PÈRE LOUIS
Convent-bred girls in a long line are filing into church through the western door—meek-faced little people in black pinafores and shiny black hats. All wear their hair in pigtails, and above their boots an inch or so of coloured woollen stockings is visible. Each carries a large Prayer-Book under her arm. A reverend Mother, in snowy white cap and flowing black veil, heads the procession, and another brings up the rear.
The main door facing the square is flung wide open; and the contrast between the brilliant sunlit square, with its noisy laughing children returning from school, dogs barking, and handcarts rattling over the cobble stones, and this dim, sombre interior, bathed in richest gloom, is almost overwhelming.
A stained-glass window at the opposite end of the church, with the light at the back of it, forms the only patch of positive colour, with its brilliant reds and purples and blues. All else is dim and rich and gloomy, save here and there where the glint of brass, the gold of the picture-frames, the white of the altar-cloth, or the ruby of an ever-burning light, can be faintly discerned in the obscurity. The deep, full notes of the organ reach you as you stand at the cathedral steps, and you detect the faint odour of incense. The figure of a woman kneeling with clasped hands and bent head is dimly discernible in the heavy gloom. One glance into such an interior, after coming from the glare and glamour of the outside world, cannot but bring peace and rest and a soothing influence to even the most unquiet soul.
The château of Vitré is an even older building than the cathedral. It has lived bravely through the ages, suffering little from the march of time: a noble edifice, huge and massive, with its high towers, its châtelet, and its slate roofs. Just out of the dark, narrow, cramped old streets, you are astonished to emerge suddenly on a large open space, and to be confronted by this massive château, well preserved and looking almost new. As a matter of fact, its foundation dates back as far as the eleventh century, although four hundred years ago it was almost entirely reconstructed. Parts of the château are crumbling to decay; but the principal mass, consisting of the towers and châtelet, is marvellously preserved. It still keeps a brave front, though the walls and many of the castle keeps and fortresses are tottering to ruin. Many a shock and many a siege has the old château withstood; but now its fighting days are over. The frogs sing no longer in the moat through the beautiful summer nights; the sentinel's box is empty; and in the courtyards, instead of clanking swords and spurred heels, the peaceful step of the tourist alone resounds. The château has rendered a long and loyal service, and to-day as a reward enjoys a glorious repose. To visit the castle, you pass over a draw-bridge giving entrance to the châtelet, and no sooner have you set foot on it than the concierge emerges from a little room in the tower dedicated to the service of the lodge-holder.
She is a very up-to-date chatelaine, trim and neat, holding a great bunch of keys in her hand. She takes you into a huge grass-grown courtyard in the interior, whence you look up at the twin towers, capped with pointed gray turrets, and see them in all their immensity. The height and strength and thickness of the walls are almost terrifying. She shows you a huge nail-studded door, behind which is a stone spiral staircase leading to an underground passage eight miles long. This door conjures up to the imaginative mind all kinds of romantic and adventurous stories. We are taken into the Salle des Guardes, an octagonal stone room on an immense scale, with bay windows, the panes of which are of stained glass, and a gigantic chimneypiece. One can well imagine the revels that must have gone on round that solid oak table among the waiting guards.
The chatelaine leads us up a steep spiral staircase built of solid granite, from which many rooms branch, all built in very much the same style—octagonal and lofty, with low doorways. One must stoop to enter. On the stairway, at intervals of every five or six steps, there are windows with deep embrasures, in which one can stand and gain a commanding view of the whole country. These, it is needless to say, were used in the olden days for military purposes.