THE BRETONS AT HOME.
By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S., Author of "In Sunny Climes," "Letters from Majorca," etc. etc.
We were very sorry to leave Morlaix. The old town had gained upon our affections. We had found the Hôtel d'Europe very comfortable, and Mr. and Mrs. Hellard kind and attentive beyond praise. The indiscretions of that fatal night were more than effaced and forgotten. Morlaix, at the time of the Fair, was a Pandemonium: at the Regatta, if not exactly Paradise, it was at least very lively and amusing; whilst, when neither Fair nor Regatta was in question, Morlaix was full of the charm of repose; a sleepy atmosphere that accorded well with its old-world outlines.
Fishwomen, Brittany.
Not least was our regret at saying good-bye to Catherine. She was an original character, who had much amused and entertained us. There was a vein of humour in her composition which the slightest touch brought to the surface. The solemnity of her features never relaxed, and whilst she made others laugh, and laugh again, her own face would invariably be grave as a judge's. It was also a pleasure—in these days of incapacity—to meet with a woman who managed the affairs of her little world with all the discretion of a Prime Minister.
"Ces messieurs are going to Quimper," she exclaimed that last morning. We were alone in the dining-room, taking an early breakfast. Our small side-table faced the end window, and we looked upon the old square, and the canal, where a long row of women were already washing, beating, rinsing their linen, their white caps conspicuous, their voices raised in laughter that rippled down the troubled waters. It was a lively scene; very picturesque; very suited to the old town.
"Ces messieurs are going to Quimper," said Catherine, speaking the name in the very italics of scorn. "They would do much better to remain in Morlaix, where at least there is a good hotel, and a Catherine who is ready to serve them night and day. But human nature is curious and must see everything. One house is like another; one street like another; the sea coast is the same everywhere; the same water, the same air, the same sky; but just because one shore is a bay and the other a point, because one coast is flat and the other has cliffs, mankind must rush about and call it seeing the world."
"Would you have us stay here for ever?" we asked, amused at Catherine's idea of life and travel.
"Well, no," she acknowledged; "I suppose not. It would hardly do. Morlaix, after all, is not exciting. Only I am sorry you are going, and it makes me unjust to the rest of the world," she acknowledged. "We shall have a quiet time all this week, and I could have served you better than I did last. But I don't like Quimper. There is not a decent hotel in the place, and I wouldn't live there for a hundred francs a week. I cannot breathe there; I grow limp. It has a dreadful river right in front of the hotels—you will have benefit. I have heard that there are seventy-two separate smells in Cologne—in Quimper the seventy-two are concentrated into one."
This was not encouraging; but we knew that as Catherine's strong nature saw things in extremes, so her opinions had to be taken cum grano salis. In spite of what she said, we departed with much hope and expectation.
Everyone assisted in seeing us off the premises. They declared it to be a melancholy pleasure, a statement hard to reconcile with their beaming faces. Catherine alone was grave and immovable as the Man with the Iron Mask. Yet she actually presented us—this downright, determined, apparently unromantic woman—with buttonholes of small white roses tied up with white ribbon: ribbon that in our grandmothers' days, I believe, was called love ribbon.
"We shall look quite bridal," we said, as she placed them in the destined receptacle next our hearts. "Catherine, why have you never married?"
Catherine laughed. "Thereby hangs a tale," she replied, actually blushing. "It has not been for want of offers, you may be sure; I might have married twenty times over had I so wished." And so we gathered that Catherine, too, had had her little romance. Perhaps it had helped to form her character, and develop her capacities. "And now, be sure that some day you come back to Morlaix," she added, as she finally accomplished her delicate task to her satisfaction.
"Shall we find you here?" we asked. "You may have married and gone away."
"To toil and slave like Madame Mirmiton!" cried Catherine. "I would not marry if it was the President of the Republic, or even the Marquis de Carabas. Besides, who would have me at my age? No? no! I know when I am well off. Men, do you see, are not angels; they are much nearer allied to the opposite, sauf votre respect! Of course, gentlemen, I admit, are angels—sometimes. But then, no gentleman would have me. No; I am a fixture, here, every bit as much as the doors and the windows. Monsieur and Madame and the hotel would go to ruin without me."
And, although Monsieur and Madame assisted at this conference, Catherine's statement went uncontradicted. She was certainly their right hand, and added no little to the popularity of the establishment.
Finally we were off. The omnibus took our traps, whilst we walked up Jacob's Ladder. We let our gaze linger and rest upon all the old familiar points; the quaint gables, the dormer windows in the red, red roofs; the latticed panes, behind which life must seem less sad and sorrowful than it really is; the antiquarian and his old curiosities. He knew we were leaving, and was on the look-out for us. The pale, spiritual face stood out conspicuously amidst its surroundings: the spiritual strangely contrasting with the material. The eyes looked into ours with their sad, dreamy, far-away gaze, so full of the pain and suffering of life. Behind him stood his Adonis of a son, the flush of genius making the countenance yet more beautiful. Perched on his shoulder was the cherub. He held out his arms as soon as he saw us, and seemed quite ready to go forth with us and, as Catherine would have said, see the world. Some of the old Louis Quatorze furniture had been transferred from the seclusion of the monastery to the glitter of the outer world, and here found a temporary repose.
