THE EMERALD COAST
The Emerald Coast is the passion chiefly of those who come to live
during the three summer months of rustication, but the sister cities
of St. Servan, Paramé and St. Malo, Dinard and Dinan, are lovely spots
and attractive of themselves, were one forced to camp out on one of the
barren, jagged rocks with which the coast hereabouts is strewn, instead
of living at the Hotel of France and Chateaubriand, which encloses the
ancient maison of Chateaubriand, at St. Malo. Starting thence, one
explores the wonderful country round about, and nourishes himself and
makes himself comfortable with all the modern refinements. This hotel
is about the only modern thing in St. Malo, however, for, while highly
interesting to the antiquary or to the student of architecture or of
art, it is commonly thought to be a vile, dirty hole, with a few shops
convenient for the inhabitants of the more aristocratic suburbs of
Paramé and St. Servan.
St. Malo is a curious little city, with its ever apparent past not in
the least disturbed by the steamboats and electric trams, which bring
visitors to the base of its ancient fortifications and gateways. Among
its chief reminders of the past are its proud château, redolent of the
memory of the beautiful Duchess Anne, its fine cathedral, its quaint old
houses and narrow streets, and its wonderful encircling ramparts.
Not only is St. Malo a city of the past, but it is above all, to-day,
a _resort_, as that elastic term is known which covers any place where
tourists congregate for pleasure.
Kiosks, coffee-rooms, and bathing-cabins have taken the place of
whatever may have gone before, and to-day, truly, one may be as
comfortably up to date--if there is any real comfort in being up to
date--as if he were in Budapest, Paris, or San Francisco. St. Malo is
considerably more than this; it is the actual, if not the geographical,
centre of the whole Emerald Coast.
[Illustration: <u>_Ramparts of St. Malo_</u>]
The praises of the Emerald Coast have been sung by many poets, and
pictured by many painters. Jean Richepin, that rare vagabond, comes
frequently for his inspiration to St. Jacut-de-la-Mer, and in
his “Honest Folk” there are superb descriptions of this entrancing
combination of sea and shore, which in all France is not elsewhere
equalled, unless it be on the Riviera.
The Emerald Coast must indeed be the paradise for jaded literary
workers, when work makes its inroads on their holiday, for it may enable
them to accomplish as much as Ferdinand Brunetière admitted during a
recent stay at Dinard-St. Énogat:
“What do I read?” said he. “These:
“1. The 240 pages which make up the _Revue des deux Mondes_ every
fortnight.
“2. The manuscripts which may become future pages of the _Review_, and
even some which may not.
“3. Works which have not appeared in the _Review_, whose authors I may
find it worth while to know and cultivate.
“4. Journals in which the _Review_ is interested.
“5. The _Official Journal_, from which one may always pick up something.
“6. The other papers.
“7. Works submitted for the approval of the French Academy.
“8. Proof-sheets of my own works.
“9. The books necessary for the preparation of my discourses, lectures,
and articles.”
The puzzle is what a man like M. Brunetière will find to do in the
next world. Probably he will go about to all the celebrated writers to
see what they thought of his criticisms in his dearly loved _Review_;
and then perhaps he will regret, as Herbert Spencer is said to have
regretted, that he had not gone fishing oftener.
The charms of St. Malo’s suburban social colony of Paramé, such as
they are, though they differ greatly from the mere attractions of
nature,--for which society folk really care for only as an accessory
to their more futile pleasures,--are best set forth in the following
stanzas of Jehan Valter:
“PARAMÉ
“IDYLLE
“Quel est de Biarritz à Calais
Le seul bain de mer, qui jamais,
Faute de baigneurs, n’a chômé?
C’est Paramé!
“Où le soleil à l’horizon
Montre-t-il en chaque saison
Son disque toujours enflammé?
A Paramé!
“Où le froid est-il inconnu,
Où peut-on se promener nu
Sans avoir peur d’être enrhumé?
A Paramé!
“Le soir, on danse au Casino,
Non aux sons d’un mauvais piano,
Mais d’un orchestre renommé
A Paramé!
“Sur la plage on rêve d’amour,
La nuit aussi bien que le jour
Que de baigneuses ont aimé!
A Paramé!
“Est-ce l’air qui porte à la peau;
Est-ce le soleil, est-ce l’eau?
Chacun sort du bain ranimé
A Paramé!
