MORBIHAN.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FAIR OF ST. NICODÈME.

'HE breakfast spread for us was one of the most taste

THE

ful we had seen in Brittany. Cherries glowing with colour and yet cool with the freshness of morning dew, raspberries with frosted leaves, plums, golden pears, aimonds in their lovely green covering, little cakes of various shapes, were arranged in pretty little dishes on a long table, with flowers at intervals; and the meal served, beginning with delicious lobster, was quite as good to the taste as to the sight. We were waited on entirely by quiet, middle-aged women, who seemed to understand their business, and the master of the hotel was also its chef.

He provided us with a very comfortable, almost new, carriage and a good horse, and we started early for the Pardon of St. Nicodème, the morning being, like all we had had since our arrival in Brittany, a blaze of unclouded sunshine. We soon overtook carts of all kinds going in the same direction, chiefly long carts with three or four benches or planks set across them; and these were crammed with men, women, and children in holiday costume, the

CHURCH OF ST. NICODÈME.

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salient points in which were the white jackets and huge black hats of the men, and the long white coiffes of the women. Black was the prevailing colour of the bodies and skirts of their gowns. There were also numbers of men and women on foot, trudging along the road, many of them driving their pretty little cows before them. Sometimes we passed an old woman struggling with a refractory pig. The fine grey spire of the church of St. Nicodème was visible for some time before we reached it. At last we came to a road or lane on the right shaded by spreading chestnut trees, and our driver stopped.

These Breton side-roads have a character peculiarly their

own.

In the north they are deeply sunk between high brake and furze-covered banks, along the tops of which is often a concealed footpath; but in the south these banks are lower, and, as at St. Nicodème, huge trees grow behind them, and send their branches across from side to side so near the road that certainly the lofty hooded waggons of Normandy would find no room to pass under the leafy roof.

Our driver told us this side-road led to the church; and, indeed, without the information we should have guessed this, as people were hastening into the lane from all directions. Our driver added that the road was too rough for his vehicle to go over, so we alighted.

The lane was full of strings of people, men, women, and children, hurrying towards the church. We found it necessary to walk heedfully, for the road was channelled with deep cart-ruts, and these were filled with mud and water. At the end of the lane we found ourselves in a bewildering throng of carts, horses, cows, pigs, and people crowded in front of and against the low stone wall that fences in the church and

its celebrated fountain. At the moment a man had quite blocked up further passage by calmly plaiting the creamcoloured tail of his horse: this was so long that it reached across the road, which narrowed as it neared the church. St. Nicodème is a handsome stone building of the six

teenth century, with a fine tower and spire; but it is its situation that is so charming. It stands in a sort of hollow the ground rising from it on every side planted chiefly with huge chestnut trees. Under the shade of these, beyond and beside the church, we saw a great crowd of people, all

THE FOUNTAIN OF HOLY WATER.

201

seemingly farmers and peasants-there appeared no mixture of bourgeois element-but before going into this crowd we turned aside to see the fountain. A visit to this is evidently an important part of the duty of the day. Three or four old women came towards us at once with jugs and cups of the holy water to drink and wash our faces in, for which they expect a few centimes. The fountain is of rather later date than the church. In one of the three compartments into which it is divided stands the figure of St. Nicodème; on one side of him a man and a woman are kneeling— they offer him an ox. In the other niches are St. Abibon with two men—one on horseback, the other kneeling-and St. Gamaliel between two pilgrims, one of whom ofiers him a pig. These saints are all Jews.

Men, and women too, were bathing their faces and eyes in the fountain, and also drinking the water eagerly. It is said to have antiseptic properties. Standing and lying. about were dirty, picturesque beggars, exhibiting their twisted and withered limbs and incurable wounds to passers-by. There is another fountain surmounted by a Calvary.

The finely sculptured portal of the church was thronged with these sufferers, some of them eating their breakfasts out of little basins. One ragged child held out a scallopshell for alms, keeping up a chorus of whining supplication. Among these squalid objects a beautiful butterfly was hovering; a baby child stretched up its hands crying for the insect. The interior of the church had evidently been so recently whitewashed that there had been no time to wash the stains and splashes from the dirty flagstone pavement, and, as there were no chairs, this was covered by kneeling worshippers. On the ceiling the stations of the cross were

painted in very gaudy colours. The high altar was a blaze of lighted candles; grouped round it were some really rich crimson and white banners worked in gold; at a side-altar a priest was saying a litany.

There were most picturesque figures among the kneeling worshippers, and through the groups two girls wandered up and down with bundles of lighters for the votive candles; some old women, too, carried about bundles of these candles. Many of the kneelers pulled my skirts to attract attention to a wounded leg or arm, or to inform me in a whisper that they were ready to pray the Blessed Virgin and St. Nicodème to give me a safe journey if I had a few centimes to give away.

It was so cool within the church that the air felt ovenlike when we came out again, although the grey old building was surrounded by huge spreading chestnut-trees. Close to the church, ranged under the green fan-like leaves, were booths hung with strings of rosaries, crosses, medals, badges, rings, and other jewellery; ornamental pins, for fastening the chemisettes and shawls of the peasant women, were displayed in cases. Pretty silver rings bearing the image of St. Nicodème were selling rapidly at a fabulously low price.

In other booths were set forth a store of large, gaudily coloured prints of various saints and sacred subjects. Chief amongst them was a gorgeous full-length of St. Nicodème, wearing the papal tiara, a violet cassock, green chasuble, and scarlet mantle. Over his head, in a golden nimbus, a bright green dove descended on the saint, who stood between a tall poplar-tree and a palm bursting into blossoms of various colours; there were hymns on either side of the paper. A carter with his whip under his arm, the