It has already been said that this ancient and historical building stood
against the bosom of the mountains, at the distance of a short league
behind the town of Vevey. All the elevations of this region are so many
spurs of the same vast pile, and that on which Blonay has now been seated
from the earliest period of the middle ages belongs to that particular
line of rocky ramparts, which separates the Valais from the centre cantons
of the confederation of Switzerland, and which is commonly known as the
range of the Oberland Alps. This line of snow-crowned rocks terminates in
perpendicular precipices on the very margin of the Leman, and forms, on
the side of the lake, a part of that magnificent setting which renders the
south-eastern horn of its crescent so wonderfully beautiful. The upright
natural wall that overhangs Villeneuve and Chillon stretches along the
verge of the water, barely leaving room for a carriage-road, with here
and there a cottage at its base, for the distance of two leagues, when it
diverges from the course of the lake, and, withdrawing inland, it is
finally lost among the minor eminences of Fribourg.
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