Young Pierre was asked by his father (1487) what profession he would adopt, and it was then that he replied that the war spirit was bred in him and that he would never renounce it. His uncle, the bishop, presented him to the Duc Charles de Savoie, who was holding court at the moment at Chambéry, and by his mere riding up on his horse before the duke, he was immediately accepted as a page of his suite. Opposite Pontcharra, on the opposite bank of the Isère, is the comparatively modern Fort Barraux, which looks far more ideally picturesque than the historic castle of the Bayards. History has not been silent with regard to the fortifying of these mountain peaks of Dauphiny and Savoy. The fortress was first built on this site by Charles Emmanuel, Duc de Savoie, though an opposing army was drawn up before him under the command of the celebrated Connetable Lesdiguières. Being reproved by his king, Henri IV, for his dilatoriness in allowing the enemy to so entrench itself whilst he and his men stood idly by, the Connetable sagaciously and brilliantly replied, "Your Majesty has need of a fortress on the Savoyan side to hold in check that of Montmélian, and since Charles Emmanuel has been good enough to commence the building of one, let us wait until it is finished." The wait was not long, and the completed fortress, after a very slight struggle, came to the French king. The remarkable feudal Chateau de Rochefort-en-Montagne, above Pontcharra, is a ruin scarcely equalled, as a ruin, by any other above ground to-day. It has a majestic sadness and appeal, crumbled and dishonoured though it is. To paint the picture one must hold the brush himself. Little satisfaction can be got from the contemplation of another's sketch of this noble ruin. Grand and imposing it is, however, though but a mere echo of the splendid edifices of the Renaissance in the Loire valley, and yet its firm, flat ground plan, its massive portal and its massive round tower are all reminiscent of the best of the Renaissance castle builder's art. The point should be recognized nevertheless that it is of the mountain and not of the plain. This will account for many of its vagaries of detail as compared with the more familiar chateaux of the Loire. The surroundings are varied and beautiful, and the grim gaunt drabness of the proud old walls give at once a note of melancholy memory which sounds perhaps the stronger because this fine old feudal monument is but a shell as compared contrastingly with the better preserved examples of its era to be seen in mid-France. The property belongs to-day to the Rochefort-Lucay family, of which Henri Rochefort, the publicist, is best known. It is not, however, habitable in any sense, but it could be made so with a more reasonable expenditure than one usually puts into a great country house, so let us hope that its fortunes will some day come into their own again.