Old as the granite of Brittany, the Guaisnics are neither Frenchmen nor Gauls,—­they are Bretons; or, to be more exact, they are Celts.  Formerly, they must have been Druids, gathering mistletoe in the sacred forests and sacrificing men upon their dolmens.  Useless to say what they were!  To-day this race, equal to the Rohans without having deigned to make themselves princes, a race which was powerful before the ancestors of Hugues Capet were ever heard of, this family, pure of all alloy, possesses two thousand francs a year, its mansion in Guerande, and the little castle of Guaisnic.  All the lands belonging to the barony of Guaisnic, the first in Brittany, are pledged to farmers, and bring in sixty thousand francs a year, in spite of ignorant culture.  The du Gaisnics remain the owners of these lands although they receive none of the revenues, for the reason that for the last two hundred years they have been unable to pay off the money advanced upon them.  They are in the position of the crown of France towards its engagistes (tenants of crown-lands) before the year 1789.  Where and when could the barons obtain the million their farmers have advanced to them?  Before 1789 the tenure of the fiefs subject to the castle of Guaisnic was still worth fifty thousand francs a year; but a vote of the National Assembly suppressed the seigneurs’ dues levied on inheritance.

In such a situation this family—­of absolutely no account in France, and which would be a subject of laughter in Paris, were it known there —­is to Guerande the whole of Brittany.  In Guerande the Baron du Guaisnic is one of the great barons of France, a man above whom there is but one man,—­the King of France, once elected ruler.  To-day the name of du Guaisnic, full of Breton significances (the roots of which will be found explained in “The Chouans”) has been subjected to the same alteration which disfigures that of du Guaisqlain.  The tax-gatherer now writes the name, as do the rest of the world, du Guenic.

At the end of a silent, damp, and gloomy lane may be seen the arch of a door, or rather gate, high enough and wide enough to admit a man on horseback,—­a circumstance which proves of itself that when this building was erected carriages did not exist.  The arch, supported by two jambs, is of granite.  The gate, of oak, rugged as the bark of the tree itself, is studded with enormous nails placed in geometric figures.  The arch is semicircular.  On it are carved the arms of the Guaisnics as clean-cut and clear as though the sculptor had just laid down his chisel.  This escutcheon would delight a lover of the heraldic art by a simplicity which proves the pride and the antiquity of the family.  It is as it was in the days when the crusaders of the Christian world invented these symbols by which to recognize each other; the Guaisnics have never had it quartered; it is always itself, like that of the house of France, which connoisseurs find inescutcheoned in the shields