Midway between Briançon and Embrun is Mont Dauphin, another key to the Italian gateway. The fortress is a conspicuous point of rock sitting strategically at the mouth of the river Guil at its junction with the Durance. The fortress was the work of Vauban, and its bastions are built of a curious pink marble found in the valley of the Queyras. No doubt but that the fortress is impregnable, or was when built, but it would avail little to-day against modern explosives.
Up the valley of the Guil is the region known as the Val de Queyras, one of the “Protestant Valleys” of Dauphiny, where the religious wars under Lesdiguières, during the reign of Henri IV, raged fast and furious. Chateau Queyras, as its name indicates, is the seat of a mediæval pile which, if not stupendous with respect to its outlines, is at least more than satisfying when viewed from afar. It is an ancient feudal castle and befits its name, in looks at least, and was once the seat of the seigneurs of Chateau-Vieille Ville. Like the fort of Mont Dauphin it seemingly was built to guard the passage to the frontier by the Col Lacroix and the Col de Traversette.
Here as early as 1480 Louis II of Dauphiny cut a tunnel below the Col to make the road between the French valleys and the rich plains of the Po the easier of passage.
South of Chateau Queyras is Saint Véran, the highest collection of human habitations in France, and one of the most elevated in Europe. It is commonly called the highest commune in Europe where the peasants eat white bread. Approximately its elevation is seven thousand feet, still some thousands below Leadville, one recalls. Because of its altitude also, it has been called the most pious village in France. This may or may not be so, but at any rate the place has ever been on the verge of changing its religion from Protestant to Catholic and from Catholic to Protestant. What is in the rarefied atmosphere, one wonders, to induce such fickleness in matters spiritual!
Embrun, of all the towns of this part of Dauphiny, is the most illustrious and famous. This is perhaps as much from its association with Louis XI as for any other reason, for it is reckoned one of the dullest towns in France.
The general aspect of Embrun is most singular as it snuggles intimately around the drab walls of an old donjon, the sole relic of its ancient feudal glory. The roof and gables of the houses of the town rise abruptly from the low levels to the height on which sits the donjon and the shrine dedicated to the divinity of Louis XI, “Our Dear Lady of Embrun,” as he called her.
To know more of what passed in the mind of Louis XI with regard to Embrun and its divinity one should re-turn the pages of “Quentin Durward.” The monarch indeed resided so long in Dauphiny, at one place or another, that many of the most affecting scenes of his life were enacted here.
A Roman city was here in ancient times, and from this grew up a great strategic military base. Not a morsel of the débris of the Roman town remains, but the cathedral still preserves the best of Roman principles of building in the stones of its pillars and vaulting.
The donjon of the old chateau, the Tour Brune, as it is called, is not far from the cathedral, within the confines of the military barracks. It is, therefore, not accessible to the general public, unless by chance one makes the acquaintance of some genial Alpin-Chasseur who can be induced to do the honours—of course with permission of his superior, which on this particular occasion was, for us, not easy to get. The thing was finally “arranged.” Military property in France is not for the vulgar eye, leastwise not in the vicinity of a frontier boundary.
The Tour Brune is accredited as the most ancient military edifice in Dauphiny. Gotran, Roi de Bourgogne, built it and ravished the valleys roundabout, using it as a base from which to make his pillaging sorties and then as a retreat in case he was hard pressed. This was according to the ethics of guerrilla warfare at that time, and probably is to-day.