One sees this when on the great holidays the Breton peasant is moved to song, and chants such lines as the following, which more nearly correspond in sentiment to “We won’t go home till morning” than anything else that can be thought of.
“J’ai deux grands bœufs dans mon étable,
J’ai deux grands bœufs marqués de rouge;
Ils gagnent plus dans une semaine
Qu’ils n’en ont couté, qu’ils n’en ont couté.
J’aime Jeanne ma femme!
J’aime Jeanne ma femme!
Eh bien! j’aimerais mieux la voir mourir,
Que de voir mourir mes bœufs.”
Doubtless there is not so much hard-heartedness about the sentiment as is expressed by the words, which, to say the least and the most, are not wholly up to the standard of “love, cherish, and protect.”
Once in awhile one sees the type of man who is known among his fellows as Breton des plus Bretons. Like his Norman brother, the Breton in the off season works hard playing dominoes or cards in the taverns, where one reads on a sign over the door that Jean X donne à boire et à manger, that is, if the sign be not in Breton, which more often than not it is.
The landlord does not exactly “give” his fare; he exchanges it for copper sous, but he caters for the inner man at absurdly small prices, and accordingly is well patronized, in spite of his refusal of credit.
Bowls is the national game of Brittany, having a greater hold upon the simple-minded Breton, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Lannion, than any other amusement. No respectably ambitious inn in all Brittany is without its bowling-alley. As a distraction, it is mild and harmless, and withal good exercise, as we all know.
The religious fervour of the Breton folk has been remarked of all who know them howsoever slightly. It is universal, and, if it be more apparent in one place than any other, it is in the Department of Finistère, and it is not in the cities and towns that it reaches its greatest height, but mostly in the country-side, or on the seacoast among the labourers and the fisher-folk.
The religion of Brittany to-day is of the people and for the people. It is one of the great questions of the world to-day, but from a dogmatic point of view it shall have no discussion here. Suffice it to say that throughout France, with the numerous great, and nearly always empty, churches ever before one, one can but realize that the power of the Church is not what it once was.
The churchgoers are chiefly women; seldom, if ever, except on a great feast-day, are the churches filled with a congregation at all representative of the population of the parish, and even in the great cathedrals the same impression nearly always holds good.
In Brittany, the case is somewhat different, in the country districts at least, and even at Roscoff, Quimper, Vannes, and Rennes, where there are great cathedrals. In Brittany, in every parish church and at every wayside shrine, is almost always to be found not only a little knot of devoutly kneeling peasants, but, on all occasions of mark, a congregation overflowing beyond the doors. What this all signifies, as before said, is no concern of the writer of this book. It is simply a recorded state of affairs, and, judging from the attitude of the people themselves—when seen on the spot—toward the subject of religion, the most liberal thinker would hardly consider that here in Brittany religion was anything else than spontaneous devotion on the part of the people.