Mrs. Bury Palliser
Brittany & Its Byways
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066106348
Table of Contents
Some Useful Dates in the History of Brittany.
Chronological Table of the Dukes of Brittany.
“Sûr que le Ciel maudit l'arbre stérile,
Le sage passe en opérant le bien:
Vivre et mourir à l'univers utile,
C'est la devise et l'esprit du chrétien.”
Chants de Piété, Malo de Garaby.
The monks of Dol were great bee-farmers, as we learn from an anecdote told by Count Montalembert [pg 034] in his 'Moines de l'Occident.' One day when St. Samson of Dol and St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, were conversing on the respective merits of their monasteries, St. Samson said that his monks were such good and careful preservers of their bees that, besides the honey which they yielded in abundance, they furnished more wax than was used in the churches during the year, but that, their climate not being fit for the growth of vines, they had great scarcity of wine. Upon hearing this, St. Germain replied, "We, on the contrary, produce more wine than we can consume, but we have to buy wax; so, if you will furnish us with wax, we will give you a tenth of our wine." Samson accepted the offer, and the mutual arrangement was continued during the lives of the two saints.
The marshy country round Dol has been formerly inundated by the sea; it is now reclaimed and protected by a dyke twenty-two miles long, extending from Pontorson to Chateauneuf. The whole tract is full of buried wood, a submerged forest, which the people dig up, and use for furniture. It is black, like the Irish bog-oak. They call it "couëron." In the midst of this plain rises a mamelon or insulated granite rock, resembling in form Mont St. Michel, called the Mont Dol. On the top is the little chapel of Notre Dame de l'Espérance, upon which was formerly a telegraph, and near it is a [pg 035] column surmounted by a colossal statue of Our Lady. Mont Dol was a consecrated place of the Druids. The guides showed us a spring which never dries, and also a rock upon which they point out the print of the foot of the demon, left by him when wrestling with St. Michael. We met the curé, who gave us a medal of the church, and told us the principal points in the view before us, extending over the whole Bay of Cancale.
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9. Menhir, near Dol.
On our way back to Dol, we walked to a cornfield, in the midst of it stands a menhir2 (they are so termed from the Breton mœn, stone, and hir, long), called the "Pierre du champ dolant," a shaft of gray granite, about thirty feet high, and said to measure fifteen more underground. On the top is a cross. The first preachers of Christianity, unable to uproot the veneration for the menhirs, surmounted them with the cross, preserving the worship but changing the symbol. In the same manner, they did not attempt to destroy the veneration for sacred groves and fountains, but transferred to new saints the miracles of times past.
We drove through a pretty country to see the Château of Combourg, where Chateaubriand passed his early days. It is a fine square castle of the fifteenth century, with massive towers at each corner, surrounded by trees, and standing proudly over the village below. The drawbridge has been replaced by a modern "perron" or flight of stone steps, which leads to the entrance hall. The salle d'honneur looks over a lake. We were taken into his little melancholy room which Chateaubriand so well describes.
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10. Château of Combourg.
"La fenêtre de mon donjon s'ouvrait sur le cour intérieure; le jour, j'avais en perspective les créneaux de la courtine opposeé, où végétaient des scolopendres et croissait un prunier sauvage. Quelques martinets, qui, durant l'été, s'enfonçaient en criant dans les trous des murs, étaient mes seuls compagnons. La nuit je n'apercevais qu'un petit morceau du ciel et quelques étoiles. Lorsque la lune brillait et qu'elle s'abaissait à l'occident, j'en étais averti par ses rayons, qui venaient à mon lit au travers des carreaux losangés de la fenêtre. Des chouettes voletant d'un tour à l'autre, passant et repassant entre la lune et moi, dessinaient sur mes rideaux l'ombre mobile de leurs ailes."
The bed on which Chateaubriand died has been brought from Paris and placed in the room.
11. Peasant Girl of Cancale.
The next morning we left Dol for Cancale, of such world-wide celebrity for its oysters. We left the railway at La Gouesnière, five miles and a half from Cancale, to which we proceeded by the mail [pg 038] cart. It requires to travel in Brittany to form any notion of the detestable vehicles, whether public or "voitures à volonté," in which travellers in this country are condemned to ride. Uncleaned, unpainted, creaking, jolting machines—as fully tenanted with every kind of insect annoyance, as if one were travelling in a hen-house. The horses are good, hardy, enduring little animals, which go their thirty to [pg 039] fifty miles a day without any distress either to themselves or the traveller. The Breton drivers are gentle and kind, making more use of their voices than of their whips in urging on their horses. The town of Cancale is situated on the heights, a precipitous descent leading to the village below, called La Houle, which lines the edge of the shore, and is occupied mostly by fishermen. This is the port, and here are the pier and the lighthouse, and also a comfortable inn to which the people of St. Malo resort in large parties, an omnibus running thence daily. The panoramic view of the bay of Cancale is beautiful and most extensive, one vast crescent of sand some ten square leagues in extent, stretching from the picturesque rocks of Cancale to Granville, its most northern point, and including Mont Dol, Mont St. Michel, and Avranches. The western side is lined with huts and windmills, but the water is so shallow that no boat can land. Having walked round the little hurdled-in oyster parks, numbering, we were told, about 600, and made ourselves very wet and dirty, though we borrowed sabots to enable us to wade through the mud, we returned to the inn, and next day reached St. Malo.
12. Tomb of Chateaubriand, and View of St. Malo.
St. Malo stands on a small granite island at the mouth of the Rance, connected, by a causeway called "Le Sillon," with the mainland. The space it occupies is so small, that castle, churches, streets, [pg 040] and towers are all crowded together, and the whole is nearly surrounded by a sea wall, which makes the town appear as if rising straight out of the ocean. Towards the sea, the bay is encircled with groups of craggy islets, many surmounted by forts, bristling up as the tide recedes, in every direction. Conspicuous among these island rocks is that called the [pg 041] Grand Bé, chosen by Chateaubriand for his last resting-place, as he wished to be buried near the place of his birth. Singularly enough the name of the island "Bé" signifies a tomb. On his request being granted, Chateaubriand wrote to the Mayor of St. Malo.
"Enfin, Monsieur, j'aurai un tombeau, et je vous le devrai, ainsi qu'à mes bienveillants compatriotes. Vous savez, Monsieur, que je ne veux que quelques pieds de sable, une pierre de rivage sans ornement et sans inscription, une simple croix de fer, et une petite grille pour