Wild Flowers.
The child, Mercedes, youngest of the three
Whom God has sent me for a mother's crown.
Brought me wild flowers, and with childish glee
Thus prattled on, as at my feet she cast them down:
"See, mamma! here are saucy flowers I found
Hiding behind the hedge, like boys at play.
Just peeping up their heads above the ground.
To watch if any one should chance to pass that way.
"'Aha!' said I, 'whose little flowers be you,
And from whose garden have you run away?
Your leaves are dripping with the morning dew.
Fie, naughty things! What, think you, will the gardener say?
"'Come, let me take you to my mamma's home;
And she will put you in a golden vase,
Where you shall stand and look around the room,
And see your pretty, rosy faces in the glass.'
"I took them softly up, and here they are.
And now, my mamma, I should like to know
Whose garden they have wandered from so far.
And why they did not stay at their own home to grow?"
I said: "My child, these flowers have never strayed
From any other home. Their place to grow
Is just behind the hedge, down in the glade.
Though no one may their beauty see or sweetness know."
Then she: "Why, mamma dear, how can that be?
What use for them to grow there all alone?
Why look so pretty if there's none to see?
Or why need they smell any sweeter than a stone?"
"No one on earth may see," I then replied—
"No one may know that flowers are blooming there
But God." Mercedes clapped her hands, and cried,
"God's flowers! Oh! keep them, mamma, in your book of prayer."
Methinks the child did choose a fitting place
To put those unnursed blossoms of the field:
Like them, our humble prayers with beauty grace
The heart's rough soil, and unto God their perfume yield.
Translated From The French.
Faith And Poetry Of The Bretons.
The bay of St. Malo is strewn here and there with rocks, upon which forts have been erected to protect the town by their cross fires. One of these, the Grand Bé, was formerly armed with cannon; but the fort is now abandoned, and only recognizable midst its ruins by the cross at the extremity of the beach, resting apparently on the blue sky above. To this cross all eyes are attracted, to this all steps turn, so soon as the breakers leave a shore of sand and granite for a pathway for the travellers.
After having ascended a rough and steep declivity, a naked and desert plateau is attained, where a few sheep find with difficulty a herb to browse upon; then a turn through a defile of rocks, and on the steepest point a stone and cross of granite. This is the tomb of Chateaubriand.
No longer a poetical tomb; leaning against the Old World, it contemplates the New; under it, the immense sea, and the vessels passing at its feet; no flowers, no verdure around it, no other noise than the incessantly moving sea, covering in its tempests this naked stone with the froth of its waves. Here he chose his last resting-place; and we wonder what thought inspired the wish that not even his name should be inscribed upon his tomb. Was it pride, or humility that actuated him? To me it appears that this humility and this pride were from the same source—a perfect disenchantment with the world. This man, who had proved so many projects abortive, so many ambitions misplaced; this traveller who had overrun the universe, visited the East, the cradle of the Old World, and the deserts of America, where was born the New; the poet who could count the cycles of his life by its revolutions, was overwhelmed at the end of it by a sadness that knew no repose. He, whose youth was preluded by Considerations on Revolutions, so comprehended life in his latter years as to write The Biography of the Reformer of La Trappe. The silence and solitude of the cloister were in harmony with the sadness of his soul. Having been charged with the most important missions, having accomplished the highest employments, and set to work the most skilful and powerful men, he retired from the whirling circle of the world, penetrated with the overpowering truth, how little man is worth, how little he knows, and how seldom he succeeds in what he undertakes. The usual source of joy—pride, the intoxication of the world—only provoked in him a smile; for all men he had the same contempt—did not even except himself—and knew well, according to the ancient proverb, that there is very little difference between one man and another. [Footnote 175]
[Footnote 175: Thucydides.]
