A VILLAGE SCENE IN BRITTANY 



"The real Brittany is an open, wind-threshed, compelling country of gray and green, a 

 hardy province able to withstand the buffeting of the sea and its gales, inhabited by a race 

 who fear only God and the sea, but man not at all. They live in and by the sea — and the 

 sea by them" (see text, page 407). 



himself with another, pulls the sliding 

 wooden doors or the very substantial cur- 

 tains to, after him, and proceeds to prove 

 false every hygienic theory of the scien- 

 tists. Some of these beds are most elab- 

 orately carved and decorated. When, in 

 a curio shop in Ouimper, I asked what 

 any American would want with such a 

 dubious objet d'art, the Breton woman in 

 charge replied that these beds made ex- 

 cellent bookcases for x\merican houses 

 when a carpenter has put a few shelves 

 in them (see page 423). 



The towns have their share of curious 

 old houses — some carved, some curiosities 

 in an architectural way, and some with 

 unusual personal features, like the top- 

 heavy, tipsy-looking "House of Gilles and 

 his Wife," at a busy corner in Vannes. 

 Fat and stubby effigies of the good 

 burgher and his spouse lean out smilingly 



from the corner of the second story above 

 the unquiet street and watch the throngs 

 of passers-by with good-humored interest. 

 It must not be judged that Brittany has 

 no castles, and that its rare charms are 

 wholly simple. Such a magnificent cha- 

 teau as Josselin, with its great, fortress- 

 like turrets rising from the water, its 

 beautiful inner court, and its vine-covered 

 ancient walls, is a splendid example of 

 the grand home as the antipode of the 

 simpler one. Sucinio, ruined and deso- 

 late now, is another reminder of baronial 

 splendor and an historic spot as well. 



PREHISTORIC BRETON MEMORIALS 



In southern Brittany, especially at Loc- 

 mariaquer and Carnac, in the Morbihan, 

 we can go back into prehistoric times and 

 find human egotism and the love of praise 

 and memorials just as keen among primi- 



418 



