The Spell of Switzerland Part 8

In 1536 the Bernese sent troops to help Geneva, which was besieged by Duke Charles III. Reinforced by the Genevese fleet after the relief of Geneva, they in turn besieged Chillon. The governor with his escort fled to Savoy and Bonivard was set free. His first words were:--"And Geneva?"

"Also free," was the laconic reply.

After Bern had conquered Savoy, Auguste de Luternan (an appropriate name for a Lutheran) was the first Bernese bailiff of Chillon, and he and his successors made various alterations in the buildings. In 1733 the bailiwick was transferred to Vevey and just seventy years later the castle became the property of Vaud. For some time it was grievously neglected. For its sole garrison it had two gens-d'armes, and it was used only as a military magazine and a prison.

A prison? Ay! One must never forget the most ill.u.s.trious prisoner ever confined in its gloomy oubliettes--though, to tell the honest truth, Chillon never had any oubliettes. Tartarin de Tarascon, tamer of camels, destroyer of African lions, slayer of the super-Alpine chamois--we see him pa.s.sing disdainfully amid the attractions of the glittering shops of Montreux, only to be arrested as a Russian Nihilist and, under threat of being gagged unless he keep his mouth shut, borne away to the very castle sacred to the memory of Bonivard, in whom he had lost faith, since William Tell had become a myth! Here is the vivid picture as chronicled by Daudet:--

"The carriage rolled across a drawbridge, between tiny shops where trinkets were for sale--chamois-skin articles, pocket-knives, b.u.t.ton-hooks, combs and the like--pa.s.sed under a low postern and came to a stop in the gra.s.s-grown courtyard of an old castle flanked by round pepper-box towers, with black balconies held up by beams. Where was he? Tartarin understood when he heard the police captain talking with the doorkeeper of the castle, a fat man in a Greek cap, shaking a huge bunch of rusty keys.

"'In solitary confinement?--But I haven't any more room. The rest of them occupy all the--unless we put him in Bonivard's dungeon.'

"'Put him in Bonivard's dungeon then; it's quite good enough for him,'

said the captain authoritatively. And his commands were obeyed.

"This Castle of Chillon, which the President of the Alpine Club had been for two days constantly talking about to his friends, the Alpinists, and in which, by the irony of fate, he suddenly found himself imprisoned without knowing why, is one of the historical monuments of Switzerland. After having served as a summer residence of the Counts of Savoy, then as a State prison, a depot of arms and stores, it is now only an excuse for an excursion, like the Rigi-Kulm or the Tellsplatte. There is however a police-station there and a lock-up for drunkards and the wilder youths of the district; but such inmates are rare, as La Vaud is a most peaceful canton; thus the lock-up is for the most part untenanted and the keeper keeps his winter fuel in it. So the arrival of all these prisoners had put him in a bad humour, particularly when it occurred to him that he should no longer be able to pilot people through the famous dungeons, which was at that season attended with no little profit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRISON OF BONIVARD IN THE CASTLE OF CHILLON.]

"Filled with rage, he led the way and Tartarin timidly followed him, making no resistance. A few worn steps, a musty corridor, smelling like a cellar, a door as thick as a wall, with enormous hinges, and there they were in a vast subterranean vault, with deeply worn floor and solid Roman columns on which hung the iron rings to which in former times prisoners of state were chained. A dim twilight filtered in and the rippling lake was reflected through the narrow loop-holes, which allowed only a slender strip of sky to be seen.

"'This is your place,' said the jailer. 'Mind you do not go to the end; the oubliettes are there.'

"Tartarin drew back in horror.

"'The oubliettes! _Noudiou!_' he exclaimed.

"'What would you have, man alive? I was ordered to put you in Bonivard's dungeon. I have put you in Bonivard's dungeon. Now, if you have the wherewithal, I can supply you with some luxuries, such as a mattress and a coverlet for the night.'

"'Let me have something to eat first,' said Tartarin, whose purse fortunately had not been taken from him.

"The doorkeeper returned with fresh bread, beer and a Bologna sausage, and these were eagerly devoured by the new prisoner of Chillon, who had not broken his fast since the day before, and was worn out with fatigue and emotion. While he was eating it on his stone bench, in the dim light of the embrasure, the jailer was steadily studying him with a good-natured expression.

"'Faith,' said he, 'don't know what you have been doing and why you are treated so severely....'

"'Eh! _coquin de sort_, no more do I. I know nothing at all about it,'

replied Tartarin, with his mouth full.

"'At any rate, one thing is certain--you don't look like a criminal and I am sure you would never keep a poor father of a family from gaining his living, eh? Well, then, I have upstairs a whole throng of people who have come to see Bonivard's dungeon. If you will give me your word to keep still and not attempt to escape--'

"The worthy Tartarin at once gave his word and five minutes later he saw his dungeon invaded by his old acquaintances of the Rigi-Kulm and the Tellsplatte--the stupid Schwanthaler, the ineptissimus Astier-Rehu, the member of the Jockey Club with his niece (hum!--hum!), all the Cook's tourists. Ashamed and afraid of being recognized, the unhappy man hid behind the pillars, retiring and stealing away as he saw the tourists approach, preceded by his jailer and that worthy's rigmarole, recited in a lugubrious tone, 'This is where the unfortunate Bonivard--'

"They came forward slowly, r.e.t.a.r.ded by the disputes of the two savants, who were all the time quarrelling, ready to fly at each other--one waving his camp-stool, the other his travelling-bag, in fantastic att.i.tudes which the half-light magnified along the vaulted dungeon roof.