“Et c’est un miracle constant,
Le plus chétif, en un instant,
Est en athlète transformé
A Paramé!
“Du reste, miracle plus fort,
Jamais personne ici n’est mort,
On ne connaît pas d’inhumé
A Paramé!
“A vous tous, gandins rabougris
Qui dépérissez à Paris,
Venez humer l’air embaumé
De Paramé!
“Vous ne le regretterez pas:
On y fait d’excellents repas,
Et le cidre est fort estimé
A Paramé!
“Donc, sur l’honneur, je vous le dis,
A défaut du vrai paradis,
Il n’est sur terre, en résumé,
Que Paramé!”
That is about the sort of round that one gets at Paramé, with
motor-cars, golf, and bridge parties thrown in, but a wonderful aspect
of nature to be seen at every turn, and it is perhaps small wonder that
the little summer colony has now grown to huge proportions.
Americans should have a special interest in, and a fondness for, St.
Malo, “the city of the corsairs.”
St. Malo is the chief town of the province of Jacques Cartier, the
discoverer of Canada. “_It is a city of great men and the chief place of
the Breton middle class_,” said the Abbé Jalobert in his curious work on
St. Malo and St. Servan.
There is some truth in calling St. Malo the “corsair stronghold,” for it
was the cradle of Mahé de la Bourdonnais, Duguay-Trouin, Surcouf, and
their followers, all “sea-rovers” if they were not something more.
To-day St. Malo’s “sea-rovers” are the sailors of the Newfoundland
fishing-fleet, the humble _“terre-neuvas_,” as they are known, who go
in large numbers to fish for cod on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.
“I’s sont partis de Saint-Malo,
I’s sont partis de Saint-Malo,
Tous ben portants, vaillants et biaux.
In’ troun’ dérin tra lonlaire!
In’ troun’ dérin’ tra lonla!”
sings Yann Nibor in his “Sea Songs and Stories.”
The city’s older reputation as the city of the corsairs gave quite a
different interpretation, however:
“LA CITÉ DES CORSAIRES
“Si dans son aire, aujourd’hui tombe,
Elle ouit de rudes chansons!
Dont le souvenir donne au monde
Des frissons.
“La gothique flêche de pierre
De son clocher audacieux
S’élance comme un rapière
Vers les cieux.”
--_Dabouchet._
Duguay-Trouin is an almost mythical character, but many of his
legendary exploits sound plausible. He took an English ship mounting
forty guns when he owned to but sixteen years, and in a following
campaign--practically on his own account it would seem--he captured
two vessels of war and twelve merchant-ships from under the guns of
a British squadron. This, at least, is the French version, and since
all of us, in our agile days, love a daring hero,--even if he be a
bloodthirsty one,--it seems a pity to probe the assertion too deeply.
Such a man as Duguay-Trouin was, of course, popular, and his sailors
sang his praises in the street in lines which came to be taken up by
the “stay-at-homes” and incorporated into a kind of folk-lore. Indeed,
gentle mothers sang their infants to sleep with them, much as did old
Mother Goose of the nursery rhymes:
“Monsieur Duguay t’envoyé
Un tambour de l’Achille
Pour demander à ces braves guerriers
S’ils veulent capituler.
“Les dames du château
S’sont mis à la fenêtre,
Monsieur Duguay apaisez vos canons,
Avec vous je composerez.”
Not always does the stranger to St. Malo hear exactly this offhand, but
invariably he is met with a singsong of sailors’ chanteys which at once
call up memories of seafarers of other days.
One enters St. Malo, whether by boat or train, through the city walls.
The boat lands you directly under the frowning ramparts, and a worthy
porter will take your portmanteau and carry it twenty steps to the door
of your hotel, just within the gateway of the city--and charge you
twenty sous for the job. “A franc, really,” the man with the brass badge
tied on his right arm will reply to your query as to whether you have
heard aright.
“Twenty cents for twenty steps is a little high,” says the hostess of
your hotel, but it is the tariff from outside.
St. Malo is still a walled city, much as it was in the days when Francis
I., in 1518, and Charles IX., in 1570, held court here.
Charles IX., his mother Catharine, and his sister Margaret spent a part
of the month of May here in this city by the sea. The Malouins gave the
court a spectacle of an imitation naval combat, in which a galleon was
sunk; too realistically, one thinks, for its occupants were drowned.
