House of Ernest Renan, Tréguier
Convents, where women may find a quiet refuge away from the world, are not so numerous as they once were in France. “Boarding-houses kept for unprotected women by nuns, with a supposed Christian devotion and a profound appreciation of ready money,” was the way in which an English writer once spoke of them, and it was most unfair. Certainly, the writer of those lines never knew—and she professed to know France—the Convent of the Cross at Tréguier, where women can live in quiet seclusion, “all found,” for a matter of seventy-five francs a month. To those interested, the above may be worth investigation.
Not far off is the Manor of Kermartin, where, in 1255, St. Yves, the patron saint of advocates, was born.
On the nineteenth of May a procession sets out from the Tréguier cathedral for this shrine, to render homage to the patron of the men of law. On the eve of the nineteenth all mendicants and vagabonds presenting themselves at the manor are fed and lodged, which makes the perpetuation of the ceremony one of real benefit to humanity, though its endurance is brief.
St. Yves is the only canonized Breton saint. He was born on the seventh of October, 1253, and accompanied Peter of Dreux, reigning duke, to the seventh crusade.
In the Breton tongue his praises are sung as follows:
“N’hen eus ket en Breiz, n’hen eus ket unan,
N’hen eus ket eur Zant evel Sant Erwan.”
This in French comes to the following: