There is also a tiny bell which passes for having belonged to St. Pol. On the days of pardon the notes of this ancient bell still ring out over the heads of the faithful, who believe that they will cure any malady of the head or hearing.
In one of the chapels of the Cathedral of St. Pol de Léon is an ancient painting. It depicts a head with three visages, with the legend in Gothic-Breton characters, “Ma Douez” (Mon Dieu). It represents, of course, the Trinity, but, like many religious symbols, is more grotesque than devout.
Morlaix, the ancient Mons Relaxus of Roman times, is the metropolis of the northwestern Breton coast. It achieved no great importance, until it came under the sway of the Breton dukes, and became one of their principal residences. The inhabitants of Morlaix declared for the League in the period of the religious wars, and the castle was besieged and carried by the troops of the king under Marshal d’Aumont, in 1594.
Being at the head of the great bay of Morlaix, or, rather, just above it, at the juncture of the rivers Jarlot and Quefflent, the city enjoys a novel situation, and contains many curious contrasting effects of the old and new order of things.
The Viaduct of Morlaix, by which the railway traverses the town, is really an imposing sight, and is reckoned as the chief of its class in all France. The natives show an astonishing vagueness or ignorance with regard thereto. You will be told that it was the work of the Romans,—“very ancient, look you,”—and again that it was one of the works of the indefatigable Vauban, who must really have worked in his sleep, or through understudies, if all the works attributed to him throughout France be genuine. Vauban must have been to France what Michelangelo was to the universe,—according to the genial, though skeptical, Mark Twain.
The Church of St. Martin in the Fields is the chief ecclesiastical monument of Morlaix, in point of antiquity at least, as it dates from the ancient priory foundation of 1128, by Hervé, Count of Léon.