CHAPTER XVI

CHAMBÉRY AND THE LAC DU BOURGET

One comes to Chambéry to see the chateau of the Ducs de Savoie, the modest villa "Les Charmettes," celebrated by the sojourn of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens, and the Fontaine des Elephants. That is all Chambéry has for those who would worship at picturesque or romantic shrines, save its accessibility to all Savoy.

To begin with the last mentioned attraction first, one may dispose of the Fontaine des Elephants in a word. It has absolutely no artistic or sentimental appeal, though the town residents worship before it as a Buddhist does before Buddha. The ducal splendour of the chateau and of "La Sainte Chapelle," which together form the mass commonly referred to as "the chateau," is indeed the first of Chambéry's attractions. Restorations of various epochs have made of the fabric something that will stand the changes of the seasons for generations yet to come and still preserve its mediæval characteristics. This is saying that the restoration of the Chateau de Chambéry has been intelligently conceived and well executed.

The great portal, preceded by an ornate terrace, with a statue of the Frères de Maistre, is the chief and most splendid architectural detail. A good second is the old portal of the Église Saint Dominique, which has been incorporated into the chateau as has been the Sainte Chapelle. Its chevet and its deep-set windows form the most striking externals of this conglomerate structure.

One of the old towers forms another dominant note when viewed from without, but let no one who climbs to its upper platform for a view of the classic panorama of the city and its surroundings think that he, or she, treads the stones where trod lords and ladies of romantic times, for the stairway is a poor modern thing bolstered up by iron rods, as unlovely as a fire-escape ladder on an apartment house, and no more romantic.

It was in the Chateau de Chambéry that was consummated the final ceremony by which Savoy was made an independent duchy in 1416. Historians of all ranks have described the magnificence of the event in no sparing

terms. It was the most gorgeous spectacle ever played upon the stage of which this fine old mediæval castle was the theatre.

The final act of the ceremony took place before a throng of princes, prelates and various seigneurs and minor vassals of all the neighbouring kingdoms and principalities. The Emperor Sigismond, Amadée VIII, who was to be the new duke, dined alone upon a raised dais in the Grande Salle, and the service was made by "a richly dressed throng of seigneurs mounted on brilliantly caparisoned chargers." This is quoted from a historical chronicle, which however neglects to state the quality of the service. It is quite possible that it may not have been above reproach.

Here, a couple of centuries later, another Victor-Amadée married the Princesse Henriette, Duchesse d'Orléans. The bride to be had never met her future husband until they came together at a little village near-by, as she was journeying to the Savoyan castle for the ceremony. Says the chronicle: "When the princess saw the pageant, at the head of which marched Victor-Amadée, the fair young man of distinguished and martial bearing, without a moment's hesitation, casting to the winds all her previous instruction in matters of etiquette,

she flew down the stairs and into the street and finally into the arms of the duke."

The marriage was not, however, a happy one. The duke became disloyal to his vows and left his wife to pine and moan away her days in the ducal chateau whilst he went off campaigning for other hearts and lands. He acquired Sicily, and became the first King of Sicily and Sardinia, and paved the way for the future greatness of his house, but this was not accomplished by adherence to the code of marital constancy.

The Chateau de Chambéry was finally abandoned definitely by the Savoyan dukes, who, when they became also monarchs of Sardinia, took up their residence at Turin. The "_beaux jours_" had passed never to return. Henceforth its career was to be less brilliant, for it but rarely received even passing visits from its masters. In 1745 it was considerably damaged by fire; in 1775 it was, in a way, furbished up and put in order for the marriage of Charles Emmanuel and Madame Clotilde of France, but again, in 1798, it was ravaged by fire.

From 1793 to 1810 the chateau was the headquarters of the officialdom of the newly formed Département du Mont Blanc, and in 1860 it was used as the Préfecture of the Département de la Savoie. Napoleon III, journeying this way in 1860, decided to make it an imperial residence and certain transformations to that end were undertaken, but it never came to real distinction again, save that it exists as an admirable example of a "monument historique" of the old régime.

It was on the esplanade, beneath the windows of the chateau, that Amadée VI won the title of the Comte Vert, because of the preponderant colours of his arms and costume in a tournament which was held here in 1348.

