Close to the last of these, whose pillars, with wreathed capitals, are as sharp as if just restored, is a low door, leading to a small chamber in the thickness of the wall.

There is a little recess in one corner, and a narrow window, through whose minute opening a fine prospect may be seen.
This small chamber, tradition says, was once adorned with "azure and vermilion;" though it could scarcely have ever presented a very gay appearance, even when used as the private retreat of the luxurious master of the castle.

However, such as it is, we are bound to look upon this spot with veneration; for it is asserted, that here a child was born in secrecy and mystery, and that here, by this imperfect light, his beautiful mother gazed upon the features of the future hero of Normandy.
However unlike a bower fitted for beauty and love, it is said that here Arlette, the skinner's daughter, was confined of William the Conqueror.
It is said, too, that from this height, the sharp-sighted Duke his father, gazing from his towers, first beheld the lovely peasant girl bathing in the fountain which still bears her name.

In this retreat, concealed from prying eyes, and where inquisitive ears found it difficult to catch a sound, the shrill cry of the wondrous infant was first uttered,--a sound often to be repeated by every echo of the land, when changed to the war note which led to victory.
Little, perhaps, did his poor mother exult in his birth, for she was of lowly lineage, and had never raised her eyes to the castle but with awe, nor thought of its master but with fear; her pleasures were to dance, on holidays, under the shade of trees with the simple villagers, her companions; her duties, to wash her linen on the stones of the silver stream, as her townswomen do still at the present day--that silver stream which probably flowed past her father's cottage, as it still flows, bathing the base of cottages as humble and as rudely built as his could have been.

There might, perchance, have been one, amongst the youths who admired her beauty, whom she preferred to the rest; her ambition might have been to become his bride, her dreams might have imaged his asking her of her father, whose gracious consent made them both happy: in her ears might have rung the pealing bells of St.
Gervais--the vision of maidens, in bridal costumes, strewing flowers in her path, might have risen before her view--her lover with his soft words and smiles--his cottage amongst the heath-covered rocks of Noron--all this might have flitted across her mind, as she stood beside the fountain, beneath the castle walls, unconscious that eyes were gazing on her whose influence was to fix her destiny.