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diff --git a/42954-0.txt b/42954-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4222edc --- /dev/null +++ b/42954-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4461 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42954 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 42954-h.htm or 42954-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42954/42954-h/42954-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42954/42954-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://archive.org/details/brittany00menp + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). + + + + + +BRITTANY + + + * * * * * + + OTHER VOLUMES + IN THIS SERIES BY + MORTIMER MENPES + + + EACH =20s.= NET + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR + + JAPAN + WORLD PICTURES + VENICE + INDIA + CHINA + + PRICE =5s.= NET + + + PUBLISHED BY + ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK + SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: MARIE JEANNE] + + +BRITTANY + +by + +MORTIMER MENPES + +Text by DOROTHY MENPES + + + + + + + +Published by Adam & Charles Black +Soho Square +London · W · MCMXII. + +Published July, 1905 +Reprinted 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. DOUARNÉNEZ 3 + II. ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE 15 + III. VITRÉ 29 + IV. VANNES 51 + V. QUIMPER 77 + VI. ST. BRIEUC 89 + VII. PAIMPOL 99 + VIII. GUINGAMP 107 + IX. HUELGOAT 115 + X. CONCARNEAU 123 + XI. MORLAIX 129 + XII. PONT-AVEN 137 + XIII. QUIMPERLÉ 165 + XIV. AURAY 175 + XV. BELLE ISLE 183 + XVI. ST. ANNE D'AURAY 197 + XVII. ST. MALO 203 + XVIII. MONT ST. MICHEL 211 + XIX. CHÂTEAU DES ROCHERS 225 + XX. CARNAC 235 + XXI. A ROMANTIC LAND 241 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + 1. Marie Jeanne _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + + 2. Homeward Bound 4 + + 3. Grandmère 6 + + 4. Meditation 10 + + 5. Minding the Babies 12 + + 6. A Cottage in Rochefort-en-Terre 14 + + 7. At Rochefort-en-Terre 18 + + 8. Mid-day Rest 20 + + 9. A Cottage Home 24 + + 10. Mediæval Houses, Vitré 28 + + 11. Preparing the Mid-day Meal 32 + + 12. In Church 34 + + 13. Père Louis 36 + + 14. Idle Hours 40 + + 15. La Vieille Mère Perot 44 + + 16. A Vieillard 48 + + 17. Place Henri Quatre, Vannes 52 + + 18. Gossips 56 + + 19. A Cattle Market 60 + + 20. Bread Stalls 64 + + 21. In a Breton Kitchen 68 + + 22. A Rainy Day at the Fair 72 + + 23. In the Porch of the Cathedral, Quimper 76 + + 24. The Vegetable Market, Quimper 80 + + 25. Outside the Cathedral, Quimper 84 + + 26. By the Side of a Farm 88 + + 27. On the Road to Bannalec 92 + + 28. Débit de Boissons 94 + + 29. Church of St. Mody 96 + + 30. Reflections 100 + + 31. A Sabot-Stall 104 + + 32. La Vieillesse 108 + + 33. A Beggar 112 + + 34. A Wayside Shrine, Huelgoat 116 + + 35. Fishing Boats, Concarneau 120 + + 36. At the Fountain, Concarneau 122 + + 37. Concarneau Harbour 124 + + 38. The Sardine Fleet, Concarneau 126 + + 39. Watching for the Fishing-fleet, Concarneau 128 + + 40. Mediæval House at Morlaix 132 + + 41. Outside the Smithy, Pont-Aven 136 + + 42. In an Auberge, Pont-Aven 140 + + 43. A Sand-Cart on the Quay, Pont-Aven 144 + + 44. Playing on the 'Place,' Pont-Aven 148 + + 45. On the Quay at Pont-Aven 152 + + 46. On the Steps of the Mill House, Pont-Aven 154 + + 47. The Bridge, Pont-Aven 158 + + 48. The Village Forge, Pont-Aven 160 + + 49. The Village Cobbler 164 + + 50. The Blind Piper 168 + + 51. At the Foire 174 + + 52. Mid-day 176 + + 53. A Little Mother 180 + + 54. Curiosity 184 + + 55. A Solitary Meal 188 + + 56. In the Bois d'Amour 192 + + 57. A Breton Farmer 198 + + 58. In the Eye of the Sun 204 + + 59. Sunday 206 + + 60. The Cradle 210 + + 61. Soupe Maigre 212 + + 62. Déjeuner 216 + + 63. A Farmhouse Kitchen 218 + + 64. Marie 222 + + 65. A Farm Labourer 224 + + 66. A Little Water-Carrier 226 + + 67. Weary 230 + + 68. The Master of the House 232 + + 69. In the Ingle Nook 234 + + 70. A Blind Beggar 236 + + 71. La Petite Marie 240 + + 72. The Little Housewife 242 + + 73. An Old Woman 246 + + 74. A Pig-Market 248 + + 75. Household Duties 252 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DOUARNÉNEZ + + +The gray and somewhat uninteresting village of Douarnénez undergoes a +change when the fishing-boats come home. Even with your eyes shut, you +would soon know of the advent of the fishermen by the downward clatter +of myriads of sabots through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering +in volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute. The village has +been thoroughly wakened up. Douarnénez is the headquarters of the +sardine fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats is a matter +of no little importance. The 9,000 inhabitants of the place are all +given up to this industry. Prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the +faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the little silver fish in visiting +their shores. Not long ago the sardines forsook Douarnénez, and great +was the desolation and despair which settled upon the people. +However, the season this year is good, and the people are prosperous. + +As one descends the tortuous street leading to the sea, when the tide +is in, everything and everyone you encounter seem to be in one way or +another connected with sardines. The white-faced houses are festooned +and hung with fine filmy fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged +with rows of deep russet-brown corks. Occasionally they are stretched +from house to house across the street, and one passes beneath +triumphal arches of really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. This same +little street, which barely an hour ago was practically empty and +deserted, now swarms with big bronzed fishermen coming up straight +from the sea, laden with their dripping cargo of round brown baskets +half filled with glistening fish. They live differently from the +sleepy villagers--these strapping giants of the sea, with their +deep-toned faces, their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue eyes, +which somehow or other seem so very blue against the dark red-brown of +their complexion, their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's +gait. A sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a roomful of +crockery: he looks as if he will knock over something or trip +over something every moment as he swings along in his careless +fashion; yet he never does. + + [Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND] + +What a contrast they are, these stalwart fishers of the deep, to the +somewhat pallid, dapper-looking, half-French hotel and shop keepers, +who are the only men to be seen in the village during the +daytime--these fishermen, with their russet-brown clothing faded by +the salt air into indescribably rich wallflower tones of gold and +orange and red! What pranks Mistress Sea plays with the simple +homespun garments of these men, staining and bleaching them into +glorious and unheard-of combinations of colour, such as would give a +clever London or Parisian dressmaker inspiration for a dozen gowns, +which, if properly adapted, would take the whole of the fashionable +world by storm! You see blue woollen jerseys faded into greens and +yellows, red _bérets_ wondrously shaded in tones of vermilion and +salmon. From almost every window tarpaulin and yellow oilskin trousers +hang drying; every woman in the place is busily employed. + +Many a fascinating glimpse one catches at the doorways when passing, +subjects worthy of Peter de Hooch--a young girl in the white-winged +cap and red crossway shawl of Douarnénez cutting up squares of cork +against the rich dark background of her home, in which glistening +brass, polished oak, blue-and-white china, and a redly burning fire +can be faintly discerned. A soft buzzing noise, as of many people +singing, occasionally broken by a shrill treble, and a group of +loafing men, peering in at a doorway, attract your attention. You gaze +inquisitively within. It is a large shed or barn filled with hundreds +of young girls and women, with bare feet and skirts tucked up to their +knees, salting and sifting and drying and cooking sardines, singing +together the while as with one voice some Breton folk-song in a minor +key, as they busy themselves about their work. + +It is impossible to describe one's feelings when, after descending the +steep cobbled street, one first catches sight of the sea at +Douarnénez. One can only stand stock-still for a moment and draw in a +deep breath of astonishment and fulfilment of hopes. + +Before you lies a broad expanse of gray-blue. I can liken it to +nothing but the hue of faded cornflowers. Whether it is the time of +day or not I cannot tell, but sea and sky alike are flooded with this +same strange cornflower hue; the hills in the distance are of a deeper +cornflower; and clustered about the quay are many fishing-barques, +showing purply-black against the blue delicacy of the background. + + [Illustration: GRANDMÈRE] + +Over the gray-blue sea are scudding myriads of brown, double-winged +boats, all making for the little harbour--some in twos, some in +threes, others in flocks, like so many swallows. Close to the dark +cornflower hills is a patch of brilliant verdant green--so +yellow-green that it almost sets your teeth on edge. + +Set down in mere words, this description can convey no impression of +the Bay of Douarnénez as I saw it that balmy autumn afternoon. My pen +is clogged; it refuses to interpret my thoughts. It was a scene that I +shall never forget. As the fishing-boats neared the shore the +gorgeously flaming brown-and-gold and vermilion sails were hauled +down, and in their places appeared the filmy gray-blue nets hung with +rows of brown corks. The rapidity with which these brown-sailed +workaday boats changed to gossamer, cornflower-decked, fairy-like +crafts was extraordinary. It was as if a flight of moths had by the +stroke of a fairy's wand been suddenly transformed to blue-winged +butterflies. In and about their boats the sailors are working, busy +with their day's haul, picturesque figures standing against the +luminous blue in their sea-toned garments. + +On the quay the women are standing in groups, talking and knitting, +and keeping a sharp look-out for their own particular 'men.' Trim, +neat little figures these women, with their short dark-blue or red +skirts, their gaily-coloured shawls drawn down to a peak at the back, +their light-yellow sabots and their tightly-fitting lace caps, made to +show the brilliant black hair beneath and the pretty rounded shape of +their heads. Many a time when the cornflower-blue sea has turned to +sullen black, and the balmy air is alive with flying foam and roaring +winds, such women must wait in vain on the quay at Douarnénez for +their men-folk. + +The sailor's life is a hard one in Brittany, exposed as he is in his +small boat to the fearful storms of the Atlantic. But danger and +trouble are far distant on this balmy autumn afternoon: the haul has +been an exceptional one, the little fishing-craft are filled high with +silver fish, fishermen fill the streets with laden baskets, and the +soft murmur of many women's voices singing at their work is wafted +through the open doorways of the sorting and counting-houses. Every +moment the boats on the horizon become more and more numerous, the +men being anxious to land their cargo before nightfall; the sea, in +fact, is dark with little brown craft racing in as if for a wager. At +one point the fleet splits up, and the greater portion enter an inlet +other than that at which we are standing. + +Anxious to watch their incoming, we hurry round the cliffs, past quiet +bays. The black rocks against the blue sea, allspice-coloured sand, +and overhanging autumn-tinted trees almost reaching to the water's +edge, would afford many a fascinating subject for the painter of +seascapes. In descending a hill, the haven towards which the +fishing-boats are scudding is before us--a large bay with a +breakwater. On the near side of it are massed rows upon rows of +fishing-boats, now arrayed in their gossamer robes of blue. Everyone +is busy. You are reminded of a scene in a play--a comic opera at the +Gaiety. Boats are entering by the dozen every moment, and arranging +themselves in rows in the little harbour, like a pack of orderly +school-children, shuffling and fidgeting for a moment in their places +before dropping anchor and remaining stationary. Others are scudding +rapidly over the smooth blue sea, ruffling it up in white foam at +their bows. Scores of men in rich brown wallflower-hued clothes and +dark-blue _bérets_ are as busy as bees among the sails and cordage; +others are walking rapidly to and fro, with round brown baskets, full +of silver fish, slung over the arms. But before even the sardines are +unloaded the nets are taken down, bundles of blue net and brown corks, +and promptly carried off home to be dried. This is the sailors' first +consideration, for on the frail blue nets depends prosperity or +poverty. Such nets are most expensive: only one set can be bought in a +man's lifetime, and even then they must be paid for in instalments. + +Above the quay, leaning over the stone parapet, are scores of girls, +come from their homes just as they were, some with their work and some +with their _goûté_ (bread and chocolate or an apple). They have come +to watch the entrance of the fishing fleet: comely, fresh-complexioned +women, in shawls and aprons of every colour--some blue, some maroon, +some checked--all with spotless white caps. The wives are +distinguished from the maids by the material of which their caps are +made: the wives' are of book-muslin and the maids' of fillet lace. +Some have brought their knitting, and work away busily, their hair +stuck full of bright steel knitting-needles. I was standing in what +seemed to be a "boulevard des jeunes filles." They were mostly +quite young girls; and handsome creatures they were too, all leaning +over the parapet and smiling down upon the men as they toiled up the +slope with their baskets full, and ran down again at a jog-trot with +the empties. The stalwart young men of the village were too much +preoccupied to find time for tender or friendly glances: it was only +later, when the bustle had subsided somewhat, and the coming and going +was not so active, that they condescended to pay any attention to the +fair. + + [Illustration: MEDITATION] + +The matrons were mostly engaged in haggling for cheap fish. The men, +tired after their day's work, generally gave way without much ado. It +was amusing to watch the triumph in which the old ladies carried off +their fish, washed and cleaned them in the sea, threaded them on +cords, and, slinging them on their shoulders, set off for home. + +It seemed as if the busy scene would never end. Always fresh boats +were arriving, and still the horizon was black with fishing craft. +Reluctantly we left the scene--a forest of masts against the evening +sky, a jumble of blues and browns, rich wallflower shades and palest +cornflower, brown corks, and the white caps of the women. + +Next morning the romantic and picturesque aspect of the town had +disappeared. Gone were the fishermen, and gone their dainty craft. The +only men remaining were loafers and good-for-nothings, besides the +tradesmen and inn-keepers. Two by two the children were tramping +through the steep gray streets on their way to school--small +dirty-faced cherubs, under tangled mops of fair hair (one sees the +loveliest red-gold and yellow-gold hair in Douarnénez), busily +munching their breakfasts of bread and apples, many of them just able +to toddle. 'Donne la main a ta soeur, George,' I heard a shrill +voice exclaim from a doorway to two little creatures in blue-checked +pinafores wending their weary way schoolwards. Who would have known +that one of them was a boy? They seemed exactly alike. Handsome young +girls in neat short skirts, pink worsted stockings, and yellow sabots, +were busy sweeping out the gutters. Little children's dresses and +pinafores had taken the place of nets and seamen's oilskins, now +hanging from the windows to be dried. The quay was silent and +desolate; the harbour empty of boats, save for a few battered hulks. +All the colour and romance had gone out to sea with the fishermen. +Only the smell of the sardines had been left behind. + + + + + [Illustration: MINDING THE BABIES] + + [Illustration: A COTTAGE IN ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE] + +CHAPTER II + +ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE + + +During our month's tour in Brittany we had not met one English or +American traveller; but at Rochefort-en-Terre there was said to be a +colony of artists. On arriving at the little railway-station, we found +that the only conveyance available was a diligence which would not +start until the next train, an hour thence, had come in. There was +nothing for it, therefore, but to sit in the stuffy little diligence +or to pace up and down the broad country road in the moonlight. There +is something strangely weird and eerie about arriving at a place, the +very name of which is unfamiliar, by moonlight. + +After a long hour's wait, the diligence, with its full complement of +passengers, a party of young girls returned from a day's shopping in a +neighbouring town, started. It was a long, cold drive, and the air +seemed to be growing clearer and sharper as we ascended. At length +Rochefort-en-Terre was reached, and, after paying the modest sum of +fifty centimes for the two of us, we were set down at the door of the +hotel. We were greeted with great kindness and hospitality by two +maiden ladies in the costume of the country, joint proprietors of the +hotel, who made us exceedingly comfortable. To our surprise, we +discovered that the colony of painters had been reduced to one lady +artist; but it was evident, from the pictures on the panels of the +_salle-à-manger_, that many artists had stayed in the hotel during the +summer. + +Rochefort by morning light was quite a surprise. The hotel, with a few +surrounding houses, was evidently situated on a high hill; the rest of +the village lay below, wreathed, for the time being, in a white mist. +It was a balmy autumn morning; the sunlight was clear and radiant; and +I was filled with impatience to be out and at work. The market-place +was just outside our hotel, and the streets were alive with people. A +strange smell pervaded the place--something between cider apples and +burning wood--and whenever I think of Rochefort that smell comes back +to me, bringing with it vivid memories of the quaint little town as I +saw it that day. + +There is nothing modern about Rochefort. The very air is suggestive +of antiquity. Few villages in Brittany have retained their old +simplicity of character; but Rochefort is one of them. Untouched and +unspoilt by the march of modernity, she has stood still while most of +her neighbours have been whirled into the vortex of civilization. +Rochefort, like the Sleeping Beauty's palace, has lain as it was and +unrepaired for years. Moss has sprung up between the cobble-stones of +her streets; ferns and lichen grow on the broken-down walls; Nature +and men's handiwork have been allowed their own sweet way--and a very +sweet way they have in Rochefort. To enter the village one must +descend a flight of stone steps between two high walls, green and dark +with ivy and small green ferns growing in the niches. Very old walls +they are, with here and there ancient carved doorways breaking the +straight monotony. On one side is a garden, and over the time-worn +stone-work tomato-coloured asters nod and wistaria throws her thick +festoons of green, for the flowering season is past. Everything is +dark and damp and moss-grown, and very silent. An old woman, with a +terra-cotta pitcher full of water poised on her head, is toiling up +the steps, the shortest way to the town, which, save for the singing +of the birds in the old château garden, the bleating of lambs on the +hillside, and the chopping of a wood-cutter, is absolutely silent. One +descends into a valley shut in by rugged blue-gray mountains, for all +the world like a little Alpine village, or, rather, a Breton village +in an Alpine setting. The mountains in parts are rocky and rugged, +purple in aspect, and in parts overgrown with gray-green pines. There +are stretches of wooded land, of golden-brown and russet trees, and +great slopes of grass, the greenest I have ever seen. It is quite a +little Swiss pastoral picture, such as one finds in children's +story-books. On the mountain-side a woman, taking advantage of the +sun, is busy drying her day's washing, and a little girl is driving +some fat black-and-white cows into a field; while a sparkling river +runs tumbling in white foam over boulders and fallen trees at the +base. But Rochefort is a typically Breton village. Nowhere in +Switzerland does one see such ancient walls, such gnarled old +apple-trees, laden and bowed down to the earth with their weight of +golden red fruit. Nowhere in Switzerland, I am sure, do you see such +fine relics of architecture. Nearly every house in the village has +something noble or beautiful in its construction. Renovation has not +laid her desecrating hands on Rochefort. Here you see a house +that was once a lordly dwelling; for there are remains of some fine +sculpture round about the windows, remnants of magnificent mouldings +over the door, a griffin's head jutting from the gray walls. There you +see a double flight of rounded stone steps, with a balustrade leading +up to a massive oak door. On the ancient steps chickens perch now, and +over the doorway hang a bunch of withered mistletoe and the words +'Debit de Boisson.' + + [Illustration: AT ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE] + +The village is full of surprises. Everywhere you may go in that little +place you will see all about you pictures such as would drive most +artists wild with joy. Everything in Rochefort seems to be more or +less overgrown. Even in this late October you will see flowers and +vines and all kinds of greenery growing rampant everywhere. You will +see a white house almost covered with red rambling roses and yellowing +vines, oleanders and cactus plants standing in tubs on either side of +the door. There is not a wall over which masses of greenery do not +pour, and not a window that does not hold its pot of red and pink +geraniums. Two cats are licking their paws in two different windows. +The sun has come out from the mists which enveloped it, and shines in +all its glory, hot and strong on your back, as it would in August. It +is market day, and everyone is light-hearted and happy. The men +whistle gaily on their way; the women's tongues wag briskly over their +purchases; even the birds, forgetful of the coming winter, are +bursting their throats with song. In the château garden the birds sing +loudest of all, and the flowers bloom their best. It is a beautiful +old place, the château of Rochefort. Very little of the ruin is left +standing; but the grounds occupy an immense area, and are enclosed by +great high walls. Where the old kitchen once stood an American has +built a house out of the old bricks, using many of the ornamentations +and stone gargoyles found about the place. It is an ingeniously +designed building; yet one cannot but feel that a modern house is +somewhat incongruous amid such historic surroundings. The old avenue +leading to the front door still exists; also there are some +apple-trees and ancient farm-buildings. The château has been built in +the most beautiful situation possible, high above the town, on a kind +of tableland, from which one can look down to the valley and the +encircling hills. + + [Illustration: MID-DAY REST] + +Set up in a prominent position in the village, where two roads +meet, is a gaudy crucifix, very large and newly painted. It is a +realistic presentation of our Saviour on the cross, with the blood +flowing redly from His side, the piercing of every thorn plainly +demonstrated, and the drawn lines of agony in His face and limbs very +much accentuated. Every market woman as she passes shifts her basket +to the other arm, that she may make the sign of the cross and murmur +her prayers; every man, woman, child, stops before the cross to make +obeisance, some kneeling down in the dust for a few moments before +passing on their way. + +Who is to say that the image of that patient, suffering Saviour is not +an influence for good in the village? Who is to say that the +adoration, no matter how fleeting, does not soften, does not help, +does not control, those humble peasant folk who bow before Him? +Religion has an immense hold over the peasants of Brittany. It is the +one thing of which they stand in dread. These images, you say, are +dolls; but they are very realistic dolls. They teach the people their +Bible history in a thorough, splendid way. They stand ever before them +as something tangible to cling to, to believe in. And the images in +the churches--do you mean to say that they have no influence for good +on the people? St. Stanislaus, the monk, for example, with cowl and +shaven head--what an influence such a statue must have on the hearts +of children! There is in his face a world of tender fatherly feeling +for the little child in the white robe and golden girdle who is +resting his head so wearily on the saint's shoulder, clasping a branch +of faded lilies in his hand. Children look at this statue, and they +picture St. Stanislaus in their minds always thus: they know what the +saint looked like, what he did. He is not only a misty, dim, uncertain +figure in the history of the Bible, but a tangible, living, vibrating +reality, taking active part in their daily lives. For older children, +boys especially, there is St. Antoine to admire and imitate--St. +Antoine the hermit, with his staff and his book, the man with the +strong, good face. Françoise d'Amboise, a pure, sweet saint in the +habit of a nun, her arms full of lilies, appeals to the hearts and +imaginations of all young girls. I believe in the efficacy of these +figures and pictures. The peasants' brains are not of a sufficiently +fine calibre to believe in a vague Christ, a vague Virgin, vague +saints interpreted to them by the priests. If it were not for the +images, men and women would not come to church, as they do at all +hours of the day, bringing their market baskets and their tools with +them. They would not come in this way, spontaneously, joyfully, two or +three times a day, to an empty church with only an altar. Church-going +would then become a bare duty, forced and unreal, to be gradually +dropped and discontinued. These people are able to see the sufferings +of our Saviour on the cross, and everything that He had to undergo for +us; also, there is something infinitely comforting in the Divine +Figure, surrounded by myriads of candles and white flowers, with hands +outstretched, bidding all who are weary and heavy-laden to come unto +Him. The peasants contribute their few sous' worth of candles, and +light them, and feel somehow or other that they have indeed rid +themselves of sins and troubles. + +The country round Rochefort is truly beautiful. The village lies in a +hollow; but it is delightful to take one of the mountain-paths, and go +up the rocky way into the pines and gorse and heather. As one sits on +the hillside, looking down upon the village, it is absolutely still +save for the cawing of some birds. You are out of the world up here. +The quaint little gray hamlet lies far below. Between it and you is +the fertile valley, with green fields and groves of bushy trees. The +country is quite cultivated for Brittany, where cabbage-fields and +pasture-lands are rare. The mountains encircling the valley are of +gray slate; growing here and there amongst the slate are yellow gorse +and purple heather. + +It is a gray, dull day; not a breath stirs the air, which is heavy and +ominous. Evening is drawing on as one walks down the mountain-path +towards home, and a haze is settling on the village; the sun has been +feebly trying to shine all day through the thick clouds that cover it. +The green pines, with their purple stems, are very beautiful against +the deeper purple of the mountains; pretty, too, the homesteads on the +hills, with their fields of cabbages and little plantations of +flowers. There is a sweet smell of gorse and pine-needles and decaying +bracken, and always one hears the caw of rooks. + +In such a country as this, on such a day, amid such sights and sounds, +you feel glad to be alive. You swing down the mountain-side quickly, +and the beauty of it all enters into your soul, filling you with a +nameless longing and yearning for you know not what, as Nature in her +grandest moods always does. What rich colouring there is round about +everywhere on this autumn afternoon! The mountain-path leads, let +us say, through a pine-wood. The leaves are far above your head; you +seem to be walking in a forest of stems--long, slim, silver stems, +purple in the shadows. On the ground is a carpet of salmon and brown +leaves, with here and there a bracken-leaf which is absolutely the +colour of pure gold. + + [Illustration: A COTTAGE HOME] + +There is no sound in the forest but your own footsteps and the rustle +of the dry leaves as your dress brushes them. You emerge from the +pine-forest on to a bare piece of mountain land, grayish purple, with +patches of black. Then you dive into a chestnut-grove, where the +leaves are green and brown and gold, and the earth is a rich brown. +And so down the path into the village wrapped in a blue haze. The +women in their cottages are bending busily over copper pots and pans +on great open fireplaces of blazing logs. Little coloured bowls have +been laid out on long polished tables for the evening meal, and the +bright pewter plates have been brought down from the dresser. Lulu has +been sent out to bring home bread for supper. 