The third of Chambéry's classic sights, "Les Charmettes," is the "delicious habitation" rendered so celebrated by Rousseau. One arrives at "Les Charmettes" by a discreet and shady by-path. It has been preserved quite in its primitive state and is devoid of any pretence whatever. Its charm is idealistic, romantic and intimate. Nothing grandiose has place here. It is a simple two-story, sloping tiled-roof habitation of the countryside. As the "Confessions" puts it, "Les Charmettes" was discovered thus: "_Apres avoir un peu cherché nous nous fixâmes au Charmettes ... à la porte de Chambéry, mais retirée et solitaire, comme si l'on en était à cent lieus._"

This dwelling where Jean Jacques passed so many of his "_rares bons jours_" of his

adventurous life has been bought by the city, and will henceforth be guarded as a public monument, a tourist shrine like the Chateau des Ducs and La Grande Chartreuse. Here Madame de Warens will reign again in the effigy of a reproduction of Quentin de la Tour's famous portrait, possessed of that "_air caressant et tendre_" and "_sourire angelique_" which so captured the author of the "Confessions." Arthur Young, that observant English agriculturalist, who travelled so extensively in France, paid a warm tribute to Rousseau's good fairy when he wrote: "There was something so amiable in her character that in spite of her frailties her name rests among those few memories connected with us by ties more easily felt than described."

In one of his stories Alphonse Daudet tells us of a _bourgeois_ who had purchased an old chateau, and was driven away from it by the ghosts of the family which had preceded him as proprietors. Surely something of the same kind might have happened to that citizen of the United States who proposed to transport "Les Charmettes" to Chicago. The offer was declined and that is how the city of Chambéry came to possess it for all time. It is well that this took place, for there is hardly a house in Europe in which one would imagine that the ghosts of history would so persistently survive.

Not only was "Les Charmettes" and Madame de Warens connected so intimately, but they were also associated with another name less known in the world of letters. Hear what the "Confessions" has to say:

"He was a young man from Viaud; his father, named Vintzinried, was a self-styled captain of the Chateau de Chillon on Lac Leman. The son was a hair-dresser's assistant and was running about the world in that quality when he came to present himself to Madame de Warens, who received him well, as she did all travellers, and especially those from her own country. He was a big, dull blond, well-made enough, his face insipid, his intelligence the same, speaking like a beautiful Leander ... vain, stupid, ignorant, insolent." For the rest one is referred to the "Confessions."

Within a radius of fifty kilometres of Chambéry there are more than thirty historic chateaux or fortresses of the middle ages and the Renaissance. Many are in an admirable, if not perfect, state of preservation, and all offer something of historic and artistic interest, though manifestly not all can be included in a rush across France. This fact is patent; that a picturesquely disposed and imposing castle or chateau adds much to the pleasing aspect of a landscape, and here in this land of mountain peaks and smiling valleys the prospect is as varied as one could hope to find. Built often on a mountain slope--and as often on a mountain peak--frequently within sight of one another, the dwellers therein would have been glad of some means of "wireless" communication between their houses, for not always were the seigneurs at war with their neighbours.

Off to the southward, towards Saint Michel de Maurienne, is one of the most conspicuous of these hill-top chateaux. Chignin is still the proud relic of an ancient chateau which is a land-mark for miles around. It has no history worth recounting, but is as much like the conventional Rhine castle of reality and imagination as any to be seen away from the banks of that turgid stream. On a lofty eminence are four great towers to remind one of the more extensive structure to which they were once connected. These ruins, and another rebuilt tower of the old chateau of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are now practically all devoted to the religious usages of the Chartreux, but in spite of this they present a militant aspect such as one usually associates with things secular.

The round of Lac Bourget, which environs Chambéry on the north, suggests many historic souvenirs of the dukes and the days when they held their court at the Chateau de Chambéry.

Between Chambéry and Aix-les-Bains, just beside that wide dusty road along which scorch the twentieth century _nouveau riche_, who with their villas and gigantic hotels have all but spoiled this idyllic corner of old Europe, rise the walls of the Chateau de Montagny, captured in 1814 by the allied armies marching against France, and which still conserves, embedded in its portal, a great shot, one of a broadside which finally battered in its door. If one would see war-like souvenirs still more barbarous, a cast of the eye off towards Montmélian and Miolans will awaken even more bloody ones. Their story is told elsewhere in these pages.

At Bourget du Lac, a dozen kilometres out, are the ruins of the Chateau de Bourget, within sight of the ancient Lacus Castilion, and a near neighbour of the celebrated Abbey of Hautecombe.

