Brest, France

“ At last I came to one of the posting taverns of the town where the coach for Paris was beginning to take up passengers in the presence of the usual curious crowd of idlers. At the present time, when everybody went in terror of his life, and to be suspected of any design against the liberties of France was the same thing as being condemned for it, it was no easy task even for the most innocent and well-conducted traveller to get clear of a town like Brest. ”

“ Geography is not a strong point of the English education system, and he had never been taught at Mecklemburg House that Brest was to France much more than Portsmouth is to England, and that its population consists of four classes, soldiers, sailors, dockyard labourers--looking at all those, of whatever grade, who labour in the dockyard in the light of labourers--and, a long way behind the other three, civilians: "civilians" being a generic name for that--regarded from a Brest point of view--absolutely insignificant class who have no direct connection with war or making ready for war. ”

“ A continuous calm prevented the latter from leaving Brest, where he was blockaded by the English. At the two ends of the world, discouragement weighed upon the admirals consigned to inaction by unforeseen obstacles met with in the execution of a plan which took no account of accidents of wind or sea. In vain wrote Napoleon to Ganteaume, "You hold in your hands the destinies of the world." The unfortunate commander of the Brest squadron communicated his despair to the Minister of Marine: "I believe, my friend, that you share all my experience. ”

“ Brest (76) , a strongly-fortified naval station in the extreme NW. of France; one of the chief naval stations in France, with a magnificent harbour, and one of the safest, first made a marine arsenal by Richelieu; has large shipbuilding yards and arsenal; its industries are chiefly related to naval equipment, with leather, waxcloth, and paper manufactures.
Bréton, Jules Adolphe, a French genre and landscape painter, born at Courrières, in Pas-de-Calais, 1827.
Breton de los Herreros, Spanish poet and dramatist; wrote comedies and satires in an easy, flowing style (1800-1873) . ”

“ This state of misery is prolonged far beyond this epoch in Paris and the provinces. ~f. Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vol. III.-Felix Rocquam, "L'Etat de la France au 18e Brumaire," p.156. (Report by Fourcroy, Nivôse 5, year IX.) Convoys of grain fail to reach Brest because the English are masters at sea, while the roads on land are impassable. ”

“ One makes his way from Camaret to the great military port and trading town of Brest—if one need to go there at all, which is doubtful—either by boat across the Goulet and the roads of Brest, some sixteen kilometres by a puffy little excursion-boat, which, on a Sunday or a feast-day, is anything but comfortable, or by road by way of Faou, which is a great fruit and vegetable market for Brest, and not much more. ”

“ There are no skyscrapers in Brest, that is to say, there are no tall office buildings there, although the city is an important business point. The only tall structures are the churches and an old castle, dating from the thirteenth century. The business buildings are all of two or three stories. The stores are not as up to date as the retail establishments in America, and the methods of doing business are entirely different from ours. Goods are not on display in the open as they are in American stores, but are kept in show cases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A countryman whom I met, going to sell his vegetables at Quimper, and whom I questioned as to my road, told me that I was journeying towards Brest. This was not the way for me, and I made the fellow comprehend that I wished to go towards Rennes, and he pointed out to me a cross road leading to the high route to this city, which I immediately took, trembling at every moment, lest I should meet any of the soldiers of the English army. then lying in the villages between Nantes and Brest. ”

“ Mathieu on the extreme western point of Brittany, and the island of Ouëssant. Brest 84is situated on an elevated position on the north side of one of the finest natural harbours in the world, commanding good views from its ramparts and promenades. The population is about 70,000, exclusive of soldiers and sailors; a busy cosmopolitan maritime city, in which there is little of the Breton character to be studied. ”

“ The outline of the bay is broken by numerous smaller bays or arms, formed by the embouchures of streams, the most important being the Anse de Quélern, the Anse de Poulmie, and the mouths of the Châteaulin and the Landerneau. Brest is a fortress of the first class. ”

“ Brest, a French city in the department of Finistère, on the north side of the Bay of Brest. The bay is one of the finest harbors of Europe, and was long a bone of contention among European powers, and several naval battles have been fought in its neighborhood. Its fortifications, begun by Cardinal Richelieu in the 17th century, and the narrow and strongly protected throat which forms the entrance make it a formidable naval station. Its industries are mainly connected with the equipment of the navy. A submarine cable gives it connection with America. ”

“ When all were there, however, forming a total of 5,000 men, the maximum was so truly reached that a number of young men, some belonging to the best-known French families, who were arriving at Brest from day to day, in the hope of being added to the expedition, had to be sent back. ”

“ A great church and a good hotel are indeed all-sufficient attractions for a market-town of perhaps eight thousand souls.
The town borders upon a picturesque little river, the Elorn, which finally flows into the harbour of Brest. From the fifth century until the sixteenth, it was far and away a more important place than its now more opulent neighbour at the river’s mouth. Then it was the chief town of Léon, the domain of the De Rohans, one of the ancient Breton baronies. ”

