The shades of night had quite fallen upon the old town when we went out to reconnoitre.  It would only be possible to gain a faint and scarcely true impression of what the town was like.  At night, new things often look old, and old new, outlines are magnified, and general effects are altogether lost.  The river ran down the quay like a dark and sluggish thread; there was no poetry or romance about it.  The banks were built up with granite, which made it look more like a canal than a river.  To be at all picturesque it wanted the addition of boats and barges, of which just now it was free and void.  The trees whispered in the night breeze.  On the opposite bank, covering a large space, a fair was holding its revelry; a small pandemonium; shows were lighted up with flaring gas, and houris in spangles danced and threw out their fascinations.  Big drums and trumpets made night hideous.  The high cliffs beyond served as a sort of sounding-board, so that nothing was lost.

We turned away and soon found ourselves in the cathedral square.  Before us rose the great building in all its majesty, distinctly outlined against the dark sky.  In Brittany, one rather hungers for these fine ecclesiastical monuments, Normandy is so full of them that we miss them here.  Brittany has the advantage in its old towns, but the mind sometimes asks for something higher and more perfect than mere street architecture.

[Illustration:  BRITTANY PEASANT.]

Therefore, even to-night, in the darkness, we revelled and gloried in the magnificent cathedral that stood before us in such grand proportions.  The spires seemed to touch the skies.  The west front was in deep shadow.  We traced the outlines of flying buttresses, of heavier buttresses between the windows, of the beautiful apse.  The windows, faintly lighted up, added wonderfully to the effect.  Surely the church was not closed?  We tried the west door, it yielded, and we entered.

The interior was in semi-darkness; a gloom that almost inspired awe; a silence and repose which forbade the faintest echo of our footsteps.  Pillars and aisles and arches could be barely outlined.  Everything seemed dim and intangible; we felt that we were going through a vision, there was so little that was real or earthly about it; so much that was beautiful, mysterious, full of repose and saintly influence.  The far east end was lost in obscurity, and we could barely trace the outlines of the splendid roof.  Far down, near a confessional, knelt a small group of hooded women, motionless as carven images.  Their heads were bowed, their whole attitude betrayed the penitential mood.  There might have been eight or ten at most, and they never stirred.  But every now and then a fair penitent issued from the confessional box; and, cloaked and hooded, glided back to the seat she had lately occupied, and resumed the penitential attitude.  The ceremony was drawing near its end when we entered, and when all was over they rose in a group and, noiselessly as phantoms, like spirits from the land of shadows, passed down the long aisle and disappeared into the night.