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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
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