CHAPTER XIX

Chapter 192,193 wordsPublic domain

THE MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND OF SAVOY

"La Savoie," say the French, is "La Suisse Française," and indeed it is, as anyone can see and appreciate. With respect to topography, climate and nearly all else this is true. And its historic souvenirs, if sometimes less romantic, are more definite and far more interesting, in spite of the fact that the sentimentally inclined have not as yet overrun the region; it may with confidence be said that they have not even discovered it.

The amalgamation of Savoy with France was fortunate for all concerned. As President Carnot said, when on a speech-making tour through the region in 1892: "Can any of us without emotion recall those memorable days when the Convention received the people of this province with the welcome: 'Generous Savoyards! In you we cherish friends and brothers; never more shall you be separated from us.'" Savoy was ever more French in spirit than Italian in spite of its variable alliances.

Leaving the resorts like Aix-les-Bains, Annecy and Évian behind, and following the turbulent Isère to its icy cradle beneath the haunches of Mont Saint Bernard, one may literally leave the well-worn travel track behind, the railway itself striking off Italy-wards via a gap in the mountain chain to the southeast, where it ultimately burrows through the massif of the chain of which Mont Cenis forms the most notable peak.

Just at the confines of Dauphiny and Savoy the Isère sweeps majestically around the forefoot of the fortress of Montmélian, which guards the mountain gateway to the snowbound upper valleys. Montmélian can be seen from a great distance; from a great distance even one may imagine that he hears the echoes of the cries of the victims of the cruel Seigneurs de Montmélian who once lived within its walls. Their barbarous acts were many, and historic facts, not merely legendary tales, perpetuate them. It is the knowledge that such things once existed that makes the suggestion of course, but these are the emotions one usually likes to have nourished when viewing a mediæval castle.

Montmélian's chateau-fort played a very important role in the history of Savoy. It was one of the finest fortresses of the States of Savoy, and was the chief point of attack of François Premier, who, in 1535, succeeded finally in taking it, but by treason from within. The French from the moment of their occupation gave it a heavy garrison, and Henri II still further strengthened its massive walls, as did also Henri IV later on. He called it "a marvellously strong place; a stronger one has never yet been seen."

In Montmélian's proud fortress-chateau, also, were born Amadée III and Amadée IV, Princes of Savoy. Once it was considered, and with reason apparently, the strongest fortress of Savoy, and was for ages the wall against which the Viennois Dauphins battled vainly. Treason opened its doors to François Premier and treason delivered it to Henri IV. This last giving over of the chateau was brought about by the wife of Sully, who by "sweet insinuations" got into the good graces of the wife of Brandes, the governor, and between them planned to win him over.

In 1690 it was again attacked and taken by the French, costing them the bagatelle of eight thousand men, for lives were cheap in those days compared to castles. It was a hollow victory, too, for the French, for they marched out again after the Peace of Ryswick.

In the early years of the eighteenth century the French again came into possession and immediately began the work of demolishing the defensive walls, leaving only the residential chateau, that which in its emasculated form exists to-day. Thus disappeared from the scene, said the celebrated historian, Leon Menabrea, a fortress to whose annals are attached the names most grand and the events most important in Savoyan history.

The Montmayeurs, the feudal family which first made Montmélian its stronghold, have left a vivid and imperishable memory in the annals of Savoy. They were a warlike race to begin with, and bore the eagle and the motto UNGUIBUS ET ROSTRO in their family arms.

Legend recounts that the last of the seigneurs, having lost a case at law, invited the president of the court, one Fésigny, to dinner. Either before, or after, he cut off the judge's head, enclosed it in a sack bearing a label which read: "Here is a new piece of evidence for the court to digest," and deposited it on the public highway circling below the rocky foundations of Montmélian. This episode took place in 1465, and the ignoble seigneur naturally fled the country immediately. His reputation has ever lived after him in the region where the historic fact, or legend, of the "Dernier des Montmayeurs" is still current.

Near the rock-cradled chateau of Montmélian is La Rochette; there one sees the vast remains of a chateau which was overthrown by Louis XIII. This chateau, called also the Chateau des Hulls, occupies one of the most strikingly imposing sites imaginable, and only in a lesser degree than Montmélian presents all the qualities which one would naturally suppose to be necessary in order to make such a work impregnable. It was heroically defended by Pierre de la Chambre, but the defence availed nothing, and now what is left has been built up into--of all things--a silk-mill. Its outlines might well be that of a mediæval chateau even now; site and silhouette each have this stamp, and it will take little exercise of the imagination to picture the smoke from its chimneys as coming from the fires which may have been lighted at some epoch before the invention of the steam engine. There is nothing, from a distant point of view, to suggest that the old Chateau des Hulls is the murky, work-a-day hive of industry that it is.

Above Montmélian is Saint Pierre d'Albigny, where rises the ancient and formidable chateau of the Sires de Miolans. In the eighteenth century it was a prison of state incarcerating many famous personages, among them the celebrated Marquis de Sade, the story of whose escape would make as thrilling a chapter as was ever read in a romance of the cloak and sword variety. Another famous, or infamous, prisoner was the unfortunate Lavin, the minister of finance of Charles-Emmanuel III, who was imprisoned because of his fine, but unappreciated, talent for copying bank-notes. For twenty-four years Lavin languished in the dungeons of Miolans; indeed it was within these walls that he passed the greater part of his life after becoming of age. For this reason Miolans may be called the Bastille of Savoy.

