The Arizona sentinel., 1890-05-31
THE CITY OF NANTES.
A PEOPLE WHOSE COSTUMES ARE OF ECCENTRIC DESCRIPTION.

Refuge from the Artificial Life at the
 French CapitaI-A HOmelike Meal at 8
 Hotel-Principal Business Street-A
 Royalist's Opinion of the City
 Nantes takes 8 certain character from
 the sea, from the fishermen and from all
 the queer types of humanity who dwelI
 along the coast of this department and of
 Morbihan well on up toward Brest. The
 costumes of these people are of the most
 eccentric description, so much so that it is
 said that nowhere else in France can there
 be seen such variety. Some are strik-
 1ngly picturesque. There is the peasant
 woman, for instance. whose business it is
 to cultivate early potatoes in the sand
 near Noirnoutier and bring them to mar
 ket. She wears skirt coming just below
 the knees, small cap, some sort of apron,
 checked CT otherwise, and has the
 foot, ankle and calf entirely exposed, or
 shoes or sabots neatly polished and stock
 ings closely fitting and often of intricate
 pattern. The shoes and hosiery are their
 special weakness. and it is not rare to see
 among them 6 we'll made foot and ankle.
 The entire costume is commonly in sober
 colors and neatly kept. On the contrary,
 you see little girls with long skirts com
 ing to the soles of the shoe, who look as if
 they had just stepped from one of Van
 dyks's pcS traits
 As 6 specimen of the male costume of
 Morbihan, we have the low crowned,
 round topped hat ct velvet, or of straw CT
 felt bound with velvet, very jaunty, or,
 as the French would say, chic. The
 jacket is something like the voluminous 1G of &1,x,
 Seventeenth century, but a jacket all the same, and gay with rows of buttons so thickly set that they overlap one an other. The collar of the shirt is as broad as 8 ships mainsail. It is open in front and rises stif1iy up behind the head, serv- ing as @ background to face that is the picture of innocence and as quaint as the costume itself.
 It is pleasant relief to get away from the highly artificial life and the highly ar- tificial articles of food and drink at Paris even to stupid and not over cleanly place like Nantes. The country offers its treas ures more generously than the city. It is pleasant to know that the wines, if they aFe not Clos Vougeot, Pomard, Chateau Lef1te or Chateau Yqueu, are at least all they pretend to be; that you are near the place where people produce their own but ter and lay their own eggs; where they even put the butter on the table and sell their milk at four cents quart from the wagons in the street and at the corner groceries. It is really with homelike feeling that you sit down to breakfast or dinner in a hotel in town in Aniou, or at the hotel at Nantes on which 1 be- slowed my humble patronage The still | ness that pervades the dining room is sol | eUln. You hear two or three flies buzzing | behind the lace curtains that drape the | windows. You look up to the ceiling not | painted by Michael Angelo but by some unimmortalized local fresco painter, in imitation of the sky. You don't remeIn- Der ever to have seen exactly such shades of blue in the Armament before. But no matter. The chandeliers are attached to ] the ceiling with blue ribbons painted fiat thereon, the ends drawn out sideways and l held in the beaks of doves, the species ! and the school of art being alike unfa- | u1tii4r
 Int tho room steal furtively from time 10 time representatives of the Manuals ourgeoise-seHd, solemn, funereal-who ttanguilly partake Of the several courses and then steal away as stealthily as they entered. Perhaps there enters a whole Breton family fatLer, mother, sohs, daughters and boDne-aN of whom make the sign of the cross before taking their places. Their dress is quiet and their manners almost as reverential as if they were in church. The repast is served by the mature garcons-one gray haired whom you seem f2intly to recollect as having seen in the opera of ''The Hugue- nots." Their duty is performed decorously
 a1. roundings. There is none of bewardage so often seen at French tables The cuisine is rather remarkable for it's pro- fusion than its fiue quality, thus reversing the Parisian rule. Some dishes are even themselves Nothing could be more ul-Parisian. The butter is of @ char Rcter to attract attention. There are perhaps twenty persons at table (conl- paratively few persons come to Nantes and there are four rolls of golden butter distributed along the table, ench weighing at least pound, and, like everything else offered you, it is "a discre- tion." Then you drink, if you are dis posed, a whole bottle of white or red wine The hotel is believe, the best in Nantes and your breakfast and dinner cost you together only five Eancs a day, while q good room costs only three francs more.
 In coming from Cnolet to Nantes made the acquaintance of a young lawyer of Poitiers. a royalist by birth and political preference and a most charming and in- telligent travelling companion He said to me, "Nantes is a vile de luXe.' As l have already remarked, this is not inti- mated to the stranger. There is nothing in the houses or shops that would indicate it. Then as 1 met him in the evening he conducted me through what he said was the principal business street.-the only business street in fact-a thoroughfare narrow and crooked like the rest, half a mile in length and having on either side shops, badly lighted and with poor displays of goods in the win dows. There were no carriages, but it was filled with a crowd of promenaders walking purposely to and fro and look ing listlessly into the uninteresting windows. as I have seen them in the smaller towns of Italy CT else were in Europe. There was nowhere eise to go. theatres being closed and sum- mer amuse'nents conspicuous by their absence. The rich were at the watering places; the poor were amusing themselves n low drinAing houses, such as are seen n the pictures of Teners ard Steen, of ,ypes that are universal and have been for l0G years.
 There are. however, at Nantes things hat are solid, substantial and elegant in he way of art and architecture The athedral and other churches are among he finest in France, and there are statues f kings and other celebrities in them, or ere and there in avenues and streets bout the city. There is a library of 1G0,-