One of the abbots, a restless and ambitious man, had presumed to commence fortifying the abbey, and had persisted in doing so in spite of the opposition of the lord of Roche-Pont. The lord had consequently laid waste the abbey domain. The fraternity then appealed to the king of France, who had intervened in the dispute. After much litigation and cost to both sides, it had been decided that the abbey might be surrounded by a wall without towers, and that in the event of a war in which the interests of the suzerain were concerned, the lord of Roche-Pont should garrison the abbey at the expense of the latter. The retainers of the abbey and those of the lord continued, nevertheless, in a permanent state of antagonism; and not a year passed in which there were not differences to be settled on this score at the court of the duke. The castle of the lords of Roche-Pont was built on the remains of the _castellum_ of the cité Juliana, and about the year 1182 it was very old and dilapidated. Anseric de la Roche-Pont was at that time its owner. He was a young man of ardent temperament and ambitious disposition, married to a niece of the Count of Nevers, deceased in 1176--an alliance which had increased his possessions. He bore with impatience his subjection to the Duke of Burgundy, and in endeavouring to shake it off, his first step was to rebuild his old castle, and put it in a condition to defy every attack. Anseric de la Roche-Pont was encouraged in these ideas of independence by one of his uncles, an old seigneur, who, having spent fifteen years of fighting in Syria, had returned, worn out and impoverished, to Burgundy. Anseric had given him an asylum in his declining years, and he soon acquired an influence over the mind of his nephew, and even of his niece. During the long winter evenings, the recital of adventures beyond seas, to which the Baron Guy knew how to give a life-like interest, would inflame the breast of the young lord. Often on such occasions the latter would rise and pace the hall, with sparkling eyes and clenched hands, stung with shame at his own inactivity, and consumed by the desire of some nobler occupation than killing boars, and disputing with monks concerning mill or fishery rights. At such moments the old baron, far from seeking to calm his nephew's ardour, would seek to direct it to a more attainable end than the conquest of towns in Syria. The Baron Guy was a personage of remarkable idiosyncrasy--physically an elderly man, tall and angular, and somewhat bent by the weight of arms: his head, still covered with rough grey locks, square in the crown, exhibiting projecting cheek-bones, and--beneath shaggy eyebrows--eyes of sombre green, deeply sunk in their orbits. His wide mouth with its thin lips showed, when he laughed--which rarely happened--rows of sharp white teeth. When he was relating long stories, seated, his hands on his knees and his head bent down, the light of the wax tapers fell only on his