"On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did not lose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and, driving the spurs into his sides, he made him recover himself. "The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the very sentinels were hidden in the gloom; it seemed like a deserted city. "But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did not even hear. "He held on his way. "At the Rue du Château his horse stumbled and fell, this time to rise no more. "What mattered it to Gaston now?--he had arrived.... "He passed right through the castle, when he perceived the esplanade, a scaffold, and a crowd. He tried to cry, but no one heard him; to wave his handkerchief, but no one saw him.... Another mounts the scaffold, and, uttering a cry, Gaston threw himself down below.... Four men died who might have been saved had Gaston but arrived five minutes before, and, by a remarkable contretemps, Gaston himself shared the same fate." In "The Regent's Daughter," Dumas describes the journey to Nantes with great preciseness, though with no excess of detail. The third chapter opens thus: "Three nights after that on which we have seen the regent, first at Chelles, and then at Meudon, a scene passed in the environs of Nantes which cannot be omitted in this history; we will therefore exercise our privilege of transporting the reader to that place. "On the road to Clisson, two or three miles from Nantes,--near the convent known as the residence of Abelard,--was a large dark house, surrounded by thick, stunted trees; hedges everywhere surrounded the enclosure outside the walls, hedges impervious to the sight, and only interrupted by a wicket gate. "This gate led into a garden, at the end of which was a wall, having a small, massive, and closed door. From a distance this grave and dismal residence appeared like a prison; it was, however, a convent, full of young Augustines, subject to a rule lenient as compared with provincial customs, but rigid as compared with those of Paris. "The house was inaccessible on three sides, but the fourth, which did not face the road, abutted on a large sheet of water; and ten feet above its surface were the windows of the refectory. "This little lake was carefully guarded, and was surrounded by high wooden palisades. A single iron gate opened into it, and at the same time gave a passage to the waters of a small rivulet which fed the lake, and the water had egress at the opposite end." From this point on, the action of "The Regent's Daughter" runs riotously rapid, until it finally culminates, so far as Nantes is concerned, in the quintuple execution before the château, brought about by the five minutes' delay of Gaston with the reprieve. * * * * * Dumas' knowledge of and love of the Mediterranean was great, and he knew its western shores intimately.