The Church of Our Lady of Good Help, of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, is a magnificent work of its era, with an elaborately furnished interior.
The Pardon of Bon Secours is Guingamp’s gayest event of all the year. In numbers, it is one of the largest in Brittany, and is held on the Saturday before the first Sunday in July. On this occasion the statue of Our Lady, within the porch of the church, is clad in a silken robe, and receives the pilgrims, who refresh themselves with water previously consecrated at its source. With the fall of the sun commences a continual round of national dances, inspired by the lonesome, sharp, shrill wail of the binious, played in much the same way as are the Scotch bagpipes, except that their music is even more shrill and heartrending—if possible. At nine o’clock the statue of the Virgin is brought to the public square, solemnly conveyed by an immense procession, and three great bonfires are lighted. At midnight a high mass terminates the celebration, and some of the pilgrims depart, and others remain for the banquet which invariably follows.
On the eighth of September, 1857, the Madonna of Guingamp received the crown of gold from the chapter of St. Peter’s at Rome, on behalf of the Pope, a distinction offered to images of the Virgin uniting the three traits of antiquity, popularity, and miracle-working.
“La Pompe,” or the Fontaine, in hammered lead, is one of the chief artistic curiosities of Guingamp. It is a remarkable work in every way, and dates from 1588, since which time it has only been repaired—not reconstructed. Its preservation is wonderful, and it is an embellishment of which even a greater town might well be proud.
Aside from the fragment of the castle, there are no mediæval gateways or walls to remind one of the military importance of the place in former days. A century and a quarter ago, a traveller wrote: “Enter Guingamp by gateways, towers, and battlements of the oldest military architecture, every part denoting antiquity, and in the best preservation.” All this, unhappily, has disappeared, and one has to go to Vitré and Fougères to see military architecture in Brittany.
Eastward from Guingamp toward St. Brieuc, one passes—the traveller by road or rail seldom stops—Chatelaudren. It is a conventional Breton small town, but it is a market-town, nevertheless. It has not much of interest for any one unless he be a keen observer of manners and customs, hence it is but a way station between the two larger towns.