ST. MALO—ST. SERVAN—DINARD—DINAN.
[Illustration]
On a bright summer’s morning in July the _ballon captif_, which we may
use in imagination in these pages—our French friends having taught us
its use in peace as well as in war—floats over the blue water-gate of
Brittany like a golden ball. The sun is high, and the tide is flowing
fast round the dark rock islands that lie at our feet, pouring into the
harbour of ST. MALO, floating the vessels and fishing-boats innumerable
that line the quays inside the narrow neck of land called Le Sillon,
which connects the city with the mainland, and driving gay parties of
bathers up the sands of the beautiful Baie d’Écluse at Dinard.
On the map on the opposite page, we see the relative positions of St.
Malo, St. Servan, and Dinard, also the mouth of the river Rance, which
flows southward, wide and strong, into innumerable bays, until it winds
under the walls and towers of Dinan. Looking down upon the city, now
alive with the life which the rising tide gives to every sea-port;
seeing the strength of its position seaward, and the protection from
without to the little forests of masts, whose leaves are the bright
trade banners of many nations, it is easy to understand how centuries
ago St. Malo and St. Servan were chosen as military strongholds,[1] and
how in these later times St. Malo has a maritime importance apparently
out of proportion to its trade, and to its population of not more than
14,000 inhabitants.
Footnote 1:
St. Servan is built on the site of Aleth, one of the six capitals of
ancient Armorica; there was a monastery here in the sixth century.
[Illustration]
From a bird’s-eye point of view we may obtain a clearer idea of St. Malo
and its neighbourhood than many who have actually visited these places,
and can judge for ourselves of its probable attractions for a summer
visit. It seems unusually bright and pleasant this morning, for the
light west wind has cleared the air, and carried the odours of St. Malo
landward. There is to be a regatta in the afternoon, the principal
course being across, and across, the mouth of the Rance, between St.
Malo and Dinard, and already little white sails may be seen spread in
various directions, darting in and out between the rock islands outside
the bay. On one of these islands, Grand Bé, marked with a cross on the
map, is the tomb of the illustrious Châteaubriand, a plain granite slab,
surmounted by a cross, and railed in with a very ordinary-looking iron
railing. This gravestone, which stands upon an eminence, and is
conspicuous rather than solitary, is described by a French writer as a
romantic resting-place for the departed diplomatist, characteristic and
sublime—“ni arbres, ni fleurs, ni inscription—le roc, la mer et
l’immensité”; but as a matter of fact it is anything but solitary in
summer-time, and it is more visited by tourists than sea-gulls. The
waves are beating round it now, but at low water there will be a line of
pedestrians crossing the sands; some to bathe and some to place
_immortelles_ on the tomb.
The sands of Le Sillon are covered with bathers and holiday crowds in
dazzling costumes, the rising tide driving them up closer to the rocks
every minute. Everywhere there is life and movement; the narrow, winding
streets of St. Malo pour out their contents on the seashore; little
steamers pass to and from Dinard continually, fishing and pilot boats
come and go, and yachts are fluttering their white sails far out at sea.
Everything looks gay, for the sun is bright, and it is the day of the
regatta.
Looking landward, the eye ranges over a district of flat, marshy land,
that once was sea, and we may discern in the direction of Dol an island
rock in the midst of a marshy plain, at least three miles from the sea.
On the summit of this rock is a chapel to Notre Dame de l’Espérance, and
near it, standing alone on the plain, is a column of grey granite nearly
thirty feet high, one of the “menhirs” or “Druid stones” that we shall
see often in Brittany. Eastward there is the beautiful bay of Cancale,
famous for its oyster-fisheries; the village built on the heights is
glistening in the sunlight, and the blue bay stretches away east and
north as far as Granville. Cancale is also crowded this morning, for it
is the fashion to come from St. Malo on fête days, to eat oysters, and
to _pay_ for them. A summer correspondent, who followed the fashion,
writes: “The people of Cancale are amongst the most able and industrious
fishermen in Brittany, and the oysters from the parcs of Cancale are
famous even in the Parisian restaurants; but in the cabarets of Cancale
the charges resemble those of Paris.” We mention this by the way because
travellers who have taken up their quarters at the principal hotels at
St. Malo, finding the charges higher than they expected, might, without
a caution, take wing to Cancale. They may be attracted thither, for the
day at least, to see the fishing operations, to study costume, to
explore the coast by boat, or to visit the island monastery of St.
