A PLEASANTER way of reaching Vannes is to drive from

La Guérande to La Roche Bernard, a pretty little town with some quaint old houses charmingly placed on the river Vilaine. Its great feature is its lofty suspension bridge, 197 metres long and 33 metres above high-water mark. Between La Roche Bernard and Pontchâteau is the Château de la Bretesche and its forest, which served as a refuge to the Protestants of La Roche Bernard, and their minister, Louveau, in 1570 and 1590.

An omnibus runs between La Roche

Bernard and Pontchâteau station, on the Vannes line between Savenay and Redon.

There is a fine

Pontchâteau seems a pretty little place. Magnolias, catalpas, and sumac-trees are abundant. menhir near Pontchâteau, called le Fuseau de la Madelaine, and at some distance from it is the famous Château de Blain, said to have been founded by Alain Fergent, though some of it is much later. All that now remains are two towers, a portion of the dwelling-house, a ruined chapel, and some

F

of the walls. There were once nine towers; of those now remaining, one is attributed to Alain Fergent, and to the other the ever-present Clisson has left his name; it is called La Tour du Connétable-Blain having come by marriage into the family of Clisson. His daughter Beatrix carried this

property into the House of Rohan when she married, and it remained in the possession of the Rohans till 1802. It is a very fine ruin. Four sisters de l'instruction Chrétienne got out at this station of St. Gildas. The community now occupies the old Benedictine Abbey of St. Gildas des Bois.

The church here, although not so old as the first foundation of the abbey, is still a remarkable specimen of thirteenthcentury architecture. The convent buildings are of much later date. The abbot of St. Gildas des Bois was the only one who had a right to use a crozier and mitre in the diocese of Nantes.

We had now pine-woods on each side of the railway and just before we reached Redon the country opened into a long stretch of wooded hills with bits of blue distance seen here and there. Redon stands at the angle of the three departments, Ille et Vilaine, Loire Inférieure, and Morbihan. It is quite worth while to stop here to see the grand old church of St. Sauveur, which forms a striking object from the railway station. The central tower is very ancient and remarkable; the transept is as old as the twelfth century; and there are traces of Norman work in this fine old church. There are several interesting monuments, and the cumbrous high altar was the gift of Cardinal Richelieu, who was Abbé of Redon.

The town of Redon really owes its origin to the abbey, which was founded as early as 832 by Nomenoë. The abbey buildings, which are now occupied as a college, are not earlier than the seventeenth century. There are some old gabled houses in the Grande Rue.

After we left Redon the pine-trees disappeared, the edges of the railway banks were purple with heather, and above were chestnut-trees. As we got nearer Vannes the country was pretty and English looking, though here and there groves of firs and stretches of brown moorland reminded us of the Border. Hitherto, except in the salt works and the costume in the peninsula of Le Croisic, and the caps and kerchiefs

of Nantes, we had not noticed any very special features in Brittany; but here came a change in the scenery. The fields, instead of being divided by hedges, were fenced by fragments of granite fastened together by wattles.

About half-way between Redon and Vannes is the station of Malansac, and from here there is a correspondence to Rochefort-en-terre. This old lordship passed, in 1349, by marriage, from the house of Rochefort to the house of Rieux. There are still some towers standing of the old castle. The church has been restored and altered out of all interest, but the town is full of quaint old houses and steep streets. The town is well placed, and from the castle the view is very picturesque.

It is better to take a carriage at Rochefort to accomplish the expedition to the lande of Lanvaux and its neighbourhood, described by Monsieur Fouquet in his useful little book, "Guide des Touristes et des Archéologues dans le Morbihan." The menhirs here are said to be flung about promiscuously; they are very numerous, and with the curious dolmens are worth seeing, forming a kind of fitting entry to the dreary Morbihan country, with its long stretches of barren moor and its awful Druidic monuments. The menhir called the Chapeau Rouge stands close to the road leading to Malestroit, and near the village of Carhon is an enormous dolmen, or grotto, 42 feet long; but the place is reported to be full of interest for students of archæology, so many of these curious remains being still said to exist on the wild plains of Lanvaux. The following legend is told to account for the immense stretch of dreary waste which reaches westward from above Rochefort to Plaudren and its neighbourhood.