Baring-Gould Sabine
Brittany
Arzon has a modern church surmounted by a spire, and two stained glass windows recording a vow made in 1673 by some sailors of the place to S. Anne, during the war with Holland. The Chapel of Er Hroez marks the spot where the body of Gildas was found. There are circles of stones at Er-Lannig, and a good many fallen menhirs. At Graniol is a tumulus containing an allée couverte. Another at Bilgroéz. The Butte de Tumiac was explored and a covered avenue found in it, but was so slovenly dealt with that the stones have collapsed.
Scaer (F.) chl. arr. Quimperlé. A dull town, with a vulgar modern church. At S. Jean, about two miles distant, on a lande, is a fine menhir. An abundant spring of Ste. Candide supplies the town, but it has no architectural character. The Chapel of Coatdry is an object of resort from all the neighbourhood on the occasion of the Pardon, 1st Sunday after Trinity, and again the last Sunday in September, when very interesting collections of costumes may be seen.
Le Sel (I.V.) chl. arr. Redon, is without much interest. The church is modern. The tumulus of Chalonge is covered with trees and surrounded by a moat.
Sizun (F.) chl. arr. Morlaix. The church (S. Sulien) has a fine spire of more simple character than those usually met with in Finistère. The porch is renaissance. There are in the parish chapels of S. Cadoc and S. Illtyd. The great Pardon is on the last Sunday in July. The P. of S. Cado the last Sunday in September, and at Loc Ildut on Corpus Christi Day. The Chapel of S. Cado is on the Monts d'Arrée.
Commana. A fine allée couverte measuring 50 ft. A dolmen and a menhir. In the church are some gorgeously barbaric altarpieces, a mass of carving, gilding and colour, of very late renaissance or baroque. P. last Sunday in July. Those interested in prehistoric remains would do well to investigate the Monts d'Arrée, over which many are scattered. A map of the district with the monuments thereon is published in the Bulletin de la Soc. d'emulation des Côtes-du-Nord, T. xxxv. (1897).
Plouneour-Menez. The very interesting abbey church of le Relecq lies near a tarn, one of the sources of the river of Morlaix. The abbey was founded on the site of the last battle fought between Judnal and Conmore, usurper of Domnonia, 555. It takes its name from the "religou" or bones which were found in great numbers on the battlefield. The original settler here was S. Tanguy, disciple of Paul of Léon, but the present church dates from 1132. The interior is a most interesting example of 12th century work. The west front was rebuilt in the 18th cent. On the N. side are the remains of the cloister of other monastic buildings. P. 15th August.
Tinténiac (I.V.) chl. arr. S. Malo. Reached by a tramline from Rennes. Prettily situated. The church is modern. There are some old houses. A menhir called La Roche du Diable.
At Tréversien is the Château de la Fosse aux Loups, where the scene is laid of Paul Féval's novel "Rollan Pied de Fer."
Les Iffs and the Château of Montmuran may be visited from Tinténiac (see Becherel).
