LE SORCIER.
The introduction of customs does much more to conquer a country than even an invading army. Lorraine, Alsace, and Franche Comté, were annexed to France by Louis the Fourteenth. By imparting to them the manners and habits of the French people, he soon rendered them easy under their new yoke; and fettering their minds by the chains of custom, he secured himself effectually against all danger of revolt. Not so in regard to Brittany. A decided fief of the crown of France, and long, by failure of male issue as well as alliance with the house of Bourbon, merged entirely into that kingdom, the inhabitants of the ancient dukedom of Bretagne still obstinately retained their old manners and customs, looking upon their barbarism as a sort of privilege, and repelling all attempt at improvement as a commencement of tyranny, and a first effort to deprive them of their liberties. If, as is very much the case, France in general is many years behind England in all the arts of life, Brittany is at least a century behind the rest of France, but more especially that part of the country called La Basse Bretagne. We must, of course, except the higher classes, the majority of whose members, by long association with the rest of the French nobility, have acquired the general manners of the country. There are, nevertheless, several families who, retired in the wilds of the land, retain, in some degree, the habits of their ancestors; but it is of the lower classes that I would speak at present. I saw but little of that part of the country, but I heard much of it from several persons who had frequented La Basse Bretagne, and as far as I have been able to learn, the inferior orders are characterized by but few good customs. Lazy, dirty, and slovenly in their persons and habitations, they possess corresponding qualities of mind: they are, I was assured, most frequently obstinate, ignorant, superstitious, and vindictive; yet at the same time are hardy, courageous, and resolute, opposing a sort of sullen, inert, unconquerable resistance, to all attacks upon either their rights or prejudices. We read of a refractory mule upon whom a lion was let loose, in the ducal menagerie at Florence, but who, retiring into a corner, received the monarch of the woods on his first attack with such a severe kick, that he was fain to forbear any further aggression upon so sullen an enemy. In this manner did the Bas Bretons receive Louis the Fourteenth, who would willingly have given them some degree of civilisation: but they repelled all his efforts; and every foot of the roads which he attempted to carry through the forests and wilds of that impregnable country, was actually cut at the point of the bayonet. If they have at all changed since that time, it has been by such very slow and imperceptible degrees, that the amelioration can scarcely be traced. They retain their own unseemly garb; they speak nothing but their own inharmonious language; they wallow in their own indigenous dirt, and, I am told, transmit the itch as an heirloom from generation to generation. In many of their habits, they resemble the lower Irish; but the comparison would be unfair to our Hibernian brethren.
The people of La Haute Bretagne are much more civilized, but still, in the lower ranks of life, are a very simple, ignorant, poor race, with many habits and customs and superstitions peculiar to themselves, which render them highly interesting to a traveller.
Having stated thus much, to give some slight idea of the people to whom I am about to introduce my hearers, I will proceed to tell an anecdote, the authenticity of which I can safely vouch for, as it occurred within my own immediate observation.
Every one has heard of the Whisperers of Ireland, who pretend to, and really possess, the extraordinary art of taming the wildest horses, which they apparently accomplish, by the simple process of whispering in their ears, This faculty of whispering is not at all confined to Ireland, however, but is common, in different forms, to a great many other countries. Every one has heard of the Laplander's habit of whispering in the ear of his rein-deer; and in various parts of Brittany, several of these whisperers are to be met with, whose success is invariable. They are there called Sorciers, and generally exercise the trade of farriers, curing horses of a variety of diseases in a manner truly extraordinary. One time, being at the little village of Bècherel, we had an opportunity of seeing the skill of the Sorcier put to the proof. Our worthy host, Monsieur de G----, had shortly before purchased a beautiful horse, whose only defect appeared to be, that nobody could ride him; and we do believe that Alexander himself would have found no means of taming this Bucephalus. After having spent a whole morning together with our host and his groom, in the vain endeavour to conquer the vicious spirit of the animal, our friend, Monsieur de G----, shrugged up his shoulders, with the usual gesture of a Frenchman when he is forced to have recourse to some unpleasant expedient. "Il n'y a pas de remède," said he; "the horse must be sent to the sorcier;" and accordingly he gave orders to his garçon d'écurie to take it down the next morning to the village at which the aforesaid sorcier made his abode. This occasioned inquiries, the answers to which soon determined us not to allow the taming of the shrew to take place without our presence; and on the first expression of a wish to be on the spot at the time, our friend, whose hospitable kindness and desire to give us all kinds of information and pleasure during our visit to his house we shall not easily forget, instantly arranged a party for the next morning, in order to let us see the effect of the sorcier's power, in the first instance, and afterwards shoot over the ground in our return to the manoir.
