Chateau de Chambéry
she flew down the stairs and into the street and finally into the arms of the duke.”
The marriage was not, however, a happy one. The duke became disloyal to his vows and left his wife to pine and moan away her days in the ducal chateau whilst he went off campaigning for other hearts and lands. He acquired Sicily, and became the first King of Sicily and Sardinia, and paved the way for the future greatness of his house, but this was not accomplished by adherence to the code of marital constancy.
The Chateau de Chambéry was finally abandoned definitely by the Savoyan dukes, who, when they became also monarchs of Sardinia, took up their residence at Turin. The “beaux jours” had passed never to return. Henceforth its career was to be less brilliant, for it but rarely received even passing visits from its masters. In 1745 it was considerably damaged by fire; in 1775 it was, in a way, furbished up and put in order for the marriage of Charles Emmanuel and Madame Clotilde of France, but again, in 1798, it was ravaged by fire.
From 1793 to 1810 the chateau was the headquarters of the officialdom of the newly formed Département du Mont Blanc, and in 1860 it was used as the Préfecture of the Département de la Savoie. Napoleon III, journeying this way in 1860, decided to make it an imperial residence and certain transformations to that end were undertaken, but it never came to real distinction again, save that it exists as an admirable example of a “monument historique” of the old régime.
It was on the esplanade, beneath the windows of the chateau, that Amadée VI won the title of the Comte Vert, because of the preponderant colours of his arms and costume in a tournament which was held here in 1348.
The third of Chambéry’s classic sights, “Les Charmettes,” is the “delicious habitation” rendered so celebrated by Rousseau. One arrives at “Les Charmettes” by a discreet and shady by-path. It has been preserved quite in its primitive state and is devoid of any pretence whatever. Its charm is idealistic, romantic and intimate. Nothing grandiose has place here. It is a simple two-story, sloping tiled-roof habitation of the countryside. As the “Confessions” puts it, “Les Charmettes” was discovered thus: “Apres avoir un peu cherché nous nous fixâmes au Charmettes ... à la porte de Chambéry, mais retirée et solitaire, comme si l’on en était à cent lieus.”