* TRÉGUIER (C.N.) chl. arr. Lannion. An old cathedral city at the junction of the Jaudy and the Guindy. The town is on rising ground but runs down to the water side to a little point. On the highest ground is the cathedral, of nave and side aisles and two transepts. The church was almost altogether constructed in the 14th cent. It was begun in 1339. It has, however, preserved an 11th cent. tower on the N. side called de Tour de Hasting. It has the characteristic round-headed windows and pillasters of the period. The N. transept is in this tower and the pillars there with the Byzantine capitals and round arches proclaim that they belong to the beginning of the 11th cent. The bases are rudely carved, and bear the appearance of having been earlier capitals reversed and employed as bases. But this is probably in appearance only. What is of special interest to the visitor is the fact that Tréguier cathedral belongs almost wholly to the Middle Pointed or Geometrical period, which is not abundantly represented in Brittany. The W. porch sustains a gallery, and the entrance is through a double opening, a slender pillar supporting trefoils and sustains a quatrefoil between them, all pierced. Above is a 2nd pointed W. window of no particular merit: a pair of turrets with spirelets flank the western façade. The cathedral has three towers, the northern Romanesque Tour de Hastings, a central tower of the 14th cent. not finished, and with a stunted cap on it, and the S. tower, above the transept of the same date, but furnished with a naked, ridiculous spire added in the 18th cent. The flamboyant window inserted in the transept is of the finest quality, as are also those at the side of the transept. Happily, the S. front of the cathedral furnishes a good object lesson in the study of the development of tracery. Beginning at the W. end of the nave we have two windows of the earliest description of tracery, two lights sustaining a circle, all uncusped. The third window has two trefoil headed lights sustaining a trefoil, but all rather clumsy in design. Then we have the fourth window vastly in advance of the other; each cusped light sustains a trefoil and both trefoils support a quatrefoil. It must be mentioned, by the way, that a S. porch has been converted into a baptistery, and the tracery in its window is modern. If we pass on to the choir we have three windows; the first is very good, geometric in design, but the second and third are of supreme richness and beauty, revealing the style at its very best. Then look at the side clerestory lights of the S. transept and its large S. window and we see flamboyant or 3rd pointed also at its best. Then step within and look at the second window from the west in the N. aisle of the nave, and you see flamboyant in its decadence, when cusping was abandoned. The S. porch is set below the flamboyant window of the S. transept and is original, and, it must be admitted, far from pleasing. It has a vaulted roof, the exterior being thus treated, and within sustained by three ribs, between which is open tracery through which the eye pierces to the vault above. The doorway into the church has statuary about it much mutilated. The church within is fine. It is not over lofty as are the great churches of the Isle of France and Normandy. The pillars of the nave vary, and the moulding of the first two arches is richer than the others. The triforium is plain till it reaches choir and S. transept, where it is greatly enriched. The clerestory windows are tall and good. The Romanesque pillars and stilted arches in the N. transept should not be passed over. The choir ends in an apse, and is seated with carved oak stalls. According to the cathedral accounts, these were presented in 1648, but in style they appear much older. On the gospel side of the high altar is a statue of S. Tugdual, the founder of the see, with the appropriate inscription, "Etsi aliis non sum apostolus, sed tamen vobis sum. Scitis quod precepta dederim vobis per Dominum Jesum." S. Tugdual was son of Hoel and Pompeia; Hoel was the son of Emyr the Armorican, who fled from Brittany to South Wales in the 5th cent. Here he founded a Church, Llanhowell, near Solva in Pembrokeshire, a very early curious structure resting on cyclopean foundations, probably as old as the 5th cent. Tugdual and his mother came over to Armorica, and first settled with S. Brioc, the uncle of Tugdual, at Trebabu, not far from Brest. But Brioc returned to Wales, where a plague was raging, to comfort the panic-stricken inhabitants, and when he came back to Trebabu, the monks refused to receive him, preferring the rule of a young man to one advanced in age, whereupon Brioc departed and founded S. Brieuc. Tréguier when Tugdual settled there was undoubtedly an ancient fortress, standing in the fork between two rivers. He must have been a man of extraordinary energy, for he scattered "lanns" or ecclesiastical centres throughout Northern Brittany. But though Tugdual was the apostle to this district and the founder of the church, he has been completely eclipsed by S. Yves, whose monument has been reconstructed in the nave. It had been smashed to pieces at the Revolution. The reconstruction is eminently successful. S. Yves is, perhaps, the most popular saint in Brittany. He was born at Kermartin, near Tréguier, in 1253, and became ecclesiastical judge in the diocese. His, at that time, unheard of probity in refusing bribes, and his consideration for sick and poor gained general respect. He died on May 19th, 1303, on which day his Pardon at Tréguier is celebrated. Every peasant who considers that he has been wronged, who nurses a grievance, who is engaged in a lawsuit, has recourse to S. Yves, as promptly as he who has a sick horse flees to S. Eloi. On the N. side of the church is the Chapel du Dûc, opening out of the aisle by three arches. An altarpiece is made up of fragments of old carved oak. N. of the choir, entered either through a door in the Tour de Hastings or through a gateway east of the church, is the cloister. This was erected in 1468, and is therefore flamboyant, but without weakness. The tower of S. Michel, 15th cent., stands outside the town on a height. The church has been pulled down. There are some old houses in the city, notably at the port, where is an eminently picturesque group of two towers and two houses; one in the street is a study in slated fronts.
