Celui qui aimait son pays et qui l'a aimé jusqu'à mourir.
Il est mort à vingt-deux ans
Comme meurent les martyrs et les saints;
Que dieu ait pitié de son âme!
Le seigneur est mort … Ma voix s'éteint, …
Toi qui l'as trahi, sois maudit, sois maudit;
Toi qui l'as trahi, sois maudit.”
We left Le Faouët and its comfortable primitive inn, the "Lion d'Or," with much regret; the country around is beautiful, and we had arranged to set out early that we might cross the Montagnes Noires by daylight; but we were disappointed in procuring a carriage, and it was not till late in the afternoon that we were able to leave in a diligence, of which the coupé alone was reserved to us, the interior being occupied by Breton farmers, returning from a horse-fair. From the elevated wooded ground of Le Faouët, the road makes a precipitous descent, and crosses the little stream of Moulin-au-duc, after which it again rises, in a winding direction, along the side of a mountain with a valley and little stream beneath. Then a rapid descent [pg 297] brought us to Gourin, where we would gladly have risked staying the night, and waited till morning to pursue our road over the mountains, but we had paid our fare to Carhaix. Up hill and down again, like all the roads in mountainous Finistère, from Gourin we ascended again and passed a crest of the Montagnes Noires, which separates the three departments of Finistère, Morbihan, and Côtes-du-Nord; and proceeded through a valley to Carhaix, where we arrived at midnight, and therefore had no opportunity of seeing the beauties of the mountain scenery.
Carhaix is a dirty, unpaved, dull town of the middle ages, much decayed from its ancient importance when capital of the country dismembered from Cornouaille, in the sixth century, by Comorre the Breton Bluebeard. It is situated on an eminence, commanding an extensive view of the barren monotonous surrounding country, bounded by the Arré mountains, the Alps of Finistère. It is the centre of Lower Brittany, and the Duke d'Aiguillon, Minister of Louis XV., caused six roads to be made from it to Brest, Quimper, Morlaix, St. Brieux, Vannes, and Châteaulin, with the hope of introducing commerce and civilisation into this barren district, "le dernier trou du monde," as it is styled by the Parisian.
La Tour d'Auvergne, Premier Grenadier de [pg 298] France, was born here, and a bronze statue of him, by Marochetti, has been erected to his memory. He is in the uniform of a private soldier, and presses to his heart the sword of honour just presented to him by the First Consul. Round the pedestal are four bas-reliefs, representing scenes in his life. In the first, he saves a wounded soldier; in the second, he forces the gates of Chambery; in the third, he takes leave of the parents of a youth, for whom he goes as a substitute into the army. The last represents his death; he was killed by a lance at Ober-hausen (Bavaria), fighting against the Austrians. The monument bears this inscription on its four sides:—