The morning of the 25th of July is bright, and the gilt statue of Ste. Anne glitters above the trees. If at this moment we could look down from the spire of its church, upon the country round, we should see on every road, and across the open land, little dark specks which are pilgrims all tending one way—to the shrine. They have been coming all through the night, camping in the fields and sleeping at the roadside. The broad Roman road from Vannes is covered with carts and carriages, and more people are arriving by the river.
Evening on the Belvédère, Auray.
The crowd that has assembled in the open square near the church of Ste. Anne at six in the morning numbers several thousands, and increases every hour. They are pilgrims of every grade, from the marquis and his family, who have driven from Vannes the evening before, and stay comfortably at the large hotel, to the solitary herdsman in goatskin coat and wooden shoes stuffed with straw, who has walked for two days and nights from his home in the Montagnes Noires. But they have come on the same errand, and will stand side by side before an altar in one of the side chapels, and burn their candles together. They both believe, or are taught to believe, in a legend that some time in the seventeenth century a saint appeared to one Nicolazic, who rented a farm near this spot, and commanded him to dig in a field for her image, and to erect a chapel to her memory. They both have heard of the miraculous cures at the well of Ste. Anne, and believe that no household can prosper, no ships are safe at sea, no cattle or crops can thrive, unless once a year, at least, they come to burn candles to Ste. Anne; and they both have wife, mother, or sister christened Anne, the name in fact of nearly every child we see to-day.
The miraculous well of Ste. Anne is in a large inclosure at the western end of which is the Scala Santa, a small, raised chapel, open to the air and covered by a cupola; a modern wooden erection about twenty feet from the ground, approached on either side by a covered flight of steps. It is from this platform that the opening ceremony of the Pardon takes place in the afternoon of the 25th of July, when after a procession round the town with a brass band and banners, the bishop of Vannes, or other dignitary, addresses the people in the open square. The procession is a long one, gay with the green-and-gold-embroidered vestments of the priests, and bright with the white robes of the acolytes with their crimson sashes; a quickly moving procession of bareheaded men singing the litany of Ste. Anne, with banners (representing different departments and communes) waving above them, and silver crosses and relics carried high in the air. The crowd presses forward to see, and forms a narrow lane to let them pass to the Scala Santa, where the head of the procession comes to a standstill, and as many of the priests and attendants as can crowd on to the steps stand as a sort of bodyguard, whilst the bishop addresses the multitude assembled in the square beneath.
Then the outsiders of the crowd get up and watch the proceedings (including a cook in white cap and apron, who sits upon the hotel wall), some eagerly from curiosity apparently, some with devotion, and some, it must be confessed, with an easy, jaunty air more appropriate to a show in a country fair. There are several hundreds on the grass before us in the bright sun, in the glare of which the sketch was taken, sitting together in parties, kneeling in prayer, or standing close together intent upon the scene.
What those upturned faces were, and what the good bishop saw beneath him in the crowd, as he rolled forth a discourse full of earnestness and eloquence, the pencil has recorded in the sketch. It gives, as no words could describe, the mingled expression of feeling on the faces of the pilgrims, and tells more eloquently than any argument that the influence of the Church is on the wane in Brittany. The words spoken are the old story: first the history of “the miracle of Ste. Anne,” then an exhortation as to the importance of confession and of works of charity and masses for the dead. The costume of the people that listen is nearly the same as in 1623, when Ste. Anne appeared in a wheat-field to a peasant; and yet—and in spite of all accounts of the earnest devotion of the people—if we look at the aspect of the crowd, we seem to understand the matter better than we ever did before.
They stand bareheaded in the sunshine, old and young, rich and poor; on the left, the pretty bourgeois’ daughter, from Auray, in plain cloth dress, with velvet body, dark green shawl, and neatest of shoes; behind her, in the background, a contingent from more remote districts, farmers and small traders, the majority being comfortable people who have come by train. The spare old woman with eccentric expression and worn hands, holding purchases, or plunder, in her apron, is not a pauper, but a hanger-on at a large household, who has saved money. Next, nearer to us, is a peasant farmer, with long grey hair, in white jacket and breeches and leathern girdle, who has come on foot from his home in the interior. He has walked all through the night to be present at the Pardon, as he has done every year, going through the round of services and exercises, contributing several francs in money to the church, buying a few charms and trinkets, and then plodding home. Behind him, with stick and umbrella under arm, holding beads in her hand, with fat red face, a white hood and apron, is a comfortable farmer’s wife from Baud; on her right an old woman in dark green coiffe, framing a screwed-up face, a study of colour in bronze and green. Behind them is a tall, bareheaded man with his daughter, two of the best types of Bretons in the crowd. On the right in the sketch is a pretty figure with a cross on her breast, with shining face, in the white cap and wide collar so common in Finistère; and, next, three peasants, old and wrinkled, bronzed with sun and grime, the common type at Pardons. Thus—leaving out some of the more hideous aspects of deformity and disease—this sketch gives an exact picture of the crowd, and a true idea of the strange mixture of curiosity, amusement, and religious awe with which the celebration of Ste. Anne is received in the present day.