Breda

“ Their officers expect they will all do much better after having had leisure to see their enemy. Breda is a strong town, though not near so strong as Bergen-op-zoom. It is almost surrounded by water, and inaccessible except in one place, by which it will be taken, if the 206,000 men, whom we are to have in the field this year, in the Low Countries, cannot save it. 'Tis certain so many men are stipulated by the several powers,—the greatest army that ever was assembled together in the world, since the Xerxeses and Artaxerxeses ”

“ Everything would depend upon all going smoothly and without hitches of any kind. If you really think of undertaking such an adventure, Captain Heraugière, I should be very glad to act under you if Sir Francis Vere will give me leave to do so; but I would suggest that the first step should be for us to go into Breda in disguise. We might take in a waggon-load of grain for sale, or merely carry on our backs baskets with country produce, or we could row up in a boat with fish. ”

“ In the month of February, 1590, Maurice, being then at the castle of Voorn, in Zeeland, received a secret visit from a boatman,—Adrian Van der Berg by name,—who lived at the village of Leur, eight or ten miles from Breda, and who had been in the habit of supplying the castle with turf. In the absence of wood and coal-mines, the habitual fuel of the country was furnished by those vast relics of the antediluvian forests, which abounded in the still partially submerged soil. ”

“ Bramapootra R., the offspring of Brahma Brazil, named from the colour of its dye-woods, braza, Port. a live coal Breadalbane, 29 Brecknock, the hill of Brecon or Brychan, a Welsh prince Breda, 29 Breslaw, named after King Vratis-law Breton, Cape, discovered by mariners from Brittany Bridgenorth, 31 Bridgewater, 31 Brieg, 29 Brighton, corrupt. from Brighthelmston, from a personal name Bristol, 183 Britain: the Cym.-Cel. root brith, to paint, is supposed by some to be the root of the word ”

“ Many days after, at the time of Christmas, again the cry of Le Bretagne rang through the streets of Arichat; and again was there much of horror in the cry, for though the sea was calm now, there was Le Bretagne slowly sailing into port; and was not Le Bretagne at the bottom of the sea, and all hands drowned?
Small wonder that the browned faces were blanched now, as the fisher-folk lined up on the sand, as they had on that day two moons before.
“What sorcery is this?” they asked each other. It was Le Bretagne; they know her as they knew their own houses. ”

“ Yes; Helene, you know that we Bretons are constant both in our loves and our hatreds. A league was organized in Bretagne, in which all our nobles took part—could I act differently from my brothers? I ask you, Helene, could I, or ought I to have done so? Would you not have despised me, if, when you had seen all Bretagne under arms, I alone had been inactive—a whip in my hand while others held the sword? ”

“ At first, we good people, artists, poets, or authors, who generally claim to possess some little knowledge, were rather surprised at such a decision. But the wise men had said so; Bengal and Bretagne had to fraternize; the Brahmins of Benares speak Breton and the Bretons of Bretagne speak Sanskrit. Bretagne is Indian and India is Breton.
Comparative Philology has taught the children of our day, that two syllables which are identical [011] in the idioms of two different races, prove the connection between two nations; hybridism means kinship.
What happy people scholars are! ”

“ The Brezonek, the Brythonic tongue of Brittany, is undoubtedly the language of those Celtic immigrants who fled from Britain the Greater to Britain the Less to escape the rule of the Saxon invaders, and who gave the name of the country which they had left to that Armorica in which they settled. In the earliest stages of development it is difficult to distinguish Breton from Welsh. From the ninth to the eleventh centuries the Breton language is described as ‘Old Breton.’ ‘Middle Breton’ flourished from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, since when ‘Modern Breton’ has been in use. ”

“ The English, on the other hand, knew that if that food reached the town all their toil would be thrown away; and they fought like tigers to beat the assailants back.
“Lads!” roared Du Guesclin, “within yon walls are women weeping over their starving children, and here is the food that can save them!”
Fired by this appeal, the Bretons rushed on again, and the English put forth all their might to bar the way. The fight was at its hottest, when Huon saw his chance, and, flinging open the gate, came like a thunderbolt on the English ranks with a shout of “St. Yves for Bretagne!” ”

