BRITTANY.
Avranches.--Riding on Diligences.--Mont St. Michel.--Chateaubriand.--
Madame de Sévigné.--Brittany.--Breton Stories.--Story of the Old
Woman's Cow.--Story of the Wonderful Sack.--Nantes.--Scenes of the
Revolution at Nantes.--Fénelon and Louis XV.
The Class went by rail from Paris to the bright Norman district of
Calvados, visiting Caen and Bayeux, whose attractions have been
briefly sketched in the letter of George Howe to Master Lewis. The
next journey was to Avranches, or the "Village of the Cliff," by the
way of Falaise, the residence of Duke Robert, father of William the
Conqueror, and to the quaint town of Vire, famous for its cleanly,
industrious inhabitants its grand old hills buried in woods, its great
wayside trees, and its ancient clock-tower.
[Illustration: CLOCK TOWER AT VIRE.]
The Class met few people on this journey. The cantonniers were
evidently busy with their own simple industries. Once or twice the
boys saw gentlemen, whom Master Lewis said were curés, at work in
cool, green gardens; and often they met the pretty sight of women and
girls at work in the fields. The cottages were thatched, and some were
moss-grown, and all the canton wore the appearance of simple
contentment, virtue, and thrift.
Avranches is a favorite summer resort for English tourists, owing to
the beauty of its situation, its health-giving air, and the ease and
cheapness with which one may live.
The journey from Caen, along the bowery Norman highways, was made in
diligences. The boys seemed to brim over with pleasure at the prospect
of a ride in a diligence.
"There is one place where contentment and happiness may surely be
found," said Tommy Toby, one day.
"Where?" asked Master Lewis.
"On the top of a diligence."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sure."
The next day the Class was overtaken, while travelling in the French
coach, by a pouring rain. Tommy, as usual, was on the seat with the
driver. He became very impatient, saying, every few minutes, "I wish
it would stop raining, I wish--" this, that, and the other thing.
"Tommy," said Master Lewis, from within the coach, "are you _sure_?"
After a time the sunlight overspread the landscape, making the watery
leaves shine like the multitudinous wavelets of the sea.
Tommy's merry voice was heard again, talking bad French.
"Contentment and happiness," said Master Lewis to Frank, "have
evidently returned again."
From Avranches the Class visited that wonderful castle, church, and
village of the sea, Mont St. Michel.
The journey from the mainland was by a tramway across the Grève, or
sands, at low tide. At neap tides the Mount is not surrounded by water
at any time, but at spring tides it is washed by the sea twice a day,
and sometimes seems like a partly sunken hill in the sea. The fortress
is girt about the base with feudal walls and towers colored by the
sea; above these rises a little town, the houses being set on broken
ledges of rock; above the town stand the fortifications, and a church
and its tower crown all. It is one of the most curious places in the
world.
Pagan priests here worshipped the god of high places; monks succeeded
them; Henry II held court here, then it became a place to which saints
made yearly pilgrimages. The Revolution drove out the monks, and
turned it into a prison. In an iron cage called the Cage of St.
Michel, a torturous contrivance, state prisoners used to be confined.
The Class next went to St. Malo, by the way of Dol; a breezy journey,
with the sea in view.
"St. Malo," said Master Lewis, "was the birthplace of Chateaubriand,
who visited our country after the American Revolution, and in 1801
wrote an Indian romance, 'Atala,' a prose Hiawatha, if I may so call
it, which charmed all Europe. He published a political work on
America, which had great influence in France. He was in early life a
sceptic, but the memory of a good mother made him a Christian, and he
published a book on religion which arrested the infidel tendencies of
the times. Louis XVIII. declared that one of his pamphlets was worth
an army of one hundred thousand men. He was one of the most brilliant
writers France ever produced. You should read on your return 'Atala'
in French. You will find an edition, I think, illustrated by Doré, in
which the pictures will compel you to read the story."
"I have read 'Atala,'" said Frank.
"Would you like to visit Chateaubriand's birthplace with me?" asked
Master Lewis.
Frank was very desirous to see the place at once, and Master Lewis
and he went to the house, now a hotel, immediately on their arrival in
the town. From the windows of the house could be seen the tomb of
Chateaubriand, which is on a little island in the harbor.
