Brittany 8

Brittany 8

Cleden-Cap-Sizun._ The coast here is bold, and there are numerous

prehistoric monuments. At _Goulien_ is a menhir 18 ft. high, and there

are remains of a Roman camp.

 

_Beuzec-Cap-Sizun._ The church (S. Budoc) has a fine 16th cent. tower.

Near the hamlet of Kerbanalec is an allée couverte. The holy well of

Ste. Azenora (the Cornish Sennara), mother of S. Budoc, is supposed to

have the peculiarity of filling with milk the breasts of any man who

drinks thereof. Mothers nursing their children frequent it. P. at N.D.

de la Clarté on the Sunday after the 15th August.

 

* AURAY (M.) chl. arr. Lorient. On a height above the river of Auray

and the harbour. The river is a tidal creek, very unsavoury when in

flow or when left dry. A large export of pine logs takes place hence

to Cardiff for the mines. There are several old houses in the town,

especially by the bridge. The halles have a vast roof on bold timber

work. The Church of S. Gildas was built in 1636, and is utterly

Italian, except for the vaulting. The south entrance is not without

merit. The Church of S. Goustan dates from the 16th century. In the

chapel of the Pêre Eternel is rich carved stall work derived from the

Chartreuse.

 

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE, AURAY]

 

Within an easy stroll from Auray is the _Chapel de Ste. Avoye_. Here,

according to legend, the Saint, who is the same as the Cornish S. Ewe,

arrived in a stone boat from Britain. The chapel is surrounded by a

few farmhouses and trees. It is a renaissance structure. The W.

tower consists of only three sides, two bold buttresses carried up a

great height, with a back, sustaining a pent-house roof, which in turn

supports a spirelet of slate. The arrangement is probably unique. There

was a porch below, but it has fallen. The tracery has been removed from

the windows, and some good stained glass sold. Within is a fine but

late screen with the twelve apostles on one side and cardinal virtues

and other allegorical figures on the other. In the nave is a piece of

the so-called "boat of S. Avoye," in which she is supposed to have

come over. Actually it is, probably, a large grinder for corn polished

within. On it are cut three symbols, one a cross, one like a T, and the

third like I. Children that are delicate are placed in the "Boat" to

recover strength. Over the altar is a painting representing S. Avoye in

prison fed by the B. V. Mary. There are two Pardons, the principal on

the 1st S. in May, the second on the 3rd S. in September. Outside the

chapel are stone benches along the wall. In Breton the Saint is Santez

Avé.

 

_Ste. Anne d'Auray_ is a great pilgrimage resort, with a pretentious

modern church in nondescript style intended for renaissance, 1866-75,

with bad glass. In 1623 a peasant dug up an image, probably of one of

the Deæ Matres of Gallo-Roman times, so common in Brittany, at a place

called Ker-anna. He jumped to the conclusion that it represented the

mother of the B. Virgin. The Carmelites heard of it and resolved on

making capital out of it; they ran it with great success and built a

convent and church on the spot in 1645. The statue was destroyed in

1790, but the cult continues unabated. The Pardon is on the Sunday

after July 26, and attracts vast crowds. In front of the church is a

Santa Scala copied from that at Rome, and indulgenced with nine years

for every step ascended by pilgrims on their knees. A large tank

receives the miraculous spring of S. Anne, and is dominated by her

statue. The pilgrims sing lustily the cantique of Ste. Anne d'Auray to

this air:--

 

[Illustration: Musical score]

 

There is here a statue of the Duc de Chambord (1891) in bronze, flanked

by those of Bayard, Du Guesclin, Ste. Geneviève, and Joan of Arc.

 

[Illustration: STE. ANNE D'AURAY]

 

The _Chartreuse_ near the Auray railway station is now a deaf and

dumb asylum. It occupies the site of the battle in which, in 1364,

Jean de Monfort defeated and killed Charles de Blois. He founded

the monastery, but only a small portion of the old structure remains.

