Brittany

There are flights of steps everywhere—favourite caprices of the primitive architects—divided in the middle by iron railings. Up these steps all the housewives must go to reach the market. On either side the houses crowd, one above the other, with their steep garden walls, sometimes intercepted by iron gateways, and sometimes covered by blood-red leaves and yellowing vines. Some are houses of the Middle Ages, and some of the Renaissance period, with sculptured porches and panes of bottle-glass; a few have terraces at the end of the gardens, over which clematis climbs. Here and there the sun lights up a corner of a façade, or shines on the emerald leaves, making them scintillate. Down the steps a girl in white-winged cap and snowy apron, with pink ribbon at her neck, carrying a large black two-handled basket, is coming on her way from market.

Having scaled this long flight of steps, you find yourself face to face with the old Gothic church of St. Michael, a grayish-pink building with one great square tower and four turrets. The porch is sculptured in a rich profusion of graceful details. Here and there yellow moss grows, and there are clusters of fern in the niches. Inside, the church was suffused with a purple light shed by the sun through the stained-glass windows; the ceiling was of infinite blue. Everything was transformed by the strange purple light. The beautiful carving round the walls, the host of straight-backed praying-chairs, and even the green curtain of the confessional boxes, were changed to royal purple. Only the altar, with its snowy-white cloths and red and gold ornaments, retained its colour. Jutting forth from the church of St. Michael are arms or branches connecting it with the village, as if it were some mother bird protecting the young ones beneath her wings. Under these wings the houses of the village cluster.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon, the sociable hour, when people sit outside their cottage doors, knitting, gossiping, watching the children play, and eating the evening meal. Most of the children, who are many, are very nearly of the same age. Clusters of fair curly heads are seen in the road. The youngest, the baby, is generally held by some old woman, probably the grandmother, who has a shrivelled yellow face—a very tender guardian.

Over the doorways of the shops hang branches of withered mistletoe. Through the long low windows, which have broad sills, you catch a glimpse of rows and rows of bottles. These are wine-shops—no rarities in a Breton village. Another shop evidently belonged to the church at one time. It still possesses a rounded ecclesiastical doorway, built of solid blocks of stone, and the walls, which were white originally, are stained green with age. The windows, as high as your waist from the ground, have broad stone sills, on which are arranged carrots and onions, coloured sweets in bottles, and packets of tobacco. This shop evidently supplies everything that a human being can desire. Above it you read: 'Café on sert a boire et a manger.'

While we were in Quimperlé there were two musicians making a round of the town. One, with a swarthy face, was blind, and sang a weird song in a minor key, beating a triangle. The other, who looked an Italian, was raggedly dressed in an old fur coat and a faded felt hat. His musical performance was a veritable gymnastic feat. In his hands he held a large concertina, which he played most cleverly; at his back was a drum with automatic sticks and clappers, which he worked with his feet. It was the kind of music one hears at fairs. Wherever we went we heard it, sometimes so near that we could catch the tune, sometimes at a distance, when only the dull boom of the drum was distinguishable.

Whenever I think of Quimperlé this strange music and the spectacle of those two picturesque figures come back to memory. The men are well known in Brittany. They spend their lives travelling from place to place, earning a hard livelihood. When I was at school in Quimper I used to hear the same tune played by the same men outside the convent walls.

In the Rue du Château, the aristocratic quarter, are many spacious domains with doorways surmounted by coats of arms and coronets. Most of them have closed shutters, their masters having disappeared, alienated for ever by the Revolution; but a few great families have returned to their homes. One sees many women about the church, grave and sad and prayerful, who still wear black, clinging to God, the saints, and the priests, as to the only living souvenirs of better times.

In no other place in Finistère was the Revolution so sudden and so terrible as in this little town, and nowhere were the nobility so many and powerful. This old Rue du Château must have rung with furious cries on the day when the federators returned from the fête of the Champs de Mars after the abolition of all titles and the people took the law into their own hands. The Bretons are slow to anger; but when roused they are extremely violent. They not only attacked the living—the nobles in their seignorial hotels—but also they went to the tombs and mutilated the dead with sabre cuts.