When Master Lewis returned to the hotel he was alone.
"Where is Frank?" asked Tommy.
"He is to spend the night in Chateaubriand's room," said Master Lewis.
"Visitors at St. Malo are allowed to sleep there on paying a small
sum."
"Is Chateaubriand living yet?" asked Tommy. "I thought you said he
came to our country after the Revolution."
"No, he died many years ago. Frank and I have just been looking from
the windows of his birthplace at his tomb on one of the little
islands."
"But Frank is not going to stay all night in the room of one that is
dead! What good will that do?"
"It is the respect that appreciation pays to genius," said Master
Lewis.
Ernest Wynn wished to spend the night with Frank, and received Master
Lewis's permission.
"Why, Ernest!" said Tommy, "I thought you had more sense. I am glad I
am not literary. This is the strangest thing I have met with yet."
Chateaubriand's birthplace is the Hotel de France. His room is among
those offered to visitors, at a little extra cost. Master Lewis had
stopped at the hotel during a previous tour.
If Tommy was surprised at the "respect appreciation pays to genius,"
in the incident of sleeping in Chateaubriand's room, he was more so by
a conversation which took place next day, when Master Lewis made his
plans for the last zigzag journeys.
"The last place we will visit," he said, "is Nantes. We will go by
rail to Rennes, and by diligences the rest of the way, which will
afford you a fine view of Brittany. At Rennes, we will make, if you
like, a détour to Vitré."
"What shall we see there?" asked Tommy.
"The residence of Madame de Sévigné."
"Is _she_ living?" asked Tommy.
"Oh, no."
"What did she do?"
"She wrote letters to her daughter," said Frank.
"Who was her daughter?"
"The prettiest girl in France."
"Is _she_ living?"
"Oh, no," said Frank, impatiently. "Why, did you never hear of the
Letters of Madame de Sévigné?"
"I never did. Are her letters there?"
"No."
"What is?"
"The room where she wrote them," said Master Lewis.
"They must be very wonderful letters, I should think," said Tommy, "to
make a traveller take all that trouble."
"They are," said Master Lewis. "Lord Macaulay says, 'Among modern
works I only know two perfect ones; they are Pascal's Provincial
Letters, and the Letters of Madame de Sévigné.'"
The Class was now in Brittany, a province old and poor, whose very
charm is its simplicity and quaintness. Normandy smiles; Brittany
wears a sombre aspect everywhere. Normandy is a bed of flowers;
Brittany seems to be a bed of stone. Here and there may be seen a
church buried in greenery, but the landscape is one of heath, fern,
and broom.
The people are as peculiar as the country. Their costumes are odd,
some of them even wear goat-skins. Many of them lead a sea-faring
life; it is the Bretons who chiefly man the French navy.
They cling to old legends and superstitions with great fondness; the
wild country abounds with wonder-stories. Nearly all of these stories
are striking from their very improbability. They relate to an
imaginary period when the Apostles travelled in Brittany, or to men
and women who were transformed during some part of their lives into
animals, especially into wolves. The story-telling beggars furnish
much of the fiction to the unread people.
Those legends which are the chief favorites are undoubtedly very old.
The Class listened to several of them at their hotel at St. Malo. Some
of them begin in a way that at once arrests attention; as the
following story of the
OLD WOMAN'S COW.
When St. Peter and St. John were visiting the poor in Brittany they
stopped one day to rest at a farm-house among the trees, where they
met a little old woman who kindly brought them a pitcher of cool
water.
After the saints had drunk, the old woman told them the story of her
hard life. She had seen better days, she said; her husband had once
owned a cow, but he had lost it, and he now was only a laborer on the
place.
"Let me take the stick in your hand," said St. Peter.
The saint struck the stick on the ground, and up came a fine cow with
udders full of milk.
"Holy Virgin!" said the woman. "What made that cow come up from the
ground?"
"The grace of God," said St. Peter.
When the saints had gone, the old woman wondered whether, if she were
to strike with the stick on the ground, another cow would appear.
She struck the ground as she had seen St. Peter do, when up came an
enormous wolf and killed the cow.
The old woman ran after the saints and told her alarming story.
"You should have been content," said St. Peter, "with the cow the Lord
gave you. It shall be restored to you."
