Brittany 5

Brittany 5

The country was ravaged by Companies, under commanders who passed from

one side to the other as suited their convenience. John IV. attempted

to have Clisson assassinated in Paris (1392). The attempt failed,

and served only to exasperate Clisson and aggravate the war. It was

resolved into a family vendetta. In 1420 Oliver de Clisson, grandson of

Charles de Blois, and of Oliver, treacherously obtained possession of

John V. and imprisoned him. A war ensued, and before the duke could be

liberated, much blood was shed; as the cause of the Penthièvre family

was not, on this occasion, espoused by France, it was crushed and the

apanage of Penthièvre was confiscated.

 

Francis I. (1442-50) conceived an animosity against his brother Gilles

de Bretagne whom he accused of favouring the English. He delivered him

over to his mortal enemy, who starved the unhappy prince to death.

Pierre II. succeeded, but as he died without issue, as well as Francis,

the succession passed to Arthur of Richmond their uncle. He was

succeeded by Francis II. who died in 1488, leaving an heiress, Anne,

who married first Charles VIII. of France (1491), and on the death of

Charles (1498) married Louis XII., and thus, the duchy was finally

united to the crown of France.

 

The Reformation made no way with the people of Brittany, but was

embraced by the Rohan, the Rieux, the Laval, and other noble lords,

who coveted the estates of the Church. The chateaux of Blain and Vitré

were for a while centres of Huguenot propaganda in Brittany. The

province would, however, have remained at peace, but that its governor,

the Duke de Mercœur was a devoted adherent to the house of Guise, and

he proposed to make of Brittany a stronghold of the League. When Henry

IV. came to the throne in 1589, he was a Calvinist. There were three

parties in Brittany mutually antagonistic, the Leaguers supported from

Spain, the Huguenots and the Royalists. The city of Rennes, without

abandoning the Faith remained true to Henry IV. Nantes became the

headquarters of the League. The Huguenots, from Vitré, and the castles

of the family of Rohan, swept the country ravaging and burning. Nine

years of war ensued between 1589 and 1598. A swarm of brigands placed

themselves under the flag of the League, or of the King or of the

Bible, and wrought intolerable misery. Moreover, the peasants, maddened

by their sufferings, rose against all alike, besieged the castles

indiscriminately and massacred every man in harness. Brittany was

almost depopulated, and wolves preyed on human corpses in the open day.

One of the worst ruffians of this period was Fontenelle, a cadet of the

Breton family of Beaumanoir. He sacked Roscoff, Carhaix, and ravaged

the diocese of Tréguier. But his worst atrocities were committed at

Pont l'Abbé and Penmarch, which was once a flourishing town rivalling

Nantes, but which has never recovered the butcheries there committed

by Fontenelle, and its ruined houses have never been rebuilt. The

atrocities committed by him at Pont l'Abbé defy description. He

delighted in seating his victims on iron chairs and broiling them to

death, or in immersing them in mid-winter in vats of ice-cold water,

and thus leaving them to perish in dungeons. In some parishes visited

by him, where the population had numbered a thousand adults, he reduced

it to twelve. To the miseries produced by civil war succeeded a Black

Death, which almost completed the depopulation. Fontenelle was taken

in 1598, but pardoned; he was arrested for fresh crimes in 1602, and

slowly tortured to death.

 

The province remained in peace till 1675, when taxation became so

burdensome, that the people rose in insurrection. It was put down with

great barbarity.

 

We pass on to the Revolution, and to the noble stand made by the Breton

peasantry against the bloodthirsty ruffians, who had grasped the reins

of power. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in the mouths of these

latter meant Tyranny, Robbery and Massacre. Again the soil of Brittany

was drenched in blood. The curés were hunted like wild beasts, and when

caught were hung, guillotined or shot. Under the Terror the moderate

Breton deputies who belonged to the party of the Girondins had to fly

for their lives. The Convention sent down into Brittany Carrier and

others, the scum of humanity to "purify" the country. Twenty eight

Girondists were guillotined at Brest. Anyone who was held suspect was

at once sent to his death. The Loire at Nantes was choked with the

bodies of inoffensive men, women and children, drowned in the Noyades.

 

The _Chouans_, as the peasants were called who rose against their

tyrants, were commanded in Morbihan by Cadoudal. In July, 1795, an

English fleet disembarked several regiments of French _emigrés_. Hoche

came upon them, and exterminated all in cold blood, to the number of

952. Nantes and S. Brieuc were taken by the peasants, but the firm hand

of Bonaparte now held the reins, and put down all opposition. Cadoudal

was guillotined.

