QUIMPER
'C'était à la campagne
Près d'un certain canton de la basse Bretagne
Appelé Quimper Corentin.
On sait assez que le Destin
Adresse là les gens quand il veut qu'on enrage.
Dieu nous préserve du voyage.'
So says La Fontaine. The capital of Cornouailles is a strange mixture
of the old world and the new. There the ancient spirit and the modern
meet. The Odet runs through the town. On one side is a mass of rock 70
metres high, covered by a forest so dark and dense and silent that in
it one might fancy one's self miles away from any town. As one wanders
among the chestnuts, pines, poplars, and other trees, a sadness falls,
as if from the quiet foliage in the dim obscurity. On the other side
of the narrow river is a multitude of roofs, encircled by high walls
and dominated by the two lofty spires of the cathedral. Gray and full
of shadows is the quiet little town, with its jumble of slanting roofs
and its broken lines.
Quimper seems to have changed but little within the last six years. We
arrived as the sun was setting. A warm light gilded the most ordinary
objects, transforming them into things of beauty. We flashed by in the
hotel omnibus, past a river resembling a canal, the Odet. The river
was spanned by innumerable iron-railed bridges. The sky was of a fresh
eggshell blue, with clouds of vivid orange vermilion paling in the
distance to rose-pink, and shedding pink and golden reflections on the
clear gray water, while a red-sailed fishing-boat floated gently at
anchor. A wonderful golden light bathed the town. You felt that you
could not take it all in at once, this glorious colouring--that you
must rush from place to place before the light faded, and see the
whole of the fine old town under these exceptional circumstances,
which would most probably never occur again. You wanted to see the
water, with its golden reflections, and the warm light shining on the
lichen-covered walls, on the gardens sloping down to the river, on the
wrought-iron gateways and low walls over which ivy and convolvulus
creep, on the red-rusted bridges. You wanted to see the cathedral--a
purple-gray mass, with the sun gilding one-half of the tower to a
brilliant vermilion, and leaving the other half grayer and a deeper
purple than ever. You wanted to see the whole place at once, for very
soon the light fades into the gray and purple of night.
My first thought on waking next morning in the 'city of fables and
gables,' as Quimper is called, was to see my old convent--the dear old
convent where as a child I spent such a happy year. Only twelve more
months, and the nuns will be ousted from their home--those dear women
whom, as the hotel proprietress said with tears in her eyes, 'fassent
que du bien.' How bitterly that cruel Act rankles, and ever will
rankle, in the hearts of the Breton people!
'On dit que la France est un pays libre,' said my hostess; 'c'est une
drôle de liberté!'
The inhabitants of Quimper were more bitter, more rebellious, than
those of any other town, for they greeted the officers with stones and
gibes. And no wonder. The nuns had ever been good and generous and
helpful to the people of Quimper. I remember well in the old days what
a large amount of food and clothing went forth into the town from
those hospitable doors, for the Retraite du Sacré Coeur was a rich
Order.
It was with a beating heart and eager anticipation that I knocked at
the convent door that morning, feeling like a little child come home
after the holidays. I heard the sound of bolts slipped back, and two
bright eyes peeped through the grille before the door was opened by a
Sister in the white habit of the Order. I knew her face in an instant,
yet could not place it. Directly she spoke I remembered it was the
Sister who changed our shoes and stockings whenever we returned from a
walk.
I asked for the Mother Superior. She had gone to England. I asked for
one of the English nuns. She also had gone. Names that had faded out
of my mind returned in the atmosphere of the convent. Yes: three of
the nuns I had named were still at the convent. What was my name? the
Sister asked. Who was I?
I gave my name, and instantly her face lit up.
'Why, it is Mademoiselle Dorothé!' she exclaimed, raising her hands
above her head in astonishment. 'Entréz, mademoiselle et madame,
entréz!'
[Illustration: THE VEGETABLE MARKET, QUIMPER]
Through all these years, among all the girls who must have passed
through the convent, she remembered me and bade me welcome. In the
quiet convent so little happens that every incident is remembered and
magnified and thought over.
We were taken upstairs and shown into a bare room with straight-backed
chairs--a room which in my childish imagination had been a charmed and
magic place, for it was here that I came always to see my mother on
visiting days. We had not long to wait before, with a rustle and
clinking of her cross and rosary, Mère B. appeared, a sweet woman in
the black dress and pointed white coif that I knew so well. She had
always been beautiful in my eyes, and she was so still, with the
loveliness of a pure and saintly life shining through her large brown
eyes. Her cheeks were as soft and pink as ever, and her hands, which I
used to watch in admiration by the hour, were stretched out with joy
to greet me.
'O la petite Dorothé!' she cried,'quel bonheur de vous revoir! Est-ce
vraiment la petite Dorothé?'
