noble family, whose brother Laurent was the Bishop of Grenoble. Pierre
Bayard, the hero of this story, was the second son of a large family; he
had three brothers and four sisters. His eldest brother, Georges, was five
or six years older than himself, then came his sisters, Catherine, Jeanne,
and Marie, while younger than himself were Claudie, and two brothers,
Jacques and Philippe.

Like so many other mediaeval strongholds, the Castle of Bayard was built
upon a rocky hill, which always gave an advantage in case of attack. It had
been erected by the great-grandfather and namesake of our Pierre Bayard,
probably on the site of an earlier stronghold, in the year 1404. No better
position could have been chosen, for it commanded a deep valley on two
sides, in a wild and mountainous district of Dauphiné, near the village of
Pontcharra in the Graisivaudan. Even now we can still see from its ruins
what a powerful fortress it was in its time, with massive towers three
stories high, standing out well in front of the castle wall, and defended
by a strong drawbridge. Well fortified, it could have stood a siege before
the days of artillery.

But towards the end of the fifteenth century, when Bayard's childhood was
spent here, such castles as these were not looked upon as mainly places of
defence and refuge, they were gradually becoming more like the later
manor-houses--family homes, with comfortable chambers and halls, where once
there had chiefly been the rude dwelling of a garrison used for defence and
stored with missiles and arms.

Each story of the castle, as well as the towers, would contain various
chambers, well lighted with windows pierced in the thick stone walls. On
the first floor, approached by a broad flight of steps from the court, we
find the oratory--scarcely large enough to be dignified by the name of