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The family was ancient and honourable; from the cartulary Bertran appears to have been born about 1140; we find him, with his brother Constantin, in possession of the castle of Hautefort, which seems to have been a strong fortress; the lands belonging to the family were of no great extent, and the income accruing from them was but scanty.

After this fruitless negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and English cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the King of France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time attended his person, were taken. But this victory leading to no important advantages, a truce for a year was at last, from mutual weakness, concluded between the two monarchs.

In an old cartulary of the abbey of Turpenay, near Chinon, which in those later troublous times had found a resting place in the library of Azay, where the custodian was only too glad to receive it, I met with a fragment under the head of The Hours of Poissy, which had evidently been put together by a merry abbot of Turpenay for the diversion of his neighbours of Usee, Azay, Mongaugar, Sacchez, and other places of this province.

More than once it has betrayed my secret thoughts, and especially upon a certain occasion at the public library of Coutances, where I discovered, right in front of my colleague Brioux, the "Cartulary of Notre- Dame-des-Anges." What a delight! My little eyes remained as dull and expressionless as ever behind my spectacles.

In an old cartulary of the abbey of Turpenay, near Chinon, which in those later troublous times had found a resting place in the library of Azay, where the custodian was only too glad to receive it, I met with a fragment under the head of The Hours of Poissy, which had evidently been put together by a merry abbot of Turpenay for the diversion of his neighbours of Usee, Azay, Mongaugar, Sacchez, and other places of this province.

The Provençal biography informs us that Bertran finally became a monk in the Order of Citeaux. The convent where he spent his last years was the abbey of Dalon, near Hautefort. The cartulary mentions his name at various intervals from 1197 to 1202. In 1215 we have the entry "octavo, candela in sepulcro ponitur pro Bernardo de Born: cera tres solidos empta est."