Chillon - A Literary Guide (edited by Patrick Vincent ...... or How Literary Travellers Made a Small Castle Famous
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
When we are travelling with our van, we sometimes have big plans for the places we visit, and sometimes we have an end station and discover a lot of interesting places on the way. This is how we discovered Chillon and its mysterious and dangerous past. As always, while visiting interesting places or museums, I try to find a book about the place and the story behind. In the Castle of Chillon I found a small literary guide edited by Patrick Vincent. He has collected “travel narratives, letters, poetry and fiction of close to fifty British and American writers, spanning almost three and a half centuries.”
Sometimes I wonder what we would have done without the people (that is, those with money and often a title) who went from Britain (mainly) for their traditional Grand Tour of Europe. So much have been written about these places which are big tourist spots even today. It is interesting to see how people in those days took in the places, buildings, paintings, sculptures and much more. Many of them have left written accounts of their travels, some not. One of the most famous, and idle, of these travellers is Lord Byron. Where did he not go? I think we can easily say that he is the one who made the Castle of Chillon known to a wider circle.
He visited the Château de Chillon in the summer of 1816, together with his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley. Those of you who are familiar with the circle of Lord Byron in Villa Diodati that specific year, know that it has come down as the year without a summer. Mainly due to severe climatic events. Temperatures in Europe decreased and it was the coldest summer of any records between 1766 and 2000. Evidence suggests it was caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in modern-day Indonesia. Thanks to this event the word saw the creation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But, that is another story, let’s get back to the Castle of Chillon.
Château de Chillon
The Castle itself sits on a rocky island on Lake Geneva and dates back to at least the 12th century. It stands in a beautiful spot, in the lake with the mountain as a back-drop, making the harsh walls less imposing. It is only an illusion. It began as a strategic fortress controlling the Alpine trade routes between northern and southern Europe. From the 13th to 16th centuries, it was expanded into a grand residence by the Counts of Savoy, who used it as both a stronghold and a symbol of power. In 1536, the castle was captured by Bernese forces, becoming an administrative center and prison. After the canton of Vaud restored the castle in the 19th century, it has become on of the best-preserved medieval castles in Switzerland. If you are in the vicinity it is really worth a visit.
Its most famous prisoner was François Bonivard (1493-1570), who was immortalised by Lord Byron in his poem The Prisoner of Chillon. He was a Genevan patriot, historian, and supporter of the Reformation. Because he opposed the rule of the Duke of Savoy, Charles III, he became a political target. In 1530, Savoyard forces captured him and imprisoned him in the dungeons of Chillon, where he was kept for six years.
According to accounts, Bonivard was chained to a stone pillar, allowed to walk only in a small circle worn into the floor by his steps. Though harshly confined, he survived—something many prisoners did not. It is amazing, since even in the summer it is rather cold and damp in the dungeon. Maybe he survived due to the fresh air coming in from the open window? In 1536, Bernese Protestant troops conquered the region and freed him. He return to Geneva, where he lived a turbulent but influential life, writing an important history of Geneva.
The Visitors
The earliest account in this little gem of a book is from 1664 and the latest in 1979. I list just a few of the most famous visitors here: John William Polidori, in September 1816 (he was also part of the Byron party in Villa Diodati. His ghost story was published as The Vampyre). Marie Edgeworth (1820), Charles Dickens (1846), John Ruskin (1833), James Fenimore Cooper (1828), Harriet Beacher Stowe (1853), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1859), Henry James (1872) who incorporated the castle in his novel Daisy Miller. Mark Twain (1879), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1930) and Anita Brookner (1984).
The Poem
The Prisoner of Chillon is too long to write here, but you can read it under the link. Lord Byron also wrote a sonnet:
Sonnet of Chillon
“Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art:For there thy habitation is the heart—The heart which love of thee alone can bind;And when thy sons to fetters are consigned—To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom,Their country conquers with their martyrdom,And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind.Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,And thy sad floor an altar—for ’twas trod,Until his very steps have left a traceWorn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,By Bonnivard!—May none those marks efface!For they appeal from tyranny to God.”
The Castle of Chillon by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1837)
"Fair lake, thy lovely and thy haunted shoreHath only echoes for the poet’s luteNone may tread there but with unsandalled foot,Submissive to the great who went before,Filled with mighty memories of yore.And yet how mournful are the records there:Captivity and exile and despairDid the endure who now endure no more,-The patriot, the woman and the bard,Whose name thy winds and waters bear along;What did the world bestow for their rewardBut suffering, sorrow, bitterness and wrong?Genius! A hard and weary lot is thine,-The hear thy fuel, and the grave thy shrine."
From Modern Painters III by John Ruskin (1833)
“… Let us see how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of variable and invariable details. I am writing at a window which commands a view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I look up from my paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of softly moving water, and the outline of the mountains above Chillon, bathed in morning mist. The first verses which naturally come into my mind are -””A thousand feet in depth belowThe massy waters meet and flow;So far the fathom line was sentFrom Chillon’s snow-white battlement.”
Harriet Beacher Stowe (1853)
“… What a power of vitality was there in Bonnevard, that he did not sink in lethargy, and forget himself to stone! But he did not; it is said that when the victorious Swiss arme broke in to liberate him, they cried, -”Bonnevard, you are free!””Et Genève?””Geneva is fee also!”You ought to have heard the enthusiasm with which our guide told this story!”
Letter to Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald, June 1930 by F.S. Fitzgerald (1930)
“Dear Mother:My delay in writing is due to the fact that Zelda has been desperately ill with a complete nervous breakdown and is in a sanitarium near here (…) Tell Father I visited the ”- seven pillars of Gothic mouldIn Chillon’s dungeons deep and old,”
Fitzgerald also used Chillon in his Tender is the Night (1934)
If you are interested in reading about my travels, history and culture, please check in on:
The Content Reader newsletter (English)
Den tillfälliga besökaren (Swedish)
Comments