CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN IN AN AUTO--THE CHÂTEAU OF TOURNOËL--ITS
HISTORY--DESCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Morning breaks with a cloudless sky and brilliant sunshine. This little
city bubbles all over with life and, it being Sunday, every one is
out for a good time. It is all so attractive that I decide to remain
over for the day and night. That is one reason, but the second is the
greater. I think it is absolutely imperative that the chauffeur have
a day off now and then. The responsibility and strain is very great
upon him. I can plainly detect it in Jean's face after a long day's
run, more especially when the route has lain up and down the mountains
like that of yesterday. Each instant of the day, every faculty is on
the alert,--not only for the route ahead and behind but for what is
going on in his machine. Every sound is full of meaning to his ears and
anything unusual immediately attracts his attention. Yesterday while we
were speeding at a rapid rate he suddenly stopped and got out, stating
that there was a noise he could not account for. It turned out to be
the clink of my umbrella handle on his air-pump, both of which lay in
the hood; of course of no importance, but he was not sure, hence the
stoppage. That is merely an incident told to show how careful a good
chauffeur must be, and also how great the strain. Therefore if you
desire continued perfect service you must give him a day off now and
then.
Jean is of the best of natures, and does not take advantage, as he
might, of the whole day, but comes to me and states that we had better
go this morning to a most interesting old castle and town some kilos
away, as it may rain to-morrow. My man is better than a guide-book for
he knows what is good and what of no interest, and I find that I do not
miss anything.
We start out after coffee and roll off into the hills nearby, mounting
higher and higher every moment, until we come to the village of
Volvic, where a route is pointed out, which leads to the old Château
of Tournoël, far up in the mountains. I prepare to foot it, but Jean
objects and turns the auto up hill. The route is but a country lane
and not intended for machines, but up we go, turning and twisting
ever higher and higher and I wait, wondering how long we can keep it
up. Twenty-four horses have considerable power and when that power
is condensed in one machine, it can do something, even considering
the weight it must carry. So it proves now, for we climb like a cat
and at a good pace until the castle walls frown directly above us,
but even then Jean does not pause, but circles the ruins and mounting
still higher comes to a halt directly under the great gateway and on
a small platform not much larger than the automobile. How are we to
get down, is a question which arises in my mind, even now, but do not
cross a bridge until you reach it. Look rather at the superb panorama
spread out before you. You are high up upon one of the domes which
encircle Clermont. The vast plain stretches away below you, dotted
here and there with picturesque towns, crossed by long highways, and
overspread with splashes of pink and white fruit-tree blossoms. In the
middle distance rises, upon a hill like that of Edinburgh, the city of
Clermont, with its stately Cathedral crowning the summit. Immediately
beyond is the Puy de Dôme and, stretching far away and up to the snow
tops, circles the chain of mountains. Over all a brilliant sun sends
glittering showers of light, and, though this is central France, Mt.
Blanc can be seen on a clear day resting cloud-like on the horizon.
The auto has ceased its puffing and we have been very silent for a
long time gazing on that scene, and breathing the delicious perfume of
spring arising from the valley, and the balsam of the pines from the
woods around.
It is Sunday and all the world up here is either asleep or gone to
church. The little village of half a dozen houses, which clusters
around this rock, gives no evidences of life. There is not even the
bark of a dog, and the walls of the castle dominated by the great
keep rise in silent majesty, while some white clouds drift by far up
in a blue sky. The peace is intense and I regret to break in upon it,
but there is the castle to be examined and I jangle an ancient bell
at the great gateway, jangle and jangle, but no answer comes, until
finally the bark of an old dog inside replies to my summons. He comes
to the inside and barks again, plainly intimating that he is alone.
It is Sunday and he was asleep and he wishes we would go away; _he_
cannot open the gate, any one should have sense enough to see that.
The custodian, evidently a woman from the flowers in that window, must
have gone to church and locked him in, but did she carry the key to
that great lock? I doubt it and settle the question by lifting a smooth
stone near the arch. Underneath are the keys and Jean and I are shortly
on the other side of the great gateway with all the world, save the
old dog, locked out. How charming! No one to bother one with useless
tales of that of which they understand nothing, and full opportunity to
wander at will over this enchanted place. The old dog returns to his
slumbers before the door of a room where the custodian has evidently
made a home for herself as though to tell us that there at least
we must not enter. As for the rest, we may do as we desire. To his
decision we pay due respect and leave him to his slumbers.
The court of honour was once a splendid inclosure and its door-frames
and windows still hold masses of fine carvings. On the far side, the
donjon keep, a vast circular structure, rises more than one hundred
feet above us. Mounting a flight of broken stairs, one comes to the
ancient chapel, where the old custodian has erected an altar for
herself and adorned it with some flowers and a picture of our Lady.
These walls still show traces of painting and we find like traces in
many of the rooms as we gaze up into them through the places where the
floor used to be. The heavily carved chimney-places still retain their
positions, tier above tier; that in the great hall with its pent-house
roof could hold an ox. Reaching the battlements, we pass thence to the
donjon, and find in its top two prisons, secure enough for the Iron
Mask. In the floor of the lower one is an oubliette, through which,
dropping a lighted paper, we watch it float downward until it rests
far below, quite at the base of the tower one hundred feet beneath us.
