Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 23

_The Chateaux of Brittany_

The chateaux of Brittany may truly be called the historical and legendary shrines of the province, for within their halls, keeps, and donjons Breton tradition and history were made. It is doubtful, indeed, if the castellated mansions of any other country, save, perhaps, those of the Rhine, harbour so many legends, arising either from the actual historical happenings connected with them or from those more picturesque yet terrible a.s.sociations which they are popularly supposed to have with the powers of evil. The general appearance of such a building as the Breton chateau admirably lends itself to sombre tradition. The ma.s.sy walls seem thick enough to retain all secrets, and the cry for vengeance for blood spilt within them cannot pa.s.s to the outer world through the narrow _meurtrieres_ or arrow-slits of the _avant-corps_. The broad yet lofty towers which flank the front rise into a _toiture_ or _coiffe_ like an enchanter's conical cap. The _lucarnes_, or attic cas.e.m.e.nts, are guarded on either side by gargoyles grim of aspect, or perhaps by griffins holding the shield-borne arms of dead and gone seigneurs. Seek where you will, among the wizard-houses of old Prague, the witch-dens of ancient Edinburgh, the bat-haunted castles of Drachenfels or Rheinstein, you will come at nothing built of man more informed with the soul of the Middle Ages, more drenched with their peculiar savour of mystery, than these stark keeps whose crests and _girouettes_ rise above encircling woods or frown upon mirroring rivers over the length and breadth of the Breton land.

_La Roche-Jagu_

One of the most typical of the chateaux of Brittany is that of La Roche-Jagu, at one time the guardian of the mouth of the river Trieux.

It is built on the top of a hill which overhangs the Trieux, and from one of its battlemented galleries a splendid view of the windings of the river can be obtained. The wall on this side of the fortress is so thick as to allow of a chapel being hewn out of its solidity. A most distinctive architectural note is struck by the fourteen wonderful chimney-shafts of cut stone ornamented with iron spikes.

_Tonquedec_

Some miles farther down the river, but on its opposite side, is the imposing castle of Tonquedec, perhaps the finest remnant of the medieval military architecture of Brittany. It has always remained in the family of the Viscounts of Coetman, who ranked among the foremost of the Breton n.o.bility, though one of them espoused the cause of the Constable Clisson against Duke John IV, and had the anguish of seeing his ancestral fortress razed to the ground. Under Henry IV, however, the castle was restored, only to be again demolished by order of Cardinal Richelieu, who strongly and forcibly disapproved of such powerful fortalices.

It had an outer enclosure, and had to be entered by a drawbridge, and it was strengthened in every way conceivable to the military art of the times. It was surrounded by dwellings for the convenience of the seigneur's retainers, a fine _salle d'armes_ still remaining. To the keep, four stories high, a flying bridge led, in order to facilitate the withdrawal of the garrison in case of siege. Behind walls ten feet thick, so long as food and ammunition lasted, the inmates could hold the enemy in scorn.

_Clisson_

The chateau of Clisson, once the property of the great Constable Oliver de Clisson, whom the Viscount of Coetman and the Bretons of Penthievre had championed, is now only a grand old ruin, a touching monument of the architectural splendours of former days. By moonlight it makes a scene not easily forgotten, gaunt and still and ruggedly imposing, the silent reminder of events and people tales of whom will not readily die, the treasurer of secrets it will probably never yield. Its ant.i.thesis is the castle of Nantes, with the stamp of the Renaissance upon its delicately sculptured balconies and window-frames. It is now an a.r.s.enal, a fact which robs it of some of the romantic interest of Clisson, or, indeed, of ruins in general, yet within its walls are the prison chambers in which Gilles de Laval, the ambitious Finance Minister Fouquet, the Cardinal de Retz, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry once languished. For many years it served as one of the political prisons of France, though it is also a.s.sociated with brighter and happier times; for here, on pleasure bent, lingered many of the Kings of France from Louis XI onward, and here in 1675 Madame de Sevigne sojourned, a circ.u.mstance which casts about it a literary as well as a romantic glamour. The great well in the courtyard, with its ornamental railing of wrought iron, is quite equal to the famous well of Quentin Matsys at Antwerp.

_Josselin_

The castle of Josselin, also a.s.sociated with the history of the great Constable Clisson and his allies, as well as with the notorious League whose followers wrought such intolerable misery in Brittany, is built on a rocky foundation near the river Oust. With its imposing front and conically roofed towers it is one of the best examples of a twelfth-century fortress-chateau. Very different in tone is the architecture of the interior court, being that of the period when the lighter traceries and more imaginative lines of the Renaissance were in favour. The window-openings of the two first stories are beautiful enough to rival those of Chambord and equal those of Blois. Above the windows an open gallery runs, and in the s.p.a.ce between each the device of the Rohans is carved, with their motto, _A Plus_, this celebrated family having built this part of the chateau. About the year 1400 Clisson added a keep, walls, and parapets, but in 1629, when the fortress was no longer a stronghold of the League, these were permitted to fall into ruin. Through the courtesy of the family now in residence this wonderfully preserved castle may be visited, a circ.u.mstance for which the tourist in Brittany should indeed be grateful. Interest within these ma.s.sy walls clings around the well, with its ornamental railings, the n.o.ble and lofty hall, the library, with its magnificent chimney-piece, repeating again, in stone, the Rohan motto, _A Plus_, and the equestrian statue of Clisson, by Fremiet, in the dining-room.

