ax,
we will give you a tenth of our wine." Samson accepted the offer, and the
mutual arrangement was continued during the lives of the two saints.

The marshy country round Dol has been formerly inundated by the sea; it is
now reclaimed and protected by a dyke twenty-two miles long, extending
from Pontorson to Chateauneuf. The whole tract is full of buried wood, a
submerged forest, which the people dig up, and use for furniture. It is
black, like the Irish bog-oak. They call it "coueron." In the midst of
this plain rises a mamelon or insulated granite rock, resembling in form
Mont St. Michel, called the Mont Dol. On the top is the little chapel of
Notre Dame de l'Esperance, upon which was formerly a telegraph, and near
it is a column surmounted by a colossal statue of Our Lady. Mont Dol was a
consecrated place of the Druids. The guides showed us a spring which never
dries, and also a rock upon which they point out the print of the foot of
the demon, left by him when wrestling with St. Michael. We met the cure,
who gave us a medal of the church, and told us the principal points in the
view before us, extending over the whole Bay of Cancale.

[Illustration: 9. Menhir, near Dol.]

On our way back to Dol, we walked to a cornfield, in the midst of it
stands a menhir(2) (they are so termed from the Breton _moen_, stone, and
_hir_, long), called the "Pierre du champ dolant," a shaft of gray
granite, about thirty feet high, and said to measure fifteen more
underground. On the top is a cross. The first preachers of Christianity,
unable to uproot the veneration for the menhirs, surmounted them with the
cross, preserving the worship but changing the symbol. In the same manner,
they did not attempt to destroy the veneration for sacred groves and
fountains, but transferred to new saints the miracles of times past.

We drove through a pretty country to see the Chateau of Combourg, where
Chateaubriand passed his early days. It is a fine square castle of the
fifteenth century, with massive towers at each corner, surrounded by
trees, and standing proudly over the village below. The drawbridge has
been replaced by a modern "perron" or flight of stone steps, which leads
to the entrance hall. The salle d'honneur looks over a lake. We were taken
into his little melancholy room which Chateaubriand so well describes.

[Illustration: 10. Chateau of Combourg.]

"La fenetre de mon donjon s'ouvrait sur le cour interieure; le jour,
j'avai