PREFACE.


One of the most popular legends in Brittany is that relating to an
imaginary town called Is, which is supposed to have been swallowed up
by the sea at some unknown time. There are several places along the
coast which are pointed out as the site of this imaginary city, and
the fishermen have many strange tales to tell of it. According to
them, the tips of the spires of the churches may be seen in the hollow
of the waves when the sea is rough, while during a calm the music of
their bells, ringing out the hymn appropriate to the day, rises above
the waters. I often fancy that I have at the bottom of my heart a city
of Is with its bells calling to prayer a recalcitrant congregation.
At times I halt to listen to these gentle vibrations which seem as if
they came from immeasurable depths, like voices from another world.
Since old age began to steal over me, I have loved more especially
during the repose which summer brings with it, to gather up these
distant echoes of a vanished Atlantis.

This it is which has given birth to the six chapters which make up the
present volume. The recollections of my childhood do not pretend to
form a complete and continuous narrative. They are merely the images
which arose before me and the reflections which suggested themselves
to me while I was calling up a past fifty years old, written down in
the order in which they came. Goethe selected as the title for his
memoirs "Truth and Poetry," thereby signifying that a man cannot write
his own biography in the same way that he would that of any one else.
What one says of oneself is always poetical. To fancy that the small