LOCH-AR-BRUGG
And now I must tell of Loch-ar-Brugg, the center of my long life and
the spot dearest to me upon earth. It was situated amidst the
beautiful, wild, heathery country that stretched inland from
Landerneau. I first saw it one day when I drove over from Landerneau
with my father, and my chief recollection of this earliest visit is
the deep shade under the high arch of the beech avenue and the
aromatic smell of black currants in an upper room where we were taken
to see the liqueur in process of being made. I was given some to drink
in a tiny glass, and I never smell or taste _cassis_ that the scent,
color, warmth, and sweetness of that long-distant day does not flash
upon me. The liqueur was being made by the farmer's wife; for part of
the house, which, as I have said, papa at that time used only as a
hunting-lodge, was inhabited by a Belgian farmer and his family. They
were all seated at their midday meal when we arrived, and another
thing I remember is that the eldest daughter, a singularly beautiful
young creature, with sea-green eyes and golden hair, was so much
confused at seeing us that she put a spoonful of the custard she was
eating against her cheek instead of into her mouth, greatly to my
delight and to papa's.
"Monsieur must excuse her," said the mother; "she is very timid." On
which my father replied with some compliment which made all the family
smile. I see them all smiling and happy, yet it must have been soon
after that a tragedy befell them. News was brought to my father that
the farmer had hanged himself. The poor man's rent was badly in
arrears, but when he had last spoken to my father about it, the
latter, as was always his wont in such circumstances, told him not to
torment himself and that he could pay when he liked. _Maman_ always
suspected that my father's agent had threatened the poor fellow and
that he had done away with himself in an access of despondency.
Papa, overcome with grief, hastened to Loch-ar-Brugg and remained
there for a week with the mourning family. He gave them money to
return to Belgium, and the beautiful young daughter became, we heard,
a very skilful lace-maker.
[Illustration: On the road to Loch-ar-Brugg]
I was too young for this lugubrious event to cast a shadow on my dear
Loch-ar-Brugg, but for many years _maman_ disliked the place. We still
lived at Quimper or Landerneau, using Loch-ar-Brugg as a mere country
resort; but by degrees the ugly walls, nine feet high, that shut in
the house from the gardens and shut out the view were pulled down,
lawns were thrown into one another, great clumps of blue hydrangeas
were planted all down the avenue, on each side, between each
beech-tree, and the house, if not beautiful, was made comfortable and
convenient. It was when we were really established at Loch-ar-Brugg
that _maman_ began to take the finances of the household into her
capable hands. She reproached my father with his lack of ambition, and
asked him frequently why he did not find an occupation, to which he
always replied, "_Ma chère_, I have precisely the occupations I care
for." _Maman_ wrote secretly to _bon papa_ in Paris and begged him to
find a post for her husband there, and an excellent one was found at
the treasury. But when the letter came, and _maman_, full of joy,
displayed it to him, papa cheerfully, but firmly, refused to consider
for a moment any such change in his way of life. As a country
gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on
living, and so indeed he continued to the end of his long life. I
don't imagine that he made any difficulties as to _maman_ taking over
the financial management. He was quite incapable of saying no to a
farmer who asked to have his rent run on unpaid, and realized, no
doubt, that his methods would soon bring his family to ruin. So it was
_maman_ who received and paid out all the money. I see her now,
sitting at the end of the long table in the kitchen, between two tall
tallow candles, the peasants kneeling on the floor about her while she
assessed their indebtedness and received their payments. She was never
unkind, but always strict, and I was more than once the sympathetic
witness of an incident that would greatly have incensed her. My
father, meeting a disconsolate peasant going to an interview with _la
Maîtresse_, would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand!
What would _maman_ have said had she known that the money so brightly
and briskly paid to her had just come out of her husband's pocket!
[Illustration: "My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant, ... would
surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand"]
I was always a great deal with papa at Loch-ar-Brugg. At first I used
to walk with him,--when he did not take me on his horse,--trotting
along beside him, my hand in his. Later on, when Tante Rose had given
me a dear little pony, I rode with him, and he had secretly made for
me, knowing that _maman_ would not approve, a very astonishing
riding-costume. It had long, tightly fitting trousers, a short little
jacket, like an Eton jacket, with a red-velvet collar,--red was my
father's racing color,--and on my long golden curls a high silk hat.
_Maman_ burst out laughing when she saw me thus attired and was too
much amused to be displeased. She herself rode a great deal at this
time, but it was to hunting- and shooting-parties, from which she
would return with her "bag" hanging from a sort of little pole fixed
to her saddle; and I remember that one day she brought a strange beast
that none of us ever saw in Brittany again, a species of armadillo
(_tatou_) that her horse had trodden upon and killed.
