or an object of the present time. There is even very little of the
clothing of the day; and that little the inhabitants adapt in a way to
their immutable customs, their unchangeable physiognomies. The public
square is filled with Breton costumes, which artists flock to draw;
these stand out in wonderful relief upon the scene around them. The
whiteness of the linen worn by the /paludiers/ (the name given to men
who gather salt in the salt-marshes) contrasts vigorously with the
blues and browns of the peasantry and the original and sacredly
preserved jewelry of the women. These two classes, and that of the
sailors in their jerkins and varnished leather caps are as distinct
from one another as the castes of India, and still recognize the
distance that parts them from the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the
clergy. All lines are clearly marked; there the revolutionary level
found the masses too rugged and too hard to plane; its instrument
would have been notched, if not broken. The character of immutability
which science gives to zoological species is found in Breton human
nature. Even now, after the Revolution of 1830, Guerande is still a
town apart, essentially Breton, fervently Catholic, silent,
self-contained,--a place where modern ideas have little access.

Its geographical position explains this phenomenon. The pretty town
overlooks a salt-marsh, the product of which is called throughout
Brittany the Guerande salt, to which many Bretons attribute the
excellence of their butter and their sardines. It is connected with
the rest of France by two roads only: that coming from Savenay, the
arrondissement to which it belongs, which stops at Saint-Nazaire; and
a second road, leading from Vannes, which connects it with the
Morbihan. The arrondissement road establishes communication by land,
and from Saint-Nazaire by water, with Nantes. The land road is used
only by government; the more rapid and more frequented way being by