LETTER FROM BRITTANY. 



my memory. Accompanied by an accomplished friend, I left Nantes 

 early in the morning, and, after a delightful ride of three hours, 

 reached Pallet, the birth-place of Abelard, to visit which was one of 

 the objects of our excursion. Pallet is a village destitute of any thing 

 remarkable, and derives its only interest from having been the birth- 

 place of the hero of romantic love in 1079, and from being the retreat 

 to which he conveyed Heloise during her confinement, when menaced 

 with the vengeance of her incensed uncle. Here, under the care of 

 Abelard's sister, Dionisia, she gave birth to a son, whose beauty sug- 

 gested the name of Astrolabe. The site of the castle, which belonged 

 to Berenger, the father of Abelard, is said to be a little cemetry at the 

 back of the church, which is now marked by some mouldering walls; 

 and it was during her sojourn there that she is presumed to have 

 wandered to Clisson, three miles distant, and in its charming scenery 

 to have found a temporary consolation for her absence from her lover. 

 Having indulged in the associations which Pallet creates, we pro- 

 ceeded to Clisson. 



Just before entering the town a partial view discloses some of the 

 numerous beauties around it. The Sevre glides smoothly at the bot- 

 tom ofthe valley, almost enclosed between two hills, whose summits 

 form a boundary to the horizon. Towards the south, the town ap- 

 pears rising like an amphitheatre, the walls of the houses in which are 

 so slightly elevated that they can scarcely be said to interrupt the 

 view of the gently-sloping ascents ; while the verdure appears almost 

 to intrench on the tiled roofs, thus forming a variety of tints which 

 harmonize perfectly. The gray w r alls of the ruins of an ancient castle 

 form a prominent feature, over which the trees wave their branches, 

 and shelter the traveller from the meridian sun. A little estuary flows 

 at the back of the castle, which there discharges itself into the Sevre ; 

 and avenues of large poplars ornament the centre ofthe valley, whose 

 undulating tops indicate the direction of the winds, which seldom dis- 

 turb the tranquillity of the vale. 



Clisson is situated at the confluence of the Sevre and the Moine, 

 six leagues from Nantes. Before the Revolution it contained three 

 thousand inhabitants, five churches, two priories, two convents, a 

 chapter of canons, a hospital, and a court of justice which was under 

 the jurisdiction of Nantes. The war of La Vendee obliged the in- 

 habitants to desert the town, which was many times taken, and the 

 houses reduced to ashes ; but the two churches and an hospital still 

 remain, and the population now consists of about twelve hundred per- 

 sons. Traversing the banks of the Moine, a very short distance leads 

 to an almost impenetrable thicket of chesnut-trees, and the river losing 

 its tranquil character, rushes over the fallen rocks, which are heaped 

 in wild confusion. 



Returning to the town, the Grotto of Ossian becomes the chief ob- 

 ject of attention. Shattered masses of granite strew the foreground, 

 interspersed with the gray trunks of trees, the ramifications of whose 

 branches form a canopy, which excludes the broad glare of daylight 

 from the landscape ; and paths, hewn out of the rocks, lead to a little 

 labyrinth where the mingled heaps of varied soil bear witness to the 

 early revolutions in the natural world. The Grotto is here conspi- 

 cuous, and the descriptivejscenery assists the illusion of the name, al- 



