Maison-Forte, or Castle des Anbiez, stood upon the seashore. In the time
of storm, the waves beat upon the terrace or rampart which stood out
from the shore to protect the entrance into the port of La Ciotat, where
were anchored a few fishing-boats, and the pleasure tartan of Raimond
V., Baron des Anbiez.
The aspect of the castle presented nothing remarkable. Built in the
middle of the fifteenth century, its architecture, or rather its
construction, was massive. Two towers with pointed roof flanked the main
body of the dwelling exposed to the south, and commanding a view of the
sea. Its thick walls, built of sandstone and granite, were of reddish
gray colour, and were irregularly cut by a few windows, which resembled
loopholes for cannon.
The only framed windows of a gallery, which ran across the entire length
of the castle, on the first floor, were large and bowed.
Three of them opened upon a balcony ornamented with a beautiful grating
of hammered iron, in the middle of which was carved the baron’s coat of
arms. The same coat of arms showed upon the entablature of the principal
door.
A short flight of steps descended to the terrace.
The necessities of civil and religious war, at the end of the last
century, and the constant fear of pirates, had altered this terrace into
an armed and embattled rampart, parallel with the façade of the castle,
and joined to the foot of the turrets by two sides of a right angle.
A few old orange-trees with shining leaves testified to the ancient
character of this esplanade, once a smiling flower garden, but two
sentry-boxes for scouts, a few enclosures for cannon-balls, eight pieces
of ordnance, two of which were mounted, and a long, turning culverin
showed that Maison-Forte of the Baron des Anbiez was in a good state of
defence.
The position of this castle was the more important as the little bay
it commanded, as well as the Gulf of La Ciotat, offered the only place
where vessels could anchor; the rest of the coast presenting a line of
unapproachable rocks.
The façade of the Castle des Anbiez which looked north, and the
surrounding land, were very picturesque.
Irregular buildings, added to the principal edifice according to the
different requirements of successive proprietors, broke the monotony of
its lines.
The stables, dog-kennels, sheepfolds, commons, and lodgings for
labourers and farmers, formed the enclosure of an immense court, planted
with two rows of sycamores. This court was reached by a drawbridge over
a wide and deep ditch.
Every evening this bridge was removed, and a heavy door of oak, strongly
supported on the inside, put the little colony in safely for the night.
Every window of these buildings opened upon the court, with the
exception of a few dormer windows, solidly protected by iron grating,
which looked out upon the plain.
Maison-Forte counted about two hundred persons among its
dependents,--servants, farmers, labourers, and shepherds.
Among them were sixty men of from thirty to fifty years, accustomed to
the use of arms during the civil wars in which the impetuous baron had
taken part. Royalist and Catholic, Raimond V. had always mounted his
horse when it was necessary to defend the ancient rights and possessions
of Provence against governors or their deputies, for the kings of France
were not kings of Provence, but counts.
The intendants of justice or presidents of courts, whose office it
was to collect the taxes, and to announce to the assembled states the
assessment of voluntary gifts which Provence owed to the sovereign,
were almost always the first victims of these revolts against royal
authority, made with the cry of “Long live the king!”
Under such circumstances Raimond V. was among the first to rebel. In the
last rebellion of Cascaveoux,--so named from the word _cascavoeu_, the
Provençal for little bell, which the insurgents fastened to the end of
a leather strap, and rang as they cried, “Long live the king,”--none
sounded the battle-cry, and shook his bell more violently, or made his
dependents shake this signal of revolt, with more enthusiastic ardour
than Raimond V.
In that, the baron showed himself the worthy son of his father, Raimond
IV., one of the gentlemen most seriously compromised in the rebellion of
the Razats, which name originated from the fact that the Provençals had
been as spoiled of their possessions as if a razor had been employed.
This rebellion broke out under Henry III., in 1578, and was suppressed
with great difficulty by Marshal de Retz.
The baron looked with great impatience upon the growth of the power
of Cardinal Richelieu, at the expense of the royal authority, and the
disappearance of the sovereign beneath the shadow of the prime minister.
Similar movements of resistance manifested themselves in Languedoc and
in Provence, in favour of Gaston of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII.,
whom the royalist faction opposed to the cardinal.
There is no doubt that the baron would never have taken an active part
in these intrigues, but for the apprehension caused by the pirates along
the coast, but, compelled to concentrate his forces in order to defend
his house and estate, he declaimed violently against the cardinal,
especially since the latter had given the government of Provence to the
Marshal of Vitry.
These important functions had, up to that time, been filled by the
Duke of Guise, admiral of the Levant, who, to the great delight of the
Provençals, after many obstacles, had replaced the Duke d’Epernon.
“The young lion has devoured the old bear,” said Cæsar of
Nostradamus on this subject at the celebration of the nomination of the
young Lorraine prince for this important post.
When the Marshal of Vitry was promoted to the position of Governor of
Provence, the nobility gave vent to their indignation, because a member
of the house of Lorraine was not considered worthy of this dignity,
usually reserved for a prince of the blood.
When Louis Gallucio, marquis, was Duke of Vitry, it was remarked that
the Cardinal de Retz, without otherwise blaming him for having been one
of the murderers of the Marshal of Ancre, said simply of him: “He had
little sense, but he was bold to temerity, and the part he had in the
murder of the Marshal of Ancre gave him, in the eyes of the world, a
certain air of business and execution.” This speech gives us an idea
of the times and manners.