At one time, it is said by the chronicles, St. Malo was guarded by
fierce mastiffs, the descendants, it is to be presumed, of the Gallic
dogs of war. These municipal watch-dogs were suppressed in 1770, because
of their having bitten the “calves of gentlemen.” Presumably there was a
complaint of some sort, but the only record of the incident is one in
verse sung by Désaugiers as follows:
“Bon voyage,
Cher du Mollet,
A Saint-Malo débarquez sans naufrage,
Et revenez si ce pays vous plait.”
The disappearance of the watch-dogs in 1770 made necessary the adoption
of a new coat of arms for the town, when the blazoning of argent, a dog
gules, gave way to a “portcullis surmounted by an ermine passant.”
One has heard before now the phrase, “I like St. Malo in spite of its
smell,” and, in spite of the truth of it,--and there is a very apparent
justification of the word,--the old city is one of the most lovable in
all Brittany.
The House of Duguay-Trouin at St. Malo is one of its chief romantic
shrines before which strangers are wont to linger. It is simply an old
wooden-fronted house, sombre and austere in its upper stories, but
resplendent in white paint below. A shoe-shop and a coffee-room occupy
the lower floor, and if one would conjure up the days of the past, when
pirates bold discussed their venturesome plans in the very same room,
let him enter and drink his after-dinner coffee by the pale light of
a guttering candle in this old abode of romance. There is nothing of
luxury about it; in fact, most worshippers are content to bow before the
shrine from without; but to awaken the liveliest emotions, one must
really enter and see it from the inside.
[Illustration: <u>_House of Duguay-Trouin, St. Malo_</u>]
St. Malo, besides its stock sights of romance and history situated
within the city itself, has a literary shrine of the first rank in the
island of Grand Bé just offshore. Here is the tomb of Chateaubriand,
ambassador, minister, journalist, and author. One need not inscribe the
dates and titles of his works here; it is enough to mention his name.
Suffice to recall that, as a conclusion to his labours, he wrote the
“Mémoires d’Outre-Tomb,” which, like the simple, rough-hewn cross which
crowns the summit of Grand Bé, is a fitting monument to the genius of
the man whose theories, it is to be feared, have now become somewhat out
of date.
Chateaubriand’s verses on his native land give an ample proof of his
love for her, and, moreover, so well express the regard which nearly
every one has for the Emerald Coast, that it is certainly pardonable to
quote them here:
“MON PAYS
“Combien j’ai douce souvenance
Du joli lieu de ma naissance!
Ma sœur, qu’ils étaient beaux, les jours
De France!
O mon pays, sois mes amours,
Toujours!
“Te souvient-il que notre mère,
Au foyer de notre chaumière,
Nous pressait sur son cœur joyeux,
Ma chère,
Et nous baisions ses blancs cheveux
Tous deux?
“Ma sœur, te souvient-il encore
Du château que baignait la Dore?
Et de cette tant vieille tour
Du Maure,
Ou l’airain sonnait le retour
Du jour?
“Te souvient-il du lac tranquille
Qu’effleurait l’hirondelle agile,
Du vent qui courbait le roseau
Mobile,
Et du soleil couchant sur l’eau,
Si beau?
“Oh! qui me rendra mon Hélène,
Et ma montagne et le grand chêne?
Leur souvenir fait tous les jours
Ma peine:
Mon pays sera mes amours
Toujours!”
St. Servan, like St. Malo, is steeped in antiquity; practically they
form one town, although separated by the narrow strait which forms an
entrance to the outer harbour of St. Malo. St. Servan registers over a
hundred St. Malo craft engaged in fishing and in the coast trade. As the
ancient Gallo-Roman town of Alethum, St. Servan, from very early times
an archbishopric, was ravaged by barbarians and by floods and had a
varied career, but at last the steady growth of the comparatively modern
St. Servan made it a prosperous town of perhaps twelve thousand souls.
The chief of St. Servan’s architectural monuments is the great Tower
of Solidor, built far out upon the rocks at the mouth of the Rance. It
was built in 1384 by Duke John IV., at the epoch when he was combating
the pretensions of Josselin of Rohan, Bishop of St. Malo, for the
sovereignty of the town.
It is a great triangular hold with a cylindrical tower at each corner.
