ABSTRACT
Though the stylishly attired and fidgeting tourists crowding around the margins of Joseph-Marie Villard’s famed photographs and postcards of religious pardons might offer at first glance a somewhat awkward juxtaposition with the solemn religious procession at center, the pairing could no longer really be considered incongruous by the early decades of the twentieth century (see figures 5.1 and 5.2). Pardons were open-air Breton Catholic penitential rituals centering usually on the veneration of a local patron saint, though sometimes betraying as well certain traces of quasi-pagan nature worship. While varying by place and certainly changing over time, the pardons included certain common features: torchlight procession on the evening prior, mass in the early morning, followed by an open-air religious pageant, with participants in the traditional costume of their locality carrying candles, banners of their individual parishes, shrines and statues commemorating the local patron saint; and finally a fête with much singing, dancing, contests and sometimes a cider- or eau de vie-abetted inebriation that could be a bit shocking to the uninitiated. The more venerable pardons were major provincial events, drawing pilgrims from the surrounding area, department or region, as well as many indigent and infirm. They were also, of course, by the early twentieth century attracting ever-growing numbers of French and international tourists. Pardon of St Anne la Palue, postcard, author's personal collection. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315579429/d235de56-d226-416f-8083-3e201acbf880/content/fig5_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Pardon of St Anne la Palue, postcard, author's personal collection. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315579429/d235de56-d226-416f-8083-3e201acbf880/content/fig5_2_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
