When Clisson was imprisoned in the Chateau de l’Hermine, he promised for his freedom a hundred thousand francs’ worth of gold, the restitution of the towns belonging to the duke of Penthievre, and the cancelling of his daughter Marguerite’s betrothal to the Duke of Penthievre.  But as soon as he was set free, he began by attacking Chateladren, Guingamp, Lamballe and St. Malo, which cities either were taken or they capitulated.  But the people of Brittany paid for the fun.

When Jean V. was captured by the Count of Penthievre at the bridge of Loroux, he promised a ransom of one million; he promised his eldest daughter, who was already betrothed to the King of Sicily.  He promised Montcontour, Sesson and Jugan, etc., but he gave neither his daughter nor the money, nor the cities.  He had promised to go to the Holy Sepulchre.  He acquitted himself of this by proxy.  He had taken an oath that he would no longer levy taxes and subsidies.  The Pope freed him from this pledge.  He had promised to give Notre-Dame de Nantes his weight in gold; but as he weighed nearly two hundred pounds, he remained greatly indebted.  With all that he was able to pick up or snatch away, he quickly formed a league and compelled the house of Penthievre to buy the peace which they had sold to him.

On the other side of the Sevre, a forest covers the hill with its fresh, green maze of trees; it is La Garenne, a park that is beautiful in itself, in spite of the artificial embellishments that have been introduced.  M. Semot, (the father of the present owner), was a painter of the Empire and a laureate, and he tried to reproduce to the best of his ability that cold Italian, republican, Roman style, which was so popular in the time of Canova and of Madame de Stael.  In those days people were inclined to be pompous and noble.  They used to place chiselled urns on graves and paint everybody in a flowing cloak, and with long hair; then Corinne sang to the accompaniment of her lyre beside Oswald, who wore Russian boots; and it was thought proper to have everybody’s head adorned with a profusion of dishevelled locks and to have a multitude of ruins in every landscape.

This style of embellishment abounds throughout La Garenne.  There is a temple erected to Vesta, and directly opposite it another erected to Friendship....

Inscriptions, artificial rocks, factitious ruins, are scattered lavishly, with artlessness and conviction....  But the poetical riches centre in the grotto of Heloise, a sort of natural dolmen on the bank of the Sevre.

Why have people made Heloise, who was such a great and noble figure, appear commonplace and silly, the prototype of all crossed loves and the narrow ideal of sentimental schoolgirls?  The unfortunate mistress of the great Abelard deserved a better fate, for she loved him with devoted admiration, although he was hard and taciturn at times and spared her neither bitterness nor blows.  She dreaded offending him