CHAPTER XXI

IN THE ALPS OF DAUPHINY

In the high Alpine valleys back of the Barre des Écrins is a frontier land little known even to the venturesome tourist by road, who with his modern means of travel, the automobile, goes everywhere. The conventional tour of Europe follows out certain preconceived lines, and if it embraces the passing of the Alps from France into Italy it is usually made by the shortest and most direct route. If the Saint Bernard or the Mont Cenis route seems the shortest and quickest, few there are who will spend a day longer and pass by the highway crossed by Hannibal, even though they would experience much that was delectable _en route_.

Southeast from Grenoble and Vizille is Bourg d'Oisans, the end of a branch railway line, and a diminutive, though exceedingly popular, French Alpine station. To the traveller by road it is the gateway to the high Alpine valleys of Dauphiny, whose heart is the palpitating mountain fortress of Briançon, the most elevated of all French cities.

The highroad between Bourg d'Oisans and Briançon, really the only direct communication between the two places, was begun by Napoleon, that far-seeing road-builder whom future generations of travellers in France have good reason to rise up and call blessed. The roadway climbs up over the Lautret Pass, leaving the Galibier--the highest carriage road in Europe except the Stelvio--to the left, finally descending the southeastern slope and entering Briançon via Monetier-les-Bains, just opposite the famous Barre des Écrins, the highest of the French Alps, a peak of something over thirteen thousand feet, the first ascent of which is credited to Whymper as late as 1864.

Briançon's chateau, or rather Fort du Chateau, is no chateau at all, being a mere perpetuation of a name. Its history is most vivid and interesting nevertheless. Briançon itself is one vast fortress, or a nest of them. The bugle call and the tramp of feet are the chief sounds to awaken mountain echoes roundabout. It has rightfully been called the Gibraltar of the Alps, and commands the passage from France into Italy.

The town sits most ravishingly placed just above the pebbly bed of the incipient Durance, which rushes down to the Mediterranean in a mighty torrent. Save Briançon's barrier of forts and fortresses and mountain peaks roundabout, the town is a sad, dull place indeed, where winter endures for quite half the year, and, until the last century, it was entirely cut off from the world, save the exit and entrance by the single carriage road which rises from Gap via Embrun and Argentière.

Charles le Chauve died here at Briançon in the edifice which stood upon the site of the present Fort du Chateau, and to that circumstance the place owes its chief historic distinction.

Above the city, a dozen kilometres away only, rises the famous international highroad into Italy. On one side of the mountain the waters flow through the valley of the Po into the Adriatic, and on the other, via the Durance and the Rhône, to the Mediterranean.

"Adieu, ma soeur la Durance, Nous nous séparons sur ce mont: Tu vas ravager la Provence, Moi féconder le Piedmont."

On the extreme height of the pass is the famous Napoleon obelisk, commemorating the passage of the First Consul in 1806, though indeed the pass was one of the chief thoroughfares crossing the Alps for long centuries before. In 1494 Charles VIII crossed here with the army with which he invaded Italy.

There remains little of actual monumental aspect at Briançon which has come down from other days. There is still something left of the old chateau of the Seigneurs de Briançon, but not much. This was the same edifice in which Charles le Chauve died, and the mountain retreat of the lords of the Tarentaise. The general outlines of its walls are still to be traced, and there is always the magnificent site to help one build it up anew, but that is all.

The donjon is built on a peak of triangular rock rising sheer from the torrent at the bottom of the gorge which has cut its way through the town from the source higher up under the Montagne de la Madeleine.

The donjon is still there in all its solidity and sadness, but it takes a climb of two hundred and fifty steps up an exceedingly steep stair to reach the platform of rock on which it sits, and this after one has actually arrived at the base.

The retreat was practically untakable by the enemy, and the seigneurs conceived the idea of making it still more difficult of access by ignoring any convenient and comfortable means of approach. This must have been a great annoyance to themselves, but those were the days before time was money, so what matter? The old Roman way through the Tarentaise ran close along by the base of the chateau.