Michel. The water is smooth in the shallow bay of Cancale, and the view
extending over miles of blue sea to the green hills beyond Avranches
makes a charming picture.
The aspect of St. Malo from the sea is that of a crowd of grey houses
with high-pitched roofs, surrounded with stone walls and
sixteenth-century towers, and with one church spire conspicuous in the
centre. At high-water the waves beat up against the granite rocks and
battlements, and St. Malo seems an island; at low water it stands high
on a pediment of granite, surrounded by little island rocks and wide
plains of sand; the spring tides rising nearly forty feet above
low-water mark.
But the chief interest of St. Malo is undoubtedly outside of it. In the
narrow, tortuous streets, shut in by high walls, we experience something
of the sensation of dwellers in modern Gothic villas; we have
insufficient light and air, we are cramped for space, but we know at the
same time that, outwardly, we are extremely picturesque. “Rien de triste
et de provinciale comme la ville de Saint-Malo, où tout le monde est
couché à 9 h. du soir; rues noires et tortueuses; pas de soleil, ni de
mouvement; enfin une ville morte.” Such is the popular French view of it
in the height of the season, when prices at the hotels are nearly as
high as in Paris.
The fortifications and towers of St. Malo are interesting as examples of
military architecture of the sixteenth century; the castle with its four
round towers was erected, it is said, by Queen-Duchess Anne to assert
her power over the bishops of St. Malo, who had held it from the time
when it was an island monastery. From the ramparts and quays we can best
see many of the old houses and residences of the wealthy traders of the
last century, now dilapidated or turned into barracks or public offices;
and we may also note here and there, in narrow streets, remnants of
carved timber beams and wooden pillars which formed the frontage of some
of the oldest houses. We can walk upon the ramparts all round the town,
from which there are extensive views over sea and land; and we can
inhale, on the western side, the fresh breezes of the sea, and, on the
other, the odours rising from innumerable unwashed streets and alleys.
The church, the spire of which was completed by order of Napoléon III.,
has little architectural interest. The structure dates from the twelfth
century, but its present aspect is modern and tawdry, with a huge
high-altar, candlesticks, gilt furniture, relics, and artificial
flowers. The most noteworthy objects are some carved woodwork in the
chancel, and a stained-glass window.
The principal streets of St. Malo are modernised, and the shops are full
of wares from Paris and Rennes. The appearance and manners of the people
are French rather than Breton, and—although the strange patterns of the
white caps worn by the peasants and fisherwomen, and the curiously
uncouth intonation of voices which already greets our ears, remind us
that we are very far from the capital of France—there is little here of
distinctive Breton costume.
St. Malo from its position is an important maritime station. It is busy,
and busier every year, with shipbuilding, for it has a large fishing
population and an export trade with all parts of the world. Brittany is
a food-producing land, and St. Malo is its principal northern port; but
its manufactures are comparatively unimportant, and its retail trade is
largely dependent on the influx of visitors.
In the suburb of ST. SERVAN, where a few English people live quietly,
there is less appearance of commercial activity than in St. Malo. It is
in fact a faubourg, comparatively unprotected by walls, and undisturbed
by much traffic. Its population of 12,000 have their principal business
in St. Malo, and there is a constant stream of pedestrians passing to
and fro, crossing on a movable bridge worked by steam, the supports of
which are on rails under water. The principal street of St. Servan is
wider than Wardour Street in London, but it resembles it somewhat in
dinginess, and in the fact that its shops are full of tempting baits for
the _bric-à-brac_ hunter; old wood carvings, pots, and stones, which
should be purchased with caution.
The Bretons, both in St. Malo and St. Servan, are a little demoralised
in summer, and wish to be “fine.” To-day being a fête day, they are _en
grande toilette_, and the wonderful white caps worn by some of the women
are trimmed with real old lace. In the shops and on the promenades the
majority of women are dressed as in Paris, and they wear kid gloves
“like their betters”; the country people and the fishing and poorer
class of Malouins, only, wearing any distinctive costume. The fishermen
of Cancale make money and save it, and send their children to school by
train to Rennes, and the fisherman’s daughter comes back in a costume
that makes her neighbours envious. Every year more white caps are thrown
aside, for Mathilde will not be outdone by Louise; and so the change
goes on, and each year the markets of St. Malo and St. Servan have less
individuality of costume.
