With these words, the worthy captain pressed Ste-phanette’s white hands, and hurried away, lest he should betray the emotion which filled his heart, as if it were a thing unworthy of him.
The young girl’s eyes followed her lover as long as possible, and at nightfall she entered Maison-Forte, the home of Raimond V., Baron des Anbiez.
CHAPTER VI. MAISON-FORTE
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.