It was at Loch-ar-Brugg, on one of those early walks with papa, that
my first vivid recollection of a landscape seen as a beautiful picture
comes to me. We had entered a deep lane where gnarled old trees
interlaced their fingers overhead and looked, with their twisted
trunks, like crouching men or beasts; and as we advanced, it became so
dark and mysterious that I was very much frightened and hung to papa's
hand, begging to be taken out. He pointed then before us, and far, far
away I saw a tiny spot of light. "Don't be frightened, Sophie," he
said; "we are going toward the sunlight." So I kept my eyes fixed on
the widening spot, holding papa's hand very tightly in the haunted
darkness; and when we suddenly emerged, we were on the brink of a
great gorge, and beyond were mountains, and below us lay a tranquil,
silver lake. I have never forgotten the strange, visionary
impression, as of a beauty evoked from the darkness. Papa told me the
story of the lake; it was called "le lac des Korrigans." The Korrigans
are Breton fairies--fairies, I think, more melancholy than those of
other lands, and with something sinister and _macabre_ in their
supernatural activities. They danced upon the turf, it is true, in
fairy-rings, but also, at night, they would unwind the linen from the
dead in the churchyards and wash it in this lake. I felt the same fear
and wonder on hearing this story that all my descendants have shown
when they, in their turn, have come to hear it, and my little
granddaughter, in passing near the lake with me, has often said,
shrinking against me, "Je ne veux pas voir les blanchisseuses,
Grand'mère."
[Illustration: Le Lac des Korrigans]
Unlike the marquis, who filled my mind, or tried to fill it, with the
facts of nature and history, papa, on our walks, told me all these old
legends, not as if he believed them, it is true, but as if they were
stories quite as important in their way as the crusades; and perhaps
he was right.
Sometimes, when we were walking or riding, we met convicts who had
escaped from the great prison at Brest. I was strictly forbidden ever
to go outside the gates alone; but once, at evening, I slipped out and
ran along the road to meet papa, who, I knew, was coming from
Landerneau on foot. He was very much perturbed when he saw me emerge
before him in the dusk, and drew me sharply to his side, and I then
noticed that two men were following him. Presently they joined us and
asked papa, very roughly, for the time.
"It is nine, I think," said my father, eyeing them very attentively.
"You think? Haven't you a watch, then?" said one of them.
I suppose they imagined that the rifle papa carried over his shoulder
was unloaded; but unslinging it in the twinkling of an eye, he said
sternly:
"Walk ahead. If you turn or stop, I shoot." They obeyed at once, and
as they went along we heard a queer clink come from their ankles.
"Escaped convicts," said papa in a low voice. "Poor devils! And you
see, Sophie, how dangerous it is for little girls to wander on the
roads at night."
[Illustration: "Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"]
On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the
roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must
have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:
"I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For God's sake! don't betray me. I
am dying of hunger." Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him
drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength,
he put some money into his hand and said:
"It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour
before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and God be with you!"
The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from
village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on
this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor
creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we
children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad we caught sight
of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to
have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her
petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off
as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman
was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there
was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped
convicts.
Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born)
were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel
adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear,
gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of
them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over
the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to
the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine.
Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was
only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we
should all accustom ourselves to eat grass and clover, as the cattle
did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed
was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to
the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he
said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if
we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at
meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before
coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor
little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and
began to bite and munch the grass. We complained at once that we did
not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said
that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time
we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler,
growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring
to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as
well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted
the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout
denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special
pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now
eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and
capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the
truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to
cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but grass and
clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all
folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any
one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as
if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours,
munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.
"Yes; we are eating grass and clover," he said, "and we are quite
accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off
than the rest of you when the famine comes."
The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules
had cast upon us. He told us that not only was there no probability
of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food,
but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be
dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we
were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He
described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules,
who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and
glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we
told our parents the story.
One day we children were all in a deep lane--perhaps the same that had
frightened me years before--when, at a turning, the most inconceivable
monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as
a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies,
with dark skins, flashing teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings.
Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the
camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light
with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous
excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and
the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make
the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to
Loch-ar-Brugg. _Maman_, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the
beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they
were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed
to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take
place in the highroad before the _grille_. We sat about on the grass;
the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and
the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy,
reluctant tricks. _Maman_, from within the _grille_, surveyed the
entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when
we heard her say: "How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor
creatures look! They must be dying of hunger." We then became very
sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and
while we distributed sous to the Gipsies, _maman_ went to the house
and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to
the famished beasts. How they snatched and devoured it, and how
plainly I see _maman_ standing there, the deep green vault of the
avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her
wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she
held out the bread to the hungry bears!
