The architect had constructed the room given to the apprentice under the pointed roof of the tower in which the staircase wound.  It was a little room, all of stone, cold and without ornament of any kind.  The tower stood in the middle of the facade on the courtyard, which, like the courtyards of all provincial houses, was narrow and dark.  At the farther end, through an iron railing, could be seen a wretched garden in which nothing grew but the mulberries which Cornelius had introduced.  The young nobleman took note of all this through the loopholes on the spiral staircase, the moon casting, fortunately, a brilliant light.  A cot, a stool, a mismatched pitcher and basin formed the entire furniture of the room.  The light could enter only through square openings, placed at intervals in the outside wall of the tower, according, no doubt, to the exterior ornamentation.

“Here is your lodging,” said Cornelius; “it is plain and solid and contains all that is needed for sleep.  Good night!  Do not leave this room as the others did.”

After giving his apprentice a last look full of many meanings, Cornelius double-locked the door, took away the key and descended the staircase, leaving the young nobleman as much befooled as a bell-founder when on opening his mould he finds nothing.  Alone, without light, seated on a stool, in a little garret from which so many of his predecessors had gone to the scaffold, the young fellow felt like a wild beast caught in a trap.  He jumped upon the stool and raised himself to his full height in order to reach one of the little openings through which a faint light shone.  Thence he saw the Loire, the beautiful slopes of Saint-Cyr, the gloomy marvels of Plessis, where lights were gleaming in the deep recesses of a few windows.  Far in the distance lay the beautiful meadows of Touraine and the silvery stream of her river.  Every point of this lovely nature had, at that moment, a mysterious grace; the windows, the waters, the roofs of the houses shone like diamonds in the trembling light of the moon.  The soul of the young seigneur could not repress a sad and tender emotion.

“Suppose it is my last farewell!” he said to himself.

He stood there, feeling already the terrible emotions his adventure offered him, and yielding to the fears of a prisoner who, nevertheless, retains some glimmer of hope.  His mistress illumined each difficulty.  To him she was no longer a woman, but a supernatural being seen through the incense of his desires.  A feeble cry, which he fancied came from the hotel de Poitiers, restored him to himself and to a sense of his true situation.  Throwing himself on his pallet to reflect on his course, he heard a slight movement which echoed faintly from the spiral staircase.  He listened attentively, and the whispered words, “He has gone to bed,” said by the old woman, reached his ear.  By an accident unknown probably to the architect, the slightest noise on the staircase sounded in the room of the apprentices, so that Philippe did not lose a single movement of the miser and his sister who were watching him.  He undressed, lay down, pretended to sleep, and employed the time during which the pair remained on the staircase, in seeking means to get from his prison to the hotel de Poitiers.