"You are leaving," said the old antiquarian sadly—but his tones were always sad. "I am sorry. I am always sorry when anyone leaves who possesses the true artistic temperament. The town feels more deserted. There are so many things around us that appeal only to the few. But you have made quite a long stay amongst us; people generally come one day and depart the next. And now you are bound for Quimper?"
"Yes. What shall we find there?"
"Much that is interesting; the loveliest church in Brittany; many quaint and curious houses and perspectives; some things that are better than Morlaix, but nothing better than our Grande Rue. Brittany has nothing better than that in its way; nothing so good. Du reste, comparisons should never be made. But you will find few antiquities in Quimper—and no old antiquarian," he added with a quiet smile.
"I am under the impression," said H.C., a sensitive flush mantling to his poetical and expressive eyes, "that some of these good people are mistaking us for dealers in curiosities, and fancy that this is our object in travelling."
"What would your aunt, Lady Maria, say to her nephew's being so degraded?" we asked.
"She would diminish her supply of crystallised violets," he returned. "You know she lives by weight—Apothecaries' Weight—and measures everything she takes. She would put a few grains less into the balance, and incense her rooms."
All the same, I thought him mistaken, and asked the old antiquarian the plain question. He smiled; the nearest approach we ever saw him give to a laugh.
"No, sirs," he replied; "I have not so far erred. We do not make those mistakes. Besides, you have too much love and veneration for the beautiful. Indeed we know with whom we have to deal, and in our little way possess a knowledge of the world."
But time and tide wait for no man. Our hour was up; the omnibus had rumbled past us, and we had to depart. We reluctantly turned away from this interesting group. The rift within the lute was probably busy with household matters above, and no discordant element marred our farewell. But we were sad, for we felt that somehow here was being lost and wasted a great deal of that true talent which is so rare in the world.
The train rolled away from Morlaix. We had a long journey before us; a journey right through the heart of Finistère. The first portion of it as far as Landerneau had already been taken; the remainder was new ground. The trains are slow and lingering in Brittany; this goes without saying, and has already been said; but patience was an easy virtue. In spite of Catherine, new ground must always be interesting.
The guard had put us into a compartment at Morlaix containing two people; a young bride and bridegroom or an engaged couple; we could not be quite sure at which stage they had arrived. The train was almost in motion and we had no time to change. The gentleman glared at us, and we felt very uncomfortably in the way. At the next station we left and went into the next compartment, which contained nothing but a priest reading his breviary; a dignified ecclesiastic; proving once more that there is only one step from the ridiculous to the sublime. We carefully removed all our small traps, including H.C.'s numerous antique parcels. But he forgot his umbrella, which he had placed up in the rack. A dreadful umbrella, which had been a martyrdom to me ever since we had left England. An umbrella that was only fit for a poet or a Mrs. Gamp; huge, bulky, tied round like a lettuce, with half a yard of stick above the material, and a crane's head for a handle with a perpetual grin upon it that was terribly irritating. H.C. called it one of his antiquities, and was proud of it. When he had first bought it he had offered it to his aunt, Lady Maria, for a carriage sunshade, who straightway went off into one of her fainting fits, and very nearly disinherited him. At Quimper I could stand it no longer, and when his back was turned, I quietly put it up the chimney. There it no doubt still remains, unless it has suffered martyrdom in the flames, in return for the martyrdom it had inflicted upon others. But I am dating forward.
This horrible apparition he left in the rack of the first compartment. I saw the omission, and was delighted to think that we had at last got rid of the encumbrance. Had I only remembered the tale of the Eastern Slippers I might have taken warning. The train went off; he took a sketch of the priest, and then hastily looked round.
"My umbrella!" he exclaimed in an agony. "Where is it? You have not thrown it out of window?"
My will had been good to do it many a time, as the familiar saying runs; but he carried a stick as well as an umbrella, and he was five times as strong as I.
"You may have left it at Morlaix," I suggested. "Now I come to think of it—"
"The next compartment," he interrupted. "I distinctly remember putting it up in the rack, and thinking how quaint and pretty the crane's head looked as it gaped through the netting."
It is always so. The fateful crossness of events pursues us through the world. The only time when he should have been absent-minded and oblivious, his memory served him well. At the next station he got out for his umbrella, and returned after quite a long interval, not looking exactly triumphant; rather flushed and uncomfortable; but in proud possession of the horror.
"I had quite a difficulty in getting it back," he said. "They had actually put it up and were sitting under its shade. He complained of the glare of the sunshine. You see, although these are first-class compartments, there are no blinds to the windows. So very public."
"But the morning is grey," I observed. "There is no sunshine."
H.C. looked out; he had not observed the absence of sunlight.
