The house actually standing within the great towers is of the date of Louis XIV.

It stood there, a dark mass, defying the storm, although the huge waves splashed right up to the windows." "It sounds repellent." "It was--fierce and grim and repellent, and it suited my mood--so I stopped at the Inn, my old maid Simone and I, and I got permission to go and see it.

The landlord of the Inn had the keys.

The last of the Heronacs drank himself to death with absinthe in Paris, so the place was closed, and was no doubt for sale.

'_Mais oui!_' he told us.