Explore "The Eyes of Innocence" by Maurice Leblanc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Of the fortress built, in 1011, by Guillaume de Bellême, on the summit of the rock at Domfront, at 300 feet above the little River Varenne, all that is now left standing is two great strips of wall, flanked by picturesque buttresses and pierced with wide arches, the remains of the ancient keep. Round about are a few traces of ramparts and remnants of underground passages, all arranged in the form of a square and in a perfect state of preservation."
The guide-books, however, for some reason, fail to mention the manor-house built, in the seventeenth century, by Pierre de Donnadieu, Governor of Anjou, on the site and with the materials of the outbuildings of the old fortress. The _logis_, as this sort of dwelling is called in Lower Normandy, is intact and wholly charming. Four slender, tapering turrets grace the corners. An enormous roof, decked with two monumental chimneys, seems to top it with a fool's cap, too large for its little granite forehead lined with two rows of bricks. The entrance is through the square, but the main front overlooks the precipice and a garden staggers down the steep slope to the river that winds through the pretty Valdes Rochers.