Brittany

Оглавление

Baring-Gould Sabine. Brittany

PREFACE

I. General Features and Geology

II. Botany

III. History

IV. Antiquities

V. The Pardons

VI. Iconography

VII. General Instructions

Отрывок из книги

Brittany, the extreme Western promontory of the North of France, comprises the five departments of Côtes-du-Nord, Ille-et-Vilaine, Finistère, Morbihan, and Loire-Inférieure. It is distinguished into Upper and Lower Brittany. In the former the French language is spoken, in the latter the Breton, and French is an acquired tongue.

The back-bone of Upper Brittany is the chain of the Menez that runs from East to West, and then branches, forming on the North the Montagnes d'Arrée, and on the South, the Montagnes Noires. The system may be likened to a hay-fork or a pair of tongs, where the prongs of the fork form the above-named ranges. The whole rests on an elevated plateau that slopes to the sea North and West, and on the South dies down into the plain of the Vilaine and the Loire.

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Meanwhile national or rather provincial feeling is deepening and intensifying. Opposition only makes the Breton the more stubborn. The Breton has not much ambition. All he asks is to be left alone to work out his own destiny, strong in his religious convictions, "Français – oui, mais Breton avant tout."

S. Theilo, as an abbot or bishop riding on a stag.

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