There are many old houses, many quaint and curious bits of architecture in Landerneau. On one of these, bearing the date of 1694, we found two curious sculptures: a lion rampant and a man armed with a drawn sword; and, between them, the inscription: TIRE, TVE. We might, indeed, have gone up and down the street armed with sword, gun, or any other murderous weapon, with impunity--there was nothing to fight but the air. We had it all to ourselves, on this side the river. Yet Landerneau is a flourishing place of some ten thousand inhabitants, with extensive manufactories, saw mills, and large timber yards. Vessels come up the river and load and unload; and, on bright days when the sunshine pours upon the flashing water, and warms the wood lying about in huge stacks, and a delicious pine-scent goes forth upon the air, it is a very pleasant scene, and a very fitting spot for a short sojourn.
It also deals extensively in strawberries, exporting to England many thousand boxes of the delicious fruit that grows so largely in the neighbourhood. The hotel this morning seemed full of them, and we had but to ask, and to receive in abundance. The place was full of their fragrance: a fragrance that seemed so allied to the smell of the pine wood in the timber yards.
The town is of great antiquity, and appears to have succeeded a Roman Settlement. It is said to owe its name to St. Ernec, a Breton prince, the son, says tradition, of Judicaël, King of the Domnomée. This prince, about the year 669, turned monk, and built himself a cell on the banks of the Elorn, a river which divided in those days the sees of Léon and Cornouaille. Where the cell was is now the village of St. Ernec, and a chapel which preceded the church of the Récollets.
In time Landerneau became the chief town of the Vicomté of Léon; and was raised to a Principality in 1572 in favour of Henri, Vicomte de Rohan and his brother Réné, Lord of Soubise, who founded the dukedom of Rohan-Chabot. It remained in possession of Lords of Landerneau until the Revolution. Fontenelle pillaged the town in 1592, and in the seventeenth century its famous castle was destroyed.
"There will be noise in Landerneau," has become a Breton proverb, employed whenever any social event is stirring up the populace. It owes its origin to a bygone custom of the town, of serenading widows on the evening of their second marriage, with drums, trumpets, kettles, and every kind of unmusical instrument that could be pressed into the service of the uproarious ceremony.