Near Caen is a lovelier town, “Dinan, where the Conqueror slept.” Here history’s scroll seems to loosen, displaying an enchanting pastoral of the ages; there lies the simple, old hamlet by the river, just as it might have looked when William the Norman and Harold, son of Goodwin, camped there together, a little less than one thousand years ago. Then, back of the river on the bluff, later a securely walled town appeared, but now the old fortifications have turned into charming parks and playgrounds, girding the loveliest of French villages; and on a summer day in fair France one can feel sure that though much of life is at cross-purposes, all is not vanity: old moats may make the loveliest of gardens; old warriors, the gentlest of heroes. [Illustration: _Old Moats do make such Charming Gardens._] _The Grandniece of the Grand Inquisitor_ I have a fair daughter formed like a golden flower.—_Sappho._ The Spanish Inquisitor is one character of the past who has been spared the mockish attentions of writers of historical romance. But he, too, has suffered from the _on dit_ of history, history as she is taught. However, he had his day. Once as the impersonation of “correct sentiment,” he dealt his decrees from a palace and had the double honor of representing Church as well as State. As times grew gentler, the Inquisition was directed against books rather than men. Now, certainly, something may be accorded to those who dispose of polemic literature, even though they be as innocent as earthworms of their ultimate use to humanity; therefore, let us try to look upon the Grand Inquisitor, Miguel de Carpio, as a Spanish gentleman of an exceedingly old school—as a man perhaps much less bloodthirsty than some of the good and perfect knights, though abominably technical regarding certain points. As theatre-goers we are in the gentleman’s debt, for it was he who educated his nephew, Lope de Vega de Carpio, who in his turn was a positive factor in the development of the modern drama. Lope Felix de Vega de Carpio was of a mental mixture that has more than passed away; it has been relegated to the incomprehensible,—at once a graceful poet and a soldier, a past master of euphuism and a coarse dramatist; an officer of the Church; “a servant of the Inquisition” or a “familiar of the holy office,” as he fluently termed it (an honorary escort of the victim to the stake); finally, chaplain of the monastic order into which he retired; and, unquestionably, the most voluminous of writers. [Illustration: _A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader in Lope de Vega’s Time._]