An Eye for an Eye, and a Tooth for a Tooth. XXXVIII. The Red-Breeches. XXXIX. A Wounded Soul. XL. The Chimney-back. XLI. Three Broken Hearts. XLII. God's Executioner. XLIII. Shows that a Man with Fifty Thousand Francs about him may be much Embarrassed. EPILOGUE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. Portrait of Dumas _Frontispiece_ Portrait of Charette Castle Souday Portrait of Louis XVIII. Portrait of Dermoncourt VOL. II. Portrait of Louis Philippe Cathedral of Nantes Château of Nantes THE LAST VENDÉE; OR, THE SHE-WOLVES OF MACHECOUL VOLUME I. THE LAST VENDÉE; OR, THE SHE-WOLVES OF MACHECOUL ---------- I. CHARETTE'S AIDE-DE-CAMP. If you ever chanced, dear reader, to go from Nantes to Bourgneuf you must, before reaching Saint-Philbert, have skirted the southern corner of the lake of Grand-Lieu, and then, continuing your way, you arrived, at the end of one hour or two hours, according to whether you were on foot or in a carriage, at the first trees of the forest of Machecoul. There, to left of the road, among a fine clump of trees belonging, apparently, to the forest from which it is separated only by the main road, you must have seen the sharp points of two slender turrets and the gray roof of a little castle hidden among the foliage. The cracked walls of this manor-house, its broken windows, and its damp roofs covered with wild iris and parasite mosses, gave it, in spite of its feudal pretensions and flanking turrets, so forlorn an appearance that no one at a passing glance would envy its possessor, were it not for its exquisite situation opposite to the noble trees of the forest of Machecoul, the verdant billows of which rose on the horizon as far as the eye could reach. In 1831, this little castle was the property of an old nobleman named the Marquis de Souday, and was called, after its owner, the château of Souday. Let us now make known the owner, having described the château.