The chapel of the old manor house of Kermartin now serves as parish church to Minihi Tréguier. It is of the 15th cent. In the sacristy is preserved a fragment of the breviary of S. Yves.
Portblanc, in the parish of Penvenan, is hoping to develop into a watering-place. The situation is very pleasing, the sea is studded with islands and bristles with rocks. The largest island is that of S. Gildas, to which that Saint occasionally retired. It is rocky and has been planted with Austrian pines. On it is a chapel of the Saint. There is an abundant freshwater spring in the sands between the coast and the island, only accessible at low tides. On the island is a dolmen, called Le Lit de S. Gildas; it consists of four uprights sustaining a coverer that measures 7 ft. by 4 ft. Near this is a rocking-stone. On another islet the musical composer Ambrose Thomas built himself a château, that is completely surrounded by the waves at high tide. Portblanc was at one time far more important than it is now. It is alluded to in Richard II. act ii. sc. i. On the road from Penvenan, opposite to the entrance of a château, is a small menhir, 8 ft high, built into the hedge. Another 13 ft high is near the village of Penvenan. There is also a demi-dolmen in the parish. Penvenan church is modern and execrable, but the little chapel at Portblanc is interesting. Internally it possesses an arcade that appears to be Romanesque, but as pillars and arches are thickly plastered with whitewash it is not easy to determine their period. There is a N. transept, the wall of which spreads outward at the base, battering considerably. The W. front and S. front and the E. end of the chapel are flamboyant. The soil reaches to the very eaves at the east end.
Plougrescent, a fallen menhir 19 ft. long, is near Maznoë. The parish church is modern and very creditable. But the main object of interest in the parish is the chapel of S. Gonery. The tower is early 1st pointed, and was never completed. Above it is now a leaning wood and lead spirelet. The chapel consists of a single nave, with chancel and two chapels, one on each side of the chancel. The glory of the chapel is its magnificent painted ceiling in ten lower ranges, representing on one side the incidents of the Nativity, on the other those of the Passion. Above these ten more compartments give the life of Our Lord in glory. These subjects are curious; the most remarkable perhaps is the reception of Adam and Eve into Heaven by Christ. In the body of the church is a noble carved oak buffet, to serve as cupboard to the relics of S. Gonery. It has on it the Twelve Apostles and the Annunciation. The church, with the exception of the tower, is 15th cent., and the paintings are of the same period. Unhappily through neglect of attention to the roof, those near the tower are seriously injured by the wet. On the N. side of the chancel is the fine renaissance monument of Bishop Guillaume de Halgoët, 1599; on it is a recumbent figure of the prelate. Some fragments of stained glass are in the windows representing the Annunciation and Christ on the Cross. The S. porch is bold and curious, a pent-house roof sustained on huge granite corbels. Under the tower are the tomb and the "boat" of S. Gonery. The tomb is reached by descending under a structure of the 17th cent. Those afflicted with fever obtain earth from it which they tie up in little packets, and return when well. Consequently several of those little parcels of earth may be seen on the tomb. On the opposite side is the boat, in which S. Gonery and his mother Libouban came over from Britain. It is a curiously shaped stone trough, and probably actually was the sarcophagus of the Saint. It nearly resembles the stone coffins of the Merovingian period and of the 11th cent. Statues of S. Gonery and of S. Libouban are one on each side of the altar, the latter erroneously marked as N.D. de Bon Secours; the statue of the Virgin is of alabaster, and of the 15th cent., and stands on an altar in the S. chapel. The seacoast at Plougrescent is bold and fine with noble cliffs. The day of S. Gonery is July 18, but the P. is on the 4th S. in July.
