One of the most interesting of the Norman châteaux is "Abondant," in the department of the Eure-et-Loir, belonging until very recently to the Vallambrosa family. It belonged originally to la Duchesse de Tourzel, gouvernante des Enfants de France (children of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette). After the imprisonment of the Royal Family, Madame de Tourzel retired to her château d'Abondant and remained there all through the Revolution. The village people and peasants adored her and she lived there peacefully through all those terrible days. Neither château nor park was damaged in any way, although she was known to be a devoted friend and adherent of the unfortunate Royal Family. A band of half-drunken "patriots" tried to force their way into the park one day, with the intention of cutting down the trees and pillaging the château, but all the villagers instantly assembled, armed with pitchforks, rusty old guns and stones, and dispersed the rabble. Abondant is a Louis XV château--very large--seventeen rooms en façade--but simple in its architecture. The Duchess occupied a large corner room on the ground-floor, with four windows. The ceiling (which was very high) and walls covered with toiles de Jouy. An enormous bed à baldaquin was trimmed with the same toile and each post had a great bunch of white feathers on top. In 1886, when one of my friends was staying at Abondant, the hangings were the same which had been there all through the Revolution. She told me she had never been so miserable as the first time she stayed at the château during the lifetime of the late Duchesse de Vallambrosa. They gave her the Duchesse de Tourzel's room, thinking it would interest her as a chambre historique. She was already nervous at sleeping alone on the ground-floor, far from all the other inmates of the château. The room was enormous--walls nearly five metres high--the bed looked like an island in the midst of space; there was very little furniture, and the white feathers on the bed-posts nodded and waved in the dim light. She scarcely closed her eyes, could not reason with herself, and asked the next morning to have something less magnificent and more modern. In all the bedrooms the dressing-tables were covered with dentelle de Binche[15] of the epoch, and all the mirrors and various little boxes for powder, rouge, patches, and the hundred accessories for a fine lady's toilette in those days, were in Vernis Martin absolutely intact. The drawing-rooms still had their old silk hangings--a white ground covered with wreaths of flowers and birds with wonderful bright plumage--hand-painted--framed in wood of two shades of light green. [15] Binche, name of a village in Belgium where the lace is made.