poor wear nothing but linen. Linen manufactures
exist (and used to thrive) everywhere, and
large quantities of linen are still sent to Spain
and South America. Now, the story is (and
there seems no reason to doubt it), that linen-weaving*
was first brought in in the fifteenth
century, by a Flemish lady, one of the De
Quentins. However this may be, the following
tale about the invention of the coarse and strong
ticking, called ballin, made either of tow-yarn
or else of refuse flax, and used for the purpose
we have named, is accepted as authentic by the
careful Breton antiquarian, M. Miorcéc de
Kerdannet.†  It illustrates many pleasing features
in Breton society, especially the bond between
seigneur and peasant, which resisted all the
force of the old revolution. It is comforting,
too, to believe that Breton ladies in general
knew their duty better than did that lovely and
most unhappy wife of the Chateaubriand, whose
sad story is told so touchingly in Miss Frere's
Life of Margaret d'Angoulême.

"In the time of King Louis, the fourteenth
of that name, the lord of Kerjean had the best
as well as the loveliest wife who had ever been
seen in all the country-side. If she was queen
of beauty, she was also mother of the poor.
From house to house she used to go, giving
money and good advice; and, let me tell you,
that these two do much better together than
apart. The money makes poor folks attend to
the advice, and the advice teaches them how to
use the money. The great house was open to
everybody, just like a church. Any one who
could not get work had only to walk straight
in; for the lady always had field-labour for the
lads, something to do about the cow-house or
laundry for the lasses, while the old people were
set to spin flax, or, when that ran scarce, to
work up into yarn the tow that was left from
flax or hemp. Of course the linen and hempen
thread was very useful; but even the lady,
clever as she was, had never been able to make
much of the tow-yarn; she just had it spun to
give the old people something to do, and then
it was thrown aside, so that there were lofts and
lofts full of it about the castle."

Now Oliver, lord of Kerjean, loved his wife
dearly, and trusted her in everything. He used
to say his " better half " could never do wrong,
and she (for she loved a joke) would answer
that she never would play her husband false
till the cock had flown off the church-tower.

King Louis had a way (more's the pity) of
taking nobles and gentles off their land and
away from their own people, and getting them
up to Paris; so Lord Oliver had to go. He
wanted to take his wife, but she begged hard to
stay.

"Dear heart! what would become of all my
orphans and my poor old spinning-women?
Why, they've grown to look on the work I give

* Of Netherland origin, as many an old song
testifies—

"His shirt was of the Holland fine."

† De Musset has based one of his pretty
novelettes upon it.

them as a thing of course. Besides, if we both
go, Oliver, we shall stay; but if you go alone,
you can be sure to come back soon."

So the laird went up alone, begging his wife
to write often, and to put the letters into my
Lord Bishop of St. Pol's letter-bag, that they
might be sure to go safely.

It took him sixteen days to drive to Paris;
they could never get beyond a trot in those
times, and had to stop at night for fear of the
deep ruts.

Kerjean met a whole gathering of Breton
lords and gentlemen at Paris, and was made
much of by them and their French* friends;
but these last wondered a good deal why he had
not brought his wife. At last they agreed that
she must be some country hoyden whom he was
quite ashamed of, and perhaps as ugly as sin to
boot. But the Bretons soon told them differently,
and let them know that she was such
an altogether lovely lady, that men had added
one more line to the old country rhyme:

Kermavan for old blood,†
Penhoët for bravery,
Karman for wealth;

namely,

Kerjean for beauty.

Then the French lords, light of tongue after
their manner, began to twit Kerjean with
having left his wife at home for fear she should
find in Paris some one more to her fancy.
Oliver was for fighting them all round. He
had two or three duels, but at last they laughed
and argued him into sending one of them with
a letter, begging Francéza to treat the bearer
well, as he was her husband's best friend. So
they sent Count d'Aiguillon, who had a terrible
reputation among them, and Kerjean, who
would much rather have run him through the
body, was obliged to wish him a safe journey.

  Well, at first D'Aiguillon thinks he is making
way wonderfully. Francéza is so pure and
good she cannot suspect evil in others, and so
she rides with him to visit the gentry round,
and listens to his nonsense of evenings, and
laughs and laughs again when he tells her he's
dying for her, and gives him the ribbon that
she tied her hair up with, and lets him steal
her brooch and a ring off her little finger. And
at last, when he pressed her again and again for
a meeting, she was silent and thoughtful awhile,
and then said:

* The two are always distinguished from each
other. In the Gesta rerum Britanniæ, by an
Armoric poet, we read:

. . . Gallis quos nostra Britannia victrix
Sæpe molestavit.

The writer is still more uncomplimentary to the
English:

. . . genus Anglorum, stirps impia, natio fallax,
Turba bibax, soboles mendax, populusque bilinguis.
Hence it appears that the French may go further
back than the broken treaty of Kloster-seven for
their title, " perfide Albion."

† Like a certain Welsh family, they ignored
Adam. There was nothing between them and the
Creator: " Les Kermavan et Dieu avant" was their
motto.