summer day, like to-day, perhaps, when the mill that enlivens the whole
landscape did not exist, when there were roofs on the walls, and Flemish
hangings, and oil-cloths on the window-sills, when there was less grass,
and when human voices and rumours filled the air, more than one heart
beat with love and anguish under its red velvet bodice. Beautiful white
hands twitched with fear on the stone, which is now covered with moss,
and the embroidered veils of high caps fluttered in the wind that plays
with my cravat and that swayed the plumes of the knights.

We went down into the vaults where Jean V was imprisoned. In the men's
dungeon we saw the large double hook that was used for executions; and
we touched curiously with our fingers the door of the women's prison. It
is about four inches thick and is plated with heavy iron bars. In the
middle is a little grating that was used to throw in whatever was
necessary to prevent the captive from starving. It was this grating
which opened instead of the door, which, being the mouth of the most
terrible confessions, was one of those that always closed but never
opened. In those days there was real hatred. If you hated a person, and
he had been kidnapped by surprise or traitorously trapped in an
interview, and was in your power, you could torture him at your own
sweet will. Every minute, every hour, you could delight in his anguish
and drink his tears. You could go down into his cell and speak to him
and bargain with him, laugh at his tortures, and discuss his ransom; you
could live on and off him, through his slowly ebbing life and his
plundered treasures. Your whole castle, from the top of the towers to
the bottom of the trenches, weighed on him, crushing, and burying him;
and thus family revenges were accomplished by the family itself, a fact
which constituted their potency and symbolised the idea.

Sometimes, however, when the wretched prisoner was an aristocrat and a