Midnight had just sounded. The woman in charge was impatiently awaiting the return of Raimond V., his daughter, Honorât de Berrol, and other relations and guests whom the baron had invited to the ceremony.
All the family and guests had gone to La Ciotat, to be present at the midnight mass.
Abbé Mascarolus had said mass in the chapel of the castle for those who had remained at home.
We will conduct the reader to the hall of the dais, which occupied two-thirds of the long gallery which communicated with the two wings of the castle.
It was never opened except on solemn occasions.
A splendid red damask silk covered its walls. To supply the place of flowers, quite rare in that season, masses of green branches, cut from trees and arranged in boxes, hid almost entirely the ten large arched windows of this immense hall.
At one end of the hall rose a granite chimneypiece, ten feet high and heavily sculptured.
Notwithstanding the season was cold, no fire burned in this vast fireplace, but an immense pile, composed of branches of vine, beech, olive, and fir-apples, only waited the formality of custom to throw waves of light and heat into the grand and stately apartment.
Two pine-trees with long green branches ornamented with ribbons, oranges, and bunches of grapes, were set up in boxes on each side of the chimney, and formed above the mantelpiece a veritable thicket of verdure.
Six copper chandeliers with lighted yellow wax candles only partially dissipated the darkness of the immense room.