The Count on his part made no comment, but merely nodded his head to Pelisson; and when the Chevalier's brief conversation was at an end, they rode on. The village which they had fixed upon for their resting-place that night was a large straggling open collection of houses, which had grown up on either side of the wide road, simply because it happened to be at a convenient distance from many other places. The buildings were scattered, and separated by large gardens or courts, and the inn itself was in fact the only respectable dwelling in the place, having been an old brick-built country seat in former days, with the walls that defended it from attack still standing round the court, the windows rattling and quivering with the wind and their antiquity, the rooms wide and lofty, and perhaps a little cheerless, and the kitchen, which formed the entrance, as black as the smoke of many generations could render it. The whole house was prepared to meet the Count de Morseiul, his coming having been announced by the servants sent on with the horses; and did ducks and fowls in various countries write the histories of their several races, that morning would have been memorable for the massacre that took place, and only be comparable to the day of St. Bartholomew. But the culinary art was great in France then as it is now, and the cook, knowing that she had a difficult task to perform, exerted her utmost ingenuity to render tough poultry tender, and insipid viands savoury, for the distinguished guest that was to dine and sleep within those walls. Though the preparations had been begun at an early hour, yet they were by no means concluded when the party arrived; and while Jerome Riquet plunged into the kitchen, and communicated to the cook a thousand secrets from the vast stores of his own mind, the Count and his friend gazed forth from the window of a high, wide, square-shaped room over the wide prospect, which lay in gentle undulations beneath their eyes, with the road that they themselves had just passed taking, as it were, a standing leap over each of the little hills that it met with in its way.