“ The peasants of La Bresse are a quiet though uncouth set of people; their miserable habitations cleaner than those of the more northern provinces of France. Met no one save a group of gipsies, on whom we came as I walked to warm myself down one of these quasi mountains, Fanny following like a spaniel. They were gathered beneath an ancient oak, the older people cooking, a handsome youth touching a guitar, and a girl, with the dark fine features of her race, gazing at him as did the large dog, whose head rested on her knee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To be in Brest in winter was to feel the gloom and penetrating chill of England with the addition during the war period of mud everywhere—earth ground into sinking mire such as only vast and constant movements of men and machinery could produce. It was the greatest port of the war, and men were always there by the thousands. We climbed high above the city one winter evening to visit the men at Camp Lincoln. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 tower of Caesar of the 12th cent., that des Anglais is of 1374, that de la Madelaine is of the 15th cent., as is also the donjon.
Brest, apart from its dockyard, is a very uninteresting place. The Church of S. Louis61 (1692-1778) is ugly, with modern stained glass in the French style representing Breton saints. But Brest may be made a centre for some interesting excursions, as to Landevennec, which is more easily reached from Brest by steamer than by road.
Landevennec is where a very important abbey was founded by S. Winwaloe, in French Guenolé, at the beginning of the 6th century. ”

“ The district is only a few miles from busy towns and sea-ports, and on the main line of railway from Paris to Brest, but it is out of the world, and seems, under its cloudy aspect, farther than ever removed from civilisation; we pass substantial-looking farmhouses, but the dwellings of the peasants are generally hovels, with tumble-down mud walls and immovable windows; in their gardens are dungheaps and stagnant pools of water. We see women at work in the fields, girls tending cattle, and the men, generally, looking on. ”

“ On the other hand, tell a French peasant, that an English rustic never tastes a glass of wine once in seven years, and he will equally pity the Englishman.
Bresle is one of those villages which impress a traveller with a strong idea of the beauty of the country, and of the state of the comfort of its inhabitants. It is broad, clean, and most charmingly situated. On every side of it rises a wall of mountains, covered to their very summits with vines, and interspersed with the cottages of the Vignerons. ”

“ One asks one's self how all this decoration, this luxury of fair and chiselled marble, survived the French Revolution. An hour of liberty in the choir of Brou would have been a carnival for the imagebreakers. The well-fed Bressois are surely a good-natured people. I call them well-fed both on general and on particular grounds. Their province has the most savory aroma, and I found an opportunity to test its reputation. I walked back into the town from the church (there was really nothing to be seen by the way) , and as the hour of the midday breakfast had struck, directed my steps to the inn. ”

“ A BRETON TOWN AND MANSION
France, especially in Brittany, still possesses certain towns completely outside of the movement which gives to the nineteenth century its peculiar characteristics. For lack of quick and regular communication with Paris, scarcely connected by wretched roads with the sub-prefecture, or the chief city of their own province, these towns regard the new civilization as a spectacle to be gazed at; it amazes them, but they never applaud it; and, whether they fear or scoff at it, they continue faithful to the old manners and customs which have come down to them. ”

“ Of architectural monuments, Brest still has the Church of St. Louis (1688-1778) and the twelfth and thirteenth century castle. As an ecclesiastical monument, the church is quite unworthy of attention, though it has some interesting tombs and monuments.
The castle is an admirable example of mediæval fortification, with some remarkable accessory details in its construction. The isolated donjon tower was in other days a sort of independent citadel, and formed a last refuge for the besieged occupants of the castle, should its outer walls give way to the invaders. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As we drop down upon La Bresse after our climb of two hours and more, we seem to be at the world's end. Our road has led us higher and higher by dense forests and wild granite parapets, tasselled with fern and foxglove, till we suddenly wheel round upon a little straggling town marvellously placed. Deep down it lies, amid fairy-like greenery and silvery streams, whilst high above tower the rugged forest peaks and far-off blue mountains, in striking contrast. ”

“ Brescia is a busy town. The inhabitants are, as a rule, tall and robust, and they are always hard at work. The main streets are full of men employed in wearing large cloaks and talking to other men with the utmost energy. ”

“ Population (1906) town, 71,163; commune, 85,294. It is situated to the north of a magnificent landlocked bay, and occupies the slopes of two hills divided by the river Penfeld,—the part of the town on the left bank being regarded as Brest proper, while the part on the right is known as Recouvrance. There are also extensive suburbs to the east of the town. The hill-sides are in some places so steep that the ascent from the lower to the upper town has to be effected by flights of steps and the second or third storey of one house is often on a level with the ground storey of the next. ”