BRITTANY. 201 



subject to the imagination and sympathy of those who, like 

 myself, have tasted and appreciated them after a long and 

 boisterous passage, broken only by the horrors of a Jersey 

 cook and a Jersey cellar, and shall take the " diligence" of 

 that day and that department a long and weary amount of 

 leagues across the most impracticable roads to Rennes, the 

 ancient capital of Brittany, and from thence to Lorieiit, 

 then, as it is now, one of the most active and thriving sea- 

 port towns of France. 



Having now arrived at my destination (the department of 

 the Finisterre), I began searching for the locale where I could 

 best realize the objects of my journey viz., an agreeable 

 and economical residence, with the best opportunities of 

 enjoying my two favourite pursuits, shooting and fishing. 

 After some trouble and inquiry, I fixed upon Quimperle, a 

 small town thirteen miles distant, and the sub-prefecture of 

 the department, as my head-quarters, and for the sum of 

 five hundred francs per annum (or twenty pounds), hired a 

 large rambling old chateau, situated on the outskirts of 

 the town, with stabling, and a garden full of fruit-trees 

 sloping down to the river, for the rent of one hundred and 

 fifty francs (six pounds). I procured rough furniture for as 

 many rooms as I required, and one hundred francs a-year 

 constituted me the master of the prettiest and best cuisiniere 

 of the place, and the promessa sposa of the most formidable 

 of the gensdarmes stationed in the town ; so that by the sacri- 

 fice of a few bottles ofvin dupays, and a few additional cutlets, 

 I considered my interests and penates very tolerably guarded. 

 An old half-pay captain of some dragoon regiment, long 

 since disbanded, who, like myself, had retired from the world 

 for fishing and economy, was the only compatriot residing 

 in the place at that period, although several English resi- 

 dents rented chateaux or country-houses in the neighbour- 

 hood. To give the reader an idea of what the price of living 



