BRETAOXE. 



BRETAGNE. 



130 



and the other industrial, mineral, and agricultural products of the 

 province. The language of the inhabitants is a dialect of the ancient 

 Celtic, corrupted of course by a mixture of French words. The 

 province now forms the departments of COTES DU NORD, FINISTRE, 

 Ii.LE-ET-Vri.AixE, LOIRE INFKRIEUHE, and MORBIHAJJ, under which 

 heads its present state will be more fully described. 



Bretagne was divided into Haute-Bretagne and Basse-Bretagne, the 

 capitals of which were respectively Rennea and Vannes. Before the 

 first revolution it had a local parliament or assembly of states. The 

 states consisted 1st, of the barons, who were ten in number, and the 

 gentry ; 2nd, of the clergy, who were represented by the heads of the 

 several orders ; and 3rd, of the tien (tat, or third estate, which was 

 composed of the deputies returned by 41 towns. The states met 

 every second year at Rennea, Nantes, and St.-Brieuc, alternately. 



Bretagne was an early seat of the Druidical superstition, and 

 contains some vast monuments at Carnac and elsewhere, which 

 tradition represents as consecrated to the purposes of this ancient 

 religion. Invasions of Bretagne from the British Islands or of the 

 islands from Bretagne, figure in the accounts of the early historians, 

 or the traditions of ancient times ; but little or nothing certain seems 

 to have been known before the time of Caesar's invasion of Gaul. 



At that time the states along the coast from the Sequana (Seine) 

 to the Garumna (Garonne) had the general epithet of Armorica, from 

 the Celtic words Ar mor, 'on the sea." The chief tribes who inhabited 

 Annorica were the Veneti, a powerful maritime people, who made a 

 gallant though ineffectual stand against the Romans under Julius 

 Ctcsar (' Bell. Gall.' iii. 7-16), and whose name is retained in Vannes; 

 the Osismii, who dwelt in the western part of the peninsula ; the 

 Redones, whose name appears in Re'don and Rennes ; the Curioso- 

 lites, who occupied the present diocese of St.-Brieuc, and the Namnetes 

 in the south, whose name remains in Nantes. Under the Roman 

 empire Armorica formed part of Gallia Lugdunensis, but one or two 

 revolta served to show that their love of freedom was unsubdued, 

 though their want of success only riveted their chains the faster. 



In 284 an emigration is said to have taken place from the island of 

 Britain, then harassed by the Saxons, and that the emperor Cou- 

 stantius Chlorus gave them lands in Armorica. M. Daru however 

 (' Hist, de Bretagne,' Paris, 1826) places the emigration in 383, when 

 ilaximus, chosen emperor by the legions in Britain, pained over into 

 Gaul to dethrone Gratian. It is said that he then took with him a 

 considerable force of native Britons, who, under their leader, Conan, 

 were able after the defeat of Maximus to retain possession of 

 Armorica which he had bestowed on them. When the further decay 

 of the empire left the remoter provinces in the possession of inde- 

 pendence, the Armoricana were released from the subjection in which 

 they had been held ; and in the year 419 the Romans recognised as 

 their allies those who had lately been their subjects. Conan appears 

 to have ruled his states in peace and with considerable abibty till 

 the year 421, when he died. He is usually designated Conan 

 Meriadcc, the latter name signifying, according to some, ' great king.' 

 His successors are said to have borne the title of king till the time 

 of Alain II., in the 7th century. In opposition to this history there 

 are writers who deny that any immigration of the insular Britons 

 into Armorica took place until the commencement of the 6th century, 

 when the pressure of the Saxons forced the unhappy inlanders to 

 abandon their native seats and retire, some to the western side of 

 the island, Cornwall, Wales, &c., and others beyond sea into Armorica. 



If amidst these conflicting statements we may venture to give our 

 own conjecture, we should say that the account given by Daru, 

 though perhaps a distorted representation of facts, is not without 

 foundation. A colony of this kind was much more likely to influence 

 Hi- language and customs of the district in which they settled, than 

 a number of miserable exiles escaping from the pressure of barbarian 

 invaders, and finding their way as they could to a place of refuge 

 in a foreign land. This infusion of a military population serves also 

 to account for the rise of a free state in Armorica, upon the decay 

 of the Roman power, while the rest of Gaul tamely bowed to the 

 yoke either of their Roman masters or their barbarian invaders. The 

 reality of Conan's existence we see no just reason to doubt; and 

 without placing implicit credence in the lists which the Breton writers 

 furnish, we are led by the language of Gregory of Tours, and by 

 other testimony brought forward by Daru, to admit that several 

 succeeding chieftains, and perhaps Conan himself, took the title 

 of king. 



With Alain II., 690, as noticed above, the title of king ceased ; and 

 Bretagne, divided into a number of principalities, became again 

 subject to the Franks, about 800, during the reign of Charlemagne. 

 In the troubles of the following period, the kingdom of Bretagne 

 was once more revived by Noraenoe" (824-851), who had been nomi- 

 nated governor of Vannes, by Louis le Debonnaire, son and successor 

 of Charlemagne, and had revolted from Charles le Chauve. Erispoe, 

 the son <,r N,,inenoe' (651-857) acknowledged the supremacy of 

 Charles, but maintained his kingly title. Civil dissensions among 

 the Bretons themselves led to the extinction of this kingdom in 874. 

