ntle slopes to the
great valley, where they turn abruptly to the north. Towards the south,
where the town itself really ends and the faubourg Saint-Leonard begins,
the Fougeres rock makes a bend, becomes less steep, and turns into
the great valley, following the course of the river, which it hems in
between itself and the heights of Saint-Sulpice, forming a sort of pass
through which the water escapes in two streamlets to the Couesnon,
into which they fall. This pretty group of rocky hills is called the
"Nid-aux-Crocs"; the little vale they surround is the "Val de Gibarry,"
the rich pastures of which supply the butter known to epicures as that
of the "Pree-Valaye."

At the point where the Promenade joins the fortifications is a tower
called the "Tour de Papegaut." Close to this square erection, against
the side of which the house now occupied by Mademoiselle de Verneuil
rested, is a wall, partly built by hands and partly formed of the native
rock where it offered a smooth surface. Here stands a gateway leading
to the faubourg of Saint-Sulpice and bearing the same name. Above, on
a breastwork of granite which commands the three valleys, rise the
battlements and feudal towers of the ancient castle of Fougeres,--one
of those enormous erections built by the Dukes of Brittany, with lofty
walls fifteen feet thick, protected on the east by a pond from which
flows the Nancon, the waters of which fill its moats, and on the west by
the inaccessible granite rock on which it stands.

Seen from the Promenade, this magnificent relic of the Middle Ages,
wrapped in its ivy mantle, adorned with its square or rounded towers,
in either of which a whole regiment could be quartered,--the castle, the
town, and the rock, protected by walls with sheer surfaces, or by
the glacis of the fortifications, form a huge horseshoe, lined with
precipices, on which the Bretons have, in course of ages, cut various
narrow footways. Here and there the rocks push out like architectural
adornments. Streamlets issue from the fissures, where the roots of
stunted trees are nourished. Farther on, a few rocky slopes, less
perpendicular than the rest, afford a scanty pasture for the goats. On
all sides heather, growing from every crevice, flings its rosy garlands
over the dark, uneven surface of the ground. At the bottom of this vast
funnel the little river winds through meadows that are always cool and
green, lying softly like a carpet.

Beneath the castle and