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Updated: April 30, 2025
Soon after crossing the main road leading into Bretagne, we rode by the side of cultivated lands and orchards resembling the western parts of Devonshire, of which the narrow lanes and high hedges reminded me very much, until we entered the forest leading to the Val-Dieu.
The following day, having taken leave of my hospitable host, who refused any compensation, I returned to Mortagne by another route, through the Forest of Val-Dieu, more dark and difficult to penetrate than the other; but the guide was better acquainted with it, and took the road by Saint Maure and Saint Eloi, through a fine country, highly cultivated, and abounding in beautiful scenery and distant landscapes.
I quitted La Trappe in the afternoon of the third day after my arrival there, for the Val-Dieu, which lies three leagues to the east of Mortagne, taking the villages of Rinrolles and Prepotin in my way; the latter stands in the midst of a forest. By this road, so bad that it scarcely deserves the name, a great distance is saved, but the romantic scenery of the approach to La Trappe is lost.
The Val-Dieu extends upwards of three miles in length, surrounded by almost impenetrable woods, except where paths have been cut. It has three lakes, one communicating with the other, containing great quantities of fish. The Monastery, it is evident from the remains of its ruins, and from the boundary wall, still entire, must have been of prodigious extent.
I found afterwards that he had seen better days: he informed me the Val-Dieu property was purchased at the dissolution of the Monastery by the present proprietor, who resided at Paris, and allowed him, being his friend, to occupy that part of the building which had not been destroyed.
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