Breton Folk: An artistic tour in Brittany

by Henry Blackburn

Three Hot Men of Vannes.

Are the fashions changing in Brittany? or is it only the usual tourists’ cry, the complaint of those who resent all change in costume and dwellings in order that villages should remain “picturesque,” who look upon their brother living in a hovel as they do upon an old door-knocker or a china plate? Let us think of the influences at work in out-of-the-way places, where the travelling marchand des bottes, who has followed us through nearly every village in Brittany with his caravan of side-spring boots, plies his terrible trade; and let us remember the expression on the faces of the dancers in the booth at Châteauneuf du Faou, at the arrival from Quimper of the “fine lady,” who stands up with her relations to dance the gavotte in the latest fashion of the towns.

Before leaving Vannes, we should go down at night to the old Place Henri-Quatre, where the roofs of the houses meet overhead, where, in moonlight, the gables cast wonderful shadows across the square, and above our heads rise the towers of the cathedral with a grandeur of effect not to be seen at any other time, or from any other point of view. It is then that the cathedral precincts look most mysterious in their darkness; narrow, irregular streets with open gutters, lighted only by a glimmer from latticed windows, and where, from old doorways, figures are dimly seen to pass in and out. It is a poor quarter, where a Dutch painter would find work for a lifetime.

We said that there was no light in the streets, but, passing round the cathedral, there is a strong light from a lantern held close to the ground; it is the chiffonnier of Vannes (who, like his Parisian confrère, has learned the art of pecking and discrimination from the fowls) wandering through the night with his basket and iron wand.

One more note made in Vannes in stormy autumn-time. We go down to the port, sheltered from the wind by a high wall, through which narrow passages have been made to reach the sea. It is nearly dusk, and the rough-hewn edges of the stone wall stand out sharply against the sky. As we pass one of these, facing the west, the narrow opening to the shore is illumined by a blood-red sunset light, so bright by contrast that three figures coming towards us from the seashore step, as it were, out of a furnace. They have men’s voices, but as they approach and pass us hurriedly, we see that their heads are bare, and that their robes touch the ground. Upon their shoulders they carry a “dear brother” to his rest—the drift of last night’s storm-tide. Next morning a rough stone cottage-door just outside the town is hung round with black—the drapery giving an appearance of height, and almost grandeur of dimensions, to the little interior—and resting upon the step is the projecting end of a wooden coffin painted white. There are candles burning on either side; a metal crucifix is placed on the doorstep, and on a little table on the ground in the road is a vase of flowers. The neighbours pass up and down crossing themselves, and muttering Latin words of prayer for the dead, and the little children stand and stare. Two days after there is a bright procession, headed by a priest and acolytes in white robes, with hymns and incense, followed by a little crowd bareheaded, all struggling against the wind, to a plot of ground on a promontory near the seashore, where the poor Breton is taken to his rest.

There is a crowd of his forefathers here before him, with black wooden crosses where their heads should be; they are planted out in rows, and labelled with wooden sticks to mark their species, and the garden is walled in with stones and great rock boulders to keep out the wind. But it is a dreary place; the wind finds it out from behind the stones, blows down the wooden crosses, and strews the ground with seaweed and dead leaves; nothing resists the havoc of the wind over the graves, but some bright yellow immortelles and some metal images of the Christ.

In the neighbourhood of Vannes there are numerous interesting excursions to be made, especially southward to the peninsula of Rhuys, on the south side of the sea of Morbihan, to Sarzeau (where Lesage, the author of Gil Blas, was born), and to the abbey of St. Gildas, also to the ruins of the fortress of Sucinio, built in 1250 by Duke Jean de Roux. A few miles to the north-west is the military town of Pontivy, now called Napoléonville, to be reached easily by railway from Vannes; and near it the village of St. Nicodème (see map), where on the first Saturday in August one of the largest gatherings of the people takes place. The Pardon of St. Nicodème is as interesting as any described in this book, but the customs and ceremonies are too similar to others to be described without wearying the reader with repetition.

A little farther south, and we should enter the department of the Loire-Inférieure; we are in fact but a few miles from the city of Nantes, so well described by Miss Betham-Edwards, in A Year in Western France. In this neighbourhood are the sunny vineyards of St. Nazaire, the salt districts of Croisic where the costumes of the inhabitants are again most curious, and the little sea-coast villages pictured by Mr. Wedmore in his Pastorals of France; but there is enough in the Loire-Inférieure for a separate book, peopled by Breton folk of an altogether different type.

We have said little of the ancient châteaux of Brittany, many of which are in good preservation, and are inhabited by direct descendants of the barons of the fifteenth century; but we would suggest to the traveller, before leaving Vannes, to visit the picturesque castle of Elven, where Henry of Richmond, afterwards king of England, was confined for fifteen years; and, if possible, to go by road to Josselin, where there is one of the finest châteaux of the Renaissance. The numerous sketches, of Breton folk, in this book have prevented us from dwelling more at length on the architectural features of the country, which have been described in many books of travel.