It Had Two Stories,
With Rooms In The Attic, And Deep Cellars; A Communication Existed From
One Cellar To The Other Through The Division Wall.
There is also visible a
very small door cut through the cellar wall of the west gable; it leads
To
a vaulted apartment of some eight feet square; the small mound of masonry
which covered it might originally have been effectually hidden from view
by a plantation of trees over it. What could this have been built for,
asked my romantic friend? Was it intended to secure some of the
Intendant's plate or other portion of his ill-gotten treasure? Or else as
the Abbe Ferland suggests: [324] "Was it to store the fruity old Port and
sparkling Moselle of the club of the Barons, who held their jovial
meetings there about the beginning of this century?" Was it his
mistresses' secret boudoir when the Intendant's lady visited the
chateau, like the Woodstock tower to which Royal Henry picked his way
through "Love's Ladder?" Quien sabe? Who can unravel the mystery?
It may have served for the foundation of the tower which existed when Mr.
Papineau visited and described the place fifty years ago. The heavy cedar
rafters, more than one hundred years old, are to this day sound: one has
been broken by the fall, probably of some heavy stones. There are several
indentures in the walls for fire-places, which are built of cut masonry;
from the angle of one a song sparrow flew out uttering an anxious note.
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