beyond there," said the landlord, and pointed to the
tree-tops of the park, above the opposite houses. Newman followed the
first cross-road to the right--it was bordered with mouldy cottages--and
in a few moments saw before him the peaked roofs of the towers.
Advancing farther, he found himself before a vast iron gate, rusty and
closed; here he paused a moment, looking through the bars. The chateau
was near the road; this was at once its merit and its defect; but its
aspect was extremely impressive. Newman learned afterwards, from a
guide-book of the province, that it dated from the time of Henry IV. It
presented to the wide, paved area which preceded it and which was edged
with shabby farm-buildings an immense facade of dark time-stained
brick, flanked by two low wings, each of which terminated in a little
Dutch-looking pavilion capped with a fantastic roof. Two towers rose
behind, and behind the towers was a mass of elms and beeches, now just
faintly green. But the great feature was a wide, green river which
washed the foundations of the chateau. The building rose from an island
in the circling stream, so that this formed a perfect moat spanned by
a two-arched bridge without a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here
and there made a grand, straight sweep; the ugly little cupolas of the
wings, the deep-set windows, the long, steep pinnacles of mossy slate,
all mirrored themselves in the tranquil river. Newman rang at the gate,
and was almost frightened at the tone with which a big rusty bell above
his head replied to him. An old woman came out from the gate-house and
opened the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass, and he went
in, across the dry, bare court and the little cracked white slabs of
the causeway on the moat. At the door of the chateau he waited for some
moments, and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurieres was not
"kept up," and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence.
"It looks," said Newman to himself--and I give the comparison for what
it is worth--"like a Chinese penitentiary." At last the door was opened
by a servant whom he remembered to have seen in the Rue de l'Universite.
The man's dull face brightened as he perceived our hero, for Newman, for
indefinable reasons, enjoyed the confidence of the liveried gentry. The
footman led the way across a great central vestibule, with a pyramid of
plants in tubs in the middle of glass doors all around, to what appeared
to be