Le château de Chillon

Image courtesy of www.chillon.ch

The castle of Chillon, a 13th-century castle on the shore of Lake Geneva, situated only 3km south of Montreux, is one of the best preserved medieval castles in Europe.

The castle is easily accessible to visitors either on foot (it's about a 45-minute walk from Montreux on the shoreline of Lake Geneva) or by bus from either Vevey or Montreux. But the best way to get there is by boat, for seen from the lake, the first glimpses of the castle are guaranteed to be quite unforgettable: a massive and yet elegant turreted castle that seems to be floating on the lake, framed by trees and craggy cliffs.

The scenery around the castle is certainly very impressive but the key to its history lies in its strategic location. The Romans were the first to open a narrow road between the mountains and the lake, and to set an outpost there to control the traffic and collect road taxes. The Chillon road together with the Grand-St-Bernard pass would later be known as la route d'Italie (the road to Italy), for a long time the only road through the mountains to connect northern and southern Europe.

The castle itself is built on a huge rock that stands right on the edge of the water and its proximity to the mountains that tower just behind it gave its occupants total control of the road. Whoever controlled the castle could exact tolls on the road, sitting quietly in an almost unassailable position. Exactly when the castle was constructed remains unknown but the first recorded mention of it as a stronghold dates from the 11th century.

From the middle of the 12th century onwards Chillon was under the control of the Counts of Savoy who regarded it as their favourite summer residence. Thanks to its strategic position and the tolls collected there the place quickly became an important base for the House of Savoy. The architects of Pierre de Savoy (1203-1268) gave the castle its present form and the Camera Domini, the chapel, the halls, and the inner courtyards of the castle all date from that period. But the defining feature of the architecture of Chillon is its two faces: on the side facing the road the castle resembles a real fortress with three towers whereas from the far shore the homeland of the Counts of Savoy, the side facing the lake on the side facing the lake, and on the other shore it looks like a tranquil princely residence, as attackers were very unlikely to come over the water.

The castle became the Savoyard's military headquarters as they gradually extended their influence north and it was for some time both the centre of courtly life and a formidable prison. In the middle of the 14th century when an epidemic of plague broke out in the region many Jews, accused of poisoning the water supply, were tortured in the dungeons of the castle.

The increasing use of the Gotthard Pass, more to the east, transferred much of the traffic away from la route d'Italie which caused the slow decline of the castle as a military fortress. The Savoyard nevertheless kept the place as a secure jail where they imprisoned their opponents. The most famous of all the 'residents' of the prisons of Chillon is undoubtedly François Bonivard, a Genevois monk and politician who was jailed there from 1532 to 1536 for inciting the people of Geneva to rebel against Savoy. Bonivard was chained to a pillar during the four years of his captivity and his pacing up and down the area to which his chain restricted him left an imprint on the stone floors of the dungeon. Bonivard's story caught Lord Byron's imagination when, together with Shelley, he visited the place in the summer of 1816. Bonivard thus became the hero of Byron's famous poem "The Prisoner of Chillon", written in the Hôtel d'Angleterre in Lausanne while the bad weather forced the two young men to remain indoors. The poet also left a trace

and visitors to the castle can still see Byron's name etched on the third pillar of the dungeon. Together with Byron, other poets and writers, among whom Rousseau, Hugo and Dumas, have contributed to establish the castle as a romantic landmark.

From 1536 to 1798 Chillon was the property of the Bernese invaders and traces of this occupation can still be seen in the form of numerous bears (the symbol of Berne) painted in many rooms of the castle. The castle belongs to the canton of Vaud only since its independence in 1798.

The "Association du Château de Chillon" was founded in 1887 and since then it has constantly been working on the preservation of the castle. Over the past 100 years the castle has been extensively restored and works on the site seem never to finish. But in spite of these ongoing works the magic atmosphere and unique setting of Chillon attract every years thousands of visitors from all over the world.