Winged Wheels in France

by Michael Myers Shoemaker

[CHAPTER XIV]

CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN IN AN AUTO—THE CHÂTEAU OF TOURNOËL—ITS HISTORY—DESCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN.

Morning breaks with a cloudless sky and brilliant sunshine. This little city bubbles all over with life and, it being Sunday, every one is out for a good time. It is all so attractive that I decide to remain over for the day and night. That is one reason, but the second is the greater. I think it is absolutely imperative that the chauffeur have a day off now and then. The responsibility and strain is very great upon him. I can plainly detect it in Jean's face after a long day's run, more especially when the route has lain up and down the mountains like that of yesterday. Each instant of the day, every faculty is on the alert,—not only for the route ahead and behind but for what is going on in his machine. Every sound is full of meaning to his ears and anything unusual immediately attracts his attention. Yesterday while we were speeding at a rapid rate he suddenly stopped and got out, stating that there was a noise he could not account for. It turned out to be the clink of my umbrella handle on his air-pump, both of which lay in the hood; of course of no importance, but he was not sure, hence the stoppage. That is merely an incident told to show how careful a good chauffeur must be, and also how great the strain. Therefore if you desire continued perfect service you must give him a day off now and then.

Jean is of the best of natures, and does not take advantage, as he might, of the whole day, but comes to me and states that we had better go this morning to a most interesting old castle and town some kilos away, as it may rain to-morrow. My man is better than a guide-book for he knows what is good and what of no interest, and I find that I do not miss anything.

We start out after coffee and roll off into the hills nearby, mounting higher and higher every moment, until we come to the village of Volvic, where a route is pointed out, which leads to the old Château of Tournoël, far up in the mountains. I prepare to foot it, but Jean objects and turns the auto up hill. The route is but a country lane and not intended for machines, but up we go, turning and twisting ever higher and higher and I wait, wondering how long we can keep it up. Twenty-four horses have considerable power and when that power is condensed in one machine, it can do something, even considering the weight it must carry. So it proves now, for we climb like a cat and at a good pace until the castle walls frown directly above us, but even then Jean does not pause, but circles the ruins and mounting still higher comes to a halt directly under the great gateway and on a small platform not much larger than the automobile. How are we to get down, is a question which arises in my mind, even now, but do not cross a bridge until you reach it. Look rather at the superb panorama spread out before you. You are high up upon one of the domes which encircle Clermont. The vast plain stretches away below you, dotted here and there with picturesque towns, crossed by long highways, and overspread with splashes of pink and white fruit-tree blossoms. In the middle distance rises, upon a hill like that of Edinburgh, the city of Clermont, with its stately Cathedral crowning the summit. Immediately beyond is the Puy de Dôme and, stretching far away and up to the snow tops, circles the chain of mountains. Over all a brilliant sun sends glittering showers of light, and, though this is central France, Mt. Blanc can be seen on a clear day resting cloud-like on the horizon.

The auto has ceased its puffing and we have been very silent for a long time gazing on that scene, and breathing the delicious perfume of spring arising from the valley, and the balsam of the pines from the woods around.

It is Sunday and all the world up here is either asleep or gone to church. The little village of half a dozen houses, which clusters around this rock, gives no evidences of life. There is not even the bark of a dog, and the walls of the castle dominated by the great keep rise in silent majesty, while some white clouds drift by far up in a blue sky. The peace is intense and I regret to break in upon it, but there is the castle to be examined and I jangle an ancient bell at the great gateway, jangle and jangle, but no answer comes, until finally the bark of an old dog inside replies to my summons. He comes to the inside and barks again, plainly intimating that he is alone. It is Sunday and he was asleep and he wishes we would go away; he cannot open the gate, any one should have sense enough to see that. The custodian, evidently a woman from the flowers in that window, must have gone to church and locked him in, but did she carry the key to that great lock? I doubt it and settle the question by lifting a smooth stone near the arch. Underneath are the keys and Jean and I are shortly on the other side of the great gateway with all the world, save the old dog, locked out. How charming! No one to bother one with useless tales of that of which they understand nothing, and full opportunity to wander at will over this enchanted place. The old dog returns to his slumbers before the door of a room where the custodian has evidently made a home for herself as though to tell us that there at least we must not enter. As for the rest, we may do as we desire. To his decision we pay due respect and leave him to his slumbers.

The court of honour was once a splendid inclosure and its door-frames and windows still hold masses of fine carvings. On the far side, the donjon keep, a vast circular structure, rises more than one hundred feet above us. Mounting a flight of broken stairs, one comes to the ancient chapel, where the old custodian has erected an altar for herself and adorned it with some flowers and a picture of our Lady. These walls still show traces of painting and we find like traces in many of the rooms as we gaze up into them through the places where the floor used to be. The heavily carved chimney-places still retain their positions, tier above tier; that in the great hall with its pent-house roof could hold an ox. Reaching the battlements, we pass thence to the donjon, and find in its top two prisons, secure enough for the Iron Mask. In the floor of the lower one is an oubliette, through which, dropping a lighted paper, we watch it float downward until it rests far below, quite at the base of the tower one hundred feet beneath us. Those who went that way in the old days never returned to describe their experiences. This great tower holds nothing save those two donjons on top and that awful empty space downward; black as midnight, having no loopholes for any gleam of sunlight, though probably it mattered not.

On descending by the outer wall we discover an opening leading into the base of that oubliette, and used, I should say, by the lord of the castle to discover whether life yet remained in his victims after that drop from the hole glimmering faintly far above us.

There are other dungeons under the castle but nothing like this, which was the court of last resort, and one can picture the grimly smiling face of the jailer as he conducted his unsuspecting prisoner upon that rolling stone above. Even yet the blackness seems to resound with the shrieks of the poor wretch as he plunged downward, then, silence forever; while above the flag waved a summons to the Crusades "In the name of Christ" the compassionate, and the clouds drifted as idly by then as now. Gomot, in his interesting history of this castle, resents the generally accepted theory of this oubliette—holding rather that the tower was a last refuge for the besieged in this castle and this opening, yawning black before us, but the means of entrance from a ladder. I think him wrong, for all the vast space below shows no signs of any rest for a ladder, indeed the walls are smooth as a stone well for the entire one hundred feet.