She turned back, and found the cow at the door, lowing to be milked.
Another story, which greatly pleased Tommy is
THE WONDERFUL SACK.
St. Christopher was a ferry-man. He dwelt in Brittany, at Dol. One day
the Lord came to Dol, and wished to cross the river with the twelve
Apostles.
St. Christopher, instead of using a ferry-boat, carried the travellers
who came to him across the river on his broad shoulders.
When he had thus taken over the Lord and his Apostles, he claimed his
reward.
"What will you have?" asked the Lord.
"Ask for Paradise," said St. Peter.
"No," said St. Christopher; "I ask that whatsoever I may desire may at
all times be put into my sack."
"You shall have your wish; but never desire money."
One day the Evil One came to St. Christopher, and tempted him to wish
for money.
They fell to fighting, and the fight lasted two whole days; but, just
as the Evil One seemed about to overcome the saint, the latter said:--
"In the name of the Lord, get into my sack."
In a moment the Evil One was in the sack, and St. Christopher tied the
string, and took him to a blacksmith, and requested the use of a
hammer.
Then St. Christopher and the smith hammered the Evil One as thin as a
penny.
"I own I am _beaten_," said a voice from the sack. "Now let me out."
"On one condition," said the saint.
"Name it."
"That you will never trouble me again."
"I promise."
The ferry-man now began to lead a life of charity. He never thought of
himself, but lived wholly for others; and every one loved him, and all
that were in distress came to him for comfort.
One day he died, full of years, and, taking with him his wonderful
sack, he started for the gates of Paradise.
St. Peter opened the gate. But when he saw that the new-comer was St.
Christopher, who had slighted his counsel, he refused to admit him.
The Celestial City, blazing in splendor, stood on the top of a high
mountain; the sound of music and the odors of flowers came through the
gate as it was opened, and the saint with a heavy heart turned away
from all the ravishing beauty, and, hardly knowing what he did, went
down the mountain, until he came to the gate of the region where bad
souls dwell.
A youth at the gate said to him,--
"Come in."
The gate opened, and the Evil One saw him.
"Shut the gate! shut the gate!" said the Evil One to the youth.
Far, far away the Holy City beamed with ineffable brightness, and up
the hill again with a still heavy heart went St. Christopher.
"If I could only get my sack inside the gate, I could wish myself into
it; and once inside the gate I could never be turned out."
He came up to the gate again, and called for St. Peter.
The saint opened the gate a little.
"I pray you in charity," said St. Christopher, "let me listen to the
music."
[Illustration: REVOKING THE EDICT OF NANTES.]
The gate was set a little more ajar. Immediately St. Christopher threw
into the celestial place the wonderful sack; he wished, and in a
moment he was in the sack himself,--and he has remained in the region
of light, music, flowers, and happiness ever since.
* * * * *
The Class went by rail to Rennes, one of the old capitals of Brittany.
It was hardly interesting to them, but a pleasant ride took them to
Vitré, where the boys visited the residence of Madame de Sévigné.
Nantes, the ancient residence of the Dukes of Brittany, is situated on
the river Loire, about forty miles from the sea. It is one of the
largest and most beautiful of the provincial towns of France. In the
old castle Henry IV. signed the Edict of Nantes, giving freedom of
worship to the Protestants in France.
This famous Edict was published April 13, 1598. The Reformers, or
Huguenots, had at this time seven hundred and sixty churches. It was
revoked by Louis XIV. in 1685, under the influence of his prelates,
who persuaded him thus to seek expiation for his sins. The result of
the act was that four hundred thousand Protestants, who were among the
most industrious, intelligent, and useful people of France, left the
country rather than to give up their religion. They took refuge in
Great Britain, Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, and America. From them
these countries learned some of the finest French arts.
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was one of the many acts of
injustice that opened the way for the French Revolution, by destroying
public virtue.
Some of the most terrible scenes of the Revolution were enacted at
Nantes.
One of the first visits made by the Class at Nantes was to the old
warehouse, called the Salorges, built as an entrepot for colonial
merchandize, which is associated with the inhuman murders of the
Revolution. Here the monster Carrier caused men and women to be tied
together and hurled into the Loire, making an exhibition of the
cruelty which was known as Republican Marriages. It was in front of
the Salorges that executions by water, called Noyades, were
performed. Boats loaded with from twenty to forty victims were towed
into the middle of the river, and were sunk by means of trap-doors in
their sides, which were opened by cords communicating with the shore.
