The building occupied the entire plateau on the brow of the hill and commanded a superb view of the Garden; while the park and farm-lands, vineyards and forests pertaining to the chateau covered the hill itself. This property was now the only possession of the house of Chamondrin, one of the oldest in Languedoc and Provence. It was not always thus. There had been a time when "As rich as a Chamondrin" was a proverb in the region thereabout. In those days this illustrious family had countless vassals and unbounded wealth, and enjoyed an income that enabled it for many successive generations to play a conspicuous role, first at the Court of Provence and later at the Court of France. The grandfather and father of the present Marquis lived to see the end of this proverbial opulence. They both led careers of extravagance and dissipation, taking part in all the gayeties and follies of the court. The grandfather was one of the favorite companions of Philippe d'Orleans; and wine, cards and women killed him when he should have been still in the prime of life. His son did not learn wisdom from his father's example. He in his turn became the friend of the Regent, and to repair his shattered fortunes he engaged, at the advice of Lau, in those disastrous financial enterprises that paved the way for the Revolution. He failed completely in his ventures, left Paris insolvent, and took refuge in the Chateau de Chamondrin, where he hoped to escape the wrath of his creditors. But they complained to the king, and brought such influence to bear upon him that Louis XV., the Well-beloved, who had just ascended the throne, informed the Marquis de Chamondrin that he would allow him three months in which to choose between the payment of his debts and incarceration in the Bastile. The Marquis did not hesitate long. He sold all his property with the exception of this chateau and paid his debts. But when this plebeian duty was accomplished, it left him in receipt of an extremely modest income. Poverty had fallen upon this house at the very time that the favor of the king was withdrawn from it, and this two-fold misfortune was quickly followed by the birth of a son and the loss of his wife. These afflictions completely prostrated this man who was wholly unprepared to meet them. He shut himself up in his chateau, and there, far from the pleasures for which he pined, far from the friends who had forgotten him, cursing God and man for his misfortunes, he lapsed into a misanthropy that rendered him nervous and eccentric almost to madness. He lived twenty years in this way, apparently taking no pleasure or interest in his son, whose youth was gloomy and whose education was entrusted entirely to the cure of a neighboring village. He died in 1765, in the middle of the eighteenth century, the first half of which had proved so fatal to the prosperity of his house.