THE FORT DE L'ECLUSE.
LOOKING from Geneva towards the south-west, a wide gap, so well defined and clearly cut as to seem the work of men's hands, is seen in the line of the Jura. On one side of this gap, scooped out untold ages ago by the great glacier which filled up the entire basin of the Leman, and stretched as far south as Lyons, rises Mont Vache ; on the other, the Grand Credo (called also Mont Jura). Between them, deep down in a rocky clift, rushes " the arrowy Rhone." The high road and the railroad from Geneva to Lyons skirt the right bank of the stream ; but, while the former zigzags up the hill, the latter plunges underground, and does not emerge into the light of day until it approaches Bellegarde, the French junction and frontier station. Hence, travellers by rail—and nobody, now-a-days, save an occasional pedestrian, thinks of entering Switzerland by road—see hardly anything of a country both highly picturesque and rich in historic associations, and catch only a passing glance of the famous fortress which commands the pass and guards the border. Viewed from a distance, the Fort de l'Ecluse, with its towers and turrets rising one above the other, its aerial gal- leries, lofty bridges, and crescent-shaped loopholes, resembles the fantastic abode of some hero of " The Arabian Nights," or the castle of some genie, who keeps watch and ward over the captive daughter of a mighty Sultan. It springs from the side of Mont Jura like a fully-armed giant, with- out whose leave none may pass ; for the road runs through the very heart of the fortress, and whenever it pleases the Com- mandant to raise the drawbridges, close the gates, and point his guns, communication between Switzerland, the Pays de Gex, Lyons, and the South of France is effectually barred. It was by the Ecluse (from gclaver, to lock), known to the Romans as the Sequania, that the Helvetian emigrants, when forbidden by Julius Caesar to cross the Rhine into Gaul, made their way south. Bat as they numbered 368,000, of whom 92,000 were warriors, and there was only a single Roman Legion at Geneva, it was impossible to meet them in the field, or dispute the pas- sage of the river. So Caesar, gi order to gain time, ordered a wall to be built, "a Lacn Lemano ad Montem Juram, qui fines Sequanorum ab Helvetiis dividet." This wall, according to the "Commentaries," 19,000 paces long, 16 ft. high, and faced by a ditch, was erected in nineteen days. Not a trace of it now exists, and its direction and the possibility of constructing so extensive a work in so short a time were long a subject of discussion among antiquarians. But M. Gonreau, a former captain of engineers at Fort de l'Ecluse, has conclusively demonstrated that an earthwork (and it almost certainly was an earth- work) of the dimensions in question might easily he made in nineteen days by a force of 4,000 men ; and as Cmsar could requisition all the able-bodied Allobroges of tho neighbour- hood, he had probably even a larger force at his disposal. As for its direction, M. Depery, the Bishop of Gap, has shown by a critical examination of the text of the "Commentaries," that Cansar's description could apply only to a wall extending from Geneva to the Ecluse, a conclusion which is confirmed by the fact that the distance between these points, following the wind- ings of the river (26,600 metres), corresponds exactly with the length assigned to the wall, 9,000 Roman paces. The Helvetians did not venture to attack so formidable an obstacle, and took the only road open to them, by the Sequania ; but the defile was so narrow, that but oge chariot could traverse it at a time, and more than fifty days were consumed in the passage. Caesar meanwhile crossed the Alps into Italy, whence returning, at the head of five legions, he followed on the traces of the Helvetians, and defeated them in a great battle on the Saone.
After the departure of the Helvetians, Caesar established in the country which they had left almost a desert a colony, under the name Goiania Julia Equestrie, which occupied the territory known in a later age as the Pays de Gex, between the foot of the Jura and the shores of the Leman, and from the Ecluse to Nyon. The place names in this district are still, with few exceptions, Latin, slightly Gallicised. Crassus has become Grassier ; Flacons, Flaxieu ; Severianns, Sevriat ; Romans, Romans ; and Ca3sariacum, Ceyzeriat. Among the few that still retain their original appellations are Geneva, Gex, and Leman. As " Leman " in the Celtic tongue signifies "The Water " or "The Lake," the Romans, in calling it "Lams Lemanus," committed a pleonasm, as we do in denominating it " Lake Leman." The true name of the sheet of water generally known as the Lake of Geneva is, therefore, " Leman," or, at most, " The Leman." A survival even more remarkable than that of Celtic place names is the practice of personifying the winds. No mountaineer of the Jara, no fisherman on the Lake, ever speaks of a north, a south, or a west wind. The north wind, which brings fine weather and a low temperature, is the Bise ; the north-east wind, which is generally accompanied by a clear sky and a serene atmosphere, is the Sechard ; the east wind, which blows from the side of the Mole, a high mountain of the Faucigny, is the Molan. The Vandeire, or Bornan, comes from the south-east; the Vent is the south wind par excellence (known in German Switzerland as the Foehn); it dries the land, burns the crops, blackens the seeds, and melts the snow. The Cluse (so called, probably, from the pass of that name), which blows from the south-west, is the invariable fore- runner of rain; the west wind is the Bourguignon ; and the worst wind of all, as a bode of bad weather, is the Joran, or north-west wind.
