MORBIHAN.

THE PENINSULA OF RHUYS.

CHAPTER VI.

Sarzeau-St. Gildas-Sucinio.

A DELIGHTFUL excursion from Vannes is that of the

peninsula of Rhuys. It is less specially Armorican in its associations than some other parts of Morbihan, but it is full of interest of a mixed kind. There we find traces of St. Gildas, the hermit of the sixth century; and of Abelard, the scholar monk of the Middle Ages. Three centuries later comes the famous castle of Sucinio, the residence of the Dukes of Brittany, and the birthplace of Arthur, Constable de Richemont, the successor of Du Guesclin and Clisson. Three centuries later still, in the little town of Sarzeau, at the beginning of the peninsula, was born the famous author of "Gil Blas;" while the chief monument of the district, the famous Butte de Tumiac, goes back to remote ages— perhaps to a time before the soil had been trodden by foreign invaders. Besides these varied associations there is the curious old Port Navalo, Cæsar's harbour, with a Roman road running from it to Nantes by way of Vannes. Indeed, it seems difficult to find a country fuller of interest than

Morbihan; and almost the most interesting part of it is to be found in its peninsula of Rhuys and on the shores of its little sea.

We drove first to Sarzeau, passing the pretty château of Kerlevenan. Our driver wished us to go first to Sucinio, but we were anxious to get to St. Gildas before low water, as there is good bathing there. The road between Vannes and Sarzeau is not interesting, but the day was so exquisitely clear and bright, and our horse went so well, that we found the drive delightful. On our way we passed a small cemetery. In this was a bone house, with curious little boxes inside painted black and white and shaped like toy dogkennels, with the inscription, "Ci-gît le chef de Monsieur," and then followed the name. Each box contained a skull. It seems to be a received custom after a certain time to dig up the skeletons of departed friends, their bones being put in the ossuaries and the skulls in these hideous little boxes.

We had heard a good report of the inn at Sarzeau, and were much disappointed with its appearance; but, spite of the little dingy room to which, after some delay, we were admitted, we found the fare and cooking excellent, although the native wine of Sarzeau still merits its historical reputation of roughness and acidity. The kind dark-eyed hostess was full of apologies because she had so little variety to offer; but she gave us cutlets, an omelette, "biftek" and fried potatoes-all excellent and well-cooked-good bread and butter, pears, and a good bottle of vin-de-grave, and then apologised for charging us two francs each.

There is nothing to see in Sarzeau but the house where Le Sage was born, standing back from the road with its gate set in the old grey garden wall, gay with tufts of red valerian.

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GILDAS.

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Its present owner was in the little garden, and he very kindly asked us to come in and see the bedroom in which the author of "Gil Blas" is said to have begun life in 1688. The walls are panelled and painted pale blue, but there is no specialty in the room; and the owner told us that Le Sage must have left Sarzeau when very young, as his father gave up the house soon after his birth.

St. Gildas is only six kilomètres from Sarzeau. The village looked small and insignificant, but we found the abbey church extremely interesting; the choir and apse, with its three round chapels, and the transepts, are very old, the nave of much later date; it has been badly restored. The monastery is said to have been founded in the sixth century by St. Gildas, surnamed Le Sage; his tomb stands behind the high altar, for though he died in his hermitage, in the Ile Houath, his body was miraculously restored to the monks of Rhuys.

There are in the north transept three other very old stone coffins. Inscriptions on two of these show that they mark the graves of St. Rivo and St. Felix, abbots of St. Gildas; a third, nearer the altar, is supposed to belong to St. Goustan, or Dunstan. He was converted by St. Gildas when he was a pirate in the isle of Ushant, and he became a lay brother in the abbey of Rhuys. It is said that his whole life was passed in prayer. In the choir, very much obliterated, are five gravestones, to the memory of four children of Duke John I., who died 1246-51 at Sucinio, and also of Jeanne of Brittany, who died 1388. She was daughter to John of Montfort.

At the west end of the nave are two large capitals scooped into the form of bénitiers. They are very curiously sculp

tured, and are said to have belonged to the ancient nave. The capitals of the columns on each side of the choir are also very curious, but the figures on these, as well as those on the bénitiers, are much disfigured by whitewash.

As we came up the aisle again, thinking of the two famous abbots St. Gildas and Abelard, a side door opened, letting in a flood of sunlight, and in came a tall sister and a troop of schoolgirls clad in dark blue gowns with white aprons and caps.

They ranged themselves in the rows of seats facing the confessional in the south aisle, and first one little maid, and then, when she retired, another, stepped forward and knelt down to make her confession. It was a very tranquil, primitive scene, and, except for the later date of some of the building, just such a scene as might have been witnessed by Abelard himself.

The church, which formed part of the abbey in the time of St. Gildas, was destroyed by the Northmen, but the Abbot Rivo carried away the bones of the saint into Berri, where a monastery was dedicated to St. Gildas on the banks of the Indre. Some of these relics were, however, brought back to the peninsula by St. Felix, who, in the reign of Duke Geoffrey, entirely rebuilt the monastery, and placed the remains of St. Gildas in the tomb behind the high altar.

St. Gildas was educated in England, in the monastery of Hydultus, in Cornwall; but being moved to visit Brittany, he became the apostle of Morbihan in the fifth century, and the chief friend and adviser of Guerech, or Waroch, Count of Vannes.

It was after the saint's celebrated interference in defence of St. Tryphena that Guerech persuaded him to leave his hermitage on the banks of the Blavet, and establish himself

and his monks in a castle belonging to the count in the peninsula of Rhuys.

Here St. Gildas founded a large monastery, which attained a great reputation for sanctity, and which, after the death of St. Gildas, became the bourne of a celebrated pilgrimage.

It appears that the approaching death of the Abbot Gildas was revealed not only to himself, but also to the monks of St. Hydultus, Cornwall, where the saint, as has been said, was educated with St. Samson of Dol and St. Pol de Léon; and many of these Cornish monks came over to Brittany to take a last farewell of the renowned saint in his retreat in the little isle of Houath. For some time before his death he had retired there with two or three of his monks, after having devolved the entire care of the monastery to the Prior of Rhuys. St. Gildas gave his last counsels to these British monks, and also to those of his own community who had come over from Rhuys to bid him farewell, and then he desired to be carried into the chapel of the hermitage, where, having made his confession to the Prior of Rhuys and received the last sacraments, he thus addressed his monks :—

“I beg you, my brothers, when I shall have expired, not to enter into any disputes concerning my body; place it in a boat, and place under my head the stone which all through my life has served me for a pillow, after which you must quit the boat and launch it on the open sea, and let it go where God pleases. He will provide it a resting-place where it seems good to Him. May the God of peace dwell in you always.”

This last commendation was needed, for as soon as St. Gildas was dead, and his body, dressed in abbatial robes