[Illustration: "A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to
escaped convicts"]
A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the curé. It was he who had
baptized me, for I was baptized not at Quimper, but in the little
church of St. Eloi that stood at the foot of the Loch-ar-Brugg woods
and had been in the Kerouguet family for generations. During my
earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of the
_pavillons_ in the garden with his old servant; later on he was given
the living of Plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to
persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving
Loch-ar-Brugg and our family. Still, even at Plougastel we saw him
constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap,
and officiated every Sunday at the seven o'clock mass at St. Eloi.
What a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons I have
heard him preach! Once he informed his congregation that they would
all be damned like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fénélon! This threat,
pronounced in Breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by
the two ill-assorted names I cannot imagine, for he was nearly as
ignorant of books as his flock. He was devoted to my father body and
soul, being the son of one of his farmers. They were great comrades.
Whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to the
_pavillon_ and cry: "Come to dinner! There are woodcocks." And the
curé never failed to come. I see him now, with his rustic, rugged
face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. One of my first memories is of
the small, square neck ornament (_rabat_) that the clergy wear,--a
_bavette_ we children called them,--stitched round with white beads. I
longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee I always fixed
my eyes upon them. Unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day,
noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and I was able
to express my longing. "But you shall have the beads!" he cried,
touched and delighted. "I have two _rabats_, and one is old and past
wearing. Nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my
little Sophie."
His performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a
bagful of the beads, collected from among his curé friends, and for
days I was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces.
Some of these ornaments survived for many years.
The curé was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. "_Je me
sauve!_" he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to
the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that
he was. Here he would gird up his _soutane_ over his homespun
knee-breeches, open his coarse peasant's shirt on his bare chest, and
prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went
quickly. One of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow
and trundled me off to Ker-Eliane to dig up ferns for _maman's_
garden.
He, too, told me many legends. The one of St. Eloi especially
interested me. St. Eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his
father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. One day as
they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse
so gigantic that four men could not have held him. "Will you shoe my
horse, good friends?" said the child,--who of course was _l'Enfant
Jésus_,--very politely. "His shoe is loose, and his hoof will be
hurt." The father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation
at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of
such a size; but the son, St. Eloi, said at once that he would do his
best. So _l'Enfant Jésus_ slid down, and took a seat on the _talus_ in
front of the smithy, and St. Eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four
legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. At this
point in the story I always cried out:
"But, _Monsieur le Curé_, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its
legs unscrewed?"
And the curé, smiling calmly, would reply:
"Not in the least. You see, this was a miracle, my little Sophie."
So St. Eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when
all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child
remounted, and said to St. Eloi's father before he rode away:
"You are a little soured with age, my friend. Your son here is very
wise. Listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be
good."
It was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through
all the country far and near were brought to the church of St. Eloi
once a year to be blessed by the curé. This ceremony was called _le
Baptême des Chevaux_. The horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses
and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of
fours and sixes. At the widely opened western door the curé stood,
holding the _goupillon_, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were
slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time
that they passed before him the curé sprinkled them with holy water.
After this initial blessing the curé took up his stand within beside
the christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,--I so
well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the
earthen floor,--and the curé, with holy water from the font, made the
sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. Finally the tail
of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the
church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end
of the year, before _le Baptême des Chevaux_ took place again. This
touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round
the church and blessed, not brought inside.
[Illustration: "A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the curé"]
The Church of St. Eloi was very ancient, and adorned with strange old
statues of clumsily carved stone painted in garish colors. One was of
a Christ waiting for the cross, His hands tied before Him. It was a
hideous figure, the feet and hands huge and distorted, the eyes
staring like those of a doll; yet it had an impressive look of
suffering. There were no benches in the church except for our family,
near the choir. The peasants, the men on one side, the women on the
other, knelt on the bare earth during the office. They had used,
always, when they entered the church, to pass round before _les
maîtres_, bowing before them; but even my mother objected to this, and
the curé was told to give out from the pulpit that _les maîtres_ were
no longer to be bowed to in church, where there was only one master.
_Maman_, however, did not at all like it that my father should insist
on us children kneeling with the peasants, and it was the one subject
on which I remember a difference of opinion between my grandfather
Rosval and papa. But the latter was firm, and Ernest on the side of
the men, Eliane and I on the side of the women, we knelt through mass.
This was no hardship to us, for the kind peasants spread their skirts
for our little knees and regaled us all through the service with
_crêpes_.
[Illustration: "All the Breton women smoked"]
_Crêpes_ seem to be present in nearly all my Breton memories. The
peasants made them for us when we went to visit them in their
cottages, and it would have hurt their feelings deeply had we refused
them. We children delighted in these visits not only on account of the
_crêpes_, but on account of the picturesque interest of these peasant
interiors. The one living-room had an earthen floor and a huge
chimney-place of stone, often quaintly carved, and so large that
chairs could be set within it about the blazing logs. The room was
paneled, as it were, with beds that looked, when their sliding wooden
doors were closed, like tall wardrobes ranged along the walls. They
were usually of dark old wood and often beautifully carved. A narrow
space between the tops of these beds and the ceiling allowed some air
(but what air!) to reach the sleepers, and, within, the straw was
piled high, and the mattress and feather bed were laid upon it. It was
quite customary for father, mother, and three or four children to
sleep in one bed, several generations often occupying a room, as well
as the servants, who were of the same class as their masters. The beds
were climbed into by means of a carved chest that stood beside them.