Within is a stone staircase winding spirally upward and giving access to
various vaulted chambers. It could oppose no great strength to modern
artillery, and even in the olden time could not have been very secure,
could the besiegers but get to the base of its walls. At the same time,
from its isolated position, it served admirably as an outpost which at
least offered a superior vantage against an attacking force, and it is
unlikely that it could have been taken except by siege or by the fall of
the supporting city at its back.
[Illustration: <u>_Tower of Solidor, St. Servan_</u>]
The Chapel St. Peter of Aleth has built into its fabric some fragments
of the ancient ninth and tenth century cathedral of the same name.
[Illustration: <u>_Plans of the Tower of Solidor_</u>]
There are many remains of the old city walls, and St. Servan ranks with
St. Malo as a vivid reminder of other days.
There is one popular sight of Brittany near St. Malo, which cannot be
ignored,--the rock-carved tomb of St. Budoc. This holy man lived in the
days when Celtic was a living tongue, and Irish, Scots, Welshmen, and
Bretons, one and all, used the same speech.
Many a year has passed, and St. Budoc has been all but forgotten.
Besides his religious fervour, the memory of which exists but vaguely,
there is left as a reminder of his existence his tomb and a prophecy
which has come down by word of mouth through the natives.
To-day there is a modern hermit who lives near the tomb of the saint,
and carves a sort of symbolical prophecy in stone for his own amusement
and the marvel of tourists.
It is rather a cheap sort of a shrine, and one that is wholly visionary
so far as its real significance goes, but it is a very satisfying one
to most who view it, like the “Blarney Stone” and St. Patrick’s grave,
which are frauds of the first water.
One comes to Rothéneuf--a little Breton coast village--by road, tramway,
or carriage from Paramé, if he comes at all. Here just beyond the
village itself the cliffs are curiously carved into all manner of human
shapes,--the work of the aforesaid hermit, who, although he be not a
young man, certainly is not so old as to have carved all the stones
which here exist; at least they look much older, though the stress of
weather may account for that.
Evidently there is a devotion for St. Budoc, and belief in his prophecy
of the downfall of France is one day or another to become true. The old
monk or priest--for in reality this hermit of to-day is a churchman--is
evidently the chief disciple of the cult, for he perpetuates his version
of this long-lost legend in his modern carvings.
The text of this old prophecy was vague and visionary, but enough has
come down to place definitely the fact that a Napoleon was to rise and
fall in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and that the Church was
to be parted from its children,--referring presumably to the Concordat
of 1802.
No version of the prophecy exists in Celtic literature, but the monk
Olivarius published, in Luxembourg in 1544, a version which was supposed
to have been handed down from the old Celtic monk himself. Since that
time contemporary literature has had various references thereto, the
last apparently in 1904, when one appeared in Gaston Medy’s “Echo of the
Marvellous.”
This last version, or promulgation, of the Celt’s prophecy carries
us even into the future, 432 moons from the foundation of the present
French republic, _i. e._ thirty-six years, which would be in 1906. “Woe
to thee, great city,” is a phrase which is supposed to refer to the fall
of Paris; whether as Rome fell, from an excess of glory, or into the
hands of the invader, is not stated. At any rate, the event is to come
to pass in the year of our Lord 1906, 432 moons from the beginning of
the great Republique Française. Let all who will be mindful.
On the opposite bank of the Rance from St. Malo is Dinard-St. Énogat,
occupying a magnificent site known in part as the Bec de la Valle. The
country-houses of Dinard are famous, though they are built in that
vague architectural style accepted the world over as being something
appropriate to a species of residence less sumptuous than a palace or a
château.
It is a pity that the word is not better understood by the people,
and a pity, too, that most villas in France--and in England, for that
matter--are abominable, queer chicken-coops, with names like Villa
Napoli, Villa Saint Germain, Villa la Belle-Issue, Villa Belle-Rive, and
Villa Bric-à-Brac. All these are found at Dinard, and more, and, as may
be imagined, the summer life of this town of country-houses is in many
respects as gay and bizarre as the architecture and names of the villas
themselves.
The aspect of the waterside of the charming little place--for Dinard is
charming, in spite of it all--belies these strictures somewhat, with
the warm glow of the sinking sun gilding the roof-tops, as the emerald
waters of the great bay ebb and flow beneath their feet.
