Yan' Dargent

Yani's mother died when he was only two years of age and his father soon remarried and Dargent was put in the care of his maternal grandfather Pierre Robée, a retired sailor.

He received a basic education alongside François-Marie Luzel, the Breton poet, who was also a good friend.

He then attended the Landerneau Saint-Joseph college until, at the age of twelve, he moved to Saint-Pol-de-Léon's Notre-Dame du Kreizker Institute.

When the time came to choose a career, Yan' Dargent's grandfather wanted him to join the navy but Yani' did not feel the pull of the sea, being mostly interested in mathematics and design.

He passed his exams and was admitted to the government department administrating bridges and highways and then moved to the railways.

In 1850, he resigned from his job with the railways and moved to Paris determined to make a living from art but independently and not attached to any particular studio/workshop ("atelier") and, alongside Gustave Doré, became known as an accomplished illustrator.

At this time he had a villa built near to Saint-Pol-de-Léon at Créac'h-André, a spot where he had often walked whilst a schoolboy.

Then between 1869 and 1878, he was commissioned to contribute to the decoration of several churches in Saint-Servais, Landerneau, Morlaix, Ploudalmézeau and the Quimper cathedral of Saint-Corentin.

In the Saint Frederic chapel, one painting depicts Frederick of Utrecht remonstrating with King Louis the Pious and the second his assassination.

One shows Saint Roch at the door of his hermitage, thanking God for the food brought to him each day by his dog.

Moving to the chapels at the sides of the nave, the Chapel of the Nativity of Our Lord (the "chapelle de la Nativité de Notre-Seigneur") has a painting depicting the newly born Jesus with Mary and Josep, whilst in the second painting Dargent depicts the "Adoration of the Magi".

Finally in the Chapel of Michael, the missionary Michel Le Nobletz is depicted holding a skull in his hands.

The second depicts the deliverance of a soul from purgatory ("Délivrance d'une âme du Purgatoire") and is to be seen in the chapel of the Dead.

[18] Dargent showed the painting depicting Saint Houardon at the Paris Salon of 1859 and it can now be seen in Landerneau's parish church.

[19] Before his death he had asked to be buried in Saint-Servais and that his skull be placed in the ossuary alongside the bones of his mother and grandparents which was the practice at the time.

This by law could only take place five years after burial and on 8 October 1907, with the permission of the bishops of Quimper and the Léon diocese to open up the tomb and remove the head, the process was started.

The trial lasted six months and although on the 26 June the Morlaix tribunal issued a verdict of not guilty, Ernest died four days later from the effects of the trauma the legal process had involved.