NO promise given to the hostess of one’s inn is alleged as an excuse for writing this book, but it is true that rosy, busy Madame X of the Soleil d’Or, in the fishing village in which the work received its final collation and revision, watched its growth for many a week, daily declaring her hope of some day receiving a volume containing “your impressions.” And, indeed, her hope shall not be vain, for one of the first copies shall be most speedily despatched to her. Moreover, the author and artist hope that it may be acceptable to her critical mind, for she is not likely to be lenient, though she knows full well that to the many authors and artists who make a refuge of her modest inn for months she owes her livelihood.
The book is a record of many journeys and many rambles by road and rail around the coast, and in no sense is it put forth either as a special or as a complete survey of things and matters Breton.
Many lights and shadows have been thrown upon the screen from various points, but the effort has been made to blend them all into a pleasing whole, which shall supplement the guide-books of convention.
It were not possible to do more than has been attempted within the limits of a volume such as this, and therefore many details of routes, and historical data of a relative sort, and a certain amount of topographical information have been scattered through the volume or placed in the appendix, in the belief that such information is greatly needed in a work attempting to purvey “travel talk” even in small measure.
Some of this knowledge is so little subject to change that it may well stand for all time, and, in these days of well-nigh universal travel, may be not thought out of place in a volume intended both for the armchair traveller and also for him who journeys by road and rail. That only a very limited quantity of such information can be included is a misfortune, inasmuch as such a handbook is often used when no other aid is accessible to the traveller.
Finally, the illustrative material, the large number of drawings of sights and scenes, of great architectural monuments, and of the dress of the people, is offered less as a complete pictorial survey than as a panorama of impressions received on and off the beaten track,—and more satisfying and truthful than the mere snap-shots of hurried travel.
In addition, many maps, plans, and diagrams should give many of the itineraries a lucidity often lacking in the usual railway maps.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [Apologia] | [v] | |
| [PART I.] | ||
| [I.] | Introductory | [3] |
| [II.] | The Province and the People | [11] |
| [III.] | The Topography of the Province | [33] |
| [IV.] | Travel Routes in Brittany | [45] |
| [V.] | The Breton Tongue and Legend | [59] |
| [VI.] | Manners and Customs | [70] |
| [VII.] | The Fisheries | [88] |
| [PART II.] | ||
| [I.] | The Loire in Brittany | [99] |
| [II.] | Nantes To Vannes | [116] |
| [III.] | The Morbihan—Vannes and the “Golfe” | [140] |
| [IV.] | Auray and the Megalithic Monuments of Morbihan | [159] |
| [V.] | Morbihan—Lorient and Its Neighbourhood | [179] |
| [VI.] | Finistère—South | [187] |
| [VII.] | Finistère—North | [221] |
| [VIII.] | The Côtes du Nord | [249] |
| [IX.] | The Emerald Coast | [271] |
| [X.] | On the Road in Brittany—Mayenne, Fougères, Laval, and Vitré | [309] |
| [XI.] | Rennes and Beyond | [329] |
| [XII.] | Religious Festivals and Pardons | [341] |
| [Appendices] | [359] | |
| [Index]:[A],[B],[C],[D],[E],[F],[G],[H],[J],[K],[L],[M],[N],[O],[P],[Q],[R],[S],[T],[V]. | [373] | |