The Last Vendée, or the She-Wolves of Machecoul: Two Volumes in One —— Two Volumes in One

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ISBN: 9780243408078 出版年：2018 页码：888 Alexandre Dumas Forgotten Books

IF you ever chanced, dear reader, to go from Nantes to Bourgneuf you must, before reaching saint-philbert, have skirted the southern corner of the lake of grand-lieu, and then, continuing your way, you arrived, at the end Of one hour or two hours, according to whether you were on foot or in.a carriage, at the first trees Of the forest of Machecoul. There, to left of the road, among a fine clump Of trees belonging, apparently, to the forest from which it is sepa rated only by the main road, you must have seen the sharp points of two slender turrets and the gray roof Of a little castle hidden among the foliage. The cracked walls Of this manor-house, its broken win dows, and its damp roofs covered with wild iris and para site mosses, gave it, in spite of its feudal pretensions and flanking turrets, so forlorn an appearance that no one at a passing glance would envy its possessor, were it not for its exquisite situation Opposite to the noble trees of the forest of Machecoul, the verdant billows Of which rose on the horizon as far as the eye could reach. In 1831, this little castle was the property Of an Old nobleman named the Marquis de Souday, and was called, after its owner, the chateau Of Souday. Let us now make known the owner, having described the chateau. The Marquis de Souday was the sole representative and last descendant of an old and illustrious Breton family; for the lake of grand-lieu, the forest of Machecoul, the town Of Bourgneuf, situated in that part of France now called the department of the loire-inférieure, was then part of the province Of Brittany, before the division of France into departments. The family of the Marquis de Souday had been, in former times, one Of those feudal trees with endless branches which extended themselves over the whole depart ment; but the ancestors Of the marquis, in consequence of Spending all their substance to appear with Splendor in the coaches of the king, had, little by little, become SO reduced and shorn of their branches that the convulsions of 1789 happened just in time to prevent the rotten trunk from falling into the hands Of the sheriff; in fact, they pre served it for an end more in keeping With its former glory.