When you are nearing the coast of France all you can see is a long narrow line, without relief, apparently without design, without character, just a sombre strip of horizon; but St. Malo is always visible. A fine needle-point breaks the uninteresting line: it is the belfry of St. Malo. To left and right of the town is a cluster of islands, dark masses of rock over which the waves foam whitely. St. Malo is magnificently fortified. It is literally crowned with military defences. It is a mass of formidable fortresses, rigid angles, and severe gray walls. It speaks of the seventeenth century, telling of a time when deeds of prowess were familiar. The sea, which is flowing, beats furiously against the walls of defence, protected by the trunks of great trees planted in the sand. These gigantic battalions stop the inrush of the water, and would make landing more arduous to an enemy. They have a bizarre effect when seen from the distance.

The town defied all the efforts of the English to capture her. On one occasion they laid mines as far as the Porte of St. Malo; but the Virgin, enshrined above the gate, and ever watching over the people, disclosed the plot by unfolding her arms and pointing with one hand to the ground beneath her. The Bretons dug where she pointed, and discovered their imminent peril. Thus was the city saved. To-day the shrine receives the highest honours, and is adorned with the finest and sweetest flowers.

For one reason at least St. Malo is unique. It is a town of some thousand inhabitants; yet it is still surrounded by mediÆval walls. Of all the towns in Brittany, St. Malo is the only one which still remains narrowly enclosed within walls. It is surrounded by the sea except for a narrow neck of land joining the city to the mainland. This is guarded at low tide by a large and fierce bulldog, the image of which has been added to St. Malo's coat of arms. Enclosed within a narrow circle of walls, and being unable to expand, the town is peculiar. The houses are higher than usual, and the streets narrower. There is no waste ground in St. Malo. Every available inch is built upon. The sombre streets run uphill and downhill. There is no town like St. Malo. Its quaint, tortuous streets, of corkscrew form, culminate in the cathedral, which, as you draw near, does not seem to be a cathedral at all, but a strong fort. So narrow are the streets, and so closely are they gathered round the cathedral, that it is only when you draw away to some distance that you can see the beautifully-sculptured stone tower of many points.

Up and down the steep street the people clatter in their thick-soled sabots. It is afternoon, and most of the townspeople have turned out for a walk, to gaze in the shop windows with their little ones. The people are rather French; and the children, instead of being clad in the Breton costume, wear smart kilted skirts, white socks, and shiny black sailor hats. Still, there is a subtle difference between these people and the French. You notice this directly you arrive. There is something solid, something pleasant and unartificial, about them. The women of the middle classes are much better-looking, and they dress better; the men are of stronger physique, with straight, clean-cut features and a powerful look.

Very attractive are these narrow hilly streets, with their throngs of people and their gay little shops where the wares are always hung outside—worsted shawls, scarlet and blue berÉs, Breton china (decorated by stubby figures of men and women and heraldic devices), chaplets, shrines to the Virgin Mary, many-coloured cards, religious and otherwise.

There are a few houses which perpetuate the past. You are shown the house of Queen Anne, the good Duchess Anne, a house with Gothic windows, flanked by a tower, blackened and strangely buffeted by the blows of time. Queen Anne was a marvellous woman, and has left her mark. Her memory is kept green by the lasting good that she achieved. From town to town she travelled during the whole of her reign, for she felt that to rule well and wisely she must be ever in close touch with her people. No woman was more beloved by the populace. Everywhere she went she was fÊted and adored. She ruled her province with a rod of iron; yet she showed herself to be in many ways wonderfully feminine. Nothing could have been finer than the act of uniting Brittany with France by giving up her crown to France and remaining only the Duchess Anne. In almost every town in Brittany there is a Queen Anne House, a house which the good Queen either built herself or stayed in. Everywhere she went she constructed something—a church, a chapel, an oratory, a calvaire, a house, a tomb—by which she was to be remembered. There is, for example, the famous tower which she built, in spite of all malcontents, not so much in order to add to the defences of St. Malo as to rebuke the people for their turbulence and rebellion. Her words concerning it ring through the ages, and will never be forgotten:

Ever since the tower has gone by the name of 'Quiquengroigne.'

There are three names, three figures, of which St. Malo is proud; the birthplaces are pointed out to the stranger fondly. One is that of the Duchess Anne; another that of Duguay-Trouin; last, but not least, we have Chateaubriand. Of the three, perhaps the picturesque figure of Duguay-Trouin charms one most. From my earliest days I have loved stories of the gallant sailor, whose adventures and mishaps are as fascinating as those of Sinbad. I have always pictured him as a heroic figure on the bridge of a vessel, wearing a powdered wig, a lace scarf, and the dress of the period, winning victory after victory, and shattering fleets. It is disappointing to realize that this hero lived in the Rue Jean de Chatillon, in a three-storied, time-worn house with projecting windows, lozenge-paned. Of Chateaubriand I know little; but his birthplace is in St. Malo, for all who come to see.

What a revelation it is, after winding up the narrow, steep streets of St. Malo, suddenly to behold, framed in an archway of the old mediÆval walls, the sea! There is a greeny-blue haze so vast that it is difficult to trace where the sea ends and the sky begins. The beach is of a pale yellow-brown where the waves have left it, and pink as it meets the water. At a little distance is an island of russet-brown rocks, half-covered with seaweed; at the base is a circle of tawny sand, and at the summit yellow-green grass is growing.