A quick little story as we pass, because the street names in Saint-Malo are often loaded with history. Rue du Chat qui Danse—“Dancing Cat Street”—takes its name from the most famous English attack on the city. The English launched an infernal machine, a ship crammed with gunpowder and explosives, straight toward Saint-Malo. The grand operation failed spectacularly: the vessel exploded before it ever reached the walls. Legend says the only casualty of an attack that was supposed to flatten the city was a poor cat. A monk immortalized the story in verse, essentially mocking the English for all their thunder producing nothing but the death of a single cat. To taunt their English enemy, the people of Saint-Malo named the street overlooking the ramparts Rue du Chat qui Danse. And to make the insult even sweeter, it was on this very street, at the Hôtel de la Bertaudière, number 2, that the man who would become a nightmare for the British navy was born: the famous privateer Robert Surcouf.