THE MANOR OF PLOUERNEL.
The castle of Neroweg VI--a somber retreat, situated, like the eyrie of
a bird of prey, on the brow of a steep mountain--dominated the country
for many miles around. The moment the watchman, posted on the platform
of the donjon, espied from afar a troop of travelers, he sounded his
horn. Immediately the band of the count, thievish and ferocious, would
sally from the manor. These bandits, not satisfied with demanding the
dues of passage and traffic, habitually pillaged the travelers, often
even massacred them, or took them to the castle to be tortured and
compelled to pay ransom. The face of Gaul bristled with similar haunts,
raised by the Frankish seigneurs under the reign of Charles the Great.
They were impregnable fortresses, from the heights of which barons,
counts, marquises and dukes defied the royal authority, and desolated
the country. The history of the Count of Plouernel is that of all these
seigneurs who issued from the race of the first conquerors of Gaul. In
the year 818, a Neroweg, second son of the head of this Frankish family
that had been richly endowed in Auvergne since Clovis, was one of the
chieftains in the army of Louis the Pious, when he ravaged Brittany,
then in revolt at the call of Morvan and Vortigern. That Neroweg, in
reward for his services during that war, received from the King a fief
of the lands and county of Plouernel, which had reverted to the crown by
the death of its last beneficiary, who left no heirs. Neroweg, in return
for the cession of the county of Plouernel, was to own himself a vassal
of Louis the Pious, render him fealty and homage as to his king and
suzerain seigneur, pay him tribute, and support him in his wars by
marching at the head of the men of his seigniory. In the country of
Plouernel, as in the other provinces of Gaul, certain colonists named
villeins had succeeded in emancipating themselves and again became
owners of parcels of land. Neroweg I. (the first of the name of this
second branch of the family) did not revolt against the authority of the
King. His son, however, Neroweg II., had a strong castle built on the
summit of the mountain of Plouernel, assembled there a numerous band of
determined men, and then, with most of the other seigneurs, he said to
the King of the Franks: "I do not recognize your sovereignty; I will no
longer be your vassal; I declare myself sovereign on my domain, like you
are on yours. The serfs, villeins and townsmen of my county become my
men; they, their lands, their property belong to me only; I shall tax
them at my will and impose upon them tributes, rent and taille which
they shall pay to me only; they will go to war for me alone, and against
you, should you dare come and besiege me in my fortress of Plouernel."
The King did not go, seeing that most of the seigneurs held the same
language to the descendants of Charles the Great or of Hugh le Capet,
whose kingdom was gradually reduced to the possession of the bare
provinces that he was able to defend and preserve, arms in hand. Neroweg
III. and Neroweg IV. did as their ancestor and remained independent,
masters, absolute and hereditary, of the country of Plouernel. A large
number of Frankish seigneurs seized in the same way other parts of the
territory of Gaul. Robert thus became Count of (the country of) Paris;
Milo, Count of (the country of) Tonnerre; Hugh, Count of (the country
of) Maine; Burcharth, Sire of (the country of) Montmorency; Landry, Duke
of (the country of) Nevers; Radulf, Count of (the country of) Beaugency;
Enghilbert, Count of (the country of) Ponthieu; etc. These and a number
of other seigneurs, descendants of the leudes of Clovis or of the
chieftains of the bands of Charles Martel, dropping their Frankish
names, or joining to them the Gaulish names of the regions that they
took possession of, had themselves called "seigneurs," "sires," "dukes"
or "counts," of Paris, of Plouernel, of Montmorency, of Nevers, of
Tonnerre, of Ponthieu, etc., etc. During those centuries of wars and
brigandage the Nerowegs had fortified their castle, while they lived on
rapine and on the extortion of their villeins and their serfs. Neroweg
V., surnamed "Towhead," from the color of his hair, and Neroweg VI.,
surnamed "Worse Than a Wolf" by the wretched people of his domains on
account of his cruelty, proved themselves worthy of their ancestors.
The manor of Plouernel raises its front on the summit of a rocky and
arid mountain, washed on its western slope by a swift running stream,
while on the east it beetles over a narrow path constructed over immense
marshes, drained by a canal that feeds the vast ponds of the abbey of
Meriadek, located several leagues off, and one time part of the large
holdings of the diocese of Nantes. If a traveler follows the overland
route he is compelled to cross this jetty on his way from Angers to
Nantes, unless he be willing to make a wide detour by journeying over
the domains of the seigneur of Castel-Redon. The vessels that sail into
the Loire through the river of Plouernel, whose waters bathe the foot of
the hills, pass close under the castle. The location of the lair is
skilfully chosen. It dominates the two only routes of communication
between the most important towns of the region. A stockade half bars the
river of Plouernel, and serves as a shelter for the barges of the
seigneur. Merchant vessels being signaled from the top of the donjon,
men in arms immediately embark, board the trader, collect navigation
dues, and not infrequently pillage the cargo. No less dangerous is the
overland route. A palisade, into which a gate is cut, bars the passage.
It can be crossed only upon paying a toll, arbitrarily imposed upon the
travelers by the count's men, who, moreover, sack the baggages at their
ease. If they suspect a traveler of being able to pay ransom they drag
him to prison and there torture him until he consents to ransom himself.
The ill-starred ones who may be too poor to pay the toll demanded are,
both men and women, forced to submit to obscene affronts, ridiculous or
cruel, to the great amusement of the men of the seigneur. On one of the
gentler slopes of the mountain, towards the north, the little city of
Plouernel rises in tiers, built in a semi-circle and equidistant from
the manor and the valley, where lie scattered the villages that the
villeins and serfs inhabit. A narrow path, winding and steep, and
bordered here and yonder by precipices, leads up to the first fortified
enclosure, whose ramparts, thirty feet high by two feet thick and
flanked with large towers of brick, constitute one mass with the rock
that serves as their foundation, a rock hewn with the pick and
surrounded by abysses. The dizzy path that winds above the precipices
ends in a massive door covered with iron sheets and enormous nails. It
is the only access to the interior of the first enclosure, a somber
court, where the sun penetrates only at noon, being otherwise kept out
by the height of the numerous structures that lean from within upon the
ramparts. These structures are intended for the lodgement of the
men-at-arms, for the masons, the chapel, the bakery, the forge and
several other workshops--a mint among them. The Count of Plouernel
coined money like the other feudal seigneurs, and, like them, he minted
it to his liking. In the center of the court rises the principal donjon.
That building, square, over a hundred feet high, crowned with a platform
from which the country is far away disclosed, rests upon three tiers of
subterraneous cells, surrounded by a ditch full of water furnished from
springs that also serve as cisterns. The donjon seems to rise from the
midst of a deep pit, in which half of this massive structure appears
hidden, its upper part rising merely above the skirt of the ditch, over
which falls a draw bridge. Few and narrow windows, irregularly cut into
the four sides, and almost as narrow as mere loop-holes, yielded a
gloomy light to the several stories and to the ground floor. The
stonework of all these buildings, blackened by the inclemencies of the
weather and by age, rendered still more dismal the aspect of this
fortress.