Breton Folk: An artistic tour in Brittany :: CHAPTER VIII. Quimper Pont l'AbbE Audierne Douarnenez.

CHAPTER VIII. Quimper Pont l'AbbE Audierne Douarnenez.

In the fruitful valley of the Odet and the Steir, where two rivers join in their southern course to the sea, there rise the beautiful spires of Quimper, the present capital of FinistÈre; a town containing about 13,000 inhabitants, now the centre of the commerce and industry of southern FinistÈre, and, it may be added, the most pleasant resting-place on our travels. If we approach Quimper for the first time by road over the hills, we shall form the best idea of the beauty of its situation and of the picturesqueness of its buildings. The first impression of the traveller who arrives by train, and is hurried in an omnibus along the straight quays lined with trees, to the HÔtel de l’ÉpÉe, on the right bank of the river Odet, is one of slight disappointment at the modern aspect of the town; but let him glance for one moment from above out of one of the back windows of the inn (opened for him by the bright-faced maiden sketched on page 104), and the view of old roofs and cathedral towers will reassure his mind that neither in architecture nor in costume is this city likely to be wanting in interest. Quimper, the ancient capital of Cornouaille, with its warlike and romantic history of the middle ages, the centre of historic associations in the times of the War of the Succession, preserves many landmarks and monuments that will interest the traveller and the antiquarian. The fine Gothic cathedral has a richly sculptured porch with foliated carving of the fourteenth century, such as we saw at Le Folgoet. Above and between the two towers is an equestrian statue of the somewhat mythical King Gradlon, who held a court at Kemper in the fifth century, whose prowess is recorded in the early chronicles of Brittany, and in the romances of the Round Table. The episode of his hunting in the neighbouring forests, being miraculously fed by one Corentin, a hermit, and finally converted to Christianity, is recorded continually in song and story; and from this incident (related by Souvestre and sung by Brizeux) dates the foundation of the ancient bishopric of St. Corentin. The statue, like nearly every monument in Brittany, was partly destroyed during the Revolution in 1793.

In spite of railways, telegraphs, and newspapers, and the bustle of commerce that fills the streets and market of Quimper, some of the inhabitants of the neighbouring valleys find time, on St. Cecilia’s Day, to perform a pilgrimage to the cathedral and to sing songs in honour of St. Corentin. Thus we see how lovingly conservative Brittany clings to its monuments and legends, and how its people still dwell in the past. The story of King Gradlon may be a myth, but, like all legends and traditions, it has its origin in fact; and we who are not historians may be fascinated with the thought that the battered horseman, the object of so much interest to pilgrims in the past and to tourists in the present, is a link in a chain of facts, pointing backwards to a far-off time when, a little westward of the site of the present city of Quimper, on a promontory near Pont Croix, stood the ancient Celtic city of Is, remains of which are to be found to this day upon the shore.

The cathedral of Quimper was founded in the thirteenth century, but was principally built in the fourteenth and fifteenth. It has no very remarkable architectural features, but there is a grandeur in the lofty aspect of the interior, lighted by some fine stained glass, which leaves an impression of beauty on the mind. It is the centre and rallying-point for all the country round, the home of Catholicism, the “one church” to the inhabitants of FinistÈre. No picture of the wide Place by the river, where the great gatherings take place on fÊte-days, and where so many curious costumes are to be seen together, is complete without the two modern spires of the cathedral rearing high above the town. The procession of people passing up the wide street on a Sunday morning leading to its doors—a dense mass of figures, fringed with white caps, like foam on a heaving sea, the figures framed by projecting gables nearly meeting overhead—forms another picture which has also for its background the two noble spires.^[7] The old houses in the market-place in the cathedral square, and the old inn, the HÔtel du Lion d’Or (this last well worthy of a sketch), are overshadowed by the pile. The people that come in by the old-fashioned diligences and the country carts and waggons go straight to the cathedral on arrival in the square.