About six in the morning we set out, on horseback, for the dwelling of the sorcier, with a groom leading the horse in question, who remained quiet enough as long as no one attempted to mount him. However, after riding about six miles, as we came near the place of our destination, M. de G---- resolved to see whether the distance might not, in some degree, have quelled the spirit of the animal, and giving his own horse to the groom, he mounted the other, who let him fix himself very peaceably in the saddle, but at the moment out friend attempted to urge him forward every muscle in his body seemed to be animated with rage. He reared, he plunged, he kicked, and left no means untried to shake his rider from his back. M. de G---- was a good horseman, and kept his seat; but he soon found that his situation was not a pleasant one, and attempted to dismount; but this the animal would not suffer either, rearing more tremendously than before, and showing a strong inclination to throw himself over on his Master. Just at this moment, a short, sturdy little man, attracted by the noise, came forth from the blacksmith's shop, towards which we had been apparently directing our steps, and approaching the spot, looked on for a moment as a spectator, merely exclaiming, "le coquin"! At length, the groom, impatient of his apparent apathy, cried out, "Mais souffle donc, François! Il va tomber, je te dis."
"Does Monsieur wish it?" demanded the sorcier, for such he was.
"Nom de Dieu!" cried the groom; "S'il le veut!"
As soon as he had said these words the sorcier watched his opportunity, and threw his arms round the horse's neck, who, not accustomed to such embraces, reared more violently than before, raising the little man off the ground with him. But he kept his hold, not at all embarrassed, and contrived in that awkward situation, to fix his mouth upon the orifice of the animal's ear. What he did, we know not. No one can suppose that the mere breathing in the animal's ear could have any effect; but his hands were occupied holding tightly round his neck, and the only thing we could observe was that firm pressure of the mouth upon its ear. However, in a moment, the animal became less restive, stood still, shivered a little, as with cold, and from that moment his spirit was gone.
Monsieur de G---- dismounted, paid the sorcier his ordinary fee, which was no more than a few francs, and after the excitement, and surprise, and all that sort of thing, had passed away, we took to our guns and turned our steps homeward. It may well be supposed that our conversation for the rest of that day turned very much upon the sorcier; and, after several anecdotes of the same nature as the above, M. de G---- related the following.
"Our Curé," said he, "is a very excellent good man, but a little superstitious; and, about two years ago, hearing a great deal about this sorcier and his feats of magic, he considered it his duty to preach against him; which he did so effectually for more than one Sunday, that the poor blacksmith lost all his custom; and as the priest had taught the peasantry to consider him as somewhat worse than the devil, he might have starved, if a circumstance had not happened which delivered him from the anathema.
"Our good Curé had saved from his stipend a few hundred francs, with which he determined to buy himself a horse, to enable him to visit the farther parts of his extensive cure with less inconvenience. Accordingly, when the fair of Dinan came round, he set out, and, confident of his own judgment, bought himself a beast, which, doubtless, he imagined possessed all the qualities with which horse was ever indued. It was brought home the next day, and in the face of the whole parish, the saddle was placed on his back, and the Curé mounted.
