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Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

"Over Strand and Field"


Still, in spite of all this, they had not become more royalist, for some
time later, having arrested the Marquis of La Noussaie and the Viscount
of Denoual, it cost the former twelve thousand crowns to get out of
prison and the latter two thousand.
Then, fearing that Pont-Brient would interrupt commercial relations with
Dinan and the other cities in the Ligue, they attacked and subjected it.
Presuming that their bishop, who was the temporal master of the city,
might be likely to deprive them of the freedom they had just acquired,
they put him in prison and kept him there for a year.
The conditions at which they finally accepted Henri IV are well-known:
they were to take care of themselves, not be obliged to receive any
garrison, be exempt from taxes for six years, etc.
Situated between Brittany and Normandy, this little people seems to have
the tenacity and granite-like resistance of the former and the impulses
and dash of the latter. Whether they are sailors, writers, or travellers
on foreign seas, their predominant trait is audacity; they have violent
natures which are almost poetical in their brutality, and often narrow
in their obstinacy.


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