Breton Folk: An artistic tour in Brittany

by Henry Blackburn

On the Place at Quimperlé.

The great attraction to Quimperlé is in the country round; in the beauty of the woods and the windings of the streams. In this neighbourhood the artist and the angler may settle down together and spend the summer months delightfully.

A Big Load.

We said that Quimperlé, a town with a railway station, on the great highway between Nantes and Brest, owes most of its life and picturesque attraction to women, weddings, fêtes, and flowers. Let us picture a prominent personage at the old Hôtel du Lion d’Or. She had a beautiful name, Augustine, pronounced with enviable accuracy by all the household. She hovered about us like a fairy, attending to our wants in the most delicate way; to outward seeming a ministering angel with pure white wings, but, in truth, a drudge, a methodical housewife, massive, and hard to the touch. She did the work of three Parisian garçons, and walked upstairs unaided with portmanteaus which it would require two men to lift, anywhere out of Brittany. She slept in a box in the kitchen, and dressed “somehow” in five minutes. She ate what was left, contentedly, at the end of the day, and rose at sunrise to do the laborious work of the house; helping also at harvest-time in the fields. She had the sweetest of smiles (when she liked), an unconquerable habit of taking snuff, and a murderous way of killing fowls in the early morning which we shall not easily forget.

How it comes to pass that this girl of nineteen occupies such an important position in the household is one of those things which are peculiar to Brittany. The strong individuality, industry, and force of character of the women make themselves felt wherever we go. Whilst the men slumber and smoke, the women are building little fortunes or propping up old ones. All through the land, in the houses, in the factories, and in the fields, the strong, firm hand and arm of a woman does the work.

Augustine.

The pedestrian or sportsman, in his wanderings through Brittany, will, if he knows the country, seek, at the end of a long day, the country auberge where a “household fairy” presides. The land is full of legends and tales of gnomes and witches, but the reality is a white-capped figure, that welcomes the traveller at the inn door the modern representative of “mine host.” Her brightness and attraction, and at the same time her whole armour and coat of mail, are her stiffly starched cap, epaulets, and apron of spotless white. She presides at the fêtes and weddings which are celebrated at the inns, and joins in the frolics at the end of the day, dancing with the rest up and down the street, and submitting with modest but hearty goodwill to some rather demonstrative tokens of esteem. “How is it that these widespread collars are never crumpled?” some one asks. “Oh, we just turn them round and throw them over the shoulder for a minute!” is the quick answer.

Let us refer to our notebook to see how one of these weddings is managed in Quimperlé in 1878. It is just after harvest, and the time for rest and festivity in many a village round. Coats and gowns that have been laid by for months are brought out, and many an antique-shaped garment sees the light for the first time for a year. Two or three weddings are arranged for the same day, and at early morning all meet at Quimperlé. The girls come on foot, dressed in their local costumes, excepting a little innovation of finery here and there; the “boys,” for they are little more in age, have modernised themselves, and wear a clumsy imitation of the conventional suit of black, being especially proud of Parisian hats. But excepting in the matter of costume, they do as their forefathers did; they spend the day in the streets of Quimperlé, parading arm-in-arm with their brides, stopping to take, and to give, refreshment at every inn-door and at the homes of all their friends. We meet them early in the morning crossing the principal square; they have registered their marriages, and have taken the sacrament in the church of St. Michel, in the upper town, and for the rest of the long summer day and half into the night they dance the “De Rober” up and down the streets, hand in hand together, to the music of the bag-pipe and the flageolet.