In Quimperlé the painter finds pictures at every turn. For example, there are clear sinuous streams crossed by many bridges, not unlike by-canals in Venice. As you look up the river the bank is a jumble of sloping roofs, protruding balconies, single-arched bridges, trees, and clumps of greenery. The houses on either side, gray and turreted, bathe their foundations in the stream. Some have steep garden walls, velvety with green and yellow moss and lichen; others have terraces and jutting stone balconies, almost smothered by trailing vines and clematis, drooping over the gray water. The stream is very shallow, showing clearly the brown and golden bed; and on low stone benches at the edge girls in little close white caps and blue aprons are busily washing with bare round arms. A pretty little maid with jet-black hair is cleaning some pink stuff on a great slab of stone, against a background of gray wall over which convolvulus and nasturtium are trailing; a string of white linen is suspended above her head. This is a delightful picture. It is a gray day, sunless; but the gray is luminous, and the reflections in the water are clear.

When we arrived in Auray it was market-day, and chatter filled the streets. There were avenues of women ranged along the pavement, their round wicker baskets full of lettuce, cabbages, carrots, turnips, chestnuts, pears, and what not—women in white flimsy caps, coloured cross-over shawls, and sombre black dresses. Their aprons were of many colours—reds, mauves, blues, maroons, and greens—and the wares also were of various hues. All the women knit between the intervals of selling, and even during the discussion of a bargain, for a purchase in Brittany is no small matter in the opinion of housewives, and engenders a great deal of conversation. All the feminine world of Auray seemed to have sallied forth that morning. Processions of them passed down the avenue of market women, most of them peasants in the cap of Auray, with snuff-coloured, large-bibbed aprons, carrying bulky black baskets with double handles.

Now and then one saw a Frenchwoman walking through the avenue of vegetables, just as good at bargaining, just as keen-eyed and sharp-tongued, as her humbler sisters. Sometimes she was pretty, walking with an easy swinging gait, her baby on one arm, her basket on the other, in a short trim skirt and altogether neatly dressed. More often she was dressed in unbecoming colours, her hair untidily arranged, her skirt trailing in the mud—a striking contrast to the well-to-do young Breton matron, with neatly braided black hair and clean rosy face, her white-winged lawn cap floating in the breeze, her red shawl neatly crossed over her lace-trimmed corsage. In her black velvet-braided skirt and wooden sabots the Breton is a dainty little figure, her only lapse into frivolity consisting of a gold chain at her neck and gold earrings.

Vegetables do not engender much conversation in a Breton market: they are served out and paid for very calmly. It is over the skeins of coloured wool, silks, and laces, that there is much bargaining. Round these stalls you will see girls and old hags face to face, and almost nose to nose, their arms crossed, speaking rapidly in shrill voices.

Just after walking past rows of very ordinary houses, suddenly you will come across a really fine old mansion, dating from the seventeenth century, white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables, and diamond panes. Then, just as you think that you have exhausted the resources of the town, and turn down a moss-grown alley homewards, you find yourself face to face with another town, typically Breton, white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering round a church and surrounded by old moss-grown walls. This little town is situated far down in a valley, into which you descend by a sloping green path. We sat on a stone bench above, and watched the people as they passed before us. There were bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores and red berés, hurrying home to déjeuner, swinging their satchels; and beggars, ragged and dirty, holding towards us tin cups and greasy caps, with many groans and whines. One man held a baby on his arm, and in the other hand a loaf of bread. The baby's face was dirty and covered with sores; but its hair was golden and curly, and the sight of that fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder as they went down the hill made one's heart ache. It was terrible to think that an innocent child could be so put out of touch with decent humanity.

To reach this little town one had to cross a sluggish river by a pretty gray stone bridge. Some of the houses were quaint and picturesque, mostly with two stories, one projecting over the other, and low windows with broad sills, bricked down to the ground, on which were arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white geraniums, and red-brown begonias. Nearly every house had its broad stone stoop, or settle, on which the various families sat in the warm afternoon drinking bowls of soup and eating tartines de beurre.

