A Silence of Stone: Giovanni Fieschi at the Castle of Saint-Germain

 Those were hard times, and neither side was made of “saints”. Iblet de Challant had a reputation as a hard and pragmatic man, not “courteous” to enemies. Giovanni Fieschi was not an innocent victim.

Winter gnawed at the stones of Saint-Germain Castle, and the iron wind howled through the ruined chambers like the voices of the dead.
Here, in these crumbling walls perched above the valley of Aosta, Giovanni Fieschi, bishop, nobleman, and rebel, found himself not just imprisoned, but quietly erased.

The rebellion of Biella had shattered in his hands.
Dragged from his own castle and handed over to Iblet de Challant, captain of Savoy’s will, Fieschi entered Saint-Germain not as a man, but as a trophy

No chains were clinking in the corridors.
The prison was more subtle.
Behind the battered gates, inside the broken houses within the castle walls, Fieschi was allowed to walk, to see the gray light of day — but never alone.
Soldiers' eyes tracked his every movement, silent as vultures waiting for death.
He spoke to no one who would listen.
He prayed in chapels abandoned by hope.

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