Finally, so as to omit nothing, I will mention the mastiffs which formed the garrison of Saint-Malo, They were descended from the famous dogs which were regimental pets under the Gauls, and which, according to Strabo, fought by their masters' side in pitched battles against the Romans. Albertus Magnus, a monk of the Dominican Order, and as serious a writer as the Greek geographer, declares that at Saint-Malo "the safety of this important place was entrusted nightly to the faithful care of certain dogs, which patrolled well and trustily." They were condemned to capital punishment for having had the misfortune inconsiderately to bite a gentleman's legs; which gave rise in our days to the song, Bon voyage: people will laugh at anything. The criminals were imprisoned; one of them refused to take his food from the hands of his keeper, who wept; the noble animal elected to die of hunger: dogs, like men, are punished for their fidelity. In addition to this, the Capitol was, like my own Delos, guarded by dogs, which did not bark when Scipio Africanus came to say his morning prayer.
Saint-Malo is an enclosure of walls of different periods, divided into "great" and "little" walls, which form walks, and is defended besides by a castle of which I have spoken, and which the Duchess Anne fortified with towers, bastions, and moats. Seen from the outside, the island city resembles a granite citadel.
The children's meeting-place is the strand of the open sea, between the Castle and the Fort-Royal; here I was reared, the companion of the waves and winds. One of my earliest delights was to fight with the storms, to play with the waves which retired before me or chased me across the beach. Another diversion was, with the sand on the sea-shore, to build edifices which my play-fellows called "ovens." Since that time I have often seen castles, built for eternity, that have crumbled more swiftly than my sand palaces.
My lot being irrevocably fixed, I was left to pass an idle childhood. A few notions of drawing, English, hydrography and mathematics seemed more than sufficient for the education of a little boy destined beforehand for the rough life of a sailor.
I grew up in my family without lessons. We no longer occupied the house in which I was born: my mother lived in a large house in the Place Saint-Vincent, almost facing the gate which leads to the Sillon. The ragamuffins of the town had become my dearest friends: I filled the yard and the staircases of the house with them. I resembled them in all things: I spoke their language; I had their ways and their walk; I was dressed like them, my clothes were as indecent and undone as theirs; my shirts fell to rags; I had never a pair of stockings but it was full of holes; I shuffled about in shabby shoes, down at heel, falling off my feet at every step; I often lost my hat and sometimes my coat. My face was smudged, scratched, bruised; my hands black. So strange was my appearance that my mother, in the midst of her anger, could not keep from laughing and exclaiming, "How ugly he is!"
Nevertheless I loved, and I have always loved, cleanliness and elegance. At night I tried to mend my rags. Kind Villeneuve and my Lucile assisted in repairing my clothes, to save me from scoldings and punishments; but their patching only served to make my outfit the odder. I was particularly disconsolate when I appeared in tatters among children proud of their new clothes and of their finery.
There was something about my fellow-townsmen that was foreign and suggested Spain. Families from Saint-Malo had settled at Cadiz; families from Cadiz lived at Saint-Malo. Saint-Malo's insular position, its embankment, its architecture, its houses, its tanks, and its granite walls give it a certain resemblance to Cadiz; when I saw the latter town it often reminded me of the former.
Locked up at night in their city under the same key, the Malouins formed but one family. So primitive were the habits of the place, that young women who sent to Paris for their ribbons and muslins were looked upon as worldly creatures from whom their startled acquaintances held aloof. A frailty was a thing unknown: suspicion having fallen upon a certain Comtesse d'Abbeville, the result was a ballad in singing which people crossed themselves. Nevertheless the poet, faithful, in spite of himself, to the troubadour tradition, took sides against the husband, whom he called "a barbarous monster."
On certain days of the year, the townsmen and the country-people met at fairs called "assemblies," which were held upon the islands and forts surrounding Saint-Malo; these were reached on foot when the sea was low, by boat when it was high. The crowd of sailors and peasants; the covered carts; the caravans of horses, donkeys and mules; the concourse of dealers; the tents lining the sea-shore; the processions of monks and brotherhoods winding with their banners and crosses amid the crowd; the rowing and sailing-boats flitting to and fro; the ships entering harbor or heaving anchor in the roads; the salutes of artillery, the pealing of the bells, all combined to fill these gatherings with noise, movement and variety.
Holidays at Saint-Malo.