The Real Prisoner of Chillon
And thy sad floor an altar; for 'twas trod,
Until his steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God."
—BYRON
The castle of Chillon has been immortalized by Byron's beautiful poem of "The Prisoner of Chillon."
It is situated at the east end of the Lake of Geneva, Switzerland, on an isolated rock almost entirely surrounded by deep water, but connected with the shore by a wooden bridge.
A thousand feet in depth below,
Its massy waters meet and flow."
This castle was built in the ninth century, and was altered and fortified by Amadeus IV., Duke of Savoy, in 1238, and was long used as a state prison, where, among other victims, many of the early reformers were immured. The castle is well preserved, and is extremely interesting to tourists. The prison-vaults are all below the surface of the lake. Such of these vaults as are lighted at all have small windows, through which the sunlight passes by reflection from the surface of the lake up to the roof, transmitting also partly the blue color of the waters.
The dungeon of Bonnivard, the Swiss patriot, whose imprisonment has made this castle one of the shrines of freedom, consists of two vaulted aisles; its floor and one side being formed by the solid rock.
In one of the pillars is a ring, to which Bonnivard was chained (1530-36); and the stone floor at its base is worn by his constant pacing to and fro.
When Byron wrote his poem, either he had in view an imaginary captive, or else the true history of the real Bonnivard was unknown to him.
Francois Bonnivard, the real prisoner, had no brothers; and none of his name died in the castle.
Byron makes him one of six brothers, who, with their father, laid down their lives upon the altar of freedom.
Six in youth, and one in age,
Finished as they had begun,
Proud of persecution's rage:
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have sealed;
Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied:
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last."
The true Bonnivard was the son of the Lord of Lune: when he was but sixteen years old, he inherited from his uncle the rich priory of St. Victor. He espoused the cause of the city of Geneva against Charles V. of Savoy, who, in retaliation, sequestered his estates, and confined him for two years in the castle of Grolee. When he regained his liberty, he took up arms to recover his estate, and was aided in this effort by the city of Geneva. The Duke of Savoy again captured him, and sent him to the castle of Chillon, where he was imprisoned for six years.
After the Reformation, when the castle was taken by the Swiss, he was set free.
I kept no count,--I took no note.
I had no hope my eyes to raise,
And clear them of their dreary mote.
At last men came to set me free:
I asked not why, and recked not where;
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,
I learned to love despair."
He had left Geneva a Catholic state, and in possession of the Duke of Savoy: he found it on his return a free republic, and devoted to the faith of the Reformation. He died at the age of seventy-five, a distinguished citizen of the republic. Travellers are also shown, in this castle, the chapel where the dukes of Savoy attended mass, unmindful of the victims in the vaults below; the Potence, a beam black with age, to which the criminal was hanged; the hole in the wall through which his body was thrust into the lake; the torture-chamber, in which stands a wooden pillar which still bears the marks of the hot iron; and the Oubliette, a frightful place, into which prisoners were thrust to die.
The attendant will also raise a trap-door in the stone floor, and show a spiral stairway of three steps. The prisoner was compelled to walk down these steps, and, failing to find a fourth, was hurled eighty feet below into a pit, where he fell upon sharp knives, and was left to die. "It is by this castle of Chillon also that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his 'Heloise,' in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death."
The chateau being large, and its walls white, it can be seen for a long distance from the lake.
The lake has been sounded to a depth of eight hundred feet, French measure.