“Once upon a time, there was a king – King Louis XIV!” laughed one woman, “who reigned many a long year over France, and when the war with Holland erupted...”
“Brittany was born!” insisted another bigoudène with pride.
“Well, the greatness of Brittany at any rate.”
Indeed, the outbreak of war had brought France and Holland into enmity with one another, and the Sun King’s coffers were running dry. He hired a minister named Colbert to remedy his financial woes. Colbert advised the king to impose a stamp duty on all notarial documents. The people of Brittany were incensed by this new tax – the king had some nerve! Revolts flared up across the land. Their anger was not only directed at the king, but at the lords who represented him. The insurgents sought to force these lords to renounce their privileges, and marched out from their homes wearing red or blue caps to lay siege to the lordly manors. For this reason, the rebellion was known as the bonnet rouge uprising. Repercussions were swift, and the king had the rebels hanged or sent to the galleys. The women of Brittany lost their spouses, their sons and their brothers, and this sad episode would remain etched in the Breton memory forever. And so a new custom was born: the Bigouden headdress, symbolising the bell towers destroyed during the repression.
“Trugarez!” said one woman to the bartender, by way of thanks.
“I’ll have the same, please,” said the woman wearing the headdress. “A glass of chouchen!”
The server poured the drink, which was the pride of the land. Originally called “souchen”, chouchen was Brittany’s finest liquor, and the most famed and highly regarded. The sweet, amber-coloured spirit was obtained by fermenting honey in water. They sipped contentedly from their glasses. It was July, yet clouds were gathering in the sky. The thunder growled, and the sun was absent. Above the chapel tower they saw flashes of lightning.
“Ma doué!” cried one woman, seeing a thunderbolt strike the bell tower.
“My god,” indeed. In Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, Brittany, the chapel was famous for its ancient sanctuary and as the destination of pilgrimages in honour of Saint Anne, to whom the early Christians of Brittany had dedicated this church. The first chapel was destroyed in the late 7th century, but its memory lived on in local tradition and the hamlet came to be known as “Keranna”, or “Anne’s Village.” More than nine centuries later, in 1624, Saint Anne appeared on several occasions to a simple, God-fearing villager and commanded him to rebuild the ancient chapel. Brittany was a blessed land. They were superstitious here, yet traditional. Today, the women had dressed and coiffed themselves with care. They had donned long dresses with white aprons and lace collars and headdresses. They had come together with pride. The men, meanwhile, had put on starched white shirts, black trousers and jackets. On this day of the people, the Bretons dressed in the guise of another world.
“Kant bro, kant giz!” cried one woman. “A hundred nations, a hundred guises – and each to their own!”
Alan Alfredo Geday