Trinité-Porhoet (M.) chl. arr. Ploermel. This place takes its name from the county of Porhoet, which was formed after the expulsion of the Northmen in the 10th cent. Josselin afterwards became the seat of the Count. There was a priory here founded by the monks of S. Jacut, in or about 1050. The old parish church was pulled down in 1806 and 1807 to serve for the construction of the halles. La Trinité, which was the priory church, is now that of the parish. It retains some Romanesque pillars and arches. The choir was partly rebuilt in 1742 and 1787, when also the tower and transepts were erected. This church is an object of pilgrimage. The P. is on Trinity Sunday.
Taulé (F.) chl. arr. Morlaix. On the line to S. Pol-de-Léon. Near this is Loquenolé (S. Winwaloe), with a most interesting church containing some of the earliest work in Brittany, very early 11th cent., and possibly of 10th. Observe the curious rude sculpture.
Henvic has in its church paintings representing the story of S. Maudetus (Mawes) and his sister S. Juvetta.
Uzel (C.N.) chl. arr. Loudéac, is not a place of much interest. The church is of the 17th cent., altered in the 18th. The Chapel of Bonne Nouvelle is of the 16th cent. Some ruins of the old château of Uzel remain, and there is a house of 1620.
Merléac has a Chapel of S. Jacques of the 14th cent. at the village of Saint Léon. The central east window is perhaps the finest in the Department; the tracery is all in granite, and it contains stained glass representing eight scenes in the Life of the Virgin, and eight scenes from that of S. Jacques. There are other windows representing the Conception and the Assumption. The ceiling is painted (15th cent.) with subjects from the Life of our Lord and the legend of S. James, and a procession of angels forming a concert on seventeen instruments of music. For a study of the shapes of musical instruments of the 15th cent. this chapel should be visited.
Quillio. The church contains the woodwork transported thither from the abbey of Bon-repos. Above the altar is a suspended Pyx.
Grâce. An allée couverte at the hamlet of Bois, running N. and S. and 18 ft. long. It is composed of blocks of quartz. There are eight supporters on each side and five coverers, but only one of these latter is in place.
* VANNES (M.) chl. d'arr. Capital of the Department, and seat of a bishop. The town is not remarkably picturesque. The walls remain in places but built into, and only two gates with flanking towers have been spared. The cathedral is very disappointing, and there are few picturesque old houses. Vannes was the capital of the warlike Veneti, whom Cæsar crushed in B.C. 57, when he butchered all the chiefs and leading nobles, and sold their families into slavery. It became a Roman town, called Duriorigum, and six Roman roads struck over the country from it to Locmariaquer, Hennebont, Corseul, Rennes, Rieux, and Arzal. A Roman necropolis has been found on the site of the artillery barracks. At the beginning of the 5th cent. many towns dropped their particular names and assumed those of the peoples to which they formed centres, and then the place took the name which it has since borne in Breton, Gweneth. Christianity having made some progress among the Veneti, in 465 Perpetuus, metropolitan of Tours, assembled a council at Vannes, and consecrated to it a bishop, Paternus. The city remained Gallo-Roman; but throughout the 5th and 6th cents. British emigrants arrived in such numbers, that in 590, Regalis, the bishop, complained that he was, as it were, imprisoned within the walls of the town by them. These colonists had their own laws, princes, and ecclesiastical system, and would not recognise the bishop. In 496 we hear of an Eusebius, king or governor of the town. An alliance was entered into between the Armoricans and the Franks, and Clovis and his successors were recognised as overlords. Whether the British chieftain Weroch got into the city and established himself there is doubtful, but his son Macliau did so, on his death. Macliau was in orders, and married. On the death of the bishop he induced the clergy and people to elect him as their bishop, and to satisfy their prejudices