FROM MORTAGNE TO RENNES, SOEURS DE LA CHARITÉ. ALENÇON, LAVAL, VITRÉ, THE RESIDENCE OF THE CELEBRATED MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ. RENNES.

I travelled by the diligence from Mortagne to AlenÇon and Laval: we arrived at the former place to dinner, and at the latter to remain all night. The carriage was filled with Soeurs de la CharitÉ,

"Qui, pour le malheur seul connoissant la tendresse,
Aux besoins du vieil-age immollent leur jeunesse,"

on their way to different places in Bretagne, on charitable missions, by the order of the Superior at Paris. Four of these were young and beautiful women, none of whom could have attained the age of twenty; yet these females had already devoted themselves to attend on the sick and poor wherever their services might be required, for which purpose they receive a suitable education, in an Hospital at Paris, in such branches of medicine and surgery as may render them useful. They are distributed throughout the kingdom to attend the hospitals and prisons, which they do with the delicacy and attention peculiar to their sex. Of all the classes of females who thus devote themselves to a religious life, and to acts of charity, none are more respected, or more truly serviceable to their fellow-creatures. Their dress consists of a coarse brown jacket and gown, with a high linen cap, sloping down over the shoulders, and a rosary hanging round their waist.

Quitting Beauregard we crossed the river Sart: here the Province of Le Perche terminates, and we enter that of Normandy. For many miles, travelling close to the Forest of Bourse, the roads are excellent, though hilly, and the country highly cultivated in all directions. The peasantry were getting in the hay and rye harvest, and large tracts of wheat and barley were nearly ready for cutting.

The town of AlenÇon is the capital of L'Orne-sur-Sart. It stands in the middle of a fertile plain. The lace made here is the most valuable of any manufactured in France. The Hotel of the Prefecture is a fine building. After dinner I went to the theatre, (formerly an old manufactory), to see the Hotel Garni and Les deux Suisses: both performances were of a very moderate cast. The audience consisted principally of the military in garrison.

On the road from AlenÇon to Laval, we were guarded the whole day by two troopers of the Gendarmerie, who are quartered along the whole line of road from the capital; they are well armed and mounted, and keep a very vigilant guard. At every place we stopped our passports were examined. The police of this country is observed with greater rigor than at any former period of its history, with regard to passports. The circumstances under which the restoration took place, the political state of France, in regard to other powers, the conflicting interests and opinions of various parties, probably render it highly expedient. On the arrival of a stranger at Paris, his passport must be presented, and inscribed in the police book. The revision of the one under which the person has travelled is indispensably necessary. It is then carried to the British Ambassador, (if the stranger be of that nation), or to the minister of that country to which he belongs, where it must obtain the Ambassador's signature. It is next taken to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, where it is deposited until the following day, for which ten livres are charged, and afterwards to the PrÉfecture of the Police, to be signed there in its turn: and when all this is done no one can quit the capital for the interior without its being again signed at the PrÉfecture of the police.

From AlenÇon, we passed the Briante, a small river, at Ville Neuve, where the road begins to skirt the Forest of Moultonue. At Mayenne, the river of that name divides the provinces. The whole of this country is singularly beautiful. I observed vast quantities of buck wheat, which the French call bled noir or sarazin. The country was very much enclosed, producing a great contrast to the vast tracts of land through which I had passed without a single division.

At two leagues from Mayenne we crossed the river Aisne, winding through a beautiful valley, between MartignÉ and LouvernÉ. On the left the river forms a small lake, surrounded by a wood at the foot of a very long and steep hill.

The town of Mayenne is ancient and irregularly built, the river Mayenne running through it. The ruins of an old wall and some decayed towers remain of the fortifications which were taken by assault, after several bloody attempts, during the siege by the English, in 1424.

At Laval, where I stopped, after again crossing the Mayenne, I entered the province of Bretagne: it is an old dirty town, completely intersected by the river, and has a manufactory for coarse cloths and cottons. The TÊte Noire is one of the worst inns I have met with in the country. The department of the Isle-et-Vilaine commences here.

