The edifice, which was almost as large as the town itself, became a workhouse, and is now a home of refuge for seven or eight hundred poor people. There is nothing remarkable about it from an architectural point of view, except one corner of the ancient chapel, which belongs, so far as one can judge from the little that remains, to the finest period of the Renaissance. The castle was begun by François I. and finished by Henri II. Both father and son set their own marks on it. François I. carved salamanders on it, and Henri II. his coat of arms with that of his wife, Katherine de Médicis. The two arms are composed of the letters K and H, and are encircled in the three crescents of Diane de Poitiers. A curious intermingling of the arms of the married wife and of the mistress is still visible in the corner of the prison which overlooks the little lane that leads to the drinking trough. We must here point out that Madame de Montesson was the aunt of Madame de Genlis, and through her influence it was that the author of _Adèle et Théodore_ entered the house of Madame la duchesse d'Orléans, wife of Philippe-Joseph, as maid of honour; a post which led to her becoming the mistress of Philippe-Égalité, and governess to the three young princes, the duc de Valois, the duc de Montpensier and the comte de Beaujolais. The duc de Valois became duc de Chartres upon the death of his grandfather, and, on the 9th of August 1830, he became Louis Philippe I., to-day King of the French. [Footnote 1: We ought to say that this incident, which occurred in 1848, is interpolated in MS. written in 1847.] CHAPTER II My father--His birth--The arms of the family--The serpents of Jamaica--The alligators of St. Domingo--My grandfather--A young man's adventure--A first duel--M. le duc de Richelieu acts as second for my father--My father enlists as a private soldier--He changes his name--Death of my grandfather--His death certificate. My father, who has already been mentioned twice in the beginning of this history--first with reference to my birth certificate and later in connection with his own marriage contract--was the Republican General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie. As already stated in the documents quoted by us, he was himself the son of the marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, colonel and commissary-general of artillery, and he inherited the estate of la Pailleterie, which had been raised to a marquisate by Louis XIV., in 1707. The arms of the family were three eagles _azure_ with wings spread _or_, two wings across one, one with a ring _argent_ in the middle; clasped left and right by the talons of the eagles at the head of the escutcheon and reposing on the crest of the remaining eagle.