"The horse stood stock still. The Cure gave him a gentle cut with his whip. The beast did not budge. The priest then applied a smarter blow. The horse lashed out behind, and in a minute the Cure was seen flying, like, a black swan, into the pond before his own door, while the horse, as if quite satisfied with the exploit, stood as immoveable as a stone, with his head down to his knees, and his ears bent back upon his neck.
"What could be done?--the Cure was not a man to try it again; and though he offered his horse a bargain to every one in the village, nobody would buy it. Day after day passed, and the horse stood in the stable, eat the Curé's corn, and did nothing. More than once, the idea of applying to the sorcier occurred to the Curé. At first he could not resolve upon such a thing; and many an argument did he hold with himself concerning the propriety of it. At length, however, the necessity of the case overcame his scruples, and he determined to send him to the sorcier; but how to do it, now became a serious question. He had preached so much against the practice that he was ashamed of yielding to it himself.
"At length, however, he took courage, and one dark night led the horse with his own hands all the way to the house we were at this morning. As soon as our friend François saw him, 'Ah, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I thought you would come to me at last; but do you think I will cure your horse after you have ruined me?' The Cure now tried all his eloquence; but the sorcier was as hard as a flint; however, at length, he was somewhat moved.
"'Allons, Monsieur le Curé,' said he, 'I will make a bargain with you. You have preached me down when I could do you no good; you shall now preach me up--and I'll cure your horse.' This was a hard pill to swallow, and François would do nothing to gild it; but what could the Curé do? The priest could get on no longer without his horse, and the horse would not budge a step under the Curé. So there was only one question asked: 'Has the devil anything to do in the matter?' 'Not a whit!' answered François; and the horse being left at the sorcier's for security, on Sunday, we had a sermon completely clearing François from the accusation of dealing with the devil; and on Monday the Curé was cantering all over the country."
"I will tell you a much more extraordinary story of a cure than that," exclaimed the colonel's brother, as soon as the tale of the Sorcier was read. "It occurred in Brittany, too; under my own eyes, also, while I lived at the house of an excellent Breton, a Dr. R----.
"Every one has heard of the mania for leeches which has lately prevailed in France. Like all other manias, this did not long confine itself to the capital or its environs, but rapidly spread to every province and, every department; and, like the blood, which, impelled by the heart, finds its way to the most minute corners and remote extremities of the human frame, the doctrine of universal leechification gradually insinuated itself to the ultimate ends of his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. Not a canton so small but read the work of Monsieur Brousset; not a town so diminutive but had its regular consumption of leeches averaged amongst other articles of first necessity; not an apothecary's shop so insignificant, but possessed its dozen or two of jars replete with these little black benefactors of humanity; and not a pond nor a ditch where might not occasionally be seen some unfortunate wight up to his neck in the water, with a peculiar sort of net in his hand, endeavouring to entrap the aquatic practitioners to come and perform phlebotomy gratis. If a man had a pain in his head, he was ordered to apply leeches; if he had a pain in his toe, it was all the same thing. The gout, the apoplexy, a dropsy, or a consumption; the head-ache, or the heart-ache, or the stomach-ache, were all treated after the same fashion; and leeches were voted nem. con. the universal panacea applicable to every disease which afflicts poor little humanity. In short, the doctors were saved a great deal of trouble, the patients were probably none the worse, the apothecaries grew fat as well as the leeches, and many a man made a fortune, who, if it had not been for his sangsues, would probably have been sans sous.
"At the time that this practice was becoming general, my worthy friend and landlord, Monsieur le Docteur, was smitten with the desire of sucking his patients' blood--not personally, but by proxy; so that of all the words that the French Academy permit the nation to make use of, and which, when I left them, consisted of thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty one and a-half[[17]], the word most frequently in the mouth of Monsieur le Docteur was sangsue.
