Brittany contained two distinct
orders of nobility. The first derived its titles from the King of
France and displayed in a very marked degree the defects and the
qualities which characterised the French nobility. The other was of
Celtic origin and thoroughly Breton. This latter nobility comprised,
from the period of the invasion, the chief men of the parish, the
leaders of the people, of the same race as them, possessing by
inheritance the right of marching at their head and representing them.
No one was more deserving of respect than this country nobleman when
he remained a peasant, innocent of all intrigues or of any effort to
grow rich: but when he came to reside in town he lost nearly all
his good qualities and contributed but little to the moral and
intellectual progress of the country.
The Revolution seemed for this agglomeration of priests and monks
neither more nor less than a death warrant. The last of the bishops of
Treguier left one evening by a back door leading into the wood behind
his palace and fled to England. The concordat abolished the bishopric,
and the unfortunate town was not even given a sub-prefect, Lannion and
Guingamp, which are larger and busier, being selected in preference.
But large buildings, fitted up so as to fulfil only one object, nearly
always lead to the reconstitution of the object to which they were
destined. We may say morally what is not true physically: when the
hollows of a shell are very deep, these hollows have the power of
re-forming the animal moulded in them.
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