"By the very exigency of retreat, Tartarin found himself at last near the opening of the oubliettes--a black pit, open level with the floor, breathing an odor of past ages, damp and chilling. Alarmed, he paused, crouched in a corner, pulling his cap over his eyes; but the damp saltpeter of the walls affected him and suddenly a loud sneeze, which made the tourists start back, betrayed him.

"'Hold! Bonivard!' exclaimed the saucy little Parisienne in the Directoire hat, whom the member of the Jockey Club called his niece.

"The Tarasconian did not permit himself to display any signs of being disturbed.

"'These oubliettes are really very interesting,' he remarked, in the most natural tone in the world, as if he also were a mere pleasure-seeker visiting the dungeon. Then he joined the other tourists, who smiled when they recognized the Alpinist of the Rigi-Kulm, the mainspring of the famous ball.

"'_He! Mossie!--ballir, 'dantsir!_'

"The comical outline of the little fairy Schwanthaler presented itself before him ready to dance. Truly he had a great mind to dance with her. Then, not knowing how to get rid of this excited bit of womanhood, he offered his arm and gallantly showed her his dungeon--the ring whereon the prisoner's chain had been riveted; the traces of his footsteps worn in the rock around the same column; and, hearing Tartarin speak with such facility, the good lady never suspected that he who was walking with her was also a state prisoner--a victim to the injustice and the wickedness of man.

Terrible, for instance, was the parting, when the unfortunate 'Bonivard,' having led his partner to the door, took leave of her with the smile of a society gentleman, saying, 'No, thank you,--I will stay here a moment longer.' She bowed, and the jailer, who was on the alert, locked and bolted the door to the great astonishment of all.

"What an insult! He was bathed in the perspiration of agony, as he listened to the exclamations of the departing visitors. Fortunately such torture as this was not inflicted on him again that day. The bad weather deterred tourists...."

In the morning he is rudely awakened, and brought before the prefect, charged with being the dreaded Russian incendiary and a.s.sa.s.sin, Manilof.

It is soon made manifest that there is a dreadful mistake. The prefect, angry at having been sent for under false pretences, cries in a terrible voice:--"Well, then, what are you doing here?"

"'That is just what I want to know,' replies the V. C. A., with all the a.s.surance of innocence."

And Tartarin is set free. Verily, we look among the names scribbled on the walls--names of great writers and men of less distinction--Rousseau, Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Sh.e.l.ley, Eugene Sue--for the immortal autograph of Tartarin de Tarascon. It must have been carried off bodily, like the picture of Mona Lisa! But Tartarin himself is just as much an inhabitant of the vaults as Byron's Bonivard. And was not the policeman whom we caught sight of on the quai at Montreux the very one whose long blue capote was turned so persistently toward the omnibus in which rode the Tarasconian quartet?

CHAPTER VIII

LORD BYRON AND THE LAKE

Lord Byron, in 1816, landed on this very spot with his friend John Cam Hobhouse. They came over from Clarens, probably in a _naue_, whose name, as well as its shape, harked back to olden days. Byron wrote about it:--

"I feel myself under the charm of the spirit of this country. My soul is repeopled with Nature. Scenes like this have been created for the dwelling-place of the G.o.ds. Limpid Leman, the sail of thy barque in which I glide over the surface of thy mirror appears to me a silent wing which separates me from a noisy life. I loved formerly the warring of the furious ocean; but thy soft murmuring affects me like the voice of a sister.

"Chillon! thou art a sacred place. Thy pavement is an altar, for the footsteps of Bonivard have left their traces there. Let these traces remain indelible. They appeal to G.o.d from the tyranny of man."

Byron made the fame of Chillon, and his Bonivard (or, as he spelt the name with two n's, Bonnivard) was a far more ideal patriot than the actual prisoner, whose character has been shown of late years in a somewhat unfavourable light. Byron was devoted to the Lake of Geneva.

He commemorated some of the great names a.s.sociated with its sh.o.r.es in a sonnet, one of the few that he ever wrote:--

"Rousseau--Voltaire--our Gibbon--and De Stael-- Leman! these names are worthy of thy sh.o.r.e, Thy sh.o.r.e of names like these. Wert thou no more Their memory thy remembrance would recall: To them thy banks were lovely as to all But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core Of human hearts the ruin of a wall

"Where dwells the wise and wondrous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty, do we feel In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal Which of the Heirs of Immortality Is proud and makes the breath of Glory real."

Can it be that Lord Byron p.r.o.nounced "real" as if it were a monosyllable? But he also wrote "There let it _lay_!"

There are, on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Geneva, several hotels a.s.sociated with Byron. At the Anchor Inn, still extant at Ouchy, he wrote that misleading rhapsody--"The Prisoner of Chillon."

He had in 1816 definitely separated from his wife and had shaken the dust of England from his poetic shoes. Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley with his wife and daughter, Williams, and Jane Clairmont, Mary Sh.e.l.ley's half-sister, were established at Secheron, a suburb of Geneva. Byron had never met the Poet of the Sky-lark, but Jane Clairmont, who was a pa.s.sionate, fiery-eyed brunette, imbued with her father's ideas of free love, had begun her unfortunate liaison with him, having deliberately thrown herself into his arms. They had met clandestinely a number of times just before their departure from England.

Byron and Sh.e.l.ley were both fond of sailing and they had many excursions on the lake. One evening they were out together when the _bise_, as the strong northwest wind is called, was blowing. They drifted before it and, getting into the current of the Rhone, were carried swiftly toward the piles at the entrance of Geneva harbour. It required all the strength of their boatmen to extricate them from the danger.

"I will sing you an Albanian song," cried Byron. "Now be sentimental and give me all your attention."