There are in certain parts of the town remains of the ancient moat. Sometimes it is a mere brook, black as night, flowing with difficulty among thick herbage which has grown up round it; sometimes a prosperous, though always dirty, stream. You come across it in unexpected places here and there. In one part, just under the walls of the castle, where the water is very dirty indeed, wash-houses have been erected; there the women kneel on flat stones by the banks. The houses clustering round about the moat are damp and evil-smelling; their slates, green with mould, are continually slipping off the roofs; and the buildings themselves slant at such an angle that their entry into the water seems imminent.
At the base of the castle walls the streets mount steeply. This is a very poor quarter indeed. The houses are old, blackened, decayed, much-patched and renovated. Yet the place is extremely picturesque; in fact, I know no part of Vitré that is not.
At any moment, in any street, you can stop and frame within your hands a picture which will be almost sure to compose well—which in colouring and drawing will be the delight of painters and etchers. In these particular streets of which I speak antiquity reigns supreme. Here no traffic ever comes; only slatternly women, with their wretched dogs and cats of all breeds, fill the streets. Many of the houses are half built out of solid slate, and the steps leading to them are hewn from the rock.
One sees no relics of bygone glory here. This must ever have been a poor quarter; for the windows are built low to the ground, and there are homely stone settles outside each door. Pigs and chickens walk in and out of the houses with as much familiarity as the men and women. On every shutter strings of drying fish are hung; and every window in every house, no matter how poor, has its rows of pink and red geraniums and its pots of hanging fern. Birds also are abundant; in fact, from the first I dubbed this street 'the street of the birds,' for I never before saw so many caged birds gathered together—canaries, bullfinches, jackdaws, and birds of bright plumage. By the sound one might fancy one's self for the moment in an African jungle rather than in a Breton village.
The streets of Vitré are remarkable for their flowers. Wherever you may look you will see pots of flowers and trailing greenery, relieving with their bright fresh colouring the time-worn houses of blackened woodwork and sombre stone. Not only do moss and creepers abound, but also there are gardens everywhere, over the walls of which trail vines and clematis, and on every window-ledge are pots of geranium and convolvulus.
It is impossible in mere words to convey any real impression of the fine old town of Vitré: only the etcher and the painter can adequately depict it. The grand old town will soon be of the past. Every day, every hour, its walls are decaying, crumbling; and before long Vitré will be no more than a memory.
A VIEILLARD