[CHAPTER VII]
A DIGRESSION AT CHILLON
CHILLON is probably the best-known castle in Switzerland. It commands the one pass between the mountains and the lake, and there, in the old days, two horsemen could defend the passage against a host. On Mont Sonchaux, a spur of the high crags of Naye, with Mont Arval rising on the east, and torn with ravines and landslides, between the two torrents, the Veraye and the Tinère, it stands, “a mass of towers placed on a mass of rocks.”
We sailed all around, from one side of the bridge to the other, and managed to approach near enough to clamber ashore. We fastened the boat to a tree by the long maille, as they call the painter on the lake. Then we went all over the ancient fortress. Happily the Canton has at last awakened to the propriety of not merely keeping it in repair, but also of restoring it to something like its pristine condition. In the earlier castle Louis le Débonnaire confined his kinsman, Count Walla, the friend of Lothaire, on the ground that he was the instigator of that prince’s revolt against his father. At that time the country was a wilderness, and there was only a chapel where now Montreux gathers a wealthy and luxurious population. Walla spent many years in Chillon, but was ultimately transferred to the fortified Island of Noirmontier. Then he was set free, and died in 835 in the Abbey of Bobbio, sixteen leagues from Milan.
In 1235, Duke Pierre de Savoy received the Province of Chamblais, extending from Saint Bernard to the torrent of the Veveyse and to the Arve on both sides of the lake.
He erected many castles—one at Martigny, at the entrance to the pass leading up to Saint Bernard; one at Evian, on the south side of the lake; and still another at the village of Peilz—and he reconstructed Chillon. Having mastered the Pays de Vaud, he governed with moderation. He organized troops of archers and halberdiers, established shooting-societies, and maintained strong garrisons at various points. In 1265, Rodolphe, Duke of Hapsburg, invaded Vaud and besieged Chillon. Pierre suddenly attacked him and won a great victory. They took the duke prisoner, together with eighty barons, lords, knights and nobles of the country. After this Pierre had things his own way; he settled down at the Castle of Chillon and one of his pleasures was to go out rowing on the lake.
In 1358, when the plague ravaged Europe, the Jews were accused of poisoning the water. “The Court of Justice of Chillon,” says the local hand-book, “caused these unhappies to be tortured and they would confess and then were burnt.” So roused against them were the population that on one occasion a rabble forced the gates of the castle and put a number of them to death.
In Pierre’s day it must have been a magnificent residence. Even now, viewed with the eye of imagination, one can get some notion of what it was in its period of splendour, though Thomas Jefferson Hogg, in his “Journal of a Traveller,” declares that it is ugly, with its whitewashed walls crowned with a red-tiled roof. It is built in the form of an irregular oval. In the centre is a high, square tower which contained a great alarm-bell, the deep tones of which must have often echoed over the waters to call the defenders to resist the attacks of fierce enemies. On the north side are two ranges of crenelated walls and three round towers. On the east is the massive square of the principal tower, through which is the only entrance, formerly closed by a drawbridge extending from the shore to the rock. The rooms where the counts and their ladies dwelt in state were on the south side. On the first floor is the great apartment once occupied by the Governor of Chillon. In one of the rooms is a magnificent fireplace with sculptured columns. In the story above are the chambers where knights habited. Here are pillars richly carved, ornamented with ancient coats of arms, and once draped with banners. Then come the chambers of the duke and duchess, communicating by a private door. The duchess’s windows look down on the blue waters of the lake, while that of the prince looks into the courtyard.
