The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-09-26
Historical Sketch.
THE REAL PRISONER OF
CHILLON.

SSSSSSSSSSs9
TVERY traveller who visits Gen
d. eva, Vevay or Chamouni makes
pilgrimage to the Castle OF Chlllon,
and if familiar with Byron's poem in
dulges in much sentimental obJurga-
ton over the tyranny which consig-
ned the hero of the poem and his i'll
fated brother to the gloomy fortress.
Aside from the fact that Francois
Downward was confined there for six
wears. and marks have been left by
his footsteps as he paced the gloomy
confirmed by his one recorded
"Reminiscences of his four years of dun
geon life, that she had such album
dant leisure for promenading that he
wore in the rock pavement a little
path as neatly as if it had been done
with a stone hammer" whole
poem is, as Byron himself styles it,
"a fable" and the two brothers, the
martyred father, and the anguish of
the prisoner were all the invention of
the poet on rainy day in the tavern
at Auchy, when and where he wrote
the story. Even the level of the dun
peon below the water of the lake
turns out to be mistake, although
Downward believed it was so. The
floor of the crypt is eight feet above
high-water mark. Nevertheless, the
concluding lines in the sonnet pre-
facing the poem are not inconsistent
with the true history of the prisoner;
for as punishment of his heroic de-
Tense of the liberty of Geneva he was
condemned by his bitter enemy, the
Duke of Savoy, to perpetual captivity
in the castle, and only released when
the Bernese with their allies of Gen
eva took the castle by assault.
"Chillon, thy prison is a holy pace.
And thy sad floor an altar; for twas trod
Until his very steps have left trace
Worn as If thy cold pavement were sod
BY Downward May none these marks efface.
For they appeal from tyranny to God"
The accounts in English about
Bonnivard's life have been hereto
fore very meager, though they are
voluminous in French, and Bonni-
yard himself, after his release and re-
turn to Geneva, wrote very full
narrative of himself and his adven-
lures, though surprisingly reticent
about his prison existence.
Leonard Woolsey Bacon, who ap-
pears to have found leisure when at
Geneva to study up considerable
amount of recondite erudition among
the archives there, has unearthed the
whole history of Downward and given
a readable summary of it in a little
volume entitled "Irenics and Polem-
ics," in which he also uncovers the
mealy side of the celebrated st. Fran
els de Sales, strips Garrison of much
OF his reputation as an antislavery
pioneer, and potentially discusses
some interesting Church history. Ac-
cording to his account, Downward,
though a layman, having never taken
monastic VOWS or holy orders, and
wild young fellow at the time, was
by arrangement at Rome invested on
the decease of his uncle, the former
prior. with the spiritual and temporal
authority and emoluments (of no in
considerable amount) of the priory of
st. Victor, rich Benedictine monas-
terry just outside the eastern gate of
Geneva, surrounded with walls and
meats OF its own, independent of the
bishop of Geneva and of the city,
with a cortege of a dozen well-pro-
vided monks.
Here the young prior held gay and
festive court, imbibed and INDUCED
his appetite freely, heard causes,
sentenced to prison, and otherwise
aped royalty and autocracy. He had
come from the university with theor
les Of republican liberty, and st. Vic
tor became an outpost in defense of
the liberties of Geneva and a rendez