The young man had not walked more than five minutes before he recognized the correctness of the directions he had received.  The ground which he had passed over was a field covered with clumps of low trees; it was easy to see by its disc-like shape that it had been formed by successive alluvia, at the expense of the other shore, which had been incessantly worn away by the stream.  This sort of flat, level peninsula was crossed in a straight line by the road, which deviated from the river at the point where the two roads came together again, like the cross and string of a bow at its extremity.  The trees, becoming thinner, revealed a perspective all the more wonderful as it was unexpected.  While the eye followed the widening stream, which disappeared in the depths of a mountainous gorge, a new prospect suddenly presented itself on the right upon the other shore.

A second valley, smaller than the first and in measure its vassal, formed an amphitheatre the crest of which was bordered by a fringe of perpendicular rocks as white as dried bones.  Under this crown, which rendered it almost inaccessible, the little valley was resplendent in its wealth of evergreen trees, oaks with their knotty branches, and its fresh green turf.

Taken as a whole, it was a foundation worthy of the picturesque edifice which met one’s eye in the foreground, and at which the traveller gazed with extreme interest.

At the junction of the two valleys stood an enormous building, half manorial, half monastic in appearance.  The shore formed, at this point, for an extent of several hundred feet, a bluff whose edge plunged vertically into the river.  The chateau and its outbuildings rested upon this solid base.  The principal house was a large parallelogram of very old construction, but which had evidently been almost entirely rebuilt at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  The stones, of grayish granite which abounds in the Vosges, were streaked with blue and violet veins, and gave the facade a sombre aspect, increased by the scarcity of windows, some of which were ‘a la Palladio’, others almost as narrow as loop-holes.  An immense roof of red tile, darkened by rain, projected several feet over the whole front, as is still to be seen in old cities in the North.  Thanks to this projecting weather-board, the apartments upon the upper floor were shaded from the sun’s rays, like those persons who have weak eyes and who protect them from a strong light by wearing a green shade.

The view which this melancholy dwelling presented from the place where the traveller had first seen it, was one which made it appear to the best advantage; it seemed, from this point, to come immediately out of the river, built as it was upon the very curb of the bluffs, at this place at least thirty feet high.  This elevation, added to that of the building, effaced the lack of proportion of the roof and gave to the whole a most imposing appearance; it seemed as if