A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago Part 5

"Escaped convicts," said papa in a low voice. "Poor devils! And you see, Sophie, how dangerous it is for little girls to wander on the roads at night."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink"]

On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:

"I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For G.o.d's sake! don't betray me. I am dying of hunger." Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said:

"It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and G.o.d be with you!"

The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad we caught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts.

Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine.

Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we should all accustom ourselves to eat gra.s.s and clover, as the cattle did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the gra.s.s. We complained at once that we did not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but gra.s.s and clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.

"Yes; we are eating gra.s.s and clover," he said, "and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes."

The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules had cast upon us. He told us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story.

One day we children were all in a deep lane--perhaps the same that had frightened me years before--when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies, with dark skins, flas.h.i.+ng teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings.

Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to Loch-ar-Brugg. _Maman_, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before the _grille_. We sat about on the gra.s.s; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks. _Maman_, from within the _grille_, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: "How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! They must be dying of hunger." We then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the Gipsies, _maman_ went to the house and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. How they s.n.a.t.c.hed and devoured it, and how plainly I see _maman_ standing there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts"]

A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the cure. It was he who had baptized me, for I was baptized not at Quimper, but in the little church of St. Eloi that stood at the foot of the Loch-ar-Brugg woods and had been in the Kerouguet family for generations. During my earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of the _pavillons_ in the garden with his old servant; later on he was given the living of Plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving Loch-ar-Brugg and our family. Still, even at Plougastel we saw him constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap, and officiated every Sunday at the seven o'clock ma.s.s at St. Eloi.

What a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons I have heard him preach! Once he informed his congregation that they would all be d.a.m.ned like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fenelon! This threat, p.r.o.nounced in Breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by the two ill-a.s.sorted names I cannot imagine, for he was nearly as ignorant of books as his flock. He was devoted to my father body and soul, being the son of one of his farmers. They were great comrades.

Whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to the _pavillon_ and cry: "Come to dinner! There are woodc.o.c.ks." And the cure never failed to come. I see him now, with his rustic, rugged face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. One of my first memories is of the small, square neck ornament (_rabat_) that the clergy wear,--a _bavette_ we children called them,--st.i.tched round with white beads. I longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee I always fixed my eyes upon them. Unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day, noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and I was able to express my longing. "But you shall have the beads!" he cried, touched and delighted. "I have two _rabats_, and one is old and past wearing. Nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my little Sophie."

His performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a bagful of the beads, collected from among his cure friends, and for days I was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces.

Some of these ornaments survived for many years.

The cure was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. "_Je me sauve!_" he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that he was. Here he would gird up his _soutane_ over his homespun knee-breeches, open his coa.r.s.e peasant's s.h.i.+rt on his bare chest, and prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went quickly. One of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow and trundled me off to Ker-Eliane to dig up ferns for _maman's_ garden.

He, too, told me many legends. The one of St. Eloi especially interested me. St. Eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. One day as they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse so gigantic that four men could not have held him. "Will you shoe my horse, good friends?" said the child,--who of course was _l'Enfant Jesus_,--very politely. "His shoe is loose, and his hoof will be hurt." The father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of such a size; but the son, St. Eloi, said at once that he would do his best. So _l'Enfant Jesus_ slid down, and took a seat on the _talus_ in front of the smithy, and St. Eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. At this point in the story I always cried out:

"But, _Monsieur le Cure_, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its legs unscrewed?"

And the cure, smiling calmly, would reply:

"Not in the least. You see, this was a miracle, my little Sophie."

So St. Eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child remounted, and said to St. Eloi's father before he rode away:

"You are a little soured with age, my friend. Your son here is very wise. Listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be good."

It was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through all the country far and near were brought to the church of St. Eloi once a year to be blessed by the cure. This ceremony was called _le Bapteme des Chevaux_. The horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of fours and sixes. At the widely opened western door the cure stood, holding the _goupillon_, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time that they pa.s.sed before him the cure sprinkled them with holy water.

