Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/160

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EARLY REMINISCENCES

in by some friendly hand, it is obvious that they could no longer stir, but must maintain their upright position till released.

The interior is sufficiently lofty, narrowing as it ascends, and two or three bricks plucked out by the prisoners afforded them sufficient air. Had it not been for the heat and constraint, they might have exhausted the patience of the gendarmes, till their friends could have hauled them out by ropes and effected their escape over the roofs.

The Duchess was at once removed to Blaye, where she was forced to confess to having contracted a secret marriage with the son of a Neapolitan prince, Lucchesi-Palli. Instead of pitying her, the French now laughed at her. After this she was set at liberty, June 8, 1833, and sailed for Sicily, which she reached after a voyage of twenty-four hours. She was a very vivacious lady, the daughter of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. There remained in France a party that favoured her son the Comte de Chambord, or Henri V as they called him. Among these were the Walsh family. At Pau my French master was a hot and strong Legitimist, and made me read aloud with him sundry pamphlets advocating the claims of the Count to the throne of his ancestors.

The cathedral of S. Pierre, in the rear of the castle, is a huge pile with unfinished towers, but has a stately west front. The nave is fine, owing to its height, 120 ft. above the pavement. The windows are destitute of tracery; there are no transepts and only an early and mean choir. I see by my father's diary that he attended High Mass there on the Sunday, but could make no sense out of the service. I was not permitted to go.

Anciently, on his entry into the city, the Bishop of Nantes possessed the privilege of being borne in a gilded chair by four seigneurs—he of Ancennis, the Baron of Retz, the Lord of Pontchâteau, and the Baron of Châteaubriant; after which they attended at a banquet, and were more or less suitably rewarded by the prelate. But in 1338 these four supporters considered that they had not been adequately recompensed; and having no respect for the bishop—whose name was Barnabas and was a man of no family—one of them, the Lord of Ancennis, helped himself to the silver cups and other pieces of plate on the sideboard, which he carried off in his sleeves, to balance the reckoning. He was detected and ordered to make restitution; but, so as to