VANNES.
[Illustration]
A few miles from Auray and Carnac is the ancient city of VANNES, the
chief town of the department of Morbihan and the capital of
Basse-Bretagne. This city, from its position, is the natural point of
departure for travellers entering Brittany from the east, as it is also
the natural place of rest when coming from the west.
There is not much to attract the traveller at first sight, but the
result of several visits is to leave an impression of great interest on
the mind. One of _the_ oldest, perhaps the oldest, of the cities of
ancient Armorica, its very name and its position carry us back to early
history, when the fleets of the Veneti commanded these seas, and were
finally conquered by Cæsar in the sea of Morbihan, their leaders put to
death, and their people sold for slaves.
The part of Vannes of most interest to travellers is the old city with
its narrow streets and overhanging houses, and the remains of its walls
and gates. In the narrowest part, near the Place Henri-Quatre, there
rises between the eaves of the houses the square tower and spire of the
cathedral of St. Peter, a structure dating from the eleventh century,
altered and almost rebuilt in the fifteenth. The interior of the
cathedral is gloomy, and the streets which surround it are dark and old.
There are some cloisters and a finely sculptured porch of dark stone.
The principal chapel in the interior is dedicated to the Spanish
Dominican monk St. Vincent Ferrier, who evangelised the province in the
time of Duke John V., and died at Vannes in 1419. The relics of this
saint are once a year carried in procession round the town.
[Illustration: SKETCH OF VANNES FROM THE RIVER.]
There is one side chapel with an altar, on which are three glass cases,
in one of which are relics, and, apparently, some wax models of bones
and imitation jewels; above these, between the folds of a curtain half
drawn aside, is a painting of Ste. Marie de Bon Secours, to whom the
chapel is dedicated. The light through a narrow stained-glass window
falls upon the figure of an old woman, holding beads in her worn hands,
who kneels upon the scagliola steps before the altar. There is nothing
uncommon in the sight; but there is a romantic story that this old woman
and the beautiful Madonna are one and the same; that she had sat in her
youth as a model for the Holy Virgin, and that she kneels every day
before the portrait of her old self.
We have spoken of the cathedral and of its patron saint, because Vannes
is an ecclesiastical city of importance, the see of an ancient
bishopric, and a radiating point for the church in Morbihan; but, as a
matter of fact, we see and hear very little of the church at Vannes; and
it seems by contrast with the country—where every wayside has its cross
or holy fountain, every district its little chapel or altar with saints
and relics amongst the trees, every group of peasant-women a pastor—that
the country people have more than their share of homilies and
exhortations.
Coming from the interior, we miss the attitude of religious awe amongst
the women, which seems to be put off at the city gates; and we miss,
also, the individuality of costume which vanishes fast in towns. If we
were to picture the people as we see them on Sunday in Vannes, they
would be very ordinary indeed, with just a sprinkling of white caps, and
a few touches of embroidery on a shawl or a blouse, to remind us that we
are in Morbihan; and in their general attitude they would seem as much
at a loss for occupation as in other centres of civilisation where
galleries and museums are closed on Sundays.
There is a museum of Celtic antiquities at Vannes, containing a
collection of ornaments, flints, &c., found in the cromlechs at Carnac
and the neighbourhood, which is well worth visiting; and there are
various shows and amusements for the people on the _Place_ and in the
public gardens; but the fact remains that the majority of the working
inhabitants sidle off on Sunday morning as we see them in the sketch,
gravitating one by one towards every house outside of which hangs a
bunch of dried mistletoe or broom.
[Illustration]
There are many picturesque old houses such as the above; there is a walk
by the river under the old walls and towers, and another in the upper
town with a view far away towards Nantes and the sea; and there is
almost southern warmth and colour under its sunny walls, where we are
sheltered from the winds of the Morbihan.
The people that we see are for the most part pleasant and
prosperous-looking, busy in commerce or in agriculture. There is, it is
true, more than one regiment of the line quartered here, and the cafés,
bright with plate-glass and gilding, are full of warriors of various
sizes; in the morning and in the evening the air vibrates with
regimental drums, but there is little else to remind us that the
inhabitants are the direct descendants of a warlike nation, and that
barons and knights once defended the battlements and towers of Vannes.
The morning is spent at billiards in most of the cafés, and in some,
especially frequented by the townspeople, there are such groups as the
above.
[Illustration]
Outside the café, seated on a bench, is a French commercial traveller,
dressed like a common dandy from L’Orient, with blue frock-coat, white
trousers, very narrow at the bottom, hair cut close to the head, and a
portentous moustache; and he does with it what every human creature
seems to do with an artificially contrived tuft of hair on his upper
lip, he twitches it round and round and pulls at it without ceasing; he
has done this every day for many years, and the action, apparently,
relieves his mind. The sight is familiar in civilised communities, but
this figure contrasts so strongly with the clean-faced, dignified
Bretons that it seems time to pack up our sketchbooks and depart.