Nevertheless, groups such as are sketched are to be seen to-day in St.
Malo, St. Servan, and Dinard: the women in white caps, dark stuff gowns,
and neatly made shoes; the men in blue serge and sabots. The women’s
caps vary in pattern according to their district. They generally wear a
close-fitting under cap, with a small high-crimped crown, and a wide
lappet pinned on the top of the head. In St. Malo we may see Normandy as
well as Brittany caps, and it is not until we get farther into the
interior that the costume of the district is strongly marked.[2]
Footnote 2:
The caps peculiar to different parts of Brittany are indicated at the
head of each chapter.
[Illustration]
DINARD—once a little fishing-village, now a fashionable
watering-place—the position of which we see on the map on page 7, is a
delightful residence in summer, and nearly as dear as Trouville, in
Normandy; but the air is bracing and exceptionally good, the walks in
the neighbourhood shady and delightful, and the bathing in the sheltered
Baie d’Écluse as good as any in France. In Dinard there are about 800
houses and villas in pleasant gardens, most of which are let for a short
summer season of three months. There is a well managed “Établissement
des Bains” and casino, and several good hotels. Dinard is the
starting-point to reach Dinan by road; also for the little
fishing-villages of St. Briac and St. Jacut, on the coast, westward. At
St. Briac the visitor who does not care to be fashionable will find an
inn, good bathing, and summer quarters of a rougher kind than at Dinard;
and at St. Jacut there is a convent standing almost out at sea, where
the nuns take boarders in summer for a very small sum. At Dinard you
play at croquet on the sands; at St. Briac you scramble over granite
rocks, and fish in the pools under their shadows; at St. Jacut you
wander over the sands with a shrimp-net, and in the evening help the
nuns to draw water from the convent well.
But we have come to Brittany to sketch and to note what is most
characteristic and picturesque. So far, on the threshold as it were,
what have we seen? Coming from England, and sailing southward into its
blue bay on a summer morning, there was an impression of brightness and
colour unusual on our own shores. In St. Malo itself three pictures
remain upon the memory. The first is the sunset between the islands and
across the sands, near the bathing-place of Le Sillon; the second the
moonlight view of its cathedral tower at the end of a narrow street,
filling it and towering above it with a grandeur of effect almost equal
to that of St. Stephen’s at Vienna; the third picture is in the small
courtyard of the Hôtel de France. This house, or part of it, belonged to
the family of the Vicomte de Châteaubriand, and it was here, in a room
facing the sea, that the celebrated author and diplomatist was born. In
the hotel the family arms (the peacock’s plume) are emblazoned, and just
outside its gates, in the little dusty square called “La Place de
Châteaubriand,” a new bronze statue, bright and shining, has lately been
erected to his memory. Travellers imprisoned between the narrow streets
and dingy walls of St. Malo, fortified and barricaded against the fresh
breezes of the sea, may perchance seek the cool courtyard of the Hôtel
de France as a place of refuge during the heat of the day, and, if not
quite tired of hearing of Châteaubriand, may dwell in imagination upon
the historic associations of this house. In a corner of the courtyard,
now used as a café, there is an old stone staircase leading to the first
_étage_, such as we may see in the courtyard of many a French château,
and upon it there lingers this afternoon an English girl in the costume
most affected by society in 1878. She wears a rich, dark, close-fitting
dress in simple folds, spreading where it trails upon the rough granite
steps with the stealthy grandeur of a peacock’s tail upon a ruined wall.
As she turns her head and leans over between the pillars of the covered
balcony, her “Rubens hat” and fair hair are framed in antique carved
stone. The effect is accidental, but the harmonious combination of
costume and architecture brings out suddenly the beauties of each, and
gives us a glimpse, not to be forgotten, of the graces of a past age.
THE RANCE.
