In it her sister the Lady Sybilla had been born.

Solitary and tenantless, save for a couple of guards and their uncovenanted womenkind, it looked down on its green island meadows, while on the horizon hung the smoke of the wood fires lit at morn and eve by the good wives of Nantes.
To that place the three had next journeyed and had there beheld the great Hotel de Suze, set like an enemy's fortress in the midst of the turbulent city, over against the Castle of the King.

But the Hotel, though held like a place of arms, was untenanted by the marshal, his retinue, or the lost Scottish maids.
Next they found the strong Castle of Tiffauges, above the green and rippling waters of the Sevres, void also as the others.

No light gleamed out of that window of sinister repute, high up in the cliff-like wall, from which strange shapes were reported to look forth even at deep midnoon.
North, south, and east the three had ridden through the country of Retz.

There remained but Machecoul, more remote and also darker in repute than any of the other dwelling-places of Gilles de Retz.