given birth to many strange and romantic legends; inaccessible
retreats arranged for outlaws and bandits in the old tower,
nocturnal apparitions, innocent victims paying with their lives the
misfortune of having surprised the secrets of these terrible
guests...."

It is pleasant to see M. de la Sicotière point out the confusion he
alone experienced. But there is better to come! Here is a writer who
gives us in two large volumes the history of Norman Chouannerie. There
is little else spoken of in his book than disguises, false names, false
papers, ambushes, kidnappings, attacks on coaches, subterranean
passages, prisons, escapes, child spies and female captains! He states
himself that the affair of the Forest of Quesnay was "tragic, strange
and mysterious!" And at the same time he condemns as "strange" and
"romantic" the simplest of all these adventures--that of Moisson! He
scoffs at his hiding-places in the roofs of the old château, and it is
precisely in the roofs of the old château that the police found the
famous refuge which could hold forty men with ease. He calls the
retreats arranged for the outlaws and bandits "legendary," at the same
time that he gives two pages to the enumeration of the holes, vaults,
wells, pits, grottoes and caverns in which these same bandits and
outlaws found safety! So that M. de la Sicotière seems to be laughing at
himself!

I should reproach myself if I did not mention, as a curiosity,
the biography of M. and Mme. de Combray, united in one person in
the "Dictionaire Historique" (!!!) of Larousse. It is unique of
its kind. Names, places and facts are all wrong. And the crowning
absurdity is that, borne out by these fancies, fragments are given
of the supposed Mémoires that Félicie (!) de Combray wrote after the