The tide is now flowing fast up the Rance, filling its numerous bays and
inlets, floating odd-shaped little boats and rafts that are moored off
the villages on its banks, running up here and there inland between
rocks and trees and forming miniature lakes, which will disappear as the
tide goes down. The little steamer for Dinan starts from the Quai
Napoléon, and goes up on the flood in about three hours, having just
time to reach Dinan and return to St. Malo before the water has
subsided. The foredeck is crowded with market-women and small
merchandise, and on the afterdeck, which is but a few yards square,
there are some French and English tourists under a canvas awning, which
is useful alike for shelter from sun, rain, or cinders. Steering
south-east by south, we steam gently up the Rance, getting a fine view
of St. Servan in passing (a view which we should have missed altogether
by the land route to Dinan); a river that, near its mouth, seems to have
no boundaries or banks, that flows in and out amongst cultivated fields,
then suddenly through narrow defiles of rocks and under the shadow of
forest trees that might be Switzerland. Once or twice we sail, as it
were, in an inland lake, or, as the French call it, “une petite
Mediterranée”; we can neither see where we entered nor any outlet on our
route. There are fishing and market boats, lying in quiet corners, and
one or two pleasure yachts with flags flying, moored in the prettiest
spots near modern summer châlets, the slate roofs of which appear above
the trees. We pass one considerable village, St. Suliac, on the east
bank, behind which is the ancient fort of Châteauneuf; and, on the west,
the grey walls of more than one old château are visible. The water is
blue and tidal until we arrive at a lock a few miles from Dinan, when
the little steamer ploughs through a narrow canal-like stream, and sends
the water flowing over the banks, washing the stems of the poplar trees.
[Illustration: FRUIT STALL AT DINAN.]
We are entering Brittany now, and are far out of hearing of the waves
that beat upon St. Malo, and of the band of the casino on its sands. On
either side the valleys are rich with verdure and with orchards of
fruit. There are farmhouses and villas dotted about, and peasants at
work in the fields. We pass close to the banks during the last mile, and
are shut in by rocks and trees; but all at once the view enlarges, and
there rises before us a scene so grand and, at the same time, so
familiar that we feel delighted and rewarded at having approached Dinan
by water. The prevailing tone of landscape during the last few miles has
been sombre, and the valleys in shadow with their dark granite rocks and
gloom of firs have contrasted picturesquely with the sunshine on distant
fields. As we reach Dinan in the afternoon, the valley of the Rance is
in shadow, whilst above and before us, crowning a hill, are the old
roofs, towers, and spires of Dinan shining in the sun. The sides of the
valley here are almost precipitous, and across it, high above our heads,
is a plain modern viaduct, reaching to the suburb of Lanvallay. Dinan is
on the west or left bank of the Rance; and near the bridge where we land
the steep streets of the old town reach to the water’s edge. Above our
heads are feudal towers, and parts of old walls, and the grey roofs of
houses between the trees, and away southward the valley of the Rance
winding out of sight. We said it was a familiar picture, for the
approach to Dinan by water and the view from the hills on the opposite
bank of the Rance, seen under summer suns, have been perpetuated in
brightness by many an English artist. It is well to see Dinan thus, _en
couleur de rose_, and to remember it in its most bright and attractive
aspect, for on a nearer and longer acquaintance our impressions may
change. Dinan—situated on the summit and slopes of wooded hills, their
dark granite sides appearing here and there through the trees, its
mediæval towers and terraces, and its old grey houses with pointed
roofs, and its handsome white modern houses—forms a good background to
the market-women, with their stalls of fruit and vegetables, peasants in
blue blouses, and the usual summer crowd of tourists, including
Parisians in suits of white, with broad straw hats and blue umbrellas,
thronging on the quay waiting for our little steamer. There are several
hundred English residents in Dinan, and the voices in the streets have a
familiar sound, neither French nor Breton. But the population, including
English, scarcely exceeds 10,000 even in summer; and the inhabitants,
who are not given up to trading with visitors, are principally occupied
in agriculture, or working in their dark dwellings at hand looms.
