The Spell of Switzerland

“The carriage rolled across a drawbridge, between tiny shops where trinkets were for sale – chamois-skin articles, pocket-knives, button-hooks, combs and the like – passed under a low postern and came to a stop in the grass-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 dépôt 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.

“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-Réhu, 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, retarded 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 attitudes 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.

“‘Hé! Mossié! – 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 assassin, 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 assurance 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, Shelley, Eugène 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 Gods. 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 God 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 associated with its shores in a sonnet, one of the few that he ever wrote: —

“Rousseau – Voltaire – our Gibbon – and De Staël —Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore,Thy shore of names like these. Wert thou no moreTheir memory thy remembrance would recall:To them thy banks were lovely as to allBut they have made them lovelier, for the loreOf mighty minds doth hallow in the coreOf human hearts the ruin of a wall“Where dwells the wise and wondrous; but by theeHow much more, Lake of Beauty, do we feelIn sweetly gliding o’er thy crystal seaThe wild glow of that not ungentle zealWhich of the Heirs of ImmortalityIs proud and makes the breath of Glory real.”

Can it be that Lord Byron pronounced “real” as if it were a monosyllable? But he also wrote “There let it lay!”

There are, on the shores of Lake Geneva, several hotels associated 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 Shelley with his wife and daughter, Williams, and Jane Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s half-sister, were established at Sécheron, a suburb of Geneva. Byron had never met the Poet of the Sky-lark, but Jane Clairmont, who was a passionate, 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 Shelley 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 Rhône, 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.”

They expected a melancholy Eastern melody, but, instead, he uttered “a strange, wild howl” admirably suited to the dashing waves with which they were struggling. A few days later the Shelleys moved across to the south side of the lake, and settled down at Campagne Mont-Allègre. Byron stayed at Sécheron, but used often to row over to visit them. Finally, he himself rented the Villa Diodati, which stands a little higher up.

He and Shelley made a tour of the lake and had some exciting experiences. They left Mont-Allègre on June 23 and spent the first night at Nerni, where Byron declared he had not slept in such a bed since he left Greece five years before. At Evian, on the French side, they had trouble with their passports, but, when the Syndic learned Byron’s name and rank, he apologized for their treatment of him and left him in peace. On June 26 they were at Chillon. Off Meillerie they were attacked by what Byron called a squall. Shelley described it in a letter to Thomas Love Peacock: —

“The wind gradually increased in violence, until it blew tremendously; and as it came from the remotest extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered the whole surface with a chaos of foam. One of our boatmen, who was a dreadfully stupid fellow, persisted in holding the sail at a time when the boat was on the point of being driven under water by the hurricane. On discovering his error he let it entirely go and the boat for a moment refused to obey the helm; in addition the rudder was so broken as to render the management of it very difficult; one wave fell in, and then another. My companion, an excellent swimmer, took off his coat, I did the same, and we sat with our arms crossed, every instant expecting to be swamped. The sail was, however, again held, the boat obeyed the helm, and still in imminent peril from the immensity of the waves, we arrived in a few minutes at a sheltered port, in the village of Saint-Gingoux.”

Byron, in a letter to John Murray, wrote: – “I ran no risk, being so near the rocks, and a good swimmer; but our party were wet and incommodated a good deal; the wind was strong enough to blow down some trees, as we found at landing.”

He was at this very time engaged in composing the third canto of “Childe Harold.”

On the third of June he had been dazzled by a glimpse of “yonder Alpine snow – Imperishably pure beyond all things below,” and a month later he wrote, “I have this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat. The distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles.” In the poem he sings – I believe that is the proper verb! —

“Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,The mirror where the stars and mountains viewThe stillness of their aspect in each traceIts clear depth yields of their far height and hue:There is too much of man here, to look throughWith a fit mind the might which I behold;But soon in me shall Loneliness renewThoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old,Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in its fold…“Is it not better, then, to be aloneAnd love Earth only for its earthly sakeBy the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhône,Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake,Which feeds it as a mother who doth makeA fair but froward infant her own care,Kissing its cries away as these awake; —Is it not better thus our lives to wear,Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?“I live not in myself, but I becomePortion of that around me; and to me,High mountains are a feeling, but the humOf human cities torture: I can seeNothing to loathe in nature, save to beA link reluctant in a fleshly chain,Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plainOf ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.”

And again further along: —

“Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thingWhich warns me, with its stillness, to forsakeEarth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.This quiet sail is as a noiseless wingTo waft me from distraction; once I lovedTorn ocean’s roar, but thy soft murmuringSounds sweet as if a Sister’s voice reproved,That I with stern delights should e’er have been so moved.”