 

At the present day, Brittany is still the stronghold of Catholicism in

France. As to the rights of legitimists, Orleanists or Bonapartists,

the peasants concern themselves little, but to touch their religion is

to touch them to the quick. The Republican Government does all in its

power to destroy the cohesion of the Breton people, and its attachment

to the Faith of its Fathers. The masters have been forbidden to employ

the Breton language in the schools, and in 1901 an order was addressed

by Waldeck Rousseau to all the Bishops and Clergy of Lower Brittany

forbidding them to preach in the language understood by the people,

on pain of withdrawal of their stipends: an order that has been very

properly disregarded.

 

Meanwhile national or rather provincial feeling is deepening and

intensifying. Opposition only makes the Breton the more stubborn.

The Breton has not much ambition. All he asks is to be left alone

to work out his own destiny, strong in his religious convictions,

"Français--oui, mais Breton avant tout."

 

 

 

 

IV. ANTIQUITIES

 

 

The prehistoric remains that abound in Brittany consist of _Dolmens_,

_i.e._ a certain number of stones set on end rudely forming a chamber,

and covered with one or more capstones.

 

The _Allée Couverte_ is a dolmen on a large scale. Both served as

family or tribal ossuaries.

 

The _Menhir_ is a single standing stone; the _alignment_ is a number of

these uprights often in parallel lines, extending some distance.

 

The _cromlech_ according to the signification accorded to it in France

is a circle of standing stones.

 

The _lech_ is the lineal descendant of the menhir. It is a stone often

bearing an inscription, or a rude cross, set up by the British or Irish

settlers. The lech is sometimes round.

 

_Tumuli_ and _Camps_ are numerous, but they are not often referred to

in the following pages.

 

Of _Roman remains_, there are relics of an aqueduct near Carhaix, and

there have been numerous villas uncovered, notably near Carnac, but

these are almost all recovered with earth. The most remarkable Roman

monument extant is the Temple of Mars, a fragment near Corseul.

 

The _Venus_ of Quinipili, a Roman Gallic idol, shall be spoken of under

the head of Baud.

 

Of early churches,--earlier than the 10th cent. there are none, there

are but the crypt of Lanmeur and perhaps the arches and piers of

Loconnolé near Morlaix, and possibly the Western arches of Plouguer by

Carhaix that can be attributed to the 10th century. After that come

considerable remains of _Romanesque_ churches, beginning with the plain

unmoulded round arch resting on plain rectangular piers, and gradually

becoming enriched. (11th century and beginning of 12th.)

 

_First pointed_, with lancet windows, no tracery, and arches struck

from two centres. (Middle of 12th century and beginning of 13th.)

 

_Second pointed_ or _Geometrical_. Tracery becomes rich in windows, but

always of a geometrical design. (Middle of 13th century and throughout

14th.)

 

_Third pointed_ or _Flamboyant_. Tracery like flame, recurving,

gradually all cusping abandoned. Arches employed in ornamentation

struck from four centres. (15th century and beginning of 16th.)

 

_Rénaissance._ At first classic detail with Gothic outline, and tracery

in its last decay. At last all tracery abandoned, and design stiffens

and loses all Gothic feeling. (Middle of 16th century to middle of

17th.)

 

_Baroque._ Round headed windows, no tracery, clumsy mouldings, no

taste whatever, but barbarous enrichment. (End of 17th century and

18th.)

 

 

 

 

V. THE PARDONS

 

 

The Pardons are the religious gatherings of the people, not often in

the towns, but about some chapel on an island, on a hill top, in a

wood. There may be seen the costumes in all their holiday beauty.

 

A Pardon begins with vespers on the night before the Feast. Pilgrims

arrive for that, and sleep in the church, the chapel, under hedges.

They sing their cantiques or hymns till they sing themselves to sleep.

The first mass is said at 3 A.M. and the true pilgrims communicate till

the last has received, when they depart. An ordinary visitor arriving,

say at 10 A.M., will hardly see a single pilgrim. The rest come to

join in the devotions. They attend mass, take part in the afternoon (3

P.M.) procession, and buy memorials, and ribbons, and sweetstuff, and

pictures at the stalls. Almost every Pardon has a character of its own, and a description of one by no means attaches to all. In Côtes-du-Nord the Pardon is only found genuine in the Breton speaking portion, elsewhere it has degenerated into an ordinary village feast.