Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 22

Her home is made their home; her wealth their dole; Her busy courtyard hears no more the roll Of gilded vehicles, or pawing steeds, But feeble steps of those whose bitter needs Are their sole pa.s.sport. Through that gateway press All varying forms of sickness and distress, And many a poor, worn face that hath not smiled For years, and many a feeble crippled child, Blesses the tall white portal where they stand, And the dear Lady of the liberal hand.

Nor was their philanthropy confined to their own province. In 1729 they offered themselves to M. de Belsunce--"Ma.r.s.eilles' good bishop"--to a.s.sist him during the visitation of the plague. The fame of their virtues reached even the French Court, and Louis XV sent Count de La Garaye the Order of St Lazarus, with a donation of 50,000 livres and a promise of 25,000 more. They both died at an advanced age, within two years of each other, and were buried among their poor at Taden. Their marble mausoleum in the church was destroyed during the French Revolution. The Count left a large sum to be distributed among the prisoners, princ.i.p.ally English, pent up in the crowded gaols of Rennes and Dinan. He had attended the English prisoners at Dinan during a contagious fever called the 'peste blanche,' and in acknowledgment of his humanity Queen Caroline sent him two dogs with silver collars round their necks, and an English n.o.bleman made him a present of six more.

The ruined chateau is approached by an ivy-covered gateway, through an avenue of beeches. As Mrs Norton renders it:

And like a mourner's mantle, with sad grace, Waves the dark ivy, hiding half the door And threshold, where the weary traveller's foot Shall never find a courteous welcome more.

The ruin is fast falling to pieces. The princ.i.p.al part remaining is an octagonal turret of three stories, with elegant Renaissance decoration round the windows.

_The Falcon_

An interesting and picturesque ballad sung in the Black Mountains is that of _The Falcon_. Geoffrey, first Duke of Brittany, was departing for Rome in the year 1008, leaving the government of the country in the hands of his wife Ethwije, sister of Richard of Normandy. As he was about to set out on his pilgrimage the falcon which he carried on his wrist after the manner of the n.o.bles of the period, swooped down on and killed the hen of a poor peasant woman. The woman in a rage seized a large stone and cast it at the bird with such violence that it slew not only the falcon but the Duke himself. The death of the Duke was followed by a most desperate insurrection among the people.

History does not enlighten us as to the cause of this rising, but tradition attributes it to the invasion of Brittany by the Normans (whom the widow of Geoffrey at once brought into the country on the demise of her husband) and the exactions which were wrung from the peasants by these haughty aliens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PEASANT INSURRECTION]

The ballad, which was used as a war-song by the Bretons at a later day, begins in true ballad style: "The falcon has strangled the fowl, the peasant woman has slain the Count who oppressed the people, the poor people, like a brute-beast."

The hate of the stranger so characteristic of the old Bretons then flashes forth. "The country has been polluted by the foreigner, by the men of the Gallic land, and because of the death of a hen and a falcon Brittany is on fire, blood flows, and there is great dole among the people."

On the summit of the Black Mountain thirty stout peasants had gathered to celebrate the ancient feast of the good St John. Among them was Kado the Striver, who stood there gravely leaning on his iron pitchfork. For a while he looked upon his comrades; then he opened his lips:

"What say you, fellow-peasants? Do you intend to pay this tax? As for me, I shall certainly not pay it. I had much rather be hanged.

Nevermore shall I pay this unjust tax. My sons go naked because of it, my flocks grow less and less. No more shall I pay. I swear it by the red brands of this fire, by Saint Kado my patron, and by Saint John."

"My fortunes are broken, I am completely ruined," growled one of his companions. "Before the year is out I shall be compelled to beg my bread."

Then all rose at once as if by a common impulse.

"None of us will pay this tax! We swear it by the Sun and by the Moon, and by the great sea which encircles this land of Brittany!"

Kado, stepping out from the circle, seized a firebrand, and holding it aloft cried: "Let us march, comrades, and strike a blow for freedom!"

The enthusiasm of his companions burst out afresh. Falling into loose ranks they followed him. His wife marched by his side in the first rank, carrying a reaping-hook on her shoulder and singing as she marched.

"Quickly, quickly, my children! We go to strike a blow for liberty!

Have I brought thirty sons into the world to beg their bread, to carry firewood or to break stones, or bear burdens like beasts? Are they to till the green land and the grey land with bare feet while the rich feed their horses, their hunting-dogs, and their falcons better than they are fed? No! It is to slay the oppressors that I have borne so many sons!"

Quickly they descended the mountains, gathering numbers as they went.

Now they were three thousand strong, five thousand strong, and when they arrived at Langoad nine thousand strong. When they came to Guerande they were thirty thousand strong. The houses of those who had ground them down were wrapped in flames, fiercely ends the old ballad, "and the bones of those who had oppressed them cracked, like those of the d.a.m.ned in Tartarus."

History tells us nothing concerning Kado the Striver, but it is most unlikely that he is a mere figment of popular imagination. What history does record, however, is that the wicked d.u.c.h.ess and her host of mercenary Normans were forced to flee, and that her place was taken by a more just and righteous ruler.