It is a notably provincial little town, full of flowers and green trees, and dark, narrow streets, across which hang audaciously strings of drying linen. All the children of the community appeared to be out and about—some skipping, others playing at peg-tops, and others merely sucking their fingers and their pinafores in the way that children have. One sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair plaited into four little tails tied with red ribbon, clasped a slice of bread-and-butter (butter side inwards, of course) to her chest, and was carelessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the same time, in such a way as to make my heart leap.

A happy wedding-party were swinging gaily along the quay arm in arm, singing some rollicking Breton chanson, and all rather affected by their visits to the various débits de boissons. There were two men and two women—the men fair and bearded, wearing peaked caps; the women in their best lace coifs and smartest aprons. As they passed everyone turned and pointed and laughed. It was probably a three days' wedding.

A mite of a girl walking gingerly along the street carried a bottle of ink ever so carefully, biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it steadily. Round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a gorgeous silver cross, testifying to good behaviour during the week. Alack! a tragedy was in store. The steps leading to the doorway of her home were steep, and the small person's legs were short and fat. She tripped and fell, and the ink was spilled—a large, indelible, angry black spot on the clean white step. Fearfully and pale-faced, the little maid looked anxiously about her, and strove to put the ink back again by means of a dry stick, staining fingers and pinafore the more. It was of no avail. Her mother had seen her. Out she rushed, a pleasant-faced woman in a white lace cap, now wearing a ferocious expression.

'Monster that thou art!' she cried, lifting the tearful, ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and throwing her roughly indoors, whence piteous sounds of sobbing and wailing ensued.

The child's heart was broken; the silver cross had lost its charm; and the sun had left the heavens. The mother, busily bending over her sewing-machine, looked up at us through the window, and smiled understandingly.

CHAPTER XV
BELLE ISLE

As a rule, a country becomes more interesting as one draws near to the sea; the colouring is more beautiful and the people are more picturesque. It is strange that the salt air should have such a mellowing effect upon a town and its inhabitants; but there is no doubt that it has. This seemed especially remarkable to us, coming straight from Carnac, that flat, gray, treeless country where the people are sad and stolid, and one's only interest is in the dolmens and menhirs scattered over the landscape—strange blocks of stone about which one knows little, but imagines much.

When you come from a country such as this, you cannot but be struck by the warmth and wealth of colouring which the sea imparts to everything in its vicinity. Even the men and women grouped in knots on the pier were more picturesque, with their sun-bleached, tawny, red-gold hair, and their blue eyes, than the people of Carnac. The men were handsome fellows—some in brown and orange clothing, toned and stained by the sea; others in deep-blue much bepatched coats and yellow oilskin trousers. Their complexions had a healthy reddish tinge—a warmth of hue such as one rarely sees in Brittany.

The colouring of the Bay of Quiberon on this particular afternoon was a tender pale mother-of-pearl. The sky was for the most part a broad, fair expanse of gray, with, just where the sun was setting, intervals of eggshell blue and palest lemon-yellows breaking through the drab; the sands were silvery; the low-lying ground was a dim gold; the water was gray, with purple and lemon-yellow reflections. The whole scene was broad and fair. The people on the pier and the boats on the water formed notes of luscious colour. The fishing-boats at anchor were of a brilliant green, with vermilion and orange sails and nets a gauzy blue. Ahead, on the brown rocks, although it was the calmest and best of weather, white waves were breaking and sending foam and spray high into the air. There was everywhere a fresh smell of salt.

We were anxious to go across to Belle Isle that night, and took tickets for a small, evil-smelling boat, the cargo of which was mostly soldiers. It was rather a rough crossing, and we lay in the stuffy cabin longing to go on deck to see the sunset, which, by glimpses through the portholes, we could tell to be painting sea and sky in tones of flame. At last the spirit conquered the flesh, and, worried with the constant opening and shutting of doors by the noisy steward, we went on deck. A fine sight awaited us. From pearly grays and tender tones we had emerged into the fiery glories of a sunset sky. Behind us lay the dark gray-blue sea and the darker sky, flecked by pale pink clouds. Before us, the sun was shooting forth broad streaks of orange and vermilion on a ground of Venetian blue. Towards the horizon the colouring paled to tender pinks and lemon-yellows. As the little steamer ploughed on, Belle Isle rose into sight, a dark purple streak with tracts of lemon-gold and rosy clouds. The nearer we drew the lower sank the sun, until at last it set redly behind the island, picking out every point and promontory and every pine standing stiff against the sky.