Here is the chapel, on the N. side of the church, in which rest the

bodies of the royalists who had been landed from English transports

at Quiberon, and whom Hoche and his republican soldiers shot down in

cold blood to the number of 952 between 1st and 25th August 1795. The

butchery took place not far from the Chartreuse, and the bodies were

buried on the spot since called le Champ des Martyrs. In 1814 they were

transferred to this chapel erected to contain them. It was completed in

1829. In the midst of the chapel is the mausoleum of white marble.

 

The chapelle expiatoire is situated at a quarter of an hour's walk from

the Chartreuse and is in the Greek style, and is on the site of the

massacre. Near by is a cross commemorative of Montfort's victory over

Charles de Blois.

 

_Plougoumelin._ The parish church modern and bad. The Chapel of N.D. de

Becquerel has a fine west porch of the Breton commingling of flamboyant

and renaissance. An unfailing spring issues from under the wall of the

apse. The water is thought to cure diseases of the mouth. Several lechs

are in the parish. One called the Pierre du Serment is about 4 ft. 6

in. long, is in the churchyard and lies prostrate. Another is between

the parsonage and the cemetery, and a third, round, with three hollows

sunk in it, is at the presbytère. A tumulus by the river of Auray at

Le Rocher covers an allée couverte. There are six others, smaller, in a

line with it running from S.W. to N.E. They have yielded copper vessels

and flint weapons, and belong to the intermediate age, before alloy was

introduced for the formation of bronze.

 

_Crach._ Here in the commune are numerous prehistoric remains. Rather

over a mile from Auray on the road to Crach is a fine dolmen, the

coverer 22 ft. long, and having on it a circle of hollows. Other

dolmens at Keryn, Kergleverit, and Parq-er-Gueren, near the Chapel

of S. Jean. Several menhirs on the common. The Château de Plessisker

is of the 17th cent. P. at Crach on the 1st S. in July. _See also_

Locmariaquer.

 

BAIN (I.V.) chl. arr. Redon, on the Route nationale from Rennes to

Nantes. In the cemetery a cross of the 16th cent. Château de la Noé of

the 15th cent. By a little lake are the remains of a castle converted

into a farmhouse.

 

* BAUD (M.) chl. arr. Pontivy. A district in which much hemp is grown

and cordwaining is carried on. The women wear coiffes like sunbonnets,

and sabots with leather toe-pieces and straps neatly embroidered. The

church, a mean structure of 1687, is about to be pulled down. It is

dominated by the far more stately Chapel of N.D. de la Clarté of the

16th cent. Vaulted throughout with very peculiar straight groining and

vaulting in the S. aisle. The chapel has an apse, the tracery has been

removed from the windows and the old stained glass got rid of to make

way for sad modern rubbish. The tower is later than the chapel and is

unfinished. A huge ducal crown of Brittany is suspended in the apse.

The crown is closed above, a right claimed by the dukes. P. 2nd July.

 

In the woods of the old château of Quinipili (guide advisable) is the

rude granite statue of the famous Venus of Quinipili removed from

Castannec on the Blavet. It is 6 ft. high, with the hands crossed

over the breast and with a sort of stole hanging down in front, and a

band about the head on which are cut IIT. The statue, which received

idolatrous worship, was transferred in 1695 to Quinipili, by Count

Pierre de Lannion, along with a huge granite basin that stood before

it. He set it up on a pedestal in his grounds and cut a pseudo-classic

inscription on the base. As the original statue was indecent, he set

a sculptor to alter it, and probably the stole is due to this man's

chisel.

