Of unexpected châteaux and the objects to be found on their doorsteps

When he wasn't excalming to all and sundry about how the country really was divided into three parts, the human's last Gallic expedition seemed to revolve largely around the search for a suitable château.

This time around, he seems to have found one -- conveniently linked to public transport, no less -- in the most unexpected of places. The châtelaine is expected.
The setting is most pleasant, the interior is most spacious and the furnishings most commodious. Administrative and financial bureaucrats of various stripes seem unexectedly eager to please. The bibliotheca quadriturricula subterraneana is closed for holidays, but there is a well-catalogued library of several thousand volumes on the premises. The natives who maintain it are more than friendly -- books are not the only object occasionally to be found on the doorstep when returning from an excursion by bisorbiculus liberalis:

I'm not complaining!