I did not find Aigle and Blonay enough to satisfy my appetite for
castles, and once, after several times passing a certain _château meublé
à louer_ in the levels of the Rhone Valley, I made bold to go in and ask
to look at it. I loved it for the certain Louis XV. grandiosity there
was about it; for the great clock in the stable wall; for the balcony
frescos on the front of the garden-house, and for the arched driveway to
the court. It seemed to me a wonderfully good thing of its kind, and I
liked Napoleon's having lodged in it when his troops occupied
Villeneuve. It had, of course, once belonged to a rich family, but it
had long passed out of their hands into those of the sort of farmer-folk
who now own it, and let it when they can. It had stood several years
empty, for the situation is not thought wholesome, and the last tenant
had been an English clergyman, who kept a school in it for baddish boys
whom no one else could manage, and who were supposed to be out of harm's
way there.
I followed a young man whom I saw going into the gateway, and asked him
if I could see the house. He said "Yes," and summoned his mother, a
fierce-looking little dame, in a black Vaudois cap, who came out of a
farm-house near with jingling keys, and made him throw open the whole
house, while she walked me through the sad, forgotten garden, past its
silent fountain, and through its grove of pine to the top of an orchard
wall, where the Dent-du-Midi showed all its snow-capped mass. Within,
the château was very clean and dry; the dining-room was handsomely
panelled, and equipped with a huge porcelain stove; the shelves of the
library were stocked with soberly bound books, and it was tastefully
frescoed; the pretty chambers were in the rococo taste of the fine old
rococo time, with successive scenes of the same history painted over the
fireplaces throughout the suite; the drawing-room was elegant with silk
hangings and carved mirrors; and the noble staircase, whose landing was
honored with the bust of the French king of the château's period, looked
as if that prince had just mounted it. All these splendors, with the
modern comfort of hot and cold water wherever needed, you may have, if
you like, for $500 a year; and none of the castles I saw compared with
this château in richness of finish or furnishing. I am rather particular
to advertise it because a question, painfully debating itself in my mind
throughout my visit, as to the sum I ought to offer the woman was
awkwardly settled by her refusing to take anything, and I feel a
lingering obligation. But, really, I do not see how the reader, if he
likes solitary state, or has "daughters to educate," or baddish boys to
keep out of mischief, or is wearing out a heavy disappointment, or is
suffering under one of those little stains or uneasy consciences such as
people can manage so much better in Europe--I say I do not see how he
could suit himself more perfectly or more cheaply than in that pensively
superb old château, with its aristocratic seclusion, and possibly
malarious, lovely old garden.
[Illustration: _Tour up the Lake_]