There are four distinct ruined elements to-day from which one may build up anew the silhouette of this mediæval stronghold. Chiefly these elements have been crumbled by stress of time, but here and there a reminder more definite in form, a gaunt finger of stone, points skyward,--a battery of them in fact surround the actual donjon.

The bridge on which the Roman road crossed the Durance was fortified, but was built of wood brought from the neighbouring mountain sides. It is supposed that the present stone structure is the direct successor of this wooden bridge, though it possesses the antique look which may well claim a thousand years. Aymon, the Seigneur de Briançon, when occupying the donjon on the heights, committed many extortions for toll on travellers passing this way. It was a sort of scandalous graft of the eleventh century which finally induced Héraclius, Archbishop of the Tarentaise, to petition

Humbert II, the overlord, Comte de Maurienne, to call his brother lord to a more reasonable method of procedure. This was to the Comte de Maurienne's liking, for he fell upon him tooth and nail and drove Aymon from his castle, leaving it in the ruined and dismantled condition in which it stands to-day.

This toll of roads and bridges was, by inherited right, the privilege of many local seigneurs throughout the feudality, but here the demand was so excessive, so much greater than the traffic could stand, to put it in modern parlance, that the concession was suppressed in the same fashion as has been often brought to bear on latter day monopolies badly administered. This thing doesn't happen often, but with the precedent of the toll bridge at Briançon it has been steadily growing as a commendable practice. Incidentally the Seigneur of Briançon was killed in the struggle which deprived him of what he thought his right, but that was seemingly a small matter; the main thing was to do away with the oppression, and the Lord of the Maurienne, being one of those who did things thoroughly, went at the root of the evil. It is to his credit that he did not continue the toll-gathering for his own benefit.

The enormous flanks of wall of the Chateau de Briançon, which still stand, show a thickness in some instances of thirty feet, and the mortar of eight centuries still holds the blocks firmly together here and there. What a comparison between the ancient and modern manner of building!

The same strategic position which first gave a foothold to the seigneurial chateau was newly fortified in 1536, in order to resist the troops of François I. The French by chance, or skill, finally took the position, and occupied it for a quarter of a century, until the time when Savoy was returned to Emmanuel-Philibert by the victory of Saint Quentin. Again it was captured in 1690 by Lesdiguières, the date of the conquest of Savoy by Henri IV.

The walls of the chateau which are to be remarked to-day are probably of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; all other works are of the later fortifications, or of the more modern military structure of the present war system of France.

Briançon from the plain below has the appearance and dignity of a monumental and prosperous city. Near-by this aspect is lost entirely. As the French say, it is like a shako stuck rakishly over the ear of a grenadier. One may take his choice of view points, but at all events Briançon is marvellously imposing and romantic looking from a distance. Roundabout on every peak and monticule are forts bristling with guns, all pointing Italy-wards; whilst on the height of Mont Genèvre the Italians in turn train their cannon on Briançon's chateau and the plain beyond.

South from Briançon runs the great _route nationale_ from Dauphiny and the Alps to Provence and the Mediterranean. It is replete with historic and romantic souvenirs, but like all the rest of these more or less poverty-stricken mountain regions, it lacks any great or splendid domestic or civic monuments on its route. Souvenirs of mediæval times there are, and many, but they were born of warlike deeds rather than peaceful ones.

Midway between Briançon and Embrun is Mont Dauphin, another key to the Italian gateway. The fortress is a conspicuous point of rock sitting strategically at the mouth of the river Guil at its junction with the Durance. The fortress was the work of Vauban, and its bastions are built of a curious pink marble found in the valley of the Queyras. No doubt but that the fortress is impregnable, or was when built, but it would avail little to-day against modern explosives.

