19S                 THE WISCON



        " Whose many waters meet and to w
        A thousand feet in depth below."
 Having compassed the castle walls, I return to
 that portion which fronts the lake, fasten my
 boat to the rocks which lie underneath the nar-
 row window of the cell of heroic Bonnivard,
 and gather a few of the flowers which are
 growing so beautifully thereon. Roses, blue-
 bells and the Roman ivy-how came they here?
 Are they not the fruit of tears-the blossom-
 breath of Bonnivard ?  If not, they might
 have been, for every true life lived for the good
 of man is a plant whose beautiful blossoms
 shall have endless succession on earth, with
 perennial fruit in heaven.
   Bonnivard. whose confinement here made
the history of this castle immortal, was born
in 1496. In 151( he received from his uncle
the priory of St. Victor, adjacent to Geneva,
of which city he thenceforth became an ardent
supporter, fearing no danger, forgetting his
own ease, despising riehes, and laboring with
all the zeal of a patriot and the intrepidity of
a hero to insure its independence as a free re-
public.
  While yet but a youth he boldly declared
himself a defender of his adopted city against
the Duke of Savoy, and in 1519 became a mar-
tyr to his principles, being driven from the
city by an armed force in command of the
Duke, betrayed into the hands of his enemies,
and sent to Grolee, where he was held a pris-
oner two years.
  In 1531 Bonnivard was again seized and con-
fined within these very walls, whose grateful
shadow protects and refreshes me this morn-
ing. For long and weary years, chained, un-
qqestioned and uncheered, he breathed the
dungeon damps nor saw the face of nature,
until at length
       A kind of change came in his fate,
       His keepers grew compassionate,"
ind broke his fetters, so that he might tread
the chambers of his cell and clamber up the
wall to where the few dear rays of golden light
had been wont to straggle in upon his night. t
      "I made a looting in the wall,
      It was not therefrom to escape,
      For I had buried one and all         t
      Who loved me in a human shape;
      And the whole earth would henceforth be  t.



SIN FARMER.


       A wider prison unto me.
       No child-no sire-no kin had I,
       No partner in my misery;
       I thought of this and I was glad,
       For thought of them had m  de me mad;
       But I was anxious to ascend
       To my barr'd window and to bend
       Once more upon the mountains high,
       The quiet of a loving eye."
  At length Geneva triumphed and Bonnivard
was free.



        *^It might be months, or years, or days,
        I kept no count-I took no aote,
   I had no hope my eyes to raise,
         And clear them Of their dreary mote;
       At last men came to set me free
         I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where,
       It was at length the sane to me,
       Fettered or fetterless to be,
         I learned to love despair."
  As an evidence of their gratitude for his ef-
forts and sacrifices on their behalf, the citizens
of Geneva received him as a citizen, gave to
him the house formerly occupied by the Vicar
General, settled upon him an annual pension
of 200 crowns of gold, and the following year
admitted him to the Council of the Two Hun-
dred. The remainder of his useful and event-
ful life was devoted to a history of Geneva
from the time of the Romans down to 1510,
and to the writing of various other historical
and theological works, most of which are still
in manuscript in the Bibliotheque Publique, of
which he was the founder. In 1570 Bonnivard
died, lamented by the literati of the day and
by all lovers of the Republic.
  Such is the story of Bonnivard, as told me
by the Genevans. Would that the life of every
noble man who consecrates himself to Liberty
might have as peaceful and beautiful an end.
And yet peacefulness is not necessary to the
heroic soul.  The final triumph of the cause
for wvhich he strives and suffers is, to him, of
infinitely more worth than the peace and ap-
plause of the present.  It is such souls that
win immortality and the right to heaven.
But the morning passes; lit me return and
enter within the castle wall. I have entered,
and stand
      "On Chillon's snow-white battlements."
)n my left, as I look southward, are the en-
rances of the Rhone between Villeneuve and
he Alpine heights of Meillerie overshadowing
he little villages Boveret and St Gingo, and
he railroad to Geneva, for which there is



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