Chapter I: The Loire in Brittany

At Ancenis, the Loire, that mighty river which rises near the frontier of Garde, a Mediterranean department, enters Brittany on its way to the Atlantic. For more than nine hundred kilometres above this point, the Loire has been navigable for such fresh-water craft as usually are found upon great waterways, and, having passed Orleans, Blois, and Tours, and broadened out into a great, wide, shallow stream, it is to be reckoned as one of the world’s great rivers. Mostly its appearance is that of a broad, tranquil, docile stream, with scarce enough depth of water to make a respectable current, leaving its bed with its bars of sand and pebbles bare to the sky. This lack of depth, except at occasional flood, is the principal and obvious reason for the comparative absence of water-borne traffic.

At the times of the great freshets there are twenty-three feet or more registered on the huge black and white scale of the bridge at Ancenis, and again it falls to less than a fourth of that height, and then there is a mere rivulet of water trickling through the broad channel at Chaumont, at Blois, or at Orleans.

In the olden time, as one passed from Anjou into Brittany, by way of the valley of the Loire, he came to a great barrier across the road,--a veritable frontier post, with a custom-house and examiners, as if one were passing into a foreign country. The Revolution changed all this, and now nothing but another of that vast family of great, white departmental boundary-posts marks the dividing line between the Maine et Loire and the Loire-Inférieure, the border departments between the old province of the Counts of Anjou and that of the Breton dukes.

Just above Ancenis, one passes vineyard after vineyard, and château after château follows rapidly in turn,--all very delightful, as Pepys would have said. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, quite the ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, and one is only too glad to leave it behind, though it is with a real regret that he parts from Ancenis itself.

Ancenis is one of those blessed spots possessing a château; it is endowed with a wonderfully picturesque situation, and, moreover, is capable of catering for the inner man in so satisfactory a manner that one can but put it down in his books as one of the spots to be favoured. The Barons of Ancenis were a long and picturesque line, and their local fame has by no means perished. The old-time château, constructed in the fifteenth century, was the masterwork of a famous Angevin architect, Jean Lespine by name. To-day this fine building, or what is left of it, has become an Ursuline boarding-house. Much is still left to tell the story of its former greatness, but it is not so accessible as one would like.

The most that can be remarked is a great doorway flanked by two towers, with overpowering machicolations, another smaller tower,--a _tourelle_, the French themselves would call it,--and a ruined pavilion, where, in 1468, Francis, Duke of Brittany, signed a treaty with Louis XI. On the market-house of Ancenis is superimposed a sort of a belfry which, seen in conjunction with the low-lying river-bank, imparts a low-country aspect to the town. The old streets of Ancenis give shelter to many fine mediæval houses, of which the most notable is perhaps the old “house of the Croix de Lorraine.”

Below Ancenis, navigation is not so difficult, but the river current is more strong. For a long distance, on the right bank, extends a dike, carrying the roadway beside the river for a matter of a hundred kilometres. This is one of the charms of travel by the Loire. When you see any animation on its bosom, save an occasional fishing-punt, neither it nor its occupant usually very animated, it is one of those great flat-bottomed ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a yard amidships, such as Turner always made an accompaniment to his Loire landscapes.

Conditions of traffic thereon have not changed much since those days. Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy of classification with those on the rivers of the east or north, or of the canals, it is only about a quarter of the usual size, so, altogether, in spite of its great navigable length, the waterway of the Loire is more valuable as a picturesque and healthful element of the landscape than as a commercial artery. Below Nantes is the “section maritime,” which from Nantes to the sea is a matter of some sixty kilometres. Here the boats increase in number and size. They are known as lighters, barges, and tenders, and go down with the river current and return on the incoming ebb, for here the river is tidal.

From this one gathers that the Loire, so noble and magnificent, is the most aristocratic river of France, and so, too, it is with respect to its associations of the past.

It has not the grandeur of the Rhône when the spring freshets from the Jura and the Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; and it has not the burning activity of the Seine, as it bears its thousands of boat-loads of produce and merchandise to and from market; it has not the prettiness of the Thames, or the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but, in a way, it combines something of the features of all, and has, in addition, a tone that is all its own, as it sweeps the horizon through its countless miles of ample curves, and holds within its embrace all that is best of mediæval and Renascence France, the period which built up the later monarchy and--who shall say not?--the present prosperous nation.

The Loire is essentially a river of other days. Truly, as Mr. James has said, “it is the very model of a generous, beneficent stream.... A wide river which you may follow by a wide road is excellent company.” The Frenchman himself is more flowery. “It is the noblest river of France. Its basin is immense, magnificent.” All of which is true, too. For a good bit of local colour of this region, one should read Chapter V. of “The Regent’s Daughter,” by Dumas, wherein the willing Gaston, in the midday sunshine of a winter’s day, made his way from Nantes to Paris, “travelling slowly as far as Oudon opposite Champtoceaux.” “At Oudon he halted and put up at the Char-Couronne, an inn with windows overlooking the highroad.” Some stirring events took place here, but the reader is referred to the pages of Dumas for the details.

