As a race, the Breton may well be summed up as follows: They are the descendants of the men of a primitive epoch, from whom they inherit traits which even time has not entirely eradicated. Their intuitions are correct, and their convictions profound; their will tenacious, and their energies equal to all that may be demanded of them. They are proud, truthful, courageous, intrepid, hospitable, and religious.
The manufacturing industry throughout Brittany is practically null, if one except the work of the great arsenals and ship-building ports, and the production of such articles of local consumption as sail-cloth.
Flax and hemp are grown in considerable quantities, but the ordinary crops of cereals rise to nothing like the proportions of those reared in Normandy or Perche. The Breton is strong on bee-keeping, however, and keenly watches the busy workers of his hives as they gather their harvest from the abundant crop of wild flowers covering the hillsides.
Breton Types
The Breton communes are of vast extent compared with those of other parts of France, but the population is scattered. Gathered around the parish church are the dwellings of the market-towns of three, four, or five hundred inhabitants or more. Upon the whole, Brittany is not thinly peopled, the mean of its population exceeding that of most of the other provinces of France. Whatever the aborigines were, whether of Indo-Germanique type or of a species hitherto unplaced, the present Breton population has been developed along lines close to those of Britain. And the Bretons are not far behind, and herein undoubtedly lies the charm of Brittany for the English-speaking traveller.