It all adds a charm to one's wanderings
in Brittany.
St. Thegonnec at last, announced some time before we reached it by its
remarkable church, which is very visible in the flatness of the
surrounding country. The small town numbers some three thousand
inhabitants, but has almost the primitive look of a village. Many of the
people still wear the costumes of the place, especially on a Sunday,
when the interior of the church at high mass looks very picturesque and
imposing.
The dress of the women is peculiar, and at first sight they might almost
be taken for nuns or sisters of mercy: a dress which leaves scope for a
certain refinement rather contradicted by the physical appearance of the
women themselves. Men and women, in fact, belong for the most part to
the peasantry, and pass their simple lives labouring in the fields,
beating out flax, cultivating their little gardens, so that such an
official as the gravedigger becomes an important personage amongst them.
We came across him, at his melancholy work, but could make no more of
him than we made of the people of Roscoff. He understood no word of
French, but spoke his own native tongue, the language of la Bretagne
Bretonnante, as Froissart has it, in contradistinction to la Bretagne
douce.
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