Above Montmélian is Saint Pierre d’Albigny, where rises the ancient and formidable chateau of the Sires de Miolans. In the eighteenth century it was a prison of state incarcerating many famous personages, among them the celebrated Marquis de Sade, the story of whose escape would make as thrilling a chapter as was ever read in a romance of the cloak and sword variety. Another famous, or infamous, prisoner was the unfortunate Lavin, the minister of finance of Charles-Emmanuel III, who was imprisoned because of his fine, but unappreciated, talent for copying bank-notes. For twenty-four years Lavin languished in the dungeons of Miolans; indeed it was within these walls that he passed the greater part of his life after becoming of age. For this reason Miolans may be called the Bastille of Savoy.