116 GOLDEN DAYS 



the topic of the hour, for the Holy 

 Virgin could talk of nothing else — the 

 country, the whitewashed farmsteads, the 

 costume of the Bretons, their ways of life, 

 and, above all, their fat and dimpling 

 babies. Everyone talked of Brittany. 

 In fact, at the set time, when the angels 

 and archangels, the prophets and the 

 saints, took a turn together upon the 

 sacred way, if conversation lagged it was 

 always started briskly again by such 

 remarks as, " Talking of the Bretons . . ." 

 or, " When I was last in southern Brittany 

 . . ." Then would follow a rhapsody 

 on la belle Bretagne — SS. Fiacre, Guildas, 

 Bieuzy, Sezny, Herbot, and Cado, and all 

 the other Breton saints becoming very 

 excited and all talking at once. You 

 would have heard constant allusions to 

 St. Anne. How well advised had she 

 been to choose the Bretons for her people I 

 How blessed, the patron saint of la belle 

 B7xtagne ! True St. Thomas and a few 

 of his friends looked sceptical, muttering 

 in their beards about the natural beauties 

 of Palestine. Another saint remarked : 



" Je revois ma Normandie ;" 