"Oh, well," he returned, doubtfully, "perhaps it was the draught they complained of. You know I am rather dull at French, and have to make a shot at a good deal that's said. Any way," he added, with a frank look of innocence, "I am sure they are only an engaged couple, not married. Married people wouldn't sit in a railway carriage under one umbrella. She's very pretty—I wonder whether she's very fond of him? It looks like it. One compartment—one umbrella. It was my umbrella—then I ought to have had his place," he added dreamily, as if in some way or other he felt that something was wrong and the world was a little out of joint.
The priest looked up from his breviary. I should have thought he understood English, only that his expression was rather comical than reproving. I changed the subject and asked him a question. He immediately closed his book and disposed himself for conversation We found him an extremely intellectual and entertaining companion He intimately knew both Brittany and the Breton character.
"I am not a Breton," he said in reply to a remark, "but I have lived amongst them for thirty years. My early days were passed in Paris, and to live in Paris up to the age of twenty-one is alone an education. My father was X——, the great minister of his time. My grandfather went through all the horrors of the French Revolution. He saw the beautiful head of Marie Antoinette roll into the sawdust; heard the last footfall of Charlotte Corday as she ascended the scaffold. He always said that she was one of our most heroic martyrs, and as she walked patiently and full of courage to her doom, the expression of a saint upon her features. She was a saint, more worthy of canonisation than some who are found in the calendar. He was a young man in those days, but its horrors turned his hair white. Later on he was of great assistance to Napoleon, although we have always been Royalists. But he held that it was well to sacrifice private opinion for the good of one's country. It is of no use fighting against the stream. Life is short, the present only is ours; therefore why waste the present in vainly wishing for what is not?"
"And you have chosen neither sword nor portfolio?" we observed.
"'The lot is cast into the lap,'" he quoted. "I was to have been a soldier, but just at that moment my sight failed. I was threatened with blindness. Fortunately it passed off with time, and I now see better than I did at twenty. But my career as a soldier was ended. I had no taste for politics—the world is not sufficiently honest. It seems to me a constant struggling for party and power rather than an earnest union of hearts and minds to do one's very best for King and country, avienne que pourra. And as extremes meet in human nature just as they sometimes meet in the physical world, so I, throwing aside the sword, took to the cowl. Yes; I withdrew from the world; I entered a monastery; the severe order of the Trappists. But I made a mistake—I did not know myself. A life of seclusion, of inactivity, could never be mine. I should have become demoralised. Half the men who enter monasteries make the same mistake, but they have not the courage to withdraw. I went back into the world before my novitiate was six months over. Not to forsake religion, but to enter the Church."
"We have heard of you as a great preacher," we remarked.
"I believe that it is my vocation," he returned with a smile which quite illumined his face. "Heaven has bestowed upon me the gift of sympathy; I have influence with my fellow mortals—Heaven grant that I use it well. I first touch their hearts, then I have gained their minds. This is especially necessary with the good Breton folk. They are fervently religious, but not intellectual. They are sterling, but narrow-minded and superstitious. Nor did I choose my sphere of action; it was placed before me and I accepted it. I would rather have preached to Parisian congregations, the refined and cultivated of the earth; but I should probably not have done more good—if I have done good at all—and it might have been a snare to me. I might have grown worldly; intellectually proud; too fond of the good things of this life at the tables of the rich and great. All that is not possible in Brittany. With us, more or less, it is Lent all the year round, intellectually as well as physically. We need very few indulgences from his Holiness."
There was something extremely winning about him. It must have been the charm of character, for he had long passed the charm of youth. His hair, worn long, was white as snow; he must have been verging upon sixty. His face was pale and very pure in expression; his eyes were large, dark, and singularly soft and luminous, without a trace of age about them, or of their early weakness. He was tall and powerfully made, and a tendency to embonpoint only added to his dignity and importance. He had a fund of quiet humour about him also, which made him an excellent companion.
"We should much like to hear you preach," we said. "Is there no chance of our doing so?"
"I am bound for Quimper," he returned; "so are you. Next Sunday I shall preach in the cathedral, and if you are still there your wish may easily be gratified."
"We are Protestant," I remarked. "You will look upon us as a heretic."
"Indeed, no," he returned quickly. "I am not so narrow-minded as some of my cloth. One is of Paul, another of Cephas. I would not even try to convert you, though I am aware that my Church demands it. But to a certain extent man must be a free agent and judge for himself. I do not hold with my Church in all things. We are all bound for the same goal, just as two rivers flowing from opposite directions may empty themselves into one sea. All roads lead to Rome—it would be sad if only one road led to Heaven."
Thus the hours passed swiftly and pleasantly. The country on either side was diversified and interesting. Occasionally a river, flowing to the sea, reflected the sky and clouds above, giving poetry to the landscape. Now hills and gently sloping undulations, here rocky and barren, there fringed with trees whose graceful curves and branches were traced against the pale background of sky. Again there were long stretches of plain, dreary and monotonous, sad and sombre, like the Breton character.