'Va, ma petite Lulu,' +says her mother, 'dépêche toi.' And the small fat bundle in the check +pinafore toddles hastily down the stone steps on chubby legs. + +On the stone settles outside almost every house in the village +families are sitting--the mothers and withered old grandmothers +knitting or peeling potatoes, and the children munching apples and +hunches of bread-and-butter. An old woman is washing her fresh green +lettuce at the pump. As we mount the hill leading to the hotel and +look back, night is fast descending on the village. The mountains have +taken on a deeper purple; blue smoke rises from every cottage; the +gray sky is changing to a faint citron yellow; the few slim pine-trees +on the hills stand out against it jet-black, like sentinels. + + + + + [Illustration: MEDIÆVAL HOUSES, VITRÉ] + +CHAPTER III + +VITRÉ + + +For the etcher, the painter, the archæologist, and the sculptor, Vitré +is an ideal town. To the archæologist it is an ever-open page from the +Middle Ages, an almost complete relic of that period, taking one back +with a strange force and realism three hundred years and more. Time +has dealt tenderly with Vitré. The slanting, irregular houses, leaning +one against the other, as if for mutual support, stand as by a +miracle. + +Wandering through Vitré, one seems to be visiting a wonderful and +perfect museum, such as must needs please even the exacting, the +blasé, and the indifferent. You are met at every turn by the works of +the ancients in all their naïve purity and simplicity, many of the +houses having been built in the first half of the seventeenth century. + +One can have no conception of the energy of these early builders, +fighting heroically against difficulties such as we of the present +day do not experience. They overcame problems of balance and expressed +their own imaginations. Common masons with stone and brick and wood +accomplished marvellous and audacious examples of architecture. They +sought symmetry as well as the beautifying of their homes, covering +them with ornamentations and sculpture in wood and stone. Without +architects, without plans or designs, these men simply followed their +own initiative, and the result has been absolute marvels of carpentry +and stone-work, such as have withstood the onslaught of time and held +their own. + +When you first arrive at Vitré, at the crowded, bustling station, +surrounded by the most modern of houses and hotels, and faced by the +newest of fountains, disappointment is acute. If you were to leave +Vitré next morning, never having penetrated into the town, you would +carry away a very feeble and uninteresting impression; but, having +entered the town, and discovered those grand old streets--the +Baudrarie, the Poterie, and the Nôtre Dame, among many others--poet, +painter, sculptor, man of business or of letters, whoever you may be, +you cannot fail to be astonished, overwhelmed, and delighted. A quiet +old-world air pervades the streets; no clatter and rattle of horses' +hoofs disturbs their serenity; no busy people, hurrying to and fro, +fill the pathways. Handcarts are the only vehicles, and the +inhabitants take life quietly. Often for the space of a whole minute +you will find yourself quite alone in a street, save for a hen and +chickens that are picking up scraps from the gutter. + +In these little old blackened streets, ever so narrow, into which the +sun rarely penetrates except to touch the upper stories with golden +rays, there are houses of every conceivable shape--there are houses of +three stories, each story projecting over the other; houses so old +that paint and plaster will stay on them no longer; houses with +pointed roofs; houses with square roofs thrust forward into the +street, spotted by yellow moss; houses the façades of which are +covered with scaly gray tiles, glistening in the sun like a knight's +armour. These are placed in various patterns according to the taste +and fantasy of the architect: sometimes they are cut round, sometimes +square, and sometimes they are placed like the scales of a fish. There +are houses, whose upper stories, advancing into the middle of the +street, are kept up by granite pillars, forming an arcade underneath, +and looking like hunchbacked men; there are the houses of the humble +artisans and the houses of the proud noblemen; houses plain and simple +in architecture; houses smothered with carvings in wood and stone of +angels and saints and two-headed monsters--houses of every shape and +kind imaginable. In a certain zigzag, tortuous street the buildings +are one mass of angles and sloping lines, one house leaning against +another,--noble ruins of the ages. The plaster is falling from the +walls; the slates are slipping from the roofs; and the wood is +becoming worm-eaten. + +It is four o'clock on a warm autumn afternoon; the sun is shining on +one side of this narrow street, burnishing gray roofs to silver, +resting lovingly on the little balconies, with their pendent washing +and red pots of geranium. The men are returning from their work and +the children from their schools; the workaday hours are ended, and the +houses teem with life. A woman is standing in a square sculptured +doorway trying to teach her little white-faced fluffy-haired baby to +say 'Ma! ma!' This he positively refuses to do; but he gurgles and +chuckles at intervals, at which his mother shakes him and calls him +'petit gamin.' + + [Illustration: PREPARING THE MID-DAY MEAL] + +All Bretons love the sun; they are like little children in their +simple joy of it. A workman passing says to a girl leaning out of a +low latticed window: + +'C'est bon le soleil?' + +'Mais oui: c'est pour cela que j'y suis,' she answers. + +One house has an outside staircase of chocolate-coloured wood, +spirally built, with carved balustrades. On one of the landings an old +woman is sitting. She has brought out a chair and placed it in the +sunniest corner. She is very old, and wears the snowiest of white caps +on her gray hair; her wrinkled pink hands, with their red worsted +cuffs, are working busily at her knitting; and every now and then she +glances curiously through the banisters into the street below, like a +little bright bird. + +There are white houses striped with brown crossbars, each with its +little shallow balcony. Above, the white plaster has nearly all fallen +away, revealing the beautiful old original primrose-yellow. + +Curiosity shops are abundant everywhere, dim and rich in colour with +the reds and deep tones of old polished wood, the blue of china, and +the glistening yellow of brass. Ancient houses there are, with +scarcely any windows: the few that one does see are heavily furnished +with massive iron-nailed shutters or grated with rusty red iron; the +doorways are of heaviest oak, crowned with coats of arms sculptured in +stone. Large families of dirty children now live in these lordly +domains. + +One longs in Vitré, above all other places, to paint, or, rather, to +etch. Vitré is made for the etcher; endless and wondrous are the +subjects for his needle. Here, in a markedly time-worn street, are a +dozen or more pictures awaiting him--a doorway aged and blackened +alternately by the action of the sun and by that of the rain, and +carved in figures and symbols sculptured in stone, through which one +catches glimpses of a courtyard wherein two men are shoeing a horse; +then, again, there is an obscure shop, so calm and tranquil that one +asks one's self if business can ever be carried on there. As you peer +into the darkness, packets of candles, rope, and sugar are faintly +discernible, also dried fish and bladders of lard suspended from the +ceiling; in a far corner is an old woman in a white cap--all this in +deepest shadow. Above, the clear yellow autumn sunlight shines in a +perfect blaze upon the primrose-coloured walls, crossed with +beams of blackest wood, making the slates on the pointed roofs +scintillate, and touching the windows here and there with a golden +light. + + [Illustration: IN CHURCH] + +Side by side with this wonderful old house, the glories of which it is +impossible to describe in mere words, a new one has been built--not in +a modern style, but striving to imitate the fine old structures in +this very ancient street. The contrast, did it not grate on one's +senses, would be laughable. Stucco is pressed into the service to +represent the original old stone, and varnished deal takes the place +of oak beams with their purple bloom gathered through the ages. The +blocks of stone round the doors and windows have been laboriously +hewn, now large, now small, and placed artistically and carelessly +zigzag, pointed with new black cement. This terrible house is +interesting if only to illustrate what age can do to beautify and +modernity to destroy. + +Madonnas, crucifixes, pictures of saints in glass cases, and +statuettes of the Virgin, meet you at every turn in Vitré, for the +inhabitants are proverbially a religious people. A superstitious yet +guilty conscience would have a trying time in Vitré. In entering a +shop, St. Joseph peers down upon you from a niche above the portal; at +every street corner, in every market, and in all kinds of quaint and +unexpected places, saints and angels look out at you. + +The beautiful old cathedral, Nôtre Dame de Vitré, is one of the purest +remaining productions of the decadent Gothic art in Brittany, and one +of the finest. Several times the grand old edifice has been enlarged +and altered, and the changes in art can be traced through different +additions as in the pages of a book. It is a comparatively low +building, the roof of which is covered by a forest of points or +spires, and at the apex of each point is a stone cross. In fact, the +characteristics of this building are its points: the windows are +shaped in carved points, and so are the ornamentations on the +projecting buttresses. The western door, very finely carved and led up +to by a flight of rounded steps, is of the Renaissance period. In +colouring, the cathedral is gray, blackened here and there, but not +much stained by damp or lichen, except the tower, which seems to be of +an earlier date. The stained-glass windows, seen from the outside, are +of a dim, rich colouring; and on one of the outside walls has been +built an exterior stone pulpit, ornamented with graceful points, +approached from the church by a slit in the wall. It was +constructed to combat the Calvinistic party, so powerful in Vitré at +one time. One can easily imagine the seething crowd in the square +below--the sea of pale, passionate, upturned faces. It must have +presented much the same picture then as it does now, this cathedral +square in Vitré--save for the people;--for there are still standing, +facing the pulpit, and not a hundred paces from it, a row of ancient +houses that existed in those very riotous times. Every line of those +once stately domains slants at a different angle now, albeit they were +originally built in a solid style--square-fronted and with pointed +roofs, the upper stories projecting over the pavement, with arcades +beneath. Some are painted white, with gray woodwork; others yellow, +with brown wood supports. Outside one of the houses, once a butcher's +shop, hangs a boar's head, facing the stone pulpit. What scenes that +old animal must have witnessed in his time, gazing so passively with +those glassy brown eyes! If only it could speak! + + [Illustration: PÈRE LOUIS] + +Convent-bred girls in a long line are filing into church through the +western door--meek-faced little people in black pinafores and shiny +black hats. All wear their hair in pigtails, and above their boots an +inch or so of coloured woollen stockings is visible. Each carries a +large Prayer-Book under her arm. A reverend Mother, in snowy white cap +and flowing black veil, heads the procession, and another brings up +the rear. + +The main door facing the square is flung wide open; and the contrast +between the brilliant sunlit square, with its noisy laughing children +returning from school, dogs barking, and handcarts rattling over the +cobble stones, and this dim, sombre interior, bathed in richest gloom, +is almost overwhelming. + +A stained-glass window at the opposite end of the church, with the +light at the back of it, forms the only patch of positive colour, with +its brilliant reds and purples and blues. All else is dim and rich and +gloomy, save here and there where the glint of brass, the gold of the +picture-frames, the white of the altar-cloth, or the ruby of an +ever-burning light, can be faintly discerned in the obscurity. The +deep, full notes of the organ reach you as you stand at the cathedral +steps, and you detect the faint odour of incense. The figure of a +woman kneeling with clasped hands and bent head is dimly discernible +in the heavy gloom. One glance into such an interior, after coming +from the glare and glamour of the outside world, cannot but bring +peace and rest and a soothing influence to even the most unquiet soul. + +The château of Vitré is an even older building than the cathedral. It +has lived bravely through the ages, suffering little from the march of +time: a noble edifice, huge and massive, with its high towers, its +châtelet, and its slate roofs. Just out of the dark, narrow, cramped +old streets, you are astonished to emerge suddenly on a large open +space, and to be confronted by this massive château, well preserved +and looking almost new. As a matter of fact, its foundation dates back +as far as the eleventh century, although four hundred years ago it was +almost entirely reconstructed. Parts of the château are crumbling to +decay; but the principal mass, consisting of the towers and châtelet, +is marvellously preserved. It still keeps a brave front, though the +walls and many of the castle keeps and fortresses are tottering to +ruin. Many a shock and many a siege has the old château withstood; but +now its fighting days are over. The frogs sing no longer in the moat +through the beautiful summer nights; the sentinel's box is empty; and +in the courtyards, instead of clanking swords and spurred heels, the +peaceful step of the tourist alone resounds. The château has rendered +a long and loyal service, and to-day as a reward enjoys a glorious +repose. To visit the castle, you pass over a draw-bridge giving +entrance to the châtelet, and no sooner have you set foot on it than +the concierge emerges from a little room in the tower dedicated to the +service of the lodge-holder. + +She is a very up-to-date chatelaine, trim and neat, holding a great +bunch of keys in her hand. She takes you into a huge grass-grown +courtyard in the interior, whence you look up at the twin towers, +capped with pointed gray turrets, and see them in all their immensity. +The height and strength and thickness of the walls are almost +terrifying. She shows you a huge nail-studded door, behind which is a +stone spiral staircase leading to an underground passage eight miles +long. This door conjures up to the imaginative mind all kinds of +romantic and adventurous stories. We are taken into the Salle des +Guardes, an octagonal stone room on an immense scale, with bay +windows, the panes of which are of stained glass, and a gigantic +chimneypiece. One can well imagine the revels that must have gone on +round that solid oak table among the waiting guards. + +The chatelaine leads us up a steep spiral staircase built of solid +granite, from which many rooms branch, all built in very much the +same style--octagonal and lofty, with low doorways. One must stoop to +enter. On the stairway, at intervals of every five or six steps, there +are windows with deep embrasures, in which one can stand and gain a +commanding view of the whole country. These, it is needless to say, +were used in the olden days for military purposes. + + [Illustration: IDLE HOURS] + +As the chatelaine moves on, ever above us, with her clanking keys, one +can take one's self back to the Middle Ages, and imagine the warrior's +castle as it was then, when the chatelaine, young, sweet, and pretty, +wending her way about the dark and gloomy castle, was the only humane +and gentle spirit there. Easier still is it to lose yourself in the +dim romantic past when you are shown into a room which, though no fire +burns on the hearth, is still quite warm, redolent of tapestry and +antiquity. This room is now used as a kind of museum. It is filled +with fine examples of old china, sufficient to drive a collector +crazy, enamels, old armour, rubies, ornaments, sculpture, medals, +firearms, and instruments of torture. + +Sitting in a deep window-seat, surrounded by the riches of ancient +days, with the old-world folk peering out from the tapestried walls, +one can easily close one's eyes and lose one's self for a moment in +the gray past, mystic and beautiful. It is delightful to summon to +your mind the poetical and pathetic figure of (let us say) a knight +imprisoned in the tower on account of his prominent and all-devouring +love for some unapproachable fair one; or of that other who, pinning a +knot of ribbon on his coat,--his lady's colour--set out to fight and +conquer. But, alas! no chronicle has been left of the deeds of the +castle prisoners. Any romantic stories that one may conjure to one's +mind in the atmosphere of the château can be but the airiest fabrics +of a dream. + +At the top of the spiral staircase is a rounded gallery, with +loopholes open to the day, through which one can gain a magnificent, +though somewhat dizzy, view over town and country. It was from this +that the archers shot their arrows upon the enemy; and very deadly +their aim must have been, for nothing could be more commanding as +regards position than the château of Vitré. Also, in the floor of the +gallery, round the outer edge, are large holes, down which the +besieged threw great blocks of stone, boiling tar, and projectiles of +all kinds, which must have fallen with tremendous violence on the +assailants. + +Wherever one goes in Vitré one sees the fine old château, forming a +magnificent background to every picture, with its grand ivy-mantled +towers and its huge battlemented walls, belittling everything round +it. Unlike most French châteaus, more or less showy and toy-like in +design, the castle of Vitré is built on solid rock, and lifted high +above the town in a noble, irresistible style, with walls of immense +thickness, and lofty beyond compare. All that is grandest and most +beautiful in Nature seems to group itself round about the fine old +castle, as if Nature herself felt compelled to pay tribute of her best +to what was noblest in the works of man. In the daytime grand and +sweeping white clouds on a sky of eggshell blue group themselves about +the great gray building. At twilight, when the hoary old castle +appears a colossal purple mass, every tower and every turret strongly +outlined against the sunset sky, Nature comes forward with her +brilliant palette and paints in a background of glorious prismatic +hues: great rolling orange and pink clouds on a sky of blue--combination +sufficient to send a colourist wild with joy. + +Every inch of the castle walls has been utilized in one way or another +to economize material. Houses have been built hanging on to and +clustering about the walls, sometimes perched on the top of them, like +limpets on a rock. Often one sees a fine battlemented wall, fifty or +sixty feet in height, made of great rough stone, brown and golden and +purple with age--a wall which, one knows, must have withstood many a +siege--with modern iron balconies jutting out from it, balconies of +atrocious pattern, painted green or gray, with gaudy Venetian blinds. +It is absolute desecration to see leaning from these balconies, +against such a background, untidy, fat, dirty women, with black, lank +hair, and peasants knitting worsted socks, where once fair damsels of +ancient times waved their adieux to departing knights. Then, again, +how terrible it is to see glaring advertisements of _Le Petit +Journal_, Benedictine Liqueur, Singer's Sewing Machines, and Byrrh, +plastered over a fine old sculptured doorway! + + [Illustration: LA VIEILLE MÈRE PEROT] + +There are in certain parts of the town remains of the ancient moat. +Sometimes it is a mere brook, black as night, flowing with difficulty +among thick herbage which has grown up round it; sometimes a +prosperous, though always dirty, stream. You come across it in +unexpected places here and there. In one part, just under the walls +of the castle, where the water is very dirty indeed, wash-houses +have been erected; there the women kneel on flat stones by the banks. +The houses clustering round about the moat are damp and evil-smelling; +their slates, green with mould, are continually slipping off the +roofs; and the buildings themselves slant at such an angle that their +entry into the water seems imminent. + +At the base of the castle walls the streets mount steeply. This is a +very poor quarter indeed. The houses are old, blackened, decayed, +much-patched and renovated. Yet the place is extremely picturesque; in +fact, I know no part of Vitré that is not. + +At any moment, in any street, you can stop and frame within your hands +a picture which will be almost sure to compose well--which in +colouring and drawing will be the delight of painters and etchers. In +these particular streets of which I speak antiquity reigns supreme. +Here no traffic ever comes; only slatternly women, with their wretched +dogs and cats of all breeds, fill the streets. Many of the houses are +half built out of solid slate, and the steps leading to them are hewn +from the rock. + +One sees no relics of bygone glory here. This must ever have been a +poor quarter; for the windows are built low to the ground, and there +are homely stone settles outside each door. Pigs and chickens walk in +and out of the houses with as much familiarity as the men and women. +On every shutter strings of drying fish are hung; and every window in +every house, no matter how poor, has its rows of pink and red +geraniums and its pots of hanging fern. Birds also are abundant; in +fact, from the first I dubbed this street 'the street of the birds,' +for I never before saw so many caged birds gathered together--canaries, +bullfinches, jackdaws, and birds of bright plumage. By the sound one +might fancy one's self for the moment in an African jungle rather than +in a Breton village. + +The streets of Vitré are remarkable for their flowers. Wherever you +may look you will see pots of flowers and trailing greenery, relieving +with their bright fresh colouring the time-worn houses of blackened +woodwork and sombre stone. Not only do moss and creepers abound, but +also there are gardens everywhere, over the walls of which trail vines +and clematis, and on every window-ledge are pots of geranium and +convolvulus. + +It is impossible in mere words to convey any real impression of the +fine old town of Vitré: only the etcher and the painter can adequately +depict it. The grand old town will soon be of the past. Every day, +every hour, its walls are decaying, crumbling; and before long Vitré +will be no more than a memory. + + + + + [Illustration: A VIEILLARD] + +CHAPTER IV + +VANNES + + +A dear old-world, typically Breton town is Vannes. We arrived at +night, and gazed expectantly from our window on the moonlit square. We +plied with questions the man who carried up our boxes. His only answer +was that we should see everything on the morrow. + +That was market-day, and the town was unusually busy. Steering for +what we thought the oldest part of Vannes, we took a turning which led +past ancient and crazy-looking houses. Very old houses indeed they +were, with projecting upper stories, beams, and scaly roofs slanting +at all angles. At Morlaix some of the streets are ancient; but I have +never seen such eccentric broken lines as at Vannes. At one corner the +houses leant forward across the street, and literally rested one on +the top of the other. These were only the upper stories; below were +up-to-date jewellers and _pâtisseries_, with newly-painted signs in +black and gold. In the middle of these houses, cramped and crowded +and hustled by them, stood the cathedral. Inside it was a dim, lofty +edifice, with faintly burning lamps. Hither the market-women come with +their baskets, stuffed to the full with fresh green salad and apples, +laying them down on the floor that they may kneel on praying-chairs, +cross their arms, and raise their eyes to the high-altar, pouring out +trouble or joy to God. It was delightful to see rough men with their +clean market-day blue linen blouses kneeling on the stone floor, hats +in hand and heads bowed, repeating their morning prayers. + +The people were heavily laden on this bright autumn morning, either +with baskets or with sacks or dead fowls, all clattering through the +cobbled streets on their way to market. Following the crowd, we +emerged on a triangular-shaped market-place, wherein a most +dramatic-looking _mairie_ or town-hall figured prominently, a large +building with two flights of steps leading up to it, culminating in a +nail-studded door, with the arms of Morbihan inscribed above it. + + [Illustration: PLACE HENRI QUATRE, VANNES] + +One can well imagine such a market-place, let us say, in the days of +the Revolution: how some orator would stand on these steps, with +his back to that door, haranguing the crowd, holding them all +enthralled by the force of rhetoric. Now nothing so histrionic +happens. There is merely a buzzing throng of white-capped women, +haggling and bargaining as though their lives depended on it, with +eyes and hearts and minds for nothing but their business. Here and +there we saw knots of blue-bloused men, with whips hung over their +shoulders and straws in their mouths, more or less loafing and +watching their womenfolk. The square was filled with little wooden +stalls, where meat was sold--stringy-looking meat, and slabs of +purple-hued beef. How these peasant women bargained! I saw one old +lady arguing for quite a quarter of an hour over a piece of beef not +longer than your finger. Chestnuts were for sale in large quantities, +and housewives were buying their stocks for the winter. The men of the +family had been pressed into the service to carry up sack after sack +of fine brown glossy nuts, which were especially plentiful. No one +seemed over-anxious to sell; no one cried his wares: it was the +purchasers who appeared to do most of the talking and haggling. + +There were more Frenchwomen here than I have seen in any other town; +but they were not fine ladies by any means. They did not detract from +the picturesqueness of the scene. They went round with their great +baskets, getting them filled with apples or chestnuts, or other +things. Most of the saleswomen were wrinkled old bodies; but one +woman, selling chestnuts and baskets of pears, was pretty and quite +young, with a mauve apron and a black cross-over shawl, and a mouth +like iron. I watched her with amusement. I had never seen so young and +comely a person so stern and businesslike. Not a single centime would +she budge from her stated price. She was pestered by women of all +kinds--old and young, peasants and modern French ladies, all attracted +by the beauty of her pears and the glossiness of her chestnuts. Hers +were the finest wares in the market, and she was fully conscious of +it, pricing her pears and chestnuts a sou more a sieveful than anyone +else. The customers haggled with her, upbraided her, tried every +feminine tactic. They sneered at her chestnuts and railed at her +pears; they scoffed one with the other. Eventually they gave up a +centime themselves; but the hard mouth did not relax, and the pretty +head in the snow-white coif was shaken vigorously. At this, with +snorts of disgust, her customers turned up their noses and left. Ere +long a smartly-dressed woman came along, and all unsuspectingly +bought a sieveful of chestnuts, emptying them into her basket. When +she came to pay for them, she discovered they were a sou more than she +had expected, and emptied them promptly back into the market-woman's +sack. I began to be afraid that my pretty peasant would have to +dismount from her high horse or go home penniless; but this was not +the case. Several women gathered round and began to talk among +themselves, nudging one another and pointing. At last one capitulated, +hoisted the white flag, and bought a few pears. Instantly all the +other women laid down their bags and baskets and began to buy her +pears and chestnuts. Very soon this stall became the most popular in +the market-place, and the young woman and her assistant were kept busy +the whole day. The hard-mouthed girl had conquered! + +'Sept sous la demi-douzaine! Sept sous la demi-douzaine!' cried a +shrill-voiced vendor. It was a man from Paris with a great boxful of +shiny tablespoons, wrapped in blue tissue-paper in bundles of six, which +he was offering for the ridiculous sum of seven sous--that is, threepence +halfpenny. Naturally, with such bargains to offer, he was selling +rapidly. Directly he cried his 'Sept sous la demi-douzaine--six pour +sept sous!' he was literally surrounded. Men and women came up one +after the other; men's hands flew to their pockets under their blouses, +and women's to their capacious leather purses. It was amusing to watch +these people--they were so guileless, so childlike, so much pleased +with their bargains. Still, it would break my heart if these spoons +doubled up and cracked or proved worthless, for seven sous is a great +deal of money to the Breton peasants. I never saw merchandise +disappear so quickly. 'Solide, solide, solide!' cried the merchant, +until you would think he must grow hoarse. 