town has seven thousand inhabitants.  Some we saw within their houses; and here and there the sound of the loom broke the deadly silence, and in small cottages pale-faced men bent laboriously over their shuttles.  The looms were large and seemed to take up two-thirds of the room, which was evidently the living-room also.  Many were furnished with large open cabinets or wardrobes carved in Breton work, rough but genuine.

Passing up the long narrow street leading to the open and deserted market-place, the Chapelle de Creisker rises before you with its wonderful clock-tower that is still the pride of the town.  The original chapel, according to tradition, was founded by a young girl whom St. Kirec, Archdeacon of Leon in the sixth century, had miraculously cured of paralysis; but the greater part of the present chapel, including the tower and spire, was built towards the end of the fourteenth century, by John IV., Duke of Brittany.  The porches are fifteenth century; the north porch, in the Flamboyant style, being richly decorated with figures and foliage deeply and elaborately carved.  On the south side are six magnificent windows, unfortunately not filled in with magnificent glass.  The interior possesses nothing remarkable, excepting its fine rose window and the opposite east window, distinguished for their size and tracery.

The tower is its glory.  It is richly ornamented, and surmounted by a cornice so projecting that, until the eye becomes accustomed to it, the slender tower beneath seems overweighted:  an impression not quite lost at a first visit.  The light and graceful tower, two hundred and sixty-three feet high, rises between the nave and the choir, upon four arches sustained by four quadrangular pillars four yards wide, composed of innumerable small columns almost resembling bundles of rods, in which the arms of Jean Pregent, Chancellor of Brittany and Bishop of Leon in 1436, may be seen on the keystone of each arch.  The upper tower, like those of the cathedral, is pierced by narrow bays, supported on either side by false bays.  From the upper platform, with its four-leaved balustrade, rises the beautiful open-work spire, somewhat resembling that of St. Peter’s at Caen, and flanked by four turrets.  This tower is said to have been built by an English architect, but there is no authority for the tradition.

Proceeding onwards to the market-place, there rises the cathedral, far better placed than many of the cathedrals abroad.  It is one of the remarkable buildings of Brittany, possessing certain distinguishing features peculiar to the Breton churches.

The cathedral dates from three periods.  A portion of the north transept is Romanesque; the nave, west front, and towers date from the thirteenth century and the commencement of the fourteenth; the interior, almost entirely Gothic, and very striking, lost much of its beauty when restored in 1866.  It is two hundred and sixty feet long and fifty-two feet high to the vaulting, the latter being attributed to William of Rochefort, who was Bishop of Leon in 1349.  The towers are very fine, with central storeys pierced by lancet windows, like those of the Creisker.  The south transept has a fine circular window, with tracery cut in granite.