The peasantry, indeed, are much influenced by their climate, by the sad aspect of the long reaches of field and plain that so often meet their gaze, unbroken perhaps by any other object than a cross or calvary erected under religious influence in days gone by. And these very crosses, beautiful in themselves, have a saddening tendency, reminding them constantly of the fact that here they have "no continuing city." These wide reaches, artistically, are full of tone and beauty, but here again they are at fault. They know nothing of "tone," of "greys and greens;" they only know that the general influence is melancholy; that the sun shines too seldom in their skies, and that those skies too often weep. They cannot argue and analyse; cannot tell why the tendency of their nature, individually and collectively, is grave and sombre; reasoning is beyond them, and if they think of it at all, they arrive at the truth by instinct. For instinct takes the place of reason, and gradually dies out as the higher powers of the intellect are developed.
They stood out here and there in the fields, few and far between, very picturesque objects; something sad and patient in their very attitudes. But it was not the time for ploughing and seed-sowing, when they are seen to greatest advantage; for what is more picturesque than a peasant following a plough drawn by the patient oxen, who are never, like so many of the men and women of the world, "unequally yoked together." Here and there a woman would be kneeling in the fields, her favourite attitude when minding cattle; kneeling and knitting; there they stay from sunrise to sunset, their mind a blank; vegetating; expecting nothing better from life; untroubled by the mysterious problems that disturb and perplex so many of us; in very many ways so much to be envied; escaping the heritage of those more richly endowed: the mental and spiritual pain and oppression of existence.
The day passed on and we approached Quimper. We thought of Catherine and wondered what we should find awaiting us. Much, according to her, that would be better avoided. But as we drew near to the ancient town and saw, rising heavenwards, the beautiful spires of her cathedral, standing out in the romantic gloaming as an architectural dream against the background of sky, we felt that here would be our reward, come what else might. The train steamed into the station; our day's journey was over. We must now part from our pleasant travelling companion.
"I hope not, for ever," he said, as he bared his head on the platform, according to the polite custom of his country. "We have some things in common; we see much from the same point of view; accident made me a Frenchman and a priest, and I would not have it otherwise; but I think that I could also have been very happy as an Englishman and a member of your Church. Here I think that we meet half-way; for if I find myself so much in touch with an Englishman, you seem to me in still closer union with the French nature."
Then he gave us his card and asked us if we would go and see him.
"Do not be afraid," he laughed; "I will not try to convert you—pervert, you would call it. I think we are both too broad-minded to meddle with things that do not concern us. Here, I am the guest of the Bishop, but he is absent, and will only return the day before my departure. It is a pity, for he would charm you by many delightful qualities, though he may not be quite so tolerant as I."
We parted with an understanding that it was to meet again, and went our different ways. We consigned our traps to the omnibus, H.C. for once trusting his precious treasures out of sight, but retaining his umbrella with all the determination of an inquisitor inflicting torture upon a fellow mortal. A short avenue brought us to the river, which flowed through the town, and, not without reason, had been condemned by Catherine. We crossed the bridge and went down the quay. It was lined with trees, and in fine weather is rather a pleasant walk. The chief hotels of the town are centred here, and some of the principal shops and cafés. It is fairly bustling and lively, but not romantic.
We had been recommended to the Hôtel de l'Epée as the best in Quimper, and soon found ourselves entering its wide portals; a huge porte-cochère that swallowed up at a single mouthful the omnibus and the piled-up luggage that had quickly followed us from the station.
Ostlers and landlord immediately came forward with ladders and other attentions, and we were soon domiciled.
It was a rambling old inn, with winding staircases, dark and dirty, and guiltless of carpet. The walls might have been painted at the beginning of the century, but hardly since. "In fact," said H.C., "they look quite mediæval." There were passages long and gloomy, in which we lost ourselves. Ancient windows let in any amount of draught and rain, and would have been the despair of old maids. But we were given a large room, the very essence of neatness, and beds adorned with spotless linen. A chambermaid waited upon us, dressed in a Breton cap that was wonderfully picturesque, and made us feel more in Brittany than ever. She had long passed her youth, but possessed a frank and expressive face, and was superior to most of the hotel servants. In early life she had lived with a noble family, and had travelled with them for many years. She had seen something of the world.
Our windows looked on to the back of the hotel, in comparison with which the front was tame and commonplace. Below us we saw an accumulation of gables and angles; a perfect sea of wonderful red roofs, with all the beauty and colouring of age. Some of them possessed dormer windows, that just now reflected the afterglow of sunset; small dormer windows high up in the slanting roofs that perhaps had reflected the changes of light and shade, and day and night, for centuries. Here and there we traced picturesque courtyards and gardens that were small oases of green in this wilderness of red-roofed buildings. On the one side flowed the second river of Quimper, on the other, like a celestial vision, rose the wonderful cathedral. A dream, a vision of Paradise, it did indeed look in this fast falling twilight. The towers, crowned by their graceful spires, rose majestically above this sea of houses. Beyond, one traced the outlines of pinnacle and flying buttress, slanting roof and beautiful windows.
We were just in time for table d'hôte, and groped our way down the dark, winding stairs. The way to the dining-room lay through the bureau, where Madame sat in state at her desk, entertaining a select party of friends, who had evidently called in upon her for a little scandal and conversation. She was a tall, majestic woman, with a loud voice, and apparently a long life before her; but at a second visit we paid Quimper not long after, she, too, had passed into the regions that lie "beyond the veil."
