12-10-2025, 07:40 PM
One evening in Alsace, we were storming a Burg, a pink stone Burg that emerged, in the stormy rain, from a steaming wave of black fir trees. As we arrived, the last column of tourists was already marching at a brisk pace; and each of these noble visitors was spitting through the machicolations, scribbling on the walls, and striking the bronze culverins with their canes (no doubt to appreciate the number of two-penny coins they might represent at the legal rate in the happy bygone days when there were still bronze coins!). When, amidst the jumble of keys, the clanging of doors, and the bursts of exhaust fumes, the horde had surged beneath the majestic vault of the Titan, and silence had fallen once more over the Burg, there was a creaking of a postern gate: a small old man with a rat's head, dressed in a ridiculous black schoolboy's cape, appeared. He hesitated for a moment, then gave us a kind smile and a gesture I will remember all my life.
His gesture seemed to say:
“Come in, come in… you don’t seem to be of the same ilk as the others. Don’t hesitate, come on… I’m tired of seeing my magnificent royal castle used as food for rats and fools under the compassionate gaze of the undertakers… come in… with you, it might not be the same!” The dear man! We didn’t have to force ourselves to honor him; his castle was marvelous! A postern gate, just wide enough for two combatants to defend without the enemy’s hand being able to reach their waistband, two or three breaches magnificently placed and too close to the thickets not to make the watch intense, desperate; an inner courtyard encircled by parapet walks from which one could throw oneself at the very neck of the attacker; A dilapidated staircase; a keep, a magnificent stronghold of the last phalanx.
What a night! The torches of the besieged blazed on the walls, and the twinkling lights of the valley answered them as in the days when the mountain teemed with hostile bands, and the villages huddled together under the Lord's watchful eye. A fierce battle raged in the shadows. At midnight, the castle was besieged.
Soon the last stand fought on the final steps. Five heroes held off twenty-five assailants; no one reached the tower: a veritable wall of bronze!
When it was all over, the little old man led us through the cellars, those that are never visited, by the light of our torches. There was a well where the fall of a stone made a sound like the rustling of wings, the whirl of a hundred bats. A mill where the wind still eternally turned two millstones. In the great hall, beneath the glorious coats of arms, the old man had built a blazing fire of beech logs.