“ The Brittany described in these pages is comprised principally of the three departments of Côtes-du-Nord, Finistère, and Morbihan, the inhabitants of these districts standing apart, as it were, from the rest of France, preserving their own customs and traditions, speaking their own language, singing their own songs, and dancing their own dances in the streets in 1879. In these three departments is comprehended nearly all that is most characteristic of the Bretons, and the district forms itself naturally into a convenient summer tour of three or four weeks. ”

“ Most conspicuous among them were the peasants of Ouëssant, last type of the Celtic women, in their singularly Italian-looking head-dress, their hair streaming over their shoulders; and the Plougastel men, in red caps, with coats and trowsers of white flannel.
Most of the market-women were furnished with [pg 134] enormous umbrellas, red, blue, and green. In this rainy province, they are indispensable, and the acquisition of an umbrella is a great object of ambition to the Breton peasant.
We left Brest by the steamer for Pont Launay and Châteaulin, a four hours' sail in the harbour of Brest. ”

“ Do not forget the two hooded cloaks—one is for me, the other for Marion. The hoods will hide our faces. My leaving the castle at full daylight, and at the usual hour for my promenade, will awaken no suspicion. We shall then start instantly for St. Renan, where we shall set sail for England, and there, Nominoë," added Bertha, giving herself finally over to the impulse of her love and breaking out into tears of celestial sweetness, "our marriage—shall be consummated." ”

“ IT was two o’clock when Le Bretagne spread her white sails and crept out toward the eastern sky. It was six when the gray wall of the sea rose and blotted out the ship as though she had gone to the bottom.
Then the dark figure which had been outlined against the crimson of the big, red setting sun turned wearily and crept over the sands towards Arichat—it was Marie, returning to her newly widowed home.
“Leon said he would come at the time of Christmas, so why should I fear?” she kept muttering, “and Leon will keep his word in life or death. ”

“ It does not appear that the Bretons have so much as a national tradition of any romantic poetry; nor any writings in their language older than 1450. The authority of Warton, Leyden, Ellis, Turner, and Price have rendered this hypothesis of early Armorican romance popular; but I cannot believe that so baseless a fabric will endure much longer. Is it credible that tales of aristocratic splendour and courtesy sprung up in so poor and uncivilised a country as Bretagne? ”

“ Ah! how lovely the sky is in Bretagne! And the fields—how pretty they are! What rich pastures, what enchanting groves! You can walk leagues and leagues without once leaving the leafy thickets and flower-grown paths which make the fields of Bretagne one endless garden."
"But Poland, monsieur le baron?"
"Oh! Poland has its good points, of course. Have you ever been there, Monsieur Ménard?"
"I have not had that honor, monsieur le baron." ”

“ And then, as if in mockery of all things human, a mighty wave, mightier than any of its fellows, and following in the wake of two scarcely less mighty, broke over the Bretagne, and buried her beneath its many tons of foam-lashed water. ”

“ Of an imagination lively, but nevertheless melancholic, of a humour as flexible as their character is obstinate, the Bretons are distinguished for their piety, and none the less for their bravery, their fidelity, their spirit of independence, and their patriotism. ”

“ On the extinction of the line of Anthony the duchy of Brabant became the inheritance of the elder branch of the house of Burgundy, in the person of Philip III., “the Good,” of Burgundy, II. of Brabant, son of John. His grand-daughter Mary (d. 1482) , daughter and heiress of Charles I., “the Bold,” (d. 1477) married the archduke Maximilian of Austria (afterwards emperor) and so brought Brabant with the other Burgundian possessions to the house of Habsburg. The chief city of Brabant, Brussels, became under the Habsburg régime the residence of the court and the capital of the Netherlands. ”

