oyades of Carrier took place, and these warehouses
served as a temporary place of confinement for the victims. We next
steamed past the island of Indret, the great manufacture of steam-engines
for the State. Here we landed some market women, in caps of the same form,
with high combs, as those of clear muslin worn by the Nantaises, only of a
coarse material, and edged with black. On the right was Coueron, where
Duke Francis II. died in consequence of a fall from his horse. The battle
of St. Aubin-du-Cormier had decided his fate and that of his daughters,--a
humiliation from which he never recovered. His faithful friend Rieux, who
commanded his army, defeated by the youthful Louis de la Tremouille; the
chivalrous Louis of Orleans, a prisoner in an iron cage in the "Grosse
Tour" at Bourges; and the safety of his daughters at the mercy of King
Charles VIII., or worse, of his imperious sister, the Regent Anne de
Beaujeu, who would have committed some act of spoliation, had not the
Chancellor Rochefort saved the duchy by his integrity, declaring to Anne
that "a conqueror without right is but an illustrious robber."

At Les Pellerins, barges were loading with hay, and heaps of it standing
on the river's edge ready for embarkation. On the left bank is Paimboeuf,
where diligences run to Pornic, a favourite little watering-place south of
the Loire.

St. Nazaire is a bustling seaport town, now the point of departure of the
transatlantic steamers for the West Indies and Mexico. A Mexican, in his
picturesque costume, all the seams of his dress fringed with hanging
silver buttons, was living in the same hotel with ourselves. St. Nazaire
has now a large floating basin, opened in 1858, capable of holding 200
ships of large size, and another is in course of construction.

It was from St. Nazaire that Prince Charles, the young Pretender, sailed
on the adventurous expedition of '45, furnished with a frigate and a ship
of the line by Mr. Walsh, of Nantes. Among the noble cavaliers who had
sacrificed everything to follow the Stuarts into exile was the Walsh
family, originally from Ireland. They had shared the wandering fortunes of
Charles II., returned with him at the Restoration to find the greater part
of their property confiscated; but they did not hesitate to sacrifice the
rest when James II. abdicated the throne, and a Walsh commanded the ship
which carried the King to France. Sent on a secret mission to England, he
was recognized, de