Arrived in Lorraine, the two ladies travelled to Nancy, reaching the town a day or so before the royal cortège arrived, Madame Arnoul having acquired the knowledge of the exact route it was to take. From Nancy, the two women proceeded to Luneville, and thence onward into Alsace, and far into the very heart of the Vosges, where they slept on the first night, in a little hamlet called Raon l’Étape. The next day they reached St Dié, a pretty little town, one day, said the terrible tradition, to be crushed by the falling of the huge precipice of l’Ormont; and to avert this catastrophe annual processions were made; but l’Ormont stands somewhat back from the area of St Dié, and if it fell, it would probably be short of the town. Moreover, what is St Dié but the gift of God?—_Dieudonné_ hedged about by the memory of its founder, the assassinated Childéric II. Faring on by narrow, half-impassable roads, winding on the verge of rugged precipices, through dense pine-forests, whose close network of branches almost hid the sky, they reached St Marie-aux-Mines, a town forming part of the appanage of the Prince Palatine of Birkenfeld. It lies cradled between two pine-clad mountains, watered by innumerable limpid rivulets, meandering in all directions. There Ninon and Madame Arnoul halted for dinner, whose excellence was much below par of the natural attractions of the place; but Madame Arnoul consoled her companion with the information that some few leagues more would bring them to their journey’s end, and the place where the mysterious proceedings indicated were to be carried out. And next day they arrived in the neighbourhood of Ribeauvillé, and Ninon found herself in a magnificent château belonging to the brother-in-law of the Prince Palatine. This personage was, however, absent, and in his place the two ladies were received by the high steward, who, Madame Arnoul afterwards explained, was the cousin of the king’s _valet-de-chambre_, whom she had enlisted into her project, and she handed the steward a letter from this relative. Having perused the letter, he redoubled his courtesies; but evidently under the influence of extreme perturbation, which he strove to cover by silence. The letter he thrust into his pocket without any reference to its contents; unless a slight shrug of his shoulders meant anything. At supper, of which he did the honours, Madame Arnoul asked him why he had not spoken of the famous Chamber of Phantoms the château contained. The steward started like a guilty thing half off his chair, and asked Madame Arnoul if indeed she entertained the dangerous fancy to—to sleep, save the mark!—in that terrible room, as his cousin, had written him. He knew his cousin, of course, to be an idiot, but—but no, the idea was not to be contemplated. Anyone insane enough to spend a night in that awful apartment would be found a strangled corpse in the morning.