Le Légué is the port of St. Brieuc, and the coastwise traffic is considerable. The quays and docks, ship-houses and careening wharfs lend a novel and interesting aspect to a background of thickly wooded river-banks. The seaward entrance of the channel is protected by a fifth-class light. The port is the first in rank in the Côtes du Nord for the fitting out of the Newfoundland and Iceland fishing-boats.
The Tower of Cesson, three kilometres or more from St. Brieuc, is a simple circular tower, surrounded by a double protecting fosse cut perpendicularly into the rock. The walls are quite twelve feet in thickness on the lower of its four floors. It was built by Duke Jean IV. in 1395, and, after much strife and bloodshed, extending over two centuries, was laid in ruins by Henry IV. in 1598.
On the shores of the Bay of St. Brieuc are innumerable little beaches which are healthful breathing-spots for large numbers of Parisian folk, who come thither between June and September of each year.
These are not exactly riotous resorts of fashion, but still there are some evidences of the distractions of the world that make most of them appear as little parochial Parises. There are two spots on the western shore of the bay to which this does not apply, however, Etables and Binic.
Binic
Binic, a small fishing port of Brittany, has all the attractions of an unworldly seaside village, for it is not much more even to-day. After Binic, Etables, and after Etables, Binic. Each is much the same as the other. Binic has been a great-little port for the fitting out of ships for the Newfoundland fisheries ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century, and things go on in much the same way as of old, except that the master of the craft now has a megaphone and a patent log in his equipment, whereas formerly he went without these refinements of navigation. To the Newfoundland fishermen of Binic is due a special preparation of the codfish known as bénicasser, of which the dictionaries will tell one nothing, but which is simply a species of cured codfish.