These were called _huches_, and contained the heirloom costumes, a
store of bread, and the Sunday shoes! Potatoes were kept under the
bed. In the window stood the table where the family and servants all
ate together, and above it hung, suspended by a pulley and string
from the ceiling, a curious contrivance for holding spoons. It was a
sort of wooden disk, and the spoons were held in notches cut round the
edge; it was lowered when needed, and each person took a spoon. A
great earthenware bowl of creamy milk stood in the center of the
table, and with each mouthful of porridge, or _fare_, the spoons were
dipped, in community, into the milk. _Fare_ was a sort of thick
porridge made of maize, allowed to cool in a large round cake, and cut
in slices when cold. It was one of the peasants' staple dishes, and
another was the porridge made of oatmeal, rye, or buckwheat, served
hot, with a lump of butter. For breakfast they all drank _café au
lait_, strong coffee boiled with the milk; fortunately milk and butter
were plentiful. Of the hygienic habits of the peasants at this time
the less said the better; a very minor detail was that the long hair
of the men and the closely coiffed tresses of the women swarmed with
vermin, and after every visit we paid, our heads were always carefully
examined. One peasant, I remember, a good fellow, Paul Simur by name,
of whom my father was specially fond, was so dirty and unwashed that a
sort of mask of dirt had formed upon his features. One day, at a
hunting-party, papa called to Paul to come and sit beside him, and the
other huntsmen, with singular bad taste, began to make fun of poor
Paul, who sat much abashed, with hanging head. Papa affectionately
laid an arm about his neck and defended him, until his friends finally
cried out that they wagered he would not kiss him. At this, although
he confessed afterward to the most intense repugnance, he at once
kissed Paul heartily. Poor Paul was quite overcome. He came to my
father afterward with tears in his eyes and said, standing before him
and gazing at him:
"_Oh, mon maître, que je t'aime!_"
"And why don't you ever wash your face, Paul?" papa asked him then,
and Paul explained that he had never been taught to wash and was
afraid it would seriously hurt him to begin. Papa undertook to teach
him. He got soap and soda and hot water and lathered Paul, gently and
firmly, until at last his very agreeable features were disinterred.
Paul was perfectly delighted, and his face shone with cleanliness ever
after.
[Illustration: "One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a
_talus_"]
A special friend of mine among the peasants was dear old Keransiflan,
the lodge-keeper. I was fond of joining him while he tended the road
in front of the lodge-gates and sitting on his wheelbarrow with him to
talk to him while he ate his midday meal. This consisted of a huge
slice of black bread thickly spread with butter, and it seemed to me
that no bread and butter had ever looked so good.
One day he must have seen how much I longed for it, for he said,
holding out the slice, "_Demoiselle, en veux-tu_?" I did not need to
be asked twice, and can still see the great semicircle that I bit into
the slice, and I was happily munching when _maman_ appeared at the
lodge-gates. She was very much displeased, and mainly that I should be
devouring poor Keransiflan's luncheon, and she rated me so soundly
that the kind old man interceded for me, saying, "_Notre maîtresse,
c'est moi qui lui l'ai donné_." I think that _maman_ must have seen
that it gave him great pleasure to share his bread with me; at all
events, Keransiflan and I, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to
go on eating in peace.
But the peasants were a hard, harsh race and pitiless in their
dealings toward one another. Their treatment of their old people was
terrible. If an old mother, past work, had no money, she was
ruthlessly turned out to beg. One sometimes saw such an old woman
sitting on a _talus_, her pitiful bundle of rags beside her, helpless
and stupefied. I remember a story that was told me by one of my
servants about such an old woman that she had known. She had four
hundred francs, and was cared for in the family of one son until it
was spent, when she was turned out. Another son more kindly took her
in; but his wife was a hard woman, and though she finally consented to
accept the useless old mother into the household, she grudged every
sou spent upon her. Thus, though the only two joys remaining her in
life were snuff and coffee, only two sous a week was allowed her for
tobacco, and as for coffee, she was given never a drop. When she was
dying she told the servant from whom I had the story that what made
her suffer most had been to sit by in the morning and smell the
delicious odor of the coffee as the others drank it. This has always
seemed to me a heart-piercing story. All the Breton women smoked, by
the way, and pipes, and in a curious fashion; for the bowl was turned
downward, though why, I do not know.