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
[Illustration: _Portal of the Chateau de Chambéry_]
[Illustration: _Portal St. Dominique, Chambéry_]
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,
[Illustration: _Chateau de Chambéry_]
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
[Illustration: Les Charmettes
75 · _McManus_
1909]
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.
[Illustration: _Chateau de Chignin_]
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
[Illustration: _Abbey of Hautecombe_]
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.