"A what!" exclaimed Shuffles.
"A bone-house, or reliquaire. The poor people in this part of France are very ignorant and superstitious. Requiescat in pace, so far as the mortal remains of their dead are concerned, has no meaning to them, for they do not let them rest quietly in their graves, as we do. After the bodies of the deceased have gone to decay, the skulls and bones are removed from the coffins, and placed in the bone-house. The names, or the initials, of the departed are painted upon the forehead of the skull."
"How horrible!" exclaimed Grace.
"Doubtless it is so to you; but to these people it is an act of affectionate remembrance," added the doctor; "as sacred and pious as any tribute we render to our loved and lost ones."
Dr. Winstock continued to describe the various places through which the train passed, answering the many questions proposed by his interested auditors. At noon they arrived at Rennes, where the excursionists lunched, and some of them, perhaps at the expense of the inner man, were enterprising enough to see a little of the city, which contains forty thousand inhabitants, and was the ancient capital of the dukedom of Brittany.
"This is Laval," said the doctor, an hour and a half after the train left Rennes.
"See there!" exclaimed Grace, pointing to a man clothed in goatskins, the hair outside. "Is that Robinson Crusoe?"
"No; that is the fashion for the peasants in this part of Brittany. They don't depend upon Paris for the mode. I suppose you have all heard of the Vendéan war."
"Yes, sir. The people of La Vendée were royalists, and fought against the republicans as long as there was anything left of them," replied Paul.
"La Vendée lies south of the Loire; but one of their greatest battles was fought near Laval, in 1793. They conducted themselves with fearful desperation, and after the republicans had sent word, as the battle waned, to the Convention at Paris, that La Vendée was no more, the wounded leader of the insurgents was carried through their ranks, and they rallied, gaining the day in a decisive victory, by which the government troops lost twelve thousand men."