If we try to recall the impression of the scene, it is principally of clouds, as in landscapes by Ruysdael or Géricault. The land for miles is without sign of habitation, the highest point of interest is a bank of furze, a stunted tree, or a heap of broken stones, chipped perhaps from a fallen menhir; a solitude that seems more hopeless and remote from the tumultuous aspect of the heavens.
But as we approach the town of Pont Croix, and, turning westward, descend the hills to cross the estuary of Audierne, the view over the bay is more luxuriant. Below us, through the stems of pine trees that line the steep road, cut in granite rocks—as we descend to the right bank of the river Goayen where it widens into an estuary—is the little fishing village of Audierne, consisting of two or three straight streets of granite houses, one or two large wharves and warehouses, a lighthouse, and nearly a mile of protecting sea-wall. The evening is now fine and calm, and the tide is coming in without a ripple, bringing a few fishing-boats up to the quay, and attracting the inhabitants on to the Place in front of the principal inn, the Hôtel du Commerce, where the portly Père Batifoulier receives us, and provides us with excellent accommodation. It is a sheltered, sunny spot, surrounded by cultivated hills, where people come from Quimper to bathe in summer; but if we walk upon the downs behind the town, we shall get glimpses of a coast almost as exposed and dangerous to mariners as at Penmarc’h, where the sardine fishermen are spreading their nets on the grass.
Audierne is within six miles of the famous Pointe du Raz, the Land’s End of Brittany, beyond which, stretching out into the Atlantic, is the Île de Sein, inhabited by a poor population of fishermen and seaweed gatherers. A glance at the map will show the position of the island, and the “Bec du Raz,” the dangerous channel which divides it from the shore, through which the fishermen of Audierne and Douarnenez, with many prayers and crossings of the breast, pass and re-pass in their frail boats.
It is a dreary road from Audierne to the Pointe du Raz, passing the villages of Plogoff and Lescoff. At this point the rocks are higher above the sea than at Penmarc’h, and the scene is altogether more extensive and magnificent. We are on an elevation of eighty or ninety feet, and almost surrounded by the sea. To the south and east is the wide bay of Audierne, to the west the Île de Sein, the ancient home of Druidesses, and the horizon line of the Atlantic; to the north and east the bay of Douarnenez, across which is the jutting headland of La Chèvre.
A cloud of sea-birds rises from the rocks below, and floats away like a puff of steam, there is an orange tint in the seaweed piled upon the shore, and a purple tinge upon the distant hills across the bay of Douarnenez; but the green upon the scanty grass in the foreground is cold in colour, and almost the only flowers are yellow sea-poppies and the little white bells of the convolvulus. On every side are piles of rocks stretching out seaward as barriers against the waves of the Atlantic; a dangerous, desolate shore, on which many a vessel has been wrecked. To the north is the Druids’ “Baie des Trépassés,” where, according to ancient legends, the spirits of the departed wait on the shore to be taken in boats to the Île de Sein. It is a Celtic legend, recounted in every history of Brittany.
The exposed position of the Pointe du Raz, the strange, fantastic grandeur of the rocks, and the wildness of the waves that beat upon the shore in almost all weathers, are alone worth a visit. The numerous artists who stay at Quimper, Douarnenez, and Pont-Aven, in the summer months would do well to pitch their tents for a time near the Pointe du Raz, if only to watch from this elevation the changing aspects of sea and sky, to see the sea, calm and blue in the distance, but dashing spray in sunshine over walls of rock, and seaweed gatherers on a summer evening getting in their harvest, as deep in colour as the corn.
