Brittany

by S. Baring-Gould

TRÉGUIER CATHEDRAL

Plouneour-Menez. The very interesting abbey church of le Relecq lies near a tarn, one of the sources of the river of Morlaix. The abbey was founded on the site of the last battle fought between Judnal and Conmore, usurper of Domnonia, 555. It takes its name from the "religou" or bones which were found in great numbers on the battlefield. The original settler here was S. Tanguy, disciple of Paul of Léon, but the present church dates from 1132. The interior is a most interesting example of 12th century work. The west front was rebuilt in the 18th cent. On the N. side are the remains of the cloister of other monastic buildings. P. 15th August.

Tinténiac (I.V.) chl. arr. S. Malo. Reached by a tramline from Rennes. Prettily situated. The church is modern. There are some old houses. A menhir called La Roche du Diable.

At Tréversien is the Château de la Fosse aux Loups, where the scene is laid of Paul Féval's novel "Rollan Pied de Fer."

Les Iffs and the Château of Montmuran may be visited from Tinténiac (see Becherel).

* TRÉGUIER (C.N.) chl. arr. Lannion. An old cathedral city at the junction of the Jaudy and the Guindy. The town is on rising ground but runs down to the water side to a little point. On the highest ground is the cathedral, of nave and side aisles and two transepts. The church was almost altogether constructed in the 14th cent. It was begun in 1339. It has, however, preserved an 11th cent. tower on the N. side called de Tour de Hasting. It has the characteristic round-headed windows and pillasters of the period. The N. transept is in this tower and the pillars there with the Byzantine capitals and round arches proclaim that they belong to the beginning of the 11th cent. The bases are rudely carved, and bear the appearance of having been earlier capitals reversed and employed as bases. But this is probably in appearance only. What is of special interest to the visitor is the fact that Tréguier cathedral belongs almost wholly to the Middle Pointed or Geometrical period, which is not abundantly represented in Brittany. The W. porch sustains a gallery, and the entrance is through a double opening, a slender pillar supporting trefoils and sustains a quatrefoil between them, all pierced. Above is a 2nd pointed W. window of no particular merit: a pair of turrets with spirelets flank the western façade. The cathedral has three towers, the northern Romanesque Tour de Hastings, a central tower of the 14th cent. not finished, and with a stunted cap on it, and the S. tower, above the transept of the same date, but furnished with a naked, ridiculous spire added in the 18th cent. The flamboyant window inserted in the transept is of the finest quality, as are also those at the side of the transept. Happily, the S. front of the cathedral furnishes a good object lesson in the study of the development of tracery. Beginning at the W. end of the nave we have two windows of the earliest description of tracery, two lights sustaining a circle, all uncusped. The third window has two trefoil headed lights sustaining a trefoil, but all rather clumsy in design. Then we have the fourth window vastly in advance of the other; each cusped light sustains a trefoil and both trefoils support a quatrefoil. It must be mentioned, by the way, that a S. porch has been converted into a baptistery, and the tracery in its window is modern. If we pass on to the choir we have three windows; the first is very good, geometric in design, but the second and third are of supreme richness and beauty, revealing the style at its very best. Then look at the side clerestory lights of the S. transept and its large S. window and we see flamboyant or 3rd pointed also at its best. Then step within and look at the second window from the west in the N. aisle of the nave, and you see flamboyant in its decadence, when cusping was abandoned. The S. porch is set below the flamboyant window of the S. transept and is original, and, it must be admitted, far from pleasing. It has a vaulted roof, the exterior being thus treated, and within sustained by three ribs, between which is open tracery through which the eye pierces to the vault above. The doorway into the church has statuary about it much mutilated. The church within is fine. It is not over lofty as are the great churches of the Isle of France and Normandy. The pillars of the nave vary, and the moulding of the first two arches is richer than the others. The triforium is plain till it reaches choir and S. transept, where it is greatly enriched. The clerestory windows are tall and good. The Romanesque pillars and stilted arches in the N. transept should not be passed over. The choir ends in an apse, and is seated with carved oak stalls. According to the cathedral accounts, these were presented in 1648, but in style they appear much older. On the gospel side of the high altar is a statue of S. Tugdual, the founder of the see, with the appropriate inscription, "Etsi aliis non sum apostolus, sed tamen vobis sum. Scitis quod precepta dederim vobis per Dominum Jesum." S. Tugdual was son of Hoel and Pompeia; Hoel was the son of Emyr the Armorican, who fled from Brittany to South Wales in the 5th cent. Here he founded a Church, Llanhowell, near Solva in Pembrokeshire, a very early curious structure resting on cyclopean foundations, probably as old as the 5th cent. Tugdual and his mother came over to Armorica, and first settled with S. Brioc, the uncle of Tugdual, at Trebabu, not far from Brest. But Brioc returned to Wales, where a plague was raging, to comfort the panic-stricken inhabitants, and when he came back to Trebabu, the monks refused to receive him, preferring the rule of a young man to one advanced in age, whereupon Brioc departed and founded S. Brieuc. Tréguier when Tugdual settled there was undoubtedly an ancient fortress, standing in the fork between two rivers. He must have been a man of extraordinary energy, for he scattered "lanns" or ecclesiastical centres throughout Northern Brittany. But though Tugdual was the apostle to this district and the founder of the church, he has been completely eclipsed by S. Yves, whose monument has been reconstructed in the nave. It had been smashed to pieces at the Revolution. The reconstruction is eminently successful. S. Yves is, perhaps, the most popular saint in Brittany. He was born at Kermartin, near Tréguier, in 1253, and became ecclesiastical judge in the diocese. His, at that time, unheard of probity in refusing bribes, and his consideration for sick and poor gained general respect. He died on May 19th, 1303, on which day his Pardon at Tréguier is celebrated. Every peasant who considers that he has been wronged, who nurses a grievance, who is engaged in a lawsuit, has recourse to S. Yves, as promptly as he who has a sick horse flees to S. Eloi. On the N. side of the church is the Chapel du Dûc, opening out of the aisle by three arches. An altarpiece is made up of fragments of old carved oak. N. of the choir, entered either through a door in the Tour de Hastings or through a gateway east of the church, is the cloister. This was erected in 1468, and is therefore flamboyant, but without weakness. The tower of S. Michel, 15th cent., stands outside the town on a height. The church has been pulled down. There are some old houses in the city, notably at the port, where is an eminently picturesque group of two towers and two houses; one in the street is a study in slated fronts.

