“—On loue et on échange de petits enfants.”
“—On coupe les oreilles et la queue aux chiens d’après la dernière mode.”
Hennebont is only five miles from L’Orient, and of course some of the inhabitants wear the modern dress, but it is still very primitive-looking, being seldom visited by strangers. Sloping southward towards the river, where ships are loading and unloading at the little port, is the chief street, shown in the sketch opposite. Hennebont is an old historic town, containing about 5000 inhabitants, and is the natural outlet for the produce of the surrounding country. At the upper end the street widens into a grass-grown Place, where is the church of Notre Dame de Paradis, with its square tower and lofty recessed portal, the work, it is believed, of an English architect in the sixteenth century, a structure not in any way very remarkable. The town is divided into the comparatively modern Ville Neuve, sketched above, the Ville Close, and the Vieille Ville on the right bank of the Blavet, memorable for its sieges in the War of Succession in Brittany, and for the exploits of the Countess of Montfort in defending the city in the fourteenth century, of which Froissart gives a spirited account in his Chronicles.
In the high-street of the town, the Ville Neuve, are the two principal inns, we can hardly call them hotels, outside one of which a traveller reposes after the midday meal; and a little below are the older hostelries, where there have been numerous arrivals during the day. Opposite, on a low wall, is a shelter of trees, a favourite lounge, whither come in the afternoon the old and the young to talk, to quarrel, and to flirt.
REAPERS ON THE ROAD.
Sit down on the wall and watch the passers by. First a cart, drawn by diminutive bullocks, heavily laden with field produce, comes lumbering down, the driver in broad-brimmed hat and heavy sabots; next, a clatter of hoofs and a troop of high-bred horses, led or ridden by riders in scarlet coats and white trousers, pass down to the river; they come from the haras in the neighbourhood, one of the government breeding establishments; this gives a dash of colour and a style to Hennebont quite foreign to its ordinary aspect. Next, with heavy, measured tread, comes a procession, half solemn, half grotesque, of reapers and professional batteurs changing their quarters. Next comes out and stands at the door of the Hôtel de France the innkeeper, dressed, unlike most of his neighbours, in a frock-coat and hat; a slim man in dandy Parisian attire, almost the only black figure to be seen in Hennebont.