40 WOLF-HUNTING. 



his sackcloth collar till his cries brought the proprietor to his 

 rescue : then followed the proces-verbal, leaving a worse grip 

 than even the mastiff's teeth. In Ireland M. Gourdin's life 

 would not have been worth a week's purchase; nor will it be 

 a matter of surprise if, as was believed at Carhaix, the Breton 

 servant designedly omitted to shut up Hector, but exposed 

 him to the almost certain fate of being devoured by the wolves 

 that infested the adjoining cover a cruel revenge, but one that 

 might reasonably be expected from a peasantry not half civilised 

 and desperately tenacious of privileges rightly or wrongly main- 

 tained from time immemorial. 



The Breton peasant naturally hates the rich French pro- 

 prietor, not only because, armed with the terrible power of the 

 law, he puts it in force whenever an act of depredation occurs, 

 but because, speaking a totally distinct language, and differing 

 from him in physique and natural character quite as much as 

 a veritable Milesian differs from an Englishman, he regards 

 him as an intruder on the soil an alien and a tyrannical 

 neighbour. It is a fact that, throughout Lower Brittany, the 

 Celtic language is universally spoken by the Breton population, 

 and that with the exception of a few Frenchified words, 

 necessarily adopted to describe new articles introduced from 

 France the language is still in many respects much as it was 

 a thousand years ago, or even in the fourth century, when, in 

 the reign of the tyrant Maximus, the first great exodus occurred 

 from this country to the ancient Armorica. 



The isolation of Lower Brittany, no less than the prejudices! 

 of its people, has doubtless contributed to this unusual result ; 

 for unusual it certainly is, if what Sir Charles Lyell says be 

 true, that "no language seems ever to last for a thousand 

 years." That the languages of modern Europe especially 

 those of England, France, Germany, and Italy have undergone 

 during that period a complete transmutation, is an unquestion- 



