The Chateau de la Roche-Maurice is a real burgrave's castle, a vulture's
nest on the top of a mountain. It is reached by an almost perpendicular
slope along which great blocks of stone are strewn in place Of steps. At
the top is a wall built of huge stones laid one above another, and in
the wall are large windows, through which the whole surrounding country
can be viewed; the woods, the fields, the river, the long, white road,
the mountains with their uneven peaks, and the great meadow, which
separates them through the middle.
A crumbling flight of steps leads to a dilapidated tower. Here and there
stones crop out among the grass, and the rock shows amid the stones.
Sometimes it seems as if this rock assumed artificial shapes, and as if
the ruins, on the contrary, by crumbling more and more, had taken on a
natural appearance and gone back to original matter.
A whole side of the wall is covered with ivy; it begins at the bottom
and spreads out in an inverted pyramid, the color of which grows darker
towards the top. Through an aperture, the edges of which are concealed
by the foliage, one can see a section of the blue sky.
It was in these parts that the famous dragon lived, which was killed in
olden times by knight Derrien, who was returning from the Holy Land with
his friend, Neventer.
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