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When he was about twenty years old his authority was threatened by a general conspiracy, which spread through the western half of his duchy. An attempt was made to seize him at Valognes, and he only escaped by riding hard all night to his own castle at Falaise. Bessin and Cotentin, the most Norman parts of Normandy, rose in rebellion.

They first tried to slay or seize the Duke himself, who chanced to be in the midst of them at Valognes. He escaped; we hear a stirring tale of his headlong ride from Valognes to Falaise. Safe among his own people, he planned his course of action. He first sought help of the man who could give him most help, but who had most wronged him.

Both Florians spoke so nicely to all the market people as we passed from stall to stall. The poultry looked very good such fat ducks and chickens. It was funny to see the bourgeoises of Valognes all armed with a large basket doing their marketing; they looked at the chickens, poked them, lifted them so as to be sure of their weight, and evidently knew to a centime what they had to pay.

It was one of the towns that was held by Geoffrey Plantagenet in Stephen's reign, and it was burnt by Edward III. about the same time as Valognes. Then again in the religious wars of the sixteenth century, a most terrific attack was made on St Lo by Matignon who overcame the resistance of the garrison after Colombieres, the leader, had been shot dead upon the ramparts.

Still unaccustomed to any finery, she showed the timidity to use a hackneyed phrase inseparable from a first appearance. She had come from Valognes to find in Paris some use for her distracting youthfulness, her innocence that might have stirred the senses of a dying man, and her beauty, worthy to hold its own with any that Normandy has ever supplied to the theatres of the capital.

For a month Edward marched his army over Normandy, "finding on his road," says Froissart, "the country fat and plenteous in everything, the garners full of corn, the houses full of all manner of riches, carriages, wagons and horses, swine, ewes, wethers, and the finest oxen in the world." He took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan, and St. Lo.

But this thing's elaborately simple, like a penny dreadful: 'In the purple grotto you will find the golden casket. It looks as if... as if it were meant to be seen through at once." Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniform had walked up to their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort of thump. "I have extraordinary news," said the Duc de Valognes.

Since that time the post has only been once attacked by the English, and that was as recently as 1758, when Lord Howe destroyed and burnt the forts, shipping and naval stores. Leaving Cherbourg we will take our way southwards again to Valognes, a town which suffered terribly during the ceaseless wars between England and France. In 1346, Edward III. completely destroyed the place.

In pursuit of two of the clues, Sylvester travelled as far north as Valognes in the Cotentin, and as far east as Gérardmer in the Hautes-Vosges. Both journeys were fruitless, and worse than fruitless waste of precious time and energy. While Larssen waited eagerly for definite news from his secretary with whom he kept constantly in touch by telegram, news came in unexpected fashion through Olive.

They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400, Lion Inn. My father came and they seized him, that's all." "Very well," muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, "very well. I admit it things happened as you say but that does not explain how he was able to leave during the night."