Each moment the island loomed larger and darker, orange light shining out here and there in the mass. We were astonished by its size, for I had always imagined Belle Isle as being a miniature place belonging entirely to Mme. Bernhardt. The entrance to the bay was narrow, and lay between two piers, with lights on either end; and it was a strange sensation leaving the grays and blues and purples, the silvery moonlight, and the tall-masted boats behind us, and emerging into this warmth and wealth of colouring. A wonderful orange and red light shone behind the dark mass of the island, turning the water of the bay to molten gold and glorifying the red-sailed fishing-boats at anchor. As we drew near the shore, piercing shrieks came from the funnel. There appeared to be some difficulty about landing. Many directions were shouted by the captain and repeated by a shrill-voiced boy before we were allowed to step on shore over a precarious plank. Once landed, we were met by a brown-faced, sturdy woman, who picked up our trunks and shouldered them as if they were feather-weights for a distance of half a mile or so. She led the way to the hotel.

Next morning was dismal; but, as we had only twenty-four hours to spend in Belle Isle, we hired a carriage to take us to the home of Mme. Bernhardt, and faced the weather. The sky was gray; the country flat and bare, though interesting in a melancholy fashion. The scenery consisted of mounds of brown overturned earth laid in regular rows in the fields, scrubby ground half-overgrown by gorse, clusters of dark pines, and a dreary windmill here and there. Now and then, by way of incident, we passed a group of white houses, surrounded by sad-coloured haystacks, and a few darkly-clad figures hurrying over the fields with umbrellas up, on their way to church. The Breton peasants are so pious that, no matter how far away from a town or village they may live, they attend Mass at least once on Sunday. A small procession passed us on the road—young men in their best black broadcloth suits, and girls in bright shawls and velvet-bound petticoats. This was a christening procession—at least, we imagined it to be so; for one of the girls carried a long white bundle under an umbrella. Bretons are christened within twenty-four hours of birth.

The home of Mme. Bernhardt is a square fortress-like building, shut up during the autumn, with a beautifully-designed terrace garden. It is situated on a breezy promontory, and the great actress is in sole possession of a little bay wherein the sea flows smoothly and greenly on the yellow sands, and the massive purple rocks loom threateningly on either side with many a craggy peak. Her dogs, large Danish boarhounds, rushed out, barking furiously, at our approach; her sheep and some small ponies were grazing on the scanty grass.

Our driver was taciturn. He seemed to be tuned into accord with the desolate day, and would vouchsafe no more than a grudging 'Oui' or 'Non' to our many questions, refusing point-blank to tell us to what places he intended driving us. At length he stopped the carriage on a cliff almost at the edge of a precipice. Thoughts that he was perhaps insane ran through my mind, and I stepped out hurriedly; but his intention was only to show us some cavern below. Mother preferred to remain above-ground; but, led by the driver, I went down some steps cut in the solid rock, rather slippery and steep, with on one side a sheer wall of rock, and the ocean on the other. The rock was dark green and flaky, with here and there veins of glistening pink and white mica. Lower and lower we descended, until it seemed as if we were stepping straight into the sea, which foamed against the great rocks, barring the entrance to the cavern.

The cavern itself was like a colossal railway-arch towering hundreds of feet overhead; and against this and the rocks at the entrance the sea beat with much noise and splash, falling again with a groan in a mass of spray. Inside the cavern the tumult was deafening; but never have I seen anything more beautiful than those waves creaming and foaming over the green rocks, the blood-red walls of the cave rising sheer above, flecked with glistening mica. It was a contrast with the tame, flat, sad scenery over which we had been driving all the morning. This was Nature at her biggest and best, belittling everything one had ever seen or was likely to see, making one feel small and insignificant.