[Illustration]
As we climb up a steep, dirty street, leading from the quay, called the
Rue de Jersual, and under a Gothic gateway—past old houses, with
high-pitched roofs and leaning timbers, rising one above another in
irregular steps—we hear the sound of the loom in the darkness on either
side, and the inhabitants come out to stare as usual; shining red faces,
under white caps, lean out from little latticed windows and from
doorways, and in the gutters many a little pair of sabots stuffed with
hay is rattling on the stones. It is a ladder of cobblestones and dirt,
cool and slippery, sheltered by projecting eaves from the afternoon sun;
the principal approach from the river a century ago, up which a stream
of pilgrims files into the upper town. They pause to take breath at the
top, and then disperse on the _Place_, where, in front of dusty rows of
trees, the omnibuses and carts, which have come round by the broad,
circuitous road, are setting down travellers. The entrance to the inn is
blocked by a loaded hay cart, stuck fast in the archway of the house, as
in the sketch. We have ascended at least 300 feet to the _Place_, and
take up our quarters in one of the hotels in the wide open square,
looking as dusty and uncared for as usual in French provincial towns,
and commanding, as usual also, no view of the country round.
[Illustration]
In a few minutes the bustle caused by the arrival of travellers has
ceased, and the principal square of Dinan resumes its ordinary aspect on
a summer’s day. Nurses, in white caps, sit knitting under the shadows of
stunted trees, while the children play in the dust; cavalry officers of
all grades play at cards and drink absinthe at little tables half hidden
by trees planted in boxes at the hotel doors; ladies and children, a
priest, a workman in blue blouse dragging a load of stones, a woman
coming from market, and an Englishman or two, on pleasure intent, with
draggled beard and grey knickerbockers, as is the fashion of the time.
Above the trees, the houses across the square rise in irregular lines,
their steep roofs, old and sun-stained, are full of variety and colour;
behind them tree tops wave, and great masses of white clouds drive
northward to the sea.
[Illustration]
Dinan is full of interest both for the artist and the antiquary. The
cathedral of St. Sauveur, with its fine carved doorway and Romanesque
architecture, the old clock-tower in the Rue de l’Horloge, the mediæval
gateways, and the old houses in the narrow streets, form a succession of
pictures worthy of study. It is well to examine the castle, once
occupied by the Queen-Duchess Anne and now a prison, and to ascend the
tower, from which there is a magnificent view. In the museum at the
Mairie there are several interesting monuments and ecclesiastical
relics. And yet perhaps the chief interest of Dinan is in the variety
and beauty of its environs; on every side will be found charming wooded
walks and valleys, from which we can see its position, set high on green
hills, the sky-line a fringe of trees and towers. The walks on the
ramparts, with their lines of poplars and the views across the deep
fosse below will give an idea of the military architecture of the middle
ages, and especially of the natural strength and importance of Dinan as
a fortified city when besieged by the Duke of Lancaster in 1359 and
defended by the brave Du Guesclin. In St. Malo, Châteaubriand was the
hero; in Dinan it is Du Guesclin, constable of France in the fourteenth
century. In the cathedral of St. Sauveur they have burned candles before
the jewelled casket containing his heart, for centuries, and on the
_Place_ there is a poor statue of him in plaster; but the more lasting
monuments are the records of his deeds and the songs of the people,
which we shall hear often on our travels.
Whichever way we turn in Dinan, we find some new view and point of
interest, and the inhabitants are so accustomed to the incursion of
strangers, and reap so many benefits by their coming, that we are
allowed to sketch almost undisturbed. There is an old woman with
deformed hands and feet, who sits knitting on the _Place_, whose
familiar figure will be recalled by the sketch on page 21.
The ramparts are comparatively deserted by day, and form a promenade by
moonlight worth coming far to see. If ever there was a spot on earth
prepared for lovers, it is surely the broad walk on the southern
ramparts of Dinan, where the moon shines upon the path between tall
waving poplars and silvers the distant trees, where there is scarcely a
sound to break the stillness, where there is room for every Romeo out of
hearing of his neighbour, and where the sounds of the city are hushed
behind granite walls. It is naturally romantic and beautiful, and, with
the associations which cling around its towers, has a charm which is
almost unique; but we must tell the truth. There are clusters of white
roses clinging to the old masonry above, which have scattered their
full-blown leaves at our feet, and below, in the deep dell which formed
the ancient fosse, there is honeysuckle in the straggling garden; but
the odours that rise on the evening air are not of roses nor of
honeysuckle, nor from the broad champaign around. There surely was never
a beautiful spot so defiled. As a picture, the general aspect of Dinan
will remain in memory—a picture not to be effaced by the erection of
large new barracks, or by the railway now constructing in the
valley—stately Dinan with its ancient groves and terraces, its hanging
gardens, and sylvan views.