Dinard has another and more interesting side in an admirable
architectural monument,--the ruins of an ancient priory, founded in
1324 by Olivier and Geoffroy de Montfort. The fine Gothic chapel is now
ruined and moss-grown, but there are still to be seen the tombs of the
Chevaliers de Montfort, who were mighty chieftains in their day. Within
the grounds also is a curious statue of the Virgin placed beneath the
enormous fig-tree.
The beach is of course the great attraction of the summer resident,
when he is not drinking cool drinks at the casino or eating at the café
restaurant on the terrace.
St. Énogat, which is usually linked with the mention of Dinard by a
hyphen, has much the same aspect as its partner,--villas, Swiss châlets,
and cottages. St. Énogat bears the name of one of the first bishops of
Aleth, and its proximity to the great cliffs fringing the coast, and
the high rocks just offshore, make its location even more beautiful than
that of Dinard itself. Westward of St. Énogat are St. Jacut, St. Cast,
and Cap Fréhel, and nearer St. Lunaire and St. Briac.
All are very popular resorts during the summer months, and are
attractive spots--or would be but that accommodation in all is limited,
and what there is is sadly overcrowded for the three fine months of the
year.
St. Lunaire has an ancient eleventh-century church, placing it somewhat
on the plane of an artistic shrine. Practically, the edifice is
abandoned to-day, but it contains the tomb of St. Lunaire, a work of the
thirteenth or fourteenth century, made up of some fragmentary sculptures
thought to have come from the primitive church.
St. Briac has much the same characteristics, though of itself it counts
an all-the-year-round population of two thousand or more souls.
It owes its name to a Celtic hermit-saint, who came from Ireland in
the early days of the evangelizing missions of the Irish monks, and
has the ruined Château of Pontbriant for an attraction. It has not the
misfortune to have become as fashionable as Dinard-St. Énogat, and is
therefore the more enjoyable. Truly is it a delightful little corner
of the world, where those who are town-weary may take their ease and
ruminate on the futility of attempting to put order into the universe.
This whole region is a wonderful galaxy of natural beauties, to be
discovered and appreciated only by oneself. They shall be nameless here
that that pleasure may not be curtailed.
The route to Dinan from St. Malo by the tidal river Rance is one of
those enjoyable journeys which impress the mind in an indelible fashion.
It is a matter of twenty-four kilometres as the crow flies, and about
the same by the water route of the fishes.
Dinan is a real mediæval town, with a wall or rampart something over a
mile in length. It is a most interesting centre for the charming country
round about, and is in itself a typical feudal relic of the days when
cities were enclosed by walls and only entered through fortified gates.
Originally the thirteenth-century ramparts were defended by twenty-four
towers, of which a dozen, perhaps, still remain. Three great gateways,
the gates of Jerzual, of St. Malo, and St. Louis, still remain in all
their fortified splendour; the fourth, the Porte de Brest, has been
demolished.
[Illustration: <u>_The Valley of the Rance_</u>]
The old streets of the mediæval city still exist, too, much in the same
state as they were in mediæval times.
The porches or covered passages are a feature of many of the old-time
houses, and are most quaint and artistic.
The church of St. Malo dates from 1490, and that of St. Sauveur from
the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The chief historical figure of
Dinan’s past was Bertrand Duguesclin, the young Breton noble who so
distinguished himself in the fourteenth century on the side of France
against the English.
[Illustration: _Duguesclin, from his statue in the Abbey of St. Denis._]
He was born at Motte-Broons, near Dinan, toward 1320. “He had a
sunburned face, with a snub nose, and green eyes, an awkward gait, and
a rough and untractable nature,” one reads in the words of Simeon Luce;
and from the existing portraits of him, all this is true.
He was a warrior, from his earliest days, of the most thoroughgoing
type. He was the sort of small boy whom mothers find looking for
trouble. He would lead on the village lads to fight, and, when victory
had all but appeared, on one side or the other, he would throw himself
into the breach to start the fight again, just like a wolf, after which
he would lead both sides to a tavern to drink, and heal old sores.
On the ninth of July, 1812, the heart of the redoubtable Duguesclin was
brought to Dinan and placed in the north transept of the Church of St.
Sauveur amid an imposing assemblage.
The sarcophagus bears the following inscription, which shows that the
warrior who really was responsible for the banishment of the English
from France “ranked in company with kings,” as his French admirers put
it.
