Chillon Castle

The castle of Chillon is on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Veytaux (commune located between Villeneuve and Montreux) in Switzerland. Oblong, the castle is 110 meters long and 50 meters wide, the dungeon is 25 meters high. It is an important tourist attraction. Successively occupied by the house of Savoy then by the Bernese from 1536 until 1798, it now belongs to the State of Vaud and is classified as a historical monument. The fort of Chillon, its modern counterpart, is hidden in the steep side of the mountain.

History

The castle of Chillon is built on the island of Chillon, an oval limestone rock advancing in Lake Geneva between Montreux and Villeneuve with a steep side on one side and on the other side the lake and its steep bottom. The placement of the castle is strategic: it closes the passage between the Vaud Riviera (access to the north towards Germany and France) and the plain of the Rhone which allows quick access to Italy. Moreover, the place offers an excellent point of view on the Savoyard coast facing. A garrison could thus control (both militarily and commercially) access to the road to Italy and apply a toll. According to the Swiss ethnologist Albert Samuel Gatschet, the name Chillon comes from Waldensian dialect and would mean "flat stone, slab, platform". Castrum Quilonis (1195) would therefore mean "castle built on a chillon," that is to say on a rock platform2.

The first construction dates back to around the 10th century, although it is likely that it was already a privileged military site before that date. Objects dating back to Roman times were discovered during excavations in the 19th century, as well as remains from the Bronze Age. From a double wooden palisade, the Romans would have fortified the site before a square dungeon was added in the 10th century. Sources from the 13th century link the possession of the Chillon site to the Bishop of Sion.

A charter of 1150, where Count Humbert III grants the Cistercians of Hautcrêt free passage to Chillon, attests to the domination of the House of Savoy on Chillon. We learn that the owner of the castle is a certain Gaucher de Blonay. But this lord of Blonay is much more a vassal of the count than one of his officers. It is a seigniorial domination of the Savoy within the framework of a feudal society and not an administrative domination.

Restoration

At the end of the 19th century, structures were set up for a scientific restoration of the monument. This systematic undertaking, a true laboratory where an ethic of monumental restoration is developed, was considered quite exemplary. It was boasted in particular by Johann Rudolf Rahn in a lecture given in 1898 to the Zurich Antiquity Society7, and the German Emperor himself, William II, inquired about the Chillon model in view of the reconstruction of the fortress of Haut-Koenigsbourg8.

This result is due to the conjunction of several factors:

the emergence of particularly competent personalities;
the creation of the Association for the restoration of Chillon;
the appointment of a Technical Commission to guide the work;
the adoption by the State of Vaud of the 1898 law on historic monuments.

For the first time, with such rigor, we apply to the castle not the methods of a random re-creation, as was so often the case, but those of archeology and history.

The intervention of pioneering personalities in the protection of monuments is decisive. In particular: Johann Rudolf Rahn, one of the main protagonists at the origin of the Swiss Society of Historical Monuments in 1880, and Henry de Geymüller, international specialist of the monumental restoration, closely associated with the rehabilitation of buildings such as the Romanesque church of Saint-Sulpice, the Saint-François church in Lausanne, and the cathedral of Lausanne. In addition, Ernest Burnat, who was also very involved in Lausanne Cathedral, was initially named architect of this restoration and was replaced by Albert Naef, who played a major role in the development of archeology in the canton of Vaud and devoted twenty years of his life to the study of Chillon9.

The Association for the restoration of the castle of Chillon was constituted in 188710. From the outset, it aimed for an "artistic" restoration with the intention of "giving back to objects the character with which they were clothed, almost a latent life, a life impression of the ideas of their time "11. It is also planned to create a historical museum at the castle12.

A technical commission, ratified in 1889, was composed of renowned art historians and architects, specialized in the monumental restoration: Johann Rudolf Rahn, Théodore Fivel, architect in Chambéry and great connoisseur of Savoyard castrale architecture, Léo Chatelain, restorer of the Collegiate Church of Neuchâtel, Henry de Geymüller, theoretician of the restoration and specialist of the Renaissance architecture, finally Henri Assinare, architect of the State. Their first meeting took place on October 27, 1890 and from then on these specialists, for many years, closely supervised the work. Geymüller, in particular, relying on principles already published in 1865 (and augmented in 1888) by the Royal Institute of British Architects13, set a framework by writing a memoir entitled Milestones for the Restoration Program and Fundamental Principles on which it was to be based (printed in Lausanne in 1896) 9.

