Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/243

Rh all the others: large, massive, square, and of a much older date; it is called, to this day, “Wala's Tower.”

It stood solitary in the dreary region, an object of fear and horror, when, one day in the year 830, an armed troop approached the gloomy tower, and placed there a prisoner, with silence and deep mystery. But by degrees, it was whispered through the neighborhood who it was. It was the noble Count of Wala, the friend and general of Charlemagne, one of the chief men of the empire, lately Abbot of Corbie. Charlemagne's weak son, Louis, displeased by the severe censure which the honest Wala passed upon his mode of government, and the evil practices of Judith, his wife, caused him to be taken from his asylum of Corbie, and cast into the tower of Chillon.

“He continued a prisoner there for many years, without receiving any visitor,” says his biographer, Pascase Rudbert, “except the angels, which in every place know how to find their way to the heart of the upright.”

“Wala, like St. Augustine, believed in an eternal word, which continually communicates itself to the human soul; and his faith in God, the inexhaustible fountain of all consolation, preserved him from being cast down.”

One day the doors of the prison were opened to this Rudbertus, the friend of Wala. He conveyed to the captive a message of peace from the emperor. Liberty, favor, and honor, were offered to Wala, if he would recall his severe expressions and confess that he had erred. Wala steadfastly refused. “How,” said he, “would the Supreme Judge regard it, if I should