It is much frequented as a watering-place, and has an Etablissement. It is also a sea-port, with a rocky entrance to the harbour, and the dangerous rock with its lighthouse, called Le Four, extending for a league in front. The inhabitants of Le Croisic [pg 245] are principally engaged in the sardine fishery, and the curing of these fish consumes much of the salt of the marshes. The people complain this year they have no large orders for sardines, and there is but little white salt.
The chapel of St. Goustan, on the edge of the harbour, is singularly built; its western gable perched upon a little rock, half of which is inside and half outside the building. The church is no longer open for Divine service; but the peasant-girl who desires to know if she will be married this year, tries to pass a pin through the bars of the northern window without touching the wall. On the opposite side of the estuary are Périac and La Turbale, both seats of the sardine fishery. Returning the way we came, we stopped at the Plage Valentin, another bathing-place in a pretty little bay; with dressing-rooms and a small Etablissement. An omnibus conveys the bathers from Le Croisic, for two sous. The sea looks more inviting here and at Poulignan than at Le Croisic, where there is so much seaweed in the harbour. We returned through Batz; the cathedral tower of Saint Aubin at Guérande is to be seen at a great distance, and is a prominent object in the scenery; the whole country is covered with salt-pans. Guérande stands on a height, and turning back, the view of the whole district is most extensive. We passed through Saillé, where [pg 246] Duke John IV. married Joan of Navarre, afterwards the second wife of Henry of Lancaster.
Guérande, built on a vine-covered granite slope, is a singular old feudal town of the fifteenth century. It was fortified by Duke John V., and is nearly surrounded by granite walls, with ten towers and four old gateways, placed at the cardinal points of the compass. St. Michel, the principal gate, or rather a fortress, is flanked by two high towers, and contains the prison, archives, and hôtel de ville. A moat formerly surrounded the walls; but it has long been filled in, and boulevards substituted. From the battlements hang festoons of honeysuckle and ivy, and the moat is full of the yellow iris and water-lilies; nevertheless, Guérande has an austere, sombre aspect. There is a fine terrace walk, called the Mail, commanding a view of the whole country over Poulignan, Batz, and Le Croisic—a tented plain of salt.
47. La Roche Bernard.
The church of St. Aubin has Romanesque columns, with grotesque capitals. In one, two persons are sawing a third, stretched upon a wheel. On the left of the double-arched porch, is a pulpit outside the church, and there is some good painted glass within. Notre Dame Blanche, a chapel of the fourteenth century, is a pretty little building with stone pulpit and a sculptured group of Notre Dame-de-la-Salette with the two peasant children of Alsace. [pg 247] Next day, we took a private carriage for La Roche Bernard; the road lying over a wide extent of land through Herbignac to La Roche Bernard (Morbihan), which is most picturesquely situated on a rocky height overhanging the Vilaine, here traversed by an elegant suspension-bridge, opened in 1839, about 666 feet long and above 108 feet above high-water mark—a terrible dizzy height to cross even in calm weather. A few years since, the postman, his cart, and horse were all blown over into the river, and nothing more was ever heard of them. [pg 248] We went fishing several days in a large étang close to La Roche Bernard, and one evening took a pretty walk over the hills to another pond situated in a lovely secluded valley near a water-mill. La Roche Bernard was an early Protestant colony, founded by the Sieur d'Andelot, Seigneur of La Roche Bernard, brother to Admiral Coligny, and one of the firmest supporters of Calvinism. The Calvinists used to assemble at his château of Bretesch, where the minister of La Roche Bernard came to preach to them. D'Andelot and his sister, who was equally zealous in the cause, are, it is said, interred at La Roche Bernard. Near the Halles is a square block of houses; one of timber, with "Voie au Duc" inscribed upon it. These houses are said to have belonged to a Protestant community, and all to communicate with each other.
The evening of our arrival there was a wedding supper given at our hotel, the grand dinner having taken place elsewhere. The bride wore a white sash, with wreaths of white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music [pg 249] consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument of western and southern France. How it came to be introduced into Scotland and expel the harp—which was as much the original music of Scotland as of Wales and Ireland—is a mystery. But, as in the sixteenth century the harp went out and the bagpipes came into fashion, it may be surmised that it was brought in, with other French novelties, on the return of Queen Mary, perhaps by the Queen herself, or, maybe, some itinerant player of the cornemuse may have accidentally been in her train, and his music set a fashion which has now become national.
On market-day numbers of the women from Muzillac, a place about ten miles distant, came in with their fruit. They all wear an enormous plaited black cap, which looks like the cowl of a friar. The graceful form of the earthenware pots attracted our attention: probably they came from the adjacent town of Herbignac. The 15th August, Fête de la Vierge, and also that of the Emperor, was kept as a general holiday. An immense concourse of people arrived from the neighbourhood, and attended the six o'clock mass. We walked to the quay, to see the sports on the water; the spectators picturesquely grouped on a mass of bare rocks, commanding a pretty view up and down the river.
The amusements consisted of some races, and a mât de cocagne, or greased pole, placed horizontally over the river; the feat being to walk safely to the end, where the prize was fixed, without falling into the water. In the evening "ronds" were danced, and every house had illuminations, in the shape of a candle stuck in a potato, and placed on each end of the window sill.
Next day we left by diligence for Vannes, passing through Muzillac and on to Auray, where we took the steamer for Belle Isle.