Now without hope no one can be constitutionally happy, and the Bretons would be amongst the unhappiest on earth, just as they are amongst the most slow-moving, if it were not for a counterbalancing quality which they own in large excess.  This virtue is veneration; and it is this which saves them.

They are the most earnest and devoted, almost superstitiously religious of people.  They observe their Sabbaths, their fasts and feasts with a severity and punctuality beyond all praise.  With few exceptions, their churches are very inferior to those of Normandy, but each returning Sunday finds the Breton churches full of an earnest crowd, evidently assembled for the purpose of worshipping with their whole heart and soul.  The rapt expression of many of the faces makes them for the moment simply beautiful, and if an artist could only transfer their fervency to canvas, he would produce a picture worthy of the masters of the Middle Ages, and read a lesson to the world far greater than that of an Angelus or a Magdalene.

It is a sight worth going very far to see, these earnest worshippers, with whom the head is never turned and the eye never wanders.  The further you pass into the interior of Brittany—­into the remote districts of the Morbihan, for instance—­where the outer world, with its advancement and civilization, scarcely seems to have penetrated, there fervency and devotion are still full of the element of superstition; there you will find that faith becomes almost synonymous with a strict observance of prayers, penances and the commands of the Church.  When the Angelus rings out in the evening, you will see the labourer, wending his way homeward, suddenly arrest his steps in the ploughed field, and with bent head, pass in silent prayer the dying moments of crepuscule.

There will scarcely be an exception to the rule, either in men or women.  The reverence has grown with their growth, having first been born with them of inheritance:  the heritage and the growth of centuries.  All over the country you will find Calvaries erected:  huge stone crosses and images of the Crucifixion, many of them crumbling and beautiful with the lapse of ages, the stone steps at their base worn with the devotion of pilgrims:  crosses that stand out so solemnly and picturesquely in the gloaming against the background of the grey, cold Breton skies, and give a religious tone to the whole country.

The Bretons have ever remained a race apart, possessing their own language, their own habits, manners and customs; not becoming absorbed with other nations, nor absorbing in themselves any foreign element.  Separated from Normandy by no visible boundary line, divided by no broad Channel, the Bretons are as different from the Normans as the Normans are distinct from the English.  They have a high standard of integrity, of right and wrong, there is the distinct feeling of Noblesse oblige amongst them; their noblesse consisting in the fact that, being Breton, il faut agir loyalement.  If they pass you their word, you may be sure they will not go from it:  it is as good as their bond.  They are a hundred years behind the rest of mankind, but there is a great charm and a great compensation in their simplicity.