Lecture by M. Le Braz Yesterday

M. Anatole Le Braz delivered the first of his series of Hyde lectures before a large audience in Sanders Theater yesterday afternoon upon "Brittany; the country and the race." Assistant Professor F. N. Robinson of the department of English introduced the speaker, and made a few preliminary remarks upon the general interest and attractiveness of the subject.

M. Le Braz began his address with an acknowledgment of the kindness shown him by the Alliance Francaise of the United States and Canada in procuring for him his present good fortune. In telling of the enchantment of Brittany, M. Le Braz continued, I am breaking with the traditions of the French lectures who have preceded me, who have spoken of Paris, which is indeed the brain of France, as if it were France itself. But perhaps it is well that Americans should know that there is another France--provincial France--not sufficiently appreciated and yet worthy of mature study. If Paris is the head of France then the provinces are the heart, and hence the proverb that 'Frances has a bad head, but a good heart."

Of all the French provinces, Brittany is certainly, even to the French mind, the most original and consequently the most interesting, for throughout the ages it has retained its own characteristics. One is at once impressed with the fact that the country has retained its primitive condition, and that man has scarcely made his impress upon it. Even where impress is visible it carries us back to the remotest ages. There are the incomparable monuments of Carnuc and Cocuariaker, and the mediaeval chapels and churches, together with the impressive castles of feudal times.

But it is not only the monuments of antiquity that impress us; the very race seems almost mediaeval. The inhabitants have retained the same traits of character that marked them when, fleeing before the Saxon invasion of Britain, they came to the continent in search of new homes and new fortunes. Their primitive language, moreover, is practically the same today. With these people the dead still live; they have remained faithful to their ancestors in habits, customs, and traditions.

Brittany is considered by the French today as a sort of national park, a land of dreams and poetry, where writers come from all parts of the world for inspiration.

M. Le Braz will deliver the second Hyde lecture on the subject, "Le genie breton; les rapports avec le genie des autres peuples celtiques" tomorrow afternoon at 4.30. o'clock in Sanders Theatre.