By-and-by we drove to a village away down in a hollow, a typical Breton fishing-village with yellow and white-faced auberges, and rows of boats moored to the quay, their nets and sails hauled down on this great day of the week, the Sabbath. As there was no hotel in the place, we entered a clean-looking auberge and asked for luncheon. The kitchen led out of the little salle à manger, and, as the door was left wide open, we could watch the preparation of our food. We were to have a very good soup; we saw the master of the house bringing in freshly-caught fish, which were grilled at the open fireplace, and fresh sardines; and we heard our chicken frizzling on the spit. We saw the coffee-beans being roasted, and we were given the most exquisite pears and apples. Small matter that our room was shared by noisy soldiers, and that Adolphus (as we had named our driver) entered and drank before our very eyes more cognac than was good for him or reasonable on our bill.

Sunday afternoon in Belle Isle is a fashionable time. Between three and four people go down to the quay, clattering over the cobble stones in their best black sabots, to watch the steamers come in from Quiberon. You see girls in fresh white caps and neat black dresses, spruce soldiers, ladies à la mode in extravagant headgear and loud plaid or check dresses. On the quay they buy hot chestnuts. From our hotel we could watch the people as they passed, and the shopkeepers sitting and gossiping outside their doors. Opposite us was a souvenir shop, on the steps of which sat the proprietor with his boy. Very proud he was of the child—quite an ordinary spoiled child, much dressed up. The father followed the boy with his eyes wherever he went. He pretended to scold him for not getting out of the way when people passed, to attract their attention to the child. He greeted every remark with peals of laughter, and repeated the witticisms to his friend the butcher next door, who did not seem to appreciate them. Every now and then he would glance over to see if the butcher were amused. French people, especially Bretons, are devoted to their children.

I was much amused in watching the little bonne at the hotel who carried our luggage the night before. She was quaint, compact, sturdy. She would carry a huge valise on her shoulder, or sometimes one in either hand. She ordered her husband about. She dressed her child in a shining black hat, cleaned its face with her pocket-handkerchief, straightened its pinafore, and sent it en promenade with papa, while she herself stumped off to carry more luggage. There was apparently no end to her strength. On her way indoors she paused on the step and cast a loving glance over her shoulder at the back view of her husband in his neatly-patched blue blouse and the little child in the black sarrau walking sedately down the road. She seemed so proud of the pair that we could not resist asking the woman if the child were hers, just to see the glad smile which lit up her face as she answered, 'Oui, mesdames!' I have often noticed how lenient Breton women are to their children. They will speak in a big voice and frown, and a child imagines that Mother is in a towering rage; but you will see her turn round the next moment and smile at the bystander. If children only knew their power, how little influence parents would have over them!

The French differ from the British in the matter of emotion. On the steamer from Belle Isle to Quiberon there were some soldiers, about to travel with us, who were being seen off by four or five others standing on the quay. Slouching, unmilitary figures they looked, with baggy red trousers tied up at the bottoms, faded blue coats, and postmen-shaped hats, yellow, red, or blue pom-pom on top. One of the men on shore was a special friend of a soldier who was leaving. I was on tenter-hooks lest he should embrace him; he almost did so. He squeezed his hand; he picked fluff off his clothes; he straightened his hat. He repeatedly begged that his 'cher ami' would come over on the following Sunday to Belle Isle. Tears were very near his eyes; he was forced to bite his handkerchief to keep them back. When the boat moved away, and they could join hands no longer, the soldiers blew kisses over the water to one another. They opened their arms wide, shouted affectionate messages, and called one another by endearing terms. Altogether, they carried on as if they were neurotic girls rather than soldiers who had their way to make and their country to think of.

There was one man superior to his fellows. He held the same rank, and wore the same uniform; but he kept his buttons and his brass belt bright; he wore silk socks, and carried a gold watch under his military coat; his face was intelligent.

CHAPTER XVI
ST. ANNE D'AURAY

Not far from the little town of Auray is the magnificent cathedral of St. Anne D'Auray, to which so many thousands from all over Brittany come annually to worship at the shrine of St. Anne. From all parts of the country they arrive—some on foot, others on horseback, or in strange country carts: marquises in their carriages; peasants plodding many a weary mile in their wooden sabots. Even old men and women will walk all through the day and night in order to be in time for the pardon of St. Anne.

