Before the
portal of this church, which is dedicated to Saint-Leonard, is a
small, irregular square, where the soil is held up by a buttressed
wall, which forms a balustrade and communicates by a flight of steps
with the Promenade. This public walk, like a second cornice, extends
round the rock a few rods below the square of Saint-Leonard; it is a
broad piece of ground planted with trees, and it joins the
fortifications of the town. About ten rods below the walls and rocks
which support this Promenade (due to a happy combination of
indestructible slate and patient industry) another circular road
exists, called the "Queen's Staircase"; this is cut in the rock itself
and leads to a bridge built across the Nancon by Anne of Brittany.
Below this road, which forms a third cornice, gardens descend, terrace
after terrace, to the river, like shelves covered with flowers.
Parallel with the Promenade, on the other side of the Nancon and
across its narrow valley, high rock-formations, called the heights of
Saint-Sulpice, follow the stream and descend in gentle slopes to the
great valley, where they turn abruptly to the north. Towards the
south, where the town itself really ends and the faubourg Saint-
Leonard begins, the Fougeres rock makes a bend, becomes less steep,
and turns into the great valley, following the course of the river,
which it hems in between itself and the heights of Saint-Sulpice,
forming a sort of pass through which the water escapes in two
streamlets to the Couesnon, into which they fall.
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