If any of these wretched people attempted to escape by swimming, they
were shot. As many as six hundred human beings perished in this way in
a single day. The whole number of persons thus destroyed reached many
thousands. Women and children were drowned as well as men. The river
became so full of bodies that the air was made pestilent.
This was during the dark days of the Reign of Terror, when Marat and
Robespierre ruled France. Besides the victims of the Noyades were
those who perished in other merciless ways. Five hundred children were
shot in a single day, and were buried in trenches that had been
prepared for the purpose.
"I do not wonder that Charlotte Corday, who killed Marat, should have
been regarded as a heroine," said Frank Gray. "I cannot understand how
Frenchmen, who seem to be the most polite, obliging, kind-hearted,
people in the world, could have been led to do the bloody deeds of the
Reign of Terror."
"That is because you have read history too much without thought. In
reading history always go back to the causes of things. Read backward
as well as forward. All the great palaces in France you have seen were
built by the money of an overtaxed people who had no political rights.
They were the glittering abodes of immorality. Again and again France
was governed by wicked women who became favorites of the king. The
Huguenots, who were the sincerely religious people of France, were
compelled to leave the nation. Think of it,--four hundred thousand
people going away from their native country at the unrestrained edict
of one bad man. Do you wonder the people of France desired a
Constitution for their protection? The nobler orders of the Catholic
Church, the Jansenists and Port Royalists as they were called, were
also suppressed. The Church became immoral, tyrannical, and almost
wholly corrupt, an enemy to the rights of the people. The reaction
against such a church, which violated all the precepts of the Gospel,
was infidelity.
[Illustration: FÉNELON AND THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY.]
"During the whole of the reign of Louis XV. the cloud of Revolution
was gathering. Louis saw it, but he was so given over to sensuality
that it little troubled him. 'These things will last as long as I
shall,' he said. '_Après nous le déluge_' (after us the deluge). He
was wholly governed, and the nation ruled, by Madame de Pompadour, a
corrupt and worthless woman, who made and dismissed ministers of State
and cardinals, declared war and dictated terms of peace. She declared
that even her lap-dog was weary of the fawnings of nobles. Are you
surprised that Frenchmen should rise against such a state of things as
this?"
"Was not Louis XV. educated by Fénelon, who wrote _Télémaque_, the
French text-book we have been studying?" asked Frank.
"Yes, the most corrupt king of France was educated by the purest and
most lovable man of genius that the times produced. The king was a
wilful child, but it was thought that Fénelon had quite changed his
character by his religious influence. He was subject to what were
called 'mad fits.' I might tell you some pleasant stories of this
period of his life. One day, when Fénelon had reproved him for some
grave fault, he said,--
"'I know what I am, and I know also what you are.'
"Fénelon's prudent conduct quite won back the affection of the child.
"'I will leave the Duke of Burgundy [his title] behind the door when I
am with you,' he used to say, 'and I will be only little Louis.'
"Fénelon turned the boy's mind to piety, and for a time influenced him
by it. 'All his mad fits and spites,' he said of his pupil, 'yielded
to the name of God.'
"But Fénelon, like all good and pure men of the time, was condemned
by the court and the Church. _Télémaque_, written to train the mind of
the young prince in the principles of virtue, caused him to lose favor
with the court, and he spent the last years of his life in virtual
exile.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AT NANTES.]
[Illustration: LOUIS XV.]
"Aside from Fénelon's influence the prince had much to make him
vain. He was once ill, and on his recovery all Paris was filled with
rejoicing. An immense crowd gathered around the palace on the eve of
St. Louis's Day in honor of the convalescence. As the boy-king stood
on the balcony of the palace on the occasion, Marshal Villeroy said to
him,--
"'Look at all this company of people: all are yours; they all belong
to you; you are their master.'
"Think of a boy's being told that the people of Paris belonged to him!
"I can wonder at the Reign of Terror, but I cannot be surprised at the
Revolution when I view the history of France for the century that
preceded it. It is rather a matter of surprise that an enlightened
people should have submitted to tyranny so long."