 The country was divided into the counties of Rennes, Vannes, 

 Cornouaille (Cornwall), and other portions; and civil discord between 

 the ruler* tty states thus formed conspired with the 



invasion of the Northmen or Norman* to afflict the country. This 



OIOO. DIV. VOL. II. 



right of sovereignty, claimed by the kings of France, was conveyed 

 to the Northmen by Charles the Simple, when he ceded to them the 

 country afterwards known as Normandie, in 912. The dukes of 

 Normandie thus became the feudal superiors of the rulers of 

 Bretagne, and themselves did homage for this province as well as for 

 Normandie to the kings of France. This cession was the cause of 

 long and bloody wars between the people of the two provinces, for 

 the Bretons struggled fiercely against the barbarians, to whoso 

 supremacy they were thus arbitrarily consigned. They seem 

 however at last to have acknowledged the dukes of Normandie as 

 suzerains. 



In 992, Geofiroi, count of Rennes, assumed the title of Duke of 

 Bretagne. Alain, his son, second duke of Bretagne, was, from the 

 year 1035 to his death in 1040, the faithful guardian of the child- 

 hood of William the Bastard (afterwards the Conqueror), duke of 

 Normandie, and several Breton lords accompanied William into England 

 in 1066. In 1148 a disputed succession led to the dismemberment 

 of Bretagne, and to a civil war, in which the kings of England (Henry 

 II.) and France (Louis VII. 'le Jeune') took part. The marriage of 

 Constance, daughter of one of the claimants, with Geoffroi, son of 

 Henry II., added the duchy of Bretague to the already vast possessions 

 of the house of Plantagenet. On the death or murder of Prince 

 Arthur, in 1203, Normandie was declared to be confiscated, and was 

 seized by Philippe Auguste, the French king, and Bretagne thus 

 became immediately a fief of the French crown. The duchy came 

 to Allix, daughter of Constance, by her third husband, Gui de 

 Thouars : and in her right to Pierre de Dreux, a younger branch of 

 the royal family of France, to whom she wag married in 1212. 



Pierre de Dreux, a restless and ambitious prince, reigned from 

 1213 to 1237 ; first as duke in right of his wife, and then, upon her 

 death (in or near 1219), as guardian to his son, a minor. In 1237 he 

 abdicated his power as guardian of his son, and was intrusted by 

 the pope with the conduct of an expedition against the infidels 

 beyond sea : in 1248 he accompanied St. Louis in his crusade against 

 Egypt, and was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Mansoura. 

 He died on his passage back to Europe in 1250. 



The history of the dukes, Jean I. (1237-1286), Jean II. (1286- 

 1305), Artur II. (1305-1312), and Jean III. (1312-1341), presents few 

 incidents of moment ; but the death of the last-named prince 

 brought on the dispute for the succession to the duchy between Jean 

 de Montfort and Charles de Blois, and led to the war which forms 

 so important an episode in the wars of England and France under 

 Edward III. of England and the kings of France of the house of 

 Valois. Jean III. left no children : he had two brothers or rather 

 one brother, Gui, count of Penthifcvre, who died before him, and one 

 half-brother, the above-mentioned Jean de Moutfort, who immediately 

 upon the death of Jean III. took possession of the duchy. Charles 

 de Blois claimed in right of his wife, who was daughter and heiress 

 of Gui, and the decision was referred to the king of France as suzerain. 

 The case was argued before a court of the peers and grandees of the 

 kingdom. Montfort, who had reason to fear an unfavourable decision, 

 fled secretly from Paris ; and a decree of the king declared Charles de 

 Blois duke of Bretagne. Montfort immediately sought the protection 

 of the king of England, who willingly gave him his support : and by 

 a singular concurrence "Edward III., who claimed the crown of France 

 through a female, supported Montfort against a female claim ; while 

 Philippe VI., the actual possessor of the crown of France, whoae right 

 rested upon the exclusion of females from the succession, supported 

 a female in her claim to the ducal coronet of Bretagne. But interest 

 and ambition little regard such inconsistencies. 



The war had nearly been concluded at its very commencement. 

 The anry of Charles de Blois invested Nantes in 1341, iu which Jean 

 de Montfort was, and throwing into the city the heads of thirty 

 Breton prisoners of the Montfort party, so frightened the townsmen 

 that they opened their gates, and Jean was taken, carried to Paris, 

 and shut up in the tower of the Louvre. Jeanne of Flanders, countess 

 of Montfort, was at Kennes when she heard of her husband's capti- 

 vity : with matchless courage she re-animated her husband's partisans, 

 raised troops, acquired numerous other partisans by fair speeches, 

 promises, and gifts, and throwing herself into Hennebon, a town on 

 the river Blavet not far from the coast, awaited the succours which 

 she expected from England. 



Upon the departure of the countess from Rennes that place was 

 invested by the troops of Charles de Blois and surrendered by the 

 townsmen, and the victorious army advanced to Hennebon, hoping 

 by the capture of the countess and her son (a child of three years of 

 age) to settle the matter. But they found this no easy task ; Jeanne 

 attacked vigorously by the besieging army, and having to counteract 

 within the town the intrigues of the bishop of Le'on, who wished to 

 persuade the townsmen to surrender, defended herself with undaunted 

 courage. In a sally during a fierce assault she entered the hostile 

 camp, set the tenti on fire, and being unable to re-enter Hennebon 

 took refuge in the neighbouring town of Auray, recruited her forces, 

 and again made her way into Hennebon. The siege continued, th-j 

 bishop of Leon exhorted to surrender, and the heroic countess could 

 only obtain of her now dispirited soldiers a promise to hold out fur 

 three days longer. Two days passed away; on tho third the besiegers 

 were seen preparing for a last assault ,when the English fleet hove in 