Considering the great strategical importance of the Ecluse, it is extraordinary that until early in the fourteenth century the Pass was never permanently fortified. It is, perhaps, still more extra- ordinary that the fort, either as a feudal castle or a modern for- tress, has rarely been able successfully to resist an attack. No strong place in Europe has been oftener captured and recaptured. The first tower of L'Ecluse, a square, massively-constructed structure, in mediaeval style, is supposed to have been built about the year 1305 by the Seigneurs of Geneva and Gex, from whom Edward of Savoy took it in 1325, after a nine days' siege. Eleven years thereafter it fell into the hands of the Bernese, who, as allies of Francis I. of France, in his war with the Duke of Savoy, over-ran all the region between the Jura and the Leman. The Bernese remained the masters of L'Ecluse until 1564, when it was given up to Savoy by the Treaty of Lausanne. On April 21st, 1590, during another war, it was captured by the Protestants of Geneva, only to be retaken ten days later by Amadeus, Bastard of Savoy. In 1600 the fort surrendered to Marshal de Biron, and its possession, as well as that of the Pays de Gex, was assured to France by the Treaty of Lyon. From 1600, to the beginning of the present century, peace pre- vailed in the land of Gex, and the fort, during that period, ex- perienced no further vicissitudes. But in 1814 and 1815 it became a centre of military operations, and was three times taken and retaken. On January 3rd of the former year it sur- rendered to the Austrian General Bubna. In the March follow- ing, assailed by a French force, under General Bardet, who ren- dered the place untenable by rolling stones from the mountain into the interior of the fort, it fell again into the hands of the French, and an Austrian column of 3,000 men, despatched in all haste from Geneva, failed to recapture it. In July, 1815, the Aus- trians attacked the fort a second time, and after a desperate con- test, in the course of which one of the towers took fire and many of the defenders were burnt alive, it surrendered. The Com- mandant, a devoted Bonapartist, with several of his officers; escaped by the mountain, and the Austrians retained the fort until the termination of the war. Since its final restoration to the French, the Ecluse has been rebuilt on the most approved scientific principles. The height from which General Bardet pounded the Austrians with pieces of rock is now crowned with a strong work, connected with the fort by a covered way, cut in the solid rock. Several of the batteries are also hewn in the rock, as is a great water cistern for the service of the garrison. Altogether, the place has now a most Gibraltar-like aspect, and to the unmilitary eye seems able to sustain a siege of indefinite duration. The picturesque and conspicuous belvedere which overtops the towers and batteries, commands splendid views of Savoy, Geneva, the plain of Gex, the Waadtland Alps, the mountains of the Chablais, and the chain of Mont Blanc.
The easiest way of seeing the Fort de ltcluse and the picturesque and interesting country between Mont Vache and Mont Jura, is to leave the train from Geneva to Bellegarde at the station of Collonges, the first French village after crossing the frontier, and walk through the pass to Bellegarde, a dis- tance of some six or seven miles. From Bellegarde you may return to Geneva, or proceed in the direction of Paris or Lyons. The road, after skirting the gorge of the Rhone, passes right through the fort, and a little beyond it a footpath leads by meadows and vineyards directly to the Perte du Rhone (where the river in winter disappears underground), close to Bellegarde. The country hereabouts is well cultivated, and the peasantry are comparatively well off. Their condition is decidedly superior
to that of the peasantry on the left bank of the Rhone, between whom and the population of the Pays de Gex there is as much difference as between the Vaudois and the Valaisians. Savoy is one of the most backward districts of France, and it is as unfair to adduce the poverty of Savoyard cultivators as evidence of the failure of peasant-proprietorship, as it would be to adduce the poverty of the tenants of Connaught as proof of the failure of English landlordism. Savoy has belonged to France only since 1860, and while it was under the rule of its hereditary Princes, the province, if not actually misgoverned, was unquestionably very much neglected, and its laws were favourable neither to the development of industry, nor the advancement of agriculture. On this point, the testimony is conclusive and overwhelming. During the last few years the present writer has made many walks and excursions in Savoy, and often as he has put the ques- tion—and he has put it to all sorts and conditions of men—as to which rule they prefer, he has never received any other answer than that they infinitely prefer the rule of France. This preference is not based on any sentimental considerations, but solely on the ground that in twenty years the French have done more, by making roads and railways and in various other ways, to pro- mote the prosperity of the province, than the House of Savoy did in a century, and that the Code Napoleon is a far better code to live under than the judicial system which prevailed before the annexation. It is as true now as ever it was that France knows better than any other country the secret of assimilating alien populations.
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