Castelnau! This ancient name brings to me visions of glorious sunshine
and of clear light shining upon noble heights; it evokes the gentle
melancholy that I felt among its ruins, and recalls to me my dreams
before the dead splendors buried there for so many centuries.
The old ruin of Castelnau was perched on one of the most heavily wooded
mountains in the neighborhood, and its reddish stone turrets and towers
stood out boldly against the sky.
By looking over and beyond the wall surrounding my uncle's garden I
could see the ancient castle. Indeed, it was a conspicuous point in the
landscape, and one immediately saw its rough red stones emerging from
the interlaced trees; one instantly noted the ancient ruin crowning the
mountain all overgrown with the beautiful verdure of chestnut and oak
trees.
Upon the day of my arrival I had caught a glimpse of it, and I was
attracted by this old eagle's nest which must have been a superb place
of refuge during the stormy middle ages. It was a common custom in my
uncle's family to go up there two or three times a month to dine and
pass the afternoon with the proprietor, an old clergyman, who lived in a
comfortable house built against one side of the ruin.
For me those days were like a revel in fairy land.
We started very early in the morning so that we should be beyond the
plains before the hottest period of the day. When we arrived at the
foot of the mountain we were refreshed by the cool shade of the forest,
enveloped in its mantle of beautiful green. As we went up and up, by
zig-zag paths, afoot, and in single file, under lofty arching oaks and
intertwined foliage our line of march resembled a huge serpent. I was
reminded of Gustave Dore's engravings of mediaeval pilgrims making their
way to isolated abbeys perched on mountain heights. Tiny springs oozed
out here and there and trickled across the red earth; between the trees
we had momentary glimpses of beautiful and extensive vistas. At last we
reached the summit, and after passing through the very quaint village
that had perched on this height for many centuries, we rang the bell
at the priest's tiny door. The castle overhung his miniature garden and
house; both were built under the shadow of the crumbling walls and the
sinking, almost tottering, red stone towers. A great peace seemed to
emanate from those aerie ruins, and a deep silence reigned there.
The dinners given by the old priest, to which several of the
notabilities of the neighborhood were invited, always lasted very long.
The ten or fifteen courses had an accompaniment of the ripest fruits and
the choicest wines of that country so excelling in exquisite vintages.
For several hours we remained at the table afflicted by the August or
September midday heat, and I, the only child in the company, became very
restless; I was disturbed by the thought of the crushing nearness of the
castle, and after the second course I would ask to be permitted to leave
the table. An old serving-woman used always to go with me and open the
outer door in the wall of the feudal ramparts of Castelnau; then she
confided the keys of the stately ruin to me, and I plunged alone, with
a delicious feeling of fear, into the familiar path, and passed through
the gate of the drawbridge superposed on the ramparts.
There I might remain for an hour or two sure of not being disturbed; I
was at liberty to wander about in that labyrinth, and I was master in
the majestic but sad domain. Oh! the sweet memory of the reveries that
I have had there! . . . First I would make a tour about the terraces
overhanging the forest lying below; a panorama infinitely beautiful
unrolled itself to my sight; rivers winding here and there in the
distance looked like streams of silver; and, aided by the clear and
limpid summer atmosphere, I could see almost as far as the neighboring
provinces. A great calm pervaded this sequestered corner of France;
no line of railway penetrated it; and in consequence, it led a life
entirely apart from the big world, a life such as it had known in the
good old time.
After visiting the terraces I would go into the ruined interior, into
the courts, up the stairways and through the empty galleries. I climbed
to the old towers and put to flight flocks of pigeons, and disturbed the
sleep of bats and owls. On the first floor there was a suite of spacious
rooms, still roofed over, and very dark because of the shuttered
windows. I penetrated into these chambers, and I felt an almost
delicious terror when I heard my footsteps echoing through the
sepulchral stillness of the place. Then I would pass in review before
the strange Gothic paintings and the half-effaced frescoes that still
retained traces of gilt ornamentation; the fabled monsters and garlands
of impossible flowers had been added at the time of the Renaissance.
This magnificent, pictured past, fantastic and barbarous to the point
of being terrible, seemed to me, at that time, very vague and dim and
distant; I could not realize that it had been lighted up by the same
midday sunshine that warmed the red stones of the ruins about me. And
now that I am better able to estimate Castelnau, when I recall it to my
memory, after having seen most of the splendors of this earth, I still
think the enchanted castle of my childhood, as it stands upon its
glorious height, one of the most superb ruins of mediaeval France.
In one of the towers there was a room whose ceiling was painted a royal
blue over-strewn with exquisite gold tracery and blazonry. In no place
have I realized feudalism so well as in that tower. There alone, in the
silence as of a city of the dead, I would lean out of the little window
cut in the thick wall and contemplate the green verdure lying below me,
and I tried to imagine that I saw coming along the paths, given over to
the flight of birds, a cavalcade of soldiers, or a procession of noble
knights and ladies. . . . And, for me, reared in a level country, one
of the greatest charms of the place was the view I had of blue distances
visible from every loophole and crevice, every gap and opening in the
rooms and towers of Castelnau, for then I realized its extraordinary
height.