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g the shield-borne arms of dead and gone seigneurs. Seek where you will, among the wizard-houses of old Prague, the witch-dens of ancient Edinburgh, the bat-haunted castles of Drachenfels or Rheinstein, you will come at nothing built of man more informed with the soul of the Middle Ages, more drenched with their peculiar savour of mystery, than these stark keeps whose crests and _girouettes_ rise above encircling woods or frown upon mirroring rivers over the length and breadth of the Breton land. _La Roche-Jagu_ One of the most typical of the chateaux of Brittany is that of La Roche-Jagu, at one time the guardian of the mouth of the river Trieux. It is built on the top of a hill which overhangs the Trieux, and from one of its battlemented galleries a splendid view of the windings of the river can be obtained. The wall on this side of the fortress is so thick as to allow of a chapel being hewn out of its solidity. A most distinctive architectural note is struck by the fourteen wonderful chimney-shafts of cut stone ornamented with iron spikes. _Tonquedec_ Some miles farther down the river, but on its opposite side, is the imposing castle of Tonquedec, perhaps the finest remnant of the medieval military architecture of Brittany. It has always remained in the family of the Viscounts of Coetman, who ranked among the foremost of the Breton nobility, though one of them espoused the cause of the Constable Clisson against Duke John IV, and had the anguish of seeing his ancestral fortress razed to the ground. Under Henry IV, however, the castle was restored, only to be again demolished by order of Cardinal Richelieu, who strongly and forcibly disapproved of such powerful fortalices. It had an outer enclosure, and had to be entered by a drawbridge, and it was strengthened in every way conceivable to the military art of the times. It was surrounded by dwellings for the convenience of the seigneur's retainers, a fine _salle d'armes_ still remaining. To the keep, four stories high, a flying bridge led, in order to facilitate the withdrawal of the garrison in case of siege. Behind walls ten feet thick, so long as food and ammunition lasted, the inmates could hold the enemy in scorn. _Clisson_ The chateau of Clisson, once the property of the great Constable Oliver de Clisson, whom the Viscount of Coetman and the Bretons of Penthievre had championed, is now only a grand old ruin, a touching monument of the archit
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