Evening: near Quimperlé.
CHAPTER X.
Hennebont.
From Quimperlé to Hennebont by road or railway, we pass Pont Scorff, where is the boundary line which divides the departments of Finistère and Morbihan. We enter now the district of Bas-Bretagne, the Arcadia of Brittany, of which so much has been written and sung by French writers, and of which only those who have lingered in its byways have discovered the charm. It is the part of Brittany most interesting from its historic associations, the land most strewn with dolmens and menhirs, and mysterious Druidical remains.
Holiday travellers from Quimper to Vannes pass by the large and busy town of L’Orient because it is described, truly, as “an uninteresting modern town with straight streets and quays,” and many also pass by Hennebont. There is no historic interest in L’Orient, whose 40,000 inhabitants are busy in shipping and trade—the trade, amongst other things, of importing foreign spirits and tobacco, and of planting in every village in Brittany the cheap manufactured cottons and fineries which stamp out individuality in costume, the last stronghold of self-respect amongst the peasants, both men and women. In every remote village, on church walls and on mediæval towers, is posted in glowing colours the announcement of a Grand Magasin des Modes at L’Orient, and every afternoon there comes by train to Hennebont the Petit Journal to complete the work of civilisation; a little journal, distributed by hand to all who possess a sou, giving in its daily sheet little beyond Parisian gossip, but containing sometimes some strange paragraphs like the following, which would seem of doubtful interest to Bretons:—
“—On adoucit les mains et on les habitue à des mouvements aristocratiques.”
“—On communique aux jeunes ladies le nom et la profession de leur futur mari.”
“—On enseigne l’élégance et la grâce en douze heures, succès garanti.”