Over the river Lys, at Pont Saint Martin, there is a Roman bridge; a modern iron one crosses it side by side, but the advantages, from an æsthetic and utilitarian view-point, as well, are all in favour of the former. A ruined castle crowns the height above Pont Saint Martin and a few kilometres below, at Donnas, is an ancient Roman mile stone still bearing the uneffaced inscription XXXII M. P.
This whole region abounds in Napoleonic souvenirs. Fort Bard, the key to the valley, garrisoned by only eight hundred Austrians, gave Bonaparte a check which he almost despaired of overcoming. The Little Corporal’s ingenuity pulled him through, however. He sent out a patrol which laid the streets of the little village below the fort with straw and his army passed unobserved in the night as if slippered with felt. But for this, the Battle of Marengo, one of the most brilliant of French feats of arms, might never have been fought.
Bard, the fort and the village, is now ignored by the high road which, by a cut-off, avoids the steep climb in and out of the place.
Unheard of by most travellers in Italy, and entirely unknown to others, Verrex in the Val d’Aoste possesses a ravishing architectural surprise in the shape of a feudal castle on a hillside overlooking the town. It is of the square keep, or donjon, variety, and played an important part in the warlike times of the past.
The chateau of Issogne near by, built by the Prior Geor. Challant, less of a castle and more of a country house, is an admirable fifteenth century domestic establishment still habitable, and inhabited, to-day.
All up and down the valley are relics of the engineering skill of the great Roman road and bridge builders. The road over Mont Jovet, a sheer cut down into the roof of a mountain, was theirs; so were the bridges at Chatillon and Pont Saint Martin, and another at Salassiens. At the Pont d’Ael is a Roman aqueduct.
Chatillon, like Verrex, is not marked in big letters on many maps, but it belongs in every architect lover’s Italian itinerary. Its two bridges of olden time are veritable wonder works. Its chateau Ussel, a ruin of the fourteenth century, is still glorious under its coat of mail of moss and ivy, while the Castle of Count Christian d’Entréves is of the kind seen by most people only in picture books.
At Fénis is a magnificent feudal battlemented castle with donjon tower, a chemin ronde and a barbican so awe-inspiring as to seem unreal. With Verrex and Issogne, near by, Fénis completes a trio of chateaux-forts built by the overlords of the name of Challant who possessed feudal rights throughout all the Val d’Aoste.
Aimon de Challant built the castle of Fénis in 1330. Virtually it was, and is, a regular fortress, with as complete a system of defence as ever princely stronghold had. At once a sumptuous seigneurial residence and a seemingly impregnable fortress, it is one of the most remarkable works of its class above ground.
Aoste is a little Italian mountain town far more French than Italian from many points of view. It is of great antiquity and was the Augusta Prætoria of various Roman itineraries.