Up the valley of the Guil is the region known as the Val de Queyras, one of the "Protestant Valleys" of Dauphiny, where the religious wars under Lesdiguières, during the reign of Henri IV, raged fast and furious. Chateau Queyras, as its name indicates, is the seat of a mediæval pile which, if not stupendous with respect to its outlines, is at least more than satisfying when viewed from afar. It is an ancient feudal castle and befits its name, in looks at least, and was once the seat of the seigneurs of Chateau-Vieille Ville. Like the fort of Mont Dauphin it seemingly was built to guard the passage to the frontier by the Col Lacroix and the Col de Traversette.

Here as early as 1480 Louis II of Dauphiny cut a tunnel below the Col to make the road between the French valleys and the rich plains of the Po the easier of passage.

South of Chateau Queyras is Saint Véran, the highest collection of human habitations in France, and one of the most elevated in Europe. It is commonly called the highest commune in Europe where the peasants eat white bread. Approximately its elevation is seven thousand feet, still some thousands below Leadville, one recalls. Because of its altitude also, it has been called the most pious village in France. This may or may not be so, but at any rate the place has ever been on the verge of changing its religion from Protestant to Catholic and from Catholic to Protestant. What is in the rarefied atmosphere, one wonders, to induce such fickleness in matters spiritual!

Embrun, of all the towns of this part of Dauphiny, is the most illustrious and famous. This is perhaps as much from its association with Louis XI as for any other reason, for it is reckoned one of the dullest towns in France.

The general aspect of Embrun is most singular as it snuggles intimately around the drab walls of an old donjon, the sole relic of its ancient feudal glory. The roof and gables of the houses of the town rise abruptly from the low levels to the height on which sits the donjon and the shrine dedicated to the divinity of Louis XI, "Our Dear Lady of Embrun," as he called her.

To know more of what passed in the mind of Louis XI with regard to Embrun and its divinity one should re-turn the pages of "Quentin Durward." The monarch indeed resided so long in Dauphiny, at one place or another, that many of the most affecting scenes of his life were enacted here.

A Roman city was here in ancient times, and from this grew up a great strategic military base. Not a morsel of the débris of the Roman town remains, but the cathedral still preserves the best of Roman principles of building in the stones of its pillars and vaulting.

The donjon of the old chateau, the Tour Brune, as it is called, is not far from the cathedral, within the confines of the military barracks. It is, therefore, not accessible to the general public, unless by chance one makes the acquaintance of some genial Alpin-Chasseur who can be induced to do the honours--of course with permission of his superior, which on this particular occasion was, for us, not easy to get. The thing was finally "arranged." Military property in France is not for the vulgar eye, leastwise not in the vicinity of a frontier boundary.

The Tour Brune is accredited as the most ancient military edifice in Dauphiny. Gotran, Roi de Bourgogne, built it and ravished the valleys roundabout, using it as a base from which to make his pillaging sorties and then as a retreat in case he was hard pressed. This was according to the ethics of guerrilla warfare at that time, and probably is to-day.

As a mere habitation, the Tour Brune could hardly have been very comfortable. It certainly never partook of any luxurious appointments or accessories, judging from its build alone.

The metropolis of the upper valley of the Durance is Gap, whose chief romantic memory, since indeed it has no worthy architectural monuments to-day, is recalled by the magnificent marble statue of the Connetable de Lesdiguières on the mausoleum of this Dauphinese hero, now installed in the Préfecture, having been brought thither from the warrior's natal chateau in the neighbourhood. It shows the protestant defender of the rights of Henri IV in Dauphiny clad in the full regalia of his fighting armour. It is worthy of record to note that from being a protestant Governor of Dauphiny, Lesdiguières changed faith as did his royal master and became a Catholic, acquiring at the same time the title of Connetable de France as a mark of favour for his devotion to the tenets of his sovereign.

There is another Chateau de Lesdiguières, which lies out on the road running from Grenoble to Gap, via Corps and Vizille, and is nothing at all grand or monumental in aspect. For a fact, the chateau at Vizille was his preferred domicile, and the present shapeless, ruined mass, though built by the Connetable, was intended merely to be a mausoleum rather than a dwelling. He was actually buried here, his body having been brought hither from Italy, but the Revolution threw his ashes to the winds and his funeral monument was removed to Gap.