Morbihan

“ De Morbihan protested. "The rogue has had a wonderfully successful career, thanks to his dispensing with confederates and confining his depredations to jewels and similar valuables, portable and easy to convert into cash. Yet," he added, nodding sagely, "one isn't afraid to predict his race is almost run." "You don't tell me!" the older man exclaimed. "Have they picked up the scent—at last?"
"The man is known," De Morbihan affirmed. ”

“ Yet this moment was the very apogee of the Royalist revival in the West. Never had they been better organised, better recognised as a military force. What they had taken or threatened in three weeks was amazing. In the Morbihan they were entirely masters of the countryside; in Ille-et-Vilaine they had strong detachments near Rennes, Fougères, and Vitré; Bourmont in Maine occupied the bourgs and even the little towns on the banks of the Sarthe and the Loire; and distant Finistère had become almost volcanic. ”

“ This ancient place of sepulture, the name of which means ‘Goat Island,’ lies in the Morbihan, or ‘Little Sea,’ an inland sea which gives its name to a department in the south of Brittany. The tumulus is 25 feet high, and covers a fine gallery 40 feet long, the stones of which bear the markings alluded to. Whorls and circles abound in the ornamentation, serpent-like figures, and the representation of an axe, similar to those to be seen in some of the Grottes aux Fées, or on the Dol des Marchands. The sculptures appear to have been executed with metal tools. ”

“ A few miles from Auray and Carnac is the ancient city of Vannes, the chief town of the department of Morbihan and the capital of Basse-Bretagne. This city, from its position, is the natural point of departure for travellers entering Brittany from the east, as it is also the natural place of rest when coming from the west.
There is not much to attract the traveller at first sight, but the result of several visits is to leave an impression of great interest on the mind. ”

“ It is among the sculptured slabs of the Morbihan dolmens that we find the immediate pendant to the ship signs of Ireland and Scandinavia. On slabs of the chambered barrow of Manné Lud, near Locmariaker, there appears—beside stone axes, hafted and unhafted, and other figures—what is evidently the same ship sign as that of New Grange, in various stages of degeneration, finally resulting in simple crescents with recurved ends (Fig. 16) . ”

“ On the road from Quimperlé to Le Faouet a stream is crossed that divides the two provinces of Finistère and Morbihan; it is a stream well stocked with trout; in fact, in most of these rivers there is excellent fishing, and there are no better headquarters for sport than Le Faouet. The town, which is well situated and has fine views of the country, contains not more than 3000 inhabitants, nearly all but the oldest and the poorest being engaged in agriculture. It is a great centre on certain days, when the people collect under the eaves of the market-place shown in the full-page sketch. ”

“ How she had originally belonged to the Morbihan, and when a girl dressed in the costume of her country, with the short petticoats and the picturesque kerchief crossed upon the breast. How her father had been a well-to-do bazvalan and made the Sunday clothes for the whole village. And how she had met her fate when her bonhomme came that way on a visit to an old uncle in the village, and in six months they were married, and she had come to Morlaix. She had never regretted her marriage. She had a good husband, who worked hard; and if they were poor, they were far from being in want. ”

“ Some are menhirs planted vertically on the end, others enormous blocks simply laid upon the soil. They extend half a league from north to south, more numerous than Carnac, but generally not so tall, the highest from ten to twelve feet, but very large. The road is strewed with Druidic monuments. At Corcorro, between Plouharnel and Erdeven, on a farm, a short distance off the road, is a dolmen, the largest in the Morbihan. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was followed by a division of peasants from the Marais, whose activity in marshy grounds gave them similar advantages to those possessed by the Vendéans in their woodlands. He was followed also by the inhabitants of Morbihan, called, from their adherence to royalism, the Little La Vendée.{297} He was the leader, besides, of many of the bands called Chouans, a name of doubtful origin given to the insurgents of Bretagne, but which their courage has rendered celebrated. ”

“ It is a sight worth going very far to see, these earnest worshippers, with whom the head is never turned and the eye never wanders. The further you pass into the interior of Brittany—into the remote districts of the Morbihan, for instance—where the outer world, with its advancement and civilization, scarcely seems to have penetrated, there fervency and devotion are still full of the element of superstition ”

“ On our way back to Vannes we saw on our left the Butte de Tumiac, or Butte d'Arzon, the largest tumulus of the Morbihan. It was opened in 1853, and found to enclose a chamber full of pulverised bones and various curious objects. From Vannes we also visited the stately castle of Elven, about four miles from the station of that name; not built on a lofty site, for, in the fifteenth century, the barons had descended from their heights to places more convenient of access, and where water was more easily obtained. ”

“ Her sailors passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules and passed up the northwest coast of France and established their religion, the worship of Baal, or the sun, among the simple people of Bretagne so firmly and universally that at this day at Carnac, in the Morbihan, there stand more Phœnician funereal monuments of unknown antiquity than can be found together in any form of religion in any other portion of the world’s surface. They discovered tin in the Scilly Islands, off the coast of Cornwall, and wrought those mines for centuries. ”

“ The interior in form resembles (although at present it is in a less perfect state) the celebrated cromlech in the isle of Gavr' Innis in the Morbihan. The total length is about 40 feet, but the east end near the road is abruptly stopped by a large stone, which probably once was placed on the adjoining props: if so, some portion of the end was destroyed in making the road. The western chamber of Du Tus, covered by three capstones, is about 16 feet square, or nearly double the size of that at Gavr' Innis ”

