One word on the lay of the land about the village of Saint-Philbert.
Without this little topographical preface, which shall be short, like
all our prefaces, it would be difficult for our readers to follow in
detail the scenes we are now about to lay before their eyes.
The village of Saint-Philbert stands at the angle formed by the river
Boulogne as it falls into the lake of Grand-Lieu; the village is on
the left bank of the river. The church and the principal houses are
somewhere about fifteen hundred yards from the lake; the main, in fact
the only street follows the river-bank, and the lower it goes to the
lake, the fewer and poorer the houses; so that when the vast blue
sheet of water, framed in reeds, which forms the terminus of the
street is reached, there is nothing to be seen but a few thatched huts
occupied by men who are employed in the fisheries.
Yet there is, or rather was at the time of which we write, one
exception to this decadence of the lower end of the village street.
About thirty steps away from the huts we have mentioned stood a brick
and stone house, with red roofs and green shutters, surrounded with
hay and straw stacks, like sentinels round a camp, and peopled with a
world of cows, sheep, chickens, ducks,--all either lowing and bleating
in the stables or clucking and gabbling before the door as they
preened themselves in the dust of the road.
The road served as the courtyard of the house, which, if deprived of
that useful resort, could still fall back upon its gardens, which are
simply the most magnificent and productive of all the country round.
From the road the crests of the fruit-trees can be seen above the
farm-buildings, covered in spring-time with the rosy snow of their
blossoms; in summer, with fruits of all kinds; and during nine months
of the year, with verdure. These trees spread in a semi-circle about a
thousand feet southerly, to a little hill crowned with ruins which
looks down upon the waters of the lake of Grand-Lieu.
This house is the inn kept by the mother of Marianne Picaut. These
ruins are those of the château de Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu.
The high walls and gigantic towers of this the most celebrated
baronial castle in the province, built to hold the country in check
and command the waters of the lake, the gloomy arches that once echoed
to the clanking spurs of Comte Gilles de Retz as he trod its paved
floors, meditating on those monstrous debauches which surpassed all
that Rome in its decadence ever invented,--now, dismantled,
dilapidated, swathed in ivy, overgrown with gilliflowers, crumbling on
all sides, have descended, from degradation to degradation, to the
lowest of all; grand, savage, terrible as they once were, they are now
humbly utilitarian; they have been reduced at last to making a living
for a family of peasants, descendants of poor serfs who in former days
regarded them, no doubt, with fear and trembling.
These ruins shelter the gardens from the northwest wind, so fatal to
fertility, and make this little corner of earth a perfect Eldorado,
where all things grow and prosper,--from the native pear to the grape,
the fruiting sorbus to the fig-tree.
But this was not the only service which the old feudal castle did to
its new proprietors. In the lower halls, cooled by currents of
impetuous air, they kept their fruits and garden products, preserving
them in good condition after the ordinary season had passed; thus
doubling their value. And besides this source of profit, the dungeons,
where Gilles de Retz had piled his victims, were now a dairy, the
butter and cheese of which were justly celebrated. This is what time
has done with the Titanic works of the former lords of Saint-Philbert.
One word now on what they once were.
The château de Saint-Philbert consisted originally of a vast
parallelogram enclosed with walls, bathed on one side by the waters of
the lake and protected on the other side by a broad moat hollowed in
the rock. Four square towers flanked the four corners of this enormous
mass of stone; a citadel in the centre, with its portcullis bristling
with spikes, defended the entrance. Opposite to the citadel, on the
other side of the castle, a fifth square tower, taller and more
imposing than the rest, commanded the whole structure, and the lake,
which surrounded it on three sides.
With the exception of this fifth tower and the citadel, or keep, all
the rest of the fortress, walls and main-buildings, had pretty much
crumbled away, and time had not entirely spared the great tower
itself. The rotten beams of the first floor, unable to support the
stones which year by year slid down upon them in greater numbers, had
sunk to the ground-floor, raising it by over a foot, leaving no other
ceiling in the tower than the rafters of the roof.
It was in this lower room that the grandfather of the widow Picaut had
principally kept his fruit, and the walls were lined with shelves on
which the good man spread in winter the various products of his
garden. The doors and windows of this portion of the tower had
remained more or less intact, and at one of these windows could still
be seen an iron bar covered with rust, which undoubtedly dated from
the days of Comte Gilles.
The other towers and the walls of the main building were completely in
ruins; the masses of masonry which had fallen had rolled either into
the courtyard, which they obstructed, or into the lake, which covered
them with its reeds at all times and its foam in stormy weather. The
citadel, about as intact as the great tower, was crowded with an
enormous mass of ivy which took the place of a roof; in it were two
small chambers, which, notwithstanding the colossal appearance of the
structure, were not more than eight or ten feet square, owing to the
enormous thickness of the walls.
The inner courtyard, used in feudal days as the barrack-ground of the
castle's defenders, obstructed by the rubbish which time had heaped
there,--fragments of columns and battlements, broken arches,
dilapidated statues,--was now impassable. A narrow path led to the
great tower; another, less carefully cleared, led to a remaining
vestige of the east tower, where a stone staircase was actually left
standing, by which all persons desirous of enjoying a beautiful view
could, after a series of acrobatic feats, reach the platform of the
main tower by following a gallery which ran along the wall like those
Alpine paths cut on the face of the rock between precipice and
mountain.
It is unnecessary to say that, except during the period of the year
when the fruits were stored there, no one frequented these ruins of
the château de Saint-Philbert. At that period a watchman was stationed
there, who slept in the keep; all the rest of the year the gates of
the tower were locked and the place was abandoned to lovers of
historical reminiscences, and to the boys of the village, who pervaded
the old ruins, where they found nests to pillage, flowers to pick,
dangers to brave,--all things of eager attraction to children.