After this initial blessing the cure took up his stand within beside the christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,--I so well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the earthen floor,--and the cure, with holy water from the font, made the sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. Finally the tail of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end of the year, before _le Bapteme des Chevaux_ took place again. This touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round the church and blessed, not brought inside.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the cure"]

The Church of St. Eloi was very ancient, and adorned with strange old statues of clumsily carved stone painted in garish colors. One was of a Christ waiting for the cross, His hands tied before Him. It was a hideous figure, the feet and hands huge and distorted, the eyes staring like those of a doll; yet it had an impressive look of suffering. There were no benches in the church except for our family, near the choir. The peasants, the men on one side, the women on the other, knelt on the bare earth during the office. They had used, always, when they entered the church, to pa.s.s round before _les maitres_, bowing before them; but even my mother objected to this, and the cure was told to give out from the pulpit that _les maitres_ were no longer to be bowed to in church, where there was only one master.

_Maman_, however, did not at all like it that my father should insist on us children kneeling with the peasants, and it was the one subject on which I remember a difference of opinion between my grandfather Rosval and papa. But the latter was firm, and Ernest on the side of the men, Eliane and I on the side of the women, we knelt through ma.s.s.

This was no hards.h.i.+p to us, for the kind peasants spread their skirts for our little knees and regaled us all through the service with _crepes_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "All the Breton women smoked"]

_Crepes_ seem to be present in nearly all my Breton memories. The peasants made them for us when we went to visit them in their cottages, and it would have hurt their feelings deeply had we refused them. We children delighted in these visits not only on account of the _crepes_, but on account of the picturesque interest of these peasant interiors. The one living-room had an earthen floor and a huge chimney-place of stone, often quaintly carved, and so large that chairs could be set within it about the blazing logs. The room was paneled, as it were, with beds that looked, when their sliding wooden doors were closed, like tall wardrobes ranged along the walls. They were usually of dark old wood and often beautifully carved. A narrow s.p.a.ce between the tops of these beds and the ceiling allowed some air (but what air!) to reach the sleepers, and, within, the straw was piled high, and the mattress and feather bed were laid upon it. It was quite customary for father, mother, and three or four children to sleep in one bed, several generations often occupying a room, as well as the servants, who were of the same cla.s.s as their masters. The beds were climbed into by means of a carved chest that stood beside them.

These were called _huches_, and contained the heirloom costumes, a store of bread, and the Sunday shoes! Potatoes were kept under the bed. In the window stood the table where the family and servants all ate together, and above it hung, suspended by a pulley and string from the ceiling, a curious contrivance for holding spoons. It was a sort of wooden disk, and the spoons were held in notches cut round the edge; it was lowered when needed, and each person took a spoon. A great earthenware bowl of creamy milk stood in the center of the table, and with each mouthful of porridge, or _fare_, the spoons were dipped, in community, into the milk. _Fare_ was a sort of thick porridge made of maize, allowed to cool in a large round cake, and cut in slices when cold. It was one of the peasants' staple dishes, and another was the porridge made of oatmeal, rye, or buckwheat, served hot, with a lump of b.u.t.ter. For breakfast they all drank _cafe au lait_, strong coffee boiled with the milk; fortunately milk and b.u.t.ter were plentiful. Of the hygienic habits of the peasants at this time the less said the better; a very minor detail was that the long hair of the men and the closely coiffed tresses of the women swarmed with vermin, and after every visit we paid, our heads were always carefully examined. One peasant, I remember, a good fellow, Paul Simur by name, of whom my father was specially fond, was so dirty and unwashed that a sort of mask of dirt had formed upon his features. One day, at a hunting-party, papa called to Paul to come and sit beside him, and the other huntsmen, with singular bad taste, began to make fun of poor Paul, who sat much abashed, with hanging head. Papa affectionately laid an arm about his neck and defended him, until his friends finally cried out that they wagered he would not kiss him. At this, although he confessed afterward to the most intense repugnance, he at once kissed Paul heartily. Poor Paul was quite overcome. He came to my father afterward with tears in his eyes and said, standing before him and gazing at him:

"_Oh, mon maitre, que je t'aime!_"

"And why don't you ever wash your face, Paul?" papa asked him then, and Paul explained that he had never been taught to wash and was afraid it would seriously hurt him to begin. Papa undertook to teach him. He got soap and soda and hot water and lathered Paul, gently and firmly, until at last his very agreeable features were disinterred.

