imagine the "Castle of the Pyrenees" to be?]




IN BRITTANY


She [the writer, L. M. A.] soon ceased to be surprised at any
demonstration of feminine strength, skill, and independence, for
everywhere the women took the lead.

They not only kept house, reared children, and knit every imaginable
garment the human frame can wear, but kept the shops and the markets,
tilled the gardens, cleaned the streets, and bought and sold cattle,
leaving the men free to enjoy the only pursuits they seemed inclined to
follow,--breaking horses, [Footnote: Breaking horses: training horses to
work, an expression familiar to every country child.] mending roads, and
getting drunk.

The markets seemed entirely in the hands of the women, and lively scenes
they presented to unaccustomed eyes, especially the pig-market, held
every week, in the square before Madame C.'s house. At dawn the
squealing began, and was kept up till sunset. The carts came in from all
the neighboring hamlets, with tubs full of infant pigs, over which the
women watched with maternal care till they were safely deposited among
the rows of tubs that stood along the walk facing Anne of Bretaigne's
[Footnote: Anne of Bretaigne: the daughter of Francis II, duke of
Brittany; born at Nantes, 1476.] gray old tower, and the pleasant
promenade which was once the fosse [Footnote: Fosse: a moat; a ditch.]