But excepting the visits of a few sportsmen and tourists in summer, Le Faouet is scarcely ever visited by the outer world. The houses are built of stone, old and covered with lichen; the covered market-place has heavy wooden eaves, and is protected by ancient elms; the inhabitants are dressed for the most part in rough and primitive fashion, the men in white cloth jackets, loose breeches, and sabots, and the women in dark comfortable cloth hoods, as in the sketch at the head of this chapter.
It is a quiet, self-contained, dignified population at Le Faouet, approached at intervals by the commercial traveller, and a few cattle- and horse-dealers, but holding otherwise little communication with towns. Here, in this neighbourhood, we may contemplate the typical Breton, who, braced physically to withstand the shocks of the tempest, resists with an almost irresistible vis inertia the advance of French civilisation; whom neither the progress of steam nor compulsory education has much disturbed. He has, for trading purposes, acquired some knowledge of French, but he keeps this knowledge to himself, and never displays it unnecessarily; he has thus an advantage over strangers, who may imagine he cannot understand a word.
LE FAOUET.
To come into a quiet village like Le Faouet with no purpose but observation requires a certain amount of courage, and, if it were not that a little more than a mile north of Le Faouet there is the famous chapel of Ste. Barbe, and southward about two miles, in an old church, there is an elaborately carved rood-screen, we might hesitate to take up our quarters here. Unless a man has business in Le Faouet unless he is an antiquary, a fisherman, or a painter, he would leave it the day he entered. It is not, however, uncommon for the landlord of the Hôtel du Lion d’Or to have pensionnaires who stay for the summer.
In spite of the grandeur of its situation, the solidity of its buildings, and the evident industry of the inhabitants, there is a dreary, ruinous look about the Place of Le Faouet even on a summer’s day. What must it be in winter winds? On the brightest and driest day of the year many of the houses are dark and unhealthy-looking, built close together, with narrow lanes of mud and filth between them. What must they be when the rains begin?
We have seen in Le Faouet some of the finest types of Bretons, both men and women. Let us record one figure which will never be effaced from memory. Passing down a street leading from the principal square, we meet coming up the hill bareheaded, in the full blaze of the sun, in the dust and heat, the strange, wild-looking figure in the sketch; his clothes are patched, his hair is white, his face red; with crutches, and one leg, he drags (with the help of a dog and one or two charitable children) his house, with him about the town. It is a strange conveyance made of sticks and dried ferns, but it is home. Travellers see strange sights, but surely no sight more grotesque was ever seen than “the man on two sticks” of Le Faouet, whose portrait is given to the life.
