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?© de, 1799-1850

"Beatrix"

But, in truth, she
was misleading both Calyste and Claude; she was not even thinking of
marriage; her heart was in the throes of the most violent convulsion
that could agitate a soul as strong as hers. She found herself the
dupe of her own mind; too late she saw life lighted by the sun of
love, shining as love shines in a heart of twenty.
Let us now see Camille's convent where this was happening.

VII
LES TOUCHES
A few hundred yards from Guerande the soil of Brittany comes to an
end; the salt-marshes and the sandy dunes begin. We descend into a
desert of sand, which the sea has left for a margin between herself
and earth, by a rugged road through a ravine that has never seen a
carriage. This desert contains waste tracts, ponds of unequal size,
round the shores of which the salt is made on muddy banks, and a
little arm of the sea which separates the mainland from the island of
Croisic. Geographically, Croisic is really a peninsula; but as it
holds to Brittany only by the beaches which connect it with the
village of Batz (barren quicksands very difficult to cross), it may be
more correct to call it an island.


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