Comte Amé V was born in the Chateau de Bourget in 1249. It had previously belonged to the Seigneur de la Rochette, and during the thirteenth century was occupied continually by the princes of the house of Savoy. As may be judged by all who view, its site was most ravishing, and though one may not even imagine what its architectural display may actually have been it is known that Amé V bestowed much care and wealth upon it when he came to man's estate. A pupil of Giotto's was brought from Italy to superintend the decorations, and evidences have been found in the ruined tower at the right of the present heap of ruins which suggest some of the decorative splendour which the building one day possessed. In spite of its fragmentary condition the ruin of the Chateau de Bourget is one of the most romantically disposed souvenirs of its era in Savoy, and one may well echo the words of a local poet who has praised it with all sincerity.

"_O lac, te souvient-il ... des beaux jours du vieux castel._"

The chronicles, too, have much to say of the brilliant succession of seigneurs who came to visit the Comtes de Savoie here in their wildwood retreat, "a line of counts as noble, rich and powerful as sovereigns of kingdoms."

The sepulchre of the Savoyan counts in the old Abbey of Hautecombe must naturally form a part of any pilgrimage to the neighbouring chateau. For no reason whatever can it be neglected by the visitor to these parts, the less so by the chateau-worshipper just because it is a religious foundation. It is in fact the mausoleum of the princes of the house of Savoy. Within its walls are buried various members

of the dynasty who would have made of it the Valhalla of their time.

"_Il est un coin de terre, au pied d'une montagne_ _Que baigne le lac du Bourget_

* * * * *

_Hautecombe! port calme! O royal monastere!_ _Abri des fils de Saint Bernard._"

At the extreme northerly end of the Lac du Bourget is the ancient Manoir de Châtillon, sitting high on an isolated and wooded hillside above the gently lapping waters, and in full view of the snow-capped mountains of the Alpine chain to the eastward.

Here was born, towards the end of the twelfth century, Geoffroi de Châtillon, son of Jean de Châtillon and Cassandra Cribelli, sister of Pope Urban III. In every way the edifice is an ideally picturesque one, as much so because of its site and its historical foundation. As an architectural glory it is a mélange of many sorts, with scarce a definite æsthetic attribute. It is as an historical guide-post that it appears in its best light. Its chief deity, Geoffroi, became a canon and chancellor of the chapter at Milan; later he entered the religious retreat of Hautecombe, from which Gregory IX finally drew him forth to make him a cardinal-bishop. He ultimately succeeded to the pontifical robes and tiara himself as Celestin IV (1241). He died eighteen days later, poisoned, it is said, so his reign at the head of Christendom was perhaps the briefest on record.

Bordeau, another ruined memory of mediævalism, also overlooks the Lac du Bourget from near-by.

Aix-les-Bains is of course the lode-stone which draws the majority of travellers to this corner of the world. It is but a city of pleasure, a modern "Spa," the outgrowth of another of Roman times when they took "_cures_" more seriously. It has the reputation to-day, among those who are really in the whirl of things, as being the gayest, if not the most profligate--and there is some suspicion of that--watering place in Europe. Judging from prices alone, and admitting the disposition or willingness of those who would be gay to pay high prices without a murmur, this is probably so.

The site of Aix-les-Bains is lovely, and its waters really beneficial--so the doctors say, and probably with truth. Its Casino is only second to that of Monte Carlo.

The chief charm of Aix-les-Bains after all is, or ought to be, its accessibility to the historic masterpieces roundabout, and its delightful situation by the shores of the "_lac bleu_" whose praises were so loudly sung by Lamartine in "Raphael."

North from Chambéry and east from Aix-les-Bains, is a mountain region known as Les Bauges, a little known and less exploited region. It is a charming isolated corner of Savoy, where once roamed the gorgeous equipages of the Ducs de Savoie, who here hunted the wild boar, the deer and the bears and foxes to their hearts' content. To-day pretty much all game of this nature has disappeared, save an occasional _sanglier_, or wild boar, which, when met with, usually turns tail and runs.

Midway in this mountain land between Aix-les-Bains and Albertville is Le Chatelard, a tiny townlet on the banks of a mountain torrent, the Chéran. On a hill above the town, at a height of nearly three thousand feet above the sea level, are the insignificant remains of the chateau of Thomas de Savoie. Scant remains they are to be sure, endowed with a history as scant, since little written word is to be met with concerning them.

Otherwise the chateau is a very satisfactory historical monument.

After climbing a tortuous winding path one comes suddenly upon a great walled barrier through which opens a door on which is to be read:

ON EST PRIE DE FERMER LES PORTES (J'exige).

The last line is delicious. Of course one would close the doors after the mere intimation that it was desired that they should be closed. The proprietor says that he demands it, but he takes no measures to see that his demands are carried out. What pretence! All the same the pilgrimage is worth the making, but it's not an easy jaunt.