Brittany may be a poor and impoverished province, and in many respects it has not the abundance of the good things of life which one finds in Touraine, Burgundy, or the Midi, but there is a general air of prosperity in the gay accoutrements of the men and women who shine forth on the occasions of the great pardons, showing a snug wardrobe stowed away somewhere.
As one leaves Normandy, at Pontorson, he enters Brittany--the land of calvaries. These fine monuments are not the calvaries which have made the old province famous,--the great stone crosses of Finistère,--but are for the most part unpretentious pieces of wood put together in the form of a cross, or a like symbol, rudely hammered out of a piece of iron by the local blacksmith.
One notes many of these simple crosses throughout Brittany; simple as compared with the more elaborate calvaries, though they may have one, two, or even more sculptured figures in the arms or branches of the cross. One of the most ancient of these, dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, is at Scaër in Finistère.
It is a question as to whether any of the great monumental calvaries of Brittany can be considered really artistic. They are imposing,--some of them even terrifying in their strange grandeur,--but all of them seem theatrical, however sincere and devout the motive for their erection may have been. The chief and most elaborate examples are those at Plougastel, near Brest, and St. Thégonnec in Finistère (dating from 1610).
Besides these really great and celebrated functions are many others of minor purport, such as the "Benediction of the Boats" and the "Benediction of the Fields." The latter occurs when the caterpillars and earthworms fall upon and ravage the land. The local _curé_, with the permission of the bishop, then blesses the fields. In the midst of the fields the _curé_ takes up his position on some slight eminence, clad in a white surplice, with a violet stole, and begs God to exterminate the noxious insects, the prayers meanwhile being accompanied with the sprinkling of holy water and burning of incense.
The Pardon of St. Jean du Doigt, on the twenty-second of June, is perhaps the most solemn of all its species, and for that reason is described here.