Oudon, however, will not detain the cursory traveller of to-day, even if he deigns to visit it at all.

Champtoceaux, on the other hand, though only a small town of thirteen hundred inhabitants, does awaken interest. Formerly it belonged to the Counts of Anjou, and then to the Dukes of Brittany.

Its site is most picturesque; it stands on a mound some two hundred feet above the Loire. There are two fine mediæval churches, and an old château, which, with the ruins of the ancient fortified castle, now forms a part of the domain of a M. de la Touche, who will kindly permit the visitor to inspect the details of this ancient feudal stronghold.

The dismantled old walls are covered with moss and lichens, and their picturesqueness is of that quality that painters love to put on canvas. The wonder is that Champtoceaux has not become a new artists’ sketching-ground, such as are so often discovered--or rediscovered--throughout France. Perhaps it is because of its distance from Paris, for your artist-painter, be he French, English, or American, dearly loves the streets of the Latin Quarter, and, as a rule, prefers Fontainebleau and its circle of artist colonies to going farther afield.

At last one beholds what a Frenchman has called the “tumultuous vision of Nantes.” To-day the very ancient and historic city which grew up from the Portus Nannetum and the Condivientum of the Romans is indeed a veritable tumult of chimneys, masts and smokestacks, and locomotives. But all this will not detract one jot from its reputation of being one of the most delightful of provincial capitals, and the smoke and activity of its port only tend to accentuate the note of colour, which in the whole itinerary of the Loire has been but pale.

The former reputation of Nantes as a little capital where gaiety and wealth came in abundance is correct for to-day, but a comparison is interesting. Here is a reminiscence of old stage-coaching days, when the post took four days to make the journey from Paris:

“The neighbourhood of the theatre is magnificent, all the streets being at right angles and of white stone. One is in doubt as to whether the Hôtel Henri IV. is not the finest inn in Europe.” (It must have disappeared since those days, but really its reputation still lives in any one of the three leading hotels.) “Dessein’s” (also disappeared) “at Calais is larger, but is not built, fitted up, or furnished like this, which is new. It cost nearly five hundred thousand francs, and contains sixty bedrooms. It is without comparison the first inn of France, and very cheap withal.

“The theatre must have cost a like sum, and, when its seats are full, holds 120 louis d’or. The ground that the inn is built upon cost nine francs a foot, and elsewhere in the city one may pay as much as fifteen francs. This ground value induces them to build so high as to be destructive of beauty.” Unquestionably this last observation was quite true then, as it is now, but Nantes nevertheless fills very nearly every qualification of a well-laid-out and attractive city.

To some Nantes will be reminiscent of Venice, or at least some Dutch city, for its five river branches are continually crossing and recrossing one’s path in most bewildering fashion, and bridges confront one at every turn.

The city’s attractions are many, from its great cathedral and its château-fortress, enclosing a beautiful edifice wherein once lived the Duchess Anne, to its great hotels, cafés, and shops of modern times.

Five great events of history stand forth prominent in the memory of the very name of Nantes: the struggle of John of Montfort against Charles of Blois for the ducal power; the affairs of the League; the famous Edict; the Cellamare conspiracy; and the rising of the Vendeans and the rascally Carrier’s retaliation in Revolutionary days.

Each and every one of these were vivid and bloody enough to furnish inexhaustible material for a novelist of the Dumas school, should he rise in the future, for the half has not yet been used. It was in the Place of Bouffay that that execution of the Breton conspirators took place, of which we read in the graphic pages of Dumas. Gaston, who sought to deliver his former companions, was posting along the road to Nantes with their reprieve safely guarded. Before the age of steam and electricity, news travelled slowly, and Sèvres, Versailles, Rambouillet, Chartres, Mans, and Angers were then far apart. But the faithful Gaston travelled fast, one of the bystanders at Rambouillet calling to him: “If you go at that pace, you will kill more than one team between here and Nantes.”

Gradually he learned that a “courier of the minister’s” had passed that way. This was the beginning of what Dumas called the “tragedy of Nantes.” The event was historical, and Dumas’s account was most dramatic, yet did not differ greatly from the facts. Gaston arrived too late. Talhouet was dead, and the Place of Bouffay reeked with the blood of the conspirators, who, guilty though they were, had received the pardon of the Regent. The cry of De Conedic, as he bent his head to the block, still echoes down through history: “See how they recompense the services of faithful soldiers! Ye cowards of Bretagne,” he cried, as the sword of the executioner fell upon him. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty. One of the corpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand,--it was the pardon of the other four, for the bearer had arrived too late. Thus finished “the tragedy of Nantes.”

Though this part of Brittany has the reputation of being the least illiterate of any, as late as the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century might be seen at Nantes the sign of the public scrivener, which read:

ÉCRIVAIN PUBLIQUE
_10 centimes par lettre_

Below Nantes the Loire basin has turned the surrounding country into a little Holland, where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of red and blue, form charming symphonies of dull colour. In the drinking-places along its shores there is a strange medley of peasants, seafarers, and fisher men and women. Not so cosmopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbour-side drinking-places at Marseilles, or even at Havre, but sufficiently strange to be a fascination to one who has just come down from the headwaters.

Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire’s source, and green and gray it still is, though of a decidedly different colour value, at St. Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water port of the Loire. By this time the river has amplified itself into a broad estuary, and is lost in the incoming and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay. From its source the Loire has wound its way gently, broadly, and with placid grandeur through rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and luxurious towns, all historic ground, by stately châteaux and through vineyards and fruit-orchards. Now it becomes more or less prosaic and matter of fact, though, in a way, no less interesting, as it takes on some of the attributes of the outside world.

Here one gives the last glance to the Loire, as an inland waterway, for, by the time Nantes is passed, it is of the sea salty. Here the Sèvre Nantaise comes from the Department Deux-Sèvres and numerous other streams broaden the lower river until it meets the bay at St. Nazaire, where coasters and deep-sea fishermen take the place of boat-haulers and vineyard-workers as picturesque accessories to the landscape.

Jacobites and their sympathizers will take pleasure in noting that it was in the early days of St. Nazaire’s importance as a port that the Young Pretender set sail thence in 1745, in a frigate provided by a Mr. Walsh of Nantes.

It is only now that one realizes to the full the gamut through which run the varying moods of the Loire, from the hard, sterile lands around Le Puy through the pleasant Nivernais, the Orleanais, the vineyards of Saumur, to the Sardinières and the salt works of the marshes of Bourg de Batz and Croisic.

It was from Croisic that Talhouet, one of the Breton conspirators of “The Regent’s Daughter,” threatened to set sail if discovered in their dastardly plot against the Regent.

“I shall be off to St. Nazaire,” said he, “and from thence to Croisic; take my advice and come with me. I know a brig about to start for Newfoundland, and the captain is a servant of mine. If the air on shore become too bad, we will embark, set sail, and adieu to the galleys.” “Well, I for one,” said his companion, “am a Breton, and Bretons trust only in God.”

South of the Loire, in that small fragment of territory which formerly belonged to the old province, is a wonderful collection of old-time and gone-to-seed towns hardly ever visited by the general run of tourists.

Paimbœuf and Pornic and Clisson are the three places which appeal most strongly, and this chiefly by their accessibility to Nantes. To the southwest is the Lake of Grand Lieu, which, according to an ancient Armorican legend, was the former site of a city “flourishing, but dissolute,” which was submerged for its sins by the command of God. This sounds apocryphal, but the moral is plain.

Anciently the Retz country, lying just southward of the Loire, formed a part of the ancient Breton province, and, although before the Revolution and the rearrangement of provinces and departments anew this member had been shorn away, yet Paimbœuf, on the south bank of the Loire, just beyond Nantes, is of Breton nomenclature, known in French as Tête de Bœuf. To-day it is but a relic of a former great port, now deserted; St. Nazaire, its younger relative, with much more ample commercial resources, has drawn its trade away, and its quays and docks are now unoccupied, except by coasters and fishing-boats.

Paimbœuf has already become depopulated, and the former little fishing port of Pornic daily takes on more and more importance.

Pornic itself has a charm which Paimbœuf entirely lacks. It is a lively little fishing village of perhaps two thousand inhabitants. The port, the bay, and the canal which empties into the salt waters of the Atlantic form a delightful setting for artists’ foregrounds, let the backgrounds be what they may. At present, it has taken on somewhat of the aspect of a watering-place, but it is safe to say that it will never become popular as such, in spite of the fact that a casino has already made its appearance.

In addition to the charm of its situation, the chief attraction of Pornic is its thirteenth and fourteenth century château, with its fine towers and machicolations. Its history, like that of most others of its kind, has been romantic, and by no means has it always had the placid aspect which it has to-day. It was taken from Gilles de Retz by the Dukes of Brittany during the civil wars, and to-day belongs to a M. de Bourquency, who has restored it admirably.

At the foot of the château is a great cross of stone, called the Croix of the Huguenots, erected, it is said, by converted Calvinists. At the foot of this cross are buried the bones of over two hundred Vendeans killed at Pornic.

Clisson is a small town of something less than three thousand inhabitants, whose very name will conjure up memories of the great Constable Olivier de Clisson. There is much here of interest, but the history of the town, the château, and of De Clisson himself are so interwoven with the affairs of state and warfare of the nation that the outline even may not be given here. The ruins of the old-time château are a wonderfully impressive reminder of other days, other ways. As a whole, it is a grand ruin only, although an architect or archaeologist may build up somewhat of an approach to the former glorious fabric. The great central tower has not even preserved its walls entire, but what is left stands to-day as one of the most imposing examples of a great feudal keep yet extant. Clisson has some right to be considered up to date, in that some enterprising inhabitant has introduced an electric light plant. In spite of this, however, the donjon is one of those architectural splendours of the world which, like the Coliseum at Rome and Melrose Abbey, should be seen by moonlight in order to be rightly appreciated.

The chapel, in which was celebrated the marriage of Duke Francis II. and Margaret of Foix, the keep, the dungeons, the ramparts, and the chief apartments occupied by the constable himself have been preserved, and make Clisson well worth the half-day it will take to go there from Nantes.