dismissed his wife. No sooner, however, was he firmly seated on the episcopal throne, than he sent for his wife and children. About eight years later his brother Canao, secular chief of the Bretons, revolted against the Franks, whereupon Macliau proclaimed himself Count as well as Bishop. He was killed along with two of his sons in 577. Pepin occupied the city in 753, and Louis the Pious visited it at the head of an army in 818. In 843 Nominoe, governor of Brittany, shook off the yoke of Frank allegiance. Then came the invasion of the Northmen, and the disappearance of the Counts of Vannes, till 937, when Alan II., Barbetorte, friend of Athelstan, was recognised as Count, and transmitted the title to his descendants. The town walls were rebuilt in 1270. In less than a century the War of Succession broke out and Vannes had to stand four sieges in one year, 1342. John IV., conqueror at Auray in 1364, repaired the walls, and extended them. The cathedral church of S. Peter was burnt by the Northmen in the 10th cent. and was rebuilt in the 11th at the same time as the abbey church of S. Gildas de Rhuys. But the tower was added in the 13th cent. and the whole of the nave and transepts, the former in 1452-76 and the latter in 1504-27, consequently in the flamboyant style. The nave has no side aisles, but chapels between the buttresses. In 1537 Archdeacon Jean Danialo who had been in Rome, returned enthusiastic in favour of pagan architecture, and to show the canons what he admired, constructed the circular Chapel of the B. Sacrament on the north side, a beautiful structure for its style. But at the same time the chapter was building its cloisters, and they are full flamboyant tending to renaissance. The apsidal Chapel of N.D. and S. Vincent was erected at the same time also, and is thoroughly Italian. In the meantime the old Romanesque choir showed signs of falling, and was pulled down in 1770 and the present choir was built and finished in 1776. Then the chapter set to work to transform the nave. All the tracery was hacked out of the windows, and a plain barrel vault was added. The W. tower has had a spire added to it recently, and the W. front was "restored" in feeble style in 1868-73. Then the architect was entrusted with filling the windows with tracery; and he, not comprehending the character of the nave, inserted tracery of a century earlier in style. The N. transept had a fine doorway, but it has been blocked up for a hideous baroque retable and altar to stand against it. Thus the church, never very fine, has lost much of its character and interest. In the N. transept is the tomb of S. Vincent Ferrier, and above it his bust in silver. Vincent was born at Valence in 1357, and in 1374 entered his novitiate among the Dominicans. He was sent to Barcelona and Lerida to give lessons in philosophy, but threw up the study and devoted himself to preaching, and rambled through France, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland and Ireland, as a revivalist preacher, but, of course, in such countries as did not understand his tongue, the effect of his sermons was lost. He spent two years in Brittany, where he cannot have been of any use, as the peasants could not comprehend French. He died at Vannes on the 5th April 1419, but the Pardon is on the 1st Sunday in September. The other churches of Vannes are not worth looking at. That of S. Paternus was built in 1727. The Museum of Archæology of the Societé Polymathique du Morbihan contains many interesting objects from the dolmens and tumuli of the Morbihan.
Vannes is situated at the distance of 5 kilometres from the Morbihan, the inland sea that gives its name to the Department. Almost every day two little steamers leave the port for the islets, but the time of starting depends on the tide. The Gulf of the Morbihan is some 8 miles long and about 15 miles wide. It communicates with the sea by a narrow mouth only three-quarters of a mile across. It is nowhere deep; from 45 to 60 ft. is its depth. It is studded with low islands, of which at the outside forty are inhabited and some fifty are cultivated. The inhabitants live by fishing, and all the men are sailors.