"But before I proceed farther, I must briefly tell you, what sort of a machine a French doctor in a country town is. It is a thing that walks upon two legs, or trots upon four, as occasion serves; that knows nothing of medicine, a good deal of surgery, and will go ten miles for two shillings. My worthy friend, then, Monsieur le Docteur ----, resided at Quimper, in La Basse Bretagne. His fame was high, and not without cause, so that if a man fell off a tree and broke his neck within fifteen miles of Quimper, Monsieur le Docteur was sure to be in at the death.
"When last I was in Brittany, I spent six weeks very pleasantly with the Doctor and his family, and, as he was a good horseman and a pleasant companion, I accompanied him more than once when he rode to visit some country patients. Thus I was conducted one day to the little village of Kerethnac, some ten miles from Quimper, where my friend had plenty of occasions to exercise his curative propensities. One man had broken his leg, another had dislocated his wrist, and a third had a sore throat. To this last, without loss of time, the Doctor ordered the application of twenty leeches, seemingly sorry that he could not prescribe them for the others also; and having dispatched his business as quickly as possible, we remounted our horses and returned to Quimper. The road was a pleasant one, and two days after, when Monsieur le Docteur proposed to revisit Kerethnac, I was not unwilling to accompany him. On arriving at our journey's end, I went into all the huts with my friend. Huts they were, indeed,--a combination of pig-sty, cow-house, and bedchamber. But to proceed. After having looked at the broken leg, and ordered some camphorated spirit for the dislocated wrist, the Doctor entered the house of his sore-throated patient, the first piece of whose goods and chattels that presented itself being his wife.
"'Well, my good woman,' said the Doctor, 'how is your husband to-day?--better, no doubt.'
"'O yes, surely,' answered the woman. 'He is as well as ever, and gone to the field.'
"'I thought so,' continued Monsieur le Docteur. 'The leeches have cured him! Wonderful effect they have! You got the leeches, of course.'
"'Oh, yes, Monsieur le Docteur, they did him a deal of good, though he could not take them all.'
"'Take them all!' cried our friend. 'Why my good woman, how did you apply them?'
"'O, I managed nicely,' said the wife, looking quite contented with herself. 'For variety's sake, I boiled one half and made a fry of the other. The first he got down very well, but the second made him very sick. But what he took was quite enough,' continued she, seeing some horror in the Doctor's countenance, 'for he was better the next morning, and to-day he is quite well.'
"'Umph!' said the Doctor, with a sapient shake of the head. 'If they have cured him that is sufficient; but they would have been better applied externally.'
"The woman replied that she would do so next time; and I doubt not, that if ever fate throws a score of unfortunate leeches into her power again, she will make a poultice of them."
"But there is no miracle in your story, my good brother," exclaimed the colonel, as the other concluded; "you vowed you would tell a much better story than mine. Now my friend's horse was cured by a whisper, your patient's sore-throat by an emetic; the one was miraculous the other nothing more than common.
"O, if you want a miracle," replied his brother, "you shall have one, and out of the same province also."
A MIRACLE.
Prince Hohenloe, I mean the great miracle-monger of Germany; has surely said enough and done enough to convince Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, that miracles are quite as easy now-a-days, as they were a thousand years ago, and that good Dame Nature has grown somewhat doating, and will let him do anything he likes with her. Now, I believe it thoroughly, for more reasons than one, and do not scruple to call all the world fools who disbelieve it. At all events, I am sure to have one half of the old women of Europe on my side; and besides, I can vouch the matter from ocular observation: that into say, not that Prince Hohenloe commits miracles, but that even without him, they are as easy as ever--so easy, I am sure I could do one myself. But to my tale.
