ways considered them to be the genuine
noblemen. It would be no use telling this to the Parisians, they would
only laugh at me. They think that their city is everything, and in my
view they are very narrow-minded. People have no idea in the present
day how these old country noblemen were respected, poor as they were."

Here my mother paused for a little, and then went on with the story,
which I will tell in her own words.

[Footnote 1: I may perhaps relate all these anecdotes at a future
time.]

THE FLAX-CRUSHER.

PART III.

"Do you remember the little village of Tredarzec, the steeple of which
was visible from the turret of our house? About half a mile from the
village, which consisted of little more than the church, the priest's
house, and the mayor's office, stood the manor of Kermelle, which
was, like so many others, a well-kept farmhouse, of very antiquated
appearance, surrounded by a lofty wall, and grey with age. There was
a large arched doorway, surmounted by a V-shaped shelter roofed with
tiles, and at the side of this a smaller door for everyday use. At the
further end of the courtyard stood the house with its pointed roof and
its gables covered with ivy. The dovecote, a turret, and two or three
well-constructed windows not unlike those of a church, proved that
this was the residence of a noble, one of those old houses which were
inhabited, previous to the Revolution, by a class of men whose habits
and mode of life have now passed beyond the reach of imagination.

"These country nobles were mere peasants,[1] but the first of their
class. At one time there was only one in each parish, and they were
regarded as the representatives and mouthpieces of the inhabitants,
who scrupulously respected their right and treated them with great
consideration. But towards the close of the last century they were
beginning to disappear very fast. The peasants looked upon them
as being the lay heads of the parish just as the priest was the
ecclesiastical head. He who held this position at Tredarzec of whom I
am speaking, was an elderly man of fine presence, with all the force
and vigour of youth, and a frank and open face; he wore his hair long,
but rolled up under a comb, only letting it fall on Sunday, when he
partook of the Sacrament. I can still see him--he often came to visit
us at Treguier--with his serious air and a tinge of melancholy, for
he was almost the sole survivor of his order, the majority having