It is unquestionably a town of considerable antiquity, and when it formed a part of the possessions of the dukes of Bretagne (ere those were annexed to the crown of France, by the marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne of Brittany) sometimes sided, in the wars between the English and the French, with one party, and sometimes with the other. A massy stone wall surrounding the old town, the cathedral, and some other buildings, are believed to be the works of our countrymen.
The town stands in a bottom, encompassed by high hills, and the largest part of it is built on a neck of land formed by the confluence of two rivers. I have often thought it like Plymouth; but it is not so large, although even now extremely populous. Its streets are narrow, winding, and dirty; and their former names have been changed into others of a revolutionary sound, such as the street of Voltaire, the street of Mably, the square of Liberty, &c. &c. The greatest part of the houses are very ancient and mean; but a few are large and stately, with walls whose thickness seems intended for endless duration. On entering them, I was surprized to see the unfinished state of most of the apartments, which are uncieled, the bare beams and cross-pieces presenting themselves to view. I shall be within the bounds of truth when I assert, that of 1500 houses, which are perhaps in the town, not fifty have each a cieled room, and not ten, or even five, have the whole apartments of the ground and first floor cieled. The bottoms of the rooms are as unsightly as the tops, from the gaping chasms of the planks which compose them; and the dirty state in which the floors and furniture are kept, is disgusting. Nevertheless in some respects the interior of these houses deserves regard. The vast mirrors which adorn their best apartments, and the beautiful plate glass of the windows, far exceed what are seen in English houses, except those of the first fashion. The French engravings I prefer to all others, and a few very good ones are still left here, though defaced, by having their dedications to princes, maréchaux de France, and other great men, very clumsily erased. Of plate too it is said they formerly displayed sumptuous side-boards; but these have disappeared, having been either buried or committed to the crucible. Indeed it was become necessary to adopt one or other of these measures; for soon after the 10th of August 1792, the democratic lust of destruction rose to such a height, as to order all family distinctions derived from ancestry, and all heraldic emblems whatever, to be erased, not only from the outsides of the houses, but from every article of furniture. Even the armorial bearings engraved on the most trifling toys, a snuff-box, a ring, or a seal, were obliterated; and the post-office took care to detain all letters, of which the seals were impressed with those shocking emblems of aristocracy. I now eat with spoons whence the family marks are carefully expunged, the observation of which led to my enquiries.
A man who has seen only this skirting of France would demonstrate the highest degree of presumption, were he to pretend to draw a parallel between it and England; but, to confine myself to what I have seen here, I may venture to affirm, that civilization, luxury, a general diffusion of the comforts of life, or by whatever other name you please to call it, is more advanced in Cornwall and Wales than it was in this province, even before the revolution.
Formerly there were two public walks on the banks of the river; but the stately elms which formed one of them have been lately cut down, to the great dissatisfaction of the inhabitants, in order to be sent to Brest for keels of ships.
The cathedral is a large edifice, of majestic appearance, but strikingly irregular in its exterior. Over its principal door is written “Le peuple Français reconnait l’Etre Suprème.” All the other churches and monasteries, which are numerous, have been converted (as the property of the state) into hospitals, stables, magazines, or manufactories of salt-petre. The church applied to this last use is well adapted to the purpose. I went with an English gentleman to see it, and no objection was made by the people whom we found there at work to our inspecting every part of their process, which is very simple.—Against one of the side walls are piled large heaps of wood-ashes, and near them two rows of casks with perforated bottoms, which are filled with the ashes thoroughly wetted. The water, after passing through the ashes, is received into tubs, and constitutes a vegetable alkaline lixivium. The opposite side of the church is filled with the ruins of old houses, and heaps of earth dug out of stables, slaughter-houses, and cemeteries, which last are full of the wrecks of humanity. These, after being macerated and mixed with the liquor drained through the wood ashes, are evaporated over a slow fire, until exhausted of the superfluous watery particles; after which the remaining part is put into large shallow coolers, on the sides of which the salt-petre shoots into crystals.
