The edifice, which occupied the whole of that side of the square facing the street, was an extremely ancient structure, and had evidently been at one time a castle of considerable strength. The walls were constructed entirely of masonry, apparently of great solidity; but the age of the building, and the ravages of time were plainly indicated by the stained and weather-beaten appearance of the stone-work, as well as by the way in which the exterior surface of the masonry had crumbled away, leaving the once smooth face rough and jagged, with frequent indentations, where stones had become loosened in their setting and finally dislodged altogether. The chief entrance to the building was through a high and wide semicircular archway, of considerable depth, adorned with crumbling pillars and half-obliterated mouldings, flanked on each side by solid and bold projecting buttresses. The lower storey of the building was lighted by good-sized windows of modern construction, which had evidently been pierced in the walls at no very distant date; but above this the original narrow slits in the masonry which did duty as windows still remained. A short flagstaff, from which, the tricolour fluttered in the morning breeze, surmounted the central portion of the building, which, from its superior height and apparent strength, I judged must have originally been the keep.
The two adjacent sides of the square were occupied by plain brick buildings, three storeys high, which evidently constituted the men’s quarters.
My companion conducted me across the square to the great centre door already mentioned, and, on our safely reaching the shelter of its deep recess, bade me place my basket on the ground. I did so; whereupon—first glancing round to see whether there were any curious eyes turned in our direction, and apparently satisfied that there were not—he stooped down, and planting himself well in front of my basket, hastily selected a couple of moderate-sized fish, which he thrust up inside his tunic. This done, he seized a wooden handle which hung at the extremity of a rusty chain issuing from a small aperture in the wall, and tugged smartly at it. The result was a clanging from a large bell, imperfectly heard in the remote distance of the interior.
A minute or so elapsed; and then a wicket, cut in the woodwork of the door, opened; and an individual in plain clothes, apparently an officer’s orderly, became visible inside.
“Can Monsieur Lemaitre be seen?” inquired my companion.
“Doubtless,” replied the individual to whom the question was put. “Come in, Jacques. What do you want with him?”
“That I will tell him myself, comrade, when I see him,” responded Jacques, passing through the wicket and beckoning me to follow; which of course I did.
“As you please, mon ami,” replied the other; and without further parley he departed to apprise that important personage, the general’s cook, that he was wanted.
In the interval I employed myself in looking round me.
I found myself in a sort of entrance-hall of considerable size. The wall opposite the door contained a huge fireplace, sunk in the thickness of the masonry. The side walls were pierced, on my right and left, with semicircular archways, deeply moulded, and closed with strong wooden doors; and on the left, a massive and elaborately carved stone staircase, of much more modern date than the building itself, led upward to a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and massively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and dusty silken banners; and two other flag trophies adorned the side walls.