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Updated: May 4, 2025
Prudence, we hear, is the better part of valor, and evidently Count William shared in the opinion, for we learn that he promptly let down the drawbridge, over which Frederick and his followers passed, and whence they presently issued, bearing in their midst the quondam prisoner, the lovely Beatrix, whose eyes, moist with tears of gratitude, looked trustingly in the handsome face of her deliverer.
In the heart of the place stood the ancient palace of the counts, built in the thirteenth century by William II. of Holland, King of the Romans, with massive brick walls, cylindrical turrets, pointed gable and rose-shaped windows, and with spacious coup-yard, enclosed by feudal moat, drawbridge, and portcullis.
They summoned the castellan, or keeper of the castle. He came out upon the battlements and demanded who was there. The king called out, "Open, castellan, open. It is the fortune of France." The castellan knew the king's voice, and ordered the gate to be opened, and the drawbridge to be let down. The king and his party, which consisted of only five persons, went in.
At the drawbridge we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who had come out, without their bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight. We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them the beautiful scene. The glade through which we had just walked lay before us.
From such shadowy accounts as I have collected, the edifice would seem to have consisted but of a single tower or donjon-keep very strong and thick, and defying the lashings of the waves, almost as though it were some Pharos or other guide to mariners. It was surrounded by a low stone wall of prodigious weight of masonry, and was approached from the mainland by a drawbridge and barbican.
Another interesting old château, most picturesque, with towers, moat, and drawbridge, is Lorrey-le-Bocage, belonging to the Comte de S. It stands very well, in a broad moat the water clear and rippling and finishing in a pretty little stream that runs off through the meadows. The place is beautifully kept gardens, lawns, courts, in perfect order.
They walked on a little in silence, passing a girl talking to a man under the full light of a lamp. Mary remarked that the girl was exquisitely pretty. She wanted him to say that she herself was a thousandfold prettier. But he did not say it; and she led him off the front rather sulkily, taking him over a drawbridge and on to the quay that bisected the harbour.
He had scarce taken up his new position when the cavalcade reached the drawbridge, and amid yells of welcome from those upon the wall, filed in a thin line across it. Nigel stared hard once more at the prisoners in the rear, and so absorbed was he by the sight that he had passed the rocks and was standing sheer upon the summit. "By Saint Paul!" he cried, "it must indeed be so.
Keith's home was not one of those hospitable places with the doors always wide open, to which people are drawn almost against their will and from which they come away with difficulty. Perhaps it was, above all, the spirit of the father that settled this matter. To him, more than to any Englishman, his home was his castle, and he liked to keep the drawbridge raised against unwelcome company.
The town was very quiet, the streets almost deserted; for it was one o'clock, the universal dinner-hour, and all suspicion had been disarmed by the energetic protestations of the Duke. The guard at the gate looked listlessly upon the cavalcade as it approached, but as soon as Anjou had crossed the first drawbridge, he rose in his stirrups and waved his hand.
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