As I sat watching her while she talked to my mother, all the old
thoughts and feelings came back to me with a rush. I was in some awe
of her: I could not treat her as if she were an ordinary person. All
the old respectful tricks and turns of speech came back to me, though
I imagined I had forgotten them. My mother was telling Mère B. of how
busy I had been since I had left the convent--of the books I had
written and all about them;--but I felt as small and insignificant as
the child of ten, and could only answer in monosyllables--'Oui, ma
mère,' or 'Non, ma mère.'
At our request, we were shown over the convent. Many memories it
brought back--some pleasant, some painful; for a child's life never
runs on one smooth level--it is ever a series of ups and downs. We
were taken into the refectory. There was my place at the corner of the
table, where at the first meal I sat and cried because, when asked if
I would like a _tartine_ instead of pudding, I was given a piece of
bread-and-butter. Naturally, I had thought that _tartine_ meant a
tart. And there was the very same Sister laying the table, the Sister
who used to look sharply at my plate to see that I ate all my fat and
pieces of gristle. She remembered me perfectly. Many were the tussles,
poor woman, she had had with me.
Mère B. showed us the chapel, where we used to assemble at half-past
six every morning, cold and half-asleep, to say our prayers before
going into the big church. Many were the beautiful addresses the
Mother Superior had read to us; many were the vows I had made to be
really very good; many were the resolves I had formed to be gentle and
forbearing during the day--vows and resolves only to be broken soon.
We wandered through the garden between the beds of thyme and mint and
late roses, and Mère B. spoke with tears in her eyes of the time when
they would have to leave their happy convent home and migrate to some
more hospitable land. 'It is not for ourselves that we grieve,' she
said: 'it is for our poor country--for the people who will be left
without religion. Personally, we are as happy in one country as in
another.'
I picked a sprig of sweet-smelling thyme as I passed, and laid it
tenderly between the pages of my pocket-book. If the garden were to be
desecrated and used by strangers, I must have something to remember it
by.
What memories the dear old convent garden brought back to me! There
was the gravelled square where we children skipped and played and sang
Breton _chansons_ all in a ring. There was the avenue of scanty
poplars--not so scanty now--down which I often paced in rebellious
mood, gazing at the walls rising high above me, longing to gain the
farther side and be in the world. Outside the convent gates was always
called 'the world.' There was the little rocky shrine of the Virgin--a
sweet-faced woman in a robe of blue and gold, nursing a Baby with an
aureole about His head. Many a time I had thrown myself on the bench
in front of that shrine in a fit of temper, and had been slowly calmed
and soothed by that gentle presence, coming away a better child, with
what my mother always called 'the little black monkey' gone from my
back.
Very soon the convent atmosphere wraps itself about you and lulls you
to rest. You feel its influence directly you enter the building. You
are seized by a vague longing to stay here, just where you are, and
leave the world, with its ceaseless strivings and turmoils and unrest,
behind you. Yet how soon the worldly element in you would come to the
fore, teasing you, tormenting you back into the toils once more! It
was with a feeling of sorrow and a sensation that something was being
wrenched from me that I bade good-bye to sweet Mère B. at the garden
gate, with many embraces and parting injunctions not to forget the
convent and my old friends.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL, QUIMPERLE]
Wherever one goes in Quimper one sees the stately cathedral, that
wondrous building which, with its two excellent pyramids and gigantic
portal, is said to be the most beautiful in all Brittany. It would
take one days and days to realize its beauty. The doorway itself is as
rich in detail as a volume of history. There are lines of sculptured
angels joining hands over the porch, Breton coats of arms, and the
device of Jean X.--'Malo au riche duc.' There are two windows above
the doorway, crowned by a gallery, with an equestrian statue of the
King of Grallon. According to tradition the cathedral must have been
built on the site of the royal palace.
There are many legends about the church of St. Corentin. One is that
of a man who, going on a pilgrimage, left his money with a neighbour
for safety. On returning, the neighbour declared that he had never had
the money, and proposed to swear to the same before the crucifix of
St. Corentin. They met there, and the man swore. Instantly three drops
of blood fell from the crucifix to the altar, which, the legend runs,
are preserved to this day.
It is also said that there is in the fountain of Quimper a miraculous
fish, which, in spite of the fact that St. Corentin cuts off half of
it every day for his dinner, remains whole.
A quaint ceremony is held at the cathedral on the Feast of St. Cecile.
At two o'clock the clergyman, accompanied by musicians and choir-boys,
mounts a platform between the great towers, and a joyous hymn is sung
there, on the nearest point to the sky in all Quimper. It is a strange
sight. Scores of beggars gather round the porch of the cathedral--the
halt, the lame, the blind, and the diseased--all with outstretched
hats and cups.
[Illustration: BY THE SIDE OF A FARM]