The Chateau du Glandier is one of the oldest chateaux in the Ile de France,
where so many building remains of the feudal period are still standing. Built
originally in the heart of the forest, in the reign of Philip le Bel, it now could
be seen a few hundred yards from the road leading from the village of
Sainte-Genevieve to Monthery. A mass of inharmonious structures, it is
dominated by a donjon. When the visitor has mounted the crumbling steps
of this ancient donjon, he reaches a little plateau where, in the seventeenth
century, Georges Philibert de Sequigny, Lord of the Glandier, Maisons-
Neuves and other places, built the existing town in an abominably rococo
style of architecture.
It was in this place, seemingly belonging entirely to the past, that Professor
Stangerson and his daughter installed themselves to lay the foundations for
the science of the future. Its solitude, in the depths of woods, was what,
more than all, had pleased them. They would have none to witness their
labours and intrude on their hopes, but the aged stones and grand old oaks.
The Glandier—ancient Glandierum—was so called from the quantity of
glands (acorns) which, in all times, had been gathered in that
neighbourhood. This land, of present mournful interest, had fallen back,
owing to the negligence or abandonment of its owners, into the wild
character of primitive nature. The buildings alone, which were hidden there,
had preserved traces of their strange metamorphoses. Every age had left on
them its imprint; a bit of architecture with which was bound up the
remembrance of some terrible event, some bloody adventure. Such was the
chateau in which science had taken refuge—a place seemingly designed to
be the theatre of mysteries, terror, and death.
Having explained so far, I cannot refrain from making one further reflection.
If I have lingered a little over this description of the Glandier, it is not
because I have reached the right moment for creating the necessary
atmosphere for the unfolding of the tragedy before the eyes of the reader.
Indeed, in all this matter, my first care will be to be as simple as is possible. Ihave no ambition to be an author. An author is always something of a
romancer, and God knows, the mystery of The Yellow Room is quite full
enough of real tragic horror to require no aid from literary effects. I am, and
only desire to be, a faithful "reporter." My duty is to report the event; and I
place the event in its frame—that is all. It is only natural that you should
know where the things happened.
I return to Monsieur Stangerson. When he bought the estate, fifteen years
before the tragedy with which we are engaged occurred, the Chateau du
Glandier had for a long time been unoccupied. Another old chateau in the
neighbourhood, built in the fourteenth century by Jean de Belmont, was
also abandoned, so that that part of the country was very little inhabited.
Some small houses on the side of the road leading to Corbeil, an inn, called
the "Auberge du Donjon," which offered passing hospitality to waggoners;
these were about all to represent civilisation in this out-of-the-way part of
the country, but a few leagues from the capital.
But this deserted condition of the place had been the determining reason
for the choice made by Monsieur Stangerson and his daughter. Monsieur
Stangerson was already celebrated. He had returned from America, where
his works had made a great stir. The book which he had published at
Philadelphia, on the "Dissociation of Matter by Electric Action," had aroused
opposition throughout the whole scientific world. Monsieur Stangerson was
a Frenchman, but of American origin. Important matters relating to a legacy
had kept him for several years in the United States, where he had continued
the work begun by him in France, whither he had returned in possession of a
large fortune. This fortune was a great boon to him; for, though he might
have made millions of dollars by exploiting two or three of his chemical
discoveries relative to new processes of dyeing, it was always repugnant to
him to use for his own private gain the wonderful gift of invention he had
received from nature. He considered he owed it to mankind, and all that his
genius brought into the world went, by this philosophical view of his duty,
into the public lap.
If he did not try to conceal his satisfaction at coming into possession of this
fortune, which enabled him to give himself up to his passion for pure
science, he had equally to rejoice, it seemed to him, for another cause.Mademoiselle Stangerson was, at the time when her father returned from
America and bought the Glandier estate, twenty years of age. She was
exceedingly pretty, having at once the Parisian grace of her mother, who
had died in giving her birth, and all the splendour, all the riches of the young
American blood of her parental grandfather, William Stangerson. A citizen of
Philadelphia, William Stangerson had been obliged to become naturalised in
obedience to family exigencies at the time of his marriage with a French
lady, she who was to be the mother of the illustrious Stangerson. In that
way the professor's French nationality is accounted for.
Twenty years of age, a charming blonde, with blue eyes, milk-white
complexion, and radiant with divine health, Mathilde Stangerson was one of
the most beautiful marriageable girls in either the old or the new world. It
was her father's duty, in spite of the inevitable pain which a separation from
her would cause him, to think of her marriage; and he was fully prepared for
it. Nevertheless, he buried himself and his child at the Glandier at the
moment when his friends were expecting him to bring her out into society.
Some of them expressed their astonishment, and to their questions he
answered: "It is my daughter's wish. I can refuse her nothing. She has
chosen the Glandier."
Interrogated in her turn, the young girl replied calmly: "Where could we
work better than in this solitude?" For Mademoiselle Stangerson had already
begun to collaborate with her father in his work. It could not at the time be
imagined that her passion for science would lead her so far as to refuse all
the suitors who presented themselves to her for over fifteen years. So
secluded was the life led by the two, father and daughter, that they showed
themselves only at a few official receptions and, at certain times in the year,
in two or three friendly drawing-rooms, where the fame of the professor
and the beauty of Mathilde made a sensation. The young girl's extreme
reserve did not at first discourage suitors; but at the end of a few years, they
tired of their quest.
One alone persisted with tender tenacity and deserved the name of "eternal
fiance," a name he accepted with melancholy resignation; that was
Monsieur Robert Darzac. Mademoiselle Stangerson was now no longer
young, and it seemed that, having found no reason for marrying at five-andthirty, she would never find one. But such an argument evidently found no
acceptance with Monsieur Robert Darzac. He continued to pay his court—if
the delicate and tender attention with which he ceaselessly surrounded this
woman of five-and-thirty could be called courtship—in face of her declared
intention never to marry.
Suddenly, some weeks before the events with which we are occupied, a
report—to which nobody attached any importance, so incredible did it
sound—was spread about Paris, that Mademoiselle Stangerson had at last
consented to "crown" the inextinguishable flame of Monsieur Robert
Darzac! It needed that Monsieur Robert Darzac himself should not deny this
matrimonial rumour to give it an appearance of truth, so unlikely did it seem
to be well founded. One day, however, Monsieur Stangerson, as he was
leaving the Academy of Science, announced that the marriage of his
daughter and Monsieur Robert Darzac would be celebrated in the privacy of
the Chateau du Glandier, as soon as he and his daughter had put the
finishing touches to their report summing up their labours on the
"Dissociation of Matter." The new household would install itself in the
Glandier, and the son-in-law would lend his assistance in the work to which
the father and daughter had dedicated their lives.
The scientific world had barely had time to recover from the effect of this
news, when it learned of the attempted assassination of Mademoiselle
under the extraordinary conditions which we have detailed and which our
visit to the chateau was to enable us to ascertain with yet greater precision.
I have not hesitated to furnish the reader with all these retrospective
details, known to me through my business relations with Monsieur Robert
Darzac. On crossing the threshold of The Yellow Room he was as well
posted as I was.