sides by a moat,
or rather by deep, wide ditches always full of water, is built in
cobble-stones buried in cement, the walls being seven feet thick.
Its simplicity recalls the rough and warlike life of feudal days. The
chateau, plain and unadorned, has two large reddish towers at either
end, connected by a long main building with casement windows, the
stone mullions of which, being roughly carved, bear some resemblance to
vine-shoots. The stairway is outside the house, at the middle, in a sort
of pentagonal tower entered through a small arched door. The interior
of the ground-floor together with the rooms on the first storey
were modernized in the time of Louis XIV., and the whole building is
surmounted by an immense roof broken by casement windows with carved
triangular pediments. Before the castle lies a vast green sward the
trees of which had recently been cut down. On either side of the
entrance bridge are two small dwellings where the gardeners live,
connected across the road by a paltry iron railing without character,
evidently modern. To right and left of the lawn, which is divided in
two by a paved road-way, are the stables, cow-sheds, barns, wood-house,
bakery, poultry-yard, and the offices, placed in what were doubtless
the remains of two wings of the old building similar to those that were
still standing. The two large towers, with their pepper-pot roofs which
had not been rased, and the belfry of the middle tower, gave an air of
distinction to the village. The church, also very old, showed near by
its pointed steeple, which harmonized well with the solid masses of the
castle. The moon brought out in full relief the various roofs and towers
on which it played and sparkled.

Michu gazed at this baronial structure in a manner that upset all his
wife's ideas about him; his face, now calm, wore a look of hope and also
a sort of pride. His eyes scanned the horizon with a glance of defiance;
he listened for sounds in the air. It was now nine o'clock; the moon
was beginning to cast its light upon the margin of the forest and to
illumine the little bluff on which they stood. The position struck him
as dangerous and he left it, fearful of being seen. But no suspicious
noise troubled the peace of the beautiful valley encircled on this side
by the forest of Nodesme. Marthe, exhausted and trembling, was awaiting
some explanation of their hurried ride. What was she engaged in? Was she
to aid in a good deed or an evil one