M. F. Mansfield

“ What more should a passing traveller want of a modern city?
Between Nantes and St. Nazaire, on the granite flank of Sillon de Bretagne, sits Savenay, as if its houses were ranged around the steps of an amphitheatre. It has fallen considerably from its proud position of having been the flourishing capital of the district. It still is the largest town, but none of the honours go with its size; decay has fallen upon it, and the hotels are dull, sad places, and even the omnibus from the railway has stopped its journeys. ”

“ When they are not courting or sleeping, they go a-fishing, and the seaweed-strewn rocks about Concarneau are their happy hunting-grounds. They will eat, say the fisherfolk of the sardine fleet, five pounds or more of fish in a day, which is considerably more than the weight of an individual bird.
From Concarneau one must perforce follow back along the coast-line to Pont Aven, for a trip to Brittany without having known the delights of this colony of artist-folk, in which Americans predominate, would be like the tragedy without Hamlet, or the circus without the elephant or the pink lemonade. ”

“ One hour from Quiberon, by a tiny steamboat, and one finds himself skirting the cliff walls surrounding and sheltering the little port and town of Palais on Belle Ile, overlooked by the powerful citadel built by Vauban, who, as the fortress-builder of France, stood in his profession where Napoleon did in his.
This “plus belle île de l’ocean” has forty-eight kilometres of coast-line, and every one of them has been so cut and serrated by the action of the waves that the island would form a veritable ocean graveyard were it situated on the direct line of travel by sea. ”

“ Here, in spots all but unknown even in Normandy and Brittany, the traveller finds for himself monuments of a civilization gone before and of a local history not yet completely erased, and as interesting as those of any land made famous by antiquaries whose only claim to fame rests upon their questionable ability in propounding new theories, of which the chief merit is plausibility,—a process of history-making sadly overdone of late in some parts. ”

“ Yes, Brittany is a land of menhirs, of legends and superstitions, but all this but makes a roundabout journey the more enjoyable, and one must really cross and recross it to its uttermost confines in order to realize its great variation of manners and customs, to say nothing of speech, for, even though the Breton tongue is dying out as a universal language, one still buys his post-card with a queer legend on its face, which looks like Dutch at first glance, but really is Breton. ”

“ Returning to the mainland, a call at Locmariaquer is inevitable, if one be a true and genuine traveller, even if it be “out of the world,” which virtually it is, being at the tip end of another peninsula like that of Quiberon.
The town itself owns to fifteen hundred or more souls, and all of them look prosperous and contented. Where all of them get their livelihood, it is difficult to see, for there is not much intercourse with the outside world.
Locmariaquer has not even a railway, as Quiberon has, but lies twenty kilometres or so south of Auray, almost at the mouth of Morbihan Bay. ”

“ The whole peninsula of Plougastel-Daoulas is a vast market-garden for Brest, and, for that matter, for the hotels at Paris. The verdure and vegetable growth is in striking contrast to the barren fringe of rocky coast-line, and therein lies one of the charms of the whole aspect of nature as it is seen here. ”

“ The native, of course, reviles the car and its occupants, not because he hates them,—for they are one of the mainstays of the inns of the countryside,—but merely to display that untamable spirit of independence, which every mother’s son of a French peasant has developed to a high degree.
In Brittany, as in most other lands,—in summer,—the traveller by road gathers in a fine crop of wingy, stingy things, which project themselves into one’s eyes with a formidable force when one goes at them with a swift-moving car. ”

“ Malo, and to the east the Bay of Mont St. Michel.
Michelet wrote of this famous mount off the Breton coast as follows:
“The gigantic rock is an abbey, a cloister, a fortress, and a prison, with exquisite sublimity and true dignity. It rises like a titanic tower, rock upon rock, keep upon keep, and century upon century. Below the monks; higher the iron cage of Louis XI. (who, it seems, left these details rather numerously about his domain) ; higher yet the cell of Louis XIV.; higher yet the prison of to-day. All is in a whirlwind; Mont St. Michel is a very sepulchre of peace.” ”

