It is not necessary to enter into particular details of the journey I
now entered upon and completed during the ensuing week. My destination
was a remote and mountainous corner of the Biscayan coast, situated a
little more than three days' distance from Paris. I went alone, knowing
that this was imperative, and arrived without any untoward adventure,
scarcely fatigued though I had travelled by night as well as by day. It
was only at the end of my journey that I found myself confronted by any
difficulty, and then I had to realise that though the 'Chateau
d'Aselzion,' as it was called, was perfectly well known to the
inhabitants of the surrounding district, no one seemed inclined to show
me the nearest way there or even to let me have the accommodation of a
vehicle to take me up the steep ascent which led to it. The Chateau
itself could be seen from all parts of the village, especially from the
seashore, over which it hung like a toppling crown of the fortress-like
rock on which it was erected.
"It is a monastery,"--said a man of whom I asked the way, speaking in a
curious kind of guttural patois, half French and half Spanish--"No
woman goes there."