GY : GIST : LE CUEUR : DE
MESSIRE : BERTRAN : DU GUEAQUI
EN : SON VIVAT CONETITABLE DE
FRACE : QUI : TRESPASSA : LE XIIIe
JOUR : DE : JULLET : L’AN : MIL IIIe
IIIIxx : DONT : SON : CORPS : REPOS
AVECQUES : CEULX : DES : ROIS
A SAINCT : DENIS EN FRANCE.
The great clock-tower, a fine fifteenth-century building with a massive
spire, is found in the Rue de l’Horloge. It was given to the town by
Anne of Brittany in 1507.
The Château of Dinan was built by the Breton dukes (1382-87). Its
history was varied and vivid, as one reads in the pages of M. Gaultier
de Mottay.
[Illustration: _Rez-de-Chausée of Donjon--DINAN_]
Oliver Clisson, Gilles of Brittany, Viscount Rohan, Duchess Anne,
Laurent Hamon, and many others whose names are famous in the history of
Brittany have walked through these halls, of which only the hold to-day
remains as a tourist “sight.”
The Tower of Coëtquen, one of the ancient towers of the city wall,
forms practically a part of the old castle, but the keep, or the Queen
Anne’s Tower, a hundred or more feet in height and of four stories,--the
topmost reached by a spiral stairway of 148 steps,--is the most distinct
feature still standing.
In the interior are a number of obscure cells which were, and indeed are
still, terrible dungeons. The guard-room is on the second floor, with
also a little room, which served as an oratory for the Duchess Anne. The
third floor is occupied by the Constable’s Hall, and the fourth by a
Hall of Arms, a fine vaulted apartment.
To-day the castle is a prison, and the rank and file of visitors may
not enter this fine mediæval monument, but, if one have a proper
appreciation of the architectural delights of a mediæval fortress, and
be diplomatic in his request, very likely his wish to enter will be
gratified.
One of the principal industries of Dinan is the fabrication of
sail-cloth. It is an admirably placed industry, with its market close
at hand, and most of the Breton and Norman fishing-boats of these parts
sport a full suit of Dinan manufacture.
In the environs of Dinan are innumerable charming excursions mostly
neglected. One such must surely be included in one’s itinerary,--a visit
to the old Priory of Lehon, a dependency of the Abbey of Marmoutier.
It was founded in 850 by Nominoë, in honour of St. Magloire, whose
relics were brought from the Isle of Jersey to Dinan. The ruins,
as seen to-day, are most ample and beautiful, showing the best of
thirteenth-century Gothic.
Besides this, Lehon has the picturesque ruins of a twelfth and
thirteenth century castle perched high upon the summit of an eminence
overlooking the headwaters of the Rance. The castle came to the hands
of the Dukes of Brittany; Charles of Blois stayed there in 1356 after
his return from England, and Raoul Coëtquen was made captain in 1402,
since which time its history has been lost or hidden in the pages of the
untranslated chroniclers.
In 1624 the priory monks robbed the castle for material with which to
construct their beautiful cloister, but enough remains to-day, hidden
away among a mass of ivy and lichen-grown ruins, to indicate its former
prominence.
Altogether Lehon and its two romantic memories of other days is a
“sight” not to be missed.
An old custom formerly prevailed here at Pentecost, when the newly
married were supposed to present themselves before the prior of the
monastery for a sort of last blessing, as it would seem.
They sang the following refrain, and went back to their home, or to the
festival in the neighbouring village, with never a care beyond to-day:
“Si je suis mariée vous le savez bien;
Si je suis mal à l’aise vous n’en savez rien.
Ma chanson est dite, je ne vous dois plus rien.”
This seems a philosophical way of looking at things, and shows an easy
conscience and open mind on the part of all concerned.
Seated upon the western shore of the great Bay of Mont St. Michel is
Cancale, whence come the oysters. The six thousand inhabitants of this
quaintly rock-environed place have a physiognomy so distinctly their own
as to mark them for a type. Feyen-Perrin and his brother have painted
the Cancale people in a manner never to be forgotten by those who are
familiar with their work.
Anciently Cancale was known as Cancaven, and is a survival among
neighbouring settlements which have succumbed to the encroachments of
the ocean.
In 1032, it became a dependency of the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. In
1758, it was pillaged by the English under the Duke of Marlborough, and
the English fleet again bombarded it in 1779.