The Baron des Anbiez, notwithstanding his fondness for independence and
rebellion, was the best and most generous of men.
Adored by the peasants of his domain, and revered by the inhabitants of
the little town of La Ciotat, who always found him ready to direct their
troops and aid them with all his power to defend themselves from the
pirates, he exercised a powerful influence throughout the neighbourhood.
Finally, his vigorous opposition to several orders of the Marshal of
Vitry, which seemed to him to aim a blow at the rights of Provence, had
been highly and generally approved in the country.
When Stephanette returned to Maison-Forte, the sun was just setting. The
first care of the young girl was to go to Mlle. Reine des Anbiez. Reine
was accustomed to occupy a chamber situated on the first floor of one of
the turrets of the castle.
This room was round in shape, serving her as a cabinet for study, and
was furnished with great care and expense.
The baron, loving his daughter to idolatry, had devoted to the interior
arrangement of this room a considerable sum. The circular walls were
covered with rich Flemish tapestry of deep green, with designs of a
darker shade, enwrought with threads of gold.
Among other pieces of furniture was a walnut bookcase, curiously carved
in the style of the renaissance, and encrusted with Florentine mosaic.
A rich, thick Turkey carpet covered the floor. The spaces separating the
beams of the ceiling were of azure blue, studded with arabesques of gold
of delicate workmanship.
A silver lamp was suspended from the main girder by a chain of silver.
The form of these lamps, still used in some villages of Provence, was
very simple. They were made of a square of metal, the edges of which,
an inch in height, contained the oil, and formed a sort of beak at each
angle from which issued the wicks.
On a table with curved legs placed in the embrasure of the window lay a
lute, a theorbo, and some pieces of unfinished tapestry.
Two portraits, one of a woman, the other of a man, in the costume of the
reign of Henry III., were placed above this table, and lit up by oblique
rays through little windows in leaden frames, which were set in the long
and narrow casement.
To supply the want of a chimney a large copper coal-pan, curiously
carved, and supported by four massive claws, stood in a corner of the
room. It contained a bed of ashes and some embers, upon which were
smoking some sprigs of fragrant broom.
Reine des Anbiez wore a dress of heavy brown Tours silk, with a train,
and tight waist and sleeves; her cheeks were flushed, and her features
expressed not surprise only but fright.
She seized her waiting-woman by the hand, and conducted her to the
table, and said to her:
“Look!”
The object to which she called the attention of Stephanette was a little
vase of rock crystal.
From its long and slender neck issued an orange-coloured lily, with
an azure blue calyx, in which stood pistils of silvery whiteness. This
brilliant flower exhaled a delicious odour which resembled the mingled
perfume of vanilla, lemon, and jessamine.
“Oh, mademoiselle, what a beautiful flower! Is it a present from the
Chevalier de Berrol?”
At the mention of her betrothed’s name, Reine turned pale and red by
turns; then, without replying to Stephanette, she took up the vase with
a sort of fear, and showed her a beautifully enamelled figure which
she had discovered there, and the representation of a white dove with a
rose-coloured beak, and extended wings, holding in its purplish bronze
feet a branch of olive.
“Our Lady!” screamed Stephanette in fright. “It is the very
picture of the enamelled pin that young miscreant robbed you of in the
rocks of Ollioules, after he had saved monseigneur’s life.”
“But who brought this vase and flower here?” asked Reine.
“You do not know, mademoiselle?”
Reine turned pale and made a sign in the affirmative. “Holy Virgin,
this must be sorcery!” cried Stephanette, setting the vase back on the
table as if it had burned her hand.
Reine could scarcely control her emotion, but said to her:
“A little while ago, when I went out to see my father mount his horse,
I promenaded until nightfall in the great walk by the drawbridge, and
when I returned I found this flower on this table. My first thought,
like yours, was that Chevalier de Berrol had sent it or brought it,
although such a flower in this season would be a miracle; I asked if the
chevalier had arrived at Maison-Forte, and was told he had not; besides,
I had the key of this apartment with me.”
“Then, mademoiselle, it must be magic.”
“I do not know what to think. In examining the vase more attentively,
I see the enamelled likeness of the pin that--”
Reine could not say more.
Her face and form betrayed the violent emotion which the memory of that
strange day caused her, the day when the foreigner had dared approach
his lips to hers.
“We must consult the chaplain or the watchman, mademoiselle,”
exclaimed Stephanette.
“No, no, be silent. Do not noise abroad this mystery which frightens
me in spite of myself. Let us examine this apartment well; perhaps we
may discover something.”
“But this flower, this vase, mademoiselle!”
As a reply, Reine threw the flower in the coal-pan.
It almost seemed that the poor flower turned itself in pain upon the
burning coals; the light hissing produced by the water which oozed out
from the stem, seemed like plaintive cries.
Soon it was in ashes.
Then Reine opened the window which looked upon the esplanade, and threw
out the crystal flagon. It broke with a noise upon the parapet, and its
fragments fell into the sea.
At this moment sounded heavy steps, and click of spurs upon the
flagstones of the staircase. The hoarse voice of Raimond V. called
joyously to his daughter to come and see--that demon of a Mistraon!
“Not a word of this to my father,” said Reine to Stephanette,
putting her finger on her lips.
And she descended to meet the good old gentleman.