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II
THE SOLITARY
"Of the fortress built, in 1011, by Guillaume de Bellême, on the summit of the rock at Domfront, at 300 feet above the little River Varenne, all that is now left standing is two great strips of wall, flanked by picturesque buttresses and pierced with wide arches, the remains of the ancient keep. Round about are a few traces of ramparts and remnants of underground passages, all arranged in the form of a square and in a perfect state of preservation."
The guide-books, however, for some reason, fail to mention the manor-house built, in the seventeenth century, by Pierre de Donnadieu, Governor of Anjou, on the site and with the materials of the outbuildings of the old fortress. The logis, as this sort of
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