“ Two kilometres from Mont Dol is the great menhir of Champ Dolent, a relic of the stone age which was pagan, but is to-day surmounted by a Christian cross, which seems paradoxical. It has no pretence to beauty or architectural grandeur, and is to be regarded only as a mysterious curiosity.
When one first comes to Dol in Brittany he is in a quandary. Which is it, city or village? The writer does not know even yet. It has all the quaintness and rustic picturesqueness of a mere hamlet, and again, in its station, its hotels, and its tree-lined boulevard, it takes on the aspect of a city. ”

“ Primarily, the ancient provinces of France have a story of historical and romantic purport not equalled in the chronicles of any other nation. The distinctive types are but vaguely limned, but the Norman and the Breton stand out most distinctly, and such figures as the Norman and Breton dukes of real history live even more vividly in one’s mind than D’Artagnan and his fellows in the great portrait-gallery of Dumas.
One need not be of the antiquary species in order to revel in the great monuments of history abounding in Brittany even as in Normandy. ”

“ The fishing-boats of Concarneau are one and all great brown-winged gulls that flit slowly over the great bay, going in and out with the rise and fall of the tide all through the round of the clock, depositing their cargoes on the wharfs, shifting crews, and starting off again in a continuous performance of coming and going which never ceases until their timbers, from some untoward cause, fall apart. ”

“ Some have said that the famous avenues of Carnac were the streets of one of Cæsar’s camps, its roofs having fallen and mouldered away, and that the famous “Merchants’ Table” at Locmariaquer was an ancient druidical altar, to which the helpless were led to be sacrificed.
All this and much more is for the antiquary alone, and a nodding acquaintance with the history of these curious stone formations or erections is about all for which most travellers will care.
He who arrives at Auray on a market-day will seem to himself to come into a region where every one speaks the Breton tongue. ”

“ It is for all the world like a successful piece of stage carpentry, with a great spectacular stairway running up into its garret above, quite in the manner that one has seen upon the stage over and over again, when the heroine or the villain—it does not much matter which—escapes from his, or her, pursuers. Low built, heavily raftered, and with a leaky roof allowing rays of sunlight to dribble through into the gloom within in a most entrancing manner, this old market-house is the centre of the life and activity of the place for fifty-two Mondays in each year. ”

“ The rise and fall of the tide at the Isle of Batz shows remarkable fluctuations, ten metres, something more than thirty feet, being noted between high and low water.
Its coast-line has great banks of sand, a delight to the bather in salt water, but the rock formations are by no means so remarkable as those on most of the Breton isles. The soil is arid and there is not much luxuriant vegetation. There is a population of over twelve hundred souls, but few apparently have any ambition to migrate to the mainland, scarce a rifle-shot distant. ”

“ TO-DAY the Bretons are the most loyal of all the citizens of the great republic of France. In reality they are a most democratic people, though they often affect a devotion for old institutions now defunct. They may be a superstitious race, but they are not suspicious, although they have marked prejudices. When thoroughly understood, they are both likable and lovable, though their aspect be one of a certain sternness and aloofness toward the stranger. Their weapons are all in plain view, however, like the hedgehog’s; there is nothing concealed to thwart one’s desires for relations with them. ”

“ One enters Vannes, if it be a holiday or a Sunday, amid a gaiety and uproar that is apparently inexplicable. To be sure Vannes is the metropolis of the Morbihan, but one does not look for such continuous gaiety on the part of a people supposed to be wholly devout and not very rich, as possessors of this world’s goods count their gains. Devoutness need not necessarily mean glumness, and so as it all seems, around Vannes at least, to be for the general good, one is not sorry to have his first introduction to a great Breton town in a way so pleasant. ”

“ Each year, by train, by boat, by country cart, and on foot, pilgrims come from miles around, many of them camping out the night by the roadside, all, in spite of the solemn purport of their pilgrimage, in the gayest spirits. There is always a certain amount of discord to be encountered at all these great festivals,—beggars, deformed or ill with incurable disease, crippled or what not, all expectant of reaping a thriving harvest from the simple-minded frequenters of the shrine. ”

