Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

The site of the old Abbey of Holy Cross was known in the sixth century as Anaurot, and became the refuge of one of the Breton Kings of Cambria, who, abdicating, came here and built a hermitage, which in time was converted into an abbey of Benedictines. This old Abbey of Holy Cross, as it exists to-day, has a ground-plan which more nearly follows that of a four-armed cross than any other extant in Christendom. The same motive doubtless inspired its builders as that which induced the architects of Charlemagne to erect that famous round church at Aix-la-Chapelle, which in reality it greatly resembles in general features; both went back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem for their initial idea.

This church at Quimperlé is one of the three or four in all Brittany having a crypt, and it is more amply endowed with interior furnishings and fitments than many a grander edifice. Altogether it is an ecclesiastical monument of the first importance.

It has a companion, moreover, of no mean rank, either, in the Church of St. Michael, which sits high on the hilltop and dominates nearly every vista of the town.

After a tempestuous past extending from the monastic foundation of the sixth century, Anaurot, or Quimperlé as it had become meantime, surrendered to Duguesclin in 1373. Finally, when a treaty had been signed with the League as to future neutrality, the city walls were demolished (in 1680), and Quimperlé settled down to a peaceful existence, which is only broken on the year’s great feast-days, or on the days of the pardons,—that of the Passion in March, the Pardon of the Birds on Whit-Monday, the second day of May, or the last Sunday of July.

One or the other of these dates should be made to correspond with one’s itinerary, when one will see the real Lower Breton as he seldom appears outside a picture. Near Quimperlé is the little coast station of Pouldu, where figtrees, the hydrangea, and other plants of the Midi bloom throughout the year.

Needless to say that it may some day become a really popular and populous seaside resort, with casinos and alleged Hungarian bands, but that day may be far distant, and any one looking for an unspoiled seaside resting-place need not hesitate to go out of his way to give a glance to this altogether delightful little port of Pouldu. There is nothing like it, nothing so unaffected and unspoiled, on the whole Breton coast. On the way to Pouldu one passes the important ruins of the ancient Abbey of St. Maurice, founded in 1170 by the Duke Conan IV., and the place where Maurice—a monk of Langonnet since become sainted—was buried in 1191. In part, this fine ruin dates from the thirteenth century, to which period belong the chapter-room and the chapel, the principal features still remaining intact.

Near Quimperlé is St. Fiacre, whom some unknowing person has called the patron saint of the Paris cabman, an individual who has not much regard for anything saintly.

There is a beautiful fifteenth-century chapel at St. Fiacre, though to-day it is greatly marred by wind, weather, and barbarous customs. Each year, in June, there is an important fair held at St. Fiacre, at which the young men from round about offer themselves for employment. Each of them carries a rod or switch. To engage one who seems a likely person for your purpose, you, or the young man before your eyes,—after a parley,—break the rod, and he immediately becomes a member of your domestic establishment.

There seems something rather uncertain about all this, but surely the “matter of form” augurs as well for good and faithful service as the average written “character” with which one engages a servant in England.

The hair-cutter appears at St. Fiacre as at all Breton fairs. He is known as Gerard, and since the age of ten years he has been learned in the art of hair-cutting. For a long time he was the chief barber of a regiment of the line, and he will tell you (or he may not) that he has cut many hundreds of thousands of heads in his time, and has garnered enough of a crop to carpet the whole of the village of St. Fiacre a metre deep.