When these dungeons had been examined by the writer of the book, cages had been discovered similar to those in Loches, small hollows cut out of stone in which there was not room for a man to stand up; in these, human beings had been chained and left to die by fifteenth-, sixteenth and seventeenth-century de la Talles in the same way as Louis XI had dealt with his enemies. One man, left to die in the oubliette, had attempted to cut his way to freedom and had succeeded in boring a passage which had brought him to one of the cages in the dungeons where he had died in frustrated despair.

I read on, fascinated not only by the descriptions of the chateau but by the history of the family.

Often during the centuries the family had been in conflict with the kings; more often they had stood beside them. One of the women of the house had been a mistress of Louis XV before she married into the family and it was this king who had presented her with an emerald necklace of great value. It was considered no dishonour to be a mistress of the king, and the de la Talle who had married her when she left the royal service had sought to vie with the king’s generosity and had presented his wife with an emerald bracelet made up of priceless stones to match those of the necklace. But a bracelet was less valuable than a necklace; so there had been a tiara of emeralds and two emerald rings, a brooch and a girdle all set with emeralds, as proof that the de la Talles could stand equal with royalty. Thus the famous de la Talle emeralds had come into being.

The book confirmed what I already knew, that the emeralds had been lost during the Revolution. Until then they had been kept with other treasures in the strongroom in the gun-gallery to which no one but the master of the house had the key or even knew where the key was hidden. So it had been until the Terror broke out all over France.

It was late but I could not stop reading and I had come to the chapter headed “The de la Talles and the Revolution’.

Lothair de la Talle, the Comte at that time, was a man of thirty; he had married a few years before that fatal year and was called to Paris for the meeting of the States General. He never returned to the castle; he was one of the first whose blood was spilt on the guillotine. His wife Mary Louise, twenty-two years old and pregnant, remained in the chateau with the old Comtesse, Lothair’s mother. I pictured it clearly; the hot days of July; the news being brought to that young woman of her husband’s death; her grief for her husband, her fears for the child soon to be born. I imagined her at the highest window of the highest tower, straining her eyes over the countryside; wondering if the revolutionaries would come marching her way; asking herself how long the people of the district would allow her to live in peace.

All through the sultry days she must have waited, afraid to go into the little town, watchful of the work people who toiled in the vineyards, of the servants who doubtless grew a little less subservient with the passing of each day. I pictured the proud old Comtesse, desperately trying to preserve the old ways, and what those two brave women must have suffered during those terrible days.

Few escaped the Terror and eventually it reached the Chateau Gaillard. A band of revolutionaries were marching on the chateau, waving their banners, singing the new song from the south. The workers left the vineyard; from the little cottages of the town ran the women and children. The stall-holders and the shopkeepers spilled into the square. The aristocrats had had their day. They were masters now.

I shivered as I read how the young countess had left the castle and sheltered in a nearby house. I knew what house it was; I knew which family had taken her in. Had I not heard that the family histories were entwined? The de la Talles were never friends, though, only patrons. I could clearly remember Madame Bastide’s proud looks when she had said that.

So Madame Bastide, who must have been Jean Pierre’s great-grandmother, had sheltered the Comtesse. She had ruled her household so that even the men had not dared to disobey her. They were with the revolutionaries preparing to pillage the castle while she hid the Comtesse in her house and forbade them all to whisper outside the house a word of what was happening.

The old Comtesse refused to leave the chateau. She had lived there; she would die there. And she went into the chapel there to await death at the hands of the rebels. Her name was Genevieve and she prayed to St. Genevieve for help. She heard the rough shouting and coarse laughter as the mob broke into the castle; she knew they were tearing down the paintings and the tapestries, throwing them from the windows to their comrades.

And there were those who came to the chapel. But before they entered they sought to tear down the statue of St. Genevieve which had been set up over the door. They climbed up to it but they could not move it.

Inflamed with wine they called to their comrades. Before they continued to pillage the chateau they must break down the statue.

At the altar the old Comtesse continued to pray to St. Genevieve while the shouting grew louder and every moment she expected the rabble to break into the chapel and kill her.

Ropes were brought; to the drunken strains of the “Marseillaise’ and ” Ca Ira’ they worked. She heard the great shout that went up.

“Heave, comrades … all together!” And then the crash, the screams and the terrible silence.

The chateau was out of danger; St. Genevieve lay broken at the door of the chapel, but beneath her lay the bodies of three dead men; she had saved the chateau, for superstitious fearful in spite of their professed ungodliness, the revolutionaries slunk away. A few bold ones had tried to rally the mob but it was useless. Many of them came from the surrounding district and they had lived their lives under the shadow of the de la Talles. They feared them now as they had in the past. They had one wish and that was to turn their backs on Chateau Gaillard.

