ren, and beyond, the great
court, into which the provisions were brought, and round which were the
stables and farm buildings. The garden, orchard, mill, oven, dovecote,
cider-press, &c., were all within the walled enclosure, for the abbeys
were not merely convents dedicated solely to devotional exercises. After
prayer followed labour. The Breton abbeys were quite model farms; the
woods and the commons afforded the means of rearing cattle to those who
had the privilege of pasturage in the forests. Many had also the right of
acorns and beech-mast for their pigs (_droit au gland et a la faine_). One
abbey, that of Morimond (Haute Marne), is recorded to have had twenty
piggeries, of three hundred pigs each, distributed in its forests. The
monks also reared sheep and horses, and fattened fish in their ponds. They
were the first who advanced the science of horticulture and the
cultivation of vegetables. To these agricultural pursuits were added, in
many convents, the industrial arts, and some of the brethren were brewers,
curriers, fullers, weavers, shoemakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Their
cultivation of the liberal arts and sciences is well known. During the
Middle Ages the monasteries were the sole depositories of learning.
Beauport is now occupied by a Polish lady, Countess Poninsky, who allows
no one to enter the abbey, as her husband was buried in the church.

Two or three miles further we reached Paimpol, where we remained the
night, at a nice hotel. Paimpol is a seaport town prettily situated in a
cultivated country on the bay that bears its name. Its inhabitants are
employed in the mackerel and Iceland fisheries. The women about here wear
close straw-bonnets. They all, in this department, ride on horseback, "a
califourchon," like the men.

We hired our carriage on to Treguier. At Lezardrieux we passed the estuary
of the Trieux, over a magnificent suspension-bridge, at a considerable
elevation above the water, vessels sail under it. It was built 1840, and
is 833 feet long, that is, 167 longer than the famed bridge of La Roche
Bernard (Loire Inferieure). The bridge swung frightfully when we passed
over it. In the churchyard of Pleudaniel is a pretty granite calvary, and
skulls are placed in recesses in the wall on each side of the
church-porch.

We next came to the Chateau of La Roche Jagu, on the summit of a hill
overhanging the river Trieux and defending the entrance. It has more of
the character of a "maison