Bretons

“ 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 Bretons have ever remained a race apart, possessing their own language, their own habits, manners and customs; not becoming absorbed with other nations, nor absorbing in themselves any foreign element. Separated from Normandy by no visible [Pg 138] boundary line, divided by no broad Channel, the Bretons are as different from the Normans as the Normans are distinct from the English. They have a high standard of integrity, of right and wrong, there is the distinct feeling of Noblesse oblige amongst them ”

“ There was already a fair gathering of people, many of them paysans, armed with umbrellas as stout and clumsy as themselves. For the Bretons know and mistrust their own climate, and are too well aware that the day of a brilliant morning too often ends in weeping skies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Bretons are brave soldiers and good sailors; their disposition is hasty and violent, and even ferocious in anger. When the people of Nantes rose up in rebellion against Duke Francis, his brother-in-law, the Comte du Foix, sent to pacify them, said to him on his return from his mission, "J'aimerais mieux être prince d'un million de sangliers que de tel peuple que sont vos Bretons"—Brittany has always been the theatre of great virtues and great crimes. ”

“ Harold said. "The Bretons you there fought with are kinsfolk of the Welsh, speaking the same language, and being alike in customs and in fighting. They trust to surprises, and to their speed of foot and knowledge of their wild country, rather than to hard fighting in the open plain. They have few towns to capture, and it is therefore hard to execute reprisals upon them. Like the Bretons they are brave, and fight savagely until the last, neither giving nor asking for quarter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, the inhabitants of the town are scarcely typical Bretons; they are a little demoralised by success in trade, a little inclined to smuggling, and decidedly fond of drinking. The men, living hard lives, facing the most fearful storms of the Atlantic in their exposed little boats, out sometimes for days without a take, are apt to be uproarious when on shore. ”

“ A detachment of about four thousand men of the Naval Reserve, most of whom are Bretons, is encamped to the north of Paris at Le Bourget, and there have been stirring scenes in the little church there. It has been crowded with sailors and soldiers at every service, for Bretons are among the most religious of all peoples of France. ”

“ The inhabitants even to-day—more than in any other of the ancient provinces of France—have preserved the ancient nomenclature of the land and its people, and everywhere one finds only Bretons whose home is Brittany. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No wonder, then, that the Bretons possess many of our characteristics, even in exaggeration, for they are direct descendants of the ancient Britons.
They have, for instance, all the gravity of the English temperament, to which is added a gloom or sombreness of disposition that is born of repression and poverty and a long struggle with the ways and means of existence; to which may yet farther be added the influence of climate. Hope and ambition, the two great levers of the world, with them are not largely developed; there has been no opportunity for their growth. ”

“ If one alone could manage to slip off there would be some chance for him. There is no doubt that the Bretons are bitterly opposed to the present state of things, and have not forgotten how they suffered in their rising early in the days of the Republic. ”

“ Bretons, Welsh, and Cornish are not only kindred in blood and tongue, but, up to the time when the continuity of their later national or tribal life was rudely shattered, had a common history and tradition, which became the general heritage. If the story of Brutus has any relation to the early career of the British folk, we should expect to discover traces of the legend wherever the Britons found their way. ”

“ It is the selage of the ancients, spoken of by Pliny (lib. xiv.) , and is said by the Bretons to glitter like gold before the eyes of those who at the moment may fulfil the conditions for perceiving it, and who, by touching it with the foot, are instantly enabled to understand the language of all animals, and to converse with them.
6 The tradition of the redbreast, who broke a thorn from the crown of our Lord, is current throughout Brittany. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He would advise your majesty, as more fully set forth in these papers which I shall have the honour of laying before your council, to promise to the Bretons that their states-general and all their ancient privileges shall be retained as inviolate, subject, however, to the modifications of the Scottish Parliament."
"What say you to this, my lords?" asked the king, as a murmur of varying opinions rose among the nobles.
"I say nay," replied Angus; "the poor Bretons have never wronged us, and by St. Bryde! ”

“ The outskirts of Brittany are filled with a population of emigrants, mostly outcast from their own districts, who, after a year's registered stay, may enjoy the privileges of the Bretons: their occupation is limited to collecting piles of salt to re-sell to the contraband dealers. ”

“ The first is represented in Brittany by the Korigans, the second by the Teuz. The Teuz is just the same as the elf or fairy of the Scotch and Irish, aiding the labourers in their toil, and resembles the mountain spirit of Germany.
6 In Brittany they reckon by reals; the Breton real is not worth one franc eight centimes, as in Spain, but only twenty-five centimes.
[Contents]
The Spectre Laundresses.
The Bretons are born in sin, even as other men, but never have they been wanting in care for the souls of their faithful departed. ”