Those who went that way in the old days never returned to describe
their experiences. This great tower holds nothing save those two
donjons on top and that awful empty space downward; black as midnight,
having no loopholes for any gleam of sunlight, though probably it
mattered not.
On descending by the outer wall we discover an opening leading into
the base of that oubliette, and used, I should say, by the lord of the
castle to discover whether life yet remained in his victims after that
drop from the hole glimmering faintly far above us.
There are other dungeons under the castle but nothing like this, which
was the court of last resort, and one can picture the grimly smiling
face of the jailer as he conducted his unsuspecting prisoner upon that
rolling stone above. Even yet the blackness seems to resound with
the shrieks of the poor wretch as he plunged downward, then, silence
forever; while above the flag waved a summons to the Crusades "In the
name of Christ" the compassionate, and the clouds drifted as idly by
then as now. Gomot, in his interesting history of this castle, resents
the generally accepted theory of this oubliette--holding rather that
the tower was a last refuge for the besieged in this castle and this
opening, yawning black before us, but the means of entrance from a
ladder. I think him wrong, for all the vast space below shows no signs
of any rest for a ladder, indeed the walls are smooth as a stone well
for the entire one hundred feet.
It is impossible to fix the date of the foundation of the Château de
Tournoël, but like all old castles it was back in the time when such
places were needed to protect the surrounding land from the barbarians
of the adjoining mountains and used as often as an instrument of
oppression. The name in Latin was Turnolium and has passed through
many changes until to-day it is Tournoël. It is first mentioned in
the eleventh century, but was very ancient at that period. Durand,
Abbé of Chaise-Dieu, preached a crusade at that time. Bertrand was
then Seigneur of the Château and such were his offences against the
Church that Pope Grégoire excommunicated him, which promptly brought
him to time. With Philip Augustus on the throne in 1180 we find him
using Robert, Bishop of Clermont, as a weapon against his (Robert's)
brother Guy, Count of Auvergne, and Lord of Tournoël, perhaps the most
picturesque figure of that age and section, and long celebrated in song
and story by the wandering minstrels.
Audacious, brutal, gigantic in stature, and with long red hair, he
knew no will save his own and reigned here like a king.
His own brother, being betrayed into his hands, was confined in this
donjon frowning above us and that created war in all the province, in
which the Pope and the Church and State were involved. Count Guy did
not fear the anathema of the Church in the least, and locked his Bishop
brother up whenever he could catch him so that the journeys by force
of Robert between his ecclesiastical city of Clermont, glistening in
the sun over there, and this frowning fortress were frequent. War was
forever on between them save when they united in a Crusade, but that
was but a temporary interruption. Guy was finally summoned by the King
to appear before him and answer for his sack of the rich abbeys of
Marsat and Mozat. Refusing, war was declared against him by Church and
King.
Tournoël was considered impregnable with its lofty rampart, deep moat,
and many towers, the whole placed so high upon the mountain that only
the birds, one would think, could reach it. Three times the soldiers of
the King made attacks only to be repulsed. Disease broke out amongst
the royal forces and almost caused the siege to be abandoned. However,
during a sortie by the garrison, the sons of Count Guy were taken
prisoners, which finally caused a surrender of the fortress, and in the
little chapel where the old custodian has her altar to-day were found
all the stolen riches of the convents recently sacked.
Those were gay days in France when knights would rather fight than
eat, and bishops with great pleasure threw aside their copes for the
sword.
Here at Tournoël the castle was confiscated because of the felony of
its lord. It passed to the care of Comte Guy de Dampierre and his
successor restored it to Alphonse, Comte de Poitou, brother of St.
Louis, and it became an appendage of the land of Auvergne. During the
invasion of the English, Tournoël was several times attacked, but
always without success. Later on we find the hands of Louis XI. at
work, as ever, against the power of his nobles; in this case, by giving
a charter to that little town of Volvic yonder and exciting it to
rebellion against its high lords in Tournoël.
As the years drift past, the history of the castle is painted also with
the faces of many women, some good, mostly dissolute. During the reign
of Francis I. it was repaired and restored by the Maréchal de St. André
who had married its young _chatelaine_. Nothing was spared to make the
work monumental and durable, yet the castle has been a ruin now for
more than a hundred years.
We spend a long time upon the tower and still there is no sign of life;
no angry summons on the old bell from an astonished custodian, until
one wonders whether there ever was any one save the old dog, or whether
he alone is the custodian and if so, what shape he assumes on dark
nights when the wind shrieks like lost souls around the Castle walls.
It is warm and sunny to-day and we finally pass downward and out,
locking the dog in and depositing the key where we found it, together
with two francs.
Just outside the gateway I pause to inspect an outer tower--one of the
most curious bits of architecture I have ever seen. It is circular
and formed by square, heavy blocks of lava, closely fitting together.
Each block has carved upon it the half of a ball. There is a well in
the enclosure and evidently this was the water supply for those in the
Castle.
I decide not to get into the auto until Jean has turned it around and
I watch this manoeuvre with much interest and some fear as to results,
for a sudden spurt would mean a fall of fifty feet and destruction all
round. However, he manages it all as easily as I could a baby carriage,
and we are shortly _en route_, skimming down the mountains and out onto
the long white highways of the valley.