Next day was the monthly fair at Brest, which brought in many of the
country people in their picturesque costumes. Most conspicuous among them
were the peasants of Ouessant, last type of the Celtic women, in their
singularly Italian-looking head-dress, their hair streaming over their
shoulders; and the Plougastel men, in red caps, with coats and trowsers of
white flannel.

Most of the market-women were furnished with enormous umbrellas, red,
blue, and green. In this rainy province, they are indispensable, and the
acquisition of an umbrella is a great object of ambition to the Breton
peasant.

We left Brest by the steamer for Pont Launay and Chateaulin, a four hours'
sail in the harbour of Brest. On the right we passed the Point des
Espagnols, where Frobisher, sent by Queen Elizabeth to the assistance of
Henry IV., received his death wound. Leaving on our left Plougastel, where
we were unable to visit the celebrated calvary, we passed near the "Anse
du Fret," whence Joan of Navarre, then widow of Duke John IV., sailed to
England to marry Henry of Lancaster, 1403. Henry, when Earl of Derby, had
visited Nantes to ask the assistance of his uncle in returning to England,
and Joan had favoured his expedition, but Duke John died the same year
(1399). When Queen Dowager of England, she saw the children of her two
husbands arrayed against each other, and her son Arthur, who had been
invested by King Henry IV. with the Earldom of Richmond, made prisoner at
Agincourt by his half-brother King Henry V., who confined him in the
Tower, and afterwards in Fotheringay Castle. Joan received hard treatment
from her stepson. Accused of being a sorceress--a reputation she inherited
from her father, Charles the Bad of Navarre--Henry caused her to be
confined in Leeds and Pevensey castles, and deprived her of her property.
It was only on his approaching death that he restored her to liberty. She
retired to Havering Bower in Essex, where her grandson, the unfortunate
Gilles de Bretagne, was reared and educated with Henry VI. She died in
1437, and the memory of "Joan the witch queen" was long held in awe by the
people of Havering Bower.

[Illustration: 27. Peasant Girl, Chateaulin.]

On the left is the hamlet of Kersanton, which gives its name to the stone
so called. At the entrance of the Aulne,(15) to the right, we passed the
ruins of the abbey of Landevenec, the most ancient monastic establishment
in Brittany. At Pont Launay an omnibus