"One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a talus"

A special friend of mine among the peasants was dear old Keransiflan, the lodge-keeper. I was fond of joining him while he tended the road in front of the lodge-gates and sitting on his wheelbarrow with him to talk to him while he ate his midday meal. This consisted of a huge slice of black bread thickly spread with butter, and it seemed to me that no bread and butter had ever looked so good.

One day he must have seen how much I longed for it, for he said, holding out the slice, "Demoiselle, en veux-tu?" I did not need to be asked twice, and can still see the great semicircle that I bit into the slice, and I was happily munching when maman appeared at the lodge-gates. She was very much displeased, and mainly that I should be devouring poor Keransiflan's luncheon, and she rated me so soundly that the kind old man interceded for me, saying, "Notre maîtresse, c'est moi qui lui l'ai donné." I think that maman must have seen that it gave him great pleasure to share his bread with me; at all events, Keransiflan and I, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to go on eating in peace.

But the peasants were a hard, harsh race and pitiless in their dealings toward one another. Their treatment of their old people was terrible. If an old mother, past work, had no money, she was ruthlessly turned out to beg. One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a talus, her pitiful bundle of rags beside her, helpless and stupefied. I remember a story that was told me by one of my servants about such an old woman that she had known. She had four hundred francs, and was cared for in the family of one son until it was spent, when she was turned out. Another son more kindly took her in; but his wife was a hard woman, and though she finally consented to accept the useless old mother into the household, she grudged every sou spent upon her. Thus, though the only two joys remaining her in life were snuff and coffee, only two sous a week was allowed her for tobacco, and as for coffee, she was given never a drop. When she was dying she told the servant from whom I had the story that what made her suffer most had been to sit by in the morning and smell the delicious odor of the coffee as the others drank it. This has always seemed to me a heart-piercing story. All the Breton women smoked, by the way, and pipes, and in a curious fashion; for the bowl was turned downward, though why, I do not know.

CHAPTER X
THE PARDON AT FOLGOAT

I was taken while I was a child at Loch-ar-Brugg to the famous Pardon de Folgoat, to which people came from all Brittany. In Folgoat was the summer residence of Anne de Bretagne, and in the vast hall of the château she had held her audiences. The château is now the presbytery, and is opposite the church, of which there is a legend. A poor child, Yann Salacin, who was devoid of reason, spent hours every day before the altar of the Virgin, which he decorated with the wild flowers that he gathered in the fields, and wandered in the forest, swinging on the branches of the trees, always singing Ave Maria, the only words he was ever heard to pronounce. He begged for food from door to door and slept in the barns. The peasants became impatient with him and began to whisper that he was possessed of an evil spirit, and at last they drove him out of the village. The curé, who was a good man, missed him in the church, sought vainly for him, and at last heard what had happened. He was filled with indignation, and told the peasants that they had committed a crime. Then he set out to look for poor Yann, and found him at last in a distant forest, dead with hunger. He brought the body back to Folgoat and buried it near the church, and one day he saw that a tall white lily had grown up from the grave; when he opened the grave he found that the lily sprang from the lips of the little innocent, and on the petals of the flower one could read in letters of gold Ave Maria. This legend is believed in all Brittany, and a stained-glass window in the church tells the story.

Behind the church is the Well of Love, so called because not a day passes that lovers do not come to test their fate by trying to float pins upon the surface of the water. If the pins float, all promises well, and they go away happy. Astute ones slightly grease the pins, and thus aid destiny.

But to return to the pardon. I remember that on this occasion an old cook in the family had permission to start two or three days before the pardon, so that she might go all the way on her knees, and during those days one met many such devout pilgrims making their way on their knees along the dusty roads. Some of them came from far distances. We children were called before dawn on the August morning, and it was a sleepy, half-bewildered dressing by candle-light. As a closed carriage made me sick, I was put into the coupé with papa and maman. Eliane, Ernest, their nurses, and all the other servants, followed in a sort of omnibus, and behind them came all the horses, trotting gaily along the road to share in the blessings of this great day of the Assumption of the Virgin. The horses of Brittany, it will be conceded, are a specially favored race. Although I was in the coupé and had all the freshness of the early air to invigorate me, I remember of the journey from Loch-ar-Brugg to Folgoat only that I was deplorably sick, and the greatest inconvenience to my parents. Fortunately, I was restored the moment I set my feet upon the ground.

"Je me sauve," he would exclaim