Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

Nothing is of an inferior quality, however, and, as all is served from the same kitchen, it is merely a question as to whether one will have more or less, or whether he will eat it off linen napery, with a napkin to tuck under his right ear,—as is the French commercial traveller’s custom,—or whether he will be satisfied with an oilcloth table-covering. The difference is more apparent than real, for the “frugal repast” at a franc and a half is the three franc meal shorn of its trimmings; you get the same dishes and the same service.

As if to ease the process, a stentorian railway hand puts his head in the door and shouts: “Ten minutes before the Vannes express starts!” and returns again at the end of the allotted time to give a final call: “Into the carriages, gentlemen!” It is much the same the world over, of course, but they are more polite in France, and the food is better of its kind, and much better served, two very appreciable differences.

Redon itself and its great open square, on which are the railway station, the hotels, and the gaunt, lone, dismembered tower of the Church of St. Sauveur, is by no means attractive. The square is bare of trees, and in the summer the sun beats down upon the frequenters of the terrace coffee-rooms of the hotels in a manner which makes one wonder why they do not move off and seek a shady spot elsewhere.

The indifference shown by the natives of certain localities for the pelting sunlight, which makes some of us think of cabbage leaves for our hats and “gin rickeys” for our stomachs, is curious. The Neapolitan prefers to loll about in the blazing Italian sun, and says that no one but an Englishman or a dog ever seeks the shade. The citizen of Redon is like him, and does not care who knows it, and his sunlight, though it comes to earth some hundreds of miles farther north, appears to be of the same caloric value.

Redon was an old monastic foundation of St. Convoïon’s, of the Vannes church. He built the Abbey of St. Sauveur, of which the present church and its lone tower are later additions. The main body of the present edifice dates in part from the time of the foundation, though its fabric was frequently added to and restored up to the twelfth century, from which period it may really be said to date. The central tower of this church is said to be the only Romanesque feature of its class in all Brittany, and is certainly one of the most sturdy anywhere to be seen.

Another remarkable feature is a chapel, the walls loopholed and machicolated, and built by the Abbé Yves in the fifteenth century; to-day it serves as the sacristy.

The high altar, a rich and imposing affair, was the gift of the great Richelieu when he was in possession of the revenues of the abbey. The city was surrounded by a fortification or wall by the Abbot John of Treal in 1364, and in 1422 John V., Count of Brittany, established a mint here.

Questembert, westward toward Vannes, is a town of four thousand or so inhabitants, and has many interesting old houses, but otherwise is devoid of attractions either for the lover of architectural monuments or for worshippers at religious or other shrines. It is, however, the place for holding many local fairs or markets of considerable magnitude, where one may make practically his first acquaintance with the Breton peasant, becoiffed and beribboned as he, or she, only is on native heath.

Rochefort-en-Terre is also a chief place; as its population numbers less than seven hundred souls, it cannot be considered as even a local metropolis. Its situation and its fine, though not stupendously remarkable, architectural glories make up for what it lacks in the way of population. It sits high on a hillside dominating the little river Arz, a confluent of the Vilaine. Its name is due to the founder of a château built here in the thirteenth century and destroyed by the Catholic Leaguers in 1594, though it was afterwards rebuilt and again destroyed, this time by Revolutionary firebrands, in 1793. The ruins of this château are to-day very satisfactory indeed as ruins, though they include few or none of the architectural details with which the work must once have been endowed. The lower courses of the walls are there, remains of five towers, and an ancient well, with a curb of sculptured granite.

The ancient collegiate Church of Notre Dame de la Tronchaye is an ecclesiastical monument of high rank, for a town like Rochefort-en-Terre, and is an altogether lovable old shrine, with admirable sculptures in stone and some curious wooden statues, in the interior, said originally to have been those of Claude of Rieux and Suzanne of Bourbon, Lord and Lady de Rochefort. These statues are now converted into a St. Joseph and a Virgin. This may or may not have been a sacrilege; it certainly was a desecration. The ancient city gates remain, and there are numerous fifteenth and sixteenth century houses.