The dining-room was long and large and crowded. Most of the people at table were evidently commercial travellers, and more or less habitués of the place. All the women who served wore those wonderful Brittany caps, and quite redeemed the room from its common-place elements.
The shades of night had quite fallen upon the old town when we went out to reconnoitre. It would only be possible to gain a faint and scarcely true impression of what the town was like. At night, new things often look old, and old new, outlines are magnified, and general effects are altogether lost. The river ran down the quay like a dark and sluggish thread; there was no poetry or romance about it. The banks were built up with granite, which made it look more like a canal than a river. To be at all picturesque it wanted the addition of boats and barges, of which just now it was free and void. The trees whispered in the night breeze. On the opposite bank, covering a large space, a fair was holding its revelry; a small pandemonium; shows were lighted up with flaring gas, and houris in spangles danced and threw out their fascinations. Big drums and trumpets made night hideous. The high cliffs beyond served as a sort of sounding-board, so that nothing was lost.
We turned away and soon found ourselves in the cathedral square. Before us rose the great building in all its majesty, distinctly outlined against the dark sky. In Brittany, one rather hungers for these fine ecclesiastical monuments, Normandy is so full of them that we miss them here. Brittany has the advantage in its old towns, but the mind sometimes asks for something higher and more perfect than mere street architecture.
Brittany Peasant.
Therefore, even to-night, in the darkness, we revelled and gloried in the magnificent cathedral that stood before us in such grand proportions. The spires seemed to touch the skies. The west front was in deep shadow. We traced the outlines of flying buttresses, of heavier buttresses between the windows, of the beautiful apse. The windows, faintly lighted up, added wonderfully to the effect. Surely the church was not closed? We tried the west door, it yielded, and we entered.
The interior was in semi-darkness; a gloom that almost inspired awe; a silence and repose which forbade the faintest echo of our footsteps. Pillars and aisles and arches could be barely outlined. Everything seemed dim and intangible; we felt that we were going through a vision, there was so little that was real or earthly about it; so much that was beautiful, mysterious, full of repose and saintly influence. The far east end was lost in obscurity, and we could barely trace the outlines of the splendid roof. Far down, near a confessional, knelt a small group of hooded women, motionless as carven images. Their heads were bowed, their whole attitude betrayed the penitential mood. There might have been eight or ten at most, and they never stirred. But every now and then a fair penitent issued from the confessional box; and, cloaked and hooded, glided back to the seat she had lately occupied, and resumed the penitential attitude. The ceremony was drawing near its end when we entered, and when all was over they rose in a group and, noiselessly as phantoms, like spirits from the land of shadows, passed down the long aisle and disappeared into the night.
It was a strange hour for confession, and there must have been some special reason for it. They were strangely dressed, too, in their silken cloaks and hoods, as if they belonged to some religious order, or some charitable institution. We wondered much.
When the west doorway had closed behind them, and not before, the priest left his box, and we started as we recognised our fellow traveller. How came it that he was confessing so soon after his arrival, or confessing at all, in a church to which, as far as we knew, he was not attached? His tall and portly form looked magnificent and commanding as he stepped forth into the shadowy aisle, and, preceded by a verger, or suisse, bearing a lighted flambeau and a staff of office, was soon lost in the sacristy.
We lost ourselves in dreams. It is wonderfully refreshing to fall out of the influence of the crowded and commonplace world into these silent resting-places, which whisper so much of Heaven, and seem to breathe out a full measure of the spiritual life. They seem steeped in a religious, a celestial atmosphere; just as, on the Sabbath, in quiet country places, far from crowded haunts, surrounded only by the beauties of nature, there seems a special peace and repose in earth and sky, and people say to each other, "One feels that it is Sunday."
But we were very nearly in danger of prolonging our dreams until the night shadows passed away, and the day-dawn broke and lighted up that far-off east window. H.C. was a very broken reed to trust to on such occasions. He was not only wrapped in visions—his spirit seemed altogether to have taken flight. I was rudely brought back to earthly scenes and necessities by hearing the key hastily turned in the west door by which we had entered, and the verger commencing to retrace his steps, preparatory to putting out the lights and departing himself through the sacristy.
We hurried up to him, having no mind to pass the night in silent contemplation, with the pavement for couch and a stone for pillow. The influence we had just experienced must have given us "pallid sorrowful faces," for the verger almost dropped his torch, and his keys fell to the ground and awoke mysterious echoes in the distant arches.
It was a weird, wonderfully expressive scene. The torch threw lights and shadows upon aisle and arch, which flickered and danced like so many ghosts at play, until our nerves felt overwrought and our flesh creeped. In our present mood it all seemed too strange, too mysterious for earth. We felt as if we had joined the land of shadows in very truth. But the verger's voice awoke us to realities: a very earthly voice, unmusical and pronounced, not at all in harmony with the moment. It grated upon us; nevertheless, under the circumstances, it was good hearing.