“ The charm of journeying by road in France is indescribable, perhaps, to its fullest degree. Natural beauties count for much, but in a land peopled with historic castles, churches, and abbeys, as Normandy and Brittany are, it is found doubly enjoyable even though one professes no expert architectural knowledge, or no profound aptitude for historical research. These, however, are but side-lights, which make the actual pilgrimage among such shrines greatly to be cherished among one’s personal experiences. ”

“ Sometimes some poor soul is engulfed, but it is a first-class scare in most instances. Michelet says of these quicksands (“cendre blanche”) , “It is not land; it is not sea; I myself only just escaped being engulfed.”
As a sort of side-show to the wonderful Abbey of Mont St. Michel is the stern and barren Isle of Tombelaine.
It lies, also amid its own desert of sand or water, according to the state of the tide, about a mile, or perhaps a little more, to the north-east of the mount.
It is a simple islet of granite, uncultivated, and as wild as it always has been. ”

“ A great national road runs northwesterly from Guingamp to Lannion and Tréguier, two outposts of the Côtes du Nord so far off the beaten track that they are not as yet overrun with the conventional tourists. There is little at either place to amuse one, except the local manners and customs, but they are quaint and interesting beyond belief, and the wonderful combinations of sea and sky, which will make the artist’s heart leap for joy. ”

“ A charming watering-place much frequented by families, is the way the all-powerful Western Railway advertises this little seaside beach and its attractions, with the added few lines to the effect that there is a large hotel with a casino, regattas, nautical celebrations, concerts, etc., which are supposed to amuse the fastidious summer visitors.
It is all very delightful, particularly as the coast-line near by is charming of itself, but Val André, with all its attractions, has not half the charm of the little fishing port of Binic on the opposite shore of the Bay of St. Brieuc. ”

“ In the drinking-places along its shores there is a strange medley of peasants, seafarers, and fisher men and women. Not so cosmopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbour-side drinking-places at Marseilles, or even at Havre, but sufficiently strange to be a fascination to one who has just come down from the headwaters.
Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire’s source, and green and gray it still is, though of a decidedly different colour value, at St. Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water port of the Loire. ”

“ RENNES was once a great provincial capital, as great politically, perhaps, as Rouen, but it has not a tithe of the fascination or wealth of attraction of the Norman metropolis, and never had. Its Cathedral of St. Pierre is a cold, unfeeling thing, and its eighteenth-century town hall, its great military barracks, and its palace of a university are in no way great or lovable architectural monuments. As an offset against the mediocrity, is the somewhat bare exterior of the court-house, built in 1618 for the Breton Parliament, and furnished now, as then, in most luxurious fashion. ”

“ Both in Brittany and in Normandy there are innumerable glorious architectural monuments of a past from which history may be builded anew. Character counts for a great deal with cities as with individuals. One can love Rouen as the capital of the ancient Normandy, or Nantes as the capital of Lower Brittany, but he will no more have the same sort of affection for Lyons or for Nice than he will have it for Manchester or for Chicago. ”

“ This charming little town is of itself of great importance, as marking the dividing-line between the dialect of Vannes and that of the western peninsula. There is no great difference to be noted by the casual traveller, since all of the younger population speak the French tongue,—sometimes exclusively,—but there is an unmistakable modification of manners and customs toward the more theatrical aspect which one best sees at Pont Aven, Pont l’Abbé, and the little fishing villages around the Bay of Douarnenez. ”

“ Much of the local character is shown in the dress of the people, and throughout the country-side and the seacoast villages alike both men and women show that remarkable attention to dress which marks the strong individuality of the race,—individuality which has come down through the ages, and endures to this day in very nearly, if not quite all, its original aspect. One knows this dress through photographic reproductions, and from having occasionally seen it on the comic opera stage, but actually to live among such picturesquely dressed folk is like a step back into the past. ”