e had
some sort of stronghold there; and it is reasonably supposed that
Romans, Franks, and Burgundians had each fortified the rock. Count Wala,
cousin of Charlemagne, and grandson of Charles Martel, was a prisoner in
its dungeon in 830 for uttering some words too true for an age
unaccustomed to the perpetual veracity of our newspapers. Count Wala,
who was also an abbot, had the misfortune to speak of Judith of Bavaria
as "the adulterous woman," and when her husband, Louis le Debonair, came
back to the throne after the conspiracy of his sons, the lady naturally
wanted Wala killed; but Louis compromised by throwing him into the rock
of Chillon. This is what Wala's friends say: others say that he was one
of the conspirators against Louis. At any rate, he was the first great
captive of Chillon, which was a political prison as long as political
prisoners were needed in Switzerland. That is now a good while ago.

[Illustration: _The Castle of Chillon_]

Chillon fell to the princes of the house of Savoy in 1033, and Count
Peter, whom they nicknamed Little Charlemagne for his prowess and his
conquests, built the present castle, after which the barons of the Pays
de Vaud and the Duke of Cophingen (whoever he may have been) besieged
Peter in it. Perhaps they might have taken him. But the wine was so
good, and the pretty girls of the country were so fond of dancing! They
forgot themselves in these delights. All at once Little Charlemagne was
upon them. He leaves his force at Chillon, and goes by night to spy out
the enemy at Villeneuve, returning at dawn to his people. He came back
very gayly; when they saw him so joyous, "What news?" they asked. "Fine
and good," he answers; "for, by God's help, if you will behave
yourselves well, the enemy is ours." To which they cried with one voice,
"Seigneur, you have but to command." They fell upon the barons and the
duke, and killed a gratifying number of their followers, carrying the
rest back to Chillon, where Peter "used them not as prisoners, but
feasted them honorably. Much was the spoil and great the booty."

Afterwards Peter lost the castle, and in retaking it he launched fifty
thousand shafts and arrows against it. "The castle was not then an
isolated point of rock as we now see it, but formed part of a group of
defences."

VIII

Two or three centuries later--how quickly all those stupid, cruel, weary
years pass under the pen!--the spirit of liberty and protestantism began
t