more individuality than in the present age of monotonous prefects and mayors. Nantes had its dukes, and Rouen had its prelates, and both of them, even to-day, overshadow the civic dignitaries of their time; hence it is the memory of the parts played by them which induces an association of ideas prompting a desire to know personally the ground trodden by them.

Normandy and Brittany are supposed to be the happy hunting-grounds of cheap tourists and trippers, but, as a matter of fact, the former do not go beyond Dieppe, or the latter beyond the Channel Islands,—with possibly a day excursion to St. Malo,—so no discomfort need really arise from the fear of their presence. Furthermore, the tourists from across Channel that one does meet in Normandy or Brittany to-day are not so outrageous in their dress and manners as the type pictured by Punch.

It is a generally recognized fact that no special hardship is involved in modern travel; caravansaries have for the most part given way to inns which, if not exactly palatial, at least furnish creature comforts of a quality quite as good or a great deal better than those to which most travellers are accustomed at home. One may, and most likely will, miss his or her particular brand of tea or tobacco, but will find substitutes quite as excellent, and as far as the language question is concerned, why, that lies at one’s own door, unless one wants to go out as a disciple of Esperanto, the modern successor of Volapuk, dead years ago of sheer weight of consonants.

This book, then, is meant to ensure better knowledge on the part of the casual traveller of that delectable land which may be somewhat vaguely described as old France, of which Brittany and Normandy are as representative in their survivals as any other part.

CHAPTER II.

THE PROVINCE AND THE PEOPLE

BRITTANY, the ancient province which underwent such a strife of warfare and bloodshed in the struggle against invaders, and finally against France, has become one of the most loyal of all the old-time divisions making up the present republic. Her struggle against a curtailment of her ancient rights and the attempts to conserve her liberties were futile, and when the Duchess Anne took Louis XII. for her second husband, Brittany became a part of the royal domain never to be separated therefrom.

It was Duguesclin who saved it for France, Duchess Anne who enriched it, Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Laennec, and Renan who made it illustrious in letters, and Duguay-Trouin, Jacques Cartier, Surcouf, Du Couëdic, and many besides who added to all this the spirit of adventure and romance with which the chronicles of Brittany have ever abounded.

Commonly it has been called a land of granite, an expression which has been consecrated by the usage of many years, but it is also a land most picturesque, melancholy, and dreamy, with immense horizons of sea and sky, and a climate strictly temperate throughout all the year.