[Illustration: THREE HOT MEN OF VANNES.]
Are the fashions changing in Brittany? or is it only the usual tourists’
cry, the complaint of those who resent all change in costume and
dwellings in order that villages should remain “picturesque,” who look
upon their brother living in a hovel as they do upon an old door-knocker
or a china plate? Let us think of the influences at work in
out-of-the-way places, where the travelling _marchand des bottes_, who
has followed us through nearly every village in Brittany with his
caravan of side-spring boots, plies his terrible trade; and let us
remember the expression on the faces of the dancers in the booth at
Châteauneuf du Faou, at the arrival from Quimper of the “fine lady,” who
stands up with her relations to dance the gavotte in the latest fashion
of the towns.
[Illustration]
Before leaving Vannes, we should go down at night to the old Place
Henri-Quatre, where the roofs of the houses meet overhead, where, in
moonlight, the gables cast wonderful shadows across the square, and
above our heads rise the towers of the cathedral with a grandeur of
effect not to be seen at any other time, or from any other point of
view. It is then that the cathedral precincts look most mysterious in
their darkness; narrow, irregular streets with open gutters, lighted
only by a glimmer from latticed windows, and where, from old doorways,
figures are dimly seen to pass in and out. It is a poor quarter, where a
Dutch painter would find work for a lifetime.
We said that there was no light in the streets, but, passing round the
cathedral, there is a strong light from a lantern held close to the
ground; it is the _chiffonnier_ of Vannes (who, like his Parisian
_confrère_, has learned the art of pecking and discrimination from the
fowls) wandering through the night with his basket and iron wand.
One more note made in Vannes in stormy autumn-time. We go down to the
port, sheltered from the wind by a high wall, through which narrow
passages have been made to reach the sea. It is nearly dusk, and the
rough-hewn edges of the stone wall stand out sharply against the sky. As
we pass one of these, facing the west, the narrow opening to the shore
is illumined by a blood-red sunset light, so bright by contrast that
three figures coming towards us from the seashore step, as it were, out
of a furnace. They have men’s voices, but as they approach and pass us
hurriedly, we see that their heads are bare, and that their robes touch
the ground. Upon their shoulders they carry a “dear brother” to his
rest—the drift of last night’s storm-tide. Next morning a rough stone
cottage-door just outside the town is hung round with black—the drapery
giving an appearance of height, and almost grandeur of dimensions, to
the little interior—and resting upon the step is the projecting end of a
wooden coffin painted white. There are candles burning on either side; a
metal crucifix is placed on the doorstep, and on a little table on the
ground in the road is a vase of flowers. The neighbours pass up and down
crossing themselves, and muttering Latin words of prayer for the dead,
and the little children stand and stare. Two days after there is a
bright procession, headed by a priest and acolytes in white robes, with
hymns and incense, followed by a little crowd bareheaded, all struggling
against the wind, to a plot of ground on a promontory near the seashore,
where the poor Breton is taken to his rest.
There is a crowd of his forefathers here before him, with black wooden
crosses where their heads should be; they are planted out in rows, and
labelled with wooden sticks to mark their species, and the garden is
walled in with stones and great rock boulders to keep out the wind. But
it is a dreary place; the wind finds it out from behind the stones,
blows down the wooden crosses, and strews the ground with seaweed and
dead leaves; nothing resists the havoc of the wind over the graves, but
some bright yellow _immortelles_ and some metal images of the Christ.
In the neighbourhood of Vannes there are numerous interesting excursions
to be made, especially southward to the peninsula of Rhuys, on the south
side of the sea of Morbihan, to Sarzeau (where Lesage, the author of
_Gil Blas_, was born), and to the abbey of St. Gildas, also to the ruins
of the fortress of Sucinio, built in 1250 by Duke Jean de Roux. A few
miles to the north-west is the military town of Pontivy, now called
Napoléonville, to be reached easily by railway from Vannes; and near it
the village of St. Nicodème (_see map_), where on the first Saturday in
August one of the largest gatherings of the people takes place. The
Pardon of St. Nicodème is as interesting as any described in this book,
but the customs and ceremonies are too similar to others to be described
without wearying the reader with repetition.
A little farther south, and we should enter the department of the
Loire-Inférieure; we are in fact but a few miles from the city of
Nantes, so well described by Miss Betham-Edwards, in _A Year in Western
France_. In this neighbourhood are the sunny vineyards of St. Nazaire,
the salt districts of Croisic where the costumes of the inhabitants are
again most curious, and the little sea-coast villages pictured by Mr.
