The foregoing description has been summarized from letters and statements of the artist visitors. The following sketch is from the same sources, collated with popular tradition and hints obtained from historic researches. Partly narrative, partly legend and partly surmise, it gives the story of Chateau Courance as nearly as it will probably ever be known. Early in the eighteenth century the estates of Courance came into the possession of Raoul Boismonard du Guesclin, a minor, probably then very young. He apparently resided in Paris, and may have seen the sunset glories of the court of Louis the Great. At all events, not long after the death of the Grand Monarch the youthful Du Guesclin accompanied the equally youthful Louis XV. on that journey to Lorraine which was terminated so abruptly at Metz by the almost fatal illness of the king. Later, he was in personal attendance on his royal friend during Marshal Saxe's splendid campaign, and at Fontenoy proved himself a worthy descendant of his ancestor, the great constable of France. The idle life of a luxurious court, growing more and more effeminate in the long years of peace that followed Fontenoy, seems to have ill suited this scion of the Courance family, ever in history a race of soldiers, men of high spirit and stirring temper. With many other gentlemen of France he espoused as a volunteer the cause of Maria Theresa. It is probable that most of his active life was passed in the Austrian service, as he won distinguished honors and was a chief of cavalry in the Seven Years' War. Home interests were not neglected, however, as the Courance estates were improved under his management, while the neighboring domains were drifting to ruin. It appears also that during his last campaigns he adopted into his military family the younger son of an old Courance neighbor, Henri d'Armagnac de Foix, a cadet of the house of Pontoise. After the Peace of Hubertsburg the count returned to France, entrusted, it is supposed, with a mission respecting a matrimonial alliance between France and Austria, which was afterward accomplished in the marriage of the archduchess Marie Antoinette and the dauphin. Louis XV. received the companion of his youth with great cordiality and honor. At a court audience the sovereign distinguished the soldier by removing the royal sword and scarf and with his own hands hanging the splendid guerdon over the shoulders of his subject and friend. Leaving his protege, D'Armagnac de Foix, in charge of affairs in Paris, the count hastened to Courance, where his neighbors hailed his arrival with every demonstration of welcome. Fetes, hunting-parties, excursions, balls and banquets were given for his entertainment, and all the families of the Loiret joined in lionizing the brilliant _chef d'escadron_, heroes being a rarity in France during those piping times of peace.