Discovering the Beauty and Beast of Lake Geneva

CHILLON, Switzerland —  Surveying Castle Chillon, an exquisite jewel that seems to float on placid Lake Geneva, Lord Byron may well have exclaimed, “It’s a marvelous place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”

Byron’s companions in that weird, wonderful summer of 1816 were his incredibly handsome but slightly loony bisexual physician, John Polidori; his dark Gypsy of a mistress, Claire Clairemont; Claire’s fey, fanciful stepsister, the brilliant Mary Godwin, and Mary’s lover, poet Percy Shelley.

As are visitors today, they were aware of the grisly past of those ancient walls and battlements, had heard tales of the countless souls who’d been confined, tortured and executed there. Byron particularly was intrigued by the story of Francois Bonivard, who had been incarcerated in the vast, vaulted dungeon for four years.

They stood at the stone column where Bonivard had been chained and looked at the footprints that had been worn into the cold stone floor by his pacing.

As tourists do today, they must have meditated upon the fate of the unfortunate man whose only crime was support of the Reformation. But possibly Mary and Claire wondered--as did I--why the poet chose to focus on the fate of this man who was ultimately freed rather than upon the hundreds of women condemned as witches and burned to death in the castle courtyard.

Dark Fascination

Today the epic poem that resulted from Byron’s dark fascination draws hundreds of tourists who visit the castle each day, some driving the scenic highway that winds between lake and mountains, others by train or cruise boat. Castle Chillon, Switzerland’s most popular historic monument, owes its notoriety largely to “The Prisoner of Chillon.”

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould

In Chillon’s dungeon deep and bold.

They do indeed exist. Byron, a not untypical tourist, carved his name on one of them. Today visitors stop to look at the pillars along with other reminders of the past. The gibbet, for instance, still preserved; or cabalistic inscriptions on the walls intended as a warning to evil spirits.

Set against the stark white peaks of the Savoy mountains, Chillon looks like an enchanted castle, an illustration from a fairy-tale book. Sleeping Beauty might easily slumber there, lulled by the soft lapping of the waves outside.

But there’s nothing languid about the history of the place. The rock on which the castle stands was occupied by men of the Bronze Age and later by the Romans. It has been a fortress for more than a thousand years, witness to every sort of human drama.

Ghostly Witness

The grim parapets bear ghostly witness to far greater dramas than Byron ventured to portray. Besides Bonivard’s prison there are subterranean chambers into which the condemned were lowered by ropes with no communication possible with prisoners in crypts on either side.

Upstairs, one may walk among the tapestry-draped halls and lofty towers. On a sunny day it’s easy to imagine the lake outside rippling with the splash of many oars, to catch the echo of bantering knights and ladies, the scent of roasting meat and rich sauces. The glitter of armor, the rustle of silks seem only a shadow away.

Chillon must have been a delightful place to visit if one didn’t happen to be accused of witchcraft. But when the skies grow cloudy, the visitor’s thoughts are likely to return to those unfortunate women. How often the waves dashed vainly in screaming foam against the stout walls of the dungeon, drowning the despairing shrieks of tortured captives?

Today it’s reassuring to hear the sound of a nearby train, a pleasant reminder that those days have passed beyond recall. It wouldn’t have been much fun to inhabit the castle a few hundred years ago if one were unlucky enough to have a mole or even a blemish.

The lords of Chillon were a zealous bunch intent on stamping out those uppity women unpopularly known as witches. When it was feared that some were escaping because the telltale blemishes (marks of Satan) went undetected in the dark dungeon, the examinations were moved upstairs to a well-lighted chamber overlooking the lake.

Scorch Marks

A pulley, which still exists, was installed between two painted beams in the ceiling, exactly facing the window. The lower part of a neighboring post still shows the scorch marks made by the executioners conducting preliminary trials with heated irons.

The summer of Byron’s visit was a strange one marked by violent storms and an atmosphere of gloom. People were warned to stay indoors and seers predicted the end of the world.

The excursion to Chillon was a welcome change but a brief one. As the persistent rain beat against the windowpanes of their retreat, Byron and his companions competed with one another to see who could write the best horror story.

Shelley wrote “Fragment of a Ghost Story.” Byron’s poetic fragment, “The Vampyre,” was developed by Polidori into a novel and then forgotten. But the 18-year-old Mary Godwin (later Shelley) wrote the prototype of all monster stories, the forerunner of science fiction and science fact, a fearsome tale that remains in print nearly 170 years later. She created “Frankenstein” and his monster.