for a long time. The old fellow was talkative; he spoke of
the priests, whom he disliked, of meat, which he thought was a good
thing to eat even on fast days, of the work he had had when he was in
the navy, and of the shots he had received when he was a customs
officer.... The boat glided along slowly, the line followed us and the
end of the _tape-cul_ hung in the water.

The mile we had to walk in order to go from Saint-Pierre to Quiberon was
quickly covered, in spite of a hilly and sandy road, and the sun, which
made our shoulders smart beneath the straps of our bags, and a number of
"men-hirs" that were scattered along the route.

CHAPTER IV.

QUIBERON.

In Quiberon, we breakfasted at old Rohan Belle-Isle's, who keeps the
Hotel Penthievre. This gentleman had his bare feet stuck in old
slippers, on account of the heat, and was drinking with a mason, a fact
which does not prevent him from being the descendant of one of the first
families of Europe; an aristocrat of the old stock! a real aristocrat!
_Vive Dieu!_ He immediately set to work to pound a steak and to cook us
some lobsters. Our pride was flattered to its innermost fibre.

The past of Quiberon is concentrated in a massacre. Its greatest
curiosity is a cemetery, which is filled to its utmost capacity and
overflows into the street. The head-stones are crowded together and
invade and submerge one another, as if the corpses were uncomfortable in
their graves and had lifted up their shoulders to escape from them. It
suggests a petrified ocean, the tombs being the waves, and the crosses
the masts of shipwrecked vessels.

In the middle, an open ossuary contains skeletons that have been exhumed
in order to make room for other corpses. Who has said: "Life is a
hostelry, and the grave is our home?" But these corpses do not remain in
their graves, for they are only tenants and are ejected at the
expiration of the lease. Around this charnel-house, where the heaps of
bones resemble a mass of fagots, is arranged, breast-high, a series of
little black boxes, six inches square, surmounted by a cross and cut out
in the shape of a heart in front, so that one can see the skulls inside.
Above the heart-shaped opening are the following words in painted
letters: "This is the head of ---- ----, deceased on such and such a
day, in such and such a year." These heads belonged to persons of a
certain standing, and one would be considered an ungrateful son if,
after seven