7.We believe it was to M. Viollet Le Duc, whose architectural taste and energy are so well known in France, that the completion of these towers is principally due.

The interior of the cathedral, which is the largest in Brittany, is very striking; there is a handsome chapel dedicated to Ste. Anne, the patron saint of Brittany, to St. Roch, and other saints. There is high-mass at half past ten, and a sermon by an ancient ecclesiastic preached from the handsome carved pulpit in the nave. It is an eloquent discourse, apparently, for along the aisles and between the pillars familiar-sounding phrases are poured fluent and fast. But the dense crowd of men and women with upturned faces on the pavement near the door can hear little of what is passing; the words take an upward curve of sound, and are heard more distinctly by the spiders and the flies. The loss may not have been great if we take the testimony of a writer^[8] in 1877, who says:—“I attended mass one morning at Quimper, and the following is the substance of a sermon preached to a large and attentive congregation mostly of working men and women: ‘There are three duties,’ said the preacher, ‘imposed by the church on the faithful: first, to confess at least once a year; secondly, to confess in one’s own parish; thirdly, to confess within the fifteen days of Easter.’ The omission of the first of these is regarded by the church as a sin of such gravity that it is condemned to be punished by the withholding of Christian burial. Not one word, throughout a long discourse to simple, devout, careworn peasant folk, of moral teaching, religious counsel, or brotherly love!”

8.A Year in Western France, by M. Betham-Edwards.

In some of the chapels there are services during the day, and there is a continual movement of white caps in and out of the confessionals; and, occasionally during the day, some poor, weather-worn man is doing penance, going round and round the cathedral on his knees, making a curious slouching sound on the pavement (as grotesque a figure as sketched on page 106). He is dressed in rags, and carries his sabots under his arm during his long journey; thus, several times round the pavement, dragging his weary limbs and—according to the enormity of his sins—paying his sous as he goes.

The character of the people of this part of Cornouaille seems less reserved, and there is a gay, genial aspect about them which is refreshing when coming from the north. The bright face and figure of the girl whose portrait Mr. Caldecott has caught exactly is one of a flutter of five, who wait at table at the HÔtel de l’ÉpÉe in the costume of the country, which, by the way, is worn here for the especial benefit of travellers. It is probable that every one of these bright-faced women would discard it to-morrow if they had the chance (as their mistress and her children have done); but there is still plenty of local costume to be seen in Quimper. We have only to go out into the gardens, to visit the farms, by-roads, and lanes, and we shall come upon some of the most picturesque scenes in our travels.

In the corner of a field just outside the town, where a lively discussion is going forward between a farm labourer and three girls at a well, there is a picture which for colour alone is worth remembering. It is one of those everyday scenes in which costume and the surrounding landscape harmonise delightfully. We give few sketches of architecture because photographs of the best examples may always be obtained, preferring rather to give the life of the people. There are more figure subjects in the streets of Quimper than there is time to note. Thus, for instance, as we pass through a poor, dirty suburb at the lower end of the town, a woman comes to the door of a dark dwelling, and gives alms to a professional beggar, so grotesque and terrible in aspect that he hardly seems human; but the woman standing at the stone doorway wears a costume that might have been copied from an Elizabethan missal. She gives, as every one gives, to the poor in Brittany, but her husband’s small wages at the pottery works hard by leave little margin for charity, and he will want all his spare money at this time of year for the fÊtes. The fÊtes are an occasion for universal feasting and rejoicing, in which the drinking propensities of the holiday makers are only too apparent in the streets, leading in the evening, sometimes, to domestic interviews like the one sketched below.

At the time of the FÊte of the Assumption there is a crowd at Quimper from all parts of FinistÈre, and there is an amount of festivity which must be bewildering to the quiet inhabitants; it is then that we may see sometimes in the streets the splendid type of Breton woman sketched at the head of this chapter, and, by contrast, some others much more grotesque.