“ The northern line reaches to a tumulus, the Mané Bras. On the summit are the ruins of two dolmens, with traces of an enclosing circle of uprights. To the east of Kerangre is another group of monoliths. At Mané Groh are two dolmens. The dolmen of Corcomo is the finest in Morbihan.
Plouhinic. Near Kerfourchen two fallen dolmens and a menhir. From the windmill to the west alignments running S.E. Near the Mill of Gueldra the lines recommence in eight rows, and may be traced to Kervué and Kervelhué.
Bourbriac (C.N.) chl. arr. Guingamp. The church is in part Romanesque, and possesses a crypt. ”

“ But no one comes here to see this fine old monkish relic but the farming folk from round about, though St. Méen is a town of three thousand souls and an idyllic artists’ sketching-ground. No colony of painters has yet settled here, leaving it a wholly new field to exploit by any painter looking for new worlds to conquer.
Loudéac and Pontivy, the one in the Côtes du Nord, and the other in the Morbihan, are two characteristically Breton towns bearing no relation whatever to the outside world. ”

“ Each of these blind cells sheltered five or six men. The difficulty was in getting air there. There are certain strange figures, which explain this powerful organization of the widespread peasant revolt. In Ille-et-Vilaine, in the forest of Pertre, asylum of the Prince of Talmont, not a breath could be heard, not a human footstep was to be found, and yet there were six thousand men there with Focard. In Morbihan, in the forest of Meulac, no one was seen, and yet eight thousand men were there. These two forests, the Pertre and Meulac are not numbered among the great forests of Brittany. ”

“ The water is sought for those who are off their heads.
Returning to the station, S. Nicolas des Eaux is next visited. The chapel is in a very dilapidated condition. It is a flamboyant cruciform structure (1524) with a fine double doorway and with foliage about it, and with late flamboyant tracery in some of the windows, but from most it has been hacked away.
S. Nicodème is perhaps the most beautiful example of flamboyant in Morbihan. It was completed in 1539, and a bell bears the date 1507 which is about the date of the spire and tower. ”

“ We have said that at the very moment when Morgan and his three companions stopped the Geneva diligence between Bar-sur-Seine and Châtillon, Roland was entering Nantes.
If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbé Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the Vilaine River falls.
There we find ourselves in the heart of the Morbihan ”

“ But this is not probable; it must have been called plou after a founder of the clan, and the title of plou would hardly have attached to relics. The church is modern; the Chapel of S. Aubin is of 1513, and has some curious carving on the capitals, a fox preaching to geese, etc. Above the N. transept rises a slated spire.
Guéhenno. A modern church, but the porch of 1547 has been preserved. In the graveyard is a fine Calvary of the 16th cent., the finest in Morbihan. ”

“ But the contemptuous smile soon vanished from the face of the Citizen Morot. No smile lingered there long. It was not built upon smiling lines at all.
Then he took up his letters. There were only two of them: one bearing the postmark of a small town in Morbihan, the other hailing from England.
He replaced the first in his pocket unread; the second he opened. It was written in French.
“There are difficulties,” it said. “Can you come to me? Cross from Cherbourg to Southampton—train from thence to this place, and ask for Signor Bruno, an Italian refugee, living at the house of Mrs. ”

“ Yet Le Morvan is a charming and picturesque country—a lovely region, clad with verdure, flowers, and forest-trees, and watered by fresh, sparkling, and silvery streams, which every one can reach without fatigue, much expense, and without the slightest chance of danger, but perhaps, as I have before said, its proximity is its misfortune. ”

“ Le Morvan, abounding in forests, was a district most congenial to the gloomy spirit of the religion of the ancient Druids; and therefore, in the earliest days of the history of France, they consecrated its groves of splendid oaks to the performance of their terrible rites. Remains of many of their massive monuments still exist, in the fields, in the deep valleys, and on the tops of the hills. ”

“ Le Morvan during the Middle Ages—Legendary horrors—Forest of La Goulotte—La Croix Chavannes—La Croix Mordienne—Hôtel de Chanty—Château de Lomervo—A French Bluebeard—Citadel of Lingou.
But I must return from my Andalusian belle to the rugged Le Morvan,—a patriotic, but, in spite of the broken finger, by no means so captivating a subject.
In feudal times—indeed, even so late as the last century—the district was a perfect nest of cut-throats, where no one could venture in safety for any honest purpose; without roads, and without police ”

“ When they were gone, Morven cautiously descended, and, striking into a broad path, hastened to a vale that lay between the forest and the river in which was the city where the chief of his country dwelt. As he passed by the warlike men, giants in that day, who thronged the streets (if streets they might be called) , their half garments parting from their huge limbs, the quiver at their backs, and the hunting spear in their hand, they laughed and shouted out, and, pointing to him, cried, “Morven the woman! Morven the cripple! what dost thou among men?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ From hence, for nearly twelve miles, roach, dace, chub, and trout are numerous, and take the fly well.
Besides the Gours we have mentioned, there are three spots in the Morvan that deserve attention in connection with fishing. These are Sermiselle, Pierre Pertuis, and the Château des Panolas. Sermiselle, at the junction of the Cure and the Cousin, at which point the road from Paris to Lyons passes, is a charming village, full of life and gaiety. At this spot the river begins to make a respectable figure; deep, solemn, and silent, it seems proud of its boats and ferries ”