The Breton people firmly believe that their household cannot prosper, that their cattle and their crops cannot thrive, that their ships are not safe at sea, unless they have been at least once a year to burn candles at the shrine. The wealthy bourgeois's daughter, in her new dress, smart apron, and Paris shoes, kneels side by side with a ragged beggar; the peasant farmer, with long gray hair, white jacket, breeches and leather belt, mingles his supplications with those of a nobleman's son. All are equal here; all have come in the same humble, repentant spirit; for the time being class distinctions are swept away. Noble and peasant crave their special boons; each confesses his sins of the past year; all stand bareheaded in the sunshine, humble petitioners to St. Anne.

At the time of the pardon, July 25, the ordinarily quiet town is filled to overflowing. There is a magnificent procession, all green and gold and crimson, headed by the Bishop of Vannes. A medley of people come from all parts to pray in the cathedral, and to bathe in the miraculous well, the water of which will cure any ailment.

It is said that in the seventh century St. Anne appeared to one Nicolazic, a farmer, and commanded him to dig in a field near by for her image. This having been found, she bade him erect a chapel on the spot to her memory. Several chapels were afterwards built, each in its turn grander and more important, until at last the magnificent church now standing was erected. On the open place in front is a circle of small covered-in stalls, where chaplets, statuettes, tall wax candles, rings, and sacred ornaments of all kinds, are sold.

Although one cannot but be touched by the worship of St. Anne and the simple belief of the people in her power to cure all, to accomplish all, one is a little upset by these costly offerings. Nevertheless, it is a marvellous faith, this Roman Catholic religion: the more you travel in a country like Brittany, the more you realize it. There must be a great power in a religion that draws people hundreds of miles on foot, and enables them, after hours of weary tramping, to spend a day praying on the hard stones before the statue of a saint.

CHAPTER XVII
ST. MALO

When you are nearing the coast of France all you can see is a long narrow line, without relief, apparently without design, without character, just a sombre strip of horizon; but St. Malo is always visible. A fine needle-point breaks the uninteresting line: it is the belfry of St. Malo. To left and right of the town is a cluster of islands, dark masses of rock over which the waves foam whitely. St. Malo is magnificently fortified. It is literally crowned with military defences. It is a mass of formidable fortresses, rigid angles, and severe gray walls. It speaks of the seventeenth century, telling of a time when deeds of prowess were familiar. The sea, which is flowing, beats furiously against the walls of defence, protected by the trunks of great trees planted in the sand. These gigantic battalions stop the inrush of the water, and would make landing more arduous to an enemy. They have a bizarre effect when seen from the distance.

The town defied all the efforts of the English to capture her. On one occasion they laid mines as far as the Porte of St. Malo; but the Virgin, enshrined above the gate, and ever watching over the people, disclosed the plot by unfolding her arms and pointing with one hand to the ground beneath her. The Bretons dug where she pointed, and discovered their imminent peril. Thus was the city saved. To-day the shrine receives the highest honours, and is adorned with the finest and sweetest flowers.

For one reason at least St. Malo is unique. It is a town of some thousand inhabitants; yet it is still surrounded by mediæval walls. Of all the towns in Brittany, St. Malo is the only one which still remains narrowly enclosed within walls. It is surrounded by the sea except for a narrow neck of land joining the city to the mainland. This is guarded at low tide by a large and fierce bulldog, the image of which has been added to St. Malo's coat of arms. Enclosed within a narrow circle of walls, and being unable to expand, the town is peculiar. The houses are higher than usual, and the streets narrower. There is no waste ground in St. Malo. Every available inch is built upon. The sombre streets run uphill and downhill. There is no town like St. Malo. Its quaint, tortuous streets, of corkscrew form, culminate in the cathedral, which, as you draw near, does not seem to be a cathedral at all, but a strong fort. So narrow are the streets, and so closely are they gathered round the cathedral, that it is only when you draw away to some distance that you can see the beautifully-sculptured stone tower of many points.

