Translated From The French.
Faith And Poetry Of The Bretons.
The bay of St. Malo is strewn here and there with rocks, upon which forts have been erected to protect the town by their cross fires. One of these, the Grand Bé, was formerly armed with cannon; but the fort is now abandoned, and only recognizable midst its ruins by the cross at the extremity of the beach, resting apparently on the blue sky above. To this cross all eyes are attracted, to this all steps turn, so soon as the breakers leave a shore of sand and granite for a pathway for the travellers.
After having ascended a rough and steep declivity, a naked and desert plateau is attained, where a few sheep find with difficulty a herb to browse upon; then a turn through a defile of rocks, and on the steepest point a stone and cross of granite. This is the tomb of Chateaubriand.
No longer a poetical tomb; leaning against the Old World, it contemplates the New; under it, the immense sea, and the vessels passing at its feet; no flowers, no verdure around it, no other noise than the incessantly moving sea, covering in its tempests this naked stone with the froth of its waves. Here he chose his last resting-place; and we wonder what thought inspired the wish that not even his name should be inscribed upon his tomb. Was it pride, or humility that actuated him? To me it appears that this humility and this pride were from the same source—a perfect disenchantment with the world. This man, who had proved so many projects abortive, so many ambitions misplaced; this traveller who had overrun the universe, visited the East, the cradle of the Old World, and the deserts of America, where was born the New; the poet who could count the cycles of his life by its revolutions, was overwhelmed at the end of it by a sadness that knew no repose. He, whose youth was preluded by Considerations on Revolutions, so comprehended life in his latter years as to write The Biography of the Reformer of La Trappe. The silence and solitude of the cloister were in harmony with the sadness of his soul. Having been charged with the most important missions, having accomplished the highest employments, and set to work the most skilful and powerful men, he retired from the whirling circle of the world, penetrated with the overpowering truth, how little man is worth, how little he knows, and how seldom he succeeds in what he undertakes. The usual source of joy—pride, the intoxication of the world—only provoked in him a smile; for all men he had the same contempt—did not even except himself—and knew well, according to the ancient proverb, that there is very little difference between one man and another. [Footnote 175]
[Footnote 175: Thucydides.]
Through humility, then, he cared not for any inscription on his tomb, not even a name. What mattered it who read it! Men were nothing, and he was one of them! But through pride also, he chose this naked stone. Travellers would come from all parts of the world, they would contemplate it and say, Chateaubriand! His name would be echoed by the waves that came from, and those that parted for, distant shores; and men were obliged to know where he lay.
Thus—ever-recurring instability of the human soul!—in him were united the most contrary sentiments—the disenchantment of glory, and the belief in the immortality of a name; the disdain of scepticism, and the thirst for applause; the impression of the Christian's humility, and an instinct of sovereign pride.
Here, however, we find truth: this cross, the sign of eternity on this stone marked by death, is the immutable testimony of the emptiness of human pride. Chateaubriand desired only a cross on his tomb, while Lamennais, his compatriot, rejected it: both obedient to the same preoccupation, in negation as in faith. The cross, dominating the tomb where the Breton poet reposes, is the symbol of the genius of his country, of Catholic Brittany.
Faith, in Brittany, has a particular character, allied to a poetry peculiar to Breton genius. In this country material objects speak; the very stones are animated, and the fields assume a voice to reveal the soul of man conversing with his God. This is not imagination; no one can be deceived in it. So soon as one enters Brittany, the physiognomy of the country changes, and the sign of this change is the cross. On all the roads, at all the public places, is raised the cross; of every epoch from the twelfth to the nineteenth century we find them, and of every form. There, simple crosses of granite raised on a few steps; here, crosses bearing on each side the image of Christ and the Virgin, rude sculptures in themselves, but always impressed with a sincere sentiment. The Bretons not only understand the tenderness of the Blessed Virgin, but they feel her grief; they share it with her, and express it with an energetic truth. Look at the picture of the Virgin holding her dead son on her knees, in the church of St. Michael at Quimperlé. It is a primitive painting by an unskilled hand, and one totally ignorant of the resources of art; the design of it is incorrect; yet what an expression of grief! The painter wished to portray the living suffering of the mother; the mouth is distorted, the eyes are fixed, the pupil seems alone indicated: yet this fixedness of look seizes upon you; you stop, you remain to examine it, you forget that it is a representation, and see the Virgin herself, immovable in her grief, with no power to express her sorrow; petrified, yet living.