[Illustration]
We must not linger in such a well-known part of Brittany, or we would
take the reader in imagination to one or two of the old houses in the
neighbourhood, like the one sketched below; also, a little way up the
river, to the picturesque ruins of the abbey of Lehon. This last is a
spot especially to be visited, and where, if we are wise and have time,
we should take apartments for a week in summer. Another favourite walk
is on the opposite side of Dinan, leaving the town by the ramparts
towards the north. Here in the midst of a tangle of briars and bushes,
hemmed in on every side, run over with ivy and every variety of creeper,
shut off entirely from some points of view by an orchard laden to the
ground with fruit and by a garden of flowers, is the one tower left of
the famous château of LA GARAYE The grey octagonal turret, with its
crumbling Renaissance ornament, stands high above the surrounding trees,
and catches the evening sunlight long after the avenue of beeches by
which it is approached is in gloom. The place is as solemn and quiet, at
the end of a long avenue, as any poet could desire; but as we approach
the gates of the château of “the lady with the liberal hand,” whom Mrs.
Norton has immortalised in her poem, there are the usual signs of
demoralisation. There are pigs about, and tourists; and the show is
charged for in the usual way. We pay our money and take away some
souvenir of the place. Americans who have read (and recited often in
their own homes) “The Lady of La Garaye” sometimes make Dinan the
extreme western point of their tour in Europe, and have trodden the
ground into a deep track to the château with their pilgrim feet; but the
position is inconvenient for tourists who have much to see, and so, it
is understood, they are going to buy the turret and take it home. The
idea is not as absurd as it may sound; it is a very pretty ruin as it
stands, but it will fall soon if not cared for, and the low wall on
either side of the turret will disappear behind the fruitful orchard.
The old hospital is now used as a farm-shed, but wants repairing to be
habitable; and the ancient cider-press, with its massive wooden beams,
lies rotting in the sun. The farm children are gathering blackberries
from the bushes which grow between the hearthstones of the old
banquet-hall, poultry swarm in my lady’s boudoir, and there is a hum of
bees and insects about the ruin.
[Illustration]
We have said nothing of the English colony and church at Dinan, of the
convent of the Ursulines and their good works, or of the people to be
seen on market-days, because Dinan is well known to travellers, and
there is very little to distinguish it from other French towns. To see
the people, and sketch the Bretons in their most picturesque aspects, we
must go farther afield.
As we leave Dinan by diligence with much cracking of whips and jingling
of bells, through the wide square tenanted as usual by white-capped
nurses and idlers; rolling in the high _banquette_ down past the old
gateways, out into the country road towards the west, we see the last of
Dinan and its towers. Whether in its autumn beauty with rich surrounding
woods, or with its winter curtain folded softly, with tassels and
fringes of frost, Dinan leaves a brilliant impression upon the mind. We
forget the modern incursion of tourists, and the demoralisation amongst
the poorer inhabitants caused by the scattering of sous, we forgive its
dingy, neglected streets, its ill-kept boulevards and squares, and its
slow, unenterprising ways; we remember only its grandeur and
picturesqueness.
[Illustration]
As we pass out by the Porte de Brest, we meet a Breton _propriétaire_
and his wife in a cart, whom we must not take for peasants because of
the black stuff gown and white cap of the bright-faced woman, and the
broad-brimmed hat and blouse of the man.
We drive through a straggling suburb of houses, where the peasants stare
at us from their dark dwellings; we stop at wayside inns—unnecessarily,
it would seem—and are surrounded by beggars of all ages and sizes. Here
is one who comes suddenly to earth at the sound of wheels, and peers
from the darkness of her home underground with the brightness and
vivacity of a weasel; her black eyes glisten with astonishment and with
the instinct of animal nature scenting food; she transforms herself in
an instant from the buoyant youth and almost cherub-like beauty in the
sketch to a cringing, whining mendicant. “Quelque chose, quelque chose
pour l’amour de Dieu,” in good, clear French, nearly all the words that
her parents would have her learn, in the intervals of playing and
road-scraping—the latter her only serious business in life. But the
schoolmaster is abroad in Brittany; the edict has gone forth that every
child of France shall henceforth learn the French tongue; and this
little creature will be caught and tamed, and civilised into ways that
her parents never knew.
