merchandise; old women (and you can have no idea of the unpleasantness which may be associated with one till you visit France), little creeping mummies, who beg with voices of unalterable misery; dark, shaven priests in shovel-hats, cassocks, and black bands, who glide about with thumbed gilt-edged books under their arms; gorgeous gendarmes, with quantities of white rigging about their coats, who saunter down the middle of the street, in perpetual contrast with the squalor around them; little bevies of nuns, with their hands folded, baskets on their arms, and a low gust of small-talk as they patter by; bullet-headed children, with tight nightcaps tied under their chins; men in straw hats and blue blouses lounging at the cafe doors; and some small-faced soldiers in red trousers, sitting on a low wall under the shade.
Not that we saw many soldiers in Brittany. There were next to none at Dinan. But there was, what struck me often, a great scarcity of youths; the male population consisted of old or middle-aged men and boys. Three or four lads of eighteen or nineteen years of age, whom I noticed as exceptions, were lame, badly cross-eyed, or crippled in some way. The youth of the place was with the army. This gap in the ages of the populace became more evident as I observed and reflected. There is hardly an able-bodied man in France who is not, at one time or another, connected with the camp.
I have said that almost every street in Dinan has its central drain. This made the ordinary stenches numerous and powerful. But one day, when I walked down to the river bank, and happened to pass the spot where their united contributions flowed into the stream, I met with an odour which, for pungent liveliness and original piquancy of flavour, excelled any I ever smelt, and yet there was a woman with a beautifully clean white cap on, sitting alive and ruddy on a door-step in the very thick of the stench.
By the way, these Breton caps are considered curious. The women generally wear sabots (or wooden shoes) not over clean, but their head-dresses are scrupulously spotless. As to shape, they are so varied that they really seem to have no idea in common. Perhaps, though, I can convey a better notion of these finials by comparing them to dinner napkins, starched, and folded on the head according to the wearer’s fancy, but always with great flaps or wings; these last being sometimes turned up or back, sometimes cast loose and left to float on either side, like the banks of oars depicted in ancient galleys.
There are no street lamps in Dinan. Strange as it may seem, the town is not lit with gas or oil. There is no pretence made of lighting it. If you want to see your way you must take a lantern or wait for the moon—nay, better still, for the sun. Other towns in these parts have, it is true, some lamps hung in the middle of the streets with cord at rare intervals, but Dinan is left at night as dark as an old coal-mine, or London in the time of the Saxons. There are a good many beggars in the place; they look wretched enough, and have not the professional power of their class in London. Indeed, the beggars here are frequently very destitute, and a few sous may be charitably bestowed upon them. There is no poor-law in France. A lone and needy man, past his work, must beg or die. It is true that he is most generally provided for by the “brethren” or the “sisters” — some religious orders being devoted to the support of the aged and helpless. But when he receives their help he is a recipient of charity. There is no parish to which he can apply as a right. There is no law for him but (thank God for that!) the codeless law of love. He is utterly dependent on the charitable. Thus there is much more excuse to be made for beggars here; and I confess that an old crippled body past its work generally gets one of my coppers. “Bad thing!” I hear Mr. Squaretoes say. “Bad advice!” But, sir, I don’t give to children, at least, only to those in their second childhood; and, should you ever come to that, and want a penny, if you would not ask for it from your fellow Christians, for the love of God, you would show a worse opinion of your brethren in the faith than you give yourself credit for now. Ah, me! there must be some genuine beggars, I suppose, and their state here is not such an enviable one that we should be very angry at it, as if they were getting all the good things to themselves. Look at these foreign paupers, at their faces, their clothes. Don’t you think they would gladly earn money if they could? Don’t you suppose it possible that many of them are so stupid, so ignorant, so awkward, that they never could master a handicraft, and have come to what they are after spending the prime of their lives in the lowest brute-like toil?
London beggars, and the like, as I have hinted, are generally bad. You must have noticed that they are very seldom old or thin, but lusty tramps, no doubt with a capital pulse in their veins, and a kettle of rich stew on the hob at home. These rob the poor more than the rich, and I am sure that the habitual copper-giver, who buys selfish blessings from their profane lips, does thereby far more harm than good to his race.
The Bretons have the character of being very impulsive, though they are rather a stolid looking race, for French. But they swear horribly, using oaths which are as curious as they are incessant. They also drink to excess. Cider is the beverage of the country, but brandy is abundant and strong. Wine they seldom touch. The cider is drunk out of very large teacups, like common blue slop-basons with handles. Passing the common cafés or public-houses you may often see three or four rough men in sabots sitting round a table and clicking these basons together before their draught, in good fellowship, as if they were carousing in coffee or tea.
The Breton works hard, and, I should fancy, produces the least possible result with the greatest amount of labour. He tries to get antagonistic crops out of the soil at the same time, planting his wheat-land thick with apple-trees, and therefore injuring both. The fields are very small, and the holdings also. I have seen two people tilling their land together, like Adam and Eve, or getting up their harvest with one rickety cart drawn by