aint-Malo, which so greatly harmed the king, did not
in the least benefit the Duke de Mercoeur. He had hoped that the people
would accept a governor from his hands, his son, for example, a mere
child, for that would have meant himself, but they obstinately refused
to listen to it. He sent troops to protect them, but they refused to let
them enter, and the soldiers were compelled to take lodgings outside of
the city.
Still, in spite of all this, they had not become more royalist, for some
time later, having arrested the Marquis of La Noussaie and the Viscount
of Denoual, it cost the former twelve thousand crowns to get out of
prison and the latter two thousand.
Then, fearing that Pont-Brient would interrupt commercial relations with
Dinan and the other cities in the Ligue, they attacked and subjected it.
Presuming that their bishop, who was the temporal master of the city,
might be likely to deprive them of the freedom they had just acquired,
they put him in prison and kept him there for a year.
The conditions at which they finally accepted Henri IV are well-known:
they were to take care of themselves, not be obliged to receive any
garrison, be exempt from taxes for six years, etc.
Situated between Brittany and Normandy, this little people seems to have
the tenacity and granite-like resistance of the former and the impulses
and dash of the latter. Whether they are sailors, writers, or travellers
on foreign seas, their predominant trait is audacity; they have violent
natures which are almost poetical in their brutality, and often narrow
in their obstinacy. There is this resemblance between these two sons of
Saint-Malo, Lamennais and Broussais: they were always equally extreme in
their systems and employed their latter years in fighting what they had
upheld in the earlier part of their life.
In the city itself are little tortuous streets edged with high houses
and dirty fishmongers' shops. There are no carriages or luxuries of any
description; everything is as black and reeking as the hold of a ship. A
sort of musty smell, reminiscent of Newfoundland, salt meat, and long
sea voyages pervades the air.
"The watch and the round are made every night with big English dogs,
which are let loose outside of the city by the man who is in charge of
them, and it is better not to be in their vicinity at that time. But
when morning comes, they are led back to a place in the city where they
shed all their ferocity which, at
|