It was at this castle that his cruelties to his unhappy spouses are supposed to have occurred; and it was from Nantes that the brother of his last wife is said to have ridden in hot haste to rescue his wretched sister and make an end of the odious old tyrant. Taking a row-boat by the high, old bridge which, just on the outskirts of Nantes, spans the river Erdre, you find yourself at first on a broad sheet of water, with quaint, whitewashed stone-houses and huts, their roofs covered with red brick tiles, and occasionally more handsome mansions with lawns and gardens extending to the river-bank. Here you may perhaps observe a row of curious flat-boats with roofs, but open on all sides, lining both banks of the stream. In these are a number of hard-featured, dark-skinned women of all ages, washing clothes. They lean over the boat-sides, and scrub the shirts and handkerchiefs in the water, then withdraw them, lay them smoothly on some flat boards, like a table, and taking a flat hammer pound upon them. Presently you get past these, if you row vigorously, and come to pretty bends in the river, and find yourself beyond the thickly-settled part, amidst pleasant rural fields, with some wealthy merchant's mansion raising its towers above the green trees. After a while you approach a bright little village, all of whose houses form a single street just along the banks of the river. Here you disembark and pass along the village street, across a rickety bridge which spans a little inlet from the stream, and so out into the country, and through paths in the woods thickly grown with brush and wildflowers. Presently, soon after you have got out of sight of the village, you ascend a gentle hill, and suddenly come upon an old, old house, with its wooden ribs appearing, crossing each other, through the stone walls, and a roof that looks as if about to fall in upon the people who inhabit it. Just beyond this, deeply imbedded in shrubs, brush, thickly-grown ivies and other vines, and moss, is all that is left of Blue-beard's castle. The walls are still there, dividing the apartments. You can imagine the rooms and the tower which arose above the tall trees that here cluster on the river bank. And you may fancy, as you stand among the beautiful ruins, that you are on the very spot where the room used to be which Blue-beard forbade his last wife to enter. Here is the portal, now crumbled and almost covered with moss and ivy, where the old tyrant came in and out; there the wall where the last of his poor victims sat, looking out and straining her eyes to see her brother coming; beyond, the spot where Blue-beard was struck down, and received his deserts. It seems too beautiful a place for so remorseless an ogre; and as one looks out upon the lovely scenes where the tearful spouses mourned their lot, one cannot help thinking how happy they might have been in such a charming retreat, had they enjoyed it with loving husbands and happy homes. CHAPTER XVII.