Two of its towers had also resisted the attacks of Time--that of Charlemagne and that of David--united by a heavy wall almost intact.

In the interior, the chapel, the court-room, and certain chambers were still easily recognised; and all this appeared to have been built by giants, for the steps of the stairways, the sills of the windows, and the branches on the terraces, were all on a scale far out of proportion for the generation of to-day.

It was, in fact, quite a little fortified city.

Five hundred men could have sustained there a siege of thirty months without suffering from want of ammunition or of provisions.

For two centuries the bricks of the lowest story had been disjointed by the wild roses; lilacs and laburnums covered with blossoms the rubbish of the fallen ceilings; a plane-tree had even grown up in the fireplace of the guardroom.