THE immediate environs of the Lac du Bourget, the Lac d’Annecy and the French shores of Lac Leman,—more popularly known to the world of tourism as the Lake of Geneva—offer a succession of picturesque sights and scenes, presented always with a historic accompaniment that few who have come within the spell of their charms will ever forget.

It is not that these Savoyan lakes are more beautiful than any others; it is not that they are grander; nor is it that they are particularly “unspoiled,” considering them from a certain point of view, for in the season they are very much visited by the French themselves and loved accordingly. The charm which makes them so attractive lies in the blend of the historic past with the modernity of the twentieth century. The mÉlange is less offensive here than in most other places, and their contrasting of the old and the new, the historic and the romantic, with the modern ways and means of travel and accessibility, gives this mountain lakeland an unusual appeal.

On almost every side are the modern appointments of great hotels; there are “good roads” everywhere for the automobilist, and the main lines of railway crossing France to Italy give an accessibility and comfortable manner of approach which is not excelled by the region of the Swiss and Italian lakes themselves.

Annecy, the metropolis of these parts, has an old chateau that is much better conserved than that of ChambÉry so far as the presentation of it as a whole is concerned. It is more nearly a perfect unit, and less of a conglomerate restoration than the former.

The Chateau d’Annecy was the ancient residence of the Comtes de Genevois, but in 1401 the seigniory passed to the house of Savoy. Robert de Geneve, known to ecclesiastical history as Pope Clement VII, the first of the Avignon Popes, was born here in 1342.

The military history of the Chateau d’Annecy is intimately bound up with that of the town because of the fact that as a matter of protection the first settlement grouped itself confidingly around the walls which sheltered the seigneurial presence. Populace and the guardians of the chateau together were thus enabled to throw off the troops which turned back on Annecy after the defeat at Conflans in 1537, but no resistance whatever was made to Henri IV and his followers, who entered without a blow being dealt, and “found the inhabitants agreeable and warm of welcome.” This was perhaps a matter of mood; it might not have so happened the day before or the day after, but their cordiality was certainly to the credit of all concerned from a humane point of view, whatever devotees of the war-game may think.

In 1630 Comte Louis de Sales commanded the chateau when the MarÉchal de Chatillon marched against it. The besieged made a stiff fight and only capitulated after being able to make such terms as practically turned defeat into victory. On the morrow the Comte de Sales escorted his troops to the Chateau de Conflans, “with all the honours of war.”

After a brilliant career of centuries the ancient residence of the Comtes de Genevois, and the Princes de Savoie-Nemours who came after, has become a barracks for a battalion of Chasseurs Alpins. Fortunately for the Æsthetic proprieties, it has lost nothing of its seigneurial aspect of old as have so many of its contemporaries when put to a similar use.

Really, Annecy’s chateau, its well lined walls, its ramparts and towers, and above all, its situation, close to the water’s edge, where the ensemble of its fabric mingles so well with artistically disposed foreground, has an appeal possessed by but few structures of its class.

If one would see the town and lake of Annecy at their best they should be viewed of a September afternoon, when the oblique rays of the autumn sun first begin to gild the heavy square towers of the ancient chateau of the Ducs de Nemours. Behind rise the roofs and spires of the town set off with the reddish golden leaves of the chestnuts of La Puya. All is a blend of the warm colouring of the southland with the sterner, more angular outlines of the north. The contrasting effect is to be remarked. To the left, regarding the town from the water’s edge, or better yet from a boat upon the lake, rises the Villa de la Tour, where died Eugene Sue; and farther away the Grange du Hameau de Chavoires, where lingered for a time Jean Jacques Rousseau. All around, through the chestnut woods, are scattered glistening villas and manoirs and granges, with, away off in the distance, the towering walls of the feudal Chateau de Saint Bernard.

Another marvellous silhouette to be had from the bosom of the lake is midway along the western shore, where the ramparts of Tournette and the crenelated walls of the Dents du Lanfont and Charbonne are, after midday, lighted up as with yellow fire. The brown and yellow roof and faÇade of an old Benedictine convent, now become a hotel, rise above the verdure of the foreshore, and the whole is as tranquil as if the twentieth century were yet to be born.

On the opposite shore of the lake is the Chateau de Duingt, with its white towers piercing the sky in quite the idyllic manner.

The Chateau de Duingt is a pretentious country residence belonging to the Genevois family which in the seventeenth century gave a bishop to the neighbourhood, a bishop, it is true, who was excommunicated and shorn of all his rights by the Comte de Savoie, AmadÉe V, but a bishop nevertheless.