_The Marquis of Guerande_

Breton tradition speaks of a wild young n.o.bleman, Louis-Francois de Guerande, Seigneur of Locmaria, who flourished in the early part of the seventeenth century. He was wealthy, and lived a life of reckless abandon; indeed, he was the terror of the parish and the despair of his pious mother, who, whenever he sallied forth upon adventure bent, rang the bell of the chateau, to give the alarm to the surrounding peasantry. The ballad which tells of the infamous deeds of this t.i.tled ruffian, and which was composed by one Tugdual Salaun, a peasant of Plouber,[46] opens upon a scene of touching domestic happiness. The Clerk of Garlon was on a visit to the family of his betrothed.

"Tell me, good mother," he asked, "where is Annak? I am anxious that she should come with me to dance on the green."

"She is upstairs asleep, my son. Take care," added the old woman roguishly, "that you do not waken her."

The Clerk of Garlon ran lightly up the staircase and knocked at Annak's door.

"Come, Annak," he cried; "why are you asleep when all the others go to dance upon the village green?"

"I do not wish to go to the dance, for I fear the Marquis of Guerande," replied the girl.

The Clerk of Garlon laughed. "The Marquis of Guerande cannot harm you so long as I am with you," he said lightly. "Come, Annak; were there a hundred such as he I should protect you from them."

Rea.s.sured by her lover's brave words, the girl rose and put on her dress of white delaine. They were a joyous and beautiful pair. The Clerk was gaily dressed, with a peac.o.c.k's feather in his hat and a chain on his breast, while his betrothed wore a velvet corsage embroidered with silver.

On that evening the Marquis of Guerande leaped on his great red steed and sallied forth from his chateau. Galloping along the road, he overtook the Clerk of Garlon and his betrothed on their way to the dance.

"Ha!" he cried, "you go to the dance, I see. It is customary to wrestle there, is it not?"

"It is, Seigneur," replied the Clerk, doffing his hat.

"Then throw off your doublet and let us try a fall or two," said Guerande, with a wicked look at Annak which was not lost upon her lover.

"Saving your grace, I may not wrestle with you," said the Clerk, "for you are a gentleman and I am n.o.body. You are the son of a lord and I am the son of a peasant."

"Ha! what! The son of a peasant, say you, and you take your choice of the pretty girls of the village?"

"Seigneur, pardon me. I did not choose this maiden; G.o.d gave her to me."

During this parley Annak stood by, trembling violently. She had heard of the Marquis of Guerande, and was only too well aware of the evil and reckless character he bore. The Clerk tried to calm her fears by whispered words and pressures of the hand, but the wicked Marquis, observing the state of terror she was in, exulted in the alarm he was causing her.

"Well, fellow," said he, "since you cannot wrestle with me perhaps you will try a bout of sword-play."

At these words Annak's rosy cheeks became deathly white; but the Clerk of Garlon spoke up like a man.

"My lord," he said, "I do not wear a sword. The club is my only weapon. Should you use your sword against me it would but stain it."

The wicked Marquis uttered a fiendish laugh. "If I stain my sword, by the Saints, I shall wash it in your blood," he cried, and as he spoke he pa.s.sed his rapier through the defenceless Clerk's body.

At the sight of her slain lover the gentle heart of Annak broke, and a great madness came upon her. Like a tigress she leapt upon the Marquis and tore his sword from his hand. Without his rapier he was as a child in the grasp of the powerful Breton peasant woman. Exerting all her strength, in a frenzy of grief she dragged the wretch to the green where the dance was in progress, haling him round and round it until exhausted. At last she dropped his senseless body on the green turf and hastened homeward.

And once again we encounter the haunting refrain: "My good mother, if you love me make my bed, for I am sick unto death."

"Why, daughter, you have danced too much; it is that which has made you sick."

"I have not danced at all, mother; but the wicked Marquis has slain my poor Clerk. Say to the s.e.xton who buries him: 'Do not throw in much earth, for in a little while you will have to place my daughter beside him in this grave.' Since we may not share the same marriage-bed we shall at least sleep in the same tomb, and if we have not been married in this world we shall at least be joined in heaven."

The reader will be relieved to learn that the hero of this ballad, the Clerk of Garlon, was not killed after all, and that for once fact is enabled to step in to correct the sadness of fiction; for, when one comes to think of it, there are few sadder things in the world than the genuine folk-ballad, which, although at the time it may arouse aesthetic emotions, may yet afterward give rise to haunting pain. We are glad to be able to chronicle, then, that the worthy Clerk did not die of his wound as stated by Tugdual Salaun of the parish of Plouber, author of the ballad, and that the wicked Marquis escaped the halter, which, according to Breton custom, he would not otherwise have done had the Clerk died. His good mother took upon herself the burden of an annual pension to the Clerk's aged parents, and adopted the second child of Annak, who had duly married her sweetheart, and this little one she educated, furthering its interests in every possible manner.

As for the Marquis, he actually settled down, and one cannot help feeling chagrined that such a promising rogue should have turned talents so eminently suitable for the manufacture of legendary material into more humdrum courses. Conscious of the gravity of his early misdemeanours, he founded a hospital for the poor of the parish, and each evening in one of the windows of this place the peasants could see a light which burned steadily far into the night. If any asked the reason for this illumination he was told: "It is the Marquis of Guerande, who lies awake praying G.o.d to pardon his youth."