Nantes is the Paris of the Loire. Its streets, boulevards, public
squares, the forest of masts in the river, and the trees that line its
banks, all seem a copy of the bright and gay French capital. Its old
cathedral is a queer-looking building, with towers scarcely higher
than its roof; but it contains a most beautiful tomb which was erected
in memory of Francis II. last Duke of Bretagne. It is adorned with
figures of angels, the twelve Apostles, St. Louis, and Charlemagne.
One of the most interesting excursions made by the Class from Nantes
was to the ruin of the old castle of
BLUE-BEARD.
There existed, many centuries ago, a ferocious, cruel old lord, whose
treatment of his wives and ogre-like tyranny to all around him, gave
origin to the thrilling story of Blue-beard; indeed, the story was so
nearly true that this old lord was actually called "Blue-beard" by his
neighbors, so blue-black was his long and stubby beard.
He lived in the old days when barons were fierce and despotic, and
shut their wives and daughters up in dark dungeons or high castle
casements, and thought little more of ordering a score of peasants off
to instant execution than of eating their breakfasts.
He was a rich old fellow, and had several castles scattered about the
country, whither princes and dukes used to go and visit him, and share
in his hunting-parties in the wildwoods.
His castles were situated in the province of Brittany, and his real
name was one which is still to be found in these secluded
regions,--the Sieur Duval. The lapse of time has caused all his fine
castles wholly to disappear, with one exception, and it is that which
I am about to describe to you.
Sieur Duval had his favorite residence on the banks of a lovely little
river, about two miles from Nantes. Here he was near town, and might
ride in on one of his high-tempered chargers whenever he listed, to
join the revels of the dukes, or go wife-hunting.
It was at this castle that his cruelties to his unhappy spouses are
supposed to have occurred; and it was from Nantes that the brother of
his last wife is said to have ridden in hot haste to rescue his
wretched sister and make an end of the odious old tyrant.
Taking a row-boat by the high, old bridge which, just on the outskirts
of Nantes, spans the river Erdre, you find yourself at first on a
broad sheet of water, with quaint, whitewashed stone-houses and huts,
their roofs covered with red brick tiles, and occasionally more
handsome mansions with lawns and gardens extending to the river-bank.
Here you may perhaps observe a row of curious flat-boats with roofs,
but open on all sides, lining both banks of the stream. In these are a
number of hard-featured, dark-skinned women of all ages, washing
clothes. They lean over the boat-sides, and scrub the shirts and
handkerchiefs in the water, then withdraw them, lay them smoothly on
some flat boards, like a table, and taking a flat hammer pound upon
them.
Presently you get past these, if you row vigorously, and come to
pretty bends in the river, and find yourself beyond the
thickly-settled part, amidst pleasant rural fields, with some wealthy
merchant's mansion raising its towers above the green trees.
After a while you approach a bright little village, all of whose
houses form a single street just along the banks of the river. Here
you disembark and pass along the village street, across a rickety
bridge which spans a little inlet from the stream, and so out into the
country, and through paths in the woods thickly grown with brush and
wildflowers.
Presently, soon after you have got out of sight of the village, you
ascend a gentle hill, and suddenly come upon an old, old house, with
its wooden ribs appearing, crossing each other, through the stone
walls, and a roof that looks as if about to fall in upon the people
who inhabit it.
Just beyond this, deeply imbedded in shrubs, brush, thickly-grown
ivies and other vines, and moss, is all that is left of Blue-beard's
castle.
The walls are still there, dividing the apartments. You can imagine
the rooms and the tower which arose above the tall trees that here
cluster on the river bank. And you may fancy, as you stand among the
beautiful ruins, that you are on the very spot where the room used to
be which Blue-beard forbade his last wife to enter.
Here is the portal, now crumbled and almost covered with moss and ivy,
where the old tyrant came in and out; there the wall where the last of
his poor victims sat, looking out and straining her eyes to see her
brother coming; beyond, the spot where Blue-beard was struck down, and
received his deserts. It seems too beautiful a place for so
remorseless an ogre; and as one looks out upon the lovely scenes where
the tearful spouses mourned their lot, one cannot help thinking how
happy they might have been in such a charming retreat, had they
enjoyed it with loving husbands and happy homes.