It was in these ruins that Courtin had appointed to meet Monsieur
Hyacinthe. He knew they would be absolutely deserted at the hour he
named to his associate, inasmuch as the lingering ill-repute of the
place drove away at night all the village urchins who, as long as the
sun was above the horizon, scampered like lizards among the dentelled
ridges of the old ruin.
The mayor of La Logerie left Nantes about five o'clock; he was on
foot, and yet he walked so fast that he was an hour earlier than he
needed to be when he crossed the bridge which led into the village of
Saint-Philbert. Maître Courtin was somewhat of a personage in the
village. To see him desert the Grand Saint-Jacques (the inn before
which he usually tied his pony Sweetheart) in favor of the Pomme de
Pin, the tavern kept by the mother of the widow Picaut, would have
been an event which, as he very well knew, would have set the village
tongues a wagging. He was so convinced of this that, although, being
deprived of his pony and never taking any refreshment except what was
offered to him, it seemed a useless matter to go to an inn at all, the
mayor of La Logerie stopped, as usual, before the door of the Grand
Saint-Jacques, where he held with the inhabitants of the village (who,
since the double defeat at Chêne and La Pénissière, had drawn closer
to him) a conversation which, under present circumstances, was not
unimportant to him.
"Maître Courtin," said one man, "is it true what they say?"
"What do they say, Matthieu?" replied Courtin. "Tell me; I'd like to
know."
"Hang it! they say you've turned your coat, and nothing can be seen
but the lining of it,--so that what was blue is now white."
"Well done!" said Courtin; "if that isn't nonsense!"
"You've given occasion for it, my man; and since your young master
went over to the Whites it is a fact that you've stopped gabbling
against them as you once did."
"Gabbling!" exclaimed Courtin, with his slyest look, "what's the good
of that? I have something better to do than gabble, and--and you'll
hear of it soon, my lad."
"So much the better! for, don't you see, Maître Courtin, all these
public troubles are death to business. If patriots can't agree,
they'll die of poverty and hunger instead of being shot like our
forefathers. Whereas, if we could only get rid of those troublesome
_gars_ who roam the forests about here and make trouble, business
would soon pick up, and that's all we want."
"Roaming?" repeated Courtin, "who are roaming? Seems to me that none
but ghosts are left to roam now."
"Pooh! there's plenty of them left. It isn't ten minutes since I saw
the boldest of them go by, gun in hand, pistols in his belt,--just as
if there weren't any red-breeches in the land."
"Who was he?"
"Joseph Picaut, by God!--the man who killed his brother."
"Joseph Picaut! here?" exclaimed Courtin, turning livid. "It isn't
possible!"
"It's as true as you live, Maître Courtin! as true as there is a God!
He did have on a sailor's hat and jacket, but never mind, I recognized
him all the same."
Maître Courtin reflected a moment. The plan he had laid in his head,
which rested on the existence of the house with two issues, and the
daily intercourse of Maître Pascal with Petit-Pierre, might fail; in
which case, he had Bertha to fall back upon as a last resource.
There would then remain, in order to discover Petit-Pierre's retreat,
one means open to him,--the means he had already failed in with
Mary,--namely, to follow Bertha when she went to Nantes. If Bertha saw
Joseph Picaut all was lost; still worse would it be if Bertha put
Picaut in communication with Michel! Then the part he had played in
stopping the embarkation would be disclosed to the young baron, and
the farmer was a ruined man.
Courtin asked for pen, ink, and paper, wrote a few lines, and gave
them to the man who had spoken to him.
"Here, _gars_ Matthieu," he said, "here's a proof that I'm a patriot
and that I don't turn round like a weathercock to the wind of any
master. You accuse me of following my young landlord in all his
performances; well, the fact is that I have only known within the last
hour where he is hiding, and now I am going to lay hands on him. The
more occasion I have to destroy the enemies of the nation, the better
pleased I am, and the more I hasten to take advantage of it; and
what's more, I do it without inquiring whether it is to my advantage
or disadvantage, or whether the persons I denounce are my friends or
not."
The peasant, who was a double-dyed Blue, shook Courtin's hand
heartily.
"Are your legs good?" continued the latter.
"I should think so!" said the peasant.
"Well, then, carry that to Nantes at once; and as I have a good many
haystacks out, I rely on you to keep my secret; for, you understand,
if I'm suspected of having the young baron arrested, those stacks will
never get into my barn."
The peasant made a promise of secrecy, and Courtin, as it was now
dusk, left the inn on the right, made a tack across the fields, and
then, returning cautiously on his steps, took a path which led to the
ruins of Saint-Philbert.
He reached them by the shore of the lake, followed the moat, and
entered the courtyard by a stone bridge which had long replaced the
portcullis that gave entrance to the citadel.
As he entered the courtyard he whistled softly. At the signal a man
sitting on the fallen masonry rose and came to him. The man was
Monsieur Hyacinthe.
"Is that you?" he said, as he approached with some caution.
"Yes," said Courtin, "don't be alarmed."
"What news?"
"Good; but this is not the place to tell it."
"Why not?"
"Because it is as dark as a pocket. I almost walked over you before I
knew it. A man might be hidden here at our feet and we not be the
wiser. Come! the affair is in too good shape just now to risk
anything."
"Very good; but where will you find a lonelier place than this?"
"We must find one. If I knew of an open desert in the neighborhood I'd
go there and speak low. But, for want of a desert, we'll find some
place where we are certain of being alone."
"Go on; I'll follow you."