Then she took us into a tower where was the _oubliette_. Here the
unfortunate prisoner was made to kneel before an image of the Virgin,
while the treacherous floor, falling beneath him, precipitated him
into a well forty feet deep, where he was left to die of broken limbs
and starvation. Below this well was still another pit, filled with
knives, into which, when they were disposed to a merciful hastening of
the torture, they let him fall. The woman has been herself to the
bottom of the first dungeon, and found there bones of victims. The
second pit is now walled up.
"All this," she said, "was done for the glory of God in the good old
times."
The glory of God! What has not been done in that name! Yet he keeps
silence; patient he watches; the age-long fever of this world, the
delirious night, shall have a morning. Ah, there is an unsounded depth
in that word which says, "He is long-suffering." This it must be at
which angels veil their faces.
On leaving the castle we offered the woman the customary gratuity.
"No;" she would "have the pleasure of showing it to me as a friend."
And she ran into a charming little garden, full of flowers, and
brought me a bouquet of lilies and roses, which I have had in my room
all day.
To-night, after sunset, we rowed to Byron's "little isle," the only
one in the lake. O, the unutterable beauty of these mountains - great,
purple waves, as if they had been dashed up by a mighty tempest,
crested with snow-like foam! this purple sky, and crescent moon, and
the lake gleaming and shimmering, and twinkling stars, while far off
up the sides of a snow-topped mountain a light shines like a star -
some mountaineer's candle, I suppose.
In the dark stillness we rowed again over to Chillon, and paused under
its walls. The frogs were croaking in the moat, and we lay rocking on
the wave, and watching the dusky outlines of the towers and turrets.
Then the spirit of the scene seemed to wrap me round like a cloak.
Back to Geneva again. This lovely place will ever leave its image on
my heart. Mountains embrace it. Strength and beauty are its
habitation. The Saleve is a peculiar looking mountain, striped with
different strata of rock, which have a singular effect in the hazy
distance; so is the Mole, with its dark marked outline, looking
blacker in clear weather, from being set against the snow mountains
beyond.
There is one peculiarity about the outline of Mont Blanc, as seen from
Geneva, which is quite striking. There is in certain positions the
profile of a gigantic head visible, lying with face upturned to the
sky. Mrs. F. was the first to point it out to me, calling it a head of
Napoleon.
