Passing under the massive arch, I found myself in the castle court. Three sides of the edifice were still standing, darkened, indeed, and distained by the winds and rains of centuries, but with an air of modern comfort and neatness about the doors and windows that seemed more in keeping than the moat and towers with the habits of the present day. The other curtain had been thrown down years before,--how or why nobody could tell me, but not improbably in some of the domestic wars which fill and defile the annals of mediaeval Europe. In those days the loss of it must have been a serious one; but for the modern occupant it was a real gain,--letting in the air and sunlight, and opening a pleasant view of green plantations from every window of the court.
A servant met me at the main entrance, a broad stairway directly opposite the gate, and, taking my card, led me up to a spacious hall, where he asked me to wait while he went to announce my arrival to the General. The hall was a large oblong room, plainly, but neatly furnished, with a piano at one end, its tessellated oaken floor highly polished, and communicating by folding-doors with an inner room, in which I caught a glimpse of a bright wood-fire, and a portrait of Bailly over the mantel. On the wall, to the left of the folding-doors, was suspended an American flag with its blue field of stars and its red and white stripes looking down upon me in a way that made my American veins tingle.
But I had barely time to look around me before I heard a heavy step on the stairs, and the next moment the General entered. This time he gave me a French greeting, pressing me in his arms and kissing me on both cheeks. "We were expecting you," said he, "and you are in good season for dinner. Let me show you your room."
If I had had my choice of all the rooms in the castle, I should have chosen the very one that had been assigned me. It was on the first--not the ground--floor, at the end of a long vaulted gallery and in a tower. There was a deep alcove from the bed,--a window looking down upon the calm waters of the moat, and giving glimpses, through the trees, of fields and woods beyond,--a fireplace with a cheerful fire, which had evidently been kindled the moment my arrival was known,--the tessellated floor with its waxen gloss,--and the usual furniture of a French bed-room, a good table and comfortable chairs. A sugar-bowl filled with sparkling beet sugar, and a decanter of fresh water, on the mantel-piece, would have shown me, if there had been nothing else to show it, that I was in France. The General looked round the room to make sure that all was comfortably arranged for me, and then renewing his welcome, and telling me that the castle-bell would ring for dinner in about half an hour, left me to take possession of my quarters and change my dress.