She purchased this dismal castle and took up her abode there to educate her daughter.[5] Her only external pleasure was an occasional journey to Bourges, to see her mysterious companion in misfortune, Jeanne de France, the cast-off queen, who had become the Duchesse de Berry and the foundress of the _Annonciade_. But Jeanne died, and Charlotte, then twenty-four years old, put on mourning, which she never laid aside, and did not leave La Motte-Seuilly again until her own death, which occurred nine years later--in 1514. Her body was taken to Bourges and buried beside Jeanne's, to be exhumed, insulted and burned by the Calvinists half a century later, together with that of the other poor saint. Her body rested in peace somewhat longer in the rustic chapel of La Motte-Seuilly, under a pretty monument which her daughter erected to her. But it was written that no earthly trace of that melancholy destiny should be respected. In 1793 the peasants, venting upon that tomb the hatred they bore their lord, burned it to the ground, and its débris lie scattered over the pavement to-day. The statue of Charlotte is propped against the wall, broken in three pieces. The chapel, utterly neglected, is crumbling to decay. The victim's heart was in all probability sealed up in a gold or silver casket: what has become of it? Sold perhaps at a low price; perhaps simply hidden away or buried, in consequence of a sudden return of fear or devotion, that poor heart may be reposing in some village hovel, unknown to its new occupant, under the hearthstone, or under the briar hedge. To-day the castle, restored in some degree, brightens up a little in the sunlight, which finds its way into the gravelled courtyard through a great breach in the wall. The water from the ancient moats, fed, I believe, by a spring near by, flows in a charming little stream through the newly laid out English garden. The enormous yew, which dates from the time of Charlotte d'Albret, rests its venerable, drooping branches on blocks of stone, arranged with pious care to support its monumental decrepitude. A few flowers and a solitary swan cast a sort of melancholy smile about the sorrowful manor-house. The outlook is still gloomy; the landscape most depressing; the tower of sinister aspect--and yet an artistic generation loves these dismal abodes, these old, desolate nests, solid structures of a stern and bitter past of which the common people know nothing, which they had forgotten as early as 1793, since they shattered poor Charlotte's tomb and left untouched the triumphant wooden horse of La Motte-Seuilly. At the time of our narrative, the manor-house, closed on all sides, was at once more dismal and more comfortable than to-day. People lived in the cold obscurity of those little fortresses; therefore, they must have been able to make themselves comfortable in them.