Wedmore in his _Pastorals of France_; but there is enough in the
Loire-Inférieure for a separate book, peopled by Breton folk of an
altogether different type.
We have said little of the ancient châteaux of Brittany, many of which
are in good preservation, and are inhabited by direct descendants of the
barons of the fifteenth century; but we would suggest to the traveller,
before leaving Vannes, to visit the picturesque castle of Elven, where
Henry of Richmond, afterwards king of England, was confined for fifteen
years; and, if possible, to go by road to Josselin, where there is one
of the finest châteaux of the Renaissance. The numerous sketches, of
Breton folk, in this book have prevented us from dwelling more at length
on the architectural features of the country, which have been described
in many books of travel.
[Illustration]
What clings to our recollections of Brittany? Some things that are not
beautiful, and which by no stretch of fancy can be described _en couleur
de rose_. The public exhibition of disease and human deformities
permitted by the church are sights to which English eyes are
unaccustomed, and of which the young and untravelled part of our
community have happily little knowledge. But no wise determination to
see only the “bright side” of things, no infusion of otto of roses
amongst these leaves, can take away the stain that clings to many things
in Brittany.
It would seem a consideration of some consequence to the numerous
English residents abroad, though we seldom hear it touched upon, that
their children must of necessity be brought in contact with so much that
is cruel and repulsive. Some may think it salutary and right to see
these things; at any rate it is part of the bargain with those who live
abroad, and the habits of the people can scarcely be interfered with;
but it is a source of wonder to visitors to the principal towns that the
residents cannot persuade the authorities to keep more decently their
streets and public ways.
We will not dwell upon the cruelty to animals, upon the sights to be
witnessed in every market-town, such as tortured calves and half
suffocated pigs, because cruelty is everywhere, and we as strangers are
helpless in a land where it is not considered a sin to inflict suffering
upon animals. It is true that any very flagrant acts can be dealt with
by law, but the law is seldom enforced.
What does it matter about _les animaux_? asks the kindest-hearted, most
motherly of Breton women, whose children drag live birds through the
dust as playthings, and whose husband, if he be of a scientific turn,
may perchance keep a grasshopper with a pin through his head, _living_,
for days in a glass case!
But our lasting impressions of Brittany are of a people and of a
country, interesting for their isolation from the rest of Europe: of a
people who are, as has been well said, “dwelling in an heroic past that
possibly never existed, consoling the failures of their destiny by
beautiful fancies, and throwing a grace over their hard, unhopeful lives
with romantic dreams and traditions”; of a people who invest every road
and fountain with a holy name—for wherever two roads meet, there is a
cross or a sign, and wherever three streams meet, they are called La
Trinité;—of a land that stands alone in Western Europe, its rocks
unmoved by the shocks of tempest from without, and its manners
unpolished by advancing civilisation from within; of a land where men
look to the sea as well as to the earth for their harvest, where the
plough comes down to the water’s edge and the nets of the fishermen are
dried upon fig-trees, where laden orchards drop their fruit over
weather-worn walls on to the sands, and fish, leaping from the sea,
alight sometimes in a field of corn; of a land brightened for a few
weeks in summer with the flower of buckwheat, and coloured with the
coral of its stems, where the wind sweeps over waves of grass and grain,
and scatters the harvest over the sea.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration: BRITTANY]
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_POSTSCRIPT FOR TRAVELLERS._
_The expenses of a journey to and from Brittany and England are limited
to a return ticket (£2 12s.) from London to St. Malo, viâ Southampton,
which lasts two months. All other travelling expenses on the routes
indicated on the map need not exceed five pounds, by taking the public
conveyances. Carriages at the usual posting rates. Small and inferior
one-horse carriages can be hired nearly everywhere._
_The average cost of living at the hotels (which are tolerable in all
the towns) is 10 fr. (8s.) a day; or by the week, 6 fr. and 7 fr.
Pedestrians spend very little anywhere._
_The principal rivers for fishing are the Blavet, the Trieux, and the
Aven. Anglers should stay at St. Nicolas du Pélem in Côtes-du-Nord, and
at Rosporden in Finistère. (See map.)_
_The most convenient guide-book is the_ Guide Diamant, _by Ad. Joanne,
published by Hachette. There is a good road map of Brittany published by
Aug. Logerot, 55 Quai des Augustins, Paris._
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Inserted ‘as’ between ‘tone’ and ‘the’ on p. 4.
2. Changed ‘or’ to ‘for’ on p. 4.
3. Changed ‘above’ to ‘below’ on p. 107.
4. Silently corrected typographical errors.
5. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.