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Brittany

Mortimer Menpes, Dorothy Menpes

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1. DOUARNÉNEZ
The gray and somewhat uninteresting village of Douarnénez undergoes a change when the fishing-boats come home. Even with your eyes shut, you would soon know of the advent of the fishermen by the downward clatter of myriads of sabots through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering in volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute. The village has been thoroughly wakened up. Douarnénez is the headquarters of the sardine fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats is a matter of no little importance. The 9,000 inhabitants of the place are all given up to this industry. Prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the little silver fish in visiting their shores. Not long ago the sardines forsook Douarnénez, and great was the desolation and despair which settled upon the people. However, the season this year is good, and the people are prosperous.
As one descends the tortuous street leading to the sea, when the tide is in, everything and everyone you encounter seem to be in one way or another connected with sardines. The white-faced houses are festooned and hung with fine filmy fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged with rows of deep russet-brown corks. Occasionally they are stretched from house to house across the street, and one passes beneath triumphal arches of really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. This same little street, which barely an hour ago was practically empty and deserted, now swarms with big bronzed fishermen coming up straight from the sea, laden with their dripping cargo of round brown baskets half filled with glistening fish. They live differently from the sleepy villagers—these strapping giants of the sea, with their deep-toned faces, their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue eyes, which somehow or other seem so very blue against the dark red-brown of their complexion, their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's gait. A sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a roomful of crockery: he looks as if he will knock over something or trip over something every moment as he swings along in his careless fashion; yet he never does.
CONTENTS
1. Douarnénez
2. Rochefort-en-Terre
3. Vitré
4. Vannes
5. Quimper
6. St. Brieuc
7. Paimpol
8. Guingamp
9. Huelgoat
10. Concarneau
11. Morlaix
12. Pont-Aven
13. Quimperlé
14. Auray
15. Belle Isle
16. St. Anne d'Auray
17. St. Malo
18. Mont St. Michel
19. Château des Rochers
20. Carnac
21. A Romantic Land
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Marie Jeanne
FACING PAGE
2. Homeward Bound
3. Grandmère
4. Meditation
5. Minding the Babies
6. A Cottage in Rochefort-en-Terre
7. At Rochefort-en-Terre
8. Mid-day Rest
9. A Cottage Home
10. Mediæval Houses, Vitré
11. Preparing the Mid-day Meal
12. In Church
13. Père Louis
14. Idle Hours
15. La Vieille Mère Perot
16. A Vieillard
17. Place Henri Quatre, Vannes
18. Gossips
19. A Cattle Market
20. Bread Stalls
21. In a Breton Kitchen
22. A Rainy Day at the Fair
23. In the Porch of the Cathedral, Quimper
24. The Vegetable Market, Quimper
25. Outside the Cathedral, Quimper
26. By the Side of a Farm
27. On the Road to Bannalec
28. Débit de Boissons
29. Church of St. Mody
30. Reflections
31. A Sabot-Stall
32.

254 pages, Nook

First published June 15, 2013