me, d'un Prince plus amant qu'epoux."

It was in this castle that Henry IV. signed his celebrated Edict of
Nantes, so fatally revoked by Louis XIV.

The Duc de Mercoeur, when governor of Brittany, made Nantes a regular
fortified town. Having married Marie de Luxembourg, heiress of the house
of Penthievre, he sought to secure to himself the duchy of Brittany, while
his brother, the Duke de Guise, aimed at the crown of France. Head of the
League in that province, he looked upon it as a means of attaining his
end: his wife joined him in his plans of ambition, and they by turns
tyrannized and caressed the Nantais, amusing them with fetes, in which the
Duchess condescended to dance with the townsfolk. For twenty years Mercoeur
held the province; but a peace was eventually signed between him and Henry
IV., through the mediation of Gabrielle d'Estrees, whose son Cesar de
Vendome, then four years of age, was affianced to the Duke de Mercoeur's
daughter, then only six. When Henry IV. made his entry into Nantes after
the pacification, he observed, on surveying the fortifications, "Ventre
Saint Gris, les Ducs de Bretagne n'etaient pas de petits compagnons."

Nantes has been the scene of many an act of vengeance on the part of the
Kings of France.

The Place du Bouffay, the place of execution, was the scene of the tragic
death of the young Henri de Talleyrand, Comte de Chalais, executed by
Louis XIII. for his part in the conspiracy which bears his name. Its
object was the death of the Cardinal, and to place the crown on the head
of the feeble Gaston, who was celebrating his marriage at Nantes at the
time that his victim Chalais was paying the penalty of his crime.

The restless, intriguing Cardinal de Retz was imprisoned in Nantes Castle
during the minority of Louis XIV., and made a wonderful escape by letting
himself down from the walls to the river, where a boat awaited him. It was
also at Nantes that the same monarch caused Fouquet to be arrested, not,
as alleged, for his malpractices in office, but because his ambition and
pomp offended the pride of his royal master.

For their part in the conspiracy of Cellamare, the Marquis de Poncallec
and three other Breton gentlemen suffered on the Place du Bouffay, and the
Vendean chief, La Charette, was also there shot in 1795.

Not far from the castle is the Rue Haute du Chateau. At the Maison Juigny,
in this street, the Duchesse de Berri was arrested, after having remained
sixte