But perhaps the most interesting group of all, and the most complete and characteristic of Mr. Caldecott’s sketches, is the one which forms the frontispiece to this volume—a scene in a cabaret, or wineshop, where the farmers who have come in to market, whose carts we may see on the cathedral square, meet and discuss the topics of the day, amongst which, after the state of trade and the crops, the term of Marshal McMahon’s government and the results of the annual levy of “les conscrits” are uppermost. Soon after harvest-time, generally early in September, the annual levy of reserves for the army takes place, and Quimper, being the centre of a populous district, is the rallying-point for lower FinistÈre.

It is the nearest approach to an open political discussion that we may witness on our travels, and a good opportunity to see the conservative Breton farmer, the “owner of the soil,” one who troubles himself little about “politics” in the true sense of the word, and is scarcely a match in argument for the more advanced republican trader and manufacturer of Quimper, but who, from hereditary instinct, if from no other motive, is generally an upholder of legitimist doctrines and a royalist at heart.

Seated on the carved oak bench on the left is a young Breton clodhopper or farm help, whose ill-luck it has been to be drawn this year; who leaves his farm with regret—a home where he worked from sunrise to sunset for two francs a week, living on coarse food and lodging in the dark with the pigs. As he sits and listens with perplexed attention to the principal speaker, and others gather round in the common room to hear the oracle, we have a picture which tells its story with singular eloquence, and presents to us the common everyday life of the people of lower Brittany with a truthfulness and vivacity seldom, if ever, exceeded. The only bright colour in the picture is in the red sashes of the men and in one or two small ornaments worn by the women.

Other scenes should be recorded if only to show, by way of contrast, that Quimper is very like other parts of France. At one of the lycÉes the annual prize-giving is going forward, and there is a fashionable gathering, in which military uniforms are prominent. It is an opportunity for seeing some of the Élite of Quimper both on the platform and in the crowded hall, and a great chance for a sketch. The boys come up one by one, and stand on a raised platform to be decorated with a paper wreath, to receive a book and a salutation on both cheeks. It is interesting to note that, before joining his applauding friends in the hall, the boy takes off his wreath and throws it away. There is scarcely a Breton costume in the hall.

In Quimper we are in a pleasant valley, surrounded by gardens, orchards, and fields, and sheltered from the wind by clustering woods. The sun shines so warmly here that it is difficult to realise that a few miles to the west and south there are stretches of broad moorland leading to the boldest coast on the west of France. It is true that the people that come in from Pont l’AbbÉ, Audierne, and Douarnenez bear the impress of a seafaring life, and are different in style and costume to any that we have yet seen.

It is worth while for every one who stays in Quimper to see something of the coast, and to make a tour of at least two or three days to Pont l’AbbÉ, Penmarc’h, Pont Croix, the Pointe du Raz, and Douarnenez. In this short journey the traveller will see some of the finest coast scenery in Brittany, and people differing in character and costume from other parts of FinistÈre; a hardy fishing population, tempted to dangers and hardships by the riches to be found in the sea.

If the scenery which we have passed through on our way to Quimper resembled Wales, the district west of Quimper will remind us of Cornwall. We are, in fact, on the extreme edge of Brittany, corresponding to the Cornwall of England, Cornouaille, the Cornn GalliÆ of the ancients, a dangerous, storm-blown coast, wild, desolate, and picturesque. We may go down the river from Quimper to Pont l’AbbÉ, or a shorter route by road a distance of twelve miles, the first part over hills and through cultivated lands, in the latter part over wide moorland, covered with gorse and edged with pines. This is a beautiful drive, but, to judge of the quiet, almost mediÆval stillness of Pont l’AbbÉ, it should be approached by water on a summer’s evening, when, after a long and sometimes rather boisterous passage from the mouth of the river Odet, the little fishing-boat is rowed up the Pont l’AbbÉ river under the tower of its ancient castle. On the left, before entering the river, the little port of Loctudy is passed, where there is an ancient Romanesque church, well preserved, said to have been built by the Knights Templars in the twelfth century.

