Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

The ancient ramparts of the old fortified town appear here and there along the river-bank, in the well-preserved gateway which one passes on the left after leaving the river on the way to the church, and in yet another fragment—a great circular tower—in the courtyard of the aforesaid excellent Hôtel de France.

The old castle of Hennebont, of which something more than fragments still remain, saw the death of Comte Charles of Blois, who, escaping from his dungeon in one of the towers of the old Louvre at Paris, came here in 1345. One may read in Froissart of the defence of Hennebont by Jeanne of Montfort in 1342.

There are many old gabled houses at Hennebont, most fantastic in form, one of which, bearing the inscription, “Le Levic, 1600,” is perhaps the most ancient of any built without the walls of the fortified town.

The great fortified gateway, which gives access to the old citadel, is a fine ogival work flanked by two massive machicolated towers. This old district is quite the most curious and unworldly feature of this little city by the Blavet.

It is a veritable town of the middle ages, yet unspoiled and quite as it was in the olden days, when its sturdy walls gave protection against the invader, and its great gates opened only upon the orders of the governor.

In suburban Hennebont, scarce a kilometre away, on the left bank of the Blavet, are to be seen the remains of the old Abbaye de la Joie, a famous establishment of the monks of the Cistercian order. It was founded in the thirteenth century by Blanche of Champagne, wife of John the Red-haired. One still sees her statue in wood and bronze, but the conventual buildings themselves have come to base uses, and are now a horse-breeding establishment.

Pont Scorff, so far as its situation is concerned, resembles Hennebont. It spans the tiny river Scorff, and the views along the banks are in every way equally delightful with those on the Blavet. Pont Scorff, however, has not the magnitude or the antiquity of Hennebont, and its two parts are known as the upper town and the lower town.

The most ancient building here is the Chapel of St. John of the old commandery of St. John du Faouët; it dates at least from the thirteenth century. There is a fine Renaissance house in the little public square, called the House of the Princes. It is richly decorated and has a fine series of dormer windows and a row of pilasters bearing the symbols of the Rohan family. There is another ancient house, formerly belonging, it is believed, to the Templars. The parish Church of St. Albin dates only from 1610, and is in no way a remarkable work.

The Chapel of Notre Dame de Kergornet, a fifteenth-century edifice near by, is a place of pilgrimage for the Breton nurses, that great race of foster-mothers who care for the thousands of Parisian children in the Bois, or the gardens of the Tuileries, or the Luxembourg.

From this point, as one journeys westward, he leaves pretty much all France behind him. The modern Department of Finistère, the “Land’s End” of the French, is all that lies between him and the vast heaving Atlantic.