eir poor
at Taden. Their marble mausoleum in the church was destroyed during
the French Revolution. The Count left a large sum to be distributed
among the prisoners, principally English, pent up in the crowded gaols
of Rennes and Dinan. He had attended the English prisoners at Dinan
during a contagious fever called the 'peste blanche,' and in
acknowledgment of his humanity Queen Caroline sent him two dogs with
silver collars round their necks, and an English nobleman made him a
present of six more.

The ruined chateau is approached by an ivy-covered gateway, through an
avenue of beeches. As Mrs Norton renders it:

And like a mourner's mantle, with sad grace,
Waves the dark ivy, hiding half the door
And threshold, where the weary traveller's foot
Shall never find a courteous welcome more.

The ruin is fast falling to pieces. The principal part remaining is an
octagonal turret of three stories, with elegant Renaissance decoration
round the windows.

_The Falcon_

An interesting and picturesque ballad sung in the Black Mountains is
that of _The Falcon_. Geoffrey, first Duke of Brittany, was departing
for Rome in the year 1008, leaving the government of the country in
the hands of his wife Ethwije, sister of Richard of Normandy. As he
was about to set out on his pilgrimage the falcon which he carried on
his wrist after the manner of the nobles of the period, swooped down
on and killed the hen of a poor peasant woman. The woman in a rage
seized a large stone and cast it at the bird with such violence that
it slew not only the falcon but the Duke himself. The death of the
Duke was followed by a most desperate insurrection among the people.
History does not enlighten us as to the cause of this rising, but
tradition attributes it to the invasion of Brittany by the Normans
(whom the widow of Geoffrey at once brought into the country on the
demise of her husband) and the exactions which were wrung from the
peasants by these haughty aliens.

[Illustration: A PEASANT INSURRECTION]

The ballad, which was used as a war-song by the Bretons at a later
day, begins in true ballad style: "The falcon has strangled the fowl,
the peasant woman has slain the Count who oppressed the people, the
poor people, like a brute-beast."

The hate of the stranger so characteristic of the old Bretons then
flashes forth. "The country has been polluted by the foreigner, by the
men of the Gallic land, and because of the death of a hen