and besieged and pillaged Guingamp.  Charles VIII. appointed him Lieutenant- general of Lower Brittany in 1491, and he was first commissary of the King of France at the States of Brittany held at Vannes in 1491 and 1501.  In 1507 he witnessed the marriage contract of the Princess Claude with Francis, Duke of Valois, afterwards Francis I. (Anselme’s Histoire Genealogique, vol. iv. p. 57).  When Anne became Duchess of Brittany, John II. vainly strove to compel her to marry his son, James, and this was one of the causes of their life- long enmity (ante vol. iii.  Tale XXI.) John II. died in 1516.—­L. and Ed.

5 If this be the chateau of Josselin, as some previous commentators think, Queen Margaret is in error here, for records subsist which prove that Josselin, now classed among the historical monuments of France, was built not by John II., but by his father, Alan IX.  It rises on a steep rock on the bank of the Oust, at nine miles from Ploermel, and on the sculptured work, both inside and out, the letters A. V.  (Alan, Viscount) are frequently repeated, with the arms of Rohan and Brittany quartered together, and bearing the proud device A plus.  It seems to us evident that the incidents recorded in the early part of Queen Margaret’s tale took place at Josselin, and that Catherine de Rohan was imprisoned in some other chateau expressly erected by her brother.—­D. and Ed.

Some time afterwards he sought, for the satisfaction of his conscience, to win her back again, and spoke to her of marriage; but she sent him word that he had given her too sorry a breakfast to make her willing to sup off the same dish, and that she looked to live in such sort that he should never murder a second husband of hers; for, she added, she could scarcely believe that he would forgive another man after having so cruelly used the one whom he had loved best of all the world.

And although weak and powerless for revenge, she placed her hopes in Him who is the true Judge, and who suffers no wickedness to go unpunished; and, relying upon His love alone, was minded to spend the rest of her life in her hermitage.  And this she did, for she never stirred from that place so long as she lived, but dwelt there with such patience and austerity that her tomb was visited by every one as that of a saint.

From the time that she died, her brother’s house came to such a ruinous state, that of his six sons not one was left, but all died miserably; (6) and at last the inheritance, as you heard in the former story, passed into the possession of Rolandine, who succeeded to the prison that had been built for her aunt.