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Updated: June 1, 2025
I was much pleased with the scenery of the little lake and valley of Joux, shut out by mountains from the rest of the Canton of Vaud. At Coponex I met two gentlemen, who were indebted to their horse for having escaped being robbed the evening before.
As a general rule, the Swiss of this district cannot walk so fast as their Burgundian or French neighbours, unless it is very much to their interest to do so, and then they can go fast enough. A legend is still preserved in the valleys of Joux and Les Rousses, to the following effect.
The guide-books inform us that the Château of Joux was the place of imprisonment of the unfortunate Toussaint L'Ouverture, and that there he died of neglect and cold; and it was in the same strong fortress that Mirabeau was confined by his father's desire.
He capitulated, and retired to a plantation, which he was not to leave without Leclerc's permission. A feigned conspiracy on the part of the blacks formed a pretence for accusing Toussaint, and he was seized and sent to France. Toussaint was brought to Pains in the beginning of August. He was sent, in the first instance, to the Temple, whence he was removed to the Chateau de Joux.
People came from great distances to be healed by its magic glance, and the mountain on which he dwelt was the mountain of the Columna Jovis. This became changed, in time, to Colonne Joux, the Mountain of the Column of Jove.
Silence settled down on the party within the carriage; for all understood that they drew near the fortress. In silence they wound through the defile, till all egress seemed barred by a lofty crag. The road, however, passed round its base, and disclosed to view a small basin among the mountains, in the midst of which rose the steep which bore the fortress of Joux.
The enemy had never more an entrance into the mountain. When Bernard and his followers reached Mont Joux, they found the mountain filled with fog and storm, but his heart was undaunted. Passing boldly between the guards of the temple, he flung, so the story says, his blessed stole over the neck of the statue of Jupiter.
And the demons of these two heights, the Mountain of Jove and the Column of Jove, sent down their baleful call of defiance to the valley over which Bernard ruled as Archdeacon of Aosta. It came to pass that a troop of ten French travelers crossed over the pass of Mont Joux. In the pass they were attacked by marauders, and one of their number was carried away captive.
Toussaint was hurried off to France, where he died a year later from the hardships to which he was exposed at the fort of Joux among the Juras. Long before the cold of a French winter claimed the life of Toussaint, his antagonist fell a victim to the sweltering heats of the tropics. On November 2nd, 1802, Leclerc succumbed to the unhealthy climate and to his ceaseless anxieties.
Indignant, dismayed, and dumbfounded at such desertion, Charles retired to his castle of La Riviere, between Pontarlier and Joux, and shut himself up there for more than six weeks, without, however, giving up the attempt to collect soldiers. "Howbeit," says Commynes, "he made but little of it; he kept himself quite solitary, and he seemed to do it from sheer obstinacy more than anything else.
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