'This is the chance of a +lifetime,' he declared: 'a beautiful half-dozen like this. C'est tout +ce qu'il y a de plus joli et solide. Voyez la beauté et la qualité de +cette merchandise. C'est une occasion que vous ne verrez pas tous les +jours.' + +The people became more and more excited; the man was much pressed, and +selling the spoons like wildfire. Then, there were umbrellas over +which the women lost their heads--glossy umbrellas with fanciful +handles and flowers and birds round the edge. First the merchant took +up an umbrella and twisted it round, then the spoons, and clattered +them invitingly, until people grew rash and bought both umbrellas and +spoons. + + [Illustration: GOSSIPS] + +There is nothing more amusing than to spend a morning thus, wandering +through the market-place, watching the peasants transact their little +business, which, though apparently trivial, is serious to them. I +never knew any people quite so thrifty as these Bretons. You see them +selling and buying, not only old clothes, but also bits of old +clothes--a sleeve from a soldier's coat, a leg from a pair of +trousers; and even then the stuff will be patched. In this +market-place you see stalls of odds and ends, such as even the poorest +of the poor in England would not hesitate to throw on the rubbish +heap--old iron, leaking bottles, legs of chairs and tables. + +A wonderful sight is the market on a morning such as this. The sun +shines full on myriads of white-capped women thronging through the +streets, and on lines of brown-faced vegetable vendors sitting close +to the ground among their broad open baskets of carrots and apples and +cabbages. There are stalls of all kinds--butchers' stalls, forming +notes of colour with their vivid red meat; haberdashery stalls, +offering everything from a toothbrush or a boot-lace to the most +excruciatingly brilliant woollen socks; stalls where clothes are +sold--such as children's checked pinafores and babies' caps fit for +dolls. Most brilliant of all are the material booths, where every kind +of material is sold--from calico to velvet. They congregate especially +in a certain corner of the market-square, and even the houses round +about are draped with lengths of material stretching from the windows +down to the ground--glorious sweeps of checks and stripes and flowered +patterns, and pink and blue flannelette. It is amusing to watch a +Breton woman buying a length of cloth. She will pull it, and drag it, +and smell it, and almost eat it; she will ask her husband's advice, +and the advice of her husband's relations, and the advice of her own +relations. + +In this market I was much amused to watch two men selling. I perceived +what a great deal more there is in the individuality of the man who +sells and in the manner of his selling than in the actual quality of +the merchandise. One man, a dull, foolish fellow, with bales and bales +of material, never had occasion to unwrap one: he never sold a thing. +Another man, a born salesman, with the same wares to offer, talked +volubly in a high-pitched voice. He called the people to him; he +called them by name--whether it was the right one or not did not +matter: it was sufficient to arrest their attention. 'Dépêchons nous. +Here, Lucien; here, Jeanne; here, Babette; here, my pigeon. Dépêchons +nous, dépêchons nous!' he cried. 'Que est ce qu'il y a? personne en +veux plus? Mais c'est épatant. Je suis honteux de vous en dire le +prix. Flannel! the very thing for your head, madam,--nothing softer, +nothing finer. How many yards?--one, two, three? There we are!' and, +with a flash of the scissors and a toss of the stuff, the flannel is +cut off, wrapped up and under the woman's arm, before the gaping +salesman opposite has time to close his mouth. + +The stall was arranged in a kind of semicircle, and very soon this +extraordinary person had gathered a crowd of people, all eager to buy; +and the way in which he appeared to attend to everyone at once was +simply marvellous. + +'What for you, madam?' he would ask, turning to a young Breton woman. +'Pink flannel? Here you are--a superb article, the very thing for +nightgowns.' Then to a man: 'Trousering, my lord? Certainly. Touchez +moi ça. Isn't that marvellous? Isn't that quality if you like? Ah! but +I am ashamed to tell you the price. You will be indeed beautiful in +this to-morrow.' + +As business became slack for the moment, he would take up some cheap +print and slap it on his knee, crying: + +'One sou--one sou the yard! Figure yourself dancing with an apron like +that at one sou the yard!' + +And so the man would continue throughout the day, shouting, screaming, +always inventing new jokes, selling his wares very quickly, and always +gathering more and more people round him. Once he looked across at his +unfortunate rival, who was listening to his nonsense with a sneering +expression. + +'Yes: you may sneer, my friend; but I am selling, and you are not,' he +retorted. + +Endless--absolutely endless--are the peeps of human nature one gains +on a market-day such as this in an old-world Breton town. I spent the +time wandering among the people, and not once did I weary. At every +turn I saw something to marvel at, something to admire. We had chanced +on a particularly interesting day, when the whole town was turned into +a great market. Wherever we went there was a market of some sort--a +pig market, or a horse market, or an old-clothes market; almost every +street was lined with booths and barrows. + + [Illustration: A CATTLE-MARKET] + +Outside almost every drinking-house, or Café Breton, lay a fat +pig sleeping contentedly on the pavement, and tied to a string in the +wall, built there for that purpose. He would be waiting while his +master drank--for often men come in to Vannes from miles away, and +walk back with their purchases. I saw an old woman who had just bought +a pig trying to take it home. She had the most terrible time with that +animal. First he raced along the road with her at great speed, almost +pulling her arms out of the sockets, and making the old lady run as +doubtless she had never run before; then he walked at a sedate pace, +persistently between her feet, so that either she must ride him +straddle-legs or not get on at all; lastly, the pig wound himself and +the string round and round her until neither could move a step. A +drunken man reeled along, and, seeing the hopeless muddle of the old +lady and the pig, stopped in front of them and tried to be of some +assistance. He took off his hat and scratched his head; then he poked +the pig with his cane, and moved round the woman and pig, giving +advice; finally, he flew into a violent rage because he could not +solve the mystery, and the old lady waved him aside with an impatient +gesture. The air was filled with grunts and groans and blood-curdling +squeaks. + +Everyone seemed to possess a pig: either he or she had just bought one +or had one for sale. You saw bunches of the great fat pink animals +tied to railings while the old women gossiped; you saw pigs, attached +to carts, comfortably sleeping in the mud; you saw them being led +along the streets like dogs by neatly-dressed dames, holding them by +their tails, and giving them a twist every time they were rebellious. + +Vannes is the most beautiful old town imaginable. Everywhere one goes +one sees fine old archways of gray stone, ancient and lofty--relics of +a bygone age--with the arms of Brittany below and a saint with arms +extended in blessing above. When once you reach the outskirts of the +town you realize that at one time Vannes must have been enclosed by +walls: there are gateways remaining still, and little bits of +broken-down brickwork, old and blackened, and half-overgrown with moss +and grasses. There is a moat running all round--it is inky black and +dank now--on the banks of which a series of sloping slate sheds and +washhouses have been built, where the women wash their clothes, +kneeling on the square flat stones. How anything could emerge clean +and white from such pitch-black water is a marvel. Seen from outside +the gates, this town is very beautiful--the black water of the moat, +the huddled figures of the women, with their white caps and snowy +piles of linen, and beyond that green grass and apple-trees and +flowers, and at the back the old grayish-pink walls, with carved +buttresses. + +There is hardly a town in the whole of Brittany so ancient as Vannes. +These walls speak for themselves. They speak of the time when Vannes +was the capital of the rude Venetes who made great Cæsar hesitate, and +retarded him in his conquest of the Gauls. They speak of the +twenty-one emigrants, escaped from the Battle of Quiberon, who were +shot on the promenade of the Garenne, under the great trees where the +children play to-day. What marvellous walls these are! With what care +they have been built--so stout, so thick, so colossal! It must have +taken men of great strength to build such walls as these--men who +resented all newcomers with a bitter hatred, and built as if for their +very lives, determined to erect something which should be impregnable. +Still they stand, gray and battered, with here and there remains of +their former grandeur in carved parapets, projecting turrets, and +massive sculptured doorways. At one time the town must have been well +within the walls; but now it has encroached. The white and pink and +yellow-faced tall houses perch on the top of, lean against and cluster +round, the old gray walls. + +It seems strange to live in a town where the custom of _couvre-feu_ is +still observed by the inhabitants--in a town where no sooner does the +clock strike nine than all lights are out, all shutters closed, and +all shops shut. This is the custom in Vannes. It is characteristic of +the people. The Vanntais take a pride in being faithful to old usages. +They are a sturdy, grave, pensive race, hiding indomitable energy and +hearts of fire under the calmest demeanour. The women are fine +creatures. I shall never forget seeing an old woman chopping wood. All +day long she worked steadily in the open place, wielding an immensely +heavy hatchet, and chopping great branches of trees into bundles of +sticks. There she stood in her red-and-black checked petticoat, her +dress tucked up, swinging her hatchet, and holding the branches with +her feet. She seemed an Amazon. + + [Illustration: BREAD STALLS] + +In Vannes, as in any part of Brittany, one always knows when there is +anything of importance happening, by the clatter of the sabots on the +cobble stones. On the afternoon when we were there the noise was +deafening. We heard it through the closed windows while we were at +luncheon--big sabots, little sabots, men's nail-studded sabots, +women's light ones, little children's persistent clump, clump, clump, +all moving in the same direction. It was the Foire des Oignons, +observed the waiter. I had imagined that there had been a _foire_ of +everything conceivable that day; but onions scarcely entered into my +calculations. I should not have thought them worthy of a _foire_ all +to themselves. The waiter spoiled my meal completely. I could no +longer be interested in the very attractive menu. Onions were my one +and only thought. I lived and had my being but for onions. Mother and +I sacrificed ourselves immediately on the altar of onions. We rushed +from the room, much to the astonishment of several rotund French +officers, who were eating, as usual, more than was good for them. + +Everybody was concerned with onions. We drew up in the rear of a large +onion-seeking crowd. It was interesting to watch the back views of +these peasants as they mounted the hill. There were all kinds of +backs--fat backs, thin backs, glossy black backs, and faded green +ones; backs of men with floating ribbons and velveteen coats; plump +backs of girls with neat pointed shawls--some mauve, some purple, +some pink, some saffron. + +At the top of the hill was the market-square--a busy scene. The square +was packed, and everyone was talking volubly in the roughest Breton +dialect. Now and then a country cart painted blue, the horse hung +round the neck with shaggy black fur and harnessed with the rough +wooden gear so general in Brittany, would push through the crowd of +busily-talking men and women. Everything conceivable was for sale. At +certain stalls there were sweets of all colours, yet all tasting the +same and made of the worst sugar. I saw the same man still selling his +spoons and umbrellas; but he was fat and comfortable now. He had had +his _déjeuner_, and was not nearly so excited and amusing. Fried +sardines were sold with long rolls of bread; also sausages. They cook +the sardines on iron grills, and a mixed smell of sausages, sardines, +and chestnuts filled the air. Everyone was a little excited and a +little drunk. Long tables had been brought out into the place where +the men sat in their blue blouses and black velvet hats,--their whips +over their shoulders, drinking cider and wine out of cups,--discussing +cows and horses. + +There was a cattle market there that day. This was soon manifest, for +men in charge of cows and pigs pushed their way among the crowd. On +feeling a weight at your back now and then, you discovered a cow or a +pig leaning against you for support. A great many more animals were +assembled on a large square--pigs and cows and calves and horses. One +could stay for days and watch a cattle market: it is intensely +interesting. The way the people bargain is very strange. I saw a man +and a woman buying a cow from a young Breton. The man opened its +eyelids wide with his finger and thumb; he gazed in the gentle brown +eyes; he stroked her soft gray neck; he felt her ribs, and poked his +fingers in her side; he lifted one foot after the other; he punched +and probed her for quite a quarter of an hour; and the cow stood there +patiently. The woman looked on with a hard, knowing expression, +applauding at every poke, and talking volubly the while. She drew into +the discussion a friend passing by, and asked her opinion constantly, +yet never took it. All the while the owner stood stroking his cow's +back, without uttering a word. + +He was a handsome young man, as Bretons often are--tall and slim, with +a face like an antique bronze, dark and classic;--he wore a short +black coat trimmed with shabby velvet, tightly-fitting trousers, and +a black hat with velvet streamers. The stateliness of the youth struck +me: he held himself like an emperor. These Bretons look like kings, +with their fine brown classic features; they hold themselves so +haughtily, they remind one of figure-heads on old Roman coins. They +seem men born to command; yet they command nothing, and live like pigs +with the cows and hogs. The Breton peasant is full of dirt and +dignity, living on coarse food, and rarely changing his clothes; yet +nowhere will you meet with such fine bearing, charm of manner, and +nobility of feature as among the peasants of Brittany. + +On entering the poorest cottage, you are received with old-world +courtesy by the man of the house, who comes forward to meet you in his +working garments, with dirt thick upon his hands, but with dignity and +stateliness, begging that you will honour his humble dwelling with +your presence. He sets the best he has in the house before you. It may +be only black bread and cider; but he bids you partake of it with a +regal wave of his hand which transforms the humble fare. + + [Illustration: IN A BRETON KITCHEN] + +These peasants remind me very much of Sir Henry Irving. Some of the +finest types are curiously like him in feature: they have the +same magnificent profile and well-shaped head. It is quite startling +to come across Sir Henry in black gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, and long +hair streaming in the wind, ploughing in the dark-brown fields, or +chasing a pig, or, dressed in gorgeous holiday attire, perspiring +manfully through a village gavotte. Surely none but a Breton could +chase a pig without losing self-respect, or count the teeth in a cow's +mouth and look dignified at the same time. No one else could dance up +and down in the broiling sunshine for an hour and preserve a composed +demeanour. The Breton peasant is a person quite apart from the rest of +the world. One feels, whether at a pig market or a wayside shrine, +that these people are dreamers living in a romantic past. Unchanged +and unpolished by the outside world, they cling to their own +traditions; every stone in their beloved country is invested by them +with poetic and heroic associations. Brittany looks as if it must have +always been as it is now, even in the days of the Phoenicians; and +it seems impossible to imagine the country inhabited by any but +medieval people. + +There were many fine figures of men in this cattle market, all busy at +the game of buying and selling. A Frenchman and his wife were +strolling round the square, intent on buying a pony. The man evidently +knew nothing about horses--very few Frenchmen do;--and it was +ridiculous to watch the way in which he felt the animal's legs and +stroked its mane, with a wise expression, while his wife looked on +admiringly. Bretons take a long time over their bargains: sometimes +they will spend a whole day arguing over two sous, and then end by not +buying the pig or the cow, whatever it is, at all. The horses looked +tired and bored with the endless bargains, as they leant their heads +against one another. Now and then one was taken out and trotted up and +down the square; then two men clasped hands once, and went off to a +café to drink. If they clasp hands a third time the bargain will be +closed. + +Market-day in Vannes is an excuse for frivolity. We came upon a great +crowd round two men under a red umbrella, telling fortunes. One man's +eyes were blindfolded. He was the medium. The people were listening to +his words with guileless attention and seriousness. Then a man and a +woman, both drunk, were singing songs about the Japanese and Russian +War, dragging in 'France' and 'la gloire,' and selling the words, +forcing young Frenchmen and soldiers to buy sheets of nonsense for +which they had no use. There were stalls of imitation flowers--roses +and poppies and chrysanthemums of most impossible colours--gazed at +with covetous eyes by the more well-to-do housewives. + +Hats were sold in great numbers at the Foire des Oignons. It seemed to +be fashionable to buy a black felt hat on that day. The fair is held +only once a year, and farmers and their families flock to it from +miles round. It is the custom, when a good bargain is made, to buy new +hats for the entire family. Probably there will be no opportunity of +seeing a shop again during the rest of the year. The trade in hats is +very lively. Women from Auray, in three-cornered shawls and wide +white-winged caps, sit all day long sewing broad bands of velvet +ribbon on black beaver hats, stretching it round the crown and leaving +it to fall in two long streamers at the back. They sew quickly, for +they have more work than they can possibly accomplish during the day. +It is amusing to watch the customers. I sat on the stone balustrade +which runs round the open square of the Hôtel de Ville, whither all +the townswomen come as to a circus, bringing their families, and +eating their meals in the open air, that they may watch the strangers +coming and going about their business, either on foot or in carts. It +was as good as a play. A young man, accompanied by another man, an old +lady, and three young girls, had come shyly up to the stall. It was +obvious that he was coming quite against his will and at the +instigation of his companions. He hummed and hawed, fidgeted, blushed, +and looked as wretched and awkward as a young man could. One hat after +another was tried on his head; but none of them would fit. He was the +object of all eyes. The townswomen hooted at him, and his own friends +laughed. He could stand it no longer. He dashed down his money, picked +up the hat nearest to him, and went off in a rage. I often thought of +that young man afterwards--of his chagrin during the rest of the year, +when every Sunday and high day and holiday he would have to wear that +ill-fitting hat as a penalty for his bad temper. These great strapping +Breton men are very childish, and dislike above all things to be made +to appear foolish. Towards evening, when three-quarters drunk, they +are easily gulled and cheated by the gentle-faced needle-women. +Without their own womenfolk they are completely at sea, and are +made to buy whatever is offered. They look so foolish, pawing one +another and trying on hats at rakish angles. It is ridiculous to see +an intoxicated man trying to look at his own reflection in a +hand-glass. He follows it round and round, looking very serious; holds +it now up and now down; and eventually buys something he does not +want, paying for it out of a great purse which he solemnly draws from +under his blouse. + + [Illustration: A RAINY DAY AT THE FAIR] + +I saw a man and a child come to buy a hat. The boy was the very image +of his father--black hat, blue blouse, tight trousers and all--only +that the hat was very shabby and brown and old, and had evidently seen +many a ducking in the river and held many a load of nuts and cherries. +His father was in the act of buying him a new one. The little pale lad +smiled and looked faintly interested as hat after hat was tried on his +head; but he was not overjoyed, for he knew quite well that, once home +and in his mother's careful hands, that hat would be seen only on rare +occasions. + +Another boy who came with his father to buy a hat quite won my heart. +He was a straight-limbed, fair-haired, thoroughly English-looking boy. +A black felt hat was not for him--only a red tam-o'-shanter;--and he +stood beaming with pride as cap after cap was slapped on his head and +as quickly whisked off again. + +Women came to purchase bonnets for their babies; but, alas! instead of +buying the tight-lace caps threaded with pink and blue ribbons +characteristic of the country, they bought hard, round, blue-and-white +sailor affairs, with mangy-looking ostrich feathers in them--atrocities +enough to make the most beautiful child appear hideous. + +The sun was fading fast. Horses and cows and pigs, drunken men and +empty cider barrels, women with heavy baskets and dragging tired +children, their pockets full of hot chestnuts--all were starting on +their long walk home. When the moon rose, the square was empty. + + + + + [Illustration: IN THE PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL, QUIMPER] + +CHAPTER V + +QUIMPER + + + 'C'était à la campagne + Près d'un certain canton de la basse Bretagne + Appelé Quimper Corentin. + On sait assez que le Destin + Adresse là les gens quand il veut qu'on enrage. + Dieu nous préserve du voyage.' + +So says La Fontaine. The capital of Cornouailles is a strange mixture +of the old world and the new. There the ancient spirit and the modern +meet. The Odet runs through the town. On one side is a mass of rock 70 +metres high, covered by a forest so dark and dense and silent that in +it one might fancy one's self miles away from any town. As one wanders +among the chestnuts, pines, poplars, and other trees, a sadness falls, +as if from the quiet foliage in the dim obscurity. On the other side +of the narrow river is a multitude of roofs, encircled by high walls +and dominated by the two lofty spires of the cathedral. Gray and full +of shadows is the quiet little town, with its jumble of slanting roofs +and its broken lines. + +Quimper seems to have changed but little within the last six years. We +arrived as the sun was setting. A warm light gilded the most ordinary +objects, transforming them into things of beauty. We flashed by in the +hotel omnibus, past a river resembling a canal, the Odet. The river +was spanned by innumerable iron-railed bridges. The sky was of a fresh +eggshell blue, with clouds of vivid orange vermilion paling in the +distance to rose-pink, and shedding pink and golden reflections on the +clear gray water, while a red-sailed fishing-boat floated gently at +anchor. A wonderful golden light bathed the town. You felt that you +could not take it all in at once, this glorious colouring--that you +must rush from place to place before the light faded, and see the +whole of the fine old town under these exceptional circumstances, +which would most probably never occur again. You wanted to see the +water, with its golden reflections, and the warm light shining on the +lichen-covered walls, on the gardens sloping down to the river, on the +wrought-iron gateways and low walls over which ivy and convolvulus +creep, on the red-rusted bridges. You wanted to see the cathedral--a +purple-gray mass, with the sun gilding one-half of the tower to a +brilliant vermilion, and leaving the other half grayer and a deeper +purple than ever. You wanted to see the whole place at once, for very +soon the light fades into the gray and purple of night. + +My first thought on waking next morning in the 'city of fables and +gables,' as Quimper is called, was to see my old convent--the dear old +convent where as a child I spent such a happy year. Only twelve more +months, and the nuns will be ousted from their home--those dear women +whom, as the hotel proprietress said with tears in her eyes, 'fassent +que du bien.' How bitterly that cruel Act rankles, and ever will +rankle, in the hearts of the Breton people! + +'On dit que la France est un pays libre,' said my hostess; 'c'est une +drôle de liberté!' + +The inhabitants of Quimper were more bitter, more rebellious, than +those of any other town, for they greeted the officers with stones and +gibes. And no wonder. The nuns had ever been good and generous and +helpful to the people of Quimper. I remember well in the old days what +a large amount of food and clothing went forth into the town from +those hospitable doors, for the Retraite du Sacré Coeur was a rich +Order. + +It was with a beating heart and eager anticipation that I knocked at +the convent door that morning, feeling like a little child come home +after the holidays. I heard the sound of bolts slipped back, and two +bright eyes peeped through the grille before the door was opened by a +Sister in the white habit of the Order. I knew her face in an instant, +yet could not place it. Directly she spoke I remembered it was the +Sister who changed our shoes and stockings whenever we returned from a +walk. + +I asked for the Mother Superior. She had gone to England. I asked for +one of the English nuns. She also had gone. Names that had faded out +of my mind returned in the atmosphere of the convent. Yes: three of +the nuns I had named were still at the convent. What was my name? the +Sister asked. Who was I? + +I gave my name, and instantly her face lit up. + +'Why, it is Mademoiselle Dorothé!' she exclaimed, raising her hands +above her head in astonishment. 'Entréz, mademoiselle et madame, +entréz!' + + [Illustration: THE VEGETABLE MARKET, QUIMPER] + +Through all these years, among all the girls who must have passed +through the convent, she remembered me and bade me welcome. In the +quiet convent so little happens that every incident is remembered and +magnified and thought over. + +We were taken upstairs and shown into a bare room with straight-backed +chairs--a room which in my childish imagination had been a charmed and +magic place, for it was here that I came always to see my mother on +visiting days. We had not long to wait before, with a rustle and +clinking of her cross and rosary, Mère B. appeared, a sweet woman in +the black dress and pointed white coif that I knew so well. She had +always been beautiful in my eyes, and she was so still, with the +loveliness of a pure and saintly life shining through her large brown +eyes. Her cheeks were as soft and pink as ever, and her hands, which I +used to watch in admiration by the hour, were stretched out with joy +to greet me. + +'O la petite Dorothé!' she cried,'quel bonheur de vous revoir! Est-ce +vraiment la petite Dorothé?' + +As I sat watching her while she talked to my mother, all the old +thoughts and feelings came back to me with a rush. I was in some awe +of her: I could not treat her as if she were an ordinary person. All +the old respectful tricks and turns of speech came back to me, though +I imagined I had forgotten them. My mother was telling Mère B. of how +busy I had been since I had left the convent--of the books I had +written and all about them;--but I felt as small and insignificant as +the child of ten, and could only answer in monosyllables--'Oui, ma +mère,' or 'Non, ma mère.' + +At our request, we were shown over the convent. Many memories it +brought back--some pleasant, some painful; for a child's life never +runs on one smooth level--it is ever a series of ups and downs. We +were taken into the refectory. There was my place at the corner of the +table, where at the first meal I sat and cried because, when asked if +I would like a _tartine_ instead of pudding, I was given a piece of +bread-and-butter. Naturally, I had thought that _tartine_ meant a +tart. And there was the very same Sister laying the table, the Sister +who used to look sharply at my plate to see that I ate all my fat and +pieces of gristle. She remembered me perfectly. Many were the tussles, +poor woman, she had had with me. + +Mère B. showed us the chapel, where we used to assemble at half-past +six every morning, cold and half-asleep, to say our prayers before +going into the big church. Many were the beautiful addresses the +Mother Superior had read to us; many were the vows I had made to be +really very good; many were the resolves I had formed to be gentle and +forbearing during the day--vows and resolves only to be broken soon. + +We wandered through the garden between the beds of thyme and mint and +late roses, and Mère B. spoke with tears in her eyes of the time when +they would have to leave their happy convent home and migrate to some +more hospitable land. 