not desist from hostilities
they would cut her husband in pieces, nor by the messages from the Duke
himself assuring her that her zeal would cost him his life,--she induced
her brother, the Dauphin, to order the Penthievres not to attempt the life
of their prisoner; she besieged, one after the other, all their castles,
and at last compelled Marguerite to capitulate to save her own life.
Finding herself and family in a perilous position, Marguerite agreed that
the Duke should be released (he was at Clisson), and that she and her sons
should retire where they wished, on their promise to appear at the summons
of the Breton nobles. Immediately on his liberation, Duke John ordered the
destruction of Champtoceaux. A parliament assembled at Vannes in 1424,
condemned Marguerite and her sons to capital punishment, and declared all
the Penthievre possessions to be forfeited to the State. But the culprits
had all escaped the kingdom, except the youngest son, William, a child
only ten years of age, who had been given as a hostage for the appearance
of his mother and brothers, and was condemned to languish for twenty-seven
years in prison, where he lost his eyesight--a victim to crimes in which he
had not been an accomplice. John had made a vow, during his detention, to
give, if he regained his liberty, to the church of Notre Dame at Nantes,
his weight in gold; and most conscientiously did he perform his promise,
for we read, "He placed himself in his war armour in the balance, and
caused the opposite scale to be filled with gold till it had attained the
weight of the first; that is to say, three hundred and eighty marks, seven
ounces"--which sum was delivered over to the church. Vows of this nature
are not unfrequently recorded. When Don Carlos, the ill-fated son of
Philip II., lay ill, he vowed to give to the Virgin, on his recovery, four
times his weight in gold plate, and seven times his weight in silver. The
vow was fulfilled; but the Prince was placed in the scale in a damask robe
and fur coat, and weighed only seventy-six pounds--so much was he reduced
by his long illness.

Nantes is a cheerful, busy, handsome city, but wanting in the picturesque
characteristics of the towns of Lower Brittany. Quimper, Vannes, Rennes,
and Nantes, have all been successively capitals of the duchy, but Nantes
was the usual residence of its dukes.

The cathedral contains its principal artistic monument, the tomb of Duke
Francis II. and his second