. Castles and chateaux of old Burgundy and the border provinces. and endeavours to recall for just what itstands. At last it comes to one. Fernay pos-sesses a literary shrine of note that all whopass this way may well remember. The wonderis that one did not recall it with less effort. The whole town is virtually a monument toVoltaire. It was he who built the town, prac-tically; that is, he furnished the land and themeans to erect many of the meaner houseswhich surround the chateau which he came him-self to inhabit, and from which, for a time, therays of his brilliant wit were shed over thewhol
. Castles and chateaux of old Burgundy and the border provinces. and endeavours to recall for just what itstands. At last it comes to one. Fernay pos-sesses a literary shrine of note that all whopass this way may well remember. The wonderis that one did not recall it with less effort. The whole town is virtually a monument toVoltaire. It was he who built the town, prac-tically; that is, he furnished the land and themeans to erect many of the meaner houseswhich surround the chateau which he came him-self to inhabit, and from which, for a time, therays of his brilliant wit were shed over thewhole literary world of the eighteenth century. After his flight from Berlin, Voltaire, theSeigneur de Fernay, founded Fernay, withinsix kilometres of the frontier and Geneva, andsought to attract Swiss watch-makers thitherthat a similar industry might there be estab-lished on French soil. Surely Voltaire wasmore of a benefactor of his race than he isusually considered. The Voltaire manor, or chateau, albeit that itis nothing grandly monumental, still exists with. r% fe. O^ -Si On the Swiss Border 205 furniture and portraits of the time of the satir-ist. At the entrance to the chateau is a tinychapel, built also by Voltaire when he was inthat particular mood. Over its portal it bearsthe following words, Deo Erexit VoltaireMDCCLXI. Arsene Houssaye called thewords an impertinence, and, admitting Vol-taires genius, one is inclined to assent to thedictum. ^ My church, said Voltaire, iserected to God, the only one throughout Chris-tendom; there are thousands to Saint Jean, toSaint Paul and to all the rest of the calendar,but not another in all the world to God. Such a romantically storied region as thismight naturally be expected to abound in his-toric souvenirs and monuments almost withoutend. To an extent this is true, but such sou-venirs and recollections of the past more fre-quently present themselves than do actual cas-tle walls, be they ruined or well-preserved. The antique lore o
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