As my volumes on Brittany, published in 1840, are little likely to
come under the eye of any reader at the present day, and as the
passage I am about to quote indicates accurately enough the main point
of difference between what the traveller at that day saw and what the
traveller of the present day may see, I think I may be pardoned for
giving it.
"We had observed that at Broons a style of _coiffure_ which was new
to us prevailed; and my companion wished to add a sketch of it to his
fast-increasing collection of Breton costumes. With this view, he had
begun making love to the maid a little, to induce her to do so much
violence to her maiden modesty, as to sit to him for a few minutes,
when a far better opportunity of achieving his object presented
itself.
"The landlady's daughter, a very pretty little girl about fourteen
years old, was going to be confirmed, and had just come down stairs
to her mother, who was sitting knitting in the _salle a manger_, for
inspection and approval before she started. Of course, upon such an
occasion, the art of the _blanchisseuse_ was taxed to the utmost. Lace
was not spared; and the most _recherche coiffure_ was adopted, that
the rigorous immutability of village modes would permit.
"It would seem that the fickleness of fashion exercises in constant
local variations that mutability which is utterly denied to it in
Brittany with regard to time. Every district, almost every commune
has its own peculiar 'mode' (for both sexes) which changes not from
generation to generation.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33