In feudal times--indeed, even so late as the last century--the district was a perfect nest of cut-throats, where no one could venture in safety for any honest purpose; without roads, and without police; full of dark caverns and half-demolished castles, affording all kinds of facilities for retreat and concealment; and thus it became the favourite rendezvous of the worst and most ferocious characters of those lawless times. It is widely different now. The hunter or the traveller--a woman or a child--may ramble through the length and breadth of its forests, equally in vain hoping for the excitement or fearing the danger of any adventure, beyond the common one of seeing a wolf or wild boar threading his way amongst the trees--a matter of no consequence at all. If, however, you love to collect wild and mournful tales--tales, even, of horror, with which to rivet the attention of the family group over the fire in the winter evenings,--stop at every ruined wall over which the lizard is harmlessly creeping; stop at every massive tower in which the owl is screeching--at every large isolated stone under which the serpent is hissing; linger along each tortuous path, and your peasant guide will tell you a tradition for each--for all. Thus, for instance: you are perhaps a few paces in front of him, in the forest of La Goulotte; and as the mid-day sun glances through the boughs above you, you see its rays rest upon a cross at a little distance; it was, you think, placed there for the rude worshippers of the province, and you contemplate it with complacent reverence, till Pierre comes up with you. "'Tis La Croix Chavannes, Monsieur, _la croix sinistre_. See! in the narrow pass between the two mountains, its black and moss-covered arms extended; at the end of each is a large knob, resembling a threatening hand." You walk on, and find the cross riddled with ball, chipped and notched, and carved with odd names. By the time you have reached it, Pierre has told you it was set on the spot where, many a long year ago, the Marquis de Chavannes was found, deluged in blood and quite dead; he had been pierced through the heart by a treacherous rival, who had joined his hunting party, and who basely took advantage of a moment when, in ardent pursuit of the grisly boar, De Chavannes was utterly unsuspicious of his evil intentions.