d to go and visit him, and share
in his hunting-parties in the wildwoods.

His castles were situated in the province of Brittany, and his real
name was one which is still to be found in these secluded
regions,--the Sieur Duval. The lapse of time has caused all his fine
castles wholly to disappear, with one exception, and it is that which
I am about to describe to you.

Sieur Duval had his favorite residence on the banks of a lovely little
river, about two miles from Nantes. Here he was near town, and might
ride in on one of his high-tempered chargers whenever he listed, to
join the revels of the dukes, or go wife-hunting.

It was at this castle that his cruelties to his unhappy spouses are
supposed to have occurred; and it was from Nantes that the brother of
his last wife is said to have ridden in hot haste to rescue his
wretched sister and make an end of the odious old tyrant.

Taking a row-boat by the high, old bridge which, just on the outskirts
of Nantes, spans the river Erdre, you find yourself at first on a
broad sheet of water, with quaint, whitewashed stone-houses and huts,
their roofs covered with red brick tiles, and occasionally more
handsome mansions with lawns and gardens extending to the river-bank.
Here you may perhaps observe a row of curious flat-boats with roofs,
but open on all sides, lining both banks of the stream. In these are a
number of hard-featured, dark-skinned women of all ages, washing
clothes. They lean over the boat-sides, and scrub the shirts and
handkerchiefs in the water, then withdraw them, lay them smoothly on
some flat boards, like a table, and taking a flat hammer pound upon
them.

Presently you get past these, if you row vigorously, and come to
pretty bends in the river, and find yourself beyond the
thickly-settled part, amidst pleasant rural fields, with some wealthy
merchant's mansion raising its towers above the green trees.

After a while you approach a bright little village, all of whose
houses form a single street just along the banks of the river. Here
you disembark and pass along the village street, across a rickety
bridge which spans a little inlet from the stream, and so out into the
country, and through paths in the woods thickly grown with brush and
wildflowers.

Presently, soon after you have got out of sight of the village, you
ascend a gentle hill, and suddenly come upon an old, old house, with
its wooden ribs appearing, crossing each other, through the ston