Breton Folk: An artistic tour in Brittany :: CHAPTER II. St. Malo St. Servan Dinard Dinan.

CHAPTER II. St. Malo St. Servan Dinard Dinan.

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.

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.

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]

2.The caps peculiar to different parts of Brittany are indicated at the head of each chapter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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