Miolans is typical of the middle ages. It can be seen, it is said, fifty kilometres away, either up or down the Isère. This one can well believe. It can only be compared to a castled burg of the Rhine or Meuse: it is like nothing else in modern France. The great moats surround it as of old, its drawbridge, its _chemin-de-ronde_, its _cachets_, dungeons and _oubliettes_ are quite undespoiled, and its chapel as bright and inspiring as if its functions served to-day as in the time of the seigneurs of the joint house of Miolans and Montmayeur, a family one of the most ancient in Savoy, but which became extinct in 1523.

The Sardinian government in 1856--when Savoy belonged still to the Crown of Sardinia--sold the edifice for the paltry sum of five thousand francs, scarcely more than the price of a first rate piano. The buyer preserved and made habitable, in a way, the mediæval fabric, but not without considerably lessening its genuine old-time flavour. This is not apparent from afar, and only to the expert near at hand, so the castle lives to-day as one of the most thrillingly romantic piles of its class in all the mountain background of Savoy. To-day the castle, for it is more a feudal castle than a modern chateau after all, is still in private hands, but no incongruous details have been further incorporated and the chatelain as lovingly cares for it as does that of Langeais in Touraine, perhaps the best restored, and the best kept, of all the habitable mediæval castles in the pleasant land of France.

In the time of the Savoyan dukes each of these upper valleys was deprived of communication with its neighbours, because of either the utter lack of roads, or of their abominable up-keep. A sort of petty state or kingdom grew up in many of these shut-in localities, each possessing its individual life, and, above all, ecclesiastical independence.

The sovereigns of each had their own particular lands and ruled with velvet glove or iron hand as the mood might strike them or the case might demand.

Still higher up above Montmélian, which may properly be considered the barrier between the lower and the upper valleys of the Tarentaise and the Maurienne, are scores of these chateaux, as appealing, and with reason, as many more noble in outline and record elsewhere. At Grésy is one of these; at Bathie is a fine feudal ruin with a round and square tower of most imposing presence; Blay has another, with a wall surmounted by a range of tripled tourelles; Feisons has yet another, and a castle wall or an isolated tower is ever in view whichever way one turns the head.

The roadway through Albertville and Moutiers leads into Italy over the Petit Saint Bernard; that by the valley of the Maurienne over the Mont Cenis. Here, just as Lans-le-Bourg is reached, you may still see the signboards along the road reading: "Route Impériale No. 16: Frontière Sarde à 10 kilom." It would seem as though Lans-le-Bourg had not yet heard that the Empire had fallen, nor of the creation of the unified Italian Kingdom.

Still penetrating toward the heart of the Savoyan Alps one soon reaches Albertville, primarily a place of war, secondly a centre for excursions in upper Savoy. This gives the modern note. For that of mediævalism one has to go outside the town to Conflans, where sits the old town high on a rocky promontory, with a picturesque citadel-fortress filled with souvenirs of warlike times.

The Chateau du Manuel flanks the old fortress on one side, and the garrison barracks of to-day was at one time an old convent of Bernardins. This structure of itself is enough, and more, to attract one thither. It is built of red brick, with a range of curiously patterned twin windows. Besides these attributes the faubourg has also the Chateau Rouge, another of the resting places of the Savoyan dukes.

The historic souvenirs of Conflans and its chateau are many and momentous. It defended the entrance to the Tarentaise, and was able to resist the terrible battering sieges of the troops of François Premier and Henri IV, which was more than Miolans could do, in spite of the fact that it was supposedly a more efficient stronghold.

The town itself was erected into a Principality in favour of the Archbishops of the Tarentaise, and in 1814, following upon the Treaty of Paris, which gave back to Sardinia a part of its estates, the administrative authorities of Savoy took up their seat here.

All around are modern forts and batteries only to be arrived at by military roads climbing the mountain-side in perilous fashion, but they have nothing of sentiment or romance about them and so one can only marvel that such things be.

The neighbouring Fort Barraux is one of the marvels of modern fortresses, rebuilt out of an old chateau-fort. This fortress was originally constructed before the end of the sixteenth century by Charles-Emmanuel de Savoie, and taken over, almost without a struggle, by Lesdiguières, almost before the masons had finished their work for the ducal master.

"Wait," said the Maréchal to his king, "we will not be in a hurry. It were better that we should have a finished fortress on our hands than one half built." And with a supreme confidence Lesdiguières waited six months and then simply walked up and "took it" and presented it to his royal master.

At Montvallezen-sur-Séez, in the Tarentaise, there existed, in the seventeenth century, a sort of a monkish chateau, at least it was a purely secular dwelling, a sort of retreat for the Canon of the Hospice of Saint Bernard. It was built in 1673 by the Canon Ducloz, and though all but the tower has disappeared, history tells much of the luxury and comfort which once found a place here in this "Logement du Vicar." The tower rises five stories in height and contains a heavy staircase lighted on each landing by a single window. From this one judges that the tower must have been intended as a defence or last refuge for the dwellers in the chateau in case they were attacked by bandits or other evil doers. On arriving at the final floor, the walls are pierced with ten windows. A carven tablet reproduced herewith tells as much of the actual history of the tower as is known.