This place is celebrated in the history of the Vendean war by the refuge Madame de Laroche-Jaquelin sought there, after the deplorable defeat of the royalist army at the battle of Mans, where it received its death-blow. The wreck of that army, under M. de Laroche-Jaquelin, were driven from it again on the following day, and from that hour never rallied so as to make any stand against the victorious republicans.

Quitting Laval the day after my arrival, I ascended a long and steep hill, travelled by the side of the forest of Petre, and came to VitrÉ, where I remained all night for the purpose of visiting the chÂteau of the celebrated Madame de SÉvignÉ,[4] whose estate has descended to a distant branch of her family, who had the good fortune to save it from destruction during the revolution. The grounds are kept in excellent order. Her picture hangs in the apartment in which she composed her interesting and elegant letters, and every article of furniture carefully preserved is shown to strangers. The distance from VitrÉ to Rennes is seven leagues, over a road which becomes gradually less and less Interesting.

[Footnote 4: Marie de Rabutin, Marchioness de SevignÉ, was the daughter of the Baron de Chantal, and born in 1626: she espoused at the age of eighteen the Marquis de SÉvignÉ, who fell in a duel in 1651, leaving her with one son and a daughter, to whose education she paid strict attention: the daughter married in 1669 the Count de Grignan, Commandant in Provence, and it was on a visit to her that the Marchioness caught a fever and died in 1696. Her son Charles, Marquis de SevignÉ, was one of the admirers of Ninon de L'Enclos, and had a dispute with Madame Dacier respecting the sense of a passage in Horace. He died in 1713. (Moreri.)]

Rennes is the chief city of the Isle-et-Vilaine, and in former times was the capital of Bretagne. It is a large ancient built town, standing on a vast plain, between the rivers Isle and Vilaine. It has a hall of justice, (Cour Royale,) an episcopal palace, and a foundry for cannon. A more dismal dirty looking city, or a more uninteresting one to a stranger, is seldom to be seen. Few traces remain of its ancient splendor; the old rampart, which once encompassed it, now forms a promenade.

Its commerce is considerable, being the entrepÔt for grain and cattle, with which it supplies Paris and the Southern Provinces, not so abundant in their produce. Jane of Flanders, Countess of Montfort, the most extraordinary woman of her time, resided here, during the imprisonment of her husband in the palace of the Louvre, by Philippe de Valois,[5] when Edward the Third of England invaded France. Hennebon, when attacked by Charles of Blois, was defended by the Countess, and relieved by Sir Walter Manny, whom Edward had sent with a body of 6,000 archers to her succour. The garrison, encouraged by so rare an example of female valour, defended themselves against an immense army, composed of French, Spaniards, Genoese, and Bretons, who frequently assaulted it, and were as vigorously repulsed. On one occasion, Froissart mentions her sallying out at the head of a body of two hundred cavalry, throwing the enemy into great confusion, doing great execution among them, and setting fire to the tents and magazines, which were entirely destroyed.

[Footnote 5: Among the brave knights who engaged in so many battles and perilous adventures, and other feats of arms, Froissart mentions Philip, as opposed to those heroes of high renown, Edward of England, the Prince of Wales his son, the Duke of Lancaster, Sir Reginald Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Manny of Hainault, Sir John Chandos, Sir Fulk Harley, and many others recorded in his book for worth and prowess. "In France also was found good chivalry, strong of limb and stout of heart, and in great abundance, for the kingdom of France was never brought so low as to want men ever ready for combat. Such was King Philipe de Valois, a bold and hardy knight, and his son King John, also John king of Bohemia, and Charles Count of AlenÇon his son."]

The population of Rennes is 27,000. It is at present garrisoned by one thousand troops, and people are of opinion that government finds it no easy task to keep down the spirit of the Vendeans, who are said to be, "plus Royalistes que le Roi." There appears every where a strong spirit of dissatisfaction on the part of the Royalists, at the general preference given to those who were employed under the late ruler in places of public trust, and who were avowed enemies to the restoration of Louis XVIII.