'It is not for ourselves that we grieve,' she +said: 'it is for our poor country--for the people who will be left +without religion. Personally, we are as happy in one country as in +another.' + +I picked a sprig of sweet-smelling thyme as I passed, and laid it +tenderly between the pages of my pocket-book. If the garden were to be +desecrated and used by strangers, I must have something to remember it +by. + +What memories the dear old convent garden brought back to me! There +was the gravelled square where we children skipped and played and sang +Breton _chansons_ all in a ring. There was the avenue of scanty +poplars--not so scanty now--down which I often paced in rebellious +mood, gazing at the walls rising high above me, longing to gain the +farther side and be in the world. Outside the convent gates was always +called 'the world.' There was the little rocky shrine of the Virgin--a +sweet-faced woman in a robe of blue and gold, nursing a Baby with an +aureole about His head. Many a time I had thrown myself on the bench +in front of that shrine in a fit of temper, and had been slowly calmed +and soothed by that gentle presence, coming away a better child, with +what my mother always called 'the little black monkey' gone from my +back. + +Very soon the convent atmosphere wraps itself about you and lulls you +to rest. You feel its influence directly you enter the building. You +are seized by a vague longing to stay here, just where you are, and +leave the world, with its ceaseless strivings and turmoils and unrest, +behind you. Yet how soon the worldly element in you would come to the +fore, teasing you, tormenting you back into the toils once more! It +was with a feeling of sorrow and a sensation that something was being +wrenched from me that I bade good-bye to sweet Mère B. at the garden +gate, with many embraces and parting injunctions not to forget the +convent and my old friends. + + [Illustration: OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL, QUIMPERLE] + +Wherever one goes in Quimper one sees the stately cathedral, that +wondrous building which, with its two excellent pyramids and gigantic +portal, is said to be the most beautiful in all Brittany. It would +take one days and days to realize its beauty. The doorway itself is as +rich in detail as a volume of history. There are lines of sculptured +angels joining hands over the porch, Breton coats of arms, and the +device of Jean X.--'Malo au riche duc.' There are two windows above +the doorway, crowned by a gallery, with an equestrian statue of the +King of Grallon. According to tradition the cathedral must have been +built on the site of the royal palace. + +There are many legends about the church of St. Corentin. One is that +of a man who, going on a pilgrimage, left his money with a neighbour +for safety. On returning, the neighbour declared that he had never had +the money, and proposed to swear to the same before the crucifix of +St. Corentin. They met there, and the man swore. Instantly three drops +of blood fell from the crucifix to the altar, which, the legend runs, +are preserved to this day. + +It is also said that there is in the fountain of Quimper a miraculous +fish, which, in spite of the fact that St. Corentin cuts off half of +it every day for his dinner, remains whole. + +A quaint ceremony is held at the cathedral on the Feast of St. Cecile. +At two o'clock the clergyman, accompanied by musicians and choir-boys, +mounts a platform between the great towers, and a joyous hymn is sung +there, on the nearest point to the sky in all Quimper. It is a strange +sight. Scores of beggars gather round the porch of the cathedral--the +halt, the lame, the blind, and the diseased--all with outstretched +hats and cups. + + + + + [Illustration: BY THE SIDE OF A FARM] + +CHAPTER VI + +ST. BRIEUC + + +St. Brieuc, although it has lost character somewhat during the last +half-century, is still typically Breton. Its streets are narrow and +cobbled, and many of its houses date from the Middle Ages. It was +market-day when we arrived, and crowds of women, almost all of whom +wore different caps--some of lace with wide wings, others goffered +with long strings--were hurrying, baskets over their arms, in the +direction of the market-place. Suddenly, while walking in these +narrow, tortuous streets of St. Brieuc, I saw stretched before me, or +rather below, many feet below, a green and fertile valley. It +resembled a picturesque scene magically picked out of Switzerland and +placed in a Breton setting. Through the valley ran a small glistening +stream, a mere ribbon of water, threading its way among rocks and +boulders and vivid stretches of green grass. On either side were steep +hills covered with verdure, gardens, and plots of vegetables. On the +heights a railway was being cut into the solid rock--a gigantic +engineering work, rather spoiling the aspect of this wooded valley +full of flowers and perfumes and the sun. + +We were told that there was nothing further to be seen in St. Brieuc, +but that we must go to Binic, which is described in a certain +guide-book as 'a very picturesque little fishing village.' This +sounded inviting, and, although we had not much time to spare, we set +off in a diligence with about eighteen windows, each of which rattled +as we sped along at a terrific pace over the cobbles of St. Brieuc. On +we went, faster and faster, rattling--out into the country, past the +valley again, the beautiful valley, and many other valleys like it. +Craggy purple mountains half-covered with green flew by us; and here +and there was an orchard with gnarled and spreading apple-trees +weighted with heavy burdens of red and golden fruit--the very soil was +carpeted with red and gold. What a fertile country it is! Here, where +a river flows between two mountains, how vividly green the grass! +Peasant women by its banks are washing linen on the flat stones, and +hanging it, all white and blue and daintily fresh, on yellow gorse +bushes and dark blackberry thorns. + +I have never seen blackberries such as those on the road to Binic. +Tall and thick grew the bushes, absolutely black with berries, so +large that they resembled bunches of grapes. Not a single Breton in +all the length and breadth of Brittany will pick this ripe and +delicious fruit--not a schoolboy, not a starving beggar on the +wayside--for does not the bush bear the accursed thorns which pierced +the Saviour's forehead? It is only when English and American children +invade Brittany that the blackberries are harvested. + +A diligence causes excitement in a small Breton town. It carries the +mails between the villages. Whenever the inhabitants hear the horn, +out they rush from their homes with letters and parcels to be given +into the hands of the courier. The courier's duties, by the way, are +many. Not only are the mails given into his safe keeping: he is +entrusted with commissions, errands, and messages of all kinds. A +housewife will ask him to buy her a bar of soap; a girl will entrust +him with the matching of a ribbon; a hotel-keeper will order through +him a cask of beer; and so on. The courier is busy throughout the day +executing his various commissions, now in one shop, now in another; +and on the return journey his cart, hung all over with bulky packages +and small,--here a chair, there a broom, here a tin of biscuits--resembles +a Christmas-tree. The courier's memory must needs be good and his hand +steady, for it is the custom to give him at each house as much as he +likes to drink. His passengers are kept for hours shivering in the +cold, becoming late for their appointments and missing their trains; +but the courier cares not. He drinks wherever he stops, and at each +fresh start becomes more brilliant in his driving. + +At one of the villages, during the tedious wait while the driver was +imbibing, I was much interested in watching a man, a little child, and +a dog. The man was a loafer, but neatly and even smartly dressed, +wearing a white peaked yachting cap. The child was small and sickly, +with long brown hair curling round a deathly-white and rather dirty +face, weak blue eyes with red rims, and an ominously scarlet mouth. +Long blue-stockinged legs came from beneath a black pinafore, so thin +and small that it seemed impossible that they could bear the weight of +those heavy black wooden sabots. I thought that the child was a girl +until the pinafore was raised, revealing tiny blue knickers and a +woollen jersey. The boy seemed devoted to his father, and would +hold his hand unnoticed for a long while, gazing into the unresponsive +eyes. Now and then he would jump up feverishly and excitedly, pulling +his father's coat to attract attention, and prattling all the while. +The man took not the slightest notice of the child. He was glancing +sharply about him. By-and-by he bent down towards his son, and I heard +him whisper, 'Allez à ses messieurs la.' Without a word the boy +trotted off towards the men, his hands in his pockets, and began +talking to them, the father watching attentively. He returned, but was +immediately sent off again with a frown and a push. Then he came back +with several sous, clasped in his fist, which he held up proudly to +his father. Over and over again he was sent off, and every time he +came back with a few sous. Had the child appealed to me I could not +have resisted him. There was something about the pathetic pale face +that tugged at the heart-strings. One felt that the boy was not long +for this world. His father was absolutely callous. He did not reward +the lad by word or smile, although the child pulled at his coat and +clamoured for attention. At last the boy gave up in despair, and, +sitting down on the pavement, drew the old black poodle towards him, +hiding his face in the tangled wool, while the animal's eyes, brown +and sad, seemed to say that he at least understood. + + [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO BANNALEC] + +At length we arrived in Binic, cold, windy, composed of a few +slate-gray, solid houses, a stone pier, and some large sailing +vessels, with nothing picturesque about them. The courier's cart set +us down, and went rattling on its way. We were in a bleak, +unsympathetic place. I felt an impulse to run after the diligence and +beg the driver to take us away. This was 'the picturesque little +fishing village'! We dived into the most respectable-looking _débit de +boissons_ we could find, and asked for tea. An old lady sitting before +the fire dropped her knitting, and her spectacles flew off. The sudden +appearance of strangers in Binic, combined with the request for tea, +of all beverages, seemed trying to her nervous system. It was quite +five minutes before she was in a fit condition to ask us what we +really required. With much trepidation, she made our tea, holding it +almost at arm's length, as if it were poisonous. The tea itself she +had discovered on the top of a shelf in a fancy box covered with +dust and cobwebs; she had measured it out very carefully. When +poured into our cups the fluid was of a pale canary colour, and was +flavourless. We lengthened out the meal until the carrier's cart +arrived, with a full complement of passengers. It had begun to rain +and hail, and the driver cheerfully assured us his was the last +diligence that day. The proprietress of the _débit_ had begun to rub +her hands with glee at the thought of having us as customers; but I +was determined that, even if I had to sit on the top of the cart, we +should not stay in the terrible place an hour longer. To the surprise +of the courier, and the disgust of the passengers, whose view we +completely blocked, we climbed to the driver's seat and sat there. The +driver, a good natured man, with consideration for his purse, shrugged +his shoulders at the proprietress, and we started on our way. I have +never heard such language as that which issued from the back of the +cart. Many and terrible were the epithets hurled at the heads of 'ses +affreuses Anglaises.' + + + + + [Illustration: DÉBIT DE BOISSONS] + + [Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. MODY] + +CHAPTER VII + +PAIMPOL + + +Wherever one travels one cannot but be impressed by the friendliness +and sympathy of the people. On the day we were starting for Paimpol we +found, on arriving at the station, that we had an hour to wait for our +train. We happened to be feeling rather depressed that day, and at +this intimation I was on the verge of tears. The porter who took our +tickets cheered us up to the best of his ability. He flung open the +door of the _salle d'attente_ as if it had been a lordly +reception-room, flourished round with his duster over mantelpiece and +table and straight-backed chairs, and motioned us to be seated. + +'Voilà tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et confortable,' he said, with a +smile. Perceiving that we were not impressed, he drew aside the +curtains and pointed with a dirty forefinger. 'Voilà un joli petit +jardin,' he exclaimed triumphantly. There, he added, we might sit if +we chose. Also, he said there was a buffet close at hand. As this did +not produce enthusiasm, he observed that there was a mirror in the +room, that he himself would call us in time to catch our train, and +that we were altogether to consider ourselves _chez nous_. Then he +bowed himself out of the room. + +The scenery along the railway from Guingamp to Paimpol was beautiful. +I hung my head out of the window the whole way, so anxious was I not +to miss a single minute of that glorious colouring. There were hills +of craggy rocks, blue and purple, with pines of brilliant fresh green +growing thickly up their sides. On the summit, standing dark against +the sky, were older pines of a deeper green. Between the clumps of +pines grew masses of mustard-yellow gorse and purple heather, in parts +faded to a rich pinky-brown. Now and then there were clefts in the +hills, or valleys, where the colouring was richer and deeper still, +and bracken grew in abundance, pinky-brown and russet. + +Paimpol itself is a fishing village, much frequented by artists, +attracted by the fishing-boats with their vermilion sails, who never +tire of depicting the gray stone quay, with its jumble of masts and +riggings. In the _salle à manger_ of the little hotel where we had +luncheon the walls were literally panelled with pictures of +fishing-boats moored to the quay. Every man sitting at that long +table was an artist. This was a pleasant change from the commercial +travellers who hitherto had fallen to our lot at meal-times. There was +no Englishman among the artists. + + [Illustration: REFLECTIONS] + +The English at this time of the year in Brittany are few, though they +swarm in every town and village during summer. These were +Frenchmen--impressionists of the new school. It was well to know this. +Otherwise one might have taken them for wild men of the woods. Such +ruffianly-looking people I had never seen before. Some of them wore +corduroy suits, shabby and paint-besmeared, with slovenly top-boots +and large felt hats set at the back of their heads. Others affected +dandyism, and parted their hair at the back, combing it towards their +ears, in the latest Latin Quarter fashion. Their neckties were of the +flaming tones of sunset, very large and spreading; their trousers +excessively baggy. The entrance of my mother and myself caused some +confusion among them, for women are very rare in Paimpol at this +season. Hats flew off and neckties were straightened, while each one +did his best to attend to our wants. Frenchmen are nothing if not +polite. The young man sitting next to me suffered from shyness, and +blushed every time he spoke. On one occasion, airing his English, he +said, 'Vill you pass ze vutter?' I passed him the butter; but he had +meant water. The poor youth rivalled the peony as he descended to +French and explained his mistake. + +The people of Paimpol are supposed to be much addicted to smuggling. +My mother and I once imagined that we had detected a flagrant act. One +afternoon, walking on a narrow path above the sea, we saw three boys +crouching behind a rock. They were talking very earnestly, and +pointing, apparently making signals, to a little red-sailed boat. The +boat changed her course, and steered straight for a small cove beneath +our feet. We held our breath, expecting to witness the hiding of the +loot. Suddenly, just as the little craft drew to within a yard or so +of the shore, we saw from behind a rock a red and white cockade +appear. There stood a gendarme! Instantly the boat went on her way +once more, and the boys fell to whispering again behind the rock. +After a while, to our great disgust, the gendarme walked at leisure +down the path and chatted in a friendly way with the conspirators. He +had been out for an afternoon stroll. Nothing really dramatic or +interesting in the smuggling line seems to happen outside books. + +The Paimpolais are a vigorous people. Fathers and sons dedicate their +lives to the sea. With all their roughness, the people are strictly +religious. The bay of Paimpol is under the protection of the Virgin, +and St. Anne is patron saint. All prayers for those at sea are +directed to these two saints, whose statues stand prominently in the +village. At the end of every winter, before starting their dangerous +life anew, the fishermen are blessed before the statues. The patron +saint of the mariners gazes down with lifeless eyes on generation +after generation of men--on those whose luck will be good and lives +happy; on those who are destined never to return. At the opening of +the fishing season there is a ceremonial procession, attended by the +fathers, mothers, sisters, and _fiancées_ of the fisher folk. Each man +as he embarks is blessed by the priest and given a few last words of +advice. Then the boats move away, a big flotilla of red-sailed fishing +craft, the men singing in loud vibrating voices, as they busy +themselves about their boats, the canticles of Mary, star of the sea. + + + + + [Illustration: A SABOT STALL] + +CHAPTER VIII + +GUINGAMP + + +On the way to Guingamp we travelled second-class. In the first-class +carriages one sits in solitary state, with never a chance of studying +the people of the country. Half-way on our journey the train stopped, +and I was amused by the excitement and perturbation of the passengers. +They flew to the windows, and heaped imprecations on the guard, the +engine-driver, and the railway company. As the train remained +stationary for several minutes, their remarks became facetious. They +inquired if _un peu de charbon_ would be useful. Should they provide +the porter with a blade of straw wherewith to light the engines? They +even offered their services in pushing the train. One fat, red-faced +commercial traveller, who, by way of being witty, declared that he was +something of an engineer himself, descended the steep steps of the +carriage in order to assist the officials. The French are born +comedians--there is no doubt about it. They manage to make themselves +extremely ridiculous. This man's behaviour was like that of a clown in +the circus. In attempting to unlock a carriage he got in the way of +everyone. The wait was long and tedious. + +'Il faut coucher sur la montagne ce soir, mademoiselle,' said an old +Breton who was puffing contentedly at a clay pipe in the corner of the +carriage. He was very fat, and smothered up to his chin in a loose +blue blouse; but he had a classic head. It was like that of some Roman +Emperor carved in bronze. His eyes were of cerulean blue. His was the +head of a man born to command. There was something almost imperial in +the pose and set of it. Nevertheless, this peasant lived, no doubt, in +the depth of the country, probably in some hovel of a cottage, with a +slovenly yellow-faced wife (women in the wilds of Brittany grow old +and plain very early), dirty children, and a few pigs and cows. He had +been attending a market, and he spoke with great importance of his +purchases there. He descended at a minute station on the line, and I +watched him as he started on his fifteen-mile drive in a ramshackle +wooden cart. + + [Illustration: LA VIEILLESSE] + +We were cold and sleepy when we arrived at Guingamp, so much so that +we forgot to be nervous as we crossed the line with our many bags +and bandboxes. When you arrive at a station in Brittany, you are met +by a bevy of men in gold-lace caps, who instantly set up a noisy +chatter. You assume that they must be advertising various hotels; but +it is quite impossible to distinguish. Travellers, especially the +English, are rarities at this season. As a rule I carefully chose the +omnibus which was cleanest, and the driver who was most respectful, in +spite of many persuasions to the contrary; but on this occasion I was +so limp and tired that I allowed my traps to be snatched from my hands +and followed our guide meekly. It might have been the dirtiest hovel +of an inn towards which we were going rapidly over the cobbled stones +of the town--it was all one to me. + +By great good luck we happened to chance on the Hôtel de France, where +we were greeted by the _maîtresse d'hôtel_, a kindly woman, and +without further delay, although it sounds somewhat _gourmande_ to say +so, sat down to one of the best dinners it has ever been my lot to +eat. The kitchen was exactly opposite the _salle à manger_, the door +of which was open for all to see within. There we could observe the +chef, rotund and rosy-cheeked, in spotless white cap and apron, busy +among multitudinous pots and pans which shone like gold. His +assistants, boys in butcher-blue cotton, flew hither and thither at +his command, busily chopping this and whipping up that. The various +dishes I do not remember distinctly; I only know that each one (I once +heard an epicure speak thus) was a 'poem.' Of all that glorious menu, +only the _escalopes de veau_ stands out clearly, laurel-wreathed, in +my memory. At the table there were the usual commercial travellers. +Also there were several glum, hard-featured Englishwomen and one man. + +How is it that one dislikes one's own countrymen abroad so much? It is +unpatriotic to say so, but I really think that the Continental +travelling portion of Britishers must be a race apart, a different +species; for a more unpleasant, impolite, plain, and badly-dressed set +of people it has never been my lot to meet elsewhere. The word +'English' at this rate will soon become an epithet. All the women +resemble the worst type of schoolmistress, and all the men retired +tradesmen. + +Guingamp, by the light of day, is a pretty town, with nothing +particularly imposing or attractive, although at one time it was an +important city of the Duchy of Penthièvre. Its only remnant of ancient +glory consists in the church of Nôtre Dame de Bon Secours, a bizarre +and irregular monument, dating from the fifteenth century. In the cool +of the evening the environs of Guingamp are very beautiful. It is +delightful to lean over some bridge spanning the dark river. Only the +sound of washerwomen beating their linen, and the splash of clothes +rinsed in the water, disturb the quiet. + +The scenery is soft and silvery in tone, like the landscape of a +Corot. Slim, bare silver birches overhang the blackened water, and on +either side of the river grow long grasses, waving backwards and +forwards in the wind, now purple, now gray. Down a broad yellow road +troops of black and red cows are being driven, and horses with their +blue wooden harness are drawing a cart laden with trunks of trees, led +by a man in a blue blouse, with many an encouraging deep-voiced 'Hoop +loo!' Everyone is bringing home cows, or wood, or cider apples. The +sky is broad and gray, with faint purple clouds. Three dear little +girls, pictures every one of them, are walking along the road, taking +up the whole breadth of it, and carrying carefully between them two +large round baskets full to overflowing with red and green apples. +Each little maid wears on her baby head a tight white lace cap +through which the glossy black hair shines, a bunchy broad cloth +skirt, a scarlet cross-over shawl, and heavy sabots. They are +miniatures of their mothers. They look like old women cut short, as +they come toddling leisurely along the road, a large heavy basket +suspended between them, singing a pretty Breton ballad in shrill +trebles: + + 'J'ai mangé des cerises avec mon petit cousin, + J'ai mangé des cerises, des cerises du voisin.' + +I caught the words as they passed, and remembered the melody. I had as +a child known the ballad in my old convent. When they were past they +tried to look back at the _demoiselle Anglaise_, and, unheeding, +tripped over a large heap of stones in the roadway. Down tumbled +children, baskets, and all. What a busy quarter of an hour we all +spent, on our knees in the dust, rubbing up and replacing the apples, +lest mother should guess they had been dropped! Finally, we journeyed +on into Guingamp in company. + + + + + [Illustration: A BEGGAR] + +CHAPTER IX + +HUELGOAT + + +To reach Huelgoat one must take the hotel omnibus from the +railway-station, and wind up and up for about an hour. Then you reach +the village. The scenery is mountainous, and quite grand for Brittany. +The aspect of this country is extraordinarily varied. On the way to +Huelgoat one passes little ribbon-like rivers with bridges and +miniature waterfalls, and hills covered by bracken and heather. The +air is bracing. + +At the top of one of the hills the carriage was stopped, and a chubby +boy in a red beré and sabots presented himself at the door, with the +request that we should descend and see the 'goffre.' Not knowing what +the 'goffre' might be, we followed our imperious guide down a +precipitous path, all mud and slippery rocks, with scarcely sufficient +foothold. At length we found ourselves in a dark wood, with mysterious +sounds of rushing water all about us. When our eyes became accustomed +to the darkness we discovered that this proceeded from a body of +water which rushed, dark-brown and angry-looking, down the rocks, and +fell foaming, amber-coloured, into a great black hole. Plucking at our +skirts, the child drew us to the edge, whispering mysteriously, as he +pointed downwards, 'C'est la maison du diable.' A few planks had been +lightly placed across the yawning abyss, and over the rude bridge the +peasants passed cheerfully on their way to work or from +it--woodcutters with great boughs of trees on their shoulders, and +millers with sacks of flour. One shuddered to think what might happen +if a sack or a bough were to fall and a man were to lose his balance. +Even the child admitted that the place was _un peu dangereux_, and led +us rapidly up the muddy path to the road. There we found to our +astonishment that the carriage had gone on to the hotel. As my mother +is not a good walker and dislikes insecure places and climbing of any +kind, we felt rather hopeless; but the child assured us that the +distance was not great. He seemed rather disgusted at our feebleness +and hesitation. Without another word, he crossed the road and dived +into a forest, leaving us to follow as best we might. Soon we were in +one of the most beautiful woods imaginable, among long, slim +pines, of which you could see only the silver stems, unless you gazed +upwards, when the vivid green of the leaves against the sky was almost +too crude in its brilliancy. The path was covered with yellow +pine-needles, which, in parts where the sun lit upon them through the +trees, shone as pure gold. On either side grew bracken, salmon, and +red, and tawny-yellow; here and there were spots of still more vivid +colour, formed by toadstools which had been changed by the sun to +brightest vermilion and orange. I have never seen anything more +beautiful than this combination--the forest of slim purple stems, the +bracken, the golden path, and, looking up, the vivid green of the +trees and the blue of the sky. The child led us on through the wood, +never deigning to address a word to us, his hands in his pockets, and +his beré pulled over his eyes. Sometimes the path descended steeply; +sometimes it was a hard pull uphill, and we were forced to stop for +breath. Always the merciless child went on, until my mother almost +sobbed and declared that this was not the right way to the hotel. Now +and then we emerged into a more open space, where there were huge +rocks and boulders half-covered with moss and ivy, some as much as +twenty feet high, like playthings of giants thrown hither and thither +carelessly one on the top of the other. Over some of these, slippery +and worn almost smooth, we had to cross for miles until we reached the +hotel, tired. + + [Illustration: A WAYSIDE SHRINE, HUELGOAT] + +Luncheon was a strange meal. No one spoke: there was silence all the +time. About thirty people were seated at a long table, all lodgers in +the hotel; but they were mute. Two young persons of the bourgeois +class, out for their yearly holiday, came in rather late, and stopped +on the threshold dumbfounded at sight of the silent crowd, for French +people habitually make a great deal of noise and clatter at their +meals. They sat opposite to us, and spent an embarrassed time. + +When you visit Huelgoat you are told that the great and only thing to +do is to take an excursion to St. Herbot. This all the up-to-date +guide-books will tell you with _empressement_. But my advice to you +is--'Don't!' Following the instructions of Messrs. Cook, we took a +carriage to St. Herbot. It was a very long and uninteresting drive +through sombre scenery, and when we arrived there was only a very +mediocre small church to be seen. The peasants begged us to visit the +grand cascade; our driver almost went down on his bended knees to +implore us to view the cascade. We would have no cascades. Cascades +such as one sees in Brittany, small and insignificant affairs, bored +us; we had visited them by the score. The driver was terribly +disappointed; tears stood in his eyes. He had expected time for a +drink. The peasants had anticipated liberal tips for showing us the +view. They all swore in the Breton tongue. Our charioteer drove us +home, at break-neck speed, over the most uneven and worst places he +could discover on the road. + + + + + [Illustration: FISHING-BOATS, CONCARNEAU] + + [Illustration: AT THE FOUNTAIN, CONCARNEAU] + +CHAPTER X + +CONCARNEAU + + +This little town, with its high gray walls, is very important. In +olden days its possession was disputed by many a valiant captain. The +fortress called the 'Ville Close' has been sacrificed since then to +military usage. The walls of granite, which are very thick, are +pierced by three gates, doubled by bastions and flanked by +machicolated towers. At each high tide the sea surrounds the fortress. +Tradition tells us that on one occasion at the Fête Dieu the floods +retired to make way for a religious procession of children and clergy, +with golden banners and crosses, in order that they might make the +complete tour of the ramparts. This fortress, a little city in itself, +is joined to Concarneau by a bridge, and it is on the farther side +that industry and animation are to be found. There is a fair-sized +port, where hundreds of sardine-boats are moored, their red and gray +nets hanging on their masts. + +The activity of the port is due to the sardines, and its prosperity is +dependent on the abundance of the fish. Towards