Next, on descending, we caught sight of Madame, taking the air and contemplating the world at large at the door of her bureau.  The moment we appeared the air became too strong for her, and she rapidly passed through her bureau to a sanctum sanctorum beyond, into which, of course, we could not penetrate.  We looked upon this as a tacit confession of a guilty conscience, and agreed magnanimously to make no further allusion to her lapsed memory.  So when we at length met face to face, she, like Andre, was full of amiable inquiries for our health and welfare.

We sallied forth, and whatever we thought of Morlaix last night, we thought no less of it to-day.

It is a strange mixture of ancient and modern, as we were prepared to find it.  On all sides rose the steep hills, within the shelter of which the town reposes.  The situation is exceedingly striking.  Stretching across one end of the town with most imposing effect is the enormous viaduct, over which the train rolls towards the station.  It possesses also a footway for pedestrians, from which point the whole town lies mapped at your feet, and you may trace the faraway windings of the river.  The viaduct is nearly two hundred feet high, and nearly four hundred yards long, and from its position it looks even more gigantic than it is.  It divides the town into two portions, as it were, the outer portion consisting of the port and harbour:  and from this footway far down you may see the picturesque shipping at repose:  a very modest amount to-day moored to the river side, consisting of a few barges, a vessel or two laden with coal or wood, and a steamer in which you might take passage for Havre, or perhaps some nearer port on the Brittany Coast.

It is a charming picture, especially if the skies overhead are blue and the sun is shining.  Then the town is lying in alternate light and shade; the pavements are chequered with gabled outlines, long drawn out or foreshortened according to their position.  The canal bordering the old market-place is lined with a long row of women, alternately beating linen upon boards and rinsing it in the water.  We know that they are laughing and chattering, though we cannot hear them; for a group of even sober Breton women could not be together and keep silence.  They take life very seriously and earnestly; with them it is not all froth and evaporation; but this is their individual view of existence; collectively there comes the reaction, forming the lights and shadows of life, just as we have the lights and shadows in nature.  That reaction must come is the inevitable law; and possibly explains why there are so many apparent contradictions in people.

Morlaix has had an eventful history in the annals of Brittany.  It takes its name from Mons Relaxus, the hill that was crowned by the ancient castle; a castle which existed at the time of the Roman occupation, if the large number of medals and pieces of Roman money discovered in its foundations may be taken as indicating its epoch.  Many of these remains may be seen in the small museum of the town.  They date from the third century.