Through humility, then, he cared not for any inscription on his tomb, not even a name. What mattered it who read it! Men were nothing, and he was one of them! But through pride also, he chose this naked stone. Travellers would come from all parts of the world, they would contemplate it and say, Chateaubriand! His name would be echoed by the waves that came from, and those that parted for, distant shores; and men were obliged to know where he lay.
Thus—ever-recurring instability of the human soul!—in him were united the most contrary sentiments—the disenchantment of glory, and the belief in the immortality of a name; the disdain of scepticism, and the thirst for applause; the impression of the Christian's humility, and an instinct of sovereign pride.
Here, however, we find truth: this cross, the sign of eternity on this stone marked by death, is the immutable testimony of the emptiness of human pride. Chateaubriand desired only a cross on his tomb, while Lamennais, his compatriot, rejected it: both obedient to the same preoccupation, in negation as in faith. The cross, dominating the tomb where the Breton poet reposes, is the symbol of the genius of his country, of Catholic Brittany.
Faith, in Brittany, has a particular character, allied to a poetry peculiar to Breton genius. In this country material objects speak; the very stones are animated, and the fields assume a voice to reveal the soul of man conversing with his God. This is not imagination; no one can be deceived in it. So soon as one enters Brittany, the physiognomy of the country changes, and the sign of this change is the cross. On all the roads, at all the public places, is raised the cross; of every epoch from the twelfth to the nineteenth century we find them, and of every form. There, simple crosses of granite raised on a few steps; here, crosses bearing on each side the image of Christ and the Virgin, rude sculptures in themselves, but always impressed with a sincere sentiment. The Bretons not only understand the tenderness of the Blessed Virgin, but they feel her grief; they share it with her, and express it with an energetic truth. Look at the picture of the Virgin holding her dead son on her knees, in the church of St. Michael at Quimperlé. It is a primitive painting by an unskilled hand, and one totally ignorant of the resources of art; the design of it is incorrect; yet what an expression of grief! The painter wished to portray the living suffering of the mother; the mouth is distorted, the eyes are fixed, the pupil seems alone indicated: yet this fixedness of look seizes upon you; you stop, you remain to examine it, you forget that it is a representation, and see the Virgin herself, immovable in her grief, with no power to express her sorrow; petrified, yet living.
At one side, leaning against the wall, is a statue of the Virgin, conceived with as contrary a sentiment as possible. She is all tenderness and delicacy, and has a leaning attitude, the head inclined, with the gentle look of the Mother who calls the sinner to her side. Her robe falls in numberless plaits, her mantle envelops her with a harmonious grace; for she is no longer the Mother of sorrow, but the sweet consoler of human kind, holding her Son in her arms, whom she presents to bless the earth, Notre Dame de Bot Scao, The Virgin of Good News.
The faith of sailors in the Blessed Virgin is well known, that of the Breton sailors particularly. At Brest, we look in vain for a museum of pictures. Brest is not a city of art; it breathes of war; the port, filled with large ships, the arsenal and its cannon, its shells, its gigantic anchors, the forts built on the rocks, the animated movement of the streets, where soldiers of all kinds go and come, and sailors constantly arriving from all parts of the world, give to it an air of intense reality—a character at once powerful and precise. Man has built on the rock his granite home, and we may believe it is immovably established.
But ascend the steps that lead from the lower to the upper town, and under a vault you will find four pictures appended to the wall. Here is the museum of Brest. Sea pictures dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the departure of the vessel, women and children on the beach on their knees during a tempest, the vessel tossed by the waves, and the arms of the sailors extended to heaven; and on their return, the rescued sailors, bending their steps, with tapers in their hands, toward the chapel of Notre Dame; and underneath, touching legends, cries of the soul that implores, humbles itself, or renders thanks. Holy Virgin, save us! Holy Virgin, protect those who are now at sea! Man we see in his weakness, his aspirations, and his hopes—the true man; the rest was but the mask.