"Sirs, you are very imprudent," he cried. "You might have been locked up for the night, and I promise you that it is neither warm nor lively in this great building at three o'clock in the morning. You also alarmed me, for I took you for ghosts. I have seen them and believe in them, and I ought to know. When I die I am persuaded that I, too, shall visit these haunts, whose pavement I have trod with staff and torch for fifty years. I took you for ghosts, look you, for you seem harmless and peaceable, incapable of visiting these sacred aisles for sacrilegious purposes."
We felt flattered. The countenance is undoubtedly the index to the inner man, though it is not given to everyone to read the riddle. It was consoling to hear that we did not exactly look like midnight assassins.
"I have never come across anyone like this before," continued the verger. "I was not in the least prepared for you. What could have induced you to come in and contemplate all this darkness, and risk being locked up for the night? If I had been at the other end when I discovered you, I should have fled, quite sure that you were ghosts. I tell you that I have seen ghosts, but I do not care to converse with them; they rather frighten me."
"Those fair penitents," murmured H.C. "They looked very graceful and picturesque; therefore they ought to be very pretty. Could I go and see them, and make a sketch of them? Do you think they would admit me? Are they nuns?"
"They are not nuns, or they would not be here," returned the old verger. "But they do a great deal of good. For my part I should say their confession was superfluous. They can have no sins. I never go to confession. What could I say? My life is always the same. I get up in the morning, open the church; lock it up at night, go to bed. I eat my meals in peace, do harm to no one, am in charity with all men. There is my life from January to December. What have I to confess?"
"You are an extremely interesting character, but not so interesting as the fair penitents," said H.C., bringing him back to the point from which he had wandered. "Who are they, and can I go and call upon them?"
"I don't believe they would admit you if you took them an order from the Pope," returned the old verger emphatically. "Without being nuns, they have taken a vow of celibacy, and live in partial retirement. No man is ever admitted within their portals, excepting their Father Confessor, and he is old and ugly; in fact, the very image of a baboon. A very good and pious man, all the same, is his reverence, and very learned. These ladies teach the children of the poor; they nurse the sick; they have a small orphanage; and they are full of good works."
"Why were they here to-night?"
"Whenever that very holy man, the Reverend Father, visits Quimper, they always make it a point of going to confess to him the very first night of his arrival. The good Mother of the establishment, as she is called, is his cousin. I am told that she is Madame la Comtesse, by right, but renounced the world for the sake of doing good. The Reverend Father arrived only this evening by train. He went straight to the palace, took a bouillon, and immediately came on here. He is a great man. You should come on Sunday and hear him preach. There have been times when I have seen the women sob, and the men bow their heads. But it grows late, sirs. It is not worth while opening that west door again. If you will follow me, I will let you out by the sacristy. We will lock up together, and leave this great building to darkness and the ghosts."
And ghosts indeed there seemed to be as we followed him up the aisle. He put out the few lights that remained, until his torch alone guided our footsteps, which sounded in the immense space, and disturbed the mysterious silence by yet more mysterious echoes. Lights and shadows cast by the torch flitted about like wings. The choir gates were closed, and within them all was darkness and solemnity. Finally we entered the sacristy, where again the surplices hanging up in rows looked strange and suggestive. The old verger opened the door, extinguished his torch, and we stood once more in the outside night, under the stars and the sky.
"How often we come in for these experiences," said H.C. "How delightful they are; full of a sacred beauty and solemnity. How few ever attempt to enter a cathedral at night, and how much they lose. And yet," he mused, "perhaps not so much as we imagine. If their souls responded to such influences, they would seek them out. The needle is attracted to the pole; like seeks like—and finds it. You cannot draw sweet water from a bitter well."
The town was in darkness. The shops were now all closed, but lights gleamed from many windows. The beautiful latticed panes we had found in Morlaix were here very few and far between. Here and there we came upon gabled outlines, but much that we saw seemed modern and unpicturesque; very tame and commonplace after our late experience in the cathedral. The streets were silent and deserted; all doors were closed; the people of Quimper, like those of Morlaix, evidently carried out the good old rule of retiring early. Occasionally we came upon a group of buildings, or a solitary house standing out conspicuously amidst its fellows, which promised well for the morrow, and made us "wish for the morning."
When we found our way back to the quay, all was in darkness. The fair had put out its lights, closed its doors, and dismissed the assembly. Where the people had gone to, we knew not; we had seen none of them. A few cafés were still open, and their lights fell across the pavement and athwart the roads, and gleamed upon the rustling trees. We turned in to the hotel, where all was quiet. The night was yet young, but the staircases were in darkness and we had to grope our way. Decidedly it was the most uncivilized place we had yet come to, and Catherine was not very far wrong in her judgment.
A Brittany Servant.
The next morning we awoke to grey skies. "It always rains at Quimper," said Catherine, and she was only quoting a proverb. There was something close and oppressive and depressing about the town. The air was enervating. The hotels were unfavourably placed. The quays were commonplace—for Brittany. There was nothing romantic or beautiful about the river, which, I have said, resembled a canal. Its waters were black and sluggish, confined, as they probably were, by locks. In front rose high cliffs which shut out the sky and the horizon and heaven's glorious oxygen. We many of us know what it is to dwell for some time under the shadow of a great mountain. Gradually it seems to oppress us and crush down upon us until we feel that we must get away from it or die of suffocation. Here there was a heaviness in the air which taxed all our mental resources, our reserve of energy, our amiability to the utmost.
