“What perfection!” he exclaims, “What purity of lines, what suavity of harmony! In this gulf which one might describe as merging from the lake like a thought of love, in this manoir growing out of the bosom of the billows with its dentelated towers, petals bourgeonning from a noble flower, in this encirclement of mountains and these white or rosy peaks which hold them in close embrace, there is something which bids you pause, takes you out of yourself and in order to complete the enchantment compels you to love it.”
And he goes on to tell how once dwelt here the little Charlemagne, brave Count Pierre, who, when he was ill, used to look out on the joyous waves, living in memory his battles, his tourneys and his festivities. Here, too, his brother, the Seigneur Aymon, used to lie on a vast bed with hangings of armorial silk and surrounded by candles, while he listened to melancholy tales or comic adventures from the poor pilgrims whom he sheltered. In that day the feudal kitchen, with its marquetrie floor, used to see a whole ox roasted to give meat to the visitors, and great casks of wine from the Haut Crêt used to cheer the down-hearted. Little did the revellers care for the poor wretches below in the dungeons where the light filtering through the loop-holes failed to dissipate the gloomy shadows or make clearer the visions which solitude evoked from the stormy strip of sky.
The finest aspect of Chillon is from a point just a few hundred meters out into the lake. There it has a double background; the steep, green-wooded slope tumbling down from the Bois de la Raveyre, and, beyond the head of the lake, the saw-like roof of the snow-capped Dent du Midi. It does indeed look like a tooth—like the colossal molar of the king of the mastodons. It was too early in the day to see the Alpenglow; but afterwards many times I saw it, not only on this imperial height but also on the heads of Mont Blanc and his haughty vassals and on many another sky-defying range, either bare of snow or wearing the ermine of the clouds.
As it happened, that beautiful day in May, not a cloud, not a wisp of cloud, hovered over the rugged bosom of the mighty mountain. It stood out with startling clearness against a dazzling blue sky, and was framed between the converging slopes of the mountains that meet the lake beyond Chillon and on the other side, beyond Villeneuve. The lofty red-capped central tower of the ancient castle seemed as high, or rather made the first step up to the mountains that cut off the view of the base of the grander height.
Taken all in all, is there on earth any bit of landscape more interesting and thrilling in its combination of picturesque beauty and historical association?
[CHAPTER IX]
A PRINCESS AND THE SPELL OF THE LAKE
