The 28th of August, 1851, was, it seems, a fine summer's day at Saint
Pol-de-Léon, in Finistère.
The pale sun of Brittany smiled and made festival for this little
newcomer, who later on was to love the sun so much, and to love Brittany
so much.
Yves made his entrance into the world in the form of a large baby, very
round and very brown. The good women present at his arrival gave him the
name of _Bugel-Du_, which in English means: little black boy. This
bronzed colouring was, for that matter, characteristic of the family,
the Kermadecs from father to son, having been ocean-going sailors and
men deeply bitten by the tan of the sea.
A fine summer's day in Saint Pol-de-Léon is a rare thing in this region
of fogs: a kind of melancholy radiance is shed over everything; the old
town of the Middle Ages is, as it were, awakened out of its mournful
slumber in the mist and made young again; the old granite warms itself
in the sun; the tower of Creizker, the giant of Breton towers, bathes in
the blue sky, in the full light, its delicate grey fretwork marbled with
yellow lichens. And all around is the wild moorland, with its pink
heather, its golden gorse, exhaling a soft perfume of flowering broom.
At the baptism were a young girl, the godmother; a sailor, the
godfather; and, behind, the two little brothers, Goulven and Gildas,
holding by the hand the two little sisters, Yvonne and Marie, who
carried flowers.
When the little company entered the old church of the bishops of Léon,
the verger, hanging on the rope of a bell, made ready to start the
joyous carillon called for by the occasion. But the Curé, coming on the
scene, said to him harshly:
"Be quiet, Marie Bervrac'h, for the love of God! These Kermadecs are
people who never give anything to the Church, and the father wastes all
his substance in the tavern. We'll have no ringing, if you please, for
people of that sort."
And that is how my brother Yves made his entrance into the world in the
guise of poverty.
Jeanne Danveoch, from her bed, listened with uneasiness, waited with a
foreboding of ill, for the vibrations of the bell which were so slow to
begin. For a long time she listened and heard nothing. Then she
understood the public affront and wept.
Her eyes were wet with tears when the party returned, crestfallen, to
the house.
All his life this humiliation weighed upon the heart of Yves; he was
never able to forgive this unkind reception at his entrance into the
world, nor the cruel tears shed by his mother; and as a result he
preserved for the Roman clergy an unforgetting rancour and closed his
Breton heart to Our Mother the Church.