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Often Yvon would say to him: "My child, these redoubtable donjons, whose plans you are sketching and which you build with so much care, either serve now or will serve some day to oppress our people. The bones of our oppressed and martyrized brothers will rot in these subterraneous cells reared above one another with such an infernal art!" "Alack!
Internal fire had found vent here; its outflowings had crystallized into columnar trap; the trap had protected the underlying sandstone from cycles of water-flow; thus had been fashioned these sublime donjons and pinnacles. They were not only sublime but beautiful. The sandstone, reduced by ages to a crumbling marl, was of all colors.
It was a crown of buildings with extinguisher roofs encircling the brow of a hill, and presenting the antique appearance of some chastel of the Middle Ages. "Do you see those round, pot-bellied towers, like tuns of wine stood upon end?" he said "those donjons at the corners, tapering at the top, and presenting the very image of noble bottles?
The dwelling-house, too, is most interesting with its thick gray walls, high narrow windows, and steep winding staircase. I was always told there were "donjons" in the cellars, but I never had the courage to go down the dark, damp, slippery staircase. When all the children and grown people got inmost of them with damp clothes and shoes-the odour was something awful.
It was through the senses, and especially through the eye, that the feudal imagination was moved. Every heart was kindled at the sight of shining armor, horses with brilliant trappings, gorgeous dress, and martial show. The magnificent Norman cathedrals struck the mind with devotional awe; the donjons and towers of the great baronial castles were suggestive of power and glory.
He introduced his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons, subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in possession of wrongfully acquired power.
The house of Bourne, as far as it can be reconstructed by imagination, was altogether unlike one of the tall and gloomy Norman castles which twenty years later reared their evil donjons over England.
Again and again we fancy we can descry crumbling watch-towers, bastions, and donjons on the banks of the Tarn, so fantastic the forms of the Causses on either side. What a scene for a Dore!
I am a skillful mason; I have built a large number of fortified donjons; employ me and I shall work to the satisfaction of your seigneur. All I ask of you is not to allow my father, wife and children to be maltreated, and to furnish us with shelter and bread while the work lasts."
"That of causing a little annoyance to M. Fouquet, who is making himself quite giddy on his donjons yonder, in waiting for us." This was a home-stroke, hard enough in all conscience. Colbert was completely thrown out of the saddle by it, and retired, thoroughly discomfited.
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