The chapel of the old manor house of Kermartin now serves as parish church to Minihi Tréguier. It is of the 15th cent. In the sacristy is preserved a fragment of the breviary of S. Yves.

Portblanc, in the parish of Penvenan, is hoping to develop into a watering-place. The situation is very pleasing, the sea is studded with islands and bristles with rocks. The largest island is that of S. Gildas, to which that Saint occasionally retired. It is rocky and has been planted with Austrian pines. On it is a chapel of the Saint. There is an abundant freshwater spring in the sands between the coast and the island, only accessible at low tides. On the island is a dolmen, called Le Lit de S. Gildas; it consists of four uprights sustaining a coverer that measures 7 ft. by 4 ft. Near this is a rocking-stone. On another islet the musical composer Ambrose Thomas built himself a château, that is completely surrounded by the waves at high tide. Portblanc was at one time far more important than it is now. It is alluded to in Richard II. act ii. sc. i. On the road from Penvenan, opposite to the entrance of a château, is a small menhir, 8 ft high, built into the hedge. Another 13 ft high is near the village of Penvenan. There is also a demi-dolmen in the parish. Penvenan church is modern and execrable, but the little chapel at Portblanc is interesting. Internally it possesses an arcade that appears to be Romanesque, but as pillars and arches are thickly plastered with whitewash it is not easy to determine their period. There is a N. transept, the wall of which spreads outward at the base, battering considerably. The W. front and S. front and the E. end of the chapel are flamboyant. The soil reaches to the very eaves at the east end.

Plougrescent, a fallen menhir 19 ft. long, is near Maznoë. The parish church is modern and very creditable. But the main object of interest in the parish is the chapel of S. Gonery. The tower is early 1st pointed, and was never completed. Above it is now a leaning wood and lead spirelet. The chapel consists of a single nave, with chancel and two chapels, one on each side of the chancel. The glory of the chapel is its magnificent painted ceiling in ten lower ranges, representing on one side the incidents of the Nativity, on the other those of the Passion. Above these ten more compartments give the life of Our Lord in glory. These subjects are curious; the most remarkable perhaps is the reception of Adam and Eve into Heaven by Christ. In the body of the church is a noble carved oak buffet, to serve as cupboard to the relics of S. Gonery. It has on it the Twelve Apostles and the Annunciation. The church, with the exception of the tower, is 15th cent., and the paintings are of the same period. Unhappily through neglect of attention to the roof, those near the tower are seriously injured by the wet. On the N. side of the chancel is the fine renaissance monument of Bishop Guillaume de Halgoët, 1599; on it is a recumbent figure of the prelate. Some fragments of stained glass are in the windows representing the Annunciation and Christ on the Cross. The S. porch is bold and curious, a pent-house roof sustained on huge granite corbels. Under the tower are the tomb and the "boat" of S. Gonery. The tomb is reached by descending under a structure of the 17th cent. Those afflicted with fever obtain earth from it which they tie up in little packets, and return when well. Consequently several of those little parcels of earth may be seen on the tomb. On the opposite side is the boat, in which S. Gonery and his mother Libouban came over from Britain. It is a curiously shaped stone trough, and probably actually was the sarcophagus of the Saint. It nearly resembles the stone coffins of the Merovingian period and of the 11th cent. Statues of S. Gonery and of S. Libouban are one on each side of the altar, the latter erroneously marked as N.D. de Bon Secours; the statue of the Virgin is of alabaster, and of the 15th cent., and stands on an altar in the S. chapel. The seacoast at Plougrescent is bold and fine with noble cliffs. The day of S. Gonery is July 18, but the P. is on the 4th S. in July.