There is a deep embowering lane, not far from Corsieul, where the road winds slowly down between two high cliffy banks, till it comes to a low dell, through which flows one of the clearest streams I ever saw, so pure, so beautiful, the peasants have seemingly thought it next to sacrilege to hide it even by a bridge, and left it openly to traverse the road and wash your horse's weary feet before he begins the long ascent of the opposite hill. Though steep and fatiguing, that road has still a peculiar sort of charm, which compensates the trouble of climbing to the top; and even were the ascent less difficult, one would be tempted to linger long in the sweet contemplative shade and silence that hangs about it. The rocky banks break into a thousand picturesque forms; and wherever a patch of vegetable earth has been able to fix itself, there has sprung up the richest verdure, varied by a thousand shrubs, and herbs, and flowers,--honeysuckle, and eglantine, and sweet-briar, and the pure, large convolvulus„ and the deep blue pervanche, the lily of the fields, the hyacinth and the violet. Above, the trees hang, as if planted in the air, and throw a green, soft shade across the rich tints of the road, except where a gleam of sunshine breaking through, catches upon the salient points of the rock and chequers the deep shadows of the leaves with a dancing light. The silence to the ear has the same effect as the shade to the eye; for there no sound is to be heard, except when some wild bird bursts into song amidst the trees above, or when a low, sweet murmur rises up from the stream below. There is, as I have said, a magical charm in the whole, which compels one to linger in his progress; yet there is a reward in store for those who climb to the top; for suddenly the whole scene changes, and one of the most extensive prospects bursts upon the eye that can be conceived; hills, and valleys, and villages, and woods, and streams, mingled in gay confusion, growing fainter and fainter in the distance, till the far ocean closes the whole, looking like a faint cloud upon the border of the sky, from which indeed it would scarcely be distinguished, did not the bold Mont St. Michel rise abruptly up, and catching all the rays of the sun, mark the limits of the horizon. In front, as a sort of foreground to the landscape, stands the little chapel of St. Anne, with a few houses surrounding it, and a group of trees sheltering it from the wind.
I was one day riding to Corsieul with my friend, Monsieur R----, to see the curious Roman remains which have been found in that neighbourhood, when, as we mounted the hill, and came suddenly in sight of the chapel of St. Anne, we saw a vast variety of booths and tents, with a multitude of people, men, women, and children, in all their gay holiday attire, waiting round the chapel for the commencement of the mass. "I had forgot that to-day is the fête of St. Anne," said R----, "would you like to see a miracle. There is one performed here every year."
"Above all things, let us see it," replied I. So we dismounted, and went into the chapel. There were a great many people waiting about, to see (I suppose) if they could get a bit of miracle too; but above all others, we remarked one old woman, with whom the saint had to deal more particularly. She seemed very poor, and very devout; for, not being able to kneel, from her lameness, she sat before the shrine telling her beads, and praying as hard as she could; while a young priest stood beside her to keep off the profane vulgar, being probably of opinion, with the copy-line, that, "evil communications corrupt good manners." However, we remarked that her dress was that of a remote canton, and we learned from the people round that she was a stranger, come from a great way to see what St. Anne would do for her. "A prophet is no prophet, in his own country," says the old proverb, and I rather think that saints take care not to practise their miracles upon their next-door neighbours. However the mass commenced, and at the appointed place the old lady began to cry out. The priests swung their censers at her head, as if they would have broke it; and before the mass was over, the miracle was completed, and the lame woman firmly re-established on her legs.
We spent a very pleasant day at Corsieul, and before we returned, it was dark. In passing by the Chapel of St. Anne, however, we saw all the tents and booths, illuminated; cider and eau de vie handing out in abundance; and, in short, a complete fair, in honour of the miracle and the saint. Hearing the dulcet notes of a cracked fiddle in one of the tents, we dismounted and went in, when, to our surprise, we beheld the miraculous old lady dancing away as hard as she could, and doing dos-à-dos with a bumkin of Corsieul. Now let those deny miracles that like--I saw this myself. I do not mean to say I saw that the woman was lame, but I will swear that she danced.
Our next evening's contributions were of a more serious character, and the two first came from the pen of my excellent friend Colonel W----, whose long residence in India, though it had injured his health, and whitened the hair upon his brow, had not taken away one fine feeling or impaired one high principle.