The environs of the Lac d’Annecy have ever been a retreat for litterateurs and artist folk. Ernest Renan lodged here in the hÔtellerie of the famous Abbey, where he occupied a chambre de prieur. JosÉ-Maria HÉredia came here in company with Taine; Ferdinand Fabre passed many months here in an isolated little house on the very shores of the lake; Albert Besnard, the painter, has recently built a studio here, and a quaint and altogether charming villa; Paul Chabas, too, has resorted hither recently for the same purpose, and indeed scores have found out this accessible but tranquil little corner of Savoy. Another Parisian, a Monsieur Noblemaire, has acquired the picturesque Savoyard Manoir de Thoron, built sometime during the seventeenth century, and lives indeed the life of a noble under the old rÉgime amid the very same luxuriant and agreeable surroundings.

Faverges, at the lower end of the Lac d’Annecy, backed up by the sombre ForÊt de Doussard, and in plain view of the snowy top of Mont Blanc off to the eastward, is at once a ville industrielle and a reminiscent old feudal town. Its interest is the more entrancing because of the contrasting elements which go to make up its architectural aspect and the life of its present day inhabitants. A mediÆval chateau elbows a modern silk factory, and the idle gossip of the workers as they take their little walks abroad on the little Place blends strangely enough with the amorous escapades of Henri IV which still live in local legend.

On the road from Faverges to Thone, by the switch-back mountain road, following the valley of the Fier, is the Manoir de la Tour, where on a fine mid-summer morning in 1730 Jean Jacques Rousseau climbed a cherry tree and bombarded the coquettish Mademoiselle Graffeny and Mademoiselle Galley with the rich, ripe—not overripe—fruit. We know this because Jean Jacques himself said so, and for that reason this little human note makes a pilgrimage hither the pleasurable occupation that it is. The fine old manor is still intact. But the cherry tree? No one knows. May be it was a mythical cherry tree like that of the George Washington legend. In spite of this the guardian will show visitors many cherry trees, and one may take his choice.

Lac Leman is commonly thought a Swiss lake, as is Mont Blanc usually referred to as a Swiss mountain—which it isn’t. A good third of the shore line of Lac Leman is French—“Leman FranÇais,” it is called.

Practically the whole southern, or French, shore of the Lake of Geneva—or Lake Leman, as we had best think of it since it is thus known to European geographers—is replete with a fascinating appeal which the Swiss shore entirely lacks. It is difficult to explain this, but it is a fact.

The region literally bristles with old castle walls and donjons, though their histories have not in every instance been preserved, nor have they always been so momentous as to have impressed themselves vividly in the minds of the general reader or the conventional traveller. Perhaps they are all the more charming for that. The writer thinks they are.

Mont Blanc dominates the entire region on the east, and may be considered the good genius of Savoy and Upper Dauphiny, as it is of French-speaking Switzerland and the high Alpine valleys of Italy.

The French shore of Lac Leman, the DÉpartement of Haute-Savoie, is cut off from Geneva by the neutral Pays de Gex, and from Switzerland on the east by the torrent of the Morge, just beyond Saint Gingolph. For fifty-two kilometres stretches this French shore, or the “CÔte de la Savoie” as the Swiss call it, and its whole extent is as romantic and fair a land as it is possible to conceive.

One may come from Geneva by boat; that indeed is the ideal way to make one’s entrance to Haute Savoie, unless one rolls in over the superb roads comfortably ensconced on the soft cushions of a luxurious automobile, a procedure which is commonly thought to be unromantic, but which, it is the belief of the writer, is the only way of knowing well the highways and byways of a beloved land, always excepting, of course, the ideal method of walking. Not many will undertake the latter, least of all the stranger tourist, who, perforce, is hurried on his way by insistent conditions over which he really has but little control. Walking tours have been made with pleasure and profit in Switzerland before now; the suggestion is made that the thing be attempted on the “CÔte de la Savoie” sometime and see what happens.

One should leave the Geneva boat at Hermance, the last Swiss station on the west. After that, one is on French soil. Touges is a simple landing place, but rising high above the greenswarded banks are the donjon and imposing gables of the Chateau de Beauregard belonging to the Marquis Leon Costa. It is in a perfect state of conservation. It was here that was born, in 1752, Marquis Joseph Costa, a celebrated historian, whose fame rests principally on a work entitled “Comment l’Education des Femmes Peut-elle Rendre les Hommes Meilleurs?” This is considered an all-absorbing question even to-day.