Very attractive are these narrow hilly streets, with their throngs of people and their gay little shops where the wares are always hung outside—worsted shawls, scarlet and blue berés, Breton china (decorated by stubby figures of men and women and heraldic devices), chaplets, shrines to the Virgin Mary, many-coloured cards, religious and otherwise.

There are a few houses which perpetuate the past. You are shown the house of Queen Anne, the good Duchess Anne, a house with Gothic windows, flanked by a tower, blackened and strangely buffeted by the blows of time. Queen Anne was a marvellous woman, and has left her mark. Her memory is kept green by the lasting good that she achieved. From town to town she travelled during the whole of her reign, for she felt that to rule well and wisely she must be ever in close touch with her people. No woman was more beloved by the populace. Everywhere she went she was fêted and adored. She ruled her province with a rod of iron; yet she showed herself to be in many ways wonderfully feminine. Nothing could have been finer than the act of uniting Brittany with France by giving up her crown to France and remaining only the Duchess Anne. In almost every town in Brittany there is a Queen Anne House, a house which the good Queen either built herself or stayed in. Everywhere she went she constructed something—a church, a chapel, an oratory, a calvaire, a house, a tomb—by which she was to be remembered. There is, for example, the famous tower which she built, in spite of all malcontents, not so much in order to add to the defences of St. Malo as to rebuke the people for their turbulence and rebellion. Her words concerning it ring through the ages, and will never be forgotten:

Ever since the tower has gone by the name of 'Quiquengroigne.'

There are three names, three figures, of which St. Malo is proud; the birthplaces are pointed out to the stranger fondly. One is that of the Duchess Anne; another that of Duguay-Trouin; last, but not least, we have Chateaubriand. Of the three, perhaps the picturesque figure of Duguay-Trouin charms one most. From my earliest days I have loved stories of the gallant sailor, whose adventures and mishaps are as fascinating as those of Sinbad. I have always pictured him as a heroic figure on the bridge of a vessel, wearing a powdered wig, a lace scarf, and the dress of the period, winning victory after victory, and shattering fleets. It is disappointing to realize that this hero lived in the Rue Jean de Chatillon, in a three-storied, time-worn house with projecting windows, lozenge-paned. Of Chateaubriand I know little; but his birthplace is in St. Malo, for all who come to see.

What a revelation it is, after winding up the narrow, steep streets of St. Malo, suddenly to behold, framed in an archway of the old mediæval walls, the sea! There is a greeny-blue haze so vast that it is difficult to trace where the sea ends and the sky begins. The beach is of a pale yellow-brown where the waves have left it, and pink as it meets the water. At a little distance is an island of russet-brown rocks, half-covered with seaweed; at the base is a circle of tawny sand, and at the summit yellow-green grass is growing.

Just now it is low tide, and the Mount lies in the midst of an immense moving plain, on which three rivers twist, like narrow threads intersecting it—Le Conesnon, La Sée, and La Seline. Several dark islands lie here and there uncovered, and groups of small boats are left high and dry. It is fascinating to watch the sea coming up, appearing like a circle on the horizon, and slipping gently over the sands, the circle ever narrowing, until the islands are covered once more, the boats float at anchor, and the waves precipitate themselves with a loud booming sound, heard for miles round, against the double walls that protect the sacred Mount.

Many are the praises that have been sung of Mont St. Michel by poets and artists, by historians and architects. She has been called 'A poem in stone,' 'Le palais des angles,' 'An inspiration of the Divine,' 'La cité des livres,' 'Le boulevard de la France,' 'The sacred mount,' etc. Normandy and Brittany dispute her. She is in the possession of either, as you will.

Mont St. Michel is not unlike Gibraltar. As you come suddenly upon the place, rising from out the misty grayish-yellow, low-lying marshes, it appears to be a dark three-cornered mass, surrounded by stout brownish battlemented walls, flanked by rounded turrets, against a background of blue sky. At the base of the Mount lies the city, the houses built steeply one above the other, some with brownish lichen-covered roofs, others of modern slate. Above the city is the monastery—brown walls, angry and formidable, rising steeply, with many windows and huge buttresses. Beyond, on the topmost point, is the grand basilica consecrated to the archangel, the greenish light of whose windows you can see clearly. Above all rises a tall gray spire culminating in a golden figure.