Pont l’AbbÉ with its dull, straight streets and deserted-looking houses, has no striking architectural features; but the costumes of the people are altogether unique in Brittany, and the interiors of their dwellings are as quaint and curious as any painter would desire. The women wear close-fitting caps of red or green, embroidered with gold thread, the hair being turned up at the back and fastened at the top; they wear skirts of blue or green with a border of yellow, and the men, short blue jackets and sashes.

In Pont l’AbbÉ we may see, what is so rare in these days, an old street in which the costume of the people harmonises with the date of the buildings, and in which the quiet of a past century seems never to have been disturbed. Walk down a narrow grass-grown street to the open square above the river, at the end of which is the western porch of the fine church of Pont l’AbbÉ, and the only two figures visible in the afternoon are a girl carrying a basket coming from the Carmelite convent, and a priest in black robes crossing the square. The church and convent were founded in 1383, and there is little here to mark the passage of years. The church has been completed and beautified since those early times, and afterwards wrecked by the Revolution; but the aspect of the square and of the cloisters of the convent are little altered. The interior of the church is remarkable for the grace and lightness of its pillars, and for the richness of its stained glass; the rose windows are said to rival in beauty those of Rouen. Notwithstanding that the church has but one aisle, that the ceiling is now painted blue, and that the carvings in stone and wood are sadly mutilated, it is an architectural monument of great interest.

Six miles south-west of Pont l’AbbÉ, across a dreary, marshy plain is the poor fishing town of Penmarc’h, built upon the dark rocks that form a barrier against the sea, on one of the wildest promontories of Cornouaille; a city whose riches in the fifteenth century were so great that, according to historians, “she could equip her three thousand men-at-arms, and shelter behind her jetties a fleet of eight hundred craft.” The original prosperity of Penmarc’h arose from the cod-fisheries, which were the source of immense wealth before the discovery of Newfoundland. The history of its invasion by the English in 1404, and the disasters in the sixteenth century, when the town was partly destroyed by an inroad of the sea, and afterwards sacked by Guy Eder Fontenelle at the time of the Wars of the League, is one of the most romantic and terrible in the history of Brittany. It is a place to see if only to mark the traces of this wonderful city, once containing 10,000 inhabitants. A few ruined towers and the foundations of streets mark the site of the ancient city, which is now inhabited by a scattered fishing population numbering in all about 2000, the men braving the elements in their little fishing-boats, the women and children collecting seaweed and tilling the poor soil. There is a mass of rocks separated from the land, called the Torche de Penmarc’h, which all visitors are taken to see, and where the waves break upon the shore with the sound of thunder.

We have said little of the ruins of the church of St. GuÉnolÉ and of the parish church of Ste. Nonna at Penmarc’h, with its stained glass and quaint stone carving, or of other relics of the ancient city, because in nearly every town in Cornouaille there is some object of interest to examine. Antiquarian travellers should stay at the HÔtel des Voyageurs at Pont l’AbbÉ, where they will be very comfortably housed, and can explore this district, interesting not only for the historic associations connected with Penmarc’h, but for Druidical remains which the winds of the Atlantic are laying bare every year on this coast. It is a dreary, wind-swept promontory, from which the quiet superstitious inhabitants are only too glad to retreat. No wonder they flock into Quimper, and sun themselves on the Place during the summer days!

On the road between Pont l’AbbÉ and Audierne we obtain fine views of the open landscape, with solitary figures here and there working in the fields, and occasional glimpses of the sea. It is a windy drive; the colour is sombre, and the clouds which come up in heavy masses from the sea cast deep shadows over the land.

If we try to recall the impression of the scene, it is principally of clouds, as in landscapes by Ruysdael or GÉricault. The land for miles is without sign of habitation, the highest point of interest is a bank of furze, a stunted tree, or a heap of broken stones, chipped perhaps from a fallen menhir; a solitude that seems more hopeless and remote from the tumultuous aspect of the heavens.