La Houle is the real port of Cancale, and the centre for the oyster
industry. At low tide the boats of the fishers are drawn up on the
yellow sands, there to remain until the return of the tide. At low
tide all the village comes from the town above and repairs to the
oyster-beds. The general outgoing, which seems to the stranger the
emigration of the whole population, has been described by a Frenchman
as: “_Un défile, interminable, bruyant, cadencé, le bruit des pas coupé
de paroles et de rires._”
This great outpouring continues until quite all the available help of
the female persuasion has departed, leaving practically only the old and
infirm to guard the houses and shops until the return of the tide.
Cancale is one of the most celebrated oyster-rearing districts of
the world, but, if the tourist arrive there during the summer months
which lack the “R,” he will eat not of them; the natives look upon it
as downright crime even to think of serving them to you; the mussel
will have to be your substitute. It is always in season, though it
looks about as perishable in hot weather as the oyster, and probably
is so. Tradition and superstition account for the upholding of many
institutions in this world, and the oyster season appears to be one of
them.
The celebrated Rocks of Cancale lie just below the town,--a black mass
of rocks, about which the waves of the ocean fawn and growl like a
parcel of wolves.
The Point of Grouin is simply an exaggeration of the same rocky
formation as that of Cancale, and the same which unrolls itself all
around the coast up to Cape Fréhel. To the west is the Bay of St. Malo,
and to the east the Bay of Mont St. Michel.
Michelet wrote of this famous mount off the Breton coast as follows:
“The gigantic rock is an abbey, a cloister, a fortress, and a prison,
with exquisite sublimity and true dignity. It rises like a titanic
tower, rock upon rock, keep upon keep, and century upon century. Below
the monks; higher the iron cage of Louis XI. (who, it seems, left these
details rather numerously about his domain); higher yet the cell of
Louis XIV.; higher yet the prison of to-day. All is in a whirlwind;
Mont St. Michel is a very sepulchre of peace.”
Michelet’s was not wholly a cheerful view. He was rather a gloomy man,
it would seem, but it is perhaps proper enough to record his views
here, as most of us will praise this wonderful work to the limit of our
imagination.
Really Mont St. Michel is not of Brittany. To-day the changing of the
boundary westward to the little river Couesnon brings it just over the
line into Normandy, though both ramblers in Normandy and ramblers in
Brittany may properly enough include it in their itineraries, and should
do so.
To such spirits as like that sort of thing, there is a way open to the
landing, high up in the tower of the abbey, whence there is a wonderful
view. Michelet wrote of it, on the occasion of a visit, that it was
a place for fools; that he knew no spot more suitable to bring on an
attack of vertigo.
Michelet’s description of the quicksands which surround the mount is
distinctly good. The native will tell you that you must not venture upon
them, but he himself does so, and nothing happens. In spite of this,
let the visitor so much as leave the causeway a dozen yards--to focus
his camera--and a half-dozen burly fellows will hurl themselves upon
him and drag him back, declaring they have saved his life, which means
that one ultimately pays them something; a franc each is about the price
that they apparently consider a life worth. Sometimes some poor soul is
engulfed, but it is a first-class scare in most instances. Michelet says
of these quicksands (“_cendre blanche_”), “It is not land; it is not
sea; I myself only just escaped being engulfed.”
As a sort of side-show to the wonderful Abbey of Mont St. Michel is the
stern and barren Isle of Tombelaine.
It lies, also amid its own desert of sand or water, according to the
state of the tide, about a mile, or perhaps a little more, to the
north-east of the mount.
It is a simple islet of granite, uncultivated, and as wild as it always
has been. It rises perhaps 125 feet above the sea-level, like a giant
stepping-stone, between the mount and the neighbouring coast before
Avranches in Normandy.
Its history is intimately bound with that of the mount itself, but
to-day it has few, if any, visitors. It played a certain minor part in
the war of the Hundred Years, when it served as a sturdy buttress for
the English fleet.
From the tenth to the seventeenth century it was occupied by a religious
colony from the abbey of the mount, and held a diminutive priory
bearing the vocable of Our Lady la Gisant; “a gentle Madonna,” says an
imaginative Frenchman, “standing beside the archangel with the sword.”
In the midst of the Marsh of Dol--the great Bay of Mont St. Michel--is
a granite eminence some two hundred feet above the surrounding plain,
at the summit of which is built the little village of Mont Dol. It is
supposed to be the site of an ancient shrine consecrated to the druids.
