The chateau, which Marthe and Michu looked at together for a moment, makes a charming effect in the landscape.  Though it has little extent and is of no importance whatever as architecture, yet archaeologically it is not without a certain interest.  This old edifice of the fifteenth century, placed on an eminence, surrounded on all sides by a moat, or rather by deep, wide ditches always full of water, is built in cobble-stones buried in cement, the walls being seven feet thick.  Its simplicity recalls the rough and warlike life of feudal days.  The chateau, plain and unadorned, has two large reddish towers at either end, connected by a long main building with casement windows, the stone mullions of which, being roughly carved, bear some resemblance to vine-shoots.  The stairway is outside the house, at the middle, in a sort of pentagonal tower entered through a small arched door.  The interior of the ground-floor together with the rooms on the first storey were modernized in the time of Louis XIV., and the whole building is surmounted by an immense roof broken by casement windows with carved triangular pediments.  Before the castle lies a vast green sward the trees of which had recently been cut down.  On either side of the entrance bridge are two small dwellings where the gardeners live, connected across the road by a paltry iron railing without character, evidently modern.  To right and left of the lawn, which is divided in two by a paved road-way, are the stables, cow-sheds, barns, wood-house, bakery, poultry-yard, and the offices, placed in what were doubtless the remains of two wings of the old building similar to those that were still standing.  The two large towers, with their pepper-pot roofs which had not been rased, and the belfry of the middle tower, gave an air of distinction to the village.  The church, also very old, showed near by its pointed steeple, which harmonized well with the solid masses of the castle.  The moon brought out in full relief the various roofs and towers on which it played and sparkled.

Michu gazed at this baronial structure in a manner that upset all his wife’s ideas about him; his face, now calm, wore a look of hope and also a sort of pride.  His eyes scanned the horizon with a glance of defiance; he listened for sounds in the air.  It was now nine o’clock; the moon was beginning to cast its light upon the margin of the forest and to illumine the little bluff on which they stood.  The position struck him as dangerous and he left it, fearful of being seen.  But no suspicious noise troubled the peace of the beautiful valley encircled on this side by the forest of Nodesme.  Marthe, exhausted and trembling, was awaiting some explanation of their hurried ride.  What was she engaged in?  Was she to aid in a good deed or an evil one?  At that instant Michu bent to his wife’s ear and whispered:—­

“Go the house and ask to speak to the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne; when you see her beg her to speak to you alone.  If no one can overhear you, say to her:  ’Mademoiselle, the lives of your two cousins are in danger, and he who can explain the how and why is waiting to speak to you.’  If she seems afraid, if she distrusts you, add these words:  ’They are conspiring against the First Consul and the conspiracy is discovered.’  Don’t give your name; they distrust us too much.”