MORLAIX
'S'ils tu te mordent, mords les,' is the proud device of the town of
Morlaix, and the glorious pages of her chronicles justify the motto.
Morlaix has from all time been dear to the hearts of the Dukes of
Brittany for her faithfulness, which neither reverse nor failure has
ever altered. Even during the Wars of the Succession, after the most
terrible calamities, she still maintained a stout heart and a bold
front. She espoused the cause of Charles of Blois, which cost her the
lives of fifty of her finest men, whom the Duc de Monfort hanged under
false pretences.
Morlaix is a quaint little town--all gables, pointed roofs, and
projecting windows. There are streets so narrow that in perspective
the roofs appear to meet overhead. They are of wonderful colours. You
will see white houses with chocolate woodwork, and yellow houses,
stained by time, with projecting windows. In some cases there are
small shops on the ground-floor. The town seems to be built in
terraces, to which one mounts by steps with iron railings. You are for
ever climbing, either up or down, in Morlaix; and the only footgear
that seems to be at all appropriate to its roughly cobbled streets is
the thick wooden nail-studded sabot of the Breton.
Most of the houses on the outskirts have gardens on the tops of the
roofs; it is odd, when looking up a street, to see scarlet geraniums
nodding over the gray stonework, and, sometimes, vines meeting in a
green tracery above your head.
There are in Morlaix whole streets in which every house has a pointed
roof, where all the slates are gray and scaly, and each story projects
over another, the last one projecting farthest, with, on the
ground-floor, either a clothier's shop or a _quincaillerie_ bright
with gleaming pots and pans and blue enamelled buckets. This lowest
story has always large wooden painted shutters flung back.
The houses are unlike those of any other town I have seen in Brittany.
There are always about five solid square rafters under each story, and
each rafter is carved at the end into some grotesque little image or
flower. There is much painted woodwork about the windows, and
criss-cross beams sometimes run down the whole length of the house.
There are still many strange old blackened edifices, sculptured from
top to bottom, which have remained intact during four centuries with a
sombre obstinacy. At the angles you often see grotesque figures of
biniou-players, arabesques, and leaves, varied in the most bizarre
manner, and so delicately and beautifully executed that they would
form material for six 'Musées de Cluny.' These vast high houses are
very dirty, crumbling like old cheeses, and almost as multitudinously
alive. Each story is separated by massive beams, carved in a profusion
of ornaments; each window has small leaded panes. The rest of the
façade is carved with lozenge-shaped slates.
Morlaix, of course, has her Maison de la Reine Anne, of which she is
proud. It is a characteristic house, with straight powerful lines. The
door, greenish-black, is of fluted wood. The whole building is covered
with an infinity of detail--ludicrous faces, statuettes, and carved
figures of saints. Inside it has almost no decoration. The white walls
rise to the top of the house plain and unadorned, save for a very
elaborate staircase of rich chestnut-coloured wood very beautifully
carved, with bridges, branching off from right to left, leading to the
various apartments. At the top is a sculptured figure--either of the
patron saint of the house or of some saint especially beloved in
Brittany.
The town is a mixture of antiquity and modernity. Though her houses
and streets are old, Morlaix possesses the most modern of viaducts,
284 metres long, giving an extraordinary aspect to the place. When you
arrive at night you see the town glistening with myriads of lights, so
far below that it seems incredible. You do not realize that the
railway is built upon a viaduct: it seems as if you were suspended in
mid-air.
When we arrived at Morlaix, a man with a carriage and four horses
offered to drive us to Huelgoat for a very modest sum; but I vowed
that all the king's horses and all the king's men would not tear me
away that day. There was much to be seen. One never wearies of
wandering through the streets of this fine old town, gazing up at the
houses, and losing one's way among the ancient and dark by-ways.
Morlaix is in a remarkable state of preservation. The houses generally
do not suggest ruin or decay. The town seems to have everlasting
youth. This is principally owing to the great love of the people for
art and the picturesque, which has led them to renovate and rebuild
constantly. For this reason, some of the structures are of great
archæological value.
[Illustration: MEDIÆVAL HOUSE AT MORLAIX]
The religious edifices are few. Indeed, I saw only the little church
of St. Milaine, its belfry dwarfed by the prodigious height of the
viaduct. It is a gem of architecture. The stonework is carved to
resemble lace, and both inside and out the building is in the pure
Gothic style.
Storms are very sudden in Morlaix. Sometimes on a sunny day, when all
the world is out of doors, the wind will rise, knocking down the
tailors' dummies and scattering the tam-o'-shanters hanging outside
the clothiers'. Then comes rain in torrents. How the peasants scuttle!
What a clatter of wooden-shod feet over the cobbles as they run for
shelter! Umbrellas appear like mushrooms on a midsummer-night. Once I
saw some old women in the open square with baskets of lace and
crotchet-work and bundles of clothes stretched out for sale. When the
rain began they fell into a great fright, and strove to cover their
wares with old sacks, baskets, umbrellas--anything that was ready to
hand. I felt inclined to run out of the hotel and help. As suddenly as
the storm had risen, the sun came out, clear and radiant. I never knew
the air to be so invigorating and bright anywhere in Brittany as it is
in Morlaix.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE SMITHY, PONT-AVEN]