_Hennebont and Largoet_

Of the old chateau of Hennebont, where John of Montfort breathed his last after escaping from the Louvre of his day, only a heap of stones remains. The old fortress of Largoet is in much the same condition, nothing of the ancient structure having been conserved save the famous Tour d'Elven, considered to be the most beautiful castle keep in all Brittany, which has also a literary distinction as being the scene of some of the most touching episodes in Octave Feuillet's _Roman d'un jeune Homme pauvre_.

_Chateaubriant_

At Chateaubriant, which owes its name to the compounding of the word 'chateau' with that of 'Briant,' the family style of its original lord, the old feudal fortress is now a ruin, but the castle, built by Jean de Laval, Governor of Brittany under Francis I, is in good repair. An inscription giving the date of the completion of the new chateau as 1538 is above the portal of the colonnade.

There is a gruesome legend a.s.sociated with the old chateau, in which for some time dwelt the unfortunate Francoise de Foix, Countess of Chateaubriant and beloved of Francis I. Tiring or becoming suspicious of her royal lover, she decided to return to her husband, the old Count of Laval. The reunion, however, was not productive of happiness, owing to the fever of jealousy in which her elderly husband lived because of the love affair with the King. This jealousy eventually flared into mania when he heard that she had actually visited her former lover in prison after he had been captured at Pavia. Instantly he "shut his young wife up in a darkened and padded cell, and finally had her cut into pieces by two surgeons," so the story goes. Terrified at what he had done and of the consequences which were sure to follow when the King heard of his savagery, the Count fled the country immediately afterward.

The chateau of Brodineuf (dating from the twelfth century) and that of Caradeuc are in good repair, but the latter is ancient only in parts.

It shelters two Murillos within its walls. The picturesque chateau of Combourg was in early times a feudal fortress, and in it Rene Chateaubriand's infancy was pa.s.sed. This place may be visited by interested sightseers, and there they may view the writing-table of the author of _Le Genie du Christianisme_, and, in the bedroom he occupied at Combourg, the bed on which he died in Paris. The chateau of Vitre is also in a state of preservation, and is considered one of the best specimens of military architecture in the province.

Comparatively near is the chateau of Rochers, once the home of Mme de Sevigne, and in consequence one of the famous sights of the country.

The many letters she dated from this castle paint a vivid and detailed picture of social life in the seventeenth century, and fortunately the atmosphere of the time has been happily retained in the building itself.

Another twelfth-century structure is that of the chateau of Rustefan, near Quimperle. It was built by Stephen, Count of Penthievre, and belonged in the next century to Blanche of Castile, the mother of St Louis. The ruins now in existence are those of the chateau built in the fifteenth century, and its cylindrical tower, pinnacled doorway, and the stone mullions of the windows still remain fairly intact. The chateau of Kerjolet, in Concarneau, is one which has been saved from decay, restored as it was by Countess Chaveau-Narishkine and presented by her to the department. It contains a museum in which are specimens of all the costumes and _coiffes_ of Lower Brittany, and antiquities of prehistoric and medieval times, which all students of Breton and Celtic lore should see.

_Palaces of the Past_

The chateau of Tourlaville is situated among very beautiful surroundings, and is built in the cla.s.sic style of the Renaissance, with an angular tower. On chimney-piece and fireplace throughout the castle there are numerous sentimental devices in which Cupids and flaming hearts and torches figure largely, with the occasional accompaniment of verses and mottoes of an equally amatory nature.

These are all seventeenth-century examples and may be taken as expressions of the time. In a boudoir called the Blue Chamber, because of the colour of its draperies and decorations, many coats-of-arms are emblazoned; but all the greatness to which these testify has become a thing of the past, for the chateau has now been turned into a farmhouse.

The chateau of Dinan may also be cla.s.sed among the palaces of the past, for now, despite the fact that it was built by the Dukes of Brittany, it has become a prison. From the tourist as well as the romantic point of view this is somewhat of a tragedy. The Tower of Coetquen, one of the ancient towers of the city wall, is practically part of the castle, and the keep, or Queen Anne's Tower, is the most distinctive feature remaining. This keep is of four stories, and is over a hundred feet high, the last story being reached by a spiral staircase. What was once the oratory of the d.u.c.h.ess Anne is now the guard-room. There are still several dungeons whose original gruesomeness has been left untouched, and whose use in bygone days can well be imagined.

