onsiderable size, under a large mullioned window
of the fifteenth century. On each side of the porch are rude sculptures of
ships and fishes, not uncommon in these parts, set there to show the
church has been built with the thank-offerings of the fisher population of
the district. In our tour we met with several churches with this sign,
evidences of the piety of the fishermen; indeed, at Dunkirk, when the
church was burned down in the sixteenth century by the French, it was
entirely rebuilt by the contribution called "le filet saint," from an
ancient custom among the fishermen of having one net so called, the
produce of which was set apart for the church.

[Illustration: 54. Church of St. Guenole, Penmarch.]

Towards the lighthouse are the ruins of the old town of Penmarch, much
celebrated in the maritime history of the fourteenth to sixteenth
centuries; its commerce extended even to Spain, and the riches of its
inhabitants were so surpassingly great, that they drank out of silver
cups, and the lords of a manor near the Torche furnished the silk required
to line the road traversed by religious processions, their wealth being
due to the "viande de careme," that is to say, to the cod fishery. But the
discovery of Newfoundland deprived them of this lucrative monopoly, and
the ravages of Fontenelle le Ligueur completed their ruin. All now is a
scene of desolation. Penmarch has been called the Palmyra of Brittany.

Guy Eder Fontenelle, the Leaguer, who spread terror and devastation
throughout Brittany in the sixteenth century, was a member of the
Beaumanoir family; the name he adopted was that of one of the family
estates. He was born in the Chateau of Beaumanoir (near Evran), and his
elder brother early foresaw his guilty career. He escaped from college and
united himself with a set of young men as lawless as himself; they formed
themselves into a band, which soon became the dread of all Brittany. They
ravaged the whole of Treguier and Cornouaille, surprised the chateaux of
Coetfrec and others, took the church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and
the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged,
Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300
vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the
Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to
dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his
head-quarters, issuing from his stro