dge. He seemed in great suffering, but had no
doctor; the Breton, in his simple confiding faith--that with the Almighty
are the issues of life and death, and that illness will end according to
His decree--considers the calling in of a medical adviser but an
unnecessary expense to his family. From the lighthouse we walked to the
sea-shore. Belle Isle is a table-land, surrounded by steep cliffs,
averaging 130 feet in height, which can only be descended to the shore in
particular places. We walked to the Grotte du Port Coton, where begins the
"Mer Sauvage," as it is called, an extent of five to six miles of most
picturesque rocks, some elevated from 130 to 160 feet above the level of
the sea, jagged and torn into most fantastic forms by the ceaseless
dashing of the waters of the Atlantic, which have formed various grottoes
in the cliffs. We descended into one of these caverns by a narrow gulley,
but could not proceed far, as the tide was entering fast, and would soon
have surrounded us, cutting off all means of retreat.

[Illustration: 49. Device of Fouquet.]

It reminded us of the description in the 'Vicomte de Bragelonne' of the
grotto at Locmaria, which was blown up, and crushed the mousquetaire
Porthos, at the moment of his and Aramis' triumph over the soldiers of the
King. So great at times is the fury of the waves, that our guide at the
lighthouse told us he had seen on several occasions the spray driven over
to Le Palais, nearly five miles distant. Continuing our walk along the
cliffs, we came to an enormous mass of rock, standing far out detached
from the cliff, and covered with screaming sea-gulls. We again descended
by another fissure into a pretty sandy cove, surrounded by the same wild
granite rocks; but in most places there is no beach at all. It was now
high water, so it was useless to attempt the Grotte des Apothecaires,--the
finest, they say, of them all, and we returned to Le Palais well pleased
with the remarkably wild coast we had seen. Belle-isle forms now a canton
in the department of Morbihan. In ancient days it belonged to the Abbot of
Saint-Croix, at Quimperle, who sold it, in the time of Charles IX., to the
Marechal de Gondi, and, in 1573, it was erected into a Marquisate.
(Cardinal de Retz lived here after his escape from the castle of Nantes.)
One of his successors, Henri de Gondi, being overwhelmed with debt, sold
the island to Nicolas Fouquet, the ill-fated Superintendent of Finance, on
whose d