of tone; no lights and shadows.  A dark grey-green it was originally, and so it remains.  Thus, in point of effect, a church built of Kersanton stone two centuries ago might, as far as appearance goes, almost have been built yesterday.  This is a great defect; and interferes very much with the charm of some of Brittany’s best churches.  It is hard, cold and severe, without refinement, poetry or romance.

In some cases it atones somewhat by its richness and elaborateness of sculpture, as in the case of St. Thegonnec.  The west front of this church is Gothic, of the fourteenth century.  One of the turrets has a small, elegant spire, and at the S.W. angle there is a very effective domed tower bearing the date 1605.

You enter the churchyard by a triumphal arch, in Renaissance dated 1587.  It is large and massive, with a great amount of detail substantially introduced, its summit crowned by a number of crosses.  On the frieze St. Thegonnec is represented conducting a waggon drawn by an ox:  a facsimile of the waggon that is said to have assisted in carrying the stone to build the church.  St. Thegonnec is the patron saint of all animals, and to him the peasants appeal for success and good-luck in such matters.

Adjoining the triumphal arch is a Flamboyant ossuary or mortuary chapel, dated 1581, richly gabled, in perfect preservation, and of two storeys.  The first consists of semicircular arches supported by small pillars with Corinthian capitals.  A short staircase within leads to a crypt converted into a small chapel, in which is an entombment formed of life-size figures carved in wood, gilded and painted, bearing date 1702.  The calvary in the churchyard, a remarkable monument, completes the history, by a multitude of small statues representing all the principal episodes of the Passion.  Its date is 1610.  Even the crosses are surmounted by statuettes, as if the designer had not known how to heap up sufficient richness of ornamentation.  The carved pulpit in the interior of the church is also remarkable.

We could only devote an hour to St. Thegonnec; Guimiliau had still to be seen, and we wished to be back in Morlaix by a certain time, for “the night cometh.”  Fortunately the drive was not a long one.

Guimiliau is a village not half the size of St. Thegonnec, and is even less civilized.  Into the inn, which no doubt is respectable, but was rough and primitive, we did not venture.  The driver and the landlord were apparently on excellent terms, and whilst they fraternised over their glasses, we inspected the church.

The place takes its name from Miliau, a king of the Cornouaille, who was treacherously murdered by his brother Rivod, who then proclaimed himself king about the year 531.  The church and the people canonised him, and he has become the patron saint of many a Breton village.