The Hotel "Dejeuner de Napoleon,"
in the little village of "Bourg Saint Pierre," recalls in its name the
story of both these visits.
In the earliest days a refuge hut was built by the side of the statue
of Jupiter Pen. In the early pilgrimages to Rome this became a place
of some importance. Later on, marauding armies of Goths, Saracens, and
Hungarians, successively passing through, destroyed this refuge. In
the days of Bernard the pass was filled with a horde of brigands,
French, Italians, Saracens, and Jews, who had cast aside all religious
faith of their fathers, and had re-established the worship of the demon
in the temple of Jupiter Pen.
The old manuscripts tell us that in the middle of the tenth century the
demons were in full sway on these mountains; that through the mouth of
the statue of Jupiter the worst of lies and blasphemies were spoken to
those who came to consult it. These worshipers of strange old gods
lived by plunder, and exacted toll of all who came through the pass.
The same conditions existed on the Graian Alps to the southward. On
one of these mountain passes, some fifty miles from Mont Joux, there
lived a rich man named Polycarpe.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133