It had at least twenty steep conical roofs on its towers and turrets, and each of these was surmounted by a grotesque iron girouette, as the French name those vanes which were exclusively placed on the houses of their ancient nobility.
In this chateau had Isabelle of Scotland, daughter of James I., passed two nights when proceeding to Rennes, where, in 1442, she was married to Francis I., Duke of Bretagne; where the peasants yet sing of her beauty, and the luxuriance of her golden hair.
The edifice resembled in style several of our old Scottish baronial dwellings, such as Glammis or Castle Huntly, and I afterwards learnt that it had been engrafted on an older fortress of the Counts of Brittany, in which died Alain with the Strong Beard, in the tenth century; and like all ancient castles in France, it had its legends of blood and sorrow.
It was approached from the Rennes road through two rows of ancient yews, of vast size, towering, solemn, and sombre. Between each of these stood an orange-tree in a green tub; and in the garden were long walks covered with closely cut grass, and a labyrinth of trim beech hedges of great height, amid the dense leaves of which the lark and yellow-hammer built their nests undisturbed.
I remember the spacious entrance-hall, with its floor of tesselated marble, its tall cabinets of ebony and marqueterie, piled with rare china and Indian pagodas; its trophies of arms, a barred helmet or dinted corslet forming the centre of each; its vast dining-hall, with deeply-recessed windows, tapestry curtains, and chairs covered with rose-coloured brocaded silk; and in that hall, Francis II., last Duke of Brittany, had been feasted in 1459 by Roderique, Count of Bourgneuf, who was slain by a Burgundian knight six years after at the battle of Montleheri.
The long disused moat of the old mansion was overgrown by wild brambles, and masses of clematis and ivy shrouded the cannon, carriages and all, on the bastion at the outer gate. Old pieces they were—old perhaps as the days of the League; and above the gate they had once defended, were carved the three besants of Bourgneuf, impaled with the saltire of Broglie.
Such was the old chateau in Brittany, wherein the fortune of war had so strangely cast me.
On the window of my bedroom I one day discovered the name of the author of "Gil Blas," Alain René le Sage (who was a Breton), written with a diamond, for he had once visited the chateau; this window overlooked the lake, which was covered by water-lilies, and bordered by long reedy grass, where the snipe lay concealed, and the tall heron waded in search of the gold-scaled barbel.
Beyond this lake rose some steep and rugged rocks, nearly covered by the yellow bells of the wild gorse; and on the highest stood a haunted Druid stone, around which the fairies and the poulpicous (their husbands) danced on certain nights. This stone, as Angelique assured me, bore a deep mark, the cut of Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur, who is peculiarly the national hero of the Bretons.
How was I to get away from this secluded place?