Resurgam

St Malo was from Wales, and supposedly a disciple of the Irish saint Brendan. But he ended up in Brittany, where a whole town is named after him. (So too are the Falkland Islands, las islas Malvinas.) During troubled times in the 1590’s, the town of St Malo declared itself independent of Brittany, though as the arms over the gate (above) show, it did return to the fold, four years later. The saying goes that a malouin is a man of St Malo first, a Breton, maybe, and a Frenchman if there’s anything left.

At the end of August 1944, there was little left of St Malo within the old walled town. The man in charge had planned another Stalingrad, insisting, “I am a German soldier and a German soldier does not surrender.” Eventually he did, after two weeks’ pounding that pulverised the mediæval cathedral and the elegant sea-captains’ houses that nestled within the ramparts.

The rebuilding deserves to win every award going. Guide books tell us that we have to look closely to spot what is new. Not quite so. There is restoration, there is reconstruction and there is replacement. The finesse goes down as the hierarchy proceeds. But the concern for honesty is matched by a concern for context and even the replacements respect the rules on height and massing and are finished in traditional materials. The cathedral spire is the one structure allowed to pierce the skyline. To wander the still-narrow lanes crammed with slate-roofed granite buildings is to forget, and certainly to forgive, their sleek post-war lines. Would that Exeter or Plymouth had shared the vision.

St Vincent’s Cathedral (left) is the high point of the rebuilding, a dark Gothic cavern lit by way of astonishing glass in reds and yellows and blues, set in patterns that seem to flicker like flames. In side chapels are the plain tombs of two famous malouins – Jacques Cartier, the explorer of Canada, and René Duguay-Trouin, the greatest of Louis XIV’s admirals. Nameless black slabs (below) set in the floor mark the graves of the unknown. Small incised crosses in the top left corner identify those known, presumably by their grave goods, to have been clerics. French conservation practice has a remarkably elegant ability to convey the absence of things – of information, of certainty, of what once was. Perhaps it began at the Restoration in 1814 when the Bourbons tried to piece together again the royal necropolis at St Denis, without trying to deny the comprehensive nature of the vandalism that had befallen it. (The very word ‘vandalism’ was first used in 1793.) Actions can often be reversed; history cannot. To undo without losing sight of what was done is a supremely subtle art.

In one bookshop I was able to find some histories of St Malo with photographs showing the devastation of war. In Britain, such books would be shelved beneath the title ‘Local Interest’. Here the shelves were labelled ‘Regionalism’, even though books on St Malo dominated the selection. There could hardly be a better example of the value to be placed on the region as the perceived protector of the particular. In Wessex, the term has been abused to mean an arm of central government, created to dismantle the particular. We should fight for it not only because it is ours by right but because it is a language we share with so many in our position throughout the continent of Europe.

Beginnings and Endings

Coming from Caen, Dol is one of the very first towns in Brittany. It was also where the independent Breton state really got started, where Nominoë was acclaimed ruler of Brittany in 848 after throwing off the Carolingian yoke. There is a rather pathetic statue of the man (left) on the green outside the cathedral, about 4’ tall, as tall as a Breton is allowed to stand under French rule. Maybe Nominoë really was a midget, but somehow I doubt it.

On the Grande Rue des Stuarts, the town hall flies the Breton flag, along with those of France, Europe and Dol-de-Bretagne itself. Most mairies I passed flanked France with Brittany and Europe, something unimaginable not so long ago. It is a fact that Europe, for all the anti-centralist criticisms that can be and are made, is also the chisel with which to break apart the unitary state. France and Brittany? A public assault on the constitution. France and Europe? A public sign of sound diplomacy. France, Europe and Brittany? Well, alright then. Next time I change the car, I’ll be having a Wessex flag sticker and a European one. The British and the English can forget it unless they grow some manners. Is there a wyvern in the picture? The van is advertising some Arthurian eatery and Arthur appears to be wearing the Wessex wyvern. On closer examination it turns out to be a very badly drawn lion but it was worth taking the snap to find out.

The cathedral at Dol is a sacred site of special importance to Bretons. It was founded by a Welshman, St Samson, in the 6th century and its bishop was raised to the status of archbishop by Nominoë. Three hundred years later, in 1199, Pope Innocent III, pressed by Tours, nullified the decree. In the 7th century a Church Council held at Tours had excommunicated the Breton clergy for holding Mass in the home and travelling with their women. No wonder they weren’t to be trusted with self-government. Bishop Thomas James, who died in 1504, has a magnificent Renaissance tomb in the cathedral, one of the few monuments to survive the Revolution. It was the work of two Florentine brothers, one of whom went on to design the tomb of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany at St Denis. The two virile satyrs (above) are a rather unusual motif for a bishop’s memorial but this is Brittany.

If Dol represents independent Brittany’s beginnings, then its endings are to be found in Dinan. With its nearly-complete mediæval walls, its streets packed with half-timbered shops, this is one city that has stepped straight out of dungeons-and-dragons. St Saviour’s, the older of its two main churches, was founded by a returning crusader and offers an eclectic mix of styles, including Byzantine and Persian influences. Not to mention a couple of camels (above).

