Lord Byron's set made it famous
and it's still a sight to see.
Surveying Castle Chillon, an exquisite jewel that seems to float on the placid surface of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron may well have exclaimed, "It's a marvelous place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."
Byron's companions in that weird, wonderful summer of 1816 were his incredibly handsome but slightly loony bisexual physician, Dr. John Polidori; his dark gypsy of a mistress, Claire Claremont; Claire's fey, fanciful stepsister, the brilliant Mary Godwin; and Mary's lover, the poet, Percy Shelley.
They were aware of the grisly past of those ancient walls and battlements, had heard tales of the countless souls who'd been confined, tortured and executed there. Byron particularly was intrigued by the story of Francois Bonivcard, who had been incarcerated in the vast, vaulted dungeon for four years.
They stood at the stone column where the prisoner had been chained and looked at the footprints that had been worn into the cold stone floor by his pacing feet. As tourists do today, they must have meditated upon the fate of this unfortunate man whose only crime was support of the Reformation. But possibly Mary and Claire wondered-as did I-why the poet chose to focus on the fate of this man who was ultimately freed rather than upon the hundreds of women condemned as witches and burned to death in the castle courtyard.
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