It was too early to go home, so we went on to the Chateau de Lassay.  We raced through pretty little clean gray villages, looking peaceful and sleepy and deserted and evidently quite accustomed to automobiles.  No one took much notice of us.  There were only a few old people and children in the streets; all the men were working in the fields gathering in their harvest.  Lassay is quite a place, with hotels, shops, churches, and an old Benedictine convent.  We left the auto in the square, as it couldn’t get up the narrow, steep little road to the hotel.  There were swarms of beggars of all ages—­old women, girls, children—­lining the road before we got to the chateau.  Monsieur B. (deputy), who was with us, remonstrated vigorously, particularly with stout, sturdy young women who were pursuing us, but they didn’t care a bit, and we only got rid of them once we had crossed the moat and drawbridge and got into the court-yard, where a wrinkled and red-cheeked old woman locked the door after us.  The chateau is almost entirely in ruins, but must have been splendid.  There is a sort of modern dwelling-house in the inner court, but I fancy the proprietor rarely lives there.  It is enormous.  There are eight massive round towers connected by a courtine (little green path) that runs along the top of the ramparts.  The big door that opens on the park is modern, and makes decidedly poor effect after the fine old pointed doorway that gives access to the great court-yard.  The park, with a little care and a little money spent on it, would be beautiful, but it is quite wild and uncared for.  There are splendid old trees, some of them covered entirely with ivy growing straight up into the branches and giving a most peculiar effect to the trees; ragged green paths leading to woods; running waters with little bridges thrown over them; a splendid vegetation everywhere, almost a jungle in some places—­all utterly neglected.  The old woman took us through the “casemates”—­dark stone galleries with little narrow slits for windows or to fire through; they used to run all around the house, connected by a subterranean passage, but they are now, like all the rest, half in ruins.  It was most interesting.  We had not the energy, any of us, to go up into the tower and see the view—­we had seen it all the way, culminating at Domfront on the top of the mountain, and though very beautiful, it is always the same—­great stretches of green fields, hedges, and fine trees.  It is a little too peaceful and monotonous for my taste.  I like something bolder and wilder.  A high granite cliff standing out in the sea, with the great Atlantic rollers breaking perpetually against it, appeals to me much more than green fields and cows standing placidly in little clear brooks, and clean, comfortable farmhouses, with pretty gray Norman steeples rising out of the woods, but my companions were certainly not of my opinion and were enchanted with the Norman landscape.  We had a long ride back in the soft evening light.  I am afraid to say how many kilometres we went in the three hours we were away.