“ Meadh foamed at the board—the bards sang “the days of other years,” nor was the theme of love held unmeet for so joyous an occasion—the harp was passed round from hand to hand among the guests, each one contributing his portion of song to enliven the feast, and the unknown bard, in his turn taking the instrument, struck the chords loudly; and while Brehilda, who was seated near her lord, listened, trembling and pale with apprehension lest the intruder should be discovered beneath the disguise which the eyes of love had already penetrated, he sang ”

“ As we pass out by the Porte de Brest, we meet a Breton propriétaire and his wife in a cart, whom we must not take for peasants because of the black stuff gown and white cap of the bright-faced woman, and the broad-brimmed hat and blouse of the man.
We drive through a straggling suburb of houses, where the peasants stare at us from their dark dwellings; we stop at wayside inns—unnecessarily, it would seem—and are surrounded by beggars of all ages and sizes. ”

“ But a centime a day is a great deal in Brabant, when one has not always enough for bare bread, and when, in the long chill winter, one must weave thread lace all through the short daylight for next to nothing at all; for there are so many women in Brabant, and every one of them, young or old, can make lace, and if one do not like the pitiful wage, one may leave it and go and die, for what the master lacemakers care or know; there will always be enough, many more than enough, to twist the thread round the bobbins, and weave the bridal veils, and the trains for the courts. ”

“ On market-days the country people come in wearing their old costumes, and a few well-to-do farmers and their wives, who put up at the best inns, are dressed in the old homely fashion of the Bretons of the Côtes-du-Nord. ”

“ In our day, while many of the old provinces of France have suffered—if they really do “suffer”—from a decreasing population, Brittany has augmented her numbers continually. It is a well-worn saying among the political economists of France that the “fine and healthy race of Bretons is one of the greatest reserves and hopes of the republic.” Three-quarters of all those who man French ships come from the Breton peninsula. ”

“ I lived for months in Brittany and it rained all the time, unceasingly. Yet I loved the environment, because the Bretons were such a sympathetic people. Like the quiet [Pg 67] brown fields and the rugged coasts, even like the unending fishermen's nets everywhere, the unceasing rain was a charming part of the whole harmony of their way of living. But the English as a whole were a strangely unsympathetic people, as coldly chilling as their English fog. ”

“ The Château de Mereac stood on the outskirts of the forest of Arteze, not many leagues distant from the little Breton town of Martigue. The country on this side of Rennes had from time immemorial been the debatable land between Brittany and her overweening sister France; countless feuds raged constantly between the peoples, such as were fought in the Middle Ages, and even later, along our own Scottish border, and every Breton eyed his French neighbour as a natural and implacable enemy. ”

“ Probably those vast colonies of megalithic monuments at Carnac, and their orphaned brothers and sisters scattered elsewhere throughout Brittany, did much to keep the flames aglow on pagan altars, and even to-day it is easy to perceive with what awe and veneration the simple-minded Breton peasant regards these weird survivals of other days. At any rate, Breton religion to-day is a devotion to many forms and ceremonies. ”

“ It has been commonly thought that Bretagne was the most religious and devout of all the ancient provinces of France, at least that it had become so, whatever may have been its status in the past; but certainly the good folk of Istres are as devout and religious as any community extant, if the wonderfully impressive chanting and illuminating in the graveyard by its old tree-grown chapel count for anything. ”

“ To this day they present a striking contrast to the population around them, who are of tall stature, with blue eyes, white skins, and blond hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing rapidly from courage to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in other words, presenting the distinctive character of the Celtic race, now, as in the ancient Gauls. The Bretons are entirely different. They are taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas and usages—are persevering and of melancholic temperament;—in a word, both in morale and physique, they present the type of a southern race. ”

“ She took her ladies and a large suite of French nobles, and was joined by numbers of Bretons, her progress through her own dominions being one continual triumph. She visited many of the towns, which were richly decorated, and gave splendid joustes and other fêtes in her honour, and having made her neuvaine and offerings at Foll-Coat, she summoned the States, transacted a great deal of business, and went to Brest to see her favourite ship, Marie-la-Cordelière. ”