There are numerous isles and islets to pass on the way, and the Chaussée des Pierres Noires is a roughly strewn ledge which breathes danger in the very spray continually flying over it. Molène is a kilometre long and rather more than half as wide. If ever the population of a sea-girt isle had to take in one another’s washing in order to make a living, this is the place, for nearly six hundred men, women, and children make their habitation upon the isle.
Needless to say there are some things of the twentieth-century civilization of which they know not, such as automobiles, tram-cars, or locomotives. There is not even a donkey engine on the island, and there are no bicycles or perambulators, hence there is something for which to be thankful. Considerable quantities of vegetables are exported, the population living apparently on fish, and the “farms” are divided into plots so small as to be almost infinitesimal.
The island is sadly remembered for the part it played in the wreck of the great South African liner, the Drummond Castle, in recent years. The inhabitants of the isle, poor in this world’s goods though they were, did much to succour the survivors, an act which is writ large in the history of life-saving.
The isle of Ouessant itself has nearly three thousand population, and boasts a market and a hotel, besides numerous hamlets or suburbs. The isle is eight kilometres long, and perhaps three and a half wide, and is known to the government authorities both as a canton and as a commune.
Pliny knew of this rock-bound isle, the foremost outpost of France, and called it Uxantos, though it was known to the ancient Bretons as Enez Heussa. Practically, the island is a table-land with an abundance of pure water, and the soil very productive so far as new potatoes and an early crop of barley go. The cultivation is mostly in the hands of the women, the men being nearly all engaged in the fisheries, or as sailors. Ouessant is a little land of windmills, though in no way does it resemble Holland. For the most part, they are sturdy stone buildings, and work but lazily, many of them being dismantled, as if there were not enough for them to do. Some years ago a fort was erected here, and a garrison of colonial troops billeted upon the island. It is a sad job at best to be a soldier in a colonial outpost such as this, and whether the observation is just or not, it is made, nevertheless, that the appearance of the garrison of Ouessant is as though it were made up, literally, of the scum of the earth.
As for history, the Île d’Ouessant is by no means entirely lacking. It was evangelized in the sixth century by St. Pol Aurelian, who built a chapel here at a spot known as Portz Pol.
In 1388, the English ravaged the island, and the former seigniory was made a marquisate in 1597, in favour of Réné de Rieux, the governor of Brest, whose descendants sold their birthright to the king in 1764.
The glorious battle of Ouessant—at least, the French call it “la glorieuse bataille,” and so it really was—took place in 1778 in the neighbouring waters between a French fleet under the Comte d’Orvilliers and the English Admiral Keppel.
As may be supposed, these far-jutting, rocky islands have been the scene of many shipwrecks. There is a proverb known to mariners which classes these Breton isles as follows:
“Who sights Belle Île sights his refuge,
Who sights Île Groix sights joy,
Who sights Ouessant sights blood.”