The cathedral by daylight should be our first care, and we found it worthy of all the effect it had produced upon us last night. All its mystery and magic had gone, but all the beauty and perfection of architecture remained. Certainly we had seen nothing like it in Brittany.
It is dedicated to St. Corentin, a holy man who is supposed to have come over from Cornwall in the very early ages of the Christian era. Quimper was then the capital of the Cornouaille, a corruption, as we can easily trace, of the word Cornwall. The cathedral, commenced about the year 1239, was only completed in 1515. The spires are modern, but of such excellent workmanship and design that they in no way interfere with the general effect. The harmony of the whole is indeed remarkable when it is considered that it was nearly three centuries in process of construction. The west front is very fine and stately, with deep portals magnificently sculptured. It was commenced in 1424, and is surmounted by two flamboyant windows, one above the other. Within the contour of the arch is a triple row of angels, sculptured with a great deal of artistic finish. Time, however, whilst beautifying it, has robbed it of some of its fineness.
The towers were also commenced in 1424, and the great bell of the clock which they contain dates from 1312. The north and south doorways are both fine. The latter is dedicated to St. Catherine, and a figure of the saint adorns a niche in the left buttress. Both portals possess scrolls bearing inscriptions or mottoes, such as, A ma Vie, one of the mottoes of the House of Brittany. In the pediment of the west doorway is the finest heraldic sculpturing that the Middle Ages of Brittany produced. In the centre, the lion of Montfort holds the banner of Brittany, on which may be read the motto of Duke John V.: Malo au riche duc. In the corner to the left are the arms of Bishop Bertrand de Rosmadec, stamped with the mitre and crozier, and the motto, En bon Espoir. Many other mottoes, such as Perac (Wherefore?); A l'aventure; Léal à ma foy; En Dieu m'attens, belonging to different lords of Brittany, will also be found here.
The effect of the interior is extremely grand and imposing. It is of great height, whilst the side chapels and outer aisles give it an appearance of more breadth than it deserves. The apse is polygonal. The principal nave, with its large arches, its curved triforium, and its flamboyant windows, bears the mark of the fifteenth century. The choir is thirteenth century, and possesses a triforium with a double gallery, surrounded by gothic arches supported by small columns, of which the capitals are extremely elegant.
The church has a peculiarity which is not often found, at any rate in so pronounced a manner. The chancel is not in a line with the nave, but inclines to the left, or north. Thus, in standing at the west end, only a portion of the apse can be seen. The effect is singular, and, at the first moment, seems to offend. But after a time the peculiarity becomes decidedly effective. The stiffness of the straight line, of the sides running exactly parallel one with the other, is lost. One grows almost to like the break in the uniformity of design. It appeals to the imagination. Certain other cathedrals incline in the same way, but in a more modified form. The architects' reasons for thus inclining the choir are lost in obscurity. By some it has been supposed that their motive was purely effect; by others that it was in imitation or commemoration of our Lord, Who, when hanging upon the cross, inclined His Head to the left.
Many of the windows are old, and add greatly to the fine effect of the interior. Those in the nave date from the end of the fifteenth century. Some of those in the choir—unfortunately the most conspicuous—are modern; but a few are ancient. The whole interior has suffered in tone by restoration and scraping.
The high-altar is richly decorated with enamels and precious stones. The tabernacle—in the centre of which is a figure of the Saviour in the act of blessing—is flanked by twelve arcades, containing the figures of the Apostles in relief, holding the instrument of their martyrdom. It is crowned by a cross with double rows, or branches, at the foot of which are the evangelists with their symbolical animals. The lower arms of the cross bear the figures of the Virgin and St. John weeping at the feet of the crucified Redeemer.
Amongst the treasures of the cathedral are preserved three drops of blood, of which the following is the legend:—
A pilgrim of Quimper, on starting for the Holy Land, had confided a sum of money to a friend. On returning, he claimed the money, but the friend denied having received it, offering to take an oath to that effect before the crucifix in the church of St. Corentin. At the moment of raising his hand to take the oath, he gave a stick that he carried to his friend to hold. The stick was hollow and contained the gold. As soon as he had taken the oath, the stick miraculously broke in two, and the money rolled on to the pavement. At the same moment the feet of the crucifix, held together by a single nail, separated, and three drops of blood fell on to the altar. These drops were carefully absorbed by some linen, which is preserved amongst the treasures of the church. The miracle is reproduced in a painted window of one of the chapels.
