“TRE

ERNEST RENAN.

RÉGUIER is an ancient cathedral city set high upon a hill at the confluence of two rivers," in the Côtes du Nord. In all Brittany there is not so beautiful a Gothic cathedral as this of Tréguier, with its lofty spire at once so delicate and so simple. About it is a green churchyard containing the tomb of St. Ives, the patron saint of Brittany, and surrounding that are the ancient cloisters. The seaport of Tréguier is not far away, on an estuary between two wooded promontories. The town traffics in fish and grain, and the inhabitants are chiefly concerned with the sea. Brittany mans the navy of France to a large extent, and from this very port many men have gone forth to the service of the state.

The ancestors of Ernest Renan had been among these sailor folk for several generations. They had lived in a house on the hill near the cathedral, and not down by the water with the sailors, who had not means enough to buy a fishing-smack. His grandfather was a true Breton, religious, melancholy, pleasure-loving, garrulous, capable of passion, and with a genius for superstition. His father, Captain Renan, had married the daughter of a Lannion trader. She was an ardent Catholic and an Orlean

Ernest

ist, while her husband was a Republican. was born on the 28th of February, 1823, and being a small and fragile child it was feared he could not live. We are told that "Old Gude, the witch, took the babe's little shirt and dipped it in a country holy-well. She came back radiant: He will live, after all,' she cried; 'the two little arms stretched out, and you should have seen the whole garment swell and float; he means to live. And live he did, to be the pride of his fond, vivacious mother, and one of the most illustrious of the sons of France in these later days.

The Breton coast near Tréguier is incomparably soft and lovely, and the gray mists wrap it all in a delicate veil much of the time. Their filmy tracery is over everything, and their dampness induces a scanty verdure where barrenness would otherwise have reigned. It was up and down this coast that Ernest Renan wandered when a boy, enamoured of the sea, like all his race, and knowing it in every varying mood. And he loved the animated port between the promontories where the seamen brought their boats, and where loading and unloading went on constantly before his eyes, and where he saw men of many various climes come and go. He was a quiet, dreamy boy, not very active in work or play, but full of questions and devoted to his family. He had an older brother, Alain, and a sister, Henriette, who was twelve years old when he was born. She was almost a second mother to him in his boyhood, and found her chief delight in his presence. She was not a favorite with her gay and vivacious little gypsy mother, who loved beautiful and attractive

children, for she was very plain, her face marred by a birth-mark, though she had tender eyes and a certain look of distinction. So she lavished all her love on her baby brother, and made herself so necessary to his happiness that they were hardly ever separated. His father was lost at sea when he was five years old, and the little mother and seriousminded sister were left not only without means, but in debt. He knew from that time not actual destitution, but poverty with all its limitations. At this time Henriette began to teach him. She had herself been taught by noble ladies, who after the Revolution had come back and were trying to earn their living by giving lessons in towns like Tréguier. There were many such in France in those days. Henriette was naturally thoughtful and serious, and she had so well improved her opportunities that an excellent foundation had been laid for that exquisite culture for which she was noted later in life. also had an air of good breeding very noticeable amid such surroundings as hers, though her mother was not without refinement and grace. She found Ernest an apt and faithful pupil, if more eager for fairy tales and old legends and the poetic superstitions of the country than for his more prosaic lessons. Brittany is the very home of myths and legends, and he was fed on these to his heart's content. It was near by Lannion that Arthur held his court and fought the dragon, and here his knights had wandered and fought, and there was scarce a lonely spot the country through on which some Arthurian legend was not founded. Henriette, who was herself of the poetic temperament, enjoyed telling these tales

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