Why, the very garden in which
you will be sitting when I tell you this was once a part of the royal
estate, and the last Lord of the Land was the Duke de Penthievre. I
thought that fact rather amusing when I found it out, considering that
the house I came so near to taking at Poigny was on the Rambouillet
estate where his father, the Duke de Toulouse, one of Louis XIV's
illegitimate sons, died, where the Duke de Penthievre was born, and
where he buried his naughty son, the Duke de Lamballe.
Of course, while I am telling you things like this you will have to
bring your imagination into play, as very few vestiges of the old days
remain. I still get just as much fun out of Il y avait une fois, even
when the "once on a time" can only be conjured up with closed eyes.
Still, I can show you some dear little old chapels, and while I am
telling you about it you will probably hear the far-off, sad tolling of
a bell, and I shall say to you "Ca sonne a Bouleurs." It will be the
church bells at Bouleurs, a tiny, tree-shaded hamlet, on another
hilltop, from which, owing to its situation, the bells, which rarely
ring save for a funeral, can be heard at a great distance, as they have
rung over the valley for years.
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