no distinctions, and whose manners and morals were to change every
decade. If you do not now expect to find the Baron du Guaisnic sword in
hand, all here written would be falsehood.

II. THE BARON, HIS WIFE, AND SISTER

Early in the month of May, in the year 1836, the period when this scene
opens, the family of Guenic (we follow henceforth the modern spelling)
consisted of Monsieur and Madame du Guenic, Mademoiselle du Guenic the
baron's elder sister, and an only son, aged twenty-one, named, after
an ancient family usage, Gaudebert-Calyste-Louis. The father's name was
Gaudebert-Calyste-Charles. Only the last name was ever varied. Saint
Gaudebert and Saint Calyste were forever bound to protect the Guenics.

The Baron du Guenic had started from Guerande the moment that La Vendee
and Brittany took arms; he fought through the war with Charette, with
Cathelineau, La Rochejaquelein, d'Elbee, Bonchamps, and the Prince de
Loudon. Before starting he had, with a prudence unique in revolutionary
annals, sold his whole property of every kind to his elder and only
sister, Mademoiselle Zephirine du Guenic. After the death of all those
heroes of the West, the baron, preserved by a miracle from ending as
they did, refused to submit to Napoleon. He fought on till 1802, when
being at last defeated and almost captured, he returned to Guerande, and
from Guerande went to Croisic, whence he crossed to Ireland, faithful to
the ancient Breton hatred for England.

The people of Guerande feigned utter ignorance of the baron's existence.
In the whole course of twenty years not a single indiscreet word was
ever uttered. Mademoiselle du Guenic received the rents and sent them
to her brother by fishermen. Monsieur du Guenic returned to Guerande
in 1813, as quietly and simply as if he had merely passed a season at
Nantes. During his stay in Dublin the old Breton, despite his fifty
years, had fallen in love with a charming Irish woman, daughter of
one of the noblest and poorest families of that unhappy kingdom. Fanny
O'Brien was then twenty-one years old. The Baron du Guenic came over to
France to obtain the documents necessary for his marriage, returned to
Ireland, and, after about ten months (at the beginning of 1814), brought
his wife to Guerande, where she gave him Calyste on the very day that
Louis XVIII. landed at Calais,--a circumstance which explains the young
man's final name of Louis.

The old and loyal Breton was now a man of seve