the month of June the +sardines arrive in great shoals on the coast of Brittany. For some +time no one knew whence they came or whither they went. An approximate +idea of their journeyings has now been gained. Their route, it seems, +is invariable. During March and April the sardines appear on the +coasts of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean; they pass through the +Straits of Gibraltar, skirting Spain and Portugal; they reach France +in May. In June they are to be found on the coast of Morbihan and +Concarneau, in August in the Bay of Douarnénez, in September by the +Isle de Batz, and later in England or in Scotland. + + [Illustration: CONCARNEAU HARBOUR] + +It is to be hoped that the fish will always abound about the coast of +Concarneau. The women population is engaged in industries connected +with sardines. The making and mending of the nets and the preparation +and packing of the fish are in themselves a labour employing many +women. When the sardines have been unloaded from the ships, they are +brought to the large warehouses on the quay and submitted to the +various processes of cleaning and drying. Rows of women sit at +long deal tables cutting off the heads of the fish, and singing at +their work. The fish are then cleaned of the salt which the fishermen +threw on them, and dried in the open air on iron grills. During this +time other workmen are employed in boiling oil in iron basins. The +sardines, once dried, are plunged into the oil for about two minutes, +sufficient to cook them, and are afterwards dried in the sun. They are +then placed in small tin boxes, half-filled with oil, which are taken +to be soldered. The solderers, armed with irons at white heat, +hermetically close the boxes, which are then ready to be delivered to +the trade. This simple process is quite modern; it was instituted at +the end of the last century. The nets, which cost the fishermen thirty +francs, take thirty days to make. The machine-made nets are less +expensive; but it is said that they are not sufficiently elastic, and +the meshes enlarged by the weight of fish do not readily close up +again. + +Each sardine-boat is manned by four or five men armed with an +assortment of nets. The bait consists of the intestines of a certain +kind of fish. The fishermen plunge their arms up to the elbow in the +loathsome mixture, seizing handfuls to throw into the water. If the +sardines take to the bait, one soon sees the water on either side of +the vessel white and gray with the scales of the fish. Then the men +begin to draw in the nets. Two of them seize the ends and pull +horizontally through the water; the others unfasten the heads of the +fish caught in the meshes. The sardines are tumbled into the bottom of +the boat, and sprinkled with salt. + +The sardines, delicate creatures, die in the air in a few seconds. In +dying they make a noise very like the cry of a mouse. + +After the first haul the fishermen have some idea of the dimensions of +the fish, and adjust the mesh of their nets,--for the sardines vary in +size from one day to another according to the shoals on which the +fishermen chance. + + + + + [Illustration: THE SARDINE FLEET, CONCARNEAU] + + [Illustration: WATCHING FOR THE FISHING FLEET, CONCARNEAU] + +CHAPTER XI + +MORLAIX + + +'S'ils tu te mordent, mords les,' is the proud device of the town of +Morlaix, and the glorious pages of her chronicles justify the motto. +Morlaix has from all time been dear to the hearts of the Dukes of +Brittany for her faithfulness, which neither reverse nor failure has +ever altered. Even during the Wars of the Succession, after the most +terrible calamities, she still maintained a stout heart and a bold +front. She espoused the cause of Charles of Blois, which cost her the +lives of fifty of her finest men, whom the Duc de Monfort hanged under +false pretences. + +Morlaix is a quaint little town--all gables, pointed roofs, and +projecting windows. There are streets so narrow that in perspective +the roofs appear to meet overhead. They are of wonderful colours. You +will see white houses with chocolate woodwork, and yellow houses, +stained by time, with projecting windows. In some cases there are +small shops on the ground-floor. The town seems to be built in +terraces, to which one mounts by steps with iron railings. You are for +ever climbing, either up or down, in Morlaix; and the only footgear +that seems to be at all appropriate to its roughly cobbled streets is +the thick wooden nail-studded sabot of the Breton. + +Most of the houses on the outskirts have gardens on the tops of the +roofs; it is odd, when looking up a street, to see scarlet geraniums +nodding over the gray stonework, and, sometimes, vines meeting in a +green tracery above your head. + +There are in Morlaix whole streets in which every house has a pointed +roof, where all the slates are gray and scaly, and each story projects +over another, the last one projecting farthest, with, on the +ground-floor, either a clothier's shop or a _quincaillerie_ bright +with gleaming pots and pans and blue enamelled buckets. This lowest +story has always large wooden painted shutters flung back. + +The houses are unlike those of any other town I have seen in Brittany. +There are always about five solid square rafters under each story, and +each rafter is carved at the end into some grotesque little image or +flower. There is much painted woodwork about the windows, and +criss-cross beams sometimes run down the whole length of the house. +There are still many strange old blackened edifices, sculptured from +top to bottom, which have remained intact during four centuries with a +sombre obstinacy. At the angles you often see grotesque figures of +biniou-players, arabesques, and leaves, varied in the most bizarre +manner, and so delicately and beautifully executed that they would +form material for six 'Musées de Cluny.' These vast high houses are +very dirty, crumbling like old cheeses, and almost as multitudinously +alive. Each story is separated by massive beams, carved in a profusion +of ornaments; each window has small leaded panes. The rest of the +façade is carved with lozenge-shaped slates. + +Morlaix, of course, has her Maison de la Reine Anne, of which she is +proud. It is a characteristic house, with straight powerful lines. The +door, greenish-black, is of fluted wood. The whole building is covered +with an infinity of detail--ludicrous faces, statuettes, and carved +figures of saints. Inside it has almost no decoration. The white walls +rise to the top of the house plain and unadorned, save for a very +elaborate staircase of rich chestnut-coloured wood very beautifully +carved, with bridges, branching off from right to left, leading to the +various apartments. At the top is a sculptured figure--either of the +patron saint of the house or of some saint especially beloved in +Brittany. + +The town is a mixture of antiquity and modernity. Though her houses +and streets are old, Morlaix possesses the most modern of viaducts, +284 metres long, giving an extraordinary aspect to the place. When you +arrive at night you see the town glistening with myriads of lights, so +far below that it seems incredible. You do not realize that the +railway is built upon a viaduct: it seems as if you were suspended in +mid-air. + +When we arrived at Morlaix, a man with a carriage and four horses +offered to drive us to Huelgoat for a very modest sum; but I vowed +that all the king's horses and all the king's men would not tear me +away that day. There was much to be seen. One never wearies of +wandering through the streets of this fine old town, gazing up at the +houses, and losing one's way among the ancient and dark by-ways. +Morlaix is in a remarkable state of preservation. The houses generally +do not suggest ruin or decay. The town seems to have everlasting +youth. This is principally owing to the great love of the people for +art and the picturesque, which has led them to renovate and rebuild +constantly. For this reason, some of the structures are of great +archæological value. + + [Illustration: MEDIÆVAL HOUSE AT MORLAIX] + +The religious edifices are few. Indeed, I saw only the little church +of St. Milaine, its belfry dwarfed by the prodigious height of the +viaduct. It is a gem of architecture. The stonework is carved to +resemble lace, and both inside and out the building is in the pure +Gothic style. + +Storms are very sudden in Morlaix. Sometimes on a sunny day, when all +the world is out of doors, the wind will rise, knocking down the +tailors' dummies and scattering the tam-o'-shanters hanging outside +the clothiers'. Then comes rain in torrents. How the peasants scuttle! +What a clatter of wooden-shod feet over the cobbles as they run for +shelter! Umbrellas appear like mushrooms on a midsummer-night. Once I +saw some old women in the open square with baskets of lace and +crotchet-work and bundles of clothes stretched out for sale. When the +rain began they fell into a great fright, and strove to cover their +wares with old sacks, baskets, umbrellas--anything that was ready to +hand. I felt inclined to run out of the hotel and help. As suddenly as +the storm had risen, the sun came out, clear and radiant. I never knew +the air to be so invigorating and bright anywhere in Brittany as it is +in Morlaix. + + + + + [Illustration: OUTSIDE THE SMITHY, PONT-AVEN] + +CHAPTER XII + +PONT-AVEN + + +Pont-Aven is associated with agreeable memories. This village in the +South of Finistère draws men and women from all over Europe, summer +after summer. Many of them stay there throughout the winter, content +to be shut off from the world, allowing the sweet and gentle lassitude +of the place to lull their cares and troubles. Is it climatic--this +soothing influence--or is it the outcome of a spell woven over +beautiful Pont-Aven by some good-natured fairy long ago? I have often +wondered. Certain it is that intelligent men, many of them painters, +have been content to spend years in Pont-Aven. Some time ago Mother +and Father, touring in Brittany, came to this delightful spot, and +determined to spend three weeks there. They stayed three years. + +All my life I have heard stories of this wonderful place, and of their +first visit. It was when my father had only just begun his career as a +painter. The experience, he says, was a great education. There he +found himself in an amazing nest of French and American painters, all +the newer lights of the French school. He was free to work at whatever +he liked, yet with unlimited chances of widening, by daily argument, +his knowledge of technical problems. For the three years that he +remained on this battlefield of creeds conflicts of opinion raged +constantly. Everyone was frantically devoted to one or another of the +dominating principles of the moderns. There was a bevy of schools +there. + +One, called the Stripists, painted in stripes, with vivid colour as +nearly prismatic as possible, all the scenery around. Then, there were +the Dottists, who painted in a series of dots. There were also the +Spottists--a sect of the Dottists, whose differentiation was too +subtle to be understood. Men there were who had a theory that you must +ruin your digestion before you could paint a masterpiece. No +physically healthy person, they declared, could hope to do fine work. +They used to try to bring about indigestion. + +One man, celebrated for his painting of pure saints with blue dresses, +over which Paris would go crazy, never attempted to paint a saint +until he had drunk three glasses of absinthe and bathed his face in +ether. Another decided that he was going to have, in Paris, an +exhibition of merry-go-rounds which should startle France. He had a +theory that the only way to get at the soul of a thing was to paint +when drunk. He maintained that the merry-go-rounds whirled faster +then. One day my father went to his studio. He was dazed. He did not +know whether he was standing on his head or his heels. It was +impossible to see 'Black Bess' or any of the pet horses he knew so +well. The pictures were one giddy whirl. + +Then, there was the Bitumen school, a group of artists who never +painted anything but white sunlit houses with bitumen shadows. A year +or two afterwards a terrible thing invariably happened. Without any +warning whatsoever, the pictures would suddenly slide from off their +canvases to the floor. The bitumen had melted. + +The Primitives afforded joy. Their distinctive mark was a +walking-stick, carved by a New Zealand Maori, which they carried about +with them. It gave them inspiration. So powerful was the influence of +these sticks that even the head of a Breton peasant assumed the rugged +aspect of the primitive carvings in their paintings. The most +enthusiastic disciple of the sect was a youth who was continually +receiving marvellous inspirations. Once, after having shut himself up +for three days, he appeared looking haggard and ravenous. Without a +word, he sat down heavily near a table, called for absinthe, and, +groaning, dropped his head in his hands, and murmured, 'Ah, me! Ah, +me!' All beholders were in a fever to know what the mystery was. After +some minutes of dead silence the young man rose majestically from his +chair, stretched forth one arm, and, with a far-away look in his eyes, +said, 'Friends, last night, when you were all asleep, a beautiful +creature came to me in spirit form, and taught me the secret of +drawing; and I drew this.' Then he brought out a picture. It was far +above his usual style, and the more credulous envied his good fortune. +Some weeks afterwards, however, it was discovered by a painter with +detective instincts that the marvellous vision was in reality a +_chambre au clair_--that is to say, a prism through which objects are +reflected on paper, enabling one to trace them with great facility. + + [Illustration: IN AN AUBERGE, PONT-AVEN] + +Such are the extraordinary people among whom Mother and Father found +themselves on their first visit to Pont-Aven--geniuses some of them, +mere daubers others, all of them strange and rough and weird. +More like wild beasts they looked than human beings, Mother told me; +for very few women came to Pont-Aven in the early days, and those were +Bohemians. The artists allowed their hair and beards to grow long. Day +after day they wore the same old paint-stained suits of corduroys, +battered wide-brimmed hats, loose flannel shirts, and coarse wooden +sabots stuffed with straw. + +Mother, who was very young at the time, has often told me that she +will never forget their arrival at the little Hôtel Gleanec. They were +shown into a _salle à manger_, where rough men sat on either side of a +long table, serving themselves out of a common dish, and dipping great +slices of bread into their plates. + +Mother was received with great courtesy by them. She found it very +amusing to watch the gradual change in their appearance day by +day--the donning of linen collars and cuffs and the general smartening +up. Many of the men who were then struggling with the alphabet of art +have reached the highest rungs of the ladder of fame, and their names +have become almost household words; others have sunk into oblivion, +and are still amateurs. + +The chief hotel in the village was the Hôtel des Voyageurs, to which +Mother and Father soon migrated. It was kept by a wonderful woman, +called Julia. Originally a peasant girl, she had by untiring energy +become the proprietress of the great establishment. Her fame as +hostess and manager was bruited all over France. Everyone seemed to +know of Julia, and year after year artists and their families came +back regularly to stay with her. She is a woman with a strong +individuality. She gathered a large custom among artists, who flocked +to the Hôtel des Voyageurs as much because of the charm of Mdlle. +Julia, and the comfort of her house, as for the beauty of the scenery. + +There was a delightful intimacy among the guests, most of whom were +very intelligent. Mdlle. Julia took a sincere interest in the career +of each. All went to her with their troubles and their joys, certain +of sympathy and encouragement. Many are the young struggling painters +she has helped substantially, often allowing them to live on in the +hotel for next to nothing. Many are the unpaid bills of long standing +on the books of this generous woman. I fear that she has never made +the hotel pay very well, for the elaborate menu and good accommodation +are out of all proportion to her charges. A strong woman is Mdlle. +Julia. She has been known to lift a full-grown man and carry him out +of doors, landing him ignominiously in the mud. + +There was one man, a retired military officer, whom no one else could +manage. He had come to stay in Pont-Aven because he could live there +for a few francs a day and drink the rest. He suffered from +hallucinations, and took great pleasure in chasing timid artists over +the countryside, challenging them to duels, and insulting them in +every way possible. He was the terror of the village. He had a house +on the quay, and early one morning when the snow was thick upon the +ground, just because a small vessel came into the river and began +blowing a trumpet, or making a noise of some kind, he sprang out of +bed in a towering rage, rushed in his nightshirt into the street, and +began sharpening his sword on a rock, shouting to the ship's captain +to come out and be killed if he dared. The captain did not dare. The +only person of whom this extraordinary person stood in awe was Mdlle. +Julia. Her he would obey without a murmur. No one knew why. Perhaps +there had been some contest between them. At any rate, they understood +each other. + +The friends of Mdlle. Julia ranged from the Mayor of the town to +Batiste, the butcher, who sat outside his door all day and watched her +every movement. + +'If I want to remember where I have been, and what I did at a certain +hour, I have only to ask Batiste,' she was wont to say. + +All the artists worshipped the ground she trod upon; and well they +might, for they would never have a better friend than she. Her _salle +à manger_ and _grand salon_ were panelled with pictures, some of which +are very valuable to-day. Tender-hearted she was, and strong-minded, +with no respect for persons. Mother told me that once when my brother +and sister, babies of three and four years old, were posing for Father +on the beach with only their linen sunbonnets on, their limbs were +somewhat sunburnt and blistered. When they returned to the hotel, +Mdlle. Julia applied sweet oil and cold cream to the tender skin, and +rated my parents soundly between her tears of compassion for the +little ones. It was of no use explaining that it was in the cause of +art. She bade them in unmeasured terms to send art to the Devil, and +scolded them as if they were children. I doubt not she would have +reprimanded the King of England with as little compunction. + + [Illustration: A SAND-CART ON THE QUAY, PONT-AVEN] + +Mdlle. Julia made the reputation of Pont-Aven by her own overpowering +individuality. If she went to Paris or elsewhither for a few days, +everyone in the village felt her absence. Things were not the same. +Pont-Aven seemed momentarily to have lost its charm. The meals were +badly cooked and worse served; the _bonnes_ were neglectful. All +missed the ringing laugh and cheery presence of Julia. How soon one +knew when she had returned! What a flutter there was among the +_bonnes_! What a commotion! How everyone flew hither and thither at +her command! She seemed to fill the hotel with her presence. + +I went to Pont-Aven when I was ten years old, and I remember well how +Mdlle. Julia came to meet us, driving twenty miles through the deep +snow. What happy days those were in the dear little village! We lived +as wild things, and enjoyed life to the full. M. Grenier, the +schoolmaster, acted as tutor to us. He was lenient. We spent our time +mainly in rambling over the countryside, making chocolate in Mdlle. +Julia's wood, bird-nesting, and apple-stealing. M. Grenier taught us +to row, and we learnt all the various intricate currents and dangerous +sandbanks so thoroughly that after a time we could almost have +steered through that complicated river blindfold. We learnt how to +make boats out of wood, and how to carve our names in a professional +manner on trees. We became acquainted with a large selection of Breton +ballads and a good deal of rough botany. More advanced lessons have +faded from my mind. Of actual book-learning we accomplished very +little. Many a time M. Grenier pulled himself together, brought us new +copybooks, fine pens, his French grammar and readers, and settled us +down in the salon to work; but gradually the task would pall on both +master and scholars, and before the morning was half over we would be +out in the fields and woods again, 'just for a breath of fresh air.' + +Children have the power of making themselves at home in a foreign +country. Within a week my brother and I knew everyone in the village. +We became acquainted with all their family affairs and troubles. In +many households we were welcome at any time of the day. There was the +sabot-maker, whom we never tired of watching as he cleverly and +rapidly transformed a square block of wood into a rounded, shapely +sabot. He was always busy, and sometimes turned out a dozen pairs in +a day. To my great joy, he presented me with a beautiful little pair, +which I wore painfully, but with much pride. Although when you become +accustomed to them sabots are comfortable and sensible gear, at first +they are extremely awkward. Of course, you can kick them off before +you enter a house, and run about in the soft woollen _chausson_ with a +leather sole which is always worn underneath. Round the hotel doorway +there is always a collection of sabots awaiting their owners. In a +country such as Brittany, where it rains a good deal, and the roads +are often deep in mud, they are the only possible wear. The sabot is a +product of evolution. In that respect it is like the hansom cab which +is a thing of beauty simply because it has been thought out with +regard to its usefulness and comfort alone. + +Batiste, the butcher, was a great friend of ours. With morbid +fascination we witnessed his slaughter of pigs and cows. Then, soon we +knew where to get the best _crêpes_. These are pancakes of a kind, so +thin that you can see through them, made on a round piece of metal +over a blazing fire. Eaten hot, with plenty of butter and sugar, they +are equal to anything in our English cookery. There was one particular +old lady living down by the bridge who made _crêpes_. We saw her +mixing the ingredients, mostly flour and water, and spreading the +dough over the round piece of metal. It became hard in an instant, and +curled up brown and crisp, as thin as a lace handkerchief. Likewise, +we knew where to buy bowls of milk thick with cream for one sou. We +had to tramp over several fields and to scale several fences before we +found ourselves in the kitchen of a large farm, where the housewife +was busy pouring milk into large copper vessels. Seated at the +polished mahogany table, we drank from dainty blue bowls. + +I went back to Pont-Aven recently, and found it very little changed. +We travelled by diligence from Concarneau; but, as the conveyance left +only once a day, we had several hours to while away. The Concarneau +and Pont-Aven diligence is quaint and primitive, devoid of springs, +and fitted with extremely narrow and hard seats. We passed through +villages in which every house seemed to be either a _buvette_ or a +_débit de boisson_. At these our driver--a man in a blue blouse and a +black felt hat--had to deliver endless parcels, for which he dived +continually under the seat on which we were sitting. For discharging +each commission he received several glasses of cider and wine. He +stopped at every place to drink and talk with the host, quite +oblivious of his passengers. With every mile he became more +uproarious. + + [Illustration: PLAYING ON THE 'PLACE,' PONT-AVEN] + +Our only travelling companion was an old woman in the costume of the +country, with a yellow and wrinkled face. On her arm she carried a +large basket and a loaf of bread two yards long. Ruthlessly she trod +on our toes with her thick black sabots in getting in. Although I +helped her with her basket and her bread, she never volunteered a word +of thanks, but merely snatched them from my hands. Many Bretons are +scarcely of higher intelligence than the livestock of the farms. They +live in the depths of the country with their animals, sleeping in the +same room with them, rarely leaving their own few acres of ground. The +women work as hard as the men, digging in the fields and toiling in +the forests from early morning until night. + +At one of the villages where the diligence stopped, a blacksmith, a +young giant, handsome, dark, came out from the smithy with his dog, +which he was sending to some gentleman with hunting proclivities in +Pont-Aven. The animal--what is called a _chien de la chasse_--was +attached by a long chain to the step, and the diligence started off. +The blacksmith stood in the door of his smithy, and watched the dog +disappear with wistful eyes. The Bretons have a soft spot in their +hearts for animals. The dog itself was the picture of misery. His +moans and howls wrung one's heart. I never saw an animal more wily. He +tried every conceivable method of slipping his collar. He pulled at +the chain, and wriggled from one side to another. Once he contrived to +work his ear under the collar, and my fingers itched to help him. Had +the truant escaped, I could not have informed the driver. Strange that +one's sympathies are always with the weakest! In novels, an escaping +convict, no matter how terrible his guilt, always has my sympathy, and +I am hostile to the pursuing warder. + +As we drew near to Pont-Aven the scenery became more and more +beautiful. On either side of the road stretched miles and miles of +brilliant mustard-yellow gorse, mingled with patches of dried reddish +bracken, and bordered by rows of blue-green pines. Here and there one +saw great rocks half-covered with the velvet-green of mosses thrown +hither and thither in happy disorder. Sometimes ivy takes root in the +crevices of the rocks where a little earth has gathered, and creeps +closely round about them, as if anxious to convey life and warmth to +the cold stone. The sun, like a red ball, was setting behind the +hills, leaving the sky flecked with clouds of the palest mauves and +pinks, resembling the fine piece of marbling one sometimes sees inside +the covers of modern well-bound books. Now and then we passed a little +ruined chapel--consecrated, no doubt, to some very ancient saint (it +was impossible to make out the name), a saint whose cult was evidently +lost, for the little shrine was tumbling to ruins. We saw by the +wayside little niches sheltering sacred fountains, the waters of which +cure certain diseases; and passed peasants on the roadside, sometimes +on horseback, sometimes walking--large, well-proportioned, +fine-featured men of proud bearing. In Brittany the poorest peasant is +a free and independent man. He salutes you out of politeness and good +nature; but he does not cringe as if recognising himself to be lower +in the social scale. The Breton, howsoever poor, is no less dignified +under his blue blouse than his ancestors were under their steel +armour. + +A long straight road leads from Concarneau to Pont-Aven, and at the +end of it lies the pretty village among hills of woods and of rocks +bathed in a light mist. One could almost imagine that it was a Swiss +village in miniature. By the time we arrived it was night. We could +only discern clean white houses on either side, and water rushing +under a bridge over which we passed. The Hôtel des Voyageurs looked +much the same as ever, except that over the way a large building had +been added to the _annexe_. To our great disappointment, we discovered +that Mdlle. Julia had gone to Paris; but we recognised several of the +_bonnes_ and a hoary veteran called Joseph, who had been in Julia's +service for over twenty years. + +Gladly I rushed out next morning. There is nothing more delightful +than to visit a place where one has been happy for years as a child, +especially such a place as Pont-Aven, which changes little. My first +thought was to see the Bois d'Amour. I found it quite unchanged. To be +sure, I had some difficulty in finding the old pathway which led to +the wood, so many strange houses and roadways had been built since we +were there; but at length we found it--that old steep path with the +high walls on either side, on which the blackberries grew in +profusion. There are two paths in the forest--one, low down, which +leads by the stream, and the other above, carpeted with silver +leaves. A wonderful wood it is--a joyous harmony in green and gold. +Giant chestnuts fill the air with their perfumed leaves, forming an +inextricable lattice-work overhead, one branch entwining with the +other, the golden rays of the sun filtering through. The ground is +carpeted with silver and salmon leaves left from last autumn; the +pines shed thousands of brown cones, and streams of resin flow down +their trunks. It is well-named the Bois d'Amour. Below runs a little +stream. Now it foams and bounds, beating itself against a series of +obstacles; now it flows calmly, as if taking breath, clear, silver, +and limpid, past little green islands covered with flowers, and into +bays dark with the black mud beneath. Low-growing trees and bushes +flourish on the banks, some throwing themselves across the stream as +barricades, over which the laughing water bounds and leaps +unheedingly, scattering diamonds and topaz in the sunlight. Everything +in the Bois d'Amour seems to join in the joyous song of Nature. The +little stream sings; the trees murmur and rustle in the wind; and the +big black mill-wheel, glistening with crystal drops, makes music with +the water. + + [Illustration: ON THE QUAY AT PONT-AVEN] + +By the riverside, women are washing their clothes on square slabs of +stone, which stretch across the water. It was on these stepping-stones, +I remember, that my brother and I lost our shoes and stockings. At one +place the