There is only one entrance to Mont St. Michel—over a footbridge and beneath a solid stone archway, from which the figure of the Virgin in a niche looks down. You find yourself in a narrow, steep street, black and dark with age, and crowded with shops and bazaars and cafés. The town appears to be given up to the amusement and entertainment of visitors; and, as St. Michael is the guardian saint of all strangers and pilgrims, I suppose this is appropriate. Tourists fill the streets and overflow the hotels and cafés; the town seems to live, thrive, and have its being entirely for the tourists. Outside every house hangs a sign advertising coffee or china or curios, as the case may be, and so narrow is the street that the signs on either side meet.

Your first thought on arriving is about getting something to eat. The journey from St. Malo is long, and, although the sun is shining and the sky is azure blue, the air is biting. Of course, everyone who comes to the Mount has heard of Mme. Poulard. She is as distinctly an institution as the very walls and fortresses. All know of her famous coffee and delicious omelettes; all have heard of her charm. It is quite an open question whether the people flock there in hundreds on a Sunday morning for the sake of Mme. Poulard's luncheon or for the attractions of Mont St. Michel itself. There she stands in the doorway of her hotel, smiling, gracious, affable, handsome. No one has ever seen Mme. Poulard ruffled or put out. However many unexpected visitors may arrive, she greets them all with a smile and words of welcome.

We were amid a very large stream of guests; yet she showed us into her great roomy kitchen, and seated us before the huge fireplace, where a brace of chickens, steaming on a spit, were being continually basted with butter by stout, gray-haired M. Poulard. She found time to inquire about our journey and our programme for the day, and directed us to the various show-places of the Mount.

There is only one street of any importance in Mont St. Michel, dark and dim, very narrow, no wider than a yard and a half; a drain runs down the middle. Here you find yourself in an absolute wilderness of Poulard. You are puzzled by the variety and the relations of the Poulards. Poulard greets you everywhere, written in large black letters on a white ground.

If you mount some steps and turn a corner suddenly, Poulard frère greets you; if you go for a harmless walk on the ramparts, the renowned coffee of Poulard veuve hits you in the face. Each one strives to be the right and only Poulard. You struggle to detach yourselves from these Poulards. You go through a fine mediæval archway, past shops where valueless, foolish curios are for sale; you scramble up picturesque steps, only to be told once more in glaring letters that POULARD spells Poulard.

A very picturesque street is the main thoroughfare of Mont St. Michel, mounting higher and higher, with tall gray-stone and wooden houses on either side, the roofs of which often meet overhead. Each window has its pots of geraniums and its show of curios and useless baubles. Fish-baskets hang on either side of the doors. Some of the houses have terrace gardens, small bits of level places cut into the rock, where roses grow and trailing clematis. Ivy mainly runs riot over every stone and rock and available wall. The houses are built into the solid rock one above another, and many of them retain their air of the fourteenth or the fifteenth century.

You pass a church of Jeanne d'Arc. A bronze statue of the saint stands outside the door. One always goes upwards in Mont St. Michel, seeing the dark purplish-pink mass of the grand old church above you, with its many spires of sculptured stone. Stone steps lead to the ramparts. Here you can lean over the balustrade and look down upon the waste of sand surrounding Mont St. Michel. All is absolutely calm and noiseless. Immediately below is the town, its clusters of new gray-slate roofs mingling with those covered in yellow lichen and green moss; also the church of the village, looking like a child's plaything perched on the mountain-side. Beyond and all around lies a sad, monotonous stretch of pearl-gray sand, with only a darkish, narrow strip of land between it and the leaden sky—the coast of Normandy. Sea-birds passing over the country give forth a doleful wail. The only signs of humanity at all in the immensity of this great plain are some little black specks—men and women searching for shellfish, delving in the sand and trying to earn a livelihood in the forbidding waste.