This inland sheet of water is cut off from the ocean by two great crab's claws, the peninsula of Sarzeau and that of Locmariaquer. The scenery is by no means bold; sandy shores and low islets, and mud banks at the fall of the tide. The archipelago is, however, very interesting because of the numerous prehistoric remains on the islands.
The Isle of Arz is about two miles long. Here was formerly a priory dependent on S. Gildas, and it possesses a Romanesque church, unhappily repaired and remodelled at various epochs. Near the little Cap de Brohel and in the islet of Boëdic are megalithic monuments. At Penraz, south-east of the village, is half of a cromlech or circle of stones 60 ft. in diameter. At Cap Brohel, ruined dolmens and fallen menhirs; at Pen-lious three fallen dolmens and some menhirs. P. 8th September.
Ile aux Moines is separated from the Ile d'Arz by a channel 60 ft. deep at low tide. The ancient name of the island was Crialeis, in Breton it is Ines Menah or Izenah. The prehistoric monuments in it are: the great circle of stones at Kergonan, of which only half remains; the fine dolmen of Penhap, some menhirs, and the ruined dolmens of Broel, Vigie, Kerno, Roh-vras, Roh-vihan, Niol and Pon-niol. The island was granted by Erespoe to the monks of Redon, but after the devastation by the Northmen it was lost to the monks of Redon. The church is modern and is dedicated to S. Michael. P. 29th September. The island was colonised after the Northmen had swept it of its inhabitants, by settlers from Rhuys. The costume of the women is almost the same, but of a more antique cut and character. All the islands in this inland sea, like the mainland have sunk at least 16 ft. since prehistoric times. In the little islet of Er Lannig are two cromlechs, or circles of standing stones; one is half submerged, and the other completely under water, even at low tides.
Gavrinis lies to the east of the Ile aux Moines. Although less important than those already described, it is the most interesting of all in the Morbihan, on account of its tumulus, 25 ft. high, that covers a fine covered gallery, the stones of which are elaborately carved with mysterious signs like the tattoo-marks of New Zealanders. A gallery 40 ft. long leads to the central chamber, which is 5 ft. high and 6 ft. 6 in. wide. The blocks are of a fine grained granite, not of the island, but brought from a distance, with the exception of two, that are of quartz, and these are unsculptured. Such as are carved, were clearly so dealt with before they were erected in place, as the working passes round the edges.
Er-lanic is situated half a kilometre to the south-east of Gavrinis, and here are the two cromlechs already mentioned, one dipping into the sea, the other already in deep water. They are juxtaposed, forming an 8, and lie on the S. E. of the island. The first circle consists of 180 stones, but several are fallen, and it can only be seen complete when the tide is out. One stone is 16 ft. high. The second circle can only be seen at low tides.
Ile longue contains a cairn that also covers a gallery. It has not been fully examined.
Saint Avée. The church is poor and uninteresting, but in the churchyard is a curious cross, with platform from which, according to local tradition, capital sentences were pronounced. On one side is the crucifix, on the other the B.V.M. On the sides S. John the Baptist and S. Peter. In the church are two windows middle pointed. There is a lech in the churchyard at the east end of the church. But what is of far higher value than the parish church is the remarkable chapel in the Bourg-bas, which is flamboyant (1475-94), except the N. transept that is 2nd pointed. Between the nave and the choir and transepts is a tall crucifix enriched with niches, with railing and gates at the side, a totally unusual description of roodscreen. The crucifix is certainly of 1500. The transepts contain four altars with their original retables. The first on the N. side has very rude carving representing the Crucifixion, Christ in Glory, and the B. Virgin crowned (?) with a dove by her. The second and third are plain with graceful border of foliage. The fourth is a splendid bit of alabaster work, probably Flemish, and represents a virgin saint, the Crucifixion, a saint, Christ giving benediction, S. Avée (?), a Queen-saint, S. Mary Magdalen and a Mermaid. There are some early statues in the chapel, an admirable S. Lucy of the 15th cent., the drapery splendidly executed. Such early statues are very rare. Another is of S. Columbanus. Some fragments of old glass are in the windows. In the churchyard is a very curious carved Calvary of unique character, also a Holy Well. The E. window of the chancel is flamboyant of a later character than the rest. In the N. transept is one flamboyant, the tracery forming a fleur-de-lys. The others are middle pointed. The chapel has a slate spirelet. S. of the chapel by the roadside is a lech with a crucifix planted on top of it. The camp of La Villeneuve is of undetermined date. To reach it the road to Josselin must be taken and diverged from to the left to Mangolorian. Near this hamlet is the camp on a steep hill, almost impracticable on all sides but the west, where it is defended by two ranges of ditches and by two walls. The camp is called either Villeneuve or Kastel-Kerneué.