They seize every opportunity and use every pretext to testify their faith. At Saint Aubin d'Aubigné between Rennes and Saint Malo, you go along a tufted hedge; you see a cross cut of thorn—a cross which grows green in the spring, among the eglantines and roses. [Footnote 176]
[Footnote 176: At St. Vincent les Redon, a tree is cut in the form of the cross.]
You return to visit the land of Carnac—a land so pale and desolate, where the standing stones are squared by thousands, gigantic and silent sphinxes that for twenty centuries have kept their impenetrable secret—what is that cross that rises on an eminence? One that they have planted on an isolated ruin in the land—a cross on a Druidical altar, and before the army of stones which mark, perhaps, a cemetery of a great people.
Elsewhere, at the cross-way of a road near Beauport, a spring gushes out and flows among the rocks, forming both basin and fountain on the heaped-up stones; in an arched niche is enclosed a Virgin crowned with flowers; all around, the field morning-glory, the periwinkle, and the eglantine have peeped through the moss and herbs, and enlaced the rustic chapel with their flowery festoons, and fallen again on the infant Jesus. Opposite lie fields of green thorn-broom, and above their long, slender stalks appear the half-destroyed walls of an ancient abbey, roofless, opened to heaven, and silent. Through the blackened arches appears the blue sea, whose prolonged and incessant roaring fills the air.
In this Catholic country par excellence, all the churches are remarkable. There is no village, however small, of which the church does not form an interesting part; and here and there, as at Guérande and Vitré, we find the beautifully carved pulpits enclosed in the wall, from which the missionary fathers, on certain extraordinary occasions, speak to the people assembled in the square. At Carnac and Rennescleden we have the arched roofs so exquisitely painted; at Roscoff, Crozon, and elsewhere, medallions of stone and wood framing the altar with quaint gilded sculptures; then, again, we meet with a tabernacle formed for an architectural monument, a sort of palace in miniature, with its wings, pavilions, columns, domes, galleries, and statues, (as at Rosporden;) then an antique confessional greets us in a little chapel near Chateaulin, and a canopy sculptured in wood or even crystal, at Landivisiau. An odd ornament, which is found in only one church—that of Notre Dame de Comfort, on the way to the Bec du Raz—is called the wheel of good fortune, and is composed of a large wheel suspended from the roof of the church, and entirely surrounded by bells. On days of solemn feasts, for baptisms and weddings, the wheel is turned, and, agitating all the bells at once, forms a noisy chime, which times the march of the procession, and adds a joyous and silver-toned accompaniment to the voices of the young girls chanting the canticles to the Blessed Virgin. Finally, we meet with one of those trunks of trees, large squared pillars of oak, encircled with heavy bands of iron, and placed in the middle of the church, by the side of a catafalque of blackened wood, but sowed with whitened tears; the trunk and the coffin, emblems of the fragility of life, and the Christian principle above all others, charity.
The churches in the towns are truly chefs-d'oeuvres, the cloisters of Tréguier and Pont l'Abbé, for example, where the arcades are so light and so finely carved; or the bas-reliefs inside the portal of Sainte Croix, at Quimperlé, a vast page of sculptured stone, finished with the delicacy and richness of invention, the charming qualities of youth and of the Renaissance. Then, in all these churches, near the altar, you perceive immediately the painted statue of the parish saint, one of the Breton saints, not found elsewhere—Saint Cornély, Saint Guénolé. Saint Thromeur, Saint Yves especially. Saint Yves has the privilege of being represented in almost all the churches, even in those of which he is not patron; the remembrance of this great, good man, this wise priest, this incorruptible judge, is indelibly impressed on the heart of every Breton. Sometimes he is seen in his judge's robe, his cap on his head, and listening to two litigants, one in red velvet, embroidered in gold, with his grand wig, his silken stockings, and sword; the other, the poor peasant, all in rags, holes on his knees and his elbows, and naked feet in his wooden shoes. The great lord, with his cap on his head, and an air of pride, presents the saint a purse of gold; the peasant, with timid look and attitude, his head bent down, his cap in his hand, humbly awaits his sentence. He has nothing to give, but justice will not fail him. Saint Yves turns toward him with a gracious smile, and, handing him the judgment written on parchment, lets him know it is his. And thus the history of the middle ages: the church protecting the peasant, the weak against the powerful and the strong.