And how beautifully he describes night on the lake: —

“It is the hush of night, and all betweenThy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appearPrecipitously steep; and drawing near,There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the earDrops the light drip of the suspended oar,Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;“He is an evening reveller, who makesHis life an infancy, and sings his fill;At intervals, some bird from out the brakesStarts into voice a moment, then is still.There seems a floating whisper on the hill,But that is fancy, for the starlight dewsAll silently their tears of love instil,Weeping themselves away, till they infuseDeep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues.“Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,If in your bright leaves we would read the fateOf men and empires, – ’tis to be forgiven,That in our aspirations to be great,Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state,And claim a kindred with you; for ye areA beauty and a mystery, and createIn us such love and reverence from afar,That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.“All heaven and earth are still – though not in sleep,But breathless, as we grow when feeling most:And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep: —All heaven and earth are still: From the high hostOf stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,All is concentered in a life intense,Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,But hath a part of being, and a senseOf that which is of all Creator and defence.”

He is in his darkest, gloomiest, most characteristic pose when he describes a storm at night: —

“The sky is changed! and such a change! O nightAnd storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,Yet lovely in your strength, as in the lightOf a dark eye in woman! Far along,From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,But every mountain now hath found a tongue;And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!“And this is in the night: – Most glorious night!Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me beA sharer in thy fierce and far delight —A portion of the tempest and of thee!How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!And now again ’tis black, – and now, the gleeOf the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.“Now, where the swift Rhône cleaves his way betweenHeights which appear as lovers who have partedIn hate, whose mining depths so intervene,That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted;Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,Love was the very root of the fond rageWhich blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed;Itself expired, but leaving them an ageOf years all winters – war within themselves to wage.“Now, where the quick Rhône thus hath cleft his way,The mightiest of the storms hath ta’en his stand:For here, not one, but many, make their play,And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand,Flashing and cast around; of all the band,The brightest through these parted hills hath forkedHis lightnings, as if he did understandThat in such gaps as desolation worked,There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.“Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye,With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soulTo make these felt and feeling, well may beThings that have made me watchful; the far rollOf your departing voices, is the knollOf what in me is sleepless, – if I rest.But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?Are ye like those within the human breast?Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?“Could I embody and unbosom nowThat which is most within me, – could I wreakMy thoughts upon expression, and thus throwSoul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,All that I would have sought, and all I seek,Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe – into one word,And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;But as it is, I live and die unheard,With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.”

The Swiss poet, Juste Olivier, grows enthusiastic over the beauty of Chillon: —

“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

YEARS ago I used to know the Princess Kóltsova-Masálskaya, who under the name of Dora d’Istria wrote many stories and semi-historical works. She was a most cultivated and fascinating woman. In her book, “Au Bord des Lacs Helvétiques,” she criticizes Lord Byron’s description of Lake Leman. She says: —

“When one comes in the spring to the Pays de Vaud, one does not at first see all the beauty so many times celebrated by poets and travelers. In rereading Byron and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one is inclined to conjecture that they were obliged to have recourse to quite fanciful descriptions, in order to justify their boasts.

“Byron, in spite of the power of his genius, is a rather vulgar painter of the splendors of nature. He contents himself with vague traits and what he says of the Lake of Geneva would apply just as well to the Lake of the Four Cantons or the Lake of Zürich. Rousseau himself seems to have found the subject only partly poetic, for he exhausts himself in describing Julie’s imaginary orchard, which would have been much better situated in the Emmenthal than on the vine-covered slopes above Lake Leman. In gazing at the hillsides, rough with the blackened grape-vines, one can easily understand the motive which prompted the author of ‘La Nouvelle Héloïse’ to prefer an ideal picture to the reality.

“When one leaves the plain in the month of April, one has already enjoyed the smiles of the Spring. The fresh young grass covers the earth with an emerald-colored carpet. The willows swing their silvery catkins at the edges of the streams, while along the edges of the forests gleams the silvery calix of the wood-anemone. Here, the vines are slower; the walnut-trees have not been hasty in opening their big buds and, as the shores of the Lake of Geneva have very little other vegetation than walnut-trees and vines, this region presents, during the first fine days, an aspect not calculated to seduce the eye or speak to the imagination.

“We should get a very false idea of it, however, if at this season of the year we visited only the shores of the lake, and did not make our way up into the mountains where so many fruit trees spread over the rejuvenated turf the fragrant snow of their petals.”

The Princess tells how Eléonora de Haltingen came to reside at Veytaux with her mother in November, 1858. She liked to go down to Montreux, “the principal group of houses in that parish.” She used to follow a path thus described: – “A foot-path worn among the vines led toward the grotto surmounted by the terrace of the church. This foot-path was impracticable for crinolines; no dust was found, or pallid misses with blue veils, or tourists with airs of conquerors, or noisy children – all such things spoil the most delicious landscapes. But one could admire at one’s ease the luxurious vegetation of the vines, the transparent grapes, the flexible and shining leaves of the maise growing amid the vineyards…