Her body was taken to Bourges and buried beside Jeanne's, to be exhumed, insulted and burned by the Calvinists half a century later, together with that of the other poor saint. Her body rested in peace somewhat longer in the rustic chapel of La Motte-Seuilly, under a pretty monument which her daughter erected to her.
But it was written that no earthly trace of that melancholy destiny should be respected. In 1793 the peasants, venting upon that tomb the hatred they bore their lord, burned it to the ground, and its débris lie scattered over the pavement to-day. The statue of Charlotte is propped against the wall, broken in three pieces. The chapel, utterly neglected, is crumbling to decay. The victim's heart was in all probability sealed up in a gold or silver casket: what has become of it? Sold perhaps at a low price; perhaps simply hidden away or buried, in consequence of a sudden return of fear or devotion, that poor heart may be reposing in some village hovel, unknown to its new occupant, under the hearthstone, or under the briar hedge.
To-day the castle, restored in some degree, brightens up a little in the sunlight, which finds its way into the gravelled courtyard through a great breach in the wall. The water from the ancient moats, fed, I believe, by a spring near by, flows in a charming little stream through the newly laid out English garden.
The enormous yew, which dates from the time of Charlotte d'Albret, rests its venerable, drooping branches on blocks of stone, arranged with pious care to support its monumental decrepitude. A few flowers and a solitary swan cast a sort of melancholy smile about the sorrowful manor-house.
The outlook is still gloomy; the landscape most depressing; the tower of sinister aspect—and yet an artistic generation loves these dismal abodes, these old, desolate nests, solid structures of a stern and bitter past of which the common people know nothing, which they had forgotten as early as 1793, since they shattered poor Charlotte's tomb and left untouched the triumphant wooden horse of La Motte-Seuilly.
At the time of our narrative, the manor-house, closed on all sides, was at once more dismal and more comfortable than to-day. People lived in the cold obscurity of those little fortresses; therefore, they must have been able to make themselves comfortable in them.
The huge fireplaces, all sheathed in cast-iron at the back, filled the vast apartments with an intense heat. The former hangings on the walls were replaced by felt paper of extraordinary thickness and beauty; instead of our pretty Persian curtains, which quiver in the draughts from the windows, were heavy folds of damask, or, in more modest dwellings, of wadded silk, that lasted fifty years. On the sandstone floors of corridors and living-rooms were rugs of a new kind, made of wool, cotton, flax and hemp.
Very handsome marquetry floors were made in those days, and in the central provinces people ate from lovely Nevers porcelain, while the sideboards were resplendent with those curious goblets of colored glass, used only on grand occasions, and representing fanciful monuments, plants, vessels or animals.
Thus, despite the modest appearance of the exterior of the wing set aside for the apartments of the masters—for the nobles had already ceased to live near the roofs of their old feudal donjons—Monsieur d'Alvimar found an attractive interior, neat and not unrefined, which denoted genuine ease, at least, if not great wealth.
La Motte-Seuilly had passed, by the marriage of Louis Borgia, into the family of La Trémouille, to which Monsieur de Beuvre belonged through his mother.