alliance. Berne, however, adhered to it, and, in due course, responded
to the appeal for help by setting an army of seven thousand men in
motion. The route of the seven thousand lay through the canton of Vaud,
then a portion of the Duke's dominions, governed from the Castle of
Chillon. Meeting with no resistance save at Yverdon, they annexed the
territory, placing governors of their own in its various strongholds.
The Governor of Chillon fled, leaving his garrison to surrender; and in
its deepest dungeon was found the famous prisoner of Chillon, François
de Bonivard. From that time forward Geneva was a free republic, owing
allegiance to no higher power.


THE CASTLE OF CHILLON[42]

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Here I am, sitting at my window, overlooking Lake Leman. Castle Chillon,
with its old conical towers, is silently pictured in the still waters.
It has been a day of a thousand. We took a boat, with two oarsmen, and
passed leisurely along the shores, under the cool, drooping branches of
trees, to the castle, which is scarce a stone's throw from the hotel. We
rowed along, close under the walls, to the ancient moat and drawbridge.
There I picked a bunch of blue bells, "les clochettes," which were
hanging their aerial pendants from every crevice--some blue, some
white....

We rowed along, almost touching the castle rock, where the wall ascends
perpendicularly, and the water is said to be a thousand feet deep. We
passed the loopholes that illuminate the dungeon vaults, and an old
arch, now walled up, where prisoners, after having been strangled, were