"Whose is this castle?" I asked of the harmless, necessary guide, who by now had put in an appearance, and was assuring some gaping visitors that Philippe was called Pot because he always carried a pot about with him--a paint pot, judging by the condition of his castle. "This is M. Carnot's castle, Monsieur, the eldest son of the late President. He has already spent millions in restoration, and he is about to convert into a terrace the remains of the 11th century Château, up there." He pointed to a fine, rounded-headed window, of two lights, high above us on the rock. While we were being hurried round this fortress of all the centuries, I fell to thinking of Philippe Pot, of his home, and his legend. [Illustration: ·LA ROCHEPOT·] Begun in the thirteenth century, by Alexandre de Bourgogne, Prince de Morée, the castle was fortified in the early fifteenth by René Pot,[181] whose son Philippe[182] was the only man of them all to leave it a popular name. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Sultan, Mahomet II., was threatening Constantinople, then in the hands of Constantine, Emperor of Byzantium, who appealed to Pope Nicholas V. for help against the Islamite invasion. To young Philippe Pot, nearly twenty-five years of age, the bravest, most handsome, and most eloquent chevalier of his day, and a poet withal--a crusade was as the candle to the moth. Never might come such another opportunity to win his spurs away from home. So he wrote to his fiancée, the richest and loveliest heiress of all Burgundy, Jeanne, daughter of Pierre de Baufremont, Comte de Charny, great chamberlain of Philippe le Bon. "Gentille Damoiselle, I am setting forth to Constantinople; I wish before our bridal to render myself worthy of you and of your valiant father." Before dawn, on an August morning, in the year 1452, he left Rochepot, and rode to Notre Dame de Dijon, where he met four hundred other young knights sworn to follow his lead. There they heard Mass before the altar of the Virgin, and bespoke her blessing on their banner, that bore her picture, and the device: "Notre Dame de Bon Espoir, soyez-nous en aide." Then they rode eastward through the streets of Dijon. "Honneur aux preux!" shouted the crowds; "Honneur aux chevaliers de Notre Dame!"[183] We have no time to follow all the adventures of our chevalier in the land of Islam--how with his own hand, he slew and slew, until the bravest of the Saracens learned to fear the prowess of the "Chevalier de la Mort"; how, at last, he was captured by the Turks, before Constantinople, imprisoned, flogged, almost to death, because he would not become the Sultan's man, nor bow to the name of the Prophet--how he consoled himself in prison by writing verses to the Lady Virgin to whom he was vowed. [Illustration: PORCH OF HOTEL DIEU--BEAUNE _Facing page 242_]