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.
[Illustration: IN THE EYE OF THE SUN]
Up and down the steep street the people clatter in their thick-soled
sabots. It is afternoon, and most of the townspeople have turned out
for a walk, to gaze in the shop windows with their little ones. The
people are rather French; and the children, instead of being clad in
the Breton costume, wear smart kilted skirts, white socks, and shiny
black sailor hats. Still, there is a subtle difference between these
people and the French. You notice this directly you arrive. There is
something solid, something pleasant and unartificial, about them. The
women of the middle classes are much better-looking, and they dress
better; the men are of stronger physique, with straight, clean-cut
features and a powerful look.
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.
[Illustration: SUNDAY]
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:
'Quic en groigneir
Ainsy ser
C'est mon playsir.'
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.
[Illustration: THE CRADLE]