Vefa de Saint-Pierre

Vefa de Saint-Pierre, born Geneviève de Méhérenc de Saint-Pierre (or Vefa Sant-Pêr in the Breton language), or Brug ar Menez Du (bardic name) was a Breton explorer, reporter and author, born in Plian, France, on 4 May 1872 and died in Sant-Brieg in 1967.

She was the daughter of Count Henri de Méhérenc de Saint-Pierre and Marie Espivent de La Villesboisnet, a "pure heiress of the Breton nobility" and born in a castle in the Côtes-d'Armor. By turns a nun, reporter, novelist, author of poetry and youth fiction, Saint-Pierre was a global voyager and hunter travelling across North and South America and Australia who wrote enthusiastically about her adventures.

Biography Deciding as a young girl against marriage, Vefa (short for Geneviève) chose instead to pursue the only option available for an unmarried young woman of her time: religion. She joined a convent associated with the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales in Brittany, located in northwestern France, and remained a nun for 15 years. It was in that religious capacity, during one

In 1910, at 38 years of age, she married Joseph-Marie Potiron de Boisfleury, but the marriage failed, lasting only three months. A vigorous promoter of the Breton language (which is of Celtic origin), she is quoted as saying, "Bilingualism is a huge advantage! Children must be taught Breton and then they will learn English in three or four months."

In 1930, she was admitted to the community in Brittany known as Goursez Vreizh as a bard under a new name Brug ar Menez Du (Heather of the Black Mountains).

In 1949, she was the first to use a bilingual notarized agreement in France, written in both French and Breton.

After Saint-Pierre's death in 1967, the Menez Kamm cultural center flourished for some years, but despite all the dedication and hard work to keep the manor open as a place to live and learn Breton ways, financial difficulties increased, and in October 1976, the center closed. The property was then returned to the Saint-Pierre family and, as of 2018, the manor and its land had become a farm.

Selected publications Saint-Pierre's works are primarily in the French and Breton languages. Les Émeraudes de l'Inca, fiction in collaboration with Fernand de Saint-Pierre, Paris, Les Gémeaux, 1923 Iverzon gwelet gant eur Vretonez, report at the Eucharistic Congress of Dublin (1932), Moulerez Thomas, Guingamp,1933 Several poems in Breton periodicals. Many letters from her travels.