Between the two moats, at the right of the drawbridge, lay the garden; it was of considerable size and enclosed by high walls and well-kept ditches; on the left the mall, the kennels, the orchard, the farm and the meadow, with the seignioral dove-cote, heron yard and falconry; an immense enclosure reaching to the houses of the village, almost all of which belonged to the marquis.
The village was fortified, and in some places the solid foundation of its low walls was said to date from the time of Cæsar.
Comparing the small proportions of the manor-house with the extent of the domain, with the rich furniture heaped up in the apartments, and the master's luxurious habits, Monsieur d'Alvimar tried to divine the reason of the contrast; and as he was by no means charitably inclined, he concluded that the marquis concealed his wealth, not from avarice, but because the source of that wealth was not altogether pure.
Therein he was not entirely in error.
The marquis had this in common with a great number of gentlemen of his time, that he had lined his pockets somewhat unscrupulously during the civil commotions, at the expense of the rich abbeys, and by means of the exactions of the war time, rights of conquest, and the smuggling of salt.
Pillage was a sort of recognized right in those days; witness the petition of Monsieur d'Arquian, who appealed to the courts because his château was burned by Monsieur de la Châtre, "contrary to all the usages of war; for he would not have mentioned the destruction and sacking of his furniture."
As for the contraband trade in salt, it would have been difficult, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to find a nobleman in our provinces who considered himself insulted by the epithet, gentilhomme faux saulnier.[12]
So that the wealth of which, by the way, Monsieur de Bois-Doré made an excellent use by his inexhaustible generosity and charity, was not a mystery in the region about La Châtre; but he wisely avoided drawing the attention of the provincial government upon himself, by an enormous house and a too splendid household.
He was well aware that the petty tyrants who were dividing among themselves the wealth of France would not have lacked so-called legal pretexts for making him disgorge.
D'Alvimar walked through the gardens, a laughable creation of his host, of which he was unquestionably more vain than of his most glorious feats of arms.