But as we approach the town of Pont Croix, and, turning westward, descend the hills to cross the estuary of Audierne, the view over the bay is more luxuriant. Below us, through the stems of pine trees that line the steep road, cut in granite rocks—as we descend to the right bank of the river Goayen where it widens into an estuary—is the little fishing village of Audierne, consisting of two or three straight streets of granite houses, one or two large wharves and warehouses, a lighthouse, and nearly a mile of protecting sea-wall. The evening is now fine and calm, and the tide is coming in without a ripple, bringing a few fishing-boats up to the quay, and attracting the inhabitants on to the Place in front of the principal inn, the HÔtel du Commerce, where the portly PÈre Batifoulier receives us, and provides us with excellent accommodation. It is a sheltered, sunny spot, surrounded by cultivated hills, where people come from Quimper to bathe in summer; but if we walk upon the downs behind the town, we shall get glimpses of a coast almost as exposed and dangerous to mariners as at Penmarc’h, where the sardine fishermen are spreading their nets on the grass.

Audierne is within six miles of the famous Pointe du Raz, the Land’s End of Brittany, beyond which, stretching out into the Atlantic, is the Île de Sein, inhabited by a poor population of fishermen and seaweed gatherers. A glance at the map will show the position of the island, and the “Bec du Raz,” the dangerous channel which divides it from the shore, through which the fishermen of Audierne and Douarnenez, with many prayers and crossings of the breast, pass and re-pass in their frail boats.

It is a dreary road from Audierne to the Pointe du Raz, passing the villages of Plogoff and Lescoff. At this point the rocks are higher above the sea than at Penmarc’h, and the scene is altogether more extensive and magnificent. We are on an elevation of eighty or ninety feet, and almost surrounded by the sea. To the south and east is the wide bay of Audierne, to the west the Île de Sein, the ancient home of Druidesses, and the horizon line of the Atlantic; to the north and east the bay of Douarnenez, across which is the jutting headland of La ChÈvre.

A cloud of sea-birds rises from the rocks below, and floats away like a puff of steam, there is an orange tint in the seaweed piled upon the shore, and a purple tinge upon the distant hills across the bay of Douarnenez; but the green upon the scanty grass in the foreground is cold in colour, and almost the only flowers are yellow sea-poppies and the little white bells of the convolvulus. On every side are piles of rocks stretching out seaward as barriers against the waves of the Atlantic; a dangerous, desolate shore, on which many a vessel has been wrecked. To the north is the Druids’ “Baie des TrÉpassÉs,” where, according to ancient legends, the spirits of the departed wait on the shore to be taken in boats to the Île de Sein. It is a Celtic legend, recounted in every history of Brittany.

The exposed position of the Pointe du Raz, the strange, fantastic grandeur of the rocks, and the wildness of the waves that beat upon the shore in almost all weathers, are alone worth a visit. The numerous artists who stay at Quimper, Douarnenez, and Pont-Aven, in the summer months would do well to pitch their tents for a time near the Pointe du Raz, if only to watch from this elevation the changing aspects of sea and sky, to see the sea, calm and blue in the distance, but dashing spray in sunshine over walls of rock, and seaweed gatherers on a summer evening getting in their harvest, as deep in colour as the corn.

Leaving Audierne, and turning eastward towards Douarnenez, following the course of the river Goayen, we come in about an hour to Pont Croix, an ancient town of 2500 inhabitants. The church is a fine Romanesque building of the fifteenth century, with a curious porch and some good carving in the interior. It is a quiet, rather deserted-looking town, on an eminence above the river, reminding one in its position and its air of faded importance of the ecclesiastical city of Coutances, in Normandy.

It is a fine drive over undulating hills to Douarnenez, with views of landscape more fertile than any we have seen since leaving Quimper; landscape with open moorland, interspersed with fields of corn, where harvesting is being actively carried on, as in the sketch. Here we get a glimpse of one of the old farmhouses of FinistÈre, and (on a very small scale) of the farmer himself approaching in the distance to superintend operations.

