Ch. 3 - A Day Without a Morrow - Page 2

abruptly to the north. Towards the
south, where the town itself really ends and the faubourg Saint-
Leonard begins, the Fougeres rock makes a bend, becomes less steep,
and turns into the great valley, following the course of the river,
which it hems in between itself and the heights of Saint-Sulpice,
forming a sort of pass through which the water escapes in two
streamlets to the Couesnon, into which they fall. This pretty group of
rocky hills is called the "Nid-aux-Crocs"; the little vale they
surround is the "Val de Gibarry," the rich pastures of which supply
the butter known to epicures as that of the "Pree-Valaye."

At the point where the Promenade joins the fortifications is a tower
called the "Tour de Papegaut." Close to this square erection, against
the side of which the house now occupied by Mademoiselle de Verneuil
rested, is a wall, partly built by hands and partly formed of the
native rock where it offered a smooth surface. Here stands a gateway
leading to the faubourg of Saint-Sulpice and bearing the same name.
Above, on a breastwork of granite which commands the three valleys,
rise the battlements and feudal towers of the ancient castle of
Fougeres,--one of those enormous erections built by the Dukes of
Brittany, with lofty walls fifteen feet thick, protected on the east
by a pond from which flows the Nancon, the waters of which fill its
moats, and on the west by the inaccessible granite rock on which it
stands.

Seen from the Promenade, this magnificent relic of the Middle Ages,
wrapped in its ivy mantle, adorned with its square or rounded towers,
in either of which a whole regiment could be quartered,--the castle,
the town, and the rock, protected by walls with sheer surfaces, or by
the glacis of the fortifications, form a huge horseshoe, lined with
precipices, on which the Bretons have, in course of ages, cut various
narrow footways. Here and there the rocks push out like architectural
adornments. Streamlets issue from the fissures, where the roots of
stunted trees are nourished. Farther on, a few rocky slopes, less
perpendicular than the rest, afford a scanty pasture for the goats. On
all sides heather, growing from every crevice, flings its rosy
garlands over the dark, uneven surface of the ground. At the bottom of
this vast funnel the little river winds through meadows that are
always cool and green, lying softly like a carpet.

Beneath the castle and among the granite boulders is a church
dedicated to Saint-Sulpice, whose name is given to the suburb which
lies across the Nancon. This suburb, flung as it were to the bottom of
a precipice, and its church, the spire of which does not rise to the
height of the rocks which threaten to crush