he one
he was known to lead at Kerfol, where he busied himself with his estate,
attended mass daily, and found his only amusement in hunting the wild
boar and water-fowl. But these rumours are not particularly
relevant, and it is certain that among people of his own class in the
neighbourhood he passed for a stern and even austere man, observant of
his religious obligations, and keeping strictly to himself. There was
no talk of any familiarity with the women on his estate, though at that
time the nobility were very free with their peasants. Some people said
he had never looked at a woman since his wife's death; but such things
are hard to prove, and the evidence on this point was not worth much.

Well, in his sixty-second year, Yves de Cornault went to the pardon at
Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden over
pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was Anne
de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less
great and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had
squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in his
little granite manor on the moors... I have said I would add nothing of
my own to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interrupt
myself here to describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate
of Locronan at the very moment when the Baron de Cornault was also
dismounting there. I take my description from a rather rare thing: a
faded drawing in red crayon, sober and truthful enough to be by a late
pupil of the Clouets, which hangs in Lanrivain's study, and is said to
be a portrait of Anne de Barrigan. It is unsigned and has no mark of
identity but the initials A. B., and the date 16--, the year after her
marriage. It represents a young woman with a small oval face, almost
pointed, yet wide enough for a full mouth with a tender depression at
the corners. The nose is small, and the eyebrows are set rather high,
far apart, and as lightly pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinese
painting. The forehead is high and serious, and the hair, which one
feels to be fine and thick and fair, drawn off it and lying close like
a cap. The eyes are neither large nor small, hazel probably, with a look
at once shy and steady. A pair of beautiful long hands are crossed below
the lady's breast...

The chaplain of Kerfol, and other witnesses, averred that when the Baron
came back from Locronan he jumped from his horse, o