Two kilometres from Mont Dol is the great menhir of Champ Dolent, a
relic of the stone age which was pagan, but is to-day surmounted by a
Christian cross, which seems paradoxical. It has no pretence to beauty
or architectural grandeur, and is to be regarded only as a mysterious
curiosity.
When one first comes to Dol in Brittany he is in a quandary. Which is
it, city or village? The writer does not know even yet. It has all the
quaintness and rustic picturesqueness of a mere hamlet, and again,
in its station, its hotels, and its tree-lined boulevard, it takes
on the aspect of a city. At any rate, if it belongs to the latter
classification, it is somnolent, and accordingly delightful.
“Here, my good fellow, can you direct me to the Hôtel de la Poste,” one
says to the first native he meets after leaving the station. “Certainly,
my good man,” he replies in an equally patronizing tone, “I will take
you there.” He declines all remuneration, of course, and will not be
patronized in any way. Decidedly he is a most independent individual,
but polite withal.
Stendhal, in his “Traveller’s Memories,” said of the great frowning
cathedral of the episcopal city of Dol: “It is the most beautiful
example of a Gothic edifice which I have seen.” It is not difficult to
follow his reasoning, for the grim walls of its façade, in the simplest
and severest style, are indeed magnificent examples of the undecorated
Gothic of a very early period. Most folk, however, will not call it
beautiful when Chartres, Rheims, Beauvais, or even Sées are in mind.
Dol, at any rate, forming the gateway to Brittany, from Normandy through
the Cotentin, was a most important centre of Christianity in the sixth
century.
The foundation of Dol dates from 548, when a colony of Britons coming
from Ireland settled here under the leadership of St. Samson, from
whom the present cathedral is named. This is but another of those links
which bind the history of Brittany with that of the Celts from overseas.
Legend continues the story thus: “Thou goest by the sea” (St. Samson was
told), “and where thou wilt disembark, thou shalt find a well. Over this
thou wilt build a church, and around it will group the houses forming
the city, of which thou wilt be bishop.”
All this came to pass, and for long ages the town has been known as the
episcopal city of Dol. William the Conqueror besieged Dol in 1075, but
retired after forty days, having failed to sustain his attack. Henry II.
of England invaded the city, and Jean Lackland fortified himself here in
1203, but it was retaken by Guy de Thouars in the year following.
Up to Revolutionary times the career of Dol was unceasingly riotous
and bloody, but little evidences of a part so played remain visible
to-day. All that reminds one of its antiquity is the charmingly severe
and simply outlined Cathedral of St. Samson, and the numerous timbered
houses with their street-front galleries, always a most interesting
feature of a mediæval town.
Sixteen kilometres south of Dol is Combourg, not an important town in
many ways, and yet very important, if one demands a sixteenth-century or
earlier label on all he admires.
As a French visitor to Combourg has said, “La gare de Combourg is
not Combourg; you have yet fifteen hundred metres to go.” This is
not a great distance, but, as the town is so completely hidden from
the railway, the sensation is that of alighting far from a centre of
civilization.
The Château of Combourg is one of those indescribable picturesque
fourteenth and fifteenth century structures which owe much to situation
and environment. It has a picturesquely disposed market clustered about
it, so that the cries of porkers and their venders mingle with the
stately pealing of the bell of the great clock, which rings out not only
the hour, but the “quarters” in a most sonorous note.
The costumes of both the men and women of the region around Combourg
are exceedingly picturesque and novel; the men with blouse and jacket,
and the women in black and the coifs of Becherel, Hédé, Tentêniac, and
Miniac; all somewhat resembling one another, and that of Miniac looking
more like a great white-winged bishop’s mitre than anything else.
[Illustration: <u>_Coif of Miniac_</u>]
More anciently Combourg Château was a feudal fortress, in an old
building of which, now swallowed up in the surrounding structures, the
infancy of René Chateaubriand was spent. There is also an old tower
dating from 1016, built by Gingoneus, a bishop of Dol. The present
château belongs to the Countess of Chateaubriand, and is visible to the
curious public on Wednesday afternoons.
The hall, the library, which contains the writing-table of the author of
the “Genius of Christianity,” and his bedroom, where is the little iron
bed on which he died in Paris,--all go to make of this a literary shrine
of prime importance.
The Château of Combourg has a legend, too, but since it concerns
only the skeleton of a cat, which in life was supposed to be the
reincarnation of a former Count of Combourg, it seems unworthy of
repetition here.