 

_Camors._ There are two dolmens in the forest, and an allée couverte

at Kerpenru. Of menhirs, one is on the lande of Penher, three at

Kerguelen, a stone-row of twenty uprights at Kernoul. Seven menhirs

in the wood at Floranges, and six in the forest of Camors. At

Porhoet-er-Saleu, are the remains of the castle of Conmore, Count of

Poher, and regent of Domnonia. He is regarded as the Bluebeard of

Brittany, although he was actually only thrice married, to the sister

of Jonas, King of Domnonia, to that of Meliau, King of Cornouaille,

and lastly to Triphena, daughter of Weroch, Count of Vannes. This

latter marriage was effected by the persuasion of S. Gildas. Conmore,

however, so ill-treated his wife that she ran away to her father at

Vannes. Gildas, who was at the time at Castannec, was furious with

Conmore, and local legend asserts, that he came before this castle,

gathered up a handful of earth, and casting it against the walls cursed

it, that it should never again be inhabited. S. Triphena is invoked

in the neighbourhood by women with troublesome husbands, and little

wooden crosses may be found on the site of the castle set up by them

in token that they have made a vow to S. Triphena to rid them of their

annoyance. The church of Camors is dedicated to S. Senan, abbot of

Iniscathy.

 

_Guénin._ The church is of 1773. The Chapel of N.D. de Menez-guen is

flamboyant but late, 1577, with alterations made in 1604 and 1751. It

is a cross church with a central tower. One descends by several steps

into the chapel. Lean and lanky girls go to it and pray for fat to be

laid on. P. 1st S. in July. Pilgrims take water from the fountain to

give to their cattle.

 

_Questinic._ Chapel of S. Mathurin, P. 2nd S. in May. Chapel of

Locmaria, renaissance 1574, a cross church with central tower and

spire, and some old glass.

 

_Bieuzy._ The station of _S. Nicolas des Eaux_ gives access to several

points of historical and architectural interest. The train from Auray

to Pontivy cuts by a tunnel through a neck of land round which the

river Blavet makes a great loop. This loop was occupied in Roman times

by a walled town Sulim, of which numerous remains have been found;

and the sides are so precipitous that no enemy could attack it, save

on the north. The road from the station to Bieuzy has been engineered

by a great sweep up the height, but the pedestrian can ascend to the

Chapel of La Trinité by a sharp scramble, and by clinging to the broom

and heather. This finger of land, almost surrounded by the river on

all sides, was covered with ruins in the beginning of the 6th cent.

S. Gildas came hither from Rhuys about the year 530, and founded a

little colony of monks where is now the hamlet of Castannec. Finding

that there was a gross image of Venus among the ruins that the people

worshipped, he and Budoc (Bieuzy) his disciple threw it down and

rolled it along to their monastery and built their wall over it.

The image remained buried thus under the wall till the ruin of the

monastery by the Northmen, and perhaps for some time after. Castannec

was never restored to any extent, by the returned monks of Rhuys.

In 1125 Castannec was made into a parish, and the church was where

is now the Chapel of La Trinité, and it was served by the monks of

Redon, but the population was small and the revenue insufficient, and

was united to Bieuzy. Then it was that in removing the remains of the

old priory the image of the Venus was restored to light, and at once

received a religious cult from the peasants, who called it Groah en

Goard, the Woman of la Couarde, which is the name of the promontory.

It was placed near a large basin scooped out of granite, and in this

women came to bathe, invoking the assistance of the Venus of Couarde.

In 1661 a mission was held at Baud, and the missioners besought Count

Claude of Lannion to destroy the idol. He had it accordingly rolled

down the hillside into the river. However, the peasants fished it up

and replaced it in 1664. Then the Bishop of Vannes interfered, and at

his request the Count sent masons to smash it. They, however, contented

themselves with injuring one arm and one of the breasts and again

rolled it down into the Blavet. In 1695, Pierre de Lannion, who had

succeeded his father, drew it forth from the water and had it conveyed

to Baud to ornament his château of Quinipili; and there it remains to

the present day with the granite basin before it, but not in quite the

same condition, for, as has been said already, the Count employed a

sculptor to work the statue over and give it a more decent appearance.