“ But the Bretons who live thus are nearly all prosperous and thrifty in their own way; they own most of the land they farm, paying rent, for a portion perhaps, at the rate of twenty or twenty-five francs an acre, but adding to the extent of their ownership year by year. Nearly everyone we meet at Carhaix is engaged in agriculture, and the majority are well-to-do. The land yields well, and there is the Canal de Brest passing through the town to take the produce to the coast. ”

“ The Bretons, enraged at this disappointment in their fond hopes, waged implacable war against him; and fixing the succession of their government, put themselves in a posture to revenge the murder of their sovereign. John had got into his power his niece, Eleanor, sister to Arthur, commonly called ‘the damsel of Brittany,’ and carrying her over to England, detained her ever after in captivity: [*] but the Bretons, in despair of recovering this princess, chose Alice for their sovereign; a younger daughter of Constantia, by her second marriage with Gui de Thouars ”

“ It sometimes happens, however, that in their casemates the Bretons of the 19th and the 118th of the line, suffering from home-sickness, are day-dreaming as they lie motionless on their couches. If, now, one of them begins to hum softly to himself, his comrades, silent men for the most part, will little by little take up the strain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is couched in but few words:—The Bretons occupy a province of the Empire of the King of the Franks, and refuse to pay him tribute in homage to his sovereignty. Besides, the Breton clergy, generally infected with a leaven of old druidic idolatry, denies the supremacy of the Archbishop of Tours. Such are the consequences of that regrettable heresy, of which Lambert, Count of Nantes, wrote to King Louis the Pious as follows: 'The Breton nation is proud and indomitable; all that there is Christian about them is the name ”

“ Over the doorways hung boars' heads, shot by her sons, Countess C—— for she told us her name—informed us, in the forests of Brittany.
"They are great sportsmen," she added with a smile, "and you know we Bretons do nothing by halves. Our sportsmen are fierce and strong in the chase, and know nothing of the effeminate pastimes of those who live in more southern latitudes." ”

“ This theory, however, falls summarily to the ground when it is opposed to the fact that the province now known by the name of Brittany was not inhabited by any tribe which bore the name in the time of St. Patrick, "The year 458," says the Benedictine Lobineau [Footnote 127] in his learned history of Brittany, "is about the epoch of the establishment of the Bretons in that part of ancient Armorica which at present bears the name of Bretagne." ”

“ Under a seeming dull indifference and melancholy the Bretons conceal a lively imagination, and no place has a greater wealth of legendary literature.
What fairies, dwarfs, pixies, and the like are to the Celts of other places, the spirits of the dead are to the Celts of Brittany. They possess the earth on Christmas, St. John's Day, and All Saints'. In Finistère, that western point of France, there is a saying that on the Eve of All Souls' "there are more dead in every house than sands on the shore." The dead have the power to charm mortals and take them away, and to foretell the future. ”

“ J. Loth, Revue celtique, xxviii. 374-403) . So that since the 13th and 14th centuries the boundary between French and Breton begins in the north about Plouha (west of St Brieuc Bay) , and stretches to the mouth of the Vilaine in the south. That is to say, the Breton speakers are confined to the department of Finistère and the west of the departments Côtes-du-Nord and Morbihan. Lower Brittany contains a population of 1,360,000, of whom roughly 1,250,000 speak Breton. The number of monoglot Bretons is stated to have been 768,000 in 1878, 679,000 in 1885, and over 500,000 in 1898. ”

“ Accordingly, the Bretons and Alsatians have come to feel themselves a part of France, and to feel pride in bearing the French name; while the Welsh and Irish obstinately refuse to amalgamate with us, and will not admire the Englishman as he admires himself, however much the Times may scold them and rate them, and assure them there is nobody on earth so admirable. ”

“ This is what passed in Bretagne.
The Bretons lent an ear to the first overtures of the Spaniards; they had no more cause for discontent than other provinces, but to them it seemed a capital opportunity for war, and they had no other aim. Richelieu had ruled them severely; they thought to emancipate themselves under Dubois, and they began by objecting to the administrators sent by the regent; a revolution always commences by a riot.
Montesquieu was appointed viceroy to hold assemblies, to hear the people's complaints, and to collect their money. ”

“ So long as the Bretons remained quiet, the Romans seem to have left them to themselves, and certainly have left no traces of any establishment of importance in their country—nothing that would lead us to suspect such intimate relations with the natives as would induce them to change their faith or fashions and copy the institutions of the foreigners. ”