[Illustration]
One more picture on the road, an incident common enough, but
characteristic and worth recording. It is a sultry afternoon, with a
deep blue sky and a burning sun. So fierce is the heat that it has
silenced for a time the barking of dogs and the arguments of some of our
passengers. Just outside a village the straight road, unsheltered even
by poplars, is fringed with low brushwood and long grasses withering
under a curtain of dust. There is nothing stirring but a little
yellowhammer and a magpie on the road, a _cantonnière_ in wide straw
hat, chipping at a heap of stones, and the lumbering diligence in which
we travel; no shelter but in a wood hard by.
Presently we come to a halt in a narrow part of the road, for M. Achille
Dufaure’s cart of charcoal stops the way. It is a suggestive picture,
which we may call “The Hour of Repose.” In the foreground, in the
burning road, is a tall white charger, encumbered, now in his old age,
with a great wooden collar and clumsy harness, chained to a dark blue
cart with dirt-encrusted wheels, half smothered on this summer’s day
with a blue woolsack over his shoulders, foaming at the mouth, and
streaming with the wounds of flies and other injuries, but pricking his
ears as of old at the sound of approaching wheels. In the background,
but a few yards off, is a cool wood of beech and elm, dark in its
shadows, green in its depth with ivy and fern, and fringed against the
sky with tops of waving poplars. This broad mass of green, which comes
between the brightness of sky and the burning road, with its foreground
of dry grasses, is relieved on one spot by a cool ripple of blue—it is
Achille lying on his face asleep, his blouse just lifted by a breeze; he
will repose for two or three hours, whilst his horse stands in the sun,
and the hot shadows lengthen from his heels. No amount of shouting on
the part of our driver will waken the sleeper; blessings and curses,
cracking of whips and blowing of horns, are all tried in vain, and the
monotony of our journey is relieved by the diligence being dragged, as
it might have been at first, over the field at the roadside, and we
resume our way.
[Illustration]
As we travel westward, the aspect of the land becomes suddenly changed;
it is clouded over and rained upon, and is a sombre contrast to the
former brightness. After the glare of the sun the senses are grateful
for quiet tones; but the sight is strange, almost mournful. The district
is only a few miles from busy towns and sea-ports, and on the main line
of railway from Paris to Brest, but it is out of the world, and seems,
under its cloudy aspect, farther than ever removed from civilisation; we
pass substantial-looking farmhouses, but the dwellings of the peasants
are generally hovels, with tumble-down mud walls and immovable windows;
in their gardens are dungheaps and stagnant pools of water. We see women
at work in the fields, girls tending cattle, and the men, generally,
looking on.
[Illustration]
The distance from Dinan to Lamballe by road is twenty-five miles, a slow
and sleepy journey of about five hours by the direct route; a journey
seldom taken by travellers since the completion of the railway westward.
Everything we pass on the road looks comparatively untidy, rough, and
poor, with the poverty of ignorance and neglect rather than of means,
for the soil, as we approach Lamballe, is rich, and yields well. The
country is really fruitful, but an acre of land is often divided into
twenty different lots, in each of which there are separate crops of
hemp, buckwheat, or potatoes, or they are filled with gorse for winter
fodder for cattle. The hedges are made of mud-banks, gorse, and ferns,
and the gates between them are formed of felled trees, the stem forming
the upper bar, the roots being left as a counterpoise to lift the gate
on its rough, wooden latch.
The rain ceases as we approach Lamballe; the air is fresh with the wind
coming from the bay of St. Brieuc, and as the sky clears, we obtain, at
intervals on the undulating road, views over finely wooded valleys, with
high hedgerows, banked up and planted with elms and oaks. The chestnut
trees, wet with the rain, are rich in colour, and the fields of
buckwheat lighten the landscape again. Another turn in the road, and we
are in evening light, there is open pasture land, and the cattle are
winding home; at another, a farmer is meditating on his stock in the
corner of a field. Thus we pass from one picture to another, quaint and
idyllic, the last reminding us more of Troyon than of Rosa Bonheur.
[Illustration]