. 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. I have 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