The tower is still there, far from the chateau, at the summit of a wooded hill in the centre of a clearing, which commands the river valley.  It is a squat, massive construction, of forbidding aspect, such as Moisson described, with thick walls, and windows so narrow that they look more like loopholes.  It seems as if it might originally have been one of the guard-houses or watch-towers erected on the heights from Nantes to Paris, like the tower of Montjoye whose ditch is recognisable in the Forest of Marly, or those of Montaigu and Hennemont, whose ruins were still visible in the last century.  Some of these towers were converted into mills or pigeon-houses.  Ours, whose upper story and pointed roof had been demolished and replaced by a platform at an uncertain date, was flanked by a wooden mill, burnt before the Revolution, for it is not to be found in Cassini’s chart which shows all in the region.  The tower and its approaches are still known as the “burnt mill.”

There remains no trace of the excavation which was in front of the entrance in 1804, and which must have been the last vestige of an old moat.  The threshold crossed, we are in the circular chamber; at the end facing the door is the window, the bars of which have been taken down; on the left a modern chimneypiece replaces the old one, and on the right is the staircase, in good condition.  The trap-door has disappeared from under it, the cellar being abandoned as useless.  On the first floor as on the second, where the partitions have been removed, there are still traces of them, with fragments of wall-paper.  The very little daylight that filters through the windows justifies Mme. Moisson’s exclamation, “It is a prison!” The platform, from which the view is very fine, has been renewed, like the staircase.  But from top to bottom all corresponds with Moisson’s description.

All that remained now was to find out how one could get into the cellar from outside.  We had two excellent guides; our kind host, M. Constantin, and M. l’Abbe Drouin, the cure of Aubevoye, who knew all the local traditions.  They mentioned the “Grotto of the Hermit!” O Ducray-Duminil!—­Thou again!

The grotto is an old quarry in the side of the hill towards the Seine, below the tower and having no apparent communication with it, but so situated that an underground passage of a few yards would unite them.  The grotto being now almost filled up, the entrance to this passage has disappeared.  Looking at it, so innocent in appearance now under the brush and brambles, I seemed to see some Chouan by star-light, eye and ear alert, throw himself into it like a rabbit into its hole, and creep through to the tower, to sleep fully dressed on the pallet on the second floor.  Evidently this tower, planned as were all Mme. de Combray’s abodes, was one of the many refuges arranged by the Chouans from the coast of Normandy to Paris and known only to themselves.