"If it was meet for none save the Roman orator worthily
to praise the august assembly of the Roman Senate, was it
meet for me to venture upon the praise of your august assembly,
which so worthily recalls to us the image of all that ancient and
modern Rome possessed that was majestic and venerable?"
Rostrenen proves that Celtic is one of those primitive languages which Gomer, the eldest son of Japhet, brought to Europe, and that the Lower Bretons, despite their short stature, descend from the giants. Unfortunately, Gomer's Breton children, long separated from France, allowed part of their old title-deeds to perish: their charters, to which they did not attach sufficient importance as linking them to general history, too often lack the authenticity to which the decipherers of diplomas, on their side, attach too high a price.
The time of the holding of the States in Brittany was a time of balls and festivals: one dined with M. le Commandant, dined with M. le Président de la Noblesse, dined with M. le Président du Clergé, dined with M. le Trésorier des États, dined with M. l'Intendant de la Province, dined with M. le Président du Parlement; one dined everywhere: and drank! At long refectory tables sat Du Guesclins who were husbandmen, Duguay-Trouins who were seamen, wearing at their side their iron swords with old-fashioned guards or their short cutlasses. All the gentlemen assisting at the States in person bore no slight resemblance to a Diet of Poland, of Poland on foot, not on horseback, a diet of Scythians, not of Sarmatians.
Madame de Sévigné.
Unfortunately, they played too much. The balls never ended. The Bretons are noted for their dances and dance-tunes. Madame de Sévigné has described our political festivals in the midst of the waste-lands, like the revels of fairies and goblins which were held at night on the moors:
"You shall now," she writes[278]," have news about our States for your pains of being a Breton. M. de Chaulnes made his entry on Sunday evening, with all the noise that Vitré could afford: on Monday morning he sent me a letter, which I answered by going to dine with him. They dine at two tables in the same room; there are fourteen covers at each table; Monsieur presides at one, and Madame at the other. The good cheer is excessive, whole dishes of roast meat are carried away uncut; and the pyramids of fruit are so tall, that the doorways have to be made higher. Our forefathers did not foresee this kind of machines, seeing that they did not even understand that a door ought to be higher than themselves.... After dinner, Messieurs de Lomaria and Coëtlogon danced some marvelous jigs with two Breton ladies, and minuets with an air which our courtiers cannot approach: they execute Gipsy and Lower Breton steps with charming daintiness and precision.... Night and day there reign such play, good cheer, and freedom as will attract all the world. I had never seen the States before; it is a pretty thing enough. I doubt if there is a province whose assembly has so grand an air as this; it must be very full, I fancy, for there is not one of the members at the war nor at Court; except the little cornet[279], who perhaps may return here one day like the rest.... A multitude of presents, pensions, repairs of highways and towns, fifteen or twenty large tables, a continual round of dancing and gaming, plays three times a week, and a great deal of show and splendor: there you have the States. I have forgot three or four hundred pipes of wine which are drank out here."
The Bretons find it difficult to forgive Madame de Sévigné for her raillery. I am less severe; but I do not like to hear her say, "You speak very pleasantly of our miseries; we are no longer so roué[280]: one in eight days only, to keep justice going. 'Tis true that a hanging now comes refreshingly to me." This is carrying the agreeable language of the Court to excess: Barère[281] spoke with the same grace of the guillotine. In 1793, the drownings at Nantes were called "republican marriages:" the popular despotism reproduced the amenities of style of the royal despotism.
The Paris fops, who accompanied messieurs the King's company to the States, related that we country squires had our pockets lined with tin so that we might take home M. le Commandant's fricassees of chicken to our wives. These jests were dearly paid for. A Comte de Sabran had erewhile lost his life in return for his idle talk. This descendant of the troubadours and of the Provencal kings, as big as a Swiss[282], allowed himself to be killed by a little hare-hunter of Morbihan, no taller than a Laplander[283]. This "Ker[284]" was not a whit second to his adversary in pedigree: if St. Elzear of Sabran was a near kinsman of St. Louis, St. Corentin[285], collateral ancestor of the most noble Ker, was Bishop of Quimper under King Gallon II., three centuries before Christ.
*
The King's revenue, in Brittany, consisted of the benevolences, which varied according to needs; the income from the Crown domains, which might amount to three or four hundred thousand francs; the stamp-duty, &c.