The old Comtesse came out of the chapel when all was silent. She looked at the broken statue and kneeling beside it gave thanks to her patron saint. Then she went into the chateau and with the help of one servant attempted to set it to rights. There she lived alone for some years, caring for the young Comte who was stealthily brought back to his home. His mother had died in giving birth to him, which was not surprising considering all that she had suffered before his birth, and the fact that Madame Bastide had been afraid to call the midwife to her. There they lived for years in the chateau the old Comtesse, the young child and one servant; until the times changed and the Revolution passed and life at the chateau began to slip back into the old ways. Servants came back; repairs were made; the vineyards became prosperous. But although the strongroom in which they had been kept was untouched, the emeralds had disappeared and were lost to the family from that time.

I closed the book. I was so tired that I was soon asleep.

Three

I spent the next morning in the gallery. I was half-expecting a visit from the Comte after the interest he had shown the night before, but he did not come.

I had lunch in my room as usual, and when I had finished there was a knock on my door and Genevieve came in.  Her hair was neatly tied behind her back and she looked subdued as she had last night at dinner. It occurred to me that her father’s being in the house had a marked effect upon her.

First we mounted the staircase in the polygon al tower and reached the summit of the building. In the tower she pointed out to me the surrounding countryside speaking in slow, rather painful English, as the Comte had suggested. I believed that although at times she hated and feared him, she had a desire to win his respect.

“Mademoiselle, can you see a tower right away to the south? That is where my grandfather lives.”

“It is not very far.”

“It is nearly twelve kilometres. You can see it today only because the air is so clear.”

“Do you visit him often?”

She was silent, looking at me suspiciously. I said: “It is not so very far.”

“I go sometimes,” she said.

“Papa does not go. Please do not tell him.”

“He would not wish you to go?”

“He has not said so.” Her voice was faintly bitter.

“He doesn’t say much to me, you know. Please promise not to tell him.”

“Why should I tell him?”

“Because he talks to you.”

“My dear Genevieve, I have met him only twice. Naturally he talks about his paintings to me. He is concerned for them. He is not likely to speak to me of other things.”

“He doesn’t usually talk to people … who come to work here.”

“They probably don’t come to restore his paintings.”

“I think he was interested in you, mademoiselle.”

“He was concerned as to what I should do to his works of art. Now, look at this vaulted ceiling. Notice the shape of the arched door.

That enables you to place it within a hundred years or so. ” Actually I wanted to talk about her father, to ask how he usually behaved to people in the house; I wanted to know why he would not wish her to visit her grandfather.

“You speak too fast, mademoiselle, I cannot follow.”

We descended the staircase, and when we had reached the bottom she said in French: “Now you have been to the top you must see the lower part. Did you know that we had dungeons in the chateau, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, your father sent me a book which had been written for an ancestor of yours. It gave a very good idea of what the chateau contained.”

“We used to keep prisoners here, mademoiselle. If anyone offended a Comte de la Talle he was put into the dungeons. My mother told me. She took me there once and showed me. She said that you didn’t have to be in a dungeon, though, to be imprisoned. She said stone walls and chains were one way of keeping prisoners; there were others.”

I looked at her sharply, but her eyes were wide and innocent and the demure look was still on her face.

“In the royal chateau there were dungeons … oubliettes they called them because people were sent into them and forgotten. They are the

prisons of the forgotten. Did you know, mademoiselle, that the only way into these prisons was through trap doors which could not easily be seen from above?”

“Yes. I have read of these places. The victim was made to stand unsuspectingly on the trap door, which was opened by pressing a lever in another part of the room; suddenly the floor opened beneath him and he would fall down. “

“Down into the oubliette. It was a long drop. I’ve seen it. Perhaps his leg would be broken and there would be no one to help him; he would lie there forgotten with the bones of others who had gone before him. Mademoiselle, are you afraid of ghosts?”

“Of course not.”

“Most of the servants are. They won’t go into the room above the oubliette … at least they won’t go alone. They say at night there are noises in the oubliette… queer groaning noises. Are you sure you want to see it?”

“My dear Genevieve, I have stayed in some of the most haunted houses in England.”

Then you are safe. Papa said, didn’t he, that French ghosts would be more polite than English ones and only come when expected. If you aren’t frightened and don’t believe in them you wouldn’t be expecting them, would you? That was what he meant. “

How she remembered his words! I thought then: The child needs more than discipline. She needs affection. It was three years since her mother had died. How she must have missed it since then with such a father!

“Mademoiselle, you are sure you are not afraid of the oubliette?”

“Quite sure.”

“It is not as it was,” she said almost regretfully.

“They cleared out a lot of bones and horrid things a long time ago when there was a search for the emeralds. It was my grandfather who did that, and of course the first place you would look for them would be in the oubliette, wouldn’t it? They didn’t find them though, so they weren’t there. They say they were taken away but I think they’re here. I wish Papa would have a treasure hunt again. Wouldn’t that be fun? “

“I expect thorough searches have been made. From what I have read it seems certain that they were stolen by the revolutionaries who broke into the chateau.”

“But they didn’t break into the strongroom, did they? And yet the emeralds were gone.”