Paul was perfectly delighted, and his face shone with cleanliness ever after.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a _talus_"]

A special friend of mine among the peasants was dear old Keransiflan, the lodge-keeper. I was fond of joining him while he tended the road in front of the lodge-gates and sitting on his wheelbarrow with him to talk to him while he ate his midday meal. This consisted of a huge slice of black bread thickly spread with b.u.t.ter, and it seemed to me that no bread and b.u.t.ter had ever looked so good.

One day he must have seen how much I longed for it, for he said, holding out the slice, "_Demoiselle, en veux-tu_?" I did not need to be asked twice, and can still see the great semicircle that I bit into the slice, and I was happily munching when _maman_ appeared at the lodge-gates. She was very much displeased, and mainly that I should be devouring poor Keransiflan's luncheon, and she rated me so soundly that the kind old man interceded for me, saying, "_Notre maitresse, c'est moi qui lui l'ai donne_." I think that _maman_ must have seen that it gave him great pleasure to share his bread with me; at all events, Keransiflan and I, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to go on eating in peace.

But the peasants were a hard, harsh race and pitiless in their dealings toward one another. Their treatment of their old people was terrible. If an old mother, past work, had no money, she was ruthlessly turned out to beg. One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a _talus_, her pitiful bundle of rags beside her, helpless and stupefied. I remember a story that was told me by one of my servants about such an old woman that she had known. She had four hundred francs, and was cared for in the family of one son until it was spent, when she was turned out. Another son more kindly took her in; but his wife was a hard woman, and though she finally consented to accept the useless old mother into the household, she grudged every sou spent upon her. Thus, though the only two joys remaining her in life were snuff and coffee, only two sous a week was allowed her for tobacco, and as for coffee, she was given never a drop. When she was dying she told the servant from whom I had the story that what made her suffer most had been to sit by in the morning and smell the delicious odor of the coffee as the others drank it. This has always seemed to me a heart-piercing story. All the Breton women smoked, by the way, and pipes, and in a curious fas.h.i.+on; for the bowl was turned downward, though why, I do not know.

CHAPTER X

THE PARDON AT FOLGOAT

I was taken while I was a child at Loch-ar-Brugg to the famous _Pardon de Folgoat_, to which people came from all Brittany. In Folgoat was the summer residence of Anne de Bretagne, and in the vast hall of the chateau she had held her audiences. The chateau is now the presbytery, and is opposite the church, of which there is a legend. A poor child, Yann Salacin, who was devoid of reason, spent hours every day before the altar of the Virgin, which he decorated with the wild flowers that he gathered in the fields, and wandered in the forest, swinging on the branches of the trees, always singing Ave Maria, the only words he was ever heard to p.r.o.nounce. He begged for food from door to door and slept in the barns. The peasants became impatient with him and began to whisper that he was possessed of an evil spirit, and at last they drove him out of the village. The cure, who was a good man, missed him in the church, sought vainly for him, and at last heard what had happened. He was filled with indignation, and told the peasants that they had committed a crime. Then he set out to look for poor Yann, and found him at last in a distant forest, dead with hunger. He brought the body back to Folgoat and buried it near the church, and one day he saw that a tall white lily had grown up from the grave; when he opened the grave he found that the lily sprang from the lips of the little innocent, and on the petals of the flower one could read in letters of gold Ave Maria. This legend is believed in all Brittany, and a stained-gla.s.s window in the church tells the story.