As to monuments, properly called, nowhere can we find more of these beautiful churches of the middle ages, testimonies of the piety, the science, and the taste of so glorious an epoch. Here, the Cathedral of Dol, of the best day of Gothic art—the thirteenth century—imposing by its massiveness, its grandeur, and the noble simplicity of its ornaments and the harmony of its proportions, the granite of whose towers, in the lapse of ages, is permeated with the air of the sea, has a color of rust, we might say built with iron; there, Tréguier and its exquisite wainscoting, benches, altars, stalls, pulpit in brilliant black oak, carved in such fine and delicate designs, with inexhaustible variety; not a baluster alike, enough models to furnish the entire sculpture of our time; and further on, Saint Pol de Leon and its spire of granite; daring and easy, a prodigy of equilibrium, immovable, girded with open galleries like graceful crowns, flinging to heaven its tiny sharpened bells; so beautifully carved, so aerial, the joy of Brittany, as well it may be, its legitimate pride; then Folgoat, a little unknown village north of Brest, lost at the extremity of the isle, and necessary to leave one's route to see it; but even here, two Breton princes, the Duke Jean III. and the Duchess Anne, have constructed a royal church accumulating all that Gothic art in its richest ornamentation, united to the most ingenious caprices of the Renaissance, could have imagined of delicacy and brightness; portraits sculptured, statues of the finest style reflecting their antiquity, a richly Gothic and carved choir, and a gallery—one of those graceful and original monuments of Catholicism so seldom met with—of lace-work, where trefoils, roses, and foliage are carved in indestructible blue granite. The hammer of the Revolution has only knocked off small pieces of these beautifully carved stones. They resisted the passions of men, as they have defied the action of time.
With the bells, of such varied forms, and the vessels for holy water, we will conclude.
These bells are of every style—of the Renaissance, the Roche-Maurice-les-Landerneau, of Landivisiau, of Ploaré, of Pontcroix, and of Roscoff. Many are hung with smaller and lighter bells and ornamented with two-story balustrades, like the minarets of the East; then the coverings, spires as they are called, are like that of Tréguier, open, that the winds of the sea may pass through them, and adorned with crosses, roses, little windows, cross-bars, and stars like the cap of a magician.
The vessels for holy water also express the character of the age. At Dinan, in a church of the twelfth century, an enormous massive tub is supported by the large iron gauntlets of four chevaliers; the old crusader dress, armed cap-a-pie in the service of Christ. In a church of the fifteenth century, at Quimper, is one of an entirely opposite character—a small column, around which a vine is entwined, and above an angel, who, with wings extended, appears as if it had descended from heaven to alight upon the consecrated cup. Again, and as if inspired by a still more Christian sentiment, we find the exterior vessels for holy water, so common everywhere in Brittany, of which the most remarkable are at Landivisiau, at Morlaix, and Quimperlé. The interior ones seem only accessories; the exterior, isolated before the door, have a more precise signification: they solicit the first impulse of the soul; the Christian, in stretching out his hand toward the blessed vase, pauses, and prepares his heart for the coming devotion.
How well these Breton architects have understood religion! These exterior vases are living monuments, little pulpits, with their emblems, symbols, and heads of angels enveloped in their wings. Their canopies, prominent, sculptured, and under them, standing and always smiling, our blessed Mother, who seems to invite the faithful to enter the house of prayer. And prayer, as some one has said, is the fortress of life. The Breton people believe and pray: a hidden power is theirs—religion; its effectiveness attesting not only its existence, but its life.