The newer church, St Malo’s, was begun in 1490 under the patronage of the Duchess Anne and completed in the 19th century. Anne makes an appearance in brightly coloured glass on the north wall, depicting her entry into the city in 1505 (left). As a Queen of France, Anne of Brittany may be the one Breton ruler of whom French people have heard. Named after Brittany’s patron saint, she was also, for 25 years, its last truly independent ruler. It is traditional to refer to her as ‘La Bonne Duchesse’, who worked tirelessly to maximise concessions to Brittany ahead of an inevitable annexation. She died at the same age as Princess Diana, a sure way to saintliness. A less sympathetic modern assessment has her as a sentimental teenager whose vanity cost Brittany its independence.

The truth may be somewhere in between. Along with the trail of French gold that led to her advisers. The French records are unreliable and the Breton ones were conveniently confiscated. Strange to relate, it may be that Breton history will be more easily tracked down in the archives of England, Spain or Austria. They are as good a place to begin as any.

Democracy in Chains

“The French identity swings between euphoria linked with contemplation of its own wealth and diversity, and anguish that this very diversity can be the cause of dismemberment. In the end, it is simpler to be Breton than French.”
Jean-Pierre Le Mat, History of Brittany (2006)

Strictly speaking, it is no longer a crime to advocate Breton nationalism. But the French penal code continues to give special protection to ‘the fundamental interests of the nation’ – its own – and defines these to include its territorial integrity. That of Brittany gets no protection whatsoever, regardless of what the residents of Nantes may think. France claims to be the fount of all universal values, yet upholds them only when expressed in its own preening image. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights specifically allows for free speech to be curtailed where it touches upon territorial integrity. Such stubborn resistance to the will of the oppressed is a significant cause of conflict worldwide. Why do states still find it so hard to ‘let my people go’?

The illustrations I have chosen were captured in St Malo (1 & 2), Rennes (3 & 4) and Dinan. Each in its own way suggests that the Breton identity is alive and kicking. But these are the kinds of thing to be found in any Cornish tourist town too and the Cornish identity can be a shrinking shadow at times. (Not even Cornwall’s MPs make it their job to defend Cornwall.) Is the Breton identity something put on for the tourists, something ‘folklorique’ that makes a nice tea-towel? Something that melts away into the mist if politics is mentioned? Undoubtedly there’s an element of that but also much that will be invisible to the short-term visitor, apart from occasional graffiti demanding Brittany's freedom. The Internet is one place where folk can be themselves that lies largely beyond the homogenisers’ grasp. French law defines the Breton language as an anachronism left over from the ancien régime but in cyberspace it is possible that the tables will be turned.

Rennes, seat of the regional council, appears much less Breton than Cardiff appears Welsh. In Edinburgh, the tartan shortbread shops run the length of Princes Street but there is no Rennes equivalent. If a tourist comes to Rennes, looking for Brittany, what do they find? Rennes has been looking east for centuries. Gargantuan civil engineering and town planning schemes during the 19th and 20th have transformed it into a miniature Paris. (One impressive benefit is that Rennes has a metro system, for an urban area comparable in size to Bristol.) Yet to compare the Michelin town centre map of today with one from 20 years ago does reveal important changes. The House of Culture is now the National Theatre of Brittany. The Museum of Brittany has a purpose-built new home (though all the best items will still be in Paris). And the Palais de Justice is now marked by its old name of Palais du Parlement.

In 1994, fire devastated the 17th century parlement building, originally paid for by the province levying a tax on wine and cider. All has been carefully reconstructed (left) and today it houses the regional appeal court, its jurisdiction happily coterminous in area with that of the former parlement. The royal arms on the ceiling in one of the main rooms show three lilies of France alongside the ermine field of Brittany: a reminder that it was as Duke, not as King, that power was exercised. It was here during the 18th century that La Chalotais first made explicit the cause of Breton nationalism. Here too, in 1764, the magistrates ‘went on strike’, refusing to register the law for a new tax, a last act of defiance before the Revolution made dissent unthinkable.

I travelled both ways with Brittany Ferries, outward from Plymouth to Roscoff, homeward from St Malo to Portsmouth. To look at the map of routes is to see how the western Channel is becoming a community of interest, distinct from the eastern Channel with its focus on the Tunnel and the three capitals which that serves. One more reason for Wessex to make its own way in the world and not be imprisoned by a mindset that always has to prioritise English or British unity, even at our own expense. Regional councils in France are now responsible for many of their ports and airports: they’ll soon be buying up ours in Wessex too if we’re not quick to adapt to new realities.

Coming into Roscoff, I was awoken through the speakers by music, Celtic music with pipes and a harp. Brittany Ferries then is clearly Breton, but it tries equally hard to be French. I have to ask why France needs any help. To see what a grip it has is to confirm that for the sake of liberty, of equality, of fraternity, the French State, like Prussia before it, must disappear. At the very least in Brittany. The first steps have been taken. Brittany Regional Council has four autonomist councillors out of 83, following an electoral breakthrough in 2004. What Brittany needs now is its own Alex Salmond. And he or she cannot come soon enough.