stream is hidden from sight by thick bushes, and you find +yourself in a narrow green lane, a green alley, walled on either side +and roofed overhead by masses of trees and bushes, through which the +sun filters occasionally in golden patches. Whenever I walk down that +lane, I think of the song that my bonne Marie taught me there one day; +it comes back as freshly now as if it had been but yesterday. The +refrain begins, 'Et mon coeur vol, vol et vol, et vol, vers les +cieux.' + +One meets the river constantly during this walk, and every mile or so +you come across a little black mill. The mills in Pont-Aven are +endless, and this saying is an old one: 'Pont-Aven ville de renom, +quatorze moulins, quinze maisons.' + +Picturesque little mills they are. The jet-black wheels form a +delightful contrast to the vivid green round about; and small bridges +of stones, loosely put together and moss-grown here and there, cross +the river at intervals. + + [Illustration: ON THE STEPS OF THE MILL HOUSE, PONT-AVEN] + +I love this rough, wild country. How variable it is! You may sit +in a wood with the stream at your feet, and all about you will be +great hills half-covered with gorse and bracken, and here and there +huge blocks of granite, which seem ready to fall any moment. + +The Bois d'Amour is a happy hunting-ground of artists. This particular +view of the mill at which I gazed so long has been a stock-subject +with painters for many years. You never pass without seeing at least +one or two men with canvases spread and easels erected, vainly trying +to reproduce the beautiful scene. Artists are plentiful in this +country. Wherever you may wander within a radius of fifteen miles, you +cannot stop at some attractive prospect without hearing an impatient +cough behind you, and, turning, find yourself obstructing the view of +a person in corduroys and flannel shirt, with a large felt hat, +working, pipe aglow, at an enormous canvas. The artists, who are +mostly English, are thought very little of by the people about. I once +heard a commercial traveller talking of Pont-Aven. + +'Pshaw!' he said, 'they are all English and Americans there. +Everything is done for the English. At the Hôtel des Voyageurs even +the cuisine is English. It is unbearable! At the table the men wear +clothes of inconceivable colour and cut. They talk without gestures, +very quickly and loudly, and they eat enormously. The young _mecs_ are +flat-faced, with long chins, white eye-lashes, and fair hair. Many are +taciturn, morose, and dreamy. Occasionally they make jokes, but +without energy. They mostly eat without interruption.' + +This is the French view, and it is natural. Pont-Aven does not have +the right atmosphere for the Frenchman: the Bretons and the English +are supreme. + +Nothing is more delightful than to spend a summer there. You find +yourself in a colony of intelligent men, many of them very clever, as +well as pretty young English and American girls, and University +students on 'cramming' tours. Picnics and river-parties are organized +by the inimitable Mdlle. Julia every day during the summer, and in the +evening there is always dancing in the big salon. The hotel is full to +overflowing from garret to cellar. Within the last few years Mdlle. +Julia has opened another hotel at Porte Manec, by the sea, to which +the visitors may transfer themselves whenever they choose, going +either by river or by Mdlle. Julia's own omnibus. It is built on the +same lines as Mme. Bernhardt's house at Belle Isle, and is situated on +a breezy promontory. + +The river lies between Pont-Aven and Porte Manec, which is at the +mouth of the sea. How beautiful this river is--the dear old +browny-gray, moleskin-coloured river, edged with great rocks on which +the seaweed clings! On the banks are stretches of gray-green grass +bordered by holly-bushes. The scenery changes constantly. Sometimes it +is rugged and rocky, now sloping up, now down, now covered with green +gorse or a sprinkling of bushes, now with a wilderness of trees. Here +and there you will see a cleft in the mountain-side, a little leafy +dell which one might fancy the abode of fairies. Silver streams +trickle musically over the bare brown rocks, and large red toadstools +grow in profusion, the silver cobwebs sparkling with dew in the gorse. + +It is delightful in the marvellous autumn weather to take the narrow +river-path winding in and out of the very twisty Aven, and wander +onwards to your heart's content, with the steep hillside at the back +of you and the river running at your feet. You feel as if you could +walk on for ever over this mountainous ground, where the heather +grows in great purple bunches among huge granite rocks, which, they +say, were placed there by the Druids. Down below flows the river--a +mere silver ribbon now, in wastes of pinky-purple mud, for it is ebb +tide; and now and then you see the battered hulk of a boat lying on +its side in the mud. On the hill are lines of fir-trees standing black +and straight against the horizon. + +Night falls in a bluish haze on the hills and on the river, confusing +the outline of things. At the foot of the mountains it is almost dark. +Through the open windows and doors of the cottages as one passes one +can see groups round the tables under the yellow light of candles. One +smells the good soup which is cooking; the noise of spoons and plates +mingles with the voices of the people. Pewter and brass gleam from the +walls. It is a picture worthy of Rembrandt. The end of the room is +hidden in smoky shadow, now and then lit up by a flame escaping from +the fireplace, showing an old woman knitting in the ingle-nook, and an +old white-haired peasant drinking cider out of a blue mug. It is +strange to think of these people living in their humble homes year +after year--a happy little people who have no history. + + [Illustration: THE BRIDGE, PONT-AVEN] + +Not far from Pont-Aven is the ruined château of Rustephan. One +approaches it through a wood of silver birches, under great old trees; +cherry-trees and apple-trees remain in what must once have been a +flourishing orchard. The castle itself has fallen to decay. The wall +which joined the two towers has broken down, and the steps of the +grand spiral staircase, up which we used to climb, have crumbled; only +the main column, built of granite sparkling with silver particles, +which will not fall for many a day, stands stout and sturdy. One of +the stately old doorways remains; but it is only that which leads to +the castle keep--the main entrance must have fallen with the walls +centuries ago. Bits of the old dining-hall are still to be seen--a +huge fireplace, arch-shaped, and a little shrine-like stone erection +in the wall, worn smooth in parts; one can imagine that it was once a +sink for washing dishes in. + +It is a drowsy morning; the sun shines hotly on the back of the neck; +and as one sits on a mound of earth in the middle of what was once the +dining-hall, one cannot resist dreaming of the romantic history of +Geneviève de Rustephan, the beautiful lady who lived here long ago. Up +in one of the great rounded towers spotted with orange lichen and +encircled with ivy is a room which must have been her bedchamber. An +ancient chimney-stack rears itself tall and stately, and where once +gray smoke curled and wreathed, proceeding from the well-regulated +kitchen, long feathery grasses grow. All round the castle, in what +must have been the pleasure-gardens, the smooth lawns and the +bowling-green, my lady's rose-garden, etc., are now mounds of earth, +covered with straggling grass, bracken, and blackberry-bushes, and +loose typical Breton stone walls enclosing fields. Horrible to relate, +in the lordly dining-hall, where once the dainty Geneviève sat, is a +fat pig, nozzling in the earth. + +Naturally, Rustephan is haunted. If anyone were brave enough to +penetrate the large hall towards midnight (so the peasants say), a +terrible spectacle would be met--a bier covered with a white cloth +carried by priests bearing lighted tapers. On clear moonlight nights, +say the ancients, on the crumbling old terrace, a beautiful girl is to +be seen, pale-faced, and dressed in green satin flowered with gold, +singing sad songs, sobbing and crying. On one occasion the peasants +were dancing on the green turf in front of the towers, and in the +middle of the most animated part of the feast there appeared behind +the crossbars of a window an old priest with shaven head and eyes +as brilliant as diamonds. Terrified, the men and the girls fled, and +never again danced in these haunted regions. + + [Illustration: THE VILLAGE FORGE, PONT-AVEN] + +One feels miserable on leaving Pont-Aven. It seems as if you had been +in a quiet and beautiful backwater for a time, and were suddenly going +out into the glare and the noise and the flaunting airs of a +fashionable regatta. I can describe the sensation in no other way. +There is something in the air of Pont-Aven that makes it like no other +place in the world. + + + + + [Illustration: THE VILLAGE COBBLER] + +CHAPTER XIII + +QUIMPERLÉ + + +Quimperlé is known as the Arcadia of Basse Bretagne, and certainly the +name is well deserved. I have never seen a town so full of trees and +trailing plants and gardens. Every wall is green with moss and gay +with masses of convolvulus and nasturtium. Flowers grow rampant in +Quimperlé, and overrun their boundaries. Every window-sill has its row +of pink ivy-leafed geraniums, climbing down and over the gray stone +wall beneath; every wall has its wreaths of trailing flowers. + +There are flights of steps everywhere--favourite caprices of the +primitive architects--divided in the middle by iron railings. Up these +steps all the housewives must go to reach the market. On either side +the houses crowd, one above the other, with their steep garden walls, +sometimes intercepted by iron gateways, and sometimes covered by +blood-red leaves and yellowing vines. Some are houses of the Middle +Ages, and some of the Renaissance period, with sculptured porches and +panes of bottle-glass; a few have terraces at the end of the gardens, +over which clematis climbs. Here and there the sun lights up a corner +of a façade, or shines on the emerald leaves, making them scintillate. +Down the steps a girl in white-winged cap and snowy apron, with pink +ribbon at her neck, carrying a large black two-handled basket, is +coming on her way from market. + +Having scaled this long flight of steps, you find yourself face to +face with the old Gothic church of St. Michael, a grayish-pink +building with one great square tower and four turrets. The porch is +sculptured in a rich profusion of graceful details. Here and there +yellow moss grows, and there are clusters of fern in the niches. +Inside, the church was suffused with a purple light shed by the sun +through the stained-glass windows; the ceiling was of infinite blue. +Everything was transformed by the strange purple light. The beautiful +carving round the walls, the host of straight-backed praying-chairs, +and even the green curtain of the confessional boxes, were changed to +royal purple. Only the altar, with its snowy-white cloths and red and +gold ornaments, retained its colour. Jutting forth from the church of +St. Michael are arms or branches connecting it with the village, as +if it were some mother bird protecting the young ones beneath her +wings. Under these wings the houses of the village cluster. + +It is five o'clock in the afternoon, the sociable hour, when people +sit outside their cottage doors, knitting, gossiping, watching the +children play, and eating the evening meal. Most of the children, who +are many, are very nearly of the same age. Clusters of fair curly +heads are seen in the road. The youngest, the baby, is generally held +by some old woman, probably the grandmother, who has a shrivelled +yellow face--a very tender guardian. + +Over the doorways of the shops hang branches of withered mistletoe. +Through the long low windows, which have broad sills, you catch a +glimpse of rows and rows of bottles. These are wine-shops--no rarities +in a Breton village. Another shop evidently belonged to the church at +one time. It still possesses a rounded ecclesiastical doorway, built +of solid blocks of stone, and the walls, which were white originally, +are stained green with age. The windows, as high as your waist from +the ground, have broad stone sills, on which are arranged carrots and +onions, coloured sweets in bottles, and packets of tobacco. This shop +evidently supplies everything that a human being can desire. Above it +you read: 'Café on sert a boire et a manger.' + +While we were in Quimperlé there were two musicians making a round of +the town. One, with a swarthy face, was blind, and sang a weird song +in a minor key, beating a triangle. The other, who looked an Italian, +was raggedly dressed in an old fur coat and a faded felt hat. His +musical performance was a veritable gymnastic feat. In his hands he +held a large concertina, which he played most cleverly; at his back +was a drum with automatic sticks and clappers, which he worked with +his feet. It was the kind of music one hears at fairs. Wherever we +went we heard it, sometimes so near that we could catch the tune, +sometimes at a distance, when only the dull boom of the drum was +distinguishable. + +Whenever I think of Quimperlé this strange music and the spectacle of +those two picturesque figures come back to memory. The men are well +known in Brittany. They spend their lives travelling from place to +place, earning a hard livelihood. When I was at school in Quimper I +used to hear the same tune played by the same men outside the convent +walls. + + [Illustration: THE BLIND PIPER] + +Quimperlé is a sleepy place, changing very little with the years. In +spite of the up-to-date railway-station, moss still grows between the +pavings of the streets. The houses have still their picturesque wooden +gables; the gardens are laden with fruit-trees; the hills are rich in +colour. Flowers that love the damp grow luxuriantly. It is an arcadian +country. The place is hostile to work. In this tranquil town, almost +voluptuous in its richness of colour and balminess of atmosphere, you +lose yourself in laziness. There is not a discordant note, nothing to +shock the eye or grate on the senses. Far from the noise of Paris, the +stuffy air of the boulevards, the never-ending rattle of the fiacres, +and the rasping cries of the camelot, you forget the seething world +outside. + +In the Rue du Château, the aristocratic quarter, are many spacious +domains with doorways surmounted by coats of arms and coronets. Most +of them have closed shutters, their masters having disappeared, +alienated for ever by the Revolution; but a few great families have +returned to their homes. One sees many women about the church, grave +and sad and prayerful, who still wear black, clinging to God, the +saints, and the priests, as to the only living souvenirs of better +times. + +In no other place in Finistère was the Revolution so sudden and so +terrible as in this little town, and nowhere were the nobility so many +and powerful. This old Rue du Château must have rung with furious +cries on the day when the federators returned from the fête of the +Champs de Mars after the abolition of all titles and the people took +the law into their own hands. The Bretons are slow to anger; but when +roused they are extremely violent. They not only attacked the +living--the nobles in their seignorial hotels--but also they went to +the tombs and mutilated the dead with sabre cuts. + +In Quimperlé the painter finds pictures at every turn. For example, +there are clear sinuous streams crossed by many bridges, not unlike +by-canals in Venice. As you look up the river the bank is a jumble of +sloping roofs, protruding balconies, single-arched bridges, trees, and +clumps of greenery. The houses on either side, gray and turreted, +bathe their foundations in the stream. Some have steep garden walls, +velvety with green and yellow moss and lichen; others have terraces +and jutting stone balconies, almost smothered by trailing vines and +clematis, drooping over the gray water. The stream is very shallow, +showing clearly the brown and golden bed; and on low stone benches at +the edge girls in little close white caps and blue aprons are busily +washing with bare round arms. A pretty little maid with jet-black hair +is cleaning some pink stuff on a great slab of stone, against a +background of gray wall over which convolvulus and nasturtium are +trailing; a string of white linen is suspended above her head. This is +a delightful picture. It is a gray day, sunless; but the gray is +luminous, and the reflections in the water are clear. + + + + + [Illustration: AT THE FOIRE] + +CHAPTER XIV + +AURAY + + +When we arrived in Auray it was market-day, and chatter filled the +streets. There were avenues of women ranged along the pavement, their +round wicker baskets full of lettuce, cabbages, carrots, turnips, +chestnuts, pears, and what not--women in white flimsy caps, coloured +cross-over shawls, and sombre black dresses. Their aprons were of many +colours--reds, mauves, blues, maroons, and greens--and the wares also +were of various hues. All the women knit between the intervals of +selling, and even during the discussion of a bargain, for a purchase +in Brittany is no small matter in the opinion of housewives, and +engenders a great deal of conversation. All the feminine world of +Auray seemed to have sallied forth that morning. Processions of them +passed down the avenue of market women, most of them peasants in the +cap of Auray, with snuff-coloured, large-bibbed aprons, carrying bulky +black baskets with double handles. + +Now and then one saw a Frenchwoman walking through the avenue of +vegetables, just as good at bargaining, just as keen-eyed and +sharp-tongued, as her humbler sisters. Sometimes she was pretty, +walking with an easy swinging gait, her baby on one arm, her basket on +the other, in a short trim skirt and altogether neatly dressed. More +often she was dressed in unbecoming colours, her hair untidily +arranged, her skirt trailing in the mud--a striking contrast to the +well-to-do young Breton matron, with neatly braided black hair and +clean rosy face, her white-winged lawn cap floating in the breeze, her +red shawl neatly crossed over her lace-trimmed corsage. In her black +velvet-braided skirt and wooden sabots the Breton is a dainty little +figure, her only lapse into frivolity consisting of a gold chain at +her neck and gold earrings. + +Vegetables do not engender much conversation in a Breton market: they +are served out and paid for very calmly. It is over the skeins of +coloured wool, silks, and laces, that there is much bargaining. Round +these stalls you will see girls and old hags face to face, and almost +nose to nose, their arms crossed, speaking rapidly in shrill voices. + + [Illustration: MID-DAY] + +Just after walking past rows of very ordinary houses, suddenly you +will come across a really fine old mansion, dating from the +seventeenth century, white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables, +and diamond panes. Then, just as you think that you have exhausted the +resources of the town, and turn down a moss-grown alley homewards, you +find yourself face to face with another town, typically Breton, +white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering round a church and surrounded +by old moss-grown walls. This little town is situated far down in a +valley, into which you descend by a sloping green path. We sat on a +stone bench above, and watched the people as they passed before us. +There were bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores and +red berés, hurrying home to _déjeuner_, swinging their satchels; and +beggars, ragged and dirty, holding towards us tin cups and greasy +caps, with many groans and whines. One man held a baby on his arm, and +in the other hand a loaf of bread. The baby's face was dirty and +covered with sores; but its hair was golden and curly, and the sight +of that fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder as they +went down the hill made one's heart ache. It was terrible to think +that an innocent child could be so put out of touch with decent +humanity. + +To reach this little town one had to cross a sluggish river by a +pretty gray stone bridge. Some of the houses were quaint and +picturesque, mostly with two stories, one projecting over the other, +and low windows with broad sills, bricked down to the ground, on which +were arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white geraniums, and +red-brown begonias. Nearly every house had its broad stone stoop, or +settle, on which the various families sat in the warm afternoon +drinking bowls of soup and eating _tartines de beurre_. + +It is a notably provincial little town, full of flowers and green +trees, and dark, narrow streets, across which hang audaciously strings +of drying linen. All the children of the community appeared to be out +and about--some skipping, others playing at peg-tops, and others +merely sucking their fingers and their pinafores in the way that +children have. One sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair plaited +into four little tails tied with red ribbon, clasped a slice of +bread-and-butter (butter side inwards, of course) to her chest, and +was carelessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the same time, in +such a way as to make my heart leap. + +A happy wedding-party were swinging gaily along the quay arm in arm, +singing some rollicking Breton chanson, and all rather affected by +their visits to the various _débits de boissons_. There were two men +and two women--the men fair and bearded, wearing peaked caps; the +women in their best lace coifs and smartest aprons. As they passed +everyone turned and pointed and laughed. It was probably a three days' +wedding. + +A mite of a girl walking gingerly along the street carried a bottle of +ink ever so carefully, biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it +steadily. Round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a gorgeous silver +cross, testifying to good behaviour during the week. Alack! a tragedy +was in store. The steps leading to the doorway of her home were steep, +and the small person's legs were short and fat. She tripped and fell, +and the ink was spilled--a large, indelible, angry black spot on the +clean white step. Fearfully and pale-faced, the little maid looked +anxiously about her, and strove to put the ink back again by means of +a dry stick, staining fingers and pinafore the more. It was of no +avail. Her mother had seen her. Out she rushed, a pleasant-faced woman +in a white lace cap, now wearing a ferocious expression. + +'Monster that thou art!' she cried, lifting the tearful, +ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and throwing her roughly +indoors, whence piteous sounds of sobbing and wailing ensued. + +The child's heart was broken; the silver cross had lost its charm; and +the sun had left the heavens. The mother, busily bending over her +sewing-machine, looked up at us through the window, and smiled +understandingly. + + + + + [Illustration: A LITTLE MOTHER] + +CHAPTER XV + +BELLE ISLE + + +As a rule, a country becomes more interesting as one draws near to the +sea; the colouring is more beautiful and the people are more +picturesque. It is strange that the salt air should have such a +mellowing effect upon a town and its inhabitants; but there is no +doubt that it has. This seemed especially remarkable to us, coming +straight from Carnac, that flat, gray, treeless country where the +people are sad and stolid, and one's only interest is in the dolmens +and menhirs scattered over the landscape--strange blocks of stone +about which one knows little, but imagines much. + +When you come from a country such as this, you cannot but be struck by +the warmth and wealth of colouring which the sea imparts to everything +in its vicinity. Even the men and women grouped in knots on the pier +were more picturesque, with their sun-bleached, tawny, red-gold hair, +and their blue eyes, than the people of Carnac. The men were handsome +fellows--some in brown and orange clothing, toned and stained by the +sea; others in deep-blue much bepatched coats and yellow oilskin +trousers. Their complexions had a healthy reddish tinge--a warmth of +hue such as one rarely sees in Brittany. + +The colouring of the Bay of Quiberon on this particular afternoon was +a tender pale mother-of-pearl. The sky was for the most part a broad, +fair expanse of gray, with, just where the sun was setting, intervals +of eggshell blue and palest lemon-yellows breaking through the drab; +the sands were silvery; the low-lying ground was a dim gold; the water +was gray, with purple and lemon-yellow reflections. The whole scene +was broad and fair. The people on the pier and the boats on the water +formed notes of luscious colour. The fishing-boats at anchor were of a +brilliant green, with vermilion and orange sails and nets a gauzy +blue. Ahead, on the brown rocks, although it was the calmest and best +of weather, white waves were breaking and sending foam and spray high +into the air. There was everywhere a fresh smell of salt. + + [Illustration: CURIOSITY] + +We were anxious to go across to Belle Isle that night, and took +tickets for a small, evil-smelling boat, the cargo of which was mostly +soldiers. It was rather a rough crossing, and we lay in the +stuffy cabin longing to go on deck to see the sunset, which, by +glimpses through the portholes, we could tell to be painting sea and +sky in tones of flame. At last the spirit conquered the flesh, and, +worried with the constant opening and shutting of doors by the noisy +steward, we went on deck. A fine sight awaited us. From pearly grays +and tender tones we had emerged into the fiery glories of a sunset +sky. Behind us lay the dark gray-blue sea and the darker sky, flecked +by pale pink clouds. Before us, the sun was shooting forth broad +streaks of orange and vermilion on a ground of Venetian blue. Towards +the horizon the colouring paled to tender pinks and lemon-yellows. As +the little steamer ploughed on, Belle Isle rose into sight, a dark +purple streak with tracts of lemon-gold and rosy clouds. The nearer we +drew the lower sank the sun, until at last it set redly behind the +island, picking out every point and promontory and every pine standing +stiff against the sky. + +Each moment the island loomed larger and darker, orange light shining +out here and there in the mass. We were astonished by its size, for I +had always imagined Belle Isle as being a miniature place belonging +entirely to Mme. Bernhardt. The entrance to the bay was narrow, and +lay between two piers, with lights on either end; and it was a strange +sensation leaving the grays and blues and purples, the silvery +moonlight, and the tall-masted boats behind us, and emerging into this +warmth and wealth of colouring. A wonderful orange and red light shone +behind the dark mass of the island, turning the water of the bay to +molten gold and glorifying the red-sailed fishing-boats at anchor. As +we drew near the shore, piercing shrieks came from the funnel. There +appeared to be some difficulty about landing. Many directions were +shouted by the captain and repeated by a shrill-voiced boy before we +were allowed to step on shore over a precarious plank. Once landed, we +were met by a brown-faced, sturdy woman, who picked up our trunks and +shouldered them as if they were feather-weights for a distance of half +a mile or so. She led the way to the hotel. + +Next morning was dismal; but, as we had only twenty-four hours to +spend in Belle Isle, we hired a carriage to take us to the home of +Mme. Bernhardt, and faced the weather. The sky was gray; the country +flat and bare, though interesting in a melancholy fashion. The +scenery consisted of mounds of brown overturned earth laid in regular +rows in the fields, scrubby ground half-overgrown by gorse, clusters +of dark pines, and a dreary windmill here and there. Now and then, by +way of incident, we passed a group of white houses, surrounded by +sad-coloured haystacks, and a few darkly-clad figures hurrying over +the fields with umbrellas up, on their way to church. The Breton +peasants are so pious that, no matter how far away from a town or +village they may live, they attend Mass at least once on Sunday. A +small procession passed us on the road--young men in their best black +broadcloth suits, and girls in bright shawls and velvet-bound +petticoats. This was a christening procession--at least, we imagined +it to be so; for one of the girls carried a long white bundle under an +umbrella. Bretons are christened within twenty-four hours of birth. + +The home of Mme. Bernhardt is a square fortress-like building, shut up +during the autumn, with a beautifully-designed terrace garden. It is +situated on a breezy promontory, and the great actress is in sole +possession of a little bay wherein the sea flows smoothly and greenly +on the yellow sands, and the massive purple rocks loom threateningly +on either side with many a craggy peak. Her dogs, large Danish +boarhounds, rushed out, barking furiously, at our approach; her sheep +and some small ponies were grazing on the scanty grass. + +Our driver was taciturn. He seemed to be tuned into accord with the +desolate day, and would vouchsafe no more than a grudging 'Oui' or +'Non' to our many questions, refusing point-blank to tell us to what +places he intended driving us. At length he stopped the carriage on a +cliff almost at the edge of a precipice. Thoughts that he was perhaps +insane ran through my mind, and I stepped out hurriedly; but his +intention was only to show us some cavern below. Mother preferred to +remain above-ground; but, led by the driver, I went down some steps +cut in the solid rock, rather slippery and steep, with on one side a +sheer wall of rock, and the ocean on the other. The rock was dark +green and flaky, with here and there veins of glistening pink and +white mica. Lower and lower we descended, until it seemed as if we +were stepping straight into the sea, which foamed against the great +rocks, barring the entrance to the