Last night we had seen the interior in the gloom and mystery of darkness; this morning we saw it by the dim religious light of day. It was difficult to say which view was the more impressive. The results were very different. We now gazed upon all its beauty of detail, all the harmony of perfect architecture. The coloured rays coming in through the ancient stained windows added their glamour and refinement to the scene; to those that were more modern we tried to shut our eyes. The lofty pillars of the nave, separating the aisles, rose majestically, fitting supports for the beautiful gothic arches above them, in their turn surmounted by the triforium; in their turn again crowned by the ancient windows. Above all, at a great height, came the arched roof. Thus the eye was carried up from beauty to beauty until it seemed lost in dreamland. Wandering aside, it fell upon the aisles and side chapels, visions of beauty interrupted only by the wonderful columns, with their fine bases and rich capitals. The east window seemed very far off, a portion of it lost in the curve to the left, together with the beautiful gothic arches and double triforium of that side of the choir.
We sat and gazed upon all, and lost ourselves in the spell of the vision; and presently our old friend the verger found us out.
"But you live in the cathedral!" he exclaimed.
"No," we replied; "we should only like to do so. We envy you, whose days are chiefly passed here."
"I don't know," he returned, with the resigned air of a martyr. "If you had trodden this pavement for fifty years as I have, I think you would like to change the scene. And I have not the chance of doing it even in the next state, for you know I have a conviction that I shall come back here as a ghost. I thought you were ghosts last night, and a fine fright you gave me. I don't know why ghosts should frighten one, but they do. I don't like to feel that when I get into the next state, and come back to earth as a ghost, I shall frighten people. It would be better not to come back at all."
"What are they like, those that you have seen?" we asked, out of curiosity.
He closed his eyes, as if invoking a vision, put on a very solemn expression, and then opened them with a wide stare into vacancy. We quite started and looked behind us to see if any were visible.
"No, they are not there," he said. "They only come at night. How can I describe them? How can you describe a shadow? They are all shadows, and they seem everywhere at once. I never hear them, but I can see them and feel them. I mean that I feel them morally—their influence: of course you cannot handle a ghost. The air grows cold, and an icy wind touches my face as they pass to and fro."
"Then if the wind is icy they cannot come from purgatory?" suggested H.C. very innocently.
The old verger seemed a little doubtful; the idea had not occurred to him. "I don't know about that," he said. "I have heard that the extremes of heat and cold have the same effect upon one. So perhaps what feels like ice to me is really the opposite. But my idea is that the ghosts who appear on earth are exempt from purgatory: to visit the scenes of their former haunts under different conditions must be sufficient punishment for their worst sins."
So that our verger was also a philosopher.
"Have you never spoken to one, and made some inquiry about the next world?" we asked. "Have they never given you some idea of what it is all like?"
"Never," he replied. "I am much too frightened. Just as frightened now as I was when I first saw them fifty years ago. Nor would they reply. How can they? How can shadows talk? I only once took courage to speak," he added, as if by an after recollection. "I thought it was the ghost of a woman who promised to marry me, and then jilted me for a journeyman cabinet-maker. He treated her badly and she died at the end of two years. Somehow I felt as if it was her spirit hovering about me, and I took courage and spoke."
"Well?"
"I received no answer; only a long, long sigh, which seemed to float all through the building and pass away out of the windows. But it was a windy night, and it may have been only that. For if shadows can't talk, I don't see how they can sigh."
The old verger evidently had faith in his ghosts. The fancy had gained upon him and strengthened with time into part of himself; as inseparable from the cathedral as its aisles and arches.
"Have you never tried the experiment of passing a night in these old walls?" we asked.
"Once; thirty years ago."
"And the result?"
He turned pale. "I can never speak of that night. What I saw then will never be known. I cannot think of it without emotion—even after thirty years. Ah, well! my time is growing short. I shall soon know the great secret. When we are young and going up-hill, we think ourselves immortal, for we cannot see the bottom of the other side, where lies the grave. But I have been going down-hill a long time; I am very near the end of the journey, and see the grave very distinctly."
"Yet you seem very happy and cheerful," said H.C.
"Why not?" returned the old verger. "Old age should not be miserable, but the contrary. The inevitable cannot be painful and was never intended to be anything but a source of consolation; I have heard the Reverend Father say so more than once. Shall you come and hear him preach next Sunday? The whole place will be thronged. He spoke to me about you this morning—it must be you—I have just been to the Evéché for his commands—and said that in case you came I was to reserve two places for you inside the choir gates—quite the place of honour, sirs. You will see and hear well; and when preaching, it is almost as good to watch him as to listen. Ah! I have been here fifty years, but I never saw his equal."
"And the Bishop?"
"I never make comparisons; they must always be to the disadvantage of one or the other," replied this singular old man. "And now I must away to my duties."
"One word more," said H.C. hastily. "Will those picturesque ladies come again to Confession to-night?"
"To-night!" he returned reproachfully. "Do you think those virtuous creatures pass their lives in sinning—like ordinary beings? No, no. Besides—enough's as good as a feast, and they were well shriven last night. They are now reposing in the odour of sanctity. Au revoir, messieurs. I see your hearts are in the cathedral, and I know that I shall meet you here again before Sunday."
He departed. We watched his stooping figure and his white hair moving slowly up the aisle, so fitting an object for the venerable building itself. He disappeared in the sacristy, and a few moments after we found ourselves without the building, standing in the shadow of the great towers, under the grey skies of Quimper.
