tempted to narrate an adventure that befell me on my return,
between Rennes and Vitre; when the King having preceded me at
speed under the pretext of urgency, but really that he might
avoid the prolix addresses that awaited him in every town, I
found myself no more minded to suffer. Having sacrificed my
ease, therefore, in two of the more important places, and come
within as many stages of Vitre, I determined also on a holiday.
Accordingly, directing my baggage and the numerous escort and
suite that attended me to the full tale of four-score horses--to
keep the high road, I struck myself into a byway, intending to
seek hospitality for the night at a house of M. de Laval's; and
on the second evening to render myself with a good grace to the
eulogia and tedious mercies of the Vitre townsfolk.

I kept with me only La Font and two servants. The day was fine,
and the air brisk; the country open, affording many distant
prospects which the sun rendered cheerful. We rode for some
time, therefore, with the gaiety of schoolboys released from
their tasks, and dining at noon in the lee of one of the great
boulders that there dot the plain, took pleasure in applying to
the life of courts every evil epithet that came to mind. For a
little time afterwards we rode as cheerfully; but about three in
the afternoon the sky became overcast, and almost at the same
moment we discovered that we had strayed from the track. The
country in that district resembles the more western parts of
Brittany, in consisting of huge tracts of bog and moorland strewn
with rocks and covered with gorse; which present a cheerful
aspect in sunshine, but are savage and barren to a degree when
viewed through sheets of rain or under a sombre sky.