rised bones and various curious
objects. From Vannes we also visited the stately castle of Elven, about
four miles from the station of that name; not built on a lofty site, for,
in the fifteenth century, the barons had descended from their heights to
places more convenient of access, and where water was more easily
obtained. The Breton feudal lords of Rohan, Rieux, Clisson, and
Penthievre, no longer required fortified places as means of defence
against the French and English, but, in consequence of their own internal
divisions, to defend them in their wars with their duke or among
themselves. The castle of Elven is situated in an insulated coppice wood,
in the midst of the lande of Elven. It was the chief place of the lordship
of l'Argoet (in Breton, "upon the wood"), and is also called the fortress
of Largoet.

[Illustration: 41. Castle of Elven.]

The ruins, which occupy a large enclosure, consist chiefly of two towers;
the principal one, 130 feet high, is octagonal; the other, which is not
above 100 feet in height, is split from top to bottom. The battlemented
walls are nearly 20 feet thick at the base. A wide deep moat surrounded
the castle, and it was furnished with subterranean passages and everything
requisite to make it a model of the military architecture of the fifteenth
century. The donjon has two granite staircases; one leads to the top,
whence may be seen Vannes and the Morbihan, with its islands. Here, in
1793, the Royalists established signals. In the castle of Elven, Henry of
Richmond, then only fifteen, with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of
Pembroke, were detained by Duke Francis II. for fifteen years. Fugitives
after Tewkesbury, they were thrown by a tempest upon the shores of
Brittany. Henry was claimed both by King Edward IV. and Louis XI., and was
kept by Duke Francis as a pledge of the good faith of Edward towards
Brittany. Perhaps also Francis may have entertained some ill-feeling
towards Henry from his bearing the title of Earl of Richmond, which had
been held for more than three hundred years by the Dukes of Brittany.
Francis revived the claim to the title which Henry VI. had conferred
(1452) on Edward Tudor, father of Henry. Subsequently, on the assurance of
the King of England that he only required the release of Henry to invest
him with the Order of the Garter and to give him his daughter, the
Princess Elizabeth, in marriage, Duke Francis made over the Prince to the
English Ambassador, and h