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"Yes, on the Route de Valognes." "Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the head-quarters of Lupin's friends. It was from there that they entered into communication with my father." "What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody." "He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary." "What proof have you?" "This photograph." "But it's your photograph!"
From the rocks of the Norman Scarborough, one of the only two railways which find their way into the Côtentin will carry the traveller through a district whose look, like that of so much of this side of Normandy, is thoroughly English, to Valognes, with its endless fragments of old domestic architecture, remnants of the days when Valognes was a large and aristocratic town, and with its church, where the architect has ventured, not wholly without success, on the bold experiment of giving its central parts the shape of a Gothic cupola.
For miles after Caen there were long stretches of green pasture-lands hundreds of cows and horses, some of them the big Norman dray-horses resting a little before beginning again their hard work, and quantities of long-legged colts trotting close up alongside of their mothers, none of them apparently minding the train. We finally arrived at the quiet little station of Valognes.
Then, with all sadness, the body of De Norrey was recovered and borne back to St Sauveur, and we, riding down the stream a mile or more to where there was a safe ford, crossed safely, and riding sorrowfully and warily, though we were so near to the duke's presence, came presently in sight of Valognes.
Sauveur or tarry there at Valognes, if I could find a lodging, when none other than Samson d'Anville, that had been placed in command of the expedition, came after us, and would have me to be his guest until, all preparations having been made in a week's time, we should sail from Barfleur. "Come now, little soldier," said he, "and we on this expedition will be true brothers-in-arms."
I am sorry to go away from this quiet little green corner of Normandy, but we have taken the requisite number of baths. Countess F. took her twenty-first at six o'clock this morning, and left at ten. VALOGNES, August. I seem to have got into another world, almost another century, in this old town.
Froberval muttered: "I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in " He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph, was examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked: "Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d'Or at a short league outside the town?" "Yes, about a league from here." "On the Route de Valognes, is it?"
"But what can this mean?" cried Flambeau. "He can't be afraid of that little Hirsch! Confound it!" he cried, in a kind of rational rage; "nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!" "I believe it's some plot!" snapped Valognes "some plot of the Jews and Freemasons. It's meant to work up glory for Hirsch..."
Nor do we distinctly see anything in the way of mounds or ditches. And yet we flatter ourselves that we have lighted on the site. He who has read Wace's story of Duke William's ride from Valognes and of his greeting by Hubert of Rye will remember how Hubert was standing "entre le moutier et la motte."
She was a girl about twenty-six years of age, fair, with a pretty figure and the sort of complexion, fresh and white and well-fed, which characterizes the women of Valognes, Bayeux, and the environs of Alencon. Her blue eyes showed no great intelligence, but a certain firmness mingled with tender feeling. She wore a gown of some common woollen stuff.
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