A few miles farther, and the landscape is again bare and uncultivated, we see peasants in the fields at rare intervals; flocks of black and brown sheep feeding on the open land. There is a charm of wildness and a peculiar beauty about the scenery here that we who write for artists should insist upon with all the power of the pen. It is the fashion to stay at Douarnenez and at Pont-Aven, but we have few records of the best scenery in Cornouaille.

Harvesting in FinistÈre.

Douarnenez, the headquarters of the sardine-fisheries, has a population of about 9000, almost entirely given up to this industry; the men in their boats, and the women and girls in the factories. It is a busy, dirty, and not very attractive town, with one principal street leading down to the port; but walk out of it in any direction, so as to escape the odours of the sardine factories, and the views from the high ground are most rewarding.

There is no prettier sight, for instance, than to watch the arrival of a fleet of several hundred fishing-boats rounding the last promontory, racing in whilst they are eagerly watched from the shore. At the point where the sketch was taken, the little fleet divides, to come to anchor at different inlets of the bay. Of the scene down at the port, where the boats unload; of the massing of a forest of masts against the evening sky, with rocks and houses high above as a background, we can only hint in these pages.

Waiting for the Sardine Boats at Douarnenez.

At Douarnenez, in summer, the inhabitants are accustomed to an inroad of visitors who come for the bathing season, and there is a little colony of artists who live comfortably at the principal inns (en pension for five or six francs a day), but it is not as quiet as Pont-Aven, of which we shall speak in the next chapter, for the streets are closely built and badly paved, and the busy inhabitants wear sabots which are rattled down to the shore at all hours of the day and night, according to the tide. Moreover, the inhabitants of the town are scarcely typical Bretons; they are a little demoralised by success in trade, a little inclined to smuggling, and decidedly fond of drinking. The men, living hard lives, facing the most fearful storms of the Atlantic in their exposed little boats, out sometimes for days without a take, are apt to be uproarious when on shore. The hardy, bright-featured women of Cornouaille, whose faces are becoming so familiar to us in these pages, have a rather sad and reckless look at Douarnenez; their homes are not too tidy as a rule; the little children play in streets which steam with refuse from the sardine factories, where their elder sisters are working in gangs, with bare feet and skirts tucked up to their knees, sifting, and sorting, and cooking sardines, and singing snatches of Breton songs the while. The lower streets, steep and narrow, are blocked with fish-carts, and the port is crowded with boats with nets drying in festoons. But the view of Douarnenez seen at a little distance out at sea, with its high rocks and overhanging trees almost reaching to the water’s edge, and above, the spire of the old church of PloarÉ standing sharp against the sky, will remain best in the memory. There is no end to the beauties of the bay of Douarnenez, if we explore the neighbourhood, starting off early for the day and not returning until sundown.

In the evening there is a great Bohemian gathering at the HÔtel du Commerce; its artistic visitors overflow into the street, and make themselves heard as well as seen. There is a clatter of tongues and a cloud of smoke issuing from the little cafÉ presided over by the neat figure in the sketch. Those who have been to the HÔtel du Commerce at Douarnenez will recognise the portrait at once; those who have not must picture to themselves a girl with dark hair and brown complexion, a headdress and bodice in which scarlet and gold are intermingled, a dark skirt with a border of yellow or orange, and a spotless white apron and sleeves. In soft shoes she flits silently through the rooms and supplies our clamorous wants in turn; neither remonstrance nor flattery will move her, or cause her to raise her eyes.

The children of Douarnenez have learned to beg, and along the broad road which leads to Quimper, beggars are stationed at intervals to waylay the charitable. Driving home in the little covered carriage shown in the sketch, a dark object appears before us on the way. Near it, at the side of the road, is a little shed roughly made with poles and brambles, and, protruding from it, two sabots filled with straw, two sticks, and a pair of bragous bras. The rest of the structure consists of dried ferns, and a poor deaf human creature propped up to receive the alms of the charitable, a grim figure watching and waiting in the sun and wind.

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