JORDAN CASTLE
Jordan Castle
WE often walk past that decrepit castle of Jordan. Situated on the hill above Bludesch, it is a landmark visible from afar, and was never a castle at all but a pretentious kind of villa. My mother told me that the builder had been a Dutch political refugee, and that the red violets growing on the inside of its westerly wall were planted by him. Those violets may be found to this hour—their leaves, at least; and you may find white ones along the path that leads down eastwards out of the orchard here—you could, at least.
Since then I have learnt a little more, but not nearly enough, about this strange-looking ruin. There used to be a small, two-roomed house on the site in olden days; this was bought, and converted into a splendid palace—splendidum exstruxit palatium—by Georg Ludwig von Lindenspeur, who lived there till his death in 1673. The plan of the building is as regular as can be, and thoroughly uninteresting; it has an artificial terrace in front, supported on massive substructures. The place continued to remain in good state till 1843 when it changed hands, and the new proprietor, having no use for it, took off the roof and carried away everything else that served his purposes. Who Lindenspeur was, I cannot say; the name does not sound altogether German or Austrian, and is unknown to me. He it was, I imagine, who for his own convenience or that of his visitors built or enlarged the path that leads up, some few hundred yards to the east of the ruin, from the driving-road in the valley below; this path, then broad enough for a carriage, with sustaining walls on both sides, has now grown quite narrow from disuse. He also founded a charity for several villages which exists to this day. The yearly income, for our particular one, is twenty-two florins; before the war, one might have helped a few poor people with this sum. Who is going to pick it up nowadays?
Such is the history of the “Jordanschloss.” I should like to learn more about the mysterious Lindenspeur; where he came from, and what induced him to settle in these outlandish regions and there to live to the day of his death. I have heard of no one else doing such a thing in the seventeenth century. He may well have been a refugee of some kind; a recluse, an original, in any case, and a wealthy one. So Jordan has been a ruin only for the last eighty years. One would never think so; for it already wears a hopelessly decayed look, as if it had been abandoned for a couple of centuries at least. That is because it lacks the solid masonry of our feudal remains. It crumbles away all the time, and I suspect that the farmhouse near at hand has been built with its stones.
We had a good look at Jordan yesterday afternoon, and agreed that it was an uncommonly transparent fabric. “The old gentleman must have been fond of windows,” observed Mr. R. True! There are more open spaces than stones in its ostentatious front; a row of eleven windows, all exactly alike, and young trees are sprouting out of them. This is what made Mr. R. christen the place “Château aux fenêtres.” And this name, in its turn, gave occasion for a simple question on my part, a question that led to a prolonged and painful discussion, in the course of which some little light was thrown on Mr. R.’s progress in the English language. I enquired as I should have done:
D. Now what is the English for “Le château aux fenêtres”?
R. The castle to the windows.