Continued.
Saint-Thêgonnec
Cemeteries
Calvaries
Character Of The People.
We need not traverse the whole of Brittany to have a perfect idea of the works of architecture which faith has embellished. In one little borough-town, Saint-Thégonnec, between Morlaix and Landerneau, we find all the types of Christian art in Brittany concentrated—church, funereal chapel, burying-vault, calvary, and sculptures.
The Breton cemeteries closely resemble each other; nearly everywhere they surround the church, and are enclosed by a low wall, often without gates of any kind, merely a small ditch preventing the cattle from trespassing on the abode of the dead. [Footnote 21] A cross, or a calvary, where the scenes of the passion are represented, or sometimes the kneeling statue of a loved or lamented pastor's venerated image that recalls his virtues to his faithful people, these are the only monuments of the cemeteries of the Breton villages. The tombs are marked by small heaps of earth, pressed each against the other, and surmounted by a cross. Some are covered by a stone, and in this stone is indented a little cup that gathers the dew and rain from heaven, and offers to the mourning relative—the mother, son, the friend—the blessed asperges to accompany the prayer for him who lies beneath. [Footnote 22] These cemeteries, placed in the midst of towns and villages, cannot be of any great extent; soon, therefore, they are filled with extinct generations, and these bodies must be exhumed to make place for new-comers. In one village, Plouha, after the sons had disinterred the bodies of their fathers, they decorated the façade of the church with the stones of the tombs, that they might be cold witnesses of their memories, or, at least, might never cover the bodies of others. The general resting-place for these exhumed bones is a mortuary chapel constructed by the side of the church; and if a glance is taken through the Gothic arch which opens on this charnel-house, bones upon bones may be seen heaped up and mingled like blades of straw. These were men who have walked on the earth, now solitary and forsaken until the eternal resurrection.
[Footnote 21: At Goueznon, at Plabennec, etc.]
[Footnote 22: We see in Algeria little cups hollowed in the sepulchral stones of the Mussulmans; but this water is only used by the birds to satisfy their thirst, or to water the flowers that decorate the tombs.]
But at Saint-Thégonnec a more respectful and tender sentiment has tried to preserve intact at least a portion of these bodies so rudely torn from the earth. Before entering the church, we are struck by an unexpected sight; from every projection of the building, on the porches, on the prominent cornices, are laid or hung and suspended, one above the other, a multitude of small boxes arranged as a chaplet; these little boxes, surmounted each by its cross, are coffins, and enclose the skull of an ancestor, his head, or, according to the expressive word of the old language, le chef, that which is most noble in man, and which may be resumed. An inscription indicates the date and name:
"Here lies LE CHEF de …"
Another touching symbol may be seen through the openings, the funeral archives of families preserved in the shadow of the church, that rising generations may discover them, so that they may not be forgotten, as they would be, immured in their own homes. [Footnote 23]