The workmen employed here are only twelve in number, and the quantity of salt-petre made is about fifty pounds a day, which, according to their account, costs only four livres and a half a pound; but this must not be depended upon, for they did not know the quantity of wood consumed. The wages of these people are inconceivably low, only 50 sols a day, and a ration of bread. Until lately they were paid only 35 sols, the addition having been made in consequence of the increasing dearness of the necessaries of life: even now 50 sols will scarcely buy a pound of the worst veal brought to market. They complained of its insufficiency, and told us, that manufacturers in England were paid as much for two hours work; “but, nevertheless, it is for the republic.” Either from this conjecture of the liberality of our country, or from some other cause, they treated us with particular respect, and answered all our questions with the most ready civility: not an interested civility, for they neither received, nor gave us room to suppose that they expected, any gratuity.
I quitted the place with strange sensations. The process which I had witnessed was whimsically shocking. When I saw amidst the earth the bones tossed about, “mine ached at the remembrance.” This earth, said I to myself, once, perhaps, belonged to men whom these houses sheltered, and against whose descendants in La Vendée it may, when fabricated into the breath of destruction, volly forth, in the shape of bullets, the coffins which once enclosed their forefathers. There is certainly no discovery which entitles to higher admiration the inventive genius of man, than that of artillery, in all its wonderful combinations; but, at the same time, it must be confessed, that no stronger proof of our miserable degeneracy and infatuation can be produced, than our application of it.
The bishop’s town-house I have mentioned. At a distance of less than a mile down the river stands what was once his country residence; but it is now the property of a naval officer, who bought it at a sale of national domains. I walked out to it the other day, and found it neither very large, nor very magnificent. It commands a good prospect of the river, and is pleasantly situated at the head of a large garden, filled by stone steps and strait walks. I found a gardener at work in it, who shewed me a superb orangery, where, in large wooden cases, stand the finest orange and lemon-trees which I ever saw growing out of their native climes, and bearing ripe fruit in the month of March. I asked the gardener about the last bishop, who was a constitutional one, and was told, that he was guillotined about a year ago, at Brest, for being a federalist. I had heard so before.—“Was not he,” said I, “dragged away suddenly, and denied the consolation of taking leave of his family, who were in the house?”—“I believe,” answered the gardener, “he was; but those things were so common some time since, that no body attended to them. I mind my work, and ask no questions.”—I gave him an assignat of small value, which he expected, and went away.
But a building which would have excited my curiosity more than the palaces of bishops and the houses of nobility, I arrived here too late to see—a Temple of Reason, built for the exercise of the new religion of France.—It stood on the summit of a lofty hill, close to the town, and consisted only of a few posts, from which rafters met at the top in a point to support the roof, the sides being open. Within it was adorned by festoons of oak-leaves, and was backed by at tree of liberty. It was the favourite rendezvous of the party of Robespierre, under whose auspicious reign it was erected. Here they swore eternal enmity to kings, and extirpation to aristocrates; and here their dances and sports were held, and the laws were read. In July last (not above ten days before the fatal neuf Thermidor) all the unmarried young women, and even all the children of the town, down to seven years old, were compelled to march in procession up the hill, preceded by the mayor and a band of music, and to take an oath never to marry any but true republicans and sans-culottes. About three months ago this edifice was either blown down, or its foundation secretly undermined in the night; and only a few broken posts and a little thatch now proclaim, “Ilium fuit.”
If the stories which are told of the extravagancies which this place gave birth to did not come from those who witnessed them (both French and English) their possibility might be doubted. I shall trouble you with only one of them.—A young republican of this town, on being ordered as a soldier to the frontiers, took a young woman of the place, and swore her here to be true to him; but even this test of the reality of her intention not being sufficient to quiet his jealous scruples, he absolutely wrote a letter to the convention, which was laid before them, stating his situation, and intreating that the girl might be put in a state of requisition, in her maiden capacity, until his return; lest, in his absence, she might be exposed to the allurements and seductions of aristocrates, who went about seeking to injure good republicans and sans-culottes like him. Can it be believed that a national congress should afford a serious hearing to such nonsense? Yet so it was; and she was actually commanded to remain single until the young man should return.—Not a very gallant compliment to the lady’s constancy of temper, you will say! To do justice to the French, I must however observe, that all ranks and parties of them now deride the remembrance of these degrading follies.