The Waldensian law of 1898 [the first of its kind in Switzerland] was drafted by Albert Naef. In particular, it planned to establish a cantonal commission for historic monuments and to create a cantonal archeologist's post. Naef, of course, was appointed to this function and was responsible for putting in place a real protection of historical monuments14.

The systematic investigation of the castle was begun by Ernest Burnat, who initiated a general survey of the fortress, then continued and intensified by Albert Naef. The latter not only joined the Technical Commission at the death of Fivel in 1895, but replaced Burnat himself as architect-archaeologist in charge of the work. In his approach, aesthetics always remained subordinate to scientific ethics. Indeed, the cry of the heart of Rahn 1888, which writes about Chillon: "Do not touch," guided the archaeologist in the sense of extreme caution in the process. The restoration had to be based on as much knowledge of the monument as possible and the investigation was methodical. It took into account the achievements of history through extensive research in the archives, it carried out archaeological excavations and detailed records, if necessary even to casts. The castle was literally laid bare, the whole process being conscientiously documented by plans, sketches and photographs, as well as by a minute newspaper that Naef kept from day to day. During the restoration, the affected parties were duly indicated as such, by an inscription on the cut stone (R = Restored, RFS = Restoration facsimile, RL = Free Restoration), or by a change of color, or even a line red, on the masonry. This rule was truly respected until 1908, then was forgotten.

Tourism

Since the end of the 18th century, the castle has attracted romantic writers. From Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Victor Hugo via Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert and Lord Byron, the castle has inspired poets from around the world. Hugo says "Chillon is a block of towers on a block of rocks." Some restorations, inspired by the romantic vision of aesthetics, were at the expense of historical veracity. In 1900, the architect Albert Naef continued the restoration work to reach the current state of the building. He remade the interior and the tapestries of certain rooms such as the great room of the bailiff, also called the "great Bernese cuisine."

By 1939, the castle was hosting over 100,000 visitors a year. The proximity to the popular city of Montreux has not been unrelated to this craze. Success continues to grow over the years and the monument now has more than 300,000 visits per year. Thanks to the restorations, the castle is in excellent condition and gives a good model of the feudal architecture.

The castle has twice hosted the Compagnie du Graal theater company based in Thonon-les-Bains, to play a sound and light adaptation of King Lear by Shakespeare in 2009 and in 2012 an epic fresco inspired by Ancient Greece : Hyperion.

Art

A mechanical automaton representing the Chillon Castle, one meter long, 67 cm wide and 42 cm high, 1/100 scale, made of zinc, steel and brass, equipped with a music box with the handwritten original sheet music by the Genevan composer E. Perrin, restores the capture of the castle and the liberation of François Bonivard by the Bernese in 1536. Dating from 1890 and made during a period of five years by the watchmaker Edouard- GabrielWuthrich, the automaton maneuvers a hundred figurines, including many small soldiers. Barred windows also show the interior of the castle, including scenes of torture in prisons. After having disappeared for decades and being found in various homes, the automaton was eventually acquired by the Association of Friends of Chillon, the Cantonal Museum of Archeology and History (MCAH) and the Castle Foundation, for 59,000 Swiss francs, at an auction held in Paris in March 201618,19,20.

Having been inspired by the story of François Bonivard after a visit to the castle, Lord Byron wrote a poem on The Prisoner of Chillon in 1816.

Gustave Courbet painted the castle several times during his Swiss exile not far from there, in La Tour-de-Peilz. The most famous representation is "The Castle of Chillon," oil on canvas painted in 1874 and currently located at the Courbet Museum in Ornans21. The painter E. Lapierre (19th-20th century) also made an oil painting of the castle on canvas in 189622.

In his novel "Daisy Miller" of 1878, Henry James stages Chillon Castle as a place of visit for his heroine and his young American compatriot Winterbourne. What was the prison of François Bonivard thus takes, from the beginning of the news, a symbolic and premonitory meaning of the destiny of Daisy Miller who thinks he can escape the shackles of social conventions.