cavern. + + [Illustration: A SOLITARY MEAL] + +The cavern itself was like a colossal railway-arch towering hundreds +of feet overhead; and against this and the rocks at the entrance +the sea beat with much noise and splash, falling again with a groan in +a mass of spray. Inside the cavern the tumult was deafening; but never +have I seen anything more beautiful than those waves creaming and +foaming over the green rocks, the blood-red walls of the cave rising +sheer above, flecked with glistening mica. It was a contrast with the +tame, flat, sad scenery over which we had been driving all the +morning. This was Nature at her biggest and best, belittling +everything one had ever seen or was likely to see, making one feel +small and insignificant. + +By-and-by we drove to a village away down in a hollow, a typical +Breton fishing-village with yellow and white-faced _auberges_, and +rows of boats moored to the quay, their nets and sails hauled down on +this great day of the week, the Sabbath. As there was no hotel in the +place, we entered a clean-looking _auberge_ and asked for luncheon. +The kitchen led out of the little _salle à manger_, and, as the door +was left wide open, we could watch the preparation of our food. We +were to have a very good soup; we saw the master of the house bringing +in freshly-caught fish, which were grilled at the open fireplace, and +fresh sardines; and we heard our chicken frizzling on the spit. We +saw the coffee-beans being roasted, and we were given the most +exquisite pears and apples. Small matter that our room was shared by +noisy soldiers, and that Adolphus (as we had named our driver) entered +and drank before our very eyes more cognac than was good for him or +reasonable on our bill. + +Sunday afternoon in Belle Isle is a fashionable time. Between three +and four people go down to the quay, clattering over the cobble stones +in their best black sabots, to watch the steamers come in from +Quiberon. You see girls in fresh white caps and neat black dresses, +spruce soldiers, ladies _à la mode_ in extravagant headgear and loud +plaid or check dresses. On the quay they buy hot chestnuts. From our +hotel we could watch the people as they passed, and the shopkeepers +sitting and gossiping outside their doors. Opposite us was a souvenir +shop, on the steps of which sat the proprietor with his boy. Very +proud he was of the child--quite an ordinary spoiled child, much +dressed up. The father followed the boy with his eyes wherever he +went. He pretended to scold him for not getting out of the way when +people passed, to attract their attention to the child. He greeted +every remark with peals of laughter, and repeated the witticisms to +his friend the butcher next door, who did not seem to appreciate them. +Every now and then he would glance over to see if the butcher were +amused. French people, especially Bretons, are devoted to their +children. + +I was much amused in watching the little _bonne_ at the hotel who +carried our luggage the night before. She was quaint, compact, sturdy. +She would carry a huge valise on her shoulder, or sometimes one in +either hand. She ordered her husband about. She dressed her child in a +shining black hat, cleaned its face with her pocket-handkerchief, +straightened its pinafore, and sent it _en promenade_ with papa, while +she herself stumped off to carry more luggage. There was apparently no +end to her strength. On her way indoors she paused on the step and +cast a loving glance over her shoulder at the back view of her husband +in his neatly-patched blue blouse and the little child in the black +_sarrau_ walking sedately down the road. She seemed so proud of the +pair that we could not resist asking the woman if the child were hers, +just to see the glad smile which lit up her face as she answered, +'Oui, mesdames!' I have often noticed how lenient Breton women are to +their children. They will speak in a big voice and frown, and a child +imagines that Mother is in a towering rage; but you will see her turn +round the next moment and smile at the bystander. If children only +knew their power, how little influence parents would have over them! + +The French differ from the British in the matter of emotion. On the +steamer from Belle Isle to Quiberon there were some soldiers, about to +travel with us, who were being seen off by four or five others +standing on the quay. Slouching, unmilitary figures they looked, with +baggy red trousers tied up at the bottoms, faded blue coats, and +postmen-shaped hats, yellow, red, or blue pom-pom on top. One of the +men on shore was a special friend of a soldier who was leaving. I was +on tenter-hooks lest he should embrace him; he almost did so. He +squeezed his hand; he picked fluff off his clothes; he straightened +his hat. He repeatedly begged that his 'cher ami' would come over on +the following Sunday to Belle Isle. Tears were very near his eyes; he +was forced to bite his handkerchief to keep them back. When the boat +moved away, and they could join hands no longer, the soldiers blew +kisses over the water to one another. They opened their arms +wide, shouted affectionate messages, and called one another by +endearing terms. Altogether, they carried on as if they were neurotic +girls rather than soldiers who had their way to make and their country +to think of. + + [Illustration: IN THE BOIS D'AMOUR] + +There was one man superior to his fellows. He held the same rank, and +wore the same uniform; but he kept his buttons and his brass belt +bright; he wore silk socks, and carried a gold watch under his +military coat; his face was intelligent. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ST. ANNE D'AURAY + + +Not far from the little town of Auray is the magnificent cathedral of +St. Anne D'Auray, to which so many thousands from all over Brittany +come annually to worship at the shrine of St. Anne. From all parts of +the country they arrive--some on foot, others on horseback, or in +strange country carts: marquises in their carriages; peasants plodding +many a weary mile in their wooden sabots. Even old men and women will +walk all through the day and night in order to be in time for the +pardon of St. Anne. + +The Breton people firmly believe that their household cannot prosper, +that their cattle and their crops cannot thrive, that their ships are +not safe at sea, unless they have been at least once a year to burn +candles at the shrine. The wealthy bourgeois's daughter, in her new +dress, smart apron, and Paris shoes, kneels side by side with a ragged +beggar; the peasant farmer, with long gray hair, white jacket, +breeches and leather belt, mingles his supplications with those of a +nobleman's son. All are equal here; all have come in the same humble, +repentant spirit; for the time being class distinctions are swept +away. Noble and peasant crave their special boons; each confesses his +sins of the past year; all stand bareheaded in the sunshine, humble +petitioners to St. Anne. + +At the time of the pardon, July 25, the ordinarily quiet town is +filled to overflowing. There is a magnificent procession, all green +and gold and crimson, headed by the Bishop of Vannes. A medley of +people come from all parts to pray in the cathedral, and to bathe in +the miraculous well, the water of which will cure any ailment. + +It is said that in the seventh century St. Anne appeared to one +Nicolazic, a farmer, and commanded him to dig in a field near by for +her image. This having been found, she bade him erect a chapel on the +spot to her memory. Several chapels were afterwards built, each in its +turn grander and more important, until at last the magnificent church +now standing was erected. On the open place in front is a circle of +small covered-in stalls, where chaplets, statuettes, tall wax +candles, rings, and sacred ornaments of all kinds, are sold. + + [Illustration: A BRETON FARMER] + +Directly you appear within that circle, long doleful cries are set up +from every vendor, announcing the various wares that he or she has for +sale. You are offered rosaries for sixpence, and for four sous extra +you can have them blessed. A statue of the Virgin can be procured for +fourpence; likewise the image of St. Anne. Wherever you may go in the +circle, you are pestered by these noisy traders. There is something +incongruous in such sacred things being hawked about the streets, and +their various merits shrieked at you as you pass. We went to a shop +near by, where we could look at the objects quietly and at leisure. + +The church, built of light-gray stone, is full of the richest +treasures you can imagine--gold, jewels, precious marbles, and +priceless pictures. One feels almost surfeited by so much +magnificence. Every square inch of the walls is covered with slabs of +costly marble, on which are inscribed, in letters of gold, thanks to +St. Anne for benefits bestowed and petitions for blessings. + +Although one cannot but be touched by the worship of St. Anne and the +simple belief of the people in her power to cure all, to accomplish +all, one is a little upset by these costly offerings. Nevertheless, it +is a marvellous faith, this Roman Catholic religion: the more you +travel in a country like Brittany, the more you realize it. There must +be a great power in a religion that draws people hundreds of miles on +foot, and enables them, after hours of weary tramping, to spend a day +praying on the hard stones before the statue of a saint. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ST. MALO + + +When you are nearing the coast of France all you can see is a long +narrow line, without relief, apparently without design, without +character, just a sombre strip of horizon; but St. Malo is always +visible. A fine needle-point breaks the uninteresting line: it is the +belfry of St. Malo. To left and right of the town is a cluster of +islands, dark masses of rock over which the waves foam whitely. St. +Malo is magnificently fortified. It is literally crowned with military +defences. It is a mass of formidable fortresses, rigid angles, and +severe gray walls. It speaks of the seventeenth century, telling of a +time when deeds of prowess were familiar. The sea, which is flowing, +beats furiously against the walls of defence, protected by the trunks +of great trees planted in the sand. These gigantic battalions stop the +inrush of the water, and would make landing more arduous to an enemy. +They have a bizarre effect when seen from the distance. + +The town defied all the efforts of the English to capture her. On one +occasion they laid mines as far as the Porte of St. Malo; but the +Virgin, enshrined above the gate, and ever watching over the people, +disclosed the plot by unfolding her arms and pointing with one hand to +the ground beneath her. The Bretons dug where she pointed, and +discovered their imminent peril. Thus was the city saved. To-day the +shrine receives the highest honours, and is adorned with the finest +and sweetest flowers. + +For one reason at least St. Malo is unique. It is a town of some +thousand inhabitants; yet it is still surrounded by mediæval walls. Of +all the towns in Brittany, St. Malo is the only one which still +remains narrowly enclosed within walls. It is surrounded by the sea +except for a narrow neck of land joining the city to the mainland. +This is guarded at low tide by a large and fierce bulldog, the image +of which has been added to St. Malo's coat of arms. Enclosed within a +narrow circle of walls, and being unable to expand, the town is +peculiar. The houses are higher than usual, and the streets narrower. +There is no waste ground in St. Malo. Every available inch is built +upon. The sombre streets run uphill and downhill. There is no +town like St. Malo. Its quaint, tortuous streets, of corkscrew form, +culminate in the cathedral, which, as you draw near, does not seem to +be a cathedral at all, but a strong fort. So narrow are the streets, +and so closely are they gathered round the cathedral, that it is only +when you draw away to some distance that you can see the +beautifully-sculptured stone tower of many points. + + [Illustration: IN THE EYE OF THE SUN] + +Up and down the steep street the people clatter in their thick-soled +sabots. It is afternoon, and most of the townspeople have turned out +for a walk, to gaze in the shop windows with their little ones. The +people are rather French; and the children, instead of being clad in +the Breton costume, wear smart kilted skirts, white socks, and shiny +black sailor hats. Still, there is a subtle difference between these +people and the French. You notice this directly you arrive. There is +something solid, something pleasant and unartificial, about them. The +women of the middle classes are much better-looking, and they dress +better; the men are of stronger physique, with straight, clean-cut +features and a powerful look. + +Very attractive are these narrow hilly streets, with their throngs of +people and their gay little shops where the wares are always hung +outside--worsted shawls, scarlet and blue berés, Breton china +(decorated by stubby figures of men and women and heraldic devices), +chaplets, shrines to the Virgin Mary, many-coloured cards, religious +and otherwise. + + [Illustration: SUNDAY] + +There are a few houses which perpetuate the past. You are shown the +house of Queen Anne, the good Duchess Anne, a house with Gothic +windows, flanked by a tower, blackened and strangely buffeted by the +blows of time. Queen Anne was a marvellous woman, and has left her +mark. Her memory is kept green by the lasting good that she achieved. +From town to town she travelled during the whole of her reign, for she +felt that to rule well and wisely she must be ever in close touch with +her people. No woman was more beloved by the populace. Everywhere she +went she was fêted and adored. She ruled her province with a rod of +iron; yet she showed herself to be in many ways wonderfully feminine. +Nothing could have been finer than the act of uniting Brittany with +France by giving up her crown to France and remaining only the Duchess +Anne. In almost every town in Brittany there is a Queen Anne House, a +house which the good Queen either built herself or stayed in. +Everywhere she went she constructed something--a church, a +chapel, an oratory, a _calvaire_, a house, a tomb--by which she was to +be remembered. There is, for example, the famous tower which she +built, in spite of all malcontents, not so much in order to add to the +defences of St. Malo as to rebuke the people for their turbulence and +rebellion. Her words concerning it ring through the ages, and will +never be forgotten: + + 'Quic en groigneir + Ainsy ser + C'est mon playsir.' + +Ever since the tower has gone by the name of 'Quiquengroigne.' + +There are three names, three figures, of which St. Malo is proud; the +birthplaces are pointed out to the stranger fondly. One is that of the +Duchess Anne; another that of Duguay-Trouin; last, but not least, we +have Chateaubriand. Of the three, perhaps the picturesque figure of +Duguay-Trouin charms one most. From my earliest days I have loved +stories of the gallant sailor, whose adventures and mishaps are as +fascinating as those of Sinbad. I have always pictured him as a heroic +figure on the bridge of a vessel, wearing a powdered wig, a lace +scarf, and the dress of the period, winning victory after victory, +and shattering fleets. It is disappointing to realize that this hero +lived in the Rue Jean de Chatillon, in a three-storied, time-worn +house with projecting windows, lozenge-paned. Of Chateaubriand I know +little; but his birthplace is in St. Malo, for all who come to see. + +What a revelation it is, after winding up the narrow, steep streets of +St. Malo, suddenly to behold, framed in an archway of the old mediæval +walls, the sea! There is a greeny-blue haze so vast that it is +difficult to trace where the sea ends and the sky begins. The beach is +of a pale yellow-brown where the waves have left it, and pink as it +meets the water. At a little distance is an island of russet-brown +rocks, half-covered with seaweed; at the base is a circle of tawny +sand, and at the summit yellow-green grass is growing. + + + + + [Illustration: THE CRADLE] + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MONT ST. MICHEL + + +The road to Mont St. Michel is colourless and dreary. On either side +are flat gray marshes, with little patches of scrubby grass. Here and +there a few sheep are grazing. How the poor beasts can find anything +to eat at all on such barren land is a marvel. Gradually the scenery +becomes drearier, until at last you are driving on a narrow causeway, +with a river on one side and a wilderness of treacherous sand on the +other. + +Suddenly, on turning a corner, you come within view of Mont St. +Michel. No matter how well prepared you may be for the apparition, no +matter what descriptions you may have read or heard beforehand, when +you see that three-cornered mass of stone rising from out the vast +wilderness of sand, you cannot but be astonished and overwhelmed. You +are tempted to attribute this bizarre achievement to the hand of the +magician. It is uncanny. + +Just now it is low tide, and the Mount lies in the midst of an +immense moving plain, on which three rivers twist, like narrow threads +intersecting it--Le Conesnon, La Sée, and La Seline. Several dark +islands lie here and there uncovered, and groups of small boats are +left high and dry. It is fascinating to watch the sea coming up, +appearing like a circle on the horizon, and slipping gently over the +sands, the circle ever narrowing, until the islands are covered once +more, the boats float at anchor, and the waves precipitate themselves +with a loud booming sound, heard for miles round, against the double +walls that protect the sacred Mount. + +Many are the praises that have been sung of Mont St. Michel by poets +and artists, by historians and architects. She has been called 'A poem +in stone,' 'Le palais des angles,' 'An inspiration of the Divine,' 'La +cité des livres,' 'Le boulevard de la France,' 'The sacred mount,' +etc. Normandy and Brittany dispute her. She is in the possession of +either, as you will. + + [Illustration: SOUPE MAIGRE] + +Mont St. Michel is not unlike Gibraltar. As you come suddenly upon the +place, rising from out the misty grayish-yellow, low-lying marshes, it +appears to be a dark three-cornered mass, surrounded by stout brownish +battlemented walls, flanked by rounded turrets, against a +background of blue sky. At the base of the Mount lies the city, the +houses built steeply one above the other, some with brownish +lichen-covered roofs, others of modern slate. Above the city is the +monastery--brown walls, angry and formidable, rising steeply, with +many windows and huge buttresses. Beyond, on the topmost point, is the +grand basilica consecrated to the archangel, the greenish light of +whose windows you can see clearly. Above all rises a tall gray spire +culminating in a golden figure. + +There is only one entrance to Mont St. Michel--over a footbridge and +beneath a solid stone archway, from which the figure of the Virgin in +a niche looks down. You find yourself in a narrow, steep street, black +and dark with age, and crowded with shops and bazaars and cafés. The +town appears to be given up to the amusement and entertainment of +visitors; and, as St. Michael is the guardian saint of all strangers +and pilgrims, I suppose this is appropriate. Tourists fill the streets +and overflow the hotels and cafés; the town seems to live, thrive, and +have its being entirely for the tourists. Outside every house hangs a +sign advertising coffee or china or curios, as the case may be, and +so narrow is the street that the signs on either side meet. + +Your first thought on arriving is about getting something to eat. The +journey from St. Malo is long, and, although the sun is shining and +the sky is azure blue, the air is biting. Of course, everyone who +comes to the Mount has heard of Mme. Poulard. She is as distinctly an +institution as the very walls and fortresses. All know of her famous +coffee and delicious omelettes; all have heard of her charm. It is +quite an open question whether the people flock there in hundreds on a +Sunday morning for the sake of Mme. Poulard's luncheon or for the +attractions of Mont St. Michel itself. There she stands in the doorway +of her hotel, smiling, gracious, affable, handsome. No one has ever +seen Mme. Poulard ruffled or put out. However many unexpected visitors +may arrive, she greets them all with a smile and words of welcome. + +We were amid a very large stream of guests; yet she showed us into her +great roomy kitchen, and seated us before the huge fireplace, where a +brace of chickens, steaming on a spit, were being continually basted +with butter by stout, gray-haired M. Poulard. She found time to +inquire about our journey and our programme for the day, and directed +us to the various show-places of the Mount. + +There is only one street of any importance in Mont St. Michel, dark +and dim, very narrow, no wider than a yard and a half; a drain runs +down the middle. Here you find yourself in an absolute wilderness of +Poulard. You are puzzled by the variety and the relations of the +Poulards. Poulard greets you everywhere, written in large black +letters on a white ground. + +If you mount some steps and turn a corner suddenly, Poulard _frère_ +greets you; if you go for a harmless walk on the ramparts, the +renowned coffee of Poulard _veuve_ hits you in the face. Each one +strives to be the right and only Poulard. You struggle to detach +yourselves from these Poulards. You go through a fine mediæval +archway, past shops where valueless, foolish curios are for sale; you +scramble up picturesque steps, only to be told once more in glaring +letters that POULARD spells Poulard. + +A very picturesque street is the main thoroughfare of Mont St. Michel, +mounting higher and higher, with tall gray-stone and wooden houses on +either side, the roofs of which often meet overhead. Each window has +its pots of geraniums and its show of curios and useless baubles. +Fish-baskets hang on either side of the doors. Some of the houses have +terrace gardens, small bits of level places cut into the rock, where +roses grow and trailing clematis. Ivy mainly runs riot over every +stone and rock and available wall. The houses are built into the solid +rock one above another, and many of them retain their air of the +fourteenth or the fifteenth century. + +You pass a church of Jeanne d'Arc. A bronze statue of the saint stands +outside the door. One always goes upwards in Mont St. Michel, seeing +the dark purplish-pink mass of the grand old church above you, with +its many spires of sculptured stone. Stone steps lead to the ramparts. +Here you can lean over the balustrade and look down upon the waste of +sand surrounding Mont St. Michel. All is absolutely calm and +noiseless. Immediately below is the town, its clusters of new +gray-slate roofs mingling with those covered in yellow lichen and +green moss; also the church of the village, looking like a child's +plaything perched on the mountain-side. Beyond and all around lies a +sad, monotonous stretch of pearl-gray sand, with only a darkish, +narrow strip of land between it and the leaden sky--the coast of +Normandy. Sea-birds passing over the country give forth a doleful +wail. The only signs of humanity at all in the immensity of this great +plain are some little black specks--men and women searching for +shellfish, delving in the sand and trying to earn a livelihood in the +forbidding waste. + + [Illustration: DÉJEUNER] + +The melancholy of the place is terrible. I have seen people of the +gayest-hearted natures lean over that parapet and gaze ahead for +hours. This great gray plain has a strange attraction. It draws out +all that is sad and serious from the very depths of you, forcing you +to think deeply, moodily. Joyous thoughts are impossible. At first you +imagine that the scenery is colourless; but as you stand and watch for +some time, you discover that it is full of colour. There are pearly +greens and yellows and mauves, and a kind of phosphorescent slime left +by the tide, glistening with all the hues of the rainbow. + +Terribly dangerous are these shifting sands. In attempting to cross +them you need an experienced guide. The sea mounts very quickly, and +mists overtake you unexpectedly. Many assailants of the rock have been +swallowed in the treacherous sands. + +Being on this great height reminded me of a legend I had heard of the +sculptor Gautier, a man of genius, who was shut up in the Abbey of +Mont St. Michel and carved stones to keep himself from going mad--you +can see these in the abbey to this day. For some slight reason +François I. threw the unfortunate sculptor into the black cachot of +the Mount, and there he was left in solitude, to die by degrees. His +hair became quite white, and hung long over his shoulders; his cheeks +were haggard; he grew to look like a ghost. His youth could no longer +fight against the despair overhanging him; his miseries were too great +for him to bear; he became almost insane. One day, by a miracle, Mass +was held, not in the little dark chapel under the crypts, but in the +church on high, on the topmost pinnacle of the Mount. It was a Sunday, +a fête-day. The sun shone, not feebly, as I saw it that day, but +radiantly, the windows of the church glistening. It was blindingly +beautiful. The joy of life surrounded him; the sweetness and freshness +of the spring was in the air. The irony of men and things was too +great for his poor sorrow-laden brain. He cleared the parapet, and was +dashed to atoms below. Poor Gautier! It was his only chance of escape. +One realized that as one looked up at those immense prison walls, +black and frowning, sheer and unscaleable, every window grated and +barred. What chance would a prisoner have? If it were possible for him +to escape from the prison itself, there would be the town below to +pass through. Only one narrow causeway joins the island to the +mainland, and all round there is nothing but sea and sandy wastes. + + [Illustration: A FARMHOUSE KITCHEN] + +I was disturbed in my reverie by a loud nasal voice shouting, 'Par +ici, messieurs et dames, s'il vous plaît.' It was the guide, and +willy-nilly we must go and make the rounds of the abbey among a crowd +of other sightseers. An old blind woman on the abbey steps, evidently +knowing that we were English by our tread, moistened her lips and drew +in her breath in preparation for a begging whine as we approached. We +passed through a huge red door of a glorious colour, up a noble flight +of wide steps, with hundreds of feet of wall on either side, into a +lofty chapel, falling to decay, and being renovated in parts. It was +of a ghostly greenish stone, with fluted pillars of colossal height, +ending in stained-glass windows and a vaulted roof, about which +black-winged bats were flying. Room after room we passed through, the +guide making endless and monotonous explanations and observations in +a parrot-like voice, until we reached the cloister. This is the pearl +of Mont St. Michel, the wonder of wonders. It is a huge square court. +In the middle of the quadrangle it is open to the sky, and the sun +shines through in a golden blaze. All round are cool dim walks roofed +overhead by gray arches supported by small, graceful, rose-coloured +pillars in pairs. This is continued round the whole length of the +court. Let into the wall are long benches of stone, to which, in olden +days, the monks came to meditate and pray. The ancient atmosphere has +been well preserved; yet the building is so little touched by time, +owing to the careful renovations of a clever architect, that one +almost expects at any moment to see a brown-robed monk disturbed in +his meditations. + +From the quiet courtyard we are taken down into the very heart of the +coliseum--into the mysterious cells where the damp of the rock +penetrates the solid stone. How gloomy it was down in these crypts! +Even the names of them made one tremble--'Galerie de l'Aquilon,' +'Petit Exil,' and 'Grand Exil.' You think of Du Bourg, tightly +fettered hand and foot, being eaten alive by rats; of the Comte +Grilles, condemned to die of starvation, being fed by a peasant, who +bravely climbed to his window; of a hundred gruesome tales. There is +the chapel where the last offices of the dead were performed--a cell +in which the light struggled painfully through the narrow windows, +feebly combating with the dark night of the chamber; and there is the +narrow stairway, in the thickness of the wall, by which the bodies of +the prisoners were taken. + +We were shown the cachot and the oubliette where the living body of +the prisoner was attacked by rats. That, however, was a simple torture +compared with the strait-jacket and the iron cage. In the oubliette +the miserable men could clasp helpless hands, curse or pray, as the +case might be; but in the iron cage the death agony was prolonged. + +Even now, although the poor souls took wings long ago, the cachot and +the oubliette fill you with disgust. You feel stifled there. The +atmosphere is vitiated. Even though centuries have passed since those +terrible times, the walls seem to be still charged with iniquity, with +all the sighs exhaled, with all the smothered cries, with all the +tears, with all the curses of impatient sufferers, with all the +prayers of saints. + +It seems impossible to believe, down in the heart of this world of +stone, in the impenetrable darkness, that the architect that designed +this thick and cruel masonry constructed those airy belfries, those +balustrades of lace, those graceful arches, those towers and minarets. +It is as if he had wished to shut up the sorrow and the maniacal cries +of the men who had lost their reason in a fair exterior, attracting +the eyes of the world to that which was beautiful, and making it +forget the misery beneath. + + + + + [Illustration: MARIE] + + [Illustration: A FARM LABOURER] + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHÂTEAU DES ROCHERS + + +The name of Mme. Sévigné rings through the ages. Vitré is full of it. +Inhabitants will point out, close to the ruined ramparts, the winter +palace where the _spirituelle Marquise_ received the Breton nobility +and sometimes the Kings of Brittany. To the south they will show you +the Château des Rochers, the princely country residence maintained by +this famous woman. She was a Breton of the Bretons, building and +planting, often working in the fields with her farm hands. She loved +her Château des Rochers. It was a joy to leave the town and the +gaieties of Court for the freshness of the fields and the woods. She +especially liked to be there for the 'Triomphe du mois de Mai'--to +hear the nightingale and the cuckoo saluting spring with song. With +Lafontaine, she found inspiration in the fields; but, as she preserved +a solid fund of Gaelic humour, she laughed also, and the country did +not often make her melancholy. She felt the sadness of autumn in her +woods; but she never became morose. She never wearied of her garden. +She had always some new idea with regard to it--some new plan to lure +her from a letter begun or a book opened. Before reading the memoirs +of Mme. Sévigné it is almost impossible to realize this side of her +nature. Who would have imagined that this woman of the salons, fêted +in Paris, and known everywhere, would be always longing for her +country home? It is only when you visit the famous Château des Rochers +that you realize to the full that she was a lover of nature and +country habits. Wandering through the old-world garden, you find +individual touches which bring back the dainty Marquise vividly to +mind. There are the venerable trees, under which you may wander and +imagine yourself back in the time of Louis XIV. There are the deep and +shady avenues planted by Mme. Sévigné, and beautiful to this day. The +names come back to you as you walk--'La Solitaire,' 'L'Infini,' +'L'honneur de ma fille'--avenues in which madame sat to see the sun +setting behind the trees. Very quiet is this garden, with its broad +shady paths, its wide spaces of green, its huge cedars growing in the +grass, and its stiff flower-beds. There is Mme. Sévigné's sundial, on +which she inscribed with her own hand a Latin verse. There are +the stiff rows of poplars, like Noah's Ark trees, symmetrical, +interlacing one with the other, unnatural but dainty in design. There +is her rose garden, a rounded and terraced walk planted with roses. +There, too, are the sunny 'Place Madame,' the 'Place Coulanges,' and +'L'Écho,' where two people, standing on stones placed a certain +distance apart, can hear the echo plainly. This garden, with its stiff +little rows of trees, its sunny open squares surrounded by low walls, +and its stone vases overgrown with flowers, brings back the past so +vividly that one asks one's self whether indeed Mme. Sévigné is there +no longer, and glances involuntarily down the avenues and the by-ways, +half expecting to distinguish the rapid passage of a majestic skirt. +What a splendid life this woman of the seventeenth century led! She +knew well how to regulate mind and body. The routine of the day at Les +Rochers was never varied, and was designed so perfectly that there was +rarely a jar or a hitch. She rose at eight, and enjoyed the freshness +of the woods until the hour for matins struck. After that there were +the 'Good-mornings' to be said to everyone on her estate. She must +pick flowers for the table, and read and work. When her son was no +longer with her she read aloud to broaden the mind of his wife. At +five o'clock her time became her own; and on fine days, a lacquey +following, she wandered down the pleasant avenues, dreaming visions of +the future, of God and of His providence, sometimes reading a book of +devotions, sometimes a book of history. On days of storm, when the +trees dripped and the slates fell from the roof,--on days so wet and +gray and wild that you would not turn a dog out of doors--you would +suppose the Marquise to become morbid and miserable. Not at all. She +realized that she must kill time, and she did so by a hundred +ingenious devices. She deplored the weather which kept her indoors, +but fixed her thoughts on the morrow. Ladies and gentlemen often +invaded her; all the nobility came to present their compliments. They +assailed her from all sides. When she resisted them, and strove to +shut herself away from the world, the Duke would come and carry her +away in his carriage. + + [Illustration: A LITTLE WATER-CARRIER] + +She always longed to return to her solitude--to her dear Rochers, +where her good priest waited, at once her administrator, her man of +affairs, her architect, and her friend. Her pride of property was +great, and she was constantly beautifying and embellishing her country +home. Each year saw some new change. On one occasion six years passed +without her visiting Les Rochers. All her trees had become big and +beautiful; some of them were forty or fifty feet high. Her joy when +she beheld them gives one an insight into her youthfulness. + +How young she was in some things! She often asked herself whence came +this exuberance. She drew caricatures of the affectations of her +neighbours, and the anxious inquiries of her friends as to her +happiness during her voluntary exile amused her immensely. In a letter +written to her daughter she said: + +'I laugh sometimes at what they call "spending the winter in the +woods." Mme. de C---- said to me the other day, "Leave your damp +Rochers." I answered her, "Damp yourself--it is your country that is +damp; but we are on a height." It is as though I said, Your damp +Montmartre. These woods are at present penetrated by the sun whenever +it shines. On the Place Madame when the sun is at its height, and at +the end of the great avenue when the sun is setting, it is marvellous. +When it rains there is a good room with my people here, who do not +trouble me. I do what I want, and when there is no one here we are +still better off, for we read with a pleasure which we prefer above +everything.' + +The prospect of spending a winter at Les Rochers did not frighten her +in the least. She wrote to her daughter, saying, 'My purpose to spend +the winter at Les Rochers frightens you. Alas! my daughter, it is the +sweetest thing in the world.' + +Mme. Sévigné was always thinking of her daughter, and of Provence, +where she lived. Her heart went out to her daughter. Everything about +Les Rochers helped her to remember her beloved child. Even the country +itself seemed to bring back memories, for the nights of July were so +perfumed with orange-blossoms that one might imagine one's self to be +really in Provence. Mme. Sévigné wrote in a letter to one of her +friends: + +'I have established a home in the most beautiful place in the world, +where no one keeps me company, because they would die of cold. The +abbé goes backwards and forwards over his affairs. I am there thinking +of Provence, for that thought never leaves me.' + + [Illustration: WEARY] + +The château in which this wonderful woman lived, whence started so +many couriers to Provence, is an important building, gray, a little +heavy with towers, with high turrets of slate and great windows. +Resembling most houses built in the Louis XIV. style, it is rather sad +in design. At the side is a chapel surmounted by a cross, a rotund +hexagonal building constructed in 1671 by the Abbot of Coulanges. +Inside it is gorgeous with old rose and gold. One can imagine the +gentle Marquise kneeling here at her devotions. + +Visitors are shown the bedroom of Mme. Sévigné, now transformed into a +historical little sanctuary. The furniture consists of a large +four-post bed, with a covering of gold and blue, embroidered, it is +said, by the Countess of Grignan. Under a glass case have been +treasured all the accessories of her toilet--an arsenal of feminine +coquetry: brushes, powder-boxes, patch-boxes, autograph letters, +account-books, her own ink-stand, books written in the clear, +delicate, legible handwriting of the Marquise herself. + +The walls are hung with pictures of the family and intimate friends, +some of which are very remarkable. This room was called by Mme. +Sévigné the 'green room.' It still has a dainty atmosphere. Here Mme. +Sévigné passed a great part of her life. Under a large window is a +marble table where she is supposed to have written those letters which +one knows almost as well as the fables of Lafontaine. Mme. Sévigné +coloured the somewhat cold though pure language of the seventeenth +century, but not artificially. She animated it, conveyed warmth into +it, by putting into her writings much that was feminine, never +descending to the 'precious' or to be a blue-stocking. The books that +she loved, and her correspondence, did not take up so much of her time +that she had to overlook the details of her domain. Sometimes she had +a little fracas with her cook; often she would be called away to +listen to the complaints of Pilois, her gardener, a philosopher. She +knew how to feel strongly among people who could feel only their own +misfortunes and disgraces. She had a true and thoughtful soul. This +one can tell by her letters from Les Rochers, which come to us in all +their freshness, as if they had been written yesterday. + + + + + [Illustration: THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE] + + [Illustration: IN THE INGLENOOK] + +CHAPTER XX + +CARNAC + + +The country round Carnac is solemn and mysterious, full of strange +Druidical monuments, menhirs and dolmens of fabulous antiquity, +ancient stone crosses, _calvaires_, and carvings. Everything is grand, +solemn, and gigantic. One finds intimate traces of the Middle Ages. +The land is still half-cultivated and divided into small holdings; the +fields are strewn with ancient stones. + +The Lines of Carnac are impressive. You visit them in the first place +purely as a duty, as something which has to be seen; but you are amply +repaid. On a flat plain of heather or gorse they lie, small and gray +and ghost-like in the distance, but looming larger as you draw near. +You come across several in a farmyard; but on scaling a small +loosely-built stone wall you find yourself in the midst of them--lines +of colossal stones planted point-downwards, some as high as twenty +feet, and stretching away to the horizon, on a space of several +miles, like a gigantic army of phantoms. Originally the Lines of +Carnac were composed of six thousand stones; but to-day there remain +only several hundreds. They have been destroyed bit by bit, and used +by the peasants as fences along the fields and in the construction of +houses. + +We sat on a rock and gazed at these strange things, longing to know +their origin. What enigmas they were, wrapped in mournful silence, +solemn and still, sphinx-like! I endeavoured to become an amateur +Sherlock Holmes. I examined the stones all over. I noticed that at the +extremity of one line they were placed in a semicircle. This did not +seem to lead me on the road to discovery. Of what avail is it to +attempt to read the mystery of these silent Celtic giants? Historians +and archæologists have sought in vain to find a solution to the +problem. Some say that the stones planted in the fields are temples +dedicated to the cult of the serpent; others maintain that this is a +sort of cemetery, where the dead of Carnac and of Erderen were +interred after a terrible battle. They are variously taken to be +sacred monuments, symbols of divinity, funeral piles, trophies of +victory, testimonies to the passing of a race, the remains of a +Roman encampment. Innumerable are the surmises. + + [Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR] + +The country people have their own versions of the origin of these +stones. The peasants round about Carnac firmly believe that these +menhirs are inhabited by a terrible race of little black men who, if +they can but catch you alone at midnight, will make you dance, leaping +round you in circles by the light of the moon with great shouts of +laughter and piercing cries, until you die of fatigue, making the +neighbouring villagers shiver in their beds. Some say that these +stones have been brought here by the Virgin Mary in her apron; others +that they are Roman soldiers, petrified as was the wife of Lot, and +changed into rocks by some good apostle; others, again, that they were +thrown from the moon by Beelzebub to kill some amiable fairy. + +A boy was sitting on a stone near us. He had followed us, and had sat +leaning his head on his hand and gazing backwards and forwards from us +to the stones. Out of curiosity to hear what his ideas might be, I +asked the child what he imagined the menhirs were. Without a moment's +hesitation he said, 'Soldats de St. Cornely!' + +Afterwards I discovered that St. Cornely is in this country one of +the most honoured saints. It is he that protects the beasts of the +field. His _pardon_ used to be much attended by peasants, who took +with them their flocks of sheep and cows. St. Cornely had occasion to +fly before a regiment of soldiers sent in pursuit by an idolatrous +king. In the moment of his fear--for even saints experience fear--he +went towards the sea, and soon saw that all retreat was cut off +thereby. The oxen fell on their knees, their eyes full of dread. The +situation was terrible. The saint appealed to Heaven, where lay his +only hope, and, stretching his arm towards the soldiers, changed them +suddenly into stone. Here, it is said, the soldiers of St. Cornely +have remained ever since, fixed and rigid. + + + + + [Illustration: LA PETITE MARIE] + +CHAPTER XXI + +A ROMANTIC LAND + + +Brittany is essentially a romantic country. It is full of mysteries +and legends and superstitions. Romance plays a great part in the life +of the meanest peasant. Every stock and stone and wayside shrine in +his beloved country is invested with poetical superstition and +romance. A nurse that we children once had, nineteen years of age, +possessed an enormous stock of legends, which she had been brought up +to look upon as absolute truth. Some of the songs which she sang to +the baby at bedtime in a low minor key were beautiful in +composition--'Marie ta fille,' 'Le Biniou,' amongst others. The +village schoolmaster, who was our tutor, during our long afternoon +rambles would often make the woods ring as he sang ballads in his +rich, full voice. The theme changed according to his humour. Now the +song was a canticle, relating the legend of some saint, or a pious +chronicle; at another time it was of love he sang, generally ending +sadly. Then, there was the historical song, recounting some sombre, or +touching, or stirring event, when the little man worked himself up to +a high pitch of excitement, carrying us children open-mouthed to gory +battlefields and the palaces of sumptuous Kings. One quite forgot the +insignificant schoolmaster in the rush and swing of the music. + +There are many Breton ballads. The lives of the people are reflected +truthfully in these compositions, which have as their themes human +weakness, or heartache, or happiness. The Breton bards are still a +large class. In almost every village there is someone who composes and +sings. Each one holds in his or her hand a small stick of white wood, +carved with notches and strange signs, which help towards remembering +the different verses. The Gauls called this stick, the use of which is +very ancient, the alphabet of the bards. + + [Illustration: THE LITTLE HOUSEWIFE] + +Mendicity is protected in Brittany. One meets beggars at all the +fairs, and often on the high-roads. They earn their living by songs +and ballads. They attend family fêtes, and, above all, marriage +ceremonies, composing songs in celebration. No Breton will refuse a +bard the best of his hospitality. Bards are honoured guests. 'Dieu +vous bénisse, gens de cette maison,' says one, announcing +himself. He is installed in the ingle-nook, the cosiest corner of a +Breton kitchen; and after having refreshed the inner man he rewards +his host with song after song, often giving him the last ballad of his +composition. When he takes his leave, a large bundle of food is slung +over his shoulder. Unless you live for years in the same village, as I +have done, sharing in the joys and sorrows of the people, you can gain +very little knowledge of the tales and songs and legends. The Breton +is reticent on the advent of the stranger: he fears ridicule. + +Then, again, a child can always wriggle itself into the hearts and +homes of people. Setting aside all racial prejudices and difficulties +of language, a child will instal itself in a household, and become +familiar with the little foibles of each inmate in a single day, +whereas a grown-up person may strive in vain for years. I, as a child, +had a Breton _bonne_, and used to spend most of my days at her home, a +farm some distance from the village, playing on the cottage floor with +her little brothers and sisters, helping to milk the cows, and poking +the fat pigs. This, I think, Mother could scarcely have been aware of; +for she had forbidden Marie to allow me to associate with dirty +children, and these were certainly not too clean. One day I was +playing at dolls with a village girl under the balcony of Mother's +room. Suddenly, on looking up, I found her gazing at me reproachfully. + +'O Mother,' I hastened to explain, pulling the child forward by the +pinafore, 'she are clean.' We children were familiar with everyone in +the village, even bosom friends with all, from stout Batiste, the +butcher, to Lucia the little seamstress, and Leontine her sister, who +lived by the bridge. If a child died we attended the funeral, all +dressed in white, holding lighted tapers in our hands, and feeling +important and impressive. If one was born, we graciously condescended +to be present at the baptismal service and receive the boxes of +dragées always presented to guests on such occasions. At all village +processions we figured prominently. + +When I returned to Brittany, at the age of ten, I found things very +little changed. My friends were a trifle older; but they remembered me +and welcomed me, receiving me into their midst as before. My sister +and I took part in all the _pardons_ of the surrounding villages. We +learnt the quaint Breton dances, and would pace up and down the dusty +roads in the full glare of the summer sun hour after hour, dressed in +the beautiful costume of the country--black broadcloth skirts, white +winged caps, and sabots. Often we would go with our _bonne_ and our +respective partners into some neighbouring _débits de boissons_ and +drink _syrops_ in true Breton fashion. At one _pardon_ we won the +_ruban d'honneur_--a broad bright-blue ribbon with silver tassels worn +across the shoulder, and presented to the best dancer. + +The Breton gavotte is a strange dance of religious origin. The dancers +hold hands in a long line, advancing and retiring rhythmically to +long-drawn-out music. Underneath an awning sit the two professional +biniou-players, blowing with all their might into their instruments +and beating time with their feet to the measure. The _sonneur de +biniou_ is blind, and quite wrapped up in his art; he lives, as it +were, in a world apart. The _joueur de biniou_, the principal figure, +reminding one of a Highland piper, presses his elbow on the large +leather air-bag, playing the air, with its many variations, clear and +sweet, on the reed pipe. + +Brittany is the land of _pardons_. During the summer these local +festivities are taking place daily in one village or another. The +_pardon_ is a thing apart; it resembles neither the Flemish +_kermesse_ nor the Parisian _foire_. Unlike the _foires_ of Paris, +created for the gay world, for the men and women who delight in +turning night into day, the _pardon_ has inspiration from high +sources: it is the fête of the soul. The people gather together from +far and near, not only to amuse themselves, but also to pray. They +pass long hours before the images of the saints; they make the tour of +the 'Chemin de la Croix,' kneeling on the granite floor. + +Still, it is a joyous festival. The air is filled with shouts and +laughter. For example, in Quimper, at the Feast of the Assumption, the +Place St. Corentin is crowded. People have come from the surrounding +towns, all dressed in the characteristic costume of their vicinities. +Pont-Aven, Pont L'Abbé, Concarmeau, Fouesnant, Quimperlé--all are +represented. You see the tight lace wide-winged cap of the Douarnénez +women, hats bound with coloured chenile of the men of Carhaix, white +flannel coats bordered with black velvet of the peasants of Guéméné, +the flowered waistcoats of Pleavé; the women of Quimper have +pyramidical coifs of transparent lace, showing the pink or blue ribbon +beneath, with two long floating ends. + + [Illustration: AN OLD WOMAN] + +The great square in front of the cathedral is a jumble of gold +and silver, embroidery, ribbons, muslin, and lace--a joyous feast of +colour in the sun. The crowd moves slowly, forming into groups by the +porch and round the stalls, with much gossip. The square and the +neighbouring streets are bordered by stalls trading in fabrics and +faiences, gingerbread, sweets, lotteries, cider, and fancy-work of all +kinds. Young men and girls stop in couples to buy mirrors or coloured +pins, surmounted with gold, that jingle, to fasten in their caps or in +their bodices. Others gather round the lotteries, and watch with +anxious eyes the wheel with the rod of metal that clicks all the way +round on its spokes, and stops at a certain number. 'C'est vingt-deux +qui gagne!' cries the proprietor. A pretty little peasant woman has +won. She hesitates, wavering between a ball of golden glass and a vase +painted with attractive flowers. The peasants laugh loudly. + +There are all kinds of attractions and festivities at the +_pardons_--hurdy-gurdies, swing-boats, voyages to the moon, on which +you get your full and terrible money's worth of bumps and alarms; for +not only are you jerked up hill and down dale in a car, but also, when +you reach the moon, you are whirled round and round at a tremendous +rate and return backwards. There are side-shows in which are +exhibited fat women, headless men, and bodiless girls, distorted thus +by mirrors, the deception of which even we children saw through +plainly. There are jugglers and snake-charmers. A cobra was fed on +rabbits. We children haunted that tent at feeding-times, and used to +watch with fascination the little dead bunnies disappearing, fur and +all, afterwards noticing with glee the strange bumps they formed in +the animal's smooth and shiny coils. How bloodthirsty children are at +heart! + +It is not always in large towns like Quimperlé that _pardons_ are +held. More often they are to be witnessed in the country, perhaps +miles away from any town, whence the people flock on foot. There you +see no grand cathedral, no magnificent basilicas and superb +architecture, but some simple little gray church with moss-grown walls +and trees growing thickly about it. The rustic charm of the _pardons_ +it is impossible to describe. Round you are immense woods and flowered +prairies; in the woods the birds are singing; a mystic vapour of +incense fills the air. Peasants gather round this modest house of +prayer, which possesses nothing to attract the casual passer-by. The +saints that they have come to venerate have no speciality: they +heal all troubles, assuage all griefs: they are infallible and +all-powerful. Inside the church it is very dim and dark. Not a single +candle is alight on the altar; only the lamp of the sanctuary shines +out with red gleam like an ever-seeing eye. In the gray darkness of +the choir the silent priests cross themselves. They look like ghosts +of the faithful. The bells ring out in noisy peals, filling the air +with vibrations. Over the fields the people hurry--girls in their +smartest clothes, accompanied by their gallants; children brought by +their mothers in their beautiful new suits to attend service and to +have their faces bathed in the fountain, which cures them of all +diseases, and makes them beautiful for ever; old men come to +contemplate the joy of the young people, to be peaceful, and to ask +forgiveness before leaving this world and the short life over which +their own particular saint has watched. The bells peal so loudly that +one is afraid they will crack under the efforts of the ringers. Still +the people swarm over the fields and into the church, until at last +the little edifice is full, and men and women and children are +compelled to kneel outside on the hard earth; but the doors are +opened, and those outside follow the service with great attention. + + [Illustration: A PIG-MARKET] + +One must be a Breton born and cradled in the country in order to +realize the important place that the _pardon_ of his parish occupies +in the peasant's mind. It is a religious festival of great +significance: it is the day above all others on which he confesses his +sins to God and receives absolution. Throughout his life his dearest +and sweetest thoughts cling round this house of prayer and pardon. + +Here it is generally that he betroths himself. He and the girl stroll +home together when the sun has set, walking side by side over the +fields, holding each other by the little finger, as is the Breton +custom. A sweet serenity envelops the countryside; darkness falls; the +stars appear. The man is shy; but the girl is at ease. When nearing +home, to announce their arrival at the farm, they begin to sing a song +that they have heard from the bards during the day. Other couples in +the distance, hearing them, take up the refrain; and soon from all +parts of the country swells up into the night air a kind of alternate +song, in which the high trebles and the deep basses mingle +harmoniously. As the darkness deepens the figures disappear and the +sounds die away in the distance. + +The Saturday before the first Sunday in July is a fête-day in most +towns. Pilgrims fill the towns, which are packed with stalls for the +fair. There are sellers of cider and cakes, amulets, and rosaries. A +statue of the Madonna surrounded by archangels against a background of +blue is situated at the church door to receive the homage of faithful +pilgrims. When night falls the door of the porch is flung open, and a +long procession of girls, like an army of phantoms, advances, each +penitent holding in her hand a lighted torch, slowly swinging her +rosary and repeating a Latin prayer. The statue of the Virgin is +solemnly carried out on the open square, where bonfires are lit and +young folk dance to the accompaniment of the biniou. + +In some places the dances are prolonged for three or four days. The +Bretons like songs and dances and representations; they like the heavy +pomp of pilgrimages; they believe in prayer, and never lose their +respect for the Cross. They are a fine people, especially the men who +live by the sea, sailors and fishermen--well-made, high-strung men, +their faces bronzed and stained like sculptures out of old chestnut, +with eyes of clear blue, full of the sadness of the sea. They have an +air of robustness and vitality; but under their fierce exterior they +hide a great sweetness of nature. They are kind hosts; they are frank, +brave, and chaste. They have, it is true, a weakness: on fair +days--market-days especially--they abuse the terrible and brutalizing +_vin du feu_. Then, the Bretons are not a very clean people. The +interiors of the cottages are dignified, with great beds made of dark +chestnut and long, narrow tables, stretching the whole length of the +rooms, polished and beeswaxed until you can see your face mirrored on +the surface; but pigs will repose on the stone floor, which waves up +and down with indentations and deep holes. The more well-to-do Bretons +have their clothes washed only once in six months. The soiled linen is +kept above in an attic protected from the rats by a rope with broken +bottles strung on it, on which the rats, as they come to gnaw the +clothes, commit involuntary suicide. + +The poorer families have better habits. They wash their few +possessions regularly and out of doors in large pools constructed for +the purpose, where hundreds of women congregate, kneeling on the +flagstones around the pond, beating their linen energetically on +boards, with a flat wooden tool, to economize soap. This I consider a +far cleaner method than that of our British cottagers, who wash +their clothes in their one living-room, inhaling impure steam. + + [Illustration: HOUSEHOLD DUTIES] + +In spite of the winds and the tempests which desolate it, the Bretons +love their country. They live in liberty; they are their own masters. +The past holds profound and tenacious root in the hearts of these men +of granite, and the attachment to old beliefs is strong. The people +still believe in miracles, in sorcery, and in the evil eye. The land, +rich with memories of many kinds,--with its menhirs, its old +cathedrals, its pilgrimages, its _pardons_--sleeps peacefully in this +century of innovations. In Brittany everything seems to have been +designed long ago. Wherever one goes one comes across a strange and +ancient Druidical monument, menhirs, and dolmens of fabulous +antiquity, an exquisite legend, a ruined château, ancient stone +crosses, _calvaires_, and carvings. It is a country full of signs and +meanings. The poetical superstitions and legends have been left intact +in their primitive simplicity. Nowhere do you see finer peasantry; +nowhere more dignity and nobility in the features of the men and women +who work in the fields; nowhere such quaint houses and costumes; +hardly anywhere more magnificent scenery. You have verdant islands, +ancient forests, villages nestling in the mountains, country as wild +and beautiful as the moors of Scotland, fields and pasture-lands as +highly cultivated as those of Lincolnshire. + +Brittany is especially inspiring to the painter. You find villages in +which the people still wear the national dress. Perhaps, however, the +time is not far distant when new customs will arise and the old +beliefs will be only a remembrance. Little by little the influence of +modern times begins to show itself upon the language, the costume, and +the poetic superstitions. The iron and undecorative hand of the +twentieth century is closing down upon the country. + + +BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42954 *** |