Behind the church is the Well of Love, so called because not a day pa.s.ses that lovers do not come to test their fate by trying to float pins upon the surface of the water. If the pins float, all promises well, and they go away happy. Astute ones slightly grease the pins, and thus aid destiny.

But to return to the _pardon_. I remember that on this occasion an old cook in the family had permission to start two or three days before the _pardon_, so that she might go all the way on her knees, and during those days one met many such devout pilgrims making their way on their knees along the dusty roads. Some of them came from far distances. We children were called before dawn on the August morning, and it was a sleepy, half-bewildered dressing by candle-light. As a closed carriage made me sick, I was put into the coupe with papa and _maman_. Eliane, Ernest, their nurses, and all the other servants, followed in a sort of omnibus, and behind them came all the horses, trotting gaily along the road to share in the blessings of this great day of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin. The horses of Brittany, it will be conceded, are a specially favored race. Although I was in the coupe and had all the freshness of the early air to invigorate me, I remember of the journey from Loch-ar-Brugg to Folgoat only that I was deplorably sick, and the greatest inconvenience to my parents.

Fortunately, I was restored the moment I set my feet upon the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Je me sauve," he would exclaim]

We were to be entertained for the day at Folgoat by the cure, and to lunch with him and with the bishops at the presbytery; but we were already ravenously hungry, so, although papa and _maman_ must continue to fast until after taking communion at the early service, we children had a splendid picnic breakfast in the presbytery garden, and a jellied breast of lamb is my first recollection of the day at Folgoat!

Then we went out to see the great festival. Seventy-five years or more have pa.s.sed since that day, and it still lives in my mind with a beauty more than splendid, a divine beauty. In the vast plain, under the vast, blue sky, six bishops, glittering with gold and precious stones, celebrated ma.s.s simultaneously at six great altars among thousands of wors.h.i.+pers. It was a sea of color under the August sun, and the white _coiffes_ of the women were like flocks of snowy doves.

There was an early ma.s.s, and the high ma.s.s at eleven. When this was over, we a.s.sembled at the presbytery to lunch with the bishops. The table was laid in Anne de Bretagne's council-chamber, its stone walls covered with archaic figures, and it must have been a picturesque sight to see the bishops sitting in all their splendor against that ancient background; but what I most remember are the stories they told of Louis XI and his misdeeds, which seemed to me more interesting and more cruel than the Arabian Nights and Ali Baba and his forty thieves.

In the church itself was shown a superbly carved bench where, it was said, while praying, he ordered with a nod the death of a Breton n.o.ble who had refused to do him homage. When we went into the church after lunch to see this bench, I sat down on it, and my long golden curls were caught in the claws of the interlaced monsters on the back, and I hurt myself so much in wrenching myself free that I hated still more fiercely the wicked king who condemned men to death while he prayed. O the horrid monster!

Then at three came the great procession. First went the six bishops, mitered and carrying their croziers; then followed the children of the _n.o.blesse_, we among them, all in white, with white wreaths on our heads; then all the vast mult.i.tude, twenty or thirty abreast, singing canticles, a stupendous sight and sound, all marching round the plain, from altar to altar, under the burning sun. I remember little after that. The Marquis de Ploeuc was there, his hair tied in the _catogan_, and wearing his black silk suit: I think he must have lunched with us at the cure's. It was arranged that he and his two eldest daughters were to drive back to Loch-ar-Brugg with _maman_ and spend some days with us, and so, though I must have been very tired, I was to ride back beside papa on my pony, which had been duly blessed.

It was already night when we started, and what a wonderful ride it was! I remember no fatigue. I still wore my white dress, and _maman_ swathed my head and shoulders in a white lace shawl, and all the way back to Loch-ar-Brugg papa told me stories of hunts, of fairies, of saints, and of escaped convicts. Every group of trees, every rock, every turning in the road, had its legend or its adventure.