At Nernier is a charming souvenir of Lamartine. It was here he lodged in 1815, in a humble thatched cottage—one of the few in France, one fancies, as they are seldom seen—at a franc a day, “la table et le couvert compris.” There are some artists and literary folk living cheaply in France to-day, but the pension is not nearly as bon marchÉ as that.

A little farther on, beyond the green hillside of Boisy, is the tiny Savoyan city of Yvoire, with a great square mass of an old chateau, now moss-grown and more or less crumbled with age.

Near-by are Excevenex, Sciez and the magnificently environed Chateau de CoudrÉe, surrounded by a leafy park, a veritable royal domain in aspect.

Back a few kilometres from the shore of the lake is Douvaine, about midway between Geneva and Thonon. Here is the ancient Chateau de Troches, on the very limits of the ComtÉ de Genevois, to the seigneurs of which house it formerly belonged. It served many times as the meeting place of the Princes of Savoy, and has been frequently cited in the historical chronicles.

In 1682 Victor AmadÉe II made Troches and Douvaine a barony in favour of FranÇois Marie Antoine Passerat, whose family were originally of Lucca in Italy. The descendants of the same family have held the property until very recent times, perhaps hold it to-day.

Throughout this region of the Chablais, as it is known, on towards Thonon, and beyond, are numerous well preserved chateaux (chateaux debout the French appropriately call them in distinction to the ruined chateaux which abound in even greater numbers), and others, here and there arising a crumbled wall or tower above the dense foliage of the hillsides round about. Certain of these old manors and chateaux of the Genevois, the Chablais and Faucigny have, in recent years, after centuries of comparative ruin, taken on new life as country houses and “villas” of commoners—as sad a fall for a proud chateau as to become a barracks or a poorhouse if the transformations have not been undertaken in good taste. Still others remain at least as undefiled memories of the chateaux orgueilleux of other days. A remodelled, restored chateau of the middle ages may be sympathetic and appealing, but the work must be well done and all art nouveau instincts suppressed.

There are other examples which have been allowed to tumble to actual ruin, mere heaps of stones without form or outline, and others, like Allinges, La Rochette, De la Roche and Faucigny, possessing only a crumbling tower perched upon a height which dominates the valley and the plain below and tell only the story of their former greatness by suggestion. Chiefly however these can be classed as nothing more pretentious than ruins.

Thonon-les-Bains, midway along the extent of the French shore, is renowned as a “ville d’eau.” In all ways it quite rivals many of the Swiss stations on the opposite shore. It sits high on a sheaf of rock, the first buttresses of the Alps, and enjoys a wide-spread view extending to the other shore, and beyond to the Swiss Jura and the Bernese Oberland.

A dainty esplanade shaded with lindens is the chief thoroughfare and centre of life of this attractive little lakeside resort. Here once stood an old chateau of the Ducs de Savoie. The court frequently repaired thither because of the purity of the air and the altogether delightful surroundings. It was one of the later line of dukes who exploited the mineral springs which have given Thonon its latter-day renown.

Back of Thonon rises a curiously disposed table-land known as the Colline des Allinges. It alternates bare rock with a heather-like vegetation in a colouring as wonderful as any artist’s palette could conceive. The ruins of two fortress-chateaux crown the height of the plateau, one coming down from a period of great antiquity, whilst the other is of more recent date, with a well preserved portal and a drawbridge. Within the precincts of this latter are still to be seen the ruins of a chapel rich in memories of Saint FranÇois-de-Sales, who spent a considerable part of his apostleship here in the Chablais. To-day, the old chateau and its chapel are a place of pious pilgrimage, but with the piety left out it is the chief and most popular excursion for mere sight-seers coming out from Thonon. This mere fact does not, however, detract from its historic, religious and romantic significance, so let no one omit it for that reason.

The Chateau de Ripaille, beyond Thonon towards Évian, is a grander shrine by far. It was the retreat of a Duc de Savoie who was finally withdrawn from his hiding place that he might be crowned with the papal tiara. The incident is historically authenticated, and the very substantial remains of the old chateau to-day—monumental even—make it one of the most interesting shrines of its class in all France.

The Chateau de Ripaille was originally built by AmadÉe VIII as a rendez-vous de chasse. “Near the Couvent des Augustins he built himself a chateau of seven rooms and seven towers, after the death of his wife, Marie de Bourgogne, in 1434,” say the chronicles.

CHATEAU DE RIPAILLE