The Vallon de Poignan is within an easy stroll from Vannes. The road to Pontivy is followed as far as the Chapel of S. Guen, and then a lane to the right leads to some curious rocks, one of which is fancifully called a Druid altar. The road to Josselin is then entered, and a lane to the right conducts to the picturesque, rocky valley of Poignan, at the end of an avenue of oaks.
Plescop. Of little interest; it has a couple of lechs in the churchyard, and a flamboyant chapel, without much character, to S. Amon, possibly the father of S. Samson, who came from the neighbourhood of Vannes, but usually supposed to have been a returned crusader who asked at Plescop for milk, and as he was refused, cursed the place that its cows should never yield good milk and butter. As he was found dead in a furze-brake next morning he has received cult as a saint. Part of his skull is in a carved oak bust in the chapel, but is not exposed to veneration, as authenticating documents are non-extant. P. 4th Sunday in October.
Surzur. Three menhirs 15 ft. high are near the hamlet of Begard, and two ruined allées couvertes are in the coppice of Talhoet. A dolmen and two fallen menhirs near it at the hamlet of Vinihy. The parish church of S. Symphorian is a Romanesque building but altered later. The arcades, the doors and windows are semi-circular. There is a central tower at the crossing of the transepts surmounted by a slate spire. The Chapel of N.D. de Recouvrance is of the 16th cent.
S. Nolff. The church is partly of the 16th cent. It has been restored not wisely but too well. The Chapel of S. Anne, 1493, has a fine east window with stained glass representing Our Lord and seven saints. The other windows are filled with glaring modern glass.
Sulniac. The parish church dates from several periods. Four pillars and arches are Romanesque, as well as a window near the porch; the other windows and arcades are later. The nave was rebuilt in fancy Romanesque in 1893.
* VITRÉ (I.V.) chl. d'arr. A very picturesque town, rivalling Fougères in objects of interest. It stands on a hill above the Vilaine, and notwithstanding the destruction of a portion of its ramparts, is one of the French towns that has best retained the features of the Middle Ages. But on the side of the railway station all is modern and uninteresting. To see the old Vitré it is necessary to enter and pursue the ancient and narrow streets, which form an inextricable tangle. The houses are mostly slated in front. On the N. side the town assumes a feudal character. Here the walls stand on the black schist rock, and are only pierced by a single postern that gives access to a steep descent by steps into the valley. The castle, on a triangular plan, was founded at the close of the 11th cent. and was reconstructed in the 14th and 15th. The entrance is flanked by two towers. The castle is used partly as a prison and partly as a museum. The Church of Notre Dame is of the 15th and 16th cents., and has a tower crowned with a spire of the 18th cent. Outside the church is a stone pulpit. There is some old glass of the renaissance period: the entry into Jerusalem, the Adoration of the Shepherds, a representation of the burning of the tower of the church in 1704. The church also contains a remarkable triptych of the 16th cent., representing in 32 little groups on enamelled copper scenes from the New Testament. On the back is an inscription in rhyme. The church of S. Martin is modern; the old church is in the cemetery and dates in part from the 16th century.
