The Bay of Audierne enters the novel as one of the places Maud hopes to visit while travelling through Brittany. Its importance in this brief exchange lies in the landscape of legend and death that the travelers associate with it: the bay is named alongside the legendary city of Is and the Baie des Trépassés, or Bay of the Dead.

Setting and Associations

Maud mentions the Bay of Audierne while explaining the appeal of seeing Finistère, even though Christabel LaMotte’s family home has burned down. The itinerary thus shifts from a lost house, no longer available to view, to a wider landscape whose significance survives its buildings. The Bay of Audierne is placed within a region where the legendary Is is traditionally said to lie beneath the water, and near the ominously named Bay of the Dead.

Narrative Significance

The bay’s mention joins travel with historical and mythic inquiry. Maud and her companion are pursuing traces of LaMotte’s past, but their proposed journey also turns toward places whose stories exceed what can be verified by visiting a physical site. In this moment, the Bay of Audierne helps frame Brittany as both geographical destination and repository of legend, while the vanished family home underscores the fragility of material evidence.