_Suscino_

The chateau of Suscino is one of the chief sights of the neighbourhood of Vannes, because it is the ruin of what was once a marvellous structure of the thirteenth century, and follows the finest Gothic traditions of the time. All the roofing of the building has quite disappeared, but its battlemented towers and walls remain to give a good idea of the architectural perfection that must have belonged to it. At one time it fell into the hands of Charles of Blois, only to be retaken by his rival, Montfort, in 1364, and in 1373 it was occupied by an English garrison. Eventually it was bestowed upon John of Chalons, Prince of Orange, by Anne of Brittany, but in time Francis I relieved him of it in order to present it to Francoise de Foix, the celebrated Lady of Chateaubriant. The irregular pentagon formed by the chateau is possibly somewhat modified from the original plan of 1320, and of the seven towers which flanked its gates and walls in the beginning six have weathered the storms of the times through which they have pa.s.sed. Its orchid-shaped machicolations have also survived, and even to-day they are noticeably beautiful. The new tower is a fine cylindrical keep, dating from the fourteenth century, and over the entrance this legend still remains:

Ici Est Ne Le Duc Arthur III le 24 Aout, 1393.

We have already dealt with many of the stories connected with the ancient castles of Brittany, and these will be found in nearly every chapter of this book, so varied are they. But no tale, however vivid, can hope to capture and retain all the wonder and mystery of these grand old strongholds, which must be seen in order to leave upon the imagination and memory the full impress of their weird and extraordinary fascination.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] _Folk-lore as an Historical Science_, p. 129.

[41] _Western France_, vol. ii.

[42] See Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort_, t. i, p. 39, t. ii, pp. 37 ff.; Albert Le Grand, _Vies des Saints de la Bretagne_, p. 63; Villemarque, _Chants populaires_, pp. 38 ff.

[43] See MacCulloch, _Religion of the Ancient Celts_, p. 372 and notes.

[44] MacCulloch, _op. cit._, p. 274.

[45] Villemarque avouches that this version was taken down by his mother from the lips of an old peasant woman of the parish of Nevez. It bears the stamp of ballad poetry, and as it has parallels in the folk-verse of other countries I see no reason to question its genuineness.

[46] See "Maro Markiz Gwerrand," in the _Bulletin de la Societe Academique de Brest_, 1865.

CHAPTER VIII: HERO-TALES OF BRITTANY

Soon after the Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarque published his _Barzaz-Breiz_, a collection of popular ballads from the Breton, critics who possessed a knowledge of the language and were acquainted with its literature exposed the true nature of the work, acting, indeed, as did British critics when Macpherson published his fragments of Ossian. Villemarque was, in fact, a Breton Macpherson. He would hear a Breton ballad sung or recited, and would then either enlarge upon it and torture it out of all resemblance to its original shape, or he would instigate a literary friend to do so. We must remember that such a proceeding was fashionable at the time, as no less a personage than Sir Walter Scott had led the way, and he had been preceded by Burns in the practice. But whereas Burns made no secret of what he did and greatly enhanced the poetical value of the songs and ballads he altered, Scott and his friends, Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Leyden, and others, indulged in what they described as the "mystification" of their acquaintances by these semi-forgeries.

Like theirs, Villemarque's work had usually an historical or legendary basis, but it is impossible to say how much of it is original matter of folk-song and how much his own invention, unless we compare his versions with those furnished by M. Luzel in his _Guerziou Breiz-Izel_ (1868), which, however, only contains a few of the originals of the tales given in the _Barzaz-Breiz_, and those not the most interesting.

I have cast the following tales into narrative form from the ballads published in the _Barzaz-Breiz_, where they obviously appear as traditional tales in a polished, modern dress.[47] They may be regarded, largely, as efforts of the modern imagination regarding the Breton past. In any case the author of a book on Breton romances would not be justified in omitting all mention of Villemarque and refraining from affording the reader a specimen of his work, any more than he would be in founding solely upon the labours of the Vicomte.

_Lez-Breiz, the Prop of Brittany_

Morvan, chief of Leon, so celebrated in the history of the ninth century as one of the upholders of Breton independence, and known to tradition as 'the Prop of Brittany,' is the subject of a remarkable series of ballads or hero-tales in the _Barzaz-Breiz_ which together const.i.tute what is almost an epic. These tell of his life, death, adventures, travels, and the marvellous feats of derring-do he accomplished. In some measure he is to Breton legend what Arthur is to British or Holger to that of Denmark. That he is familiar to Breton tradition there can be no question, and whether Villemarque himself wove the following adventures around him or not they are certainly typical of the age in which the hero flourished.

_Morvan's First Adventure_

One day the child Morvan was sitting at the edge of the forest when a cavalier issued from its depths armed at all points and riding a great charger. The boy, excited by his martial appearance, ran from him in terror, calling out that here indeed was St Michael; but the cavalier rode so swiftly that he soon came up with the lad, who devoutly threw himself on his knees and made the sign of the Cross, calling out: