House and Garden 
THE HALL 
giving them frequently a discharge in full 
for their rent if they could make out any¬ 
thing like a good case. He was command¬ 
ant of the Constitutional Guard of Louis 
XVI. which made him particularly obnoxious 
to the Revolutionary party. He was taken 
prisoner at Orleans and massacred with 
many others as innocent as himself on Sep¬ 
tember 9th, 1792. Another member of the 
family had married the Marechal de Noailles. 
Notwithstanding her great age she was arrest¬ 
ed and led before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
She could not hear a word that was said, 
owing to her extreme deafness. “Write 
down,” said Dumas, the President, to the 
registrar, “that she has conspired deafly.” 
She was condemned to death without know¬ 
ing that she had been sentenced, and was be¬ 
headed, at 70 years of age, on July 23d, 1794, 
a few days before Robespierre’s execution. 
The tenth Duke died in 1888 and was suc¬ 
ceeded in the title by his grandson whose 
father had died of typhus fever during the war 
of 1870. Roland de Cosse, Marquis de 
Brissac, had married Mile. Jeanne Say, 
daughter of the great sugar reflner, who on 
her first husband’s death remarried the 
Vicomte de Tredern and is the present owner 
of the chateau. 
Brissac is one of the finest castles in the 
district notwithstanding its many irregulari¬ 
ties and its want of uniformity. Still the 
massive square building produces an ex¬ 
tremely imposing effect and bears witness 
to the power and wealth of those who, at 
different periods, have made it what it now 
is. The front looks east and lies between 
the two towers which still remain to testify 
to the importance of the earlier chateau of 
Brochessac. Ono of these is partly demol- 
