The Rock of Saint Aaron

Extract

The town of Saint-Malo is well known to the tourists who land there on their way to Paramé or Dinard or the remoter summer haunts of Lower Brittany. Well known at least externally, and as to its more obvious features—the old walls, the single pointing spire, the great castle of the Duchess Anne, the beautiful surrounding waters—but scarcely at all beyond these. And yet there is much to know for those who care to look for it; a whole world, as it were, of history, of tradition, of by-ways that lead into a rather wonderful past.

There is, for instance, a very ancient and picturesque quarter not far from the Cathedral, yet only to be reached by twisting alleys and narrow lanes, where you will pass by the Cour La Houssaye; this is no more than a widening of the way, a little airier than its surroundings, perhaps, but not so important as its name would convey. Yet here stands the House of the Duchess Anne, where she lodged before she carried the white Ermines of Brittany into the shield of France; a haunted place, as the old grandmothers will tell you, with its ancient walls, its turret stair and the window whence she saw the Rider on the White Horse .... but that is another story and not the one that I wish to tell you to-day. So we will pass on and, threading these tortuous ways, come presently to a narrow quiet street at the end of which stands the House of the Dames-de-Saint-Aaron and behind it the little chapel—very rarely open to visitors—which is the real core and heart of the city, and to every Malouin, doubly, trebly, sacred ground.