This mansion belongs to the
noblest family of the province; to the du Guaisnics, who, in the times
of the du Guesclins, were as superior to the latter in antiquity and
fortune as the Trojans were to the Romans. The Guaisqlains (the name
is also spelled in the olden time du Glaicquin), from which comes du
Guesclin, issued from the du Guaisnics.
Old as the granite of Brittany, the Guaisnics are neither Frenchmen
nor Gauls,--they are Bretons; or, to be more exact, they are Celts.
Formerly, they must have been Druids, gathering mistletoe in the
sacred forests and sacrificing men upon their dolmens. Useless to say
what they were! To-day this race, equal to the Rohans without having
deigned to make themselves princes, a race which was powerful before
the ancestors of Hugues Capet were ever heard of, this family, pure of
all alloy, possesses two thousand francs a year, its mansion in
Guerande, and the little castle of Guaisnic. All the lands belonging
to the barony of Guaisnic, the first in Brittany, are pledged to
farmers, and bring in sixty thousand francs a year, in spite of
ignorant culture.
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