Redon, just to the north, is an unattractive place. Most folk know it only as the railway official calls out: "Forty-five minutes' stop for luncheon, refreshments, and all the rest."
Very amusing are these railway lunch-rooms seen throughout France. But withal they are most excellently appointed, although the passengers, like their kind the world over, eat as though they had not a minute to lose, and have a good fifteen left on their hands when they have finished their repast.
The meals are usually divided into three categories: the public table at a set price, the table for the aristocracy at three francs, the table with set portions, the frugal repast at half as much, and the service "to order," which is the most costly of all.
Nothing is of an inferior quality, however, and, as all is served from the same kitchen, it is merely a question as to whether one will have more or less, or whether he will eat it off linen napery, with a napkin to tuck under his right ear,--as is the French commercial traveller's custom,--or whether he will be satisfied with an oilcloth table-covering. The difference is more apparent than real, for the "frugal repast" at a franc and a half is the three franc meal shorn of its trimmings; you get the same dishes and the same service.
As if to ease the process, a stentorian railway hand puts his head in the door and shouts: "Ten minutes before the Vannes express starts!" and returns again at the end of the allotted time to give a final call: "Into the carriages, gentlemen!" It is much the same the world over, of course, but they are more polite in France, and the food is better of its kind, and much better served, two very appreciable differences.
Redon itself and its great open square, on which are the railway station, the hotels, and the gaunt, lone, dismembered tower of the Church of St. Sauveur, is by no means attractive. The square is bare of trees, and in the summer the sun beats down upon the frequenters of the terrace coffee-rooms of the hotels in a manner which makes one wonder why they do not move off and seek a shady spot elsewhere.
The indifference shown by the natives of certain localities for the pelting sunlight, which makes some of us think of cabbage leaves for our hats and "gin rickeys" for our stomachs, is curious. The Neapolitan prefers to loll about in the blazing Italian sun, and says that no one but an Englishman or a dog ever seeks the shade. The citizen of Redon is like him, and does not care who knows it, and his sunlight, though it comes to earth some hundreds of miles farther north, appears to be of the same caloric value.