CHAPTER IV
VANNES
A dear old-world, typically Breton town is Vannes. We arrived at night, and gazed expectantly from our window on the moonlit square. We plied with questions the man who carried up our boxes. His only answer was that we should see everything on the morrow.
That was market-day, and the town was unusually busy. Steering for what we thought the oldest part of Vannes, we took a turning which led past ancient and crazy-looking houses. Very old houses indeed they were, with projecting upper stories, beams, and scaly roofs slanting at all angles. At Morlaix some of the streets are ancient; but I have never seen such eccentric broken lines as at Vannes. At one corner the houses leant forward across the street, and literally rested one on the top of the other. These were only the upper stories; below were up-to-date jewellers and pâtisseries, with newly-painted signs in black and gold. In the middle of these houses, cramped and crowded and hustled by them, stood the cathedral. Inside it was a dim, lofty edifice, with faintly burning lamps. Hither the market-women come with their baskets, stuffed to the full with fresh green salad and apples, laying them down on the floor that they may kneel on praying-chairs, cross their arms, and raise their eyes to the high-altar, pouring out trouble or joy to God. It was delightful to see rough men with their clean market-day blue linen blouses kneeling on the stone floor, hats in hand and heads bowed, repeating their morning prayers.
The people were heavily laden on this bright autumn morning, either with baskets or with sacks or dead fowls, all clattering through the cobbled streets on their way to market. Following the crowd, we emerged on a triangular-shaped market-place, wherein a most dramatic-looking mairie or town-hall figured prominently, a large building with two flights of steps leading up to it, culminating in a nail-studded door, with the arms of Morbihan inscribed above it.
PLACE HENRI QUATRE, VANNES
One can well imagine such a market-place, let us say, in the days of the Revolution: how some orator would stand on these steps, with his back to that door, haranguing the crowd, holding them all enthralled by the force of rhetoric. Now nothing so histrionic happens. There is merely a buzzing throng of white-capped women, haggling and bargaining as though their lives depended on it, with eyes and hearts and minds for nothing but their business. Here and there we saw knots of blue-bloused men, with whips hung over their shoulders and straws in their mouths, more or less loafing and watching their womenfolk. The square was filled with little wooden stalls, where meat was sold—stringy-looking meat, and slabs of purple-hued beef. How these peasant women bargained! I saw one old lady arguing for quite a quarter of an hour over a piece of beef not longer than your finger. Chestnuts were for sale in large quantities, and housewives were buying their stocks for the winter. The men of the family had been pressed into the service to carry up sack after sack of fine brown glossy nuts, which were especially plentiful. No one seemed over-anxious to sell; no one cried his wares: it was the purchasers who appeared to do most of the talking and haggling.
There were more Frenchwomen here than I have seen in any other town; but they were not fine ladies by any means. They did not detract from the picturesqueness of the scene. They went round with their great baskets, getting them filled with apples or chestnuts, or other things. Most of the saleswomen were wrinkled old bodies; but one woman, selling chestnuts and baskets of pears, was pretty and quite young, with a mauve apron and a black cross-over shawl, and a mouth like iron. I watched her with amusement. I had never seen so young and comely a person so stern and businesslike. Not a single centime would she budge from her stated price. She was pestered by women of all kinds—old and young, peasants and modern French ladies, all attracted by the beauty of her pears and the glossiness of her chestnuts. Hers were the finest wares in the market, and she was fully conscious of it, pricing her pears and chestnuts a sou more a sieveful than anyone else. The customers haggled with her, upbraided her, tried every feminine tactic. They sneered at her chestnuts and railed at her pears; they scoffed one with the other. Eventually they gave up a centime themselves; but the hard mouth did not relax, and the pretty head in the snow-white coif was shaken vigorously. At this, with snorts of disgust, her customers turned up their noses and left. Ere long a smartly-dressed woman came along, and all unsuspectingly bought a sieveful of chestnuts, emptying them into her basket. When she came to pay for them, she discovered they were a sou more than she had expected, and emptied them promptly back into the market-woman's sack. I began to be afraid that my pretty peasant would have to dismount from her high horse or go home penniless; but this was not the case. Several women gathered round and began to talk among themselves, nudging one another and pointing. At last one capitulated, hoisted the white flag, and bought a few pears. Instantly all the other women laid down their bags and baskets and began to buy her pears and chestnuts. Very soon this stall became the most popular in the market-place, and the young woman and her assistant were kept busy the whole day. The hard-mouthed girl had conquered!
'Sept sous la demi-douzaine! Sept sous la demi-douzaine!' cried a shrill-voiced vendor. It was a man from Paris with a great boxful of shiny tablespoons, wrapped in blue tissue-paper in bundles of six, which he was offering for the ridiculous sum of seven sous—that is, threepence halfpenny. Naturally, with such bargains to offer, he was selling rapidly. Directly he cried his 'Sept sous la demi-douzaine—six pour sept sous!' he was literally surrounded. Men and women came up one after the other; men's hands flew to their pockets under their blouses, and women's to their capacious leather purses. It was amusing to watch these people—they were so guileless, so childlike, so much pleased with their bargains. Still, it would break my heart if these spoons doubled up and cracked or proved worthless, for seven sous is a great deal of money to the Breton peasants. I never saw merchandise disappear so quickly. 'Solide, solide, solide!' cried the merchant, until you would think he must grow hoarse. 'This is the chance of a lifetime,' he declared